U.S. whips up war fever against Iran

By Gene Clancy

Oct 20, 2011

In a desperate attempt to cover up its absolute inability to solve the economic and political crisis that has engulfed the world, the U.S. ruling class and the U.S. government have resorted to a tried-and-true method of diverting mass sentiment: war frenzy.

On Oct. 12, Washington recklessly accused the Iranian government of sponsoring a terrorist plot in the United States. It was the same day that Iran announced the opening of its first nuclear power plant. The plant is designed for peaceful purposes and had official public U.S. and international support.

The following day, however, the U.S. military announced that militants “armed and trained by Iran” had fired on U.S. forces in Iraq. (New York Times, Oct. 13) The Pentagon gave no evidence of Iran’s connection to the act, but made clear its intention to create a climate of hostility towards Iran.

As part of the campaign, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent warnings to U.S. travelers all around the world to be on “high alert” against possible “terror attacks.”

Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta was advising Congress that even the proposed very small cuts in war spending suggested by the so-called “super committee” looking for ways to reduce the deficit were unacceptable.

The Obama administration also began pressuring a forthcoming International Atomic Energy Agency assessment to come up with “evidence” that Iran is pursuing a clandestine effort to produce a nuclear-tipped missile. This is according to Washington’s representative with this organization, which is based in Vienna, Austria. (Global Security Newswire, Oct. 14)

There can be only one conclusion from these carefully coordinated developments: The U.S. is preparing for an all-out campaign against Iran that can end in a war of U.S. aggression.

The U.S. corporate media responded predictably, duplicating the government’s claims. An Oct. 11 Wall Street Journal editorial called the plot “a sobering wake-up call” in America’s “war on terror” and pushed for a more aggressive policy toward Iran.

President Barack Obama “underscored that the United States believes this plot to be a flagrant violent of U.S. and international law, and reiterated [his] commitment to meet our responsibilities to ensure the security of diplomats serving in our country.” (New York Times, Oct. 13)

Ali Akbar Javanfekr, a spokesperson for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had this to say about the so-called plot:

“I think the U.S. government is busy fabricating a new scenario, and history has shown both the U.S. government and the CIA have a lot of experience in fabricating these scenarios and this is just the latest one,” he said. “I think their goal is to reach the American public. They want to take the public’s mind off the serious domestic problems they’re facing these days and scare them with fabricated problems outside the country.” (CNN, Oct. 11)

The U.S. and its allies have been targeting Iran since the 1979 revolution there. Iran is a large country — a population of 78 million — with important oil resources. It occupies an important geopolitical position in the Middle East. Since 1979, it has opposed both U.S. imperialism and Israeli expansion in the region.

U.S. practices entrapment

Reporter Gareth Porter subjected the legal document released by the government to a point-by-point analysis. His conclusion was that the entire affair “was mainly the result of a Federal Bureau of Investigation sting operation.” (Asia Times Online, Oct. 14)

“Although the document, called an amended criminal complaint, implicates Iranian-American Mansour Arabsiar and his cousin Ali Gholam Shakuri, an officer in the Iranian Quds force, in a plan to assassinate Saudi Arabian ambassador Adel al-Jubeir, it also suggests that the idea ‘originated with and was strongly pushed by a single undercover DEA [Department of Drug Enforcement] informant, at the direction of the FBI.’”

The entrapment and conviction of suspects entirely on the testimony of FBI informants who served as agents provocateur has been a favorite tactic of the U.S. government in its “war on terror.”

A May 2011 study by New York University’s School of Law Center for Human Rights and Global Justice headlined, “Targeted and Entrapped: Manufacturing the ‘Homegrown Threat’ in the United States,” explained how, post-9/11, entrapment by FBI plants led to prosecutions of more than 200 individuals on bogus terrorism-related charges. Washington highlights them as proof of foiling plots — plots that, in fact, never existed.

The phony plots included blowing up Chicago’s Sears Tower; destroying New York landmarks; targeting U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix, N.J. and U.S. Marines at Quantico, Va.; downing National Guard aircraft with Stinger missiles; and destroying a Pakistan ambassador’s aircraft with a surface-to-air missile.

Not a shred of hard evidence was presented, just the word of FBI informants well paid to entrap and lie, and then getting the corporate media to repeat those lies without ever questioning the validity of any charges. Scores of people, mainly Muslims, have been arrested, mistreated, convicted and sentenced to long prison terms.

Statements by antiwar groups in the U.S. are pointing out how now that people are “rising up in righteous anger against the Wall Street banks and the U.S. government,” they must not be diverted into thinking “that their enemy is somewhere else, rather than right here at home.” (iacenter.org)