With the United States and the other capitalist powers incapable of digging the world economy out from under the slow-motion meltdown sparked by 2008's market collapse, and with tens of millions of enraged citizens rejecting austerity measures that will further enrich financial elites at their expense, will the Obama administration "go for broke" and set-off a new conflagration in the Middle East?
Ratcheting up bellicose rhetoric, John Keane, a retired four-star general, former Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army now currently perched on the board of General Dynamics, a major purveyor of cyber attack tools for the government, told the House Homeland Security Committee October 26, "We've got to put our hand around their throat now. Why don't we kill them? We kill other people who are running terrorist operations against the United States."
AFP reported that "Iran made a formal protest" over Keane's remarks which urged "the targeted assassination of members of its elite Quds Force military special operations unit," over a fairy-tale plot allegedly cooked-up by Tehran, which employed a failed used-car salesman, a DEA snitch and members of the Zetas drug gang in a scheme to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington.
While the plot lines are as preposterous as allegations prior to the 2003 Iraq invasion that Saddam Hussein's regime was involved in the 9/11 attacks, one cannot so easily dismiss the propaganda value of such reports by administration "information warriors." The same can be said of the series of controlled leaks emanating from London, Tel Aviv and Washington urging immediate air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities.
The Guardian reported that "Britain's armed forces are stepping up their contingency planning for potential military action against Iran amid mounting concern about Tehran's nuclear enrichment programme."
