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Inventing an Iranian Threat
Inventing an Iranian Threat
by Stephen Lendman
Iran threatens no one. Western and Israeli leaders know it. So do over 100 Non-Aligned Movement countries coming to Tehran. They'll be there from August 26 - 31. They'll participate in NAM's 16th summit.
Their presence endorses Iran's legitimacy, extends support, shows disapproval of Western hostility and belligerence, and confers prestige when Tehran most needs it.
Washington and Israel target the Islamic Republic relentlessly. Longstanding war plans await implementation. Media scoundrels and right-wing think tanks support it. They're paid to endorse ravaging one country after another.
The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) calls itself "the most influential group on the issue of US-Israel military relations."
It "advocate(s) on behalf of a strong U.S. military, a robust national security policy and a strong U.S. security relationship with Israel and other like-minded democracies."
It supports Israeli lawlessness, its regional dominance plans, and belligerence directed at Palestinians and other regional enemies.
Founded in 1976, it seeks full Washington support. It wants both countries in lockstep on policy. It's connected to military/industrial officials in both countries.
In January, the Jewish Daily Forward headlined "JINSA Leadership in Flux After Ouster," saying:
Firing former executive director Shosana Bryen rankled other members. In protest, neocon stalwarts James Woolsey, Richard Perle, and Michael Ledeen quit Jinsa's advisory board.
The Forward attributed what happened to "a messy transformation of power in the group's top ranks and a struggle to maintain relevance and funding at a time of shrinking budgets and growing competition from other Jewish causes."
Also at issue is a crowded neocon establishment. Organizations vie for influence, credibility, preeminence and funding. Having former high-level officials as board members and/or advisors is key. So are wealthy individuals and others connected to well-endowed right-wing foundations.
Jinsa won't likely run out of influential members who matter. David Steinmann co-chairs its Board of Advisors. He formerly headed the right-wing William Rosenwald Family Organization. He's closely connected to Israeli Lobby, defense, and other corporate interests.
Co-chair David Justman is a JP Morgan managing director and wealth management advisor. Vice chairman Morris Amitay formerly served as AIPAC's executive director. He also founded the Washington Political Action Committee. Like Jinsa, it's hawkishly pro-Israeli.
Board of Advisors members include numerous retired generals and admirals. It's also stacked with pro-Israeli right-wing ideologues. Jinsa has no shortage of key people representing Israeli interests. Often they're at odds with America's.
Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer include Jinsa among other influential groups comprising the Israeli Lobby's think tank arm. Its agenda supplements AIPAC. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee focuses on influencing administration and congressional policies.
Jinsa works on military issues, ties between Pentagon and IDF officials, and America's military/industrial complex.
Post-9/11 Jinsa and like-minded groups called for expanding Washington's military response. It argued for war on Iraq.
It now wants war on Iran. On July 16, it headlined "Iran Sanctions Are Dangerously Ineffective," saying:
Iranian leaders believe they can ride out sanctions and wait for "the world (to) line up to purchase their oil once Iran's status as a nuclear power is secure."
It still has substantial oil income. Its monetary and gold reserves are large. Nothing in place will change policy. Sanctions "are a short-term tactic doomed to failure in the foreseeable future."
Cyber attacks, propaganda, assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists, negotiations, and other actions may slow but won't resolve much. In the meantime, Iran buys "time to enrich more uranium."
Jinsa calls Tehran's "pursuit of nuclear weapons (a) strategic imperative" despite no evidence whatever proving it. It further "believes that defiance in the face of western sanctions is yet another reason for the greater Islamic world to emulate (its) revolutionary example."
Instead of current policies, it advocates discarding containment notions, expanding ties to regional states, increasing the Pentagon's Middle East footprint, and promoting a regional alliance against Iran going nuclear.
Jinsa's punchline came last, saying:
"Prepare to use military force at the optimal time regardless of elections or other political considerations, recognizing that the credible threat of force is the best insurance that measures short of war will have the greatest opportunity for success."
Like Jinsa, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) wields enormous public policy influence. Founded in 1943, it promotes "free enterprise, a strong defense centered on smart international relations, and opportunity" for dominant segments of US society to gain added wealth and power.
It's connected to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Sourcewatch calls it "a corporate bill mill. (Its) not just a lobby or front group. (It's) much more powerful than that."
Corporations use ALEC strategically. They promote legislation benefitting their bottom line. They write laws behind closed doors. Doing so harms popular interests.
In the 1970s, AEI gained major national prominence. It grew from 12 resident "thinkers" to 145 resident scholars, 80 adjunct ones, and considerable support staff.
Ronald Reagan called AEI "a revolution in ideas of which I, too, have been a part. (Its) remarkably distinguished body of work is testimony to the triumph of the think tank. For today the most important American scholarship comes out of our think tanks – and none has been more influential than the American Enterprise Institute."
Post-9/11, AEI was one of the Bush administration's leading foreign policy architects. It was influential in promoting regime change through war on Iraq.
George Bush addressed AEI three times. He expressed admiration, saying he "consistently borrow(ed) some of (its) best people." Over 20 AEI scholars were administration members.
In June 2003, AEI and the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies founded NGO Watch. It's a militantly pro-Israeli front group. It spurns truth, equity and justice. When Israel wants war, it champions it.
Corporate CEOs and other top officials comprise AEI's Board of Trustees. Dick Cheney is one of its prominent members. Scholars include Newt Gingrich, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, John Yoo, Richard Perle, Phil Gramm, Larry Lindsey, Glenn Hubbard, Charles Murray, Roger Noreiga, and Lynne Cheney.
AEI powerfully advances Washington's imperial agenda. Currently it's hawkish on Syria and Iran. It supports regime change in both countries. It's not shy about promoting war.
Maseh Zarif is AEI's "Critical Threats Project" research manager. On August 22, he headlined "Iran's military complex at Parchin and the nuclear connection," saying:
"Iran’s nuclear weapons program poses a serious threat to American national security interests. Iran has been working to develop the key components of a nuclear weapons capability for decades - covertly when it can and openly when exposed - in contravention of nuclear nonproliferation pacts it has signed and international obligations it is required to meet."
"The regime has waged an intensive denial-and-deception campaign intended to facilitate the development of critical technologies and infrastructure and, ultimately, the fulfillment of its nuclear ambitions."
Zarif tried inventing reality and failed. No evidence whatever suggests an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Israeli, Washington, and other Western officials know it. So do AEI scholars. Perhaps Zarif should consult them.
Nonetheless, he persists in saying Iran "advanced along three interrelated, parallel tracks: acquiring fissile material, weaponization and bomb design, and delivery vehicle development."
Panchin, he claims, conducts nuclear weapons-related experiments. His accusations are spurious. Evidence is absent. Rhetoric substitutes for reality. Zarif's credibility is sorely lacking.
He's advancing the ball for war. So do other AEI scholars and trustees. They prioritize imperial dominance. Ravaging the world one country at a time is their way to get it. Jinsa and other hard-right groups concur. Societies they endorse aren't fit to live in.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
His new book is titled "How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War"
http://www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
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Ideological "inventions", historically, are products of class history and their class systems, now milleniums years old, which goes far beyond the failures of Capitalism, its failed class states, whose present form under Late Capitalism has produced under its degenerating class cycles, the same class tyranny, class tyrants and class Empires recognized by Ancient Greek social thinkers as class deformed civil societies, devolving into totalitarianism and militarism. The common denominator between the first class system, Patriarchy to the proto fascism of Late Capitalism, is their similarity, no matter what ideological form it took, whether it was the first religious class myths, (The Garden of Eden), or the later, secular class myths, (Free Markets), combined with or more accurately falsely conflated, with fake social rhetoric and false claims to social principles.
This deformed ideological process by all class systems was not only, "Invention", but the INVERSION of reality through CO OPTION, CORRUPTION, SUBSTITUTION AND FALSE CONFLATION, accomplished by the subordinated, blackmailed, fragmented, middle layers, its deformed class-professionals, who became the agents for class rule, through class hierarchies. They became the shock troops, ideological thugs and backbone for ALL parasitic class systems, which usurped social control, social power, THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO into Human enslavemen. It took class/parasitical control over the social means to wealth and labor, upending and turning upside down, into these deformed ideological and political functions of all class hierarchies. The social historical mechanism was deformed, turned upside down into a Patriarchal class mechanism, enabling the Human enlavement through all class systems and deforming its SOCIAL, HUMAN NATURE into the CLASS DEFORMED "HUMAN NATURE", that everyone assumes is natural and permanent, when it holds true only for all class systems linked to class history an its Patriarchal class mechanism:
If you Like NAFTA, You'll Love TPP
http://www.opednews.com/articles/If-you-Like-NAFTA-You-ll-by-Rudy-Avizius-120824-750.html
Excerpt:
"So how could such an extreme agreement that literally gives corporations and us ruling elites everything we could possibly want have been negotiated with little or no resistance? The answer is that the ONLY way this agreement could ever pass is if everything is done in secret, continues to remain secret, and the details never see the light of day . <?xml:namespace prefix = o />
In that regard, we must do everything in our power to be sure that the general public does not become aware of this agreement or the details before we are ready for a vote. Since our main stream media will represent our interests, we do not need to concern ourselves much about them. However, unfortunately some of the independent media, over which we have little control at this time, is starting to make waves on this issue. Lori Wallach, the director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch recently said:
"These agreements are a little bit like Dracula. You drag them in the sunshine, and they do not fare well. But all of us, and also across all of the countries involved, there are citizen movements that are basically saying that this is not in our name. We don't need global enforceable corporate rights. We need more democracy. We need more accountability."
Can you believe the audacity of that statement? It is as if she believes that people should have say in such matters. It is as if she believes that limits should be placed on our profits that we worked so hard for.
We have heard that demonstrations are being planned for our next TPP negotiating session that will be held September 6-15 in Leesburg, VA. Information about these negotiations is being circulated on the Internet and we need to do everything we can to stop them or at least limit their attendance and coverage by the independent media...."
YES OBAMA LOVES FASCIST CORPORATIONS AND CALLS IT FREE TRADE, FREE ENTERPRISE, LIKE THE GERMAN FASCIST CAPITALISTS WHO CALLED SLAVERY , FREEDOM.....GEORGE ORWELL LIVES IN ALL CLASS DEFORMED CIVIL SOCIETIES
IDEOLOGICAL INVENTIONS/INVERSIONS can only end when class systems, parasitic class control and Human enslavement end, along with the partially developed, deformed, subordinated, blackmailed middle class professionals and their class ideologues inside these class hierarchies. SOCIAL POWER must dissolve this class fragmentation, PARASITICAL, ZERO SUM, RIGGED CLASS MECHANISM, dissolve divisible class hierarchies INTO FULLY DEVELOPED MIDDLE CLASSES AROUND THE WORLD, from their imposed class position which has mass produced our alienation and turned Humanity against itself, through War, totalitarinism, today' s Western Proto Fascism. We must turn this class division, right side up, into fully developed, "viable", middle classes restoring their natural social position, middle position, as the Enlightenment intended through "NATURAL LAW AND REASON". This is a social principle and is still expressed through a fragment inside the Pledge of Allegiance, a social pledge, and SOCIAL PATRIOTISM, to the cause of an "indivisible", social Republic, "with Justice for all." Real Democacy is always SOCIAL, which defined both the Social Matriarchy before class history and the objective goal of the revolutionary Liberals whose goal was not only to end the Feudal class system, BUT ALL CLASS SYSTEMS. The failure of the Social Enlightenment and the failure to fully develop social, indivisible, middle layers, the negation of class hierachies meant that partial social advances would be overcome by new class forms, reproducing new divisible middle class hierarchies, class deformed civil society, called Capitalism, which over time would degenerate into the failure of the French Revolution, the emergence of its first Capitalist tyrant, Napoleon, and later the first Axis of Fascism under Hitler,Franco, Mussolini, and the Japanese Emperor:
Secret Police Documents Reveal Plan to Arrest WikiLeaks' Assange
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/08/24-2
Excerpt:
"The document appears to read:
"Brief - EQ. Embassy Brief Summery of current position Re: Assange. Action required Assange to be arrested under all circumstances. He comes out with dip [presumably a diplomat] ... as dip bag [which allows immunity from search for diplomatic communications, and which could be as large as a suitcase, crate or even a shipping container], in dip car .... in dip vehicle. ARRESTED.
"Discuss possibilities of distraction SS10 to liaise...provide additional support."
Scotland Yard said the document was the officer's own handwritten notes from a briefing.
The UK government has made it clear Assange will be arrested if he steps outside of the embassy....."
YES OBAMA LOVES PROMOTING WESTERN FASCISM, POLICE FASCISM, WITH ITS BRITISH CLASS/EMPIRE POODLES BOWING DOWN TOWARDS GLOBAL FASCISM
* * *
Today, the proto fascist process, through another degenerating class cycle, began when Amerika put Capitalism, linked to German Fascism on its feet. Only this time the failed class states, post colonial states, deformed workers/Stalinst states, would culminate into more colonialism, Fascism and the Second Axis of Fascism under Failed Western Enlightenment, under U.S. CLASS EMPIRE, NATO failed class states, including the failed class state of Israel, which embraced Fascist Zionism, like all Western class parties. The whole sale enslavement of Humanity has taken on new form through fascist austerity, Fascist Capitalism and cannot achieve SOCIAL CONTROL, SOCIAL POWER, through any class system, let alone Late (proto fascist) Capitalism, because their class politicians serve parasitical control of Wall Street, of parastical Banks, and the parasitical NATURE OF ALL CLASS SYSTEMS, whose partial social reforms did NOT LEAD TO EVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM, BUT EVOLUTIONARY FASCISM. Any liberal who is under the class delusions, class myths of Free markets,which never existed, that class parties that once produced an FDR, (who saved Capitalism from itself) still exists, when in fact it has degenerated into global proto Fascism, marching towards classical Fascist police states.
Even Plato and Beethoven knew that social reforms grafted within a class system did not and could not achieve social power, social control, instead class co option, substitution,corruption, false conflations, that constantly make false social claims under the mantra of Paternalism, a Patriarchal class outcome. Beethoven knew that the Enlightenment was lost when Napoleon came to power and inverted, corrupted the SOCIAL PATRIOTISM into the CLASS PATRIOTISM AND COLONIALISM that is part of all class systems. Today's Liberals are still deluded that class systems produce social power or Elephants producing kittens, are party to their own self enslavement, ideological invention, enablers of proto fascism, embracing a fascist democratic party, Fascist OBAMA, which embraces the fascist corporatism, militarism, falsely labeled FREEDOM, when it is upside down ideological inverted reality, much like the German Fascist Capitalists, called slave labor in concentration camps.....FREEDOM.....CLASSIC ORWELLIAN IDEOLOGICAL INVERSION, LINKED TO THE INVERTED TOTALITARIANISM OF ALL CLASS SYSTEMS, HUMANITY' ENSLAVEMENT THAT CAN ONLY BE ENDED BY REJECTION OF ALL CLASS POLITICIANS, ALL CLASS PARTIES, OR A GLOBAL SOCIAL AGENDA THAT TAKES CONTROL OVER WEALTH AND LABOR FROM PARASITES LIKE TODAY'S PROTO FASCIST CRIMINALS:
Time to Get a Grip, America
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/08/26
NOTICE THE AUTHOR, A DELUSIONAL CLASS LIBERAL HERSELF, APPARENTLY THINKS OBAMA IS NOT PART OF THIS PROTO FASCIST CLASS SYSTEM. THE FIRST COMMENT TO HER, JUSTLY, IS CALLING OUT HER DELUSIONS, CLASS DELUSIONS. A PARTIAL GRIP CAN BE JUST AS ENABLING FOR FASCISM, AS IT ACCOMPLISHES MORE DELUSIONS.
We need to reclaim both independent social forces, globalized middle classes, the critical social mass needed to reclaim, turn right side up, the Patriarchal class mechanism into the original social historial mechanism which allowed social control , social power over wealth and labor, the social principle which the Social Matriarchy enabled the survival of Humanity to overcome primitive conditions, through this OPTIMAL democratic, social outcome.