Left I on the News

Yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with George Bush and tried to raise the specter of Iran even higher:

"There is no question that the Iranian threat is not just a threat for Israel, but for the whole world. The fanaticism and the extremism of the Iranian government, and the fact that the leader of a nation such as Iran can threaten the very existence of another nation, as he does towards the state of Israel, is not something that we can tolerate or would ever tolerate, and certainly not when we know that he is trying to possess nuclear weapons."

True to form, Bush reiterated his previous stance, that he would be happy to talk with Iran, after they agreed to his demands.

And today, one day later, a day of amazing coincidences:

• Plutonium was alleged found in an Iranian nuclear waste facility. "Traces" thereof, traces of some unspecified amount but I think we can guess it's measured in nanograms.
• A major article appearing on the front page of the Daily Telegraph alleges that Iran is "training the next al-Qa'eda leaders." The article itself claims that "If al-Qa'eda is agreeable to appointing al-Adel and other al-Qa'eda figures currently based in Iran to senior positions, the Iranians have agreed to provide training facilities and equipment," but, appearing today on MSNBC with Chris Matthews, the author, Con Coughlin, went much further, claiming that Iran is already operating al Qaeda training camps, and sending trained fighters to both Afghanistan and Iraq. He also raised the specter of Iran giving al Qaeda a non-existent "suitcase nuke" from their non-existent supply of nuclear weapons, so al Qaeda could blow up a major Western capital.

I hardly need to point out that these allegations are now tracking the pre-invasion allegations against Iraq even more closely.

The U.S. is already overcommitted in Iraq (and to a lesser extent in Afghanistan), and Israeli talk about the possibility of their military action against Iran is, in my opinion, more intended to convince the American audience about the alleged danger posed by Iran than anything else. Most likely, all of these new (and old) accusations are designed to ratchet up the pressure on Russia and China to go along with strong sanctions on Iran, thus weakening Iran and setting them up for a future assault when imperialism is ready, in much the same way that Iraq was set up for the 2003 invasion. Nevertheless, these developments have to be treated seriously, and treated as if the possibility of invasion or other attack is very real.

U.S./U.K./Israeli hands off Iran!