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We started seeing these here on OEN in 2006 with predictions that the US was "just about" to attack Iran.
Most recently, Paul Craig Roberts made the suggestion that because the US and Israel engaged in recent war games, that necessarily meant an attack on Iran was imminent. Let's look at a few facts:
1. Iranian nuclear facilities are well dispersed and hardened. The chance of conventional air attacks destroying them all is almost zero. We can also dispense with the idea of a pre-emptive nuclear strike. The international consequences would be too severe.
2. Given #1 above, onlya land invasion would do the job. There are only a few countries in the world with an army large enough to occupy Iran. If any of them were toprepare for such anundertaking, it would take months of positioning the appropriate troops and supplies. We would see this coming 6-8 months in advance at a minimum. This is what we saw with the invasion of Iraq. There was about eight months of troop deployments to the middle east that were hardly secret. We all saw what was happening.
3. In addition to #2 above, we would have to see monetary appropriations for the troop deployments and potential conflict. You would see bills in congress for this. I am sure that would stir up debate.
4. You would also see senior members of the administration making a case for such a war to the international community and, of course, to the country. Are we seeing ANY of that? No, of course not.
With no money and no troops and equipment in place and no other strategy that leads to success, the burden is on people who write such crazy articles to justify their assertions. The burden is also on them to issue mea culpas when they are proven incorrect. If you purport to be a journalist, you need to be accountable, particularly if you are attempting to create fear of some impending event.
I personally think that people who write these kinds of articles to create fearwith zero empirical evidence to justify their assertions and then don't write mea culpas or some other retractions when proven wrongought not to be allowed to write for OEN. Let them write for someplace that has no standards.
