Are We Being Maneuvered Into War With Iran?

Update: Recent events show that we are totally being maneuvered into war with Iran

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The US Government is officially sounding the alarm about war with Iran. The Washington Post reports that “US intelligence officials have grown increasingly concerned that Israel may choose to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities without the consent of the United States.” Both AP and CBS are reporting that the State Department and US Military are urging non essential personnel across the Middle East. This comes after weeks of reports from US intelligence that Israel is gearing up for something big.

Iran has said that it will attack US bases if Israel ends up attacking, citing the massive levels of unconditional support the US gives Israel. Defense minister Aziz Nasirzadeh warned:

“Some officials on the other side threaten conflict if negotiations don’t come to fruition. If a conflict is imposed on us … all US bases are within our reach and we will boldly target them in host countries” (emphasis added)

Iran’s threat is backed up by their recent announcement that it had obtained thousands of documents related to Israel’s nuclear program; intelligence that could be used in a retaliation strike.

Trump v Netanyahu?

This is happening as negotiations on a new nuclear deal look like they’re falling apart. Much like the Biden administration, Trump has refused to seriously negotiate with Iran on their nuclear program, instead opting for a policy of antagonism.

A group of neocon hawks publicly led by radio host Mark Levin have launched an effort to get Trump to greenlight and fully embrace an Israeli attack on Iran. But publicly, Trump’s people are pushing back. One anonymous senior official in the administration told Politico:

There’s clearly a lobby for war with Iran vs. those who are more aligned with the president, that know he is the one that has been able to bring them to the negotiating table.”

In fact, we’ve had a lot of signals from Trump’s circle that there is a major break between Trump and Israel. Recall the flurry of articles in last month or so speculating about the Trump/Netanyahu rift. In May, Trump said that his administration was “very close to a solution” in the Iran talks. That comment was accompanied by a confirmation that he had pushed back against Israel's disruption of the talks: “Yes I did… I said, I don't think it’s appropriate.”

This image being developed of a Trump administration embattled against a hawkish US/Israeli deep state may have elements of truth in it. But it rings hollow when we consider that 1) Trump is fully in favor of sending unlimited weapons to Israel to do with whatever they please. And 2) Trump is President and if a deal with Iran was his highest priority, he could make it happen very easily. This means that those narratives deserve a lot more scrutiny.

Since the earlier optimism, the positive statements have been replaced with a more dire outlook. The Times Of Israel reported yesterday that the president was “less confident” about a deal with Iran. Other reporting indicates that Trump has given a deadline of June 12 (today) to reach a deal.

So why the shifty behavior? Trump is notoriously erratic and subject to the ever changing tide of his advisors. But zooming out, this whole thing - the negotiations, Israeli actions, an alleged rift between US and Israel - is fairly consistent with scenarios drawn up with hawkish policy planners that laid it out years ago: maintaining plausible deniability while getting the US to attack Iran with Israel’s help.

With Path To Persia? Leave It To Bibi

In 2009, the Brookings institute, published a policy paper titled “Which Path To Persia?” about how the US ought to engage with Iran . The Brookings institute, which today receives over $17M from foreign governments, and nearly $3.5M from pentagon contractors, is a well-known mainstream think tank, and you can learn quite a lot about the US foreign policy establishment by looking at them.

The purpose of this paper was to “present the most important policy options available to the United States” vis a vis Iran. this included polices of engagement, containment, or fomenting some form of regime change. Part II of the report “a full-scale invasion, a more limited air campaign to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, and allowing Israel to mount its own airstrike against the same.”

It’s worth quoting sections at length here:

For those who favor regime change… [t]he ideal scenario in this case would be that the United States and the international community present a package of positive inducements so enticing that the Iranian citizenry would support the deal, only to have the regime reject it…

The best way to minimize international opprobrium and maximize support (however, grudging or covert) is to strike only when there is a widespread conviction that the Iranians were given but then rejected a superb offer—one so good that only a regime determined to acquire nuclear weapons and acquire them for the wrong reasons would turn it down. Under those circumstances, the United States (or Israel) could portray its operations as taken in sorrow, not anger, and at least some in the international community would conclude that the Iranians “brought it on themselves” by refusing a very good deal.

In other words, failed negotiations could be used as a way to prime the public and international community to accept aggression against Iran as necessary or legitimate. Overlapping options include letting Israel - always foaming at the mouth to attack Iran - make the first move. Chapter 5 of the report is title “Leave It To Bibi: Allowing Or Encouraging An Israeli Military Strike”

In short, there is considerable reason to believe that under the right (or wrong) set of circumstances, Israel would launch an attack—principally airstrikes, but possibly backed by special forces operations—to destroy Iran’s nuclear program…t could constitute an opportunity, and thus a possible policy option, if the United States would like to see Iran’s nuclear program destroyed but prefers not to do it itself.

The piece outlined various positions the US could take in this scenario: Giving either a green, yellow, or red light, or giving no sign at all. These are all useful options because “It would presumably be easier to convince Israel to mount the attack than it would be to generate domestic political support for another war in the Middle East.” Additionally, “It could allow Washington to have its cake (delay Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon) and eat it, too (avoid undermining many other U.S. regional diplomatic initiatives).”

The scenarios in this report are something that analyst Brian Berletic at the New Atlas has been hammering consistently. This video is an excellent summation:

Is This Plausibly Deniable?

The document is over a decade and a half old, but still highly relevant today. Of course there is no evidence of a monolithic foreign policy establishment following a pre-defined script, but there are always factions and tendencies inside and outside of government with their own agendas. So far the more hawkish global war faction has had enormous influence on US policy for quite some time.

For those who are eager to attack Iran, this blueprint may provide a guide to how consent can be engineered among the rest of the decisionmakers and bureaucrats who are less eager for war, but will go along with one if it presents itself.

Will the international community get behind the US? That depends on what we mean by international community. Decades of international relations has taught us that there is always a loyal community of Western oriented states who will stand by the US and Israel as it wreaks havoc across the world. Maybe some of them will genuinely buy into whatever propaganda campaign they use to launch this war.

However, for the majority of the world’s population who live in more serious countries, this ruse of fraudulent negotiations and the myth of a rogue Israel is less likely to be convincing.

Perhaps there is a peaceful way out of this scenario. Every year or two, we get reports about Israel planning to attack Iran, accompanied by reports about Iran’s imminent nuclear weapon. Obviously, these reports died down for one reason or another and Iran has yet to be fully attacked by either the US or Israel. But we live in unprecedented times. The Zionist project is behaving in ways previously unimaginable and the world is watching as the clock of US primacy - essential for Israel - slowly runs out.

The next couple of days will be critical in determining what the world looks like when it reaches 0… or if we have a world at all.