Manufacturing consent for war on Iran
U.S. threatens Iran with ‘pre-emptive
action’
By RT
January 02, 2020 "Information
Clearing House"
- US
Defense Secretary Mark Esper has warned that
he will take “preemptive action” to “protect
US forces” if he receives word of attacks by
Iran or its “proxy forces,” claiming to have
indications of such attacks in the future.
Esper said he expects more “provocative
behavior” by “Iran-backed” groups – and
warned that “they will likely regret it.”
“They’ve been…attacking our bases for months
now,” Esper claimed, apparently pinning
every rocket attack on a coalition base in
recent months on Iran. He called on Iraq to
“do more…to address these Iran-sponsored
militia groups and to stop their attacks on
US and coalition forces,” complaining the US
has not “seen sufficient action on that
front” from Baghdad.
The Trump administration blamed Tuesday’s
siege of the US embassy in Baghdad on Tehran
and sent 750 troops to Iraq in order to beef
up security at the diplomatic compound.
Iran, President Donald Trump has said, will
be held "fully responsible for lives
lost, or damage incurred, at any of our
facilities."
However, the protesters who surrounded
the embassy were motivated by rage over US
strikes that killed 25 members of Kataib
Hezbollah, part of Iraq’s Popular
Mobilization Units (PMU) and officially part
of the Iraqi military.
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Tehran, meanwhile, has accused the US of
punishing it for defeating Islamic State
(IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) terrorists. It
slammed the “audacity” of
Washington fobbing responsibility for the
protests off on Iran when US airstrikes –
supposedly in response for an attack on a
coalition base near Kirkuk – had actually
motivated the embassy-storming.
The Trump administration’s rhetoric
regarding Iran may trigger deja vu for those
who remember the most recent Iraq War, with
its talk of preemptive strikes against
leader Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi leader was
said to be was sitting on a cache of weapons
of mass destruction and had to be stopped
before he could use them. Now known to be a
complete fiction, the “weapons of mass
destruction” trope has been recycled in
the Trump administration’s sanctions on
Iran, deeming the country’s largest airline
a “weapons of mass destruction
proliferator.”
The US could send still more forces to
the Middle East, Esper said, pledging to
“take it day by day.”“A variety of forces”
are standing by in case they are needed,
Joint Staff General Mark Milley said. The US
has some 60,000 troops in the region
already.
This article was originally published
by "RT"
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