Two desperate men, Trump and Netanyahu, are trying to provoke conflict with Iran
Mainstream media reports on how unhinged Donald Trump is becoming concentrate on his efforts to overturn the U.S. election and on his pardons, but don’t pay enough attention to his threats toward Iran. And the mainstream continues to ignore the fact that a desperate Benjamin Netanyahu keeps trying to provoke a conflict between the U.S. and Tehran.
Trump’s latest warmongering came in a two-part tweet last night. First he claimed that rockets “from IRAN” hit the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad on Sunday, and he included a photo of 3 of them that he said had “failed to launch.” Then:
…Some friendly health advice to Iran: If one American is killed, I will hold Iran responsible. Think it over.
The New York Times buried Trump’s threat on page 13. The Washington Postapparently didn’t cover it at all. There is certainly a clownish side to Trump’s blustering, but the mainstream ignores two key facts:
* Even if Iran continues to show restraint, an accident or miscalculation could trigger conflict anyway.
* Benjamin Netanyahu, who is definitely not a clown, has tried to provoke the U.S. into conflict with Iran for a decade — and as he faces yet another election in Israel, he is more desperate than ever to distract. Not just his political future, but his actual freedom from prison, is at stake.
Trita Parsi is a scholarly Iranian-American, not prone to hysteria. But last night he tweeted:
Make no mistake. Trump has already moved B52s, submarines, and other military assets to the Persian Gulf. He is planning to start a war with Iran on bogus charges in order to prevent Biden from taking office. Iran is not the real target. American democracy is.
Parsi may be giving Trump’s ability to plot too much credit. But the U.S. and Israel are deliberately raising tension in the region; the Washington Post did report yesterday that Israel had provocatively ordered one of its submarines into the Persian Gulf, alongside the aggressive U.S. escalation.
The U.S./Israeli saber-rattling raises the chances of a lethal accident. What if an Iranian patrol boat strays too close to a U.S. warship? What if U.S. sailors mistake an Iranian civilian airliner for a warplane and shoot it down — which actually happened in 1988, and killed 290 innocent Iranian civilians?
Meanwhile, Benjamin Netanyahu is more desperate than ever. His government just collapsed, and he faces his fourth election in two years. The center-left “opposition” has mostly disintegrated, but prominent members of his own Likud party are defecting. Multiple corruption charges are hanging over his head, and his only hope to avoid jail is to win re-election as prime minister — and immunity from prosecution as long as he stays in power. Why won’t he continue the violent provocations, recognizing that his equally desperate pal Trump will let him get away with anything?
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