THE US has moved to prepare the way for an Israeli strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities by deploying missile shields in Qatar, the UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait.
As well, two major warships, Aegis cruisers, equipped with all the necessary weaponry to shoot down any missiles from Iran have now been permanently stationed in the Persian Gulf.
Saudi Arabia is also receiving US assurances that all of its territory will be protected by US forces, while Israel is being assured that the US has got the necessary weaponry in place to protect it against any Iranian counter-strike.
President Ahmadinejad has repeatedly insisted Iran’s nuclear programme is for civilian energy projects only, while Iran since the 1979 revolution has never attacked another state in the region.
All this is being ignored by the United States.
The chief of the US central command, General David Petraeus, said in a recent speech that countries in the region are concerned about Tehran’s military ambitions and the prospect of it becoming a dominant power in the Gulf.
Petraeus said the US is keeping cruisers equipped with advanced anti-missile systems in the Gulf at all times to act as a buffer between Iran and the Gulf states.
The director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, met the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and other senior officials in Jerusalem last week to discuss the timing of a strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.
The propaganda machine is already working overtime with one group in the US, the Israel Project, running a TV campaign warning that Iran will supply wmds to terrorists.
Its TV advert says ‘Imagine Washington DC under missile attack from nearby Baltimore,’ and adds: ‘A nuclear Iran is a threat to peace, emboldens extremists, and could give nuclear materials to terrorists with the ability to strike anywhere.’ This is what was said about Iraq. It had no wmds and neither has Iran.
Washington says it is concerned that if Iran is able to build nuclear weapons, other states in the region will feel the need to follow.
This is nonsense, since Israel has more than 200 nuclear bombs plus the means of delivery and Pakistan, another key US ally, also has nuclear weapons.
For all his propaganda, Obama is opposed to a nuclear-free Middle East, since it would mean Israel giving up its wmds.
The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said in London last week that the US will press for additional sanctions against Iran if it fails to curb its nuclear programme.
Europe’s foreign affairs minister, Catherine Ashton, has joined the war propaganda chorus saying ‘The next step for us is to take our discussions into the security council. When I was meeting with Hillary Clinton last week we talked about Iran and we were very clear this is a problem we will have to deal with.’
The US ruling class must be kicking itself that it was unable to foist Tony Blair onto the EU as its president.
He has made it absolutely clear that 2010, that is the coming war against against Iran, is much more important than inquiries into the Iraqi bloodbath he helped to create.
The Gulf is already tooled up for war.
Abu Dhabi has bought $17bn (£11bn) worth of weapons from the US, including Patriot anti-missile batteries and an advanced anti-missile system.
The UAE recently bought 80 US-made fighter jets which encouraged the US commander general Petraeus to state that the UAE force ‘could take out the entire Iranian air force in 24 hours’. The writing is on the wall.
British workers must spell it out to the Brown government that it must withdraw all troops from the Gulf, Iraq, and central Asia at once, and that any attack on Iran will be met by a general strike at home.
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