Chomsky on the "Iranian Threat"

Chomsky lays out in his usual patient but exceptionally well supported style exactly why Iran is seen as such a threat to America that they will seemingly in short order be obliterated:

“They are gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran,” according to Dan Plesch, director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the University of London. “US bombers and long range missiles are ready today to destroy 10,000 targets in Iran in a few hours,” he said. “The firepower of US forces has quadrupled since 2003,” accelerating under Obama.

Nor is it actually anything to do with stopping nuclear proliferation:

No sane person wants Iran to develop nuclear weapons; or anyone. One obvious way to mitigate or eliminate this threat is to establish a NFWZ in the Middle East. The issue arose (again) at the NPT conference at United Nations headquarters in early May 2010. Egypt, as chair of the 118 nations of the Non-Aligned Movement, proposed that the conference back a plan calling for the start of negotiations in 2011 on a Middle East NWFZ, as had been agreed by the West, including the US, at the 1995 review conference on the NPT.

Washington still formally agrees, but insists that Israel be exempted – and has given no hint of allowing such provisions to apply to itself.

It is merely a desire to stop an inconvenient non-conformist to US Imperial doctrine, one that in events such as the Brazil-Turkey nuclear waste deal seems to be a catalyst of action outside of Washington approved action. This cannot be allowed to happen.

Read the full analysis here.