Are the wonderful mainstream media, who gave us Saddam's mythical Weapons of Mass Destruction, lying to us again? The answer is yes.

Journalist Laura Rozen spoke with Joseph Cirincione, director of nuclear policy at the Center for American Progress. Cirincione says "In attacking Dair el Zor in Syria on Sept. 6, the Israeli air force wasn’t targeting a nuclear site but rather one of the main arms depots in the country. Dair el Zor houses a huge underground base where the Syrian army stores the long and medium-range missiles it mostly buys from Iran and North Korea"... Cirincione says that there is a small Syrian nuclear research program, which has been around for 40 years and is going nowhere....

So what is really going on here? Cirincione told the BBC that "This appears to be the work of a small group of officials leaking cherry-picked, unvetted 'intelligence' to key reporters in order to promote a pre-existing political agenda." The preexisting political agenda may be promoting a war with Syria and/or Iran, or torpedoing negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea. Finally, Cirincione adds ominously "If this sounds like the run-up to the war with Iraq, then it should." [More] . . read more

Naturally, every politician inside the American Beltway misses the aforementioned contradiction and agrees with Dick Cheney that the Russians must not be allowed to have their way. After all, it is Washington's world now and, even if there is hardly a horse's hair worth of difference between the governments in Washington and Moscow, Moscow can not be allowed to think that it can be Washington's equal on the world stage.

It is in historical moments like this that the citizen can truly see how little they matter. We have two powerful regimes trifling over a piece of territory that most of the world could care less about. Both of these regimes have proven that they are more than willing to kill thousands of people, destroy hundreds of square miles of land and water, and waste billions of dollars in doing so just so they can establish their position in their battle to control their world. It is their world because no matter how it turns out they will profit and we will pay. [More] . . read more

From the U.S. perspective, Iran committed a grave crime in 1979. As we know, in 1953 the U.S. and UK dismantled Iranian parliamentary democracy and installed a brutal tyrant, the Shah, who remained a pillar of U.S. control over the energy-rich region until 1979, when he was overthrown by a popular uprising... Iranian independence is no slight problem. It threatens U.S. domination of one of the most valuable prizes in the world, Middle East oil. Accordingly, from 1979 the U.S. has been bitterly hostile to Iran. Washington backed Saddam Hussein’s vicious and murderous assault against Iran, and even after the war, continued to provide strong support to its friend Saddam, even inviting Iraqi nuclear engineers for advanced training in nuclear weapons development in 1989. It then turned to severe sanctions against Iran, along with regular threats to attack Iran and overthrow the government. That continues to the present...

In simple words, the U.S. insists on maintaining its stance as an outlaw state, dismissing core principles of international law, including the UN Charter, which outlaws the threat or use of force in international affairs. Bush is joined by both 2008 presidential candidates and by elite opinion in the U.S. and Europe – but not by the American public, which by a large majority favors diplomacy and opposes the threat of force. But public opinion is largely irrelevant to policy formation, not just in this case. [More] . . read more

A Rudd Government would likely sanction a U.S.-led strike against Iran. Perhaps covertly, but Rudd has offered no assurances that he believes the Bush Administration should not be trusted over its Iran policy. Besides, arguing against the Iraq invasion is a luxury that Rudd would never indulge in power. Not unlike Howard and a host of past Labor Prime Ministers, Washington’s call is one that Australian leaders find impossible to resist...

A likely Rudd Government may be forced to make a decision on this matter within months of assuming office. Silence is not an option. If Rudd, like Howard, joins America in an unprovoked attack against a Middle Eastern nation, he will be as worthy of contempt as our current prime minister.  . . read more