Media Analysis

Trump drops F-bomb in latest threat to start conflict with Iran — and MSM ignore it

Donald Trump made an obscene public threat yesterday that showed he is still looking to provoke conflict with Iran to boost his collapsing campaign — but the two most influential U.S. newspapers did not report it.

Here’s what Trump said about Iran, on the Rush Limbaugh radio program:

If you fuck around with us, if you do something bad to us, we are gonna do things to you that have never been done before. 

The New York Times and the Washington Post did report other elements of Trump’s unhinged diatribes at length, but totally ignored this threat. Nor did either paper explain that Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are continuing their campaign to instigate conflict — a dangerously provocative effort that Israel has been advocating for more than a decade.

The papers did report on Thursday that Trump and Pompeo had imposed crushing new economic sanctions on Iran. The Post said the measures were

in defiance of European allies who warned that the move could have devastating humanitarian consequences on a country reeling from the novel coronavirus and a currency crisis [and were] likely to diminish channels Iran uses to import humanitarian goods, such as food and medicine…

Both papers quoted the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), which applauded the harsh sanctions. Both papers hid the FDD’s true nature: the Post said it was “a hawkish U.S. nonprofit organization,” while the Times called it simply a “Washington think tank.”

The FDD is in fact a creation of the pro-Israel lobby, and is essentially a front for the Israeli government. Ignoring its true nature is the equivalent of quoting the American Petroleum Institute on climate change without noting that the oil giants established and fund the API. 

Iran’s theocratic leaders are ruthless but not stupid. They recognize that Trump’s days in office are probably numbered, provided they continue to ignore his provocations. At this stage, Trump and Pompeo could even order a bombing raid over Teheran and Iran would have the discipline not to respond. 

Meanwhile, ordinary Iranians continue to suffer. Tyler Cullis, in Responsible Statecraft, says the Trump administration’s latest sanctions should 

be called “siege and starve,” as the feigned interest in establishing leverage for comprehensive negotiations with Iran has been replaced by a full-throttle push to pulverize Iran’s economy and collapse its social and economic life.

None of this matters to AIPAC, the flagship organization of the pro-Israel lobby here in the U.S. An AIPAC “Update” can hardly hide the organization’s glee. “We welcome the administration’s actions to increase the economic pressure on the regime.”

But the campaign to crush Iran is not only immoral, it is also stupid. Iran’s leaders are restrained for now, but do Trump, Pompeo, Israel and AIPAC think 82 million Iranians will simply stand by indefinitely, watch their nation collapse — and never retaliate? 

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https://news.antiwar.com/2019/06/24/poll-shows-strong-majority-of-americans-oppose-attacking-iran/

“Poll Shows Strong Majority of Americans Oppose Attacking Iran” 

“58% of voters want a non-military approach to Iran,” by Jason Ditz June 24, 2019, ANTIWAR.COM  

“While officials have denied that there was any political component to the US not attacking Iran on Thursday, a newly released poll from Hill-Harris X, taken over the weekend, shows that a strong majority of American voters oppose such an attack.

“The poll showed 58 percent favored a non-military approach, with 48 percent calling for diplomacy and nine percent saying the US should take no action at all. By contrast, only 5 percent supported a war, and another 19 percent wanted ‘limited’ attacks.

“A majority remained against an attack in all parties, and all age groups, with 67% of Democrats calling for non-military options, 54 percent of independents, and a slight majority of Republicans.

“With overwhelmingly more people in every category imaginable opposed to the idea of a war with Iran, the perennial hawks who have been trying to foment an Iran war for generations clearly still have an uphill battle, and a public that still isn’t buying their push.”

War on Iran will be another cost from Palestine unresolved. Iran has been explicit, if Israelis and Palestinians work out an arrangement Palestinians will live with, Iran will have no quarrel with Israel. The destruction of Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Lebanon were costs. Other states are looking out for themselves.

Religion is what is behind the current push for a US war against Iran, just as it was regarding the Iraq War. The reasons are the same, the promotion of the Jewish state of Israel. Many people falsely believe the warmongering neocon movement is political. The father of the neoconservative movement, Leo Strauss, based it on the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament ( https://www.deism.com/neoconsbible.htm ). That means Israel over all.

Living in a nuclear age requires that we let go of the ancient “revealed” religions/superstitions. Albert Einstein warned us that we need a new kind of thinking if we want to survive in the nuclear age. Einstein wrote: “The world that we have made as a result of the level of thinking that we have done so far, has created problems we cannot solve at the level of thinking at which we created them . . . . We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humankind is to survive.” ( https://www.deism.com/einstein.htm )