CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Photograph Source: The White House – Public Domain

The second US war on Iran in less than a year has raised a burning question in popular media: What is the rationale for the war and why is it changing? Is it because negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program were not progressing? Is it because Iran was close to developing nuclear weapons? Is it because Iranian ballistic missiles were going to reach the US soon? Is it because Israel was going to attack Iran and the US took pre-emptive measures to ensure the safety of Americans? Is it because the Iranian government was violating human rights? Or is it something else? The press in the US has not been able to make sense of this changing justification. But this is curious. Was the media asleep over the past few decades?

A quarter of a century ago, I delivered a presentation on US foreign policy towards Iran at an economics conference. My presentation concluded by stating that US policy in the Persian Gulf region had been a series of “regrettably shortsighted policies,” borrowing a phrase from former US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright. I argued that these policies had served to prolong the life of the theocratic government in Iran. I believed that without the constant threat of foreign enemies, this government would have had no one to blame for its social and economic problems but itself.

In my paper, I outlined how Israel and its lobbying groups in the US were the primary architects of US policy. I explained how they had developed three justifications, or “sins” as I referred to them, to justify punishing Iran:

1) the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, 2) support for “terrorism,” and 3) opposition to the Oslo “peace process” between Israel and the Palestinians.

1) the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,

2) support for “terrorism,” and

3) opposition to the Oslo “peace process” between Israel and the Palestinians.

However, I contended that Israel’s true objective had always been to overthrow the Islamic Republic, a goal now commonly known as a “regime change.” The rationale behind this objective was that Iran and Iraq were the only two countries in the Middle East that posed a barrier to the creation of Greater Israel (Eretz Yisrael), which was intended to encompass the West Bank, Gaza, and potentially........

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