2
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Pumping
up a crisis fraught with dangers could convince even estranged supporters that
it's best to keep Obama in charge.
What
this also demonstrates is how closely The US is coordinating with Israel and
already assumomhg operational control of all the war planning scenarios which
includes this latest wave of strengthened sanctions.
This
seems to show also how all the hawkish threats of unilateral action by Israel
pressured the White House to get in front of any possible confrontation. They
are also threatening every nation to cut back on Iranian Oil imports or else.
(e.g. Stories like this: "Wary of sanctions, Kenya cancels Iran oil deal underscore the covert pressure underway.)
Published
reports indicate that the Pentagon now has 40,000 U.S. troops positioned in the
region, with two carrier strike groups deployed in the Arabian Gulf or as Iran
would have it, The Persian Gulf.
Defense
News explains: "Such military presence is part of a carefully timed strategy
that, through the coming months, will continue to focus on a combination of
increasingly crippling sanctions and diplomacy."
So there
you have it--- the admission that sanctions are being sold as just one more
step in a chain that includes public diplomacy and a related orchestrated media
campaign, all "carefully timed" to
have a cumulative impact. "Diplomacy" in this context does not mean dialogue or
negotiations. It means lining up support and building global consensus for
intervention.
Iran is
increasingly being put in a no-win position in the propaganda war. Every public
pronouncement Tehran makes about defending itself is being characterized in the
world media as aggressive in intent, arousing fears of attacks on shipping
routes while justifying a US military presence that is invariably represented
as there only to protect global economic interests.
Behind
all the feigned benevolence is a clear threat. "Barack Obama is a president
that says what he means and does what he says. ... I can assure you we do not
have a policy of containment," says former Pentagon warrior turned campaign
advisor Michèle Flournoy.
Sanctions are only a
first blow a global strategy--a prelude to a stronger fistful of options that
are being readied.
How will Tehran
respond? Does it understand the need for a less bellicose and more savvy media
counter strategy? And in the USA, are the forces opposed to another war--this
time for an obvious domestic political objective---aware enough and prepared enough
to try to stop it?
News Dissector Danny Schechter blogs for NewsDissector.net. His film WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception exposed Washington's media campaign against Iraq and the complicity of world news organizations. This commentary first appeared on PressTV.com.
