Since 1979, when the Shah of Iran finally lost his grip on power and the American CIA that controlled him was run out of Tehran, the elite power structure of our government has been engaged in one long, sustained hissy fit of belligerence, threats, instigating an illegal invasion of Iran by Iraq and supporting Iraq in every way during that period of time, embargoing and generally attempting to punish and destabilize the regime of Mullahs and nationalist Shiite religious zealots.  At the same time, the US government has also dealt with this same regime when it was convenient for them, for example when the Reagan administration traded arms for hostages with them in the Iran Contra affair.

The track record of American diplomacy and other relations with Iran over these past thirty years has been, to say the least, abysmal.  No one can dispute that.  In almost every instance, the decisions and choices of the United States have been wrong.  It is an irony of ironies that our every effort to destabilize the ruling class of the Islamic Republic has actually served to strengthen it.  The failure of our strategy of bullying and cajoling is quite well known and is there for the entire world to see.  It never worked.  Not even once. 

After all these long, long years of abject failure and of demonstrating that bullying, intimidation and threats don't work the ruling classes of the United States have apparently learned nothing whatever.  The threats of war against Iran have been steady and relentless, even if sometimes in the background, since 1979.  The Bush regime and its warmongering wing salivated at the thought of getting to finally go berserk on Iran and bomb the living hell out of them for their ongoing impudence.  The American war industry and their cheerleading enablers in the government have been in a state of near apoplexy for years over the nuclear development program in Iran that may or may not be for nuclear weapons.

The ruling class, via both major political parties in the US, have been laying the groundwork for some kind of military assault on Iran since the moment the Ayatollah Khomeini stepped foot back on Iranian soil and the Shah fled.  After the repeated and obvious failure of this strategy, many had hoped the Obama administration would make a significant departure in both posture and substantive strategy with Iran.  Alas, that clearly is not going to be the case.

President Obama has demonstrated clearly that it was just as unwise to elect a Democratic President with no experience in foreign policy (though an admittedly smart man) as it was to elect a dunce Republican without any such experience.  The outcomes, it appears, will not be all that different.  The military industrial complex and the war industries will have their way regardless of which party is ostensibly in power.

What a disappointment it was to see Obama in self righteous tones condemning Iran for having a "secret" nuclear development plant in violation of the nonproliferation treaty and perhaps other treaties as though it were a revelation that somehow changes things.  And this from a President who refuses to honor the US's own treaty obligations regarding war crimes and torture.  We were treated to this appalling propaganda demonstration in order to set the table for western military aggression of some kind against Iran.  This aggression could take any number of forms and depending upon circumstances it could be a measured and limited approach that would only kill tens of thousands of perfectly innocent Iranians or it could be a full aerial and missile bombing campaign launched from American bases in occupied Iraq and/or in the Persian gulf that would kill hundreds of thousands of perfectly innocent Iranians.

The public is being treated to a similar spate of war hysteria and propaganda not unlike the lies and fantasies leading up to the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq.  We are being asked to believe once again that a second rate power in the middle east represents some sort of unacceptable threat to US and western interests generally if it were to acquire, at some as yet unknown date, nuclear weapons capabilities.

Now, it could well be that Iran is hell bent on acquiring nuclear weapons.  It could well be that Iran might irresponsibly use such weapons against American or western interests in the region.  It might even use nuclear weapons against Israel... if it ever has any.  As of this time it doesn't have any such weapons.  No one makes the claim that they do.  But, we are to believe on zero evidence that the regime in Tehran is so crazy and so irresponsible that nuclear weapons in their hands would be totally unacceptable.  We say this even as two of the most unstable and dangerous regimes on this planet now have nuclear weapons: Pakistan and North Korea.

So why is Iran the great threat instead of the two far more volatile and unstable regimes that already have these weapons?  They never bother to explain this part to us because that isn't really what is driving all this.  The whole schtick about what a threat Iran is, is nothing but a deception.  We are simply to accept that those crazy, bearded and turbaned mullahs are insane and likely to bomb us.  Oh my God!  Whatever will we do if the big, bad mullahs get the bomb?  The level of panic our ruling classes are trying to foment bears no relationship to reality.  Who in their right mind could ever think that Iran poses an immediate threat to a nation like ours when we have tens of thousands of far more sophisticated weapons than Iran will every have.  We, the public, are to be terrified at this prospect.  We, the public, are to be prepared to lay down the lives of even more of our young men and women because our ruling class is still angry that Iran had and continues to have the gall to want to determine it's own destiny and to control it's own natural resources, namely oil.

I pray to God that this time, the warmongers have overplayed their hand and the public will simply refuse to support their wildly irresponsible and reckless military plans.  There is simply no reason whatever to believe in what our rulers are telling us about Iran nor is there any reason to trust them to lead us through the sort of crisis they claim we are confronting.

It was clear in the lead up to the Iraq invasion that diplomacy and a myriad of options other than military invasion were being given the bums rush and nobody was allowed to discuss in a sober manner whether or not a war of aggression against Iraq was actually a sound idea and one that was bound to benefit or harm American interests.   

There is an uncanny similarity between the revving up the war machine t0 illegally invade and occupy Iraq and what is now taking shape regarding Iran.  We have made few, if any, serious diplomatic efforts to try and engage Iran and deescalate the tensions we have been maximizing for the past 30 years between our two countries.  Now, we bring to the world the dramatic, but not terribly surprising news, that Iran had a secret nuclear facility.  The manner in which this revelation was made public was a transparent propaganda exercise intended for the domestic political audiences of the G-20 and not at all intended to convey any real or substantive new "threat" being posed by Iran.

Our ruling elites have no credibility left at all with the public.  If you don't think so, look at the total disconnect on the healthcare debate in Washington and the preferences of the vast majority of the American people.  Or, if that isn't enough, take a look at the completely out of touch policy discussions going on in DC versus the very well established fact that the majority of our citizens oppose the war in Afghanistan and want us out of there as soon as possible.  Take a look at the complete and total disgust and disapproval by the American people for what both parties did to steal from the taxpayers in order to pay off the bad debts/bets of our financial industry and banking barons.  And now we are expected to trust this pack of untrustworthy swine when it comes to how much of a threat Iran poses to us and what we should do about it?  It is simply mind-boggling how out of touch, arrogant and unworthy are ruling class has become.

Any military strike against Iran is not only unwise, but profoundly stupid and could be catastrophic for the United States.  Chinese leaders are undoubtedly toasting the stupidity of the American rulers as they see the future being a completely open field for them once the Americans bankrupt themselves on their endless imperial wars and equally endless government subsidy for the corrupt and criminal financial industry. 

It seems clear that there will be increasing calls for military aggression against Iran as a means of preempting their acquisition of nuclear weapons, even though there's no evidence that such an eventuality is at all imminent.  The war drums are now beating a little louder and their tempo and volume will be increasing in coming months.  The people cannot allow the powerful and the war industries to destroy the stability and prosperity that ought to be the birthright, not only of every American, but of all people everywhere.  Using the military to attempt to break the Iranian regime using the cover of that regime someday, maybe, almost certainly will acquire nuclear weapons and use them against "us".  Bah I say!  Bah! 

I am sick of having the American people manipulated by the most demonstrably incompetent ruling class that has every trod the earth!  All sane people should do everything they can to make sure that no military action is taken against Iran by the US or any other nation.  It will be a disaster if such a dangerous notion become policy and begins to be implemented. 

We must all shout from the rooftops if necessary NO  NO!  NO! We will not go along with your sick, bloodthirsty plans to attack Iran and bring about even more bloodshed, heartache, destruction and death in the name of the people of the United States.  Common people don't believe that malarkey and have no reason to believe it. 

The approach Obama is preparing the public for would have been wrong had Bush manipulated public opinion on this question and it is perhaps even more wrong and reprehensible now that Obama is pushing this irresponsible line.  There are other ways to deal with Iran that don't involve military force and that can or will be even more effective, but none of these alternatives have been given a serious try. 

Iran is not our friend it is true, but that was a choice the US made over and over again.  It was the choice we made in 1953 when we overthrew Iran's democratically elected, secular government in order to avenge the loss of British hegemony over Iranian oil.  It is the choice we made by installing the Shah of Iran as our puppet to rule Iran.  It was the choice we made over and over again as we continued to attempt to bully, cajole, threaten and intimidate Iran into complying with the wishes of the war machine.  It was not the choice of the people of the Islamic Republic or their regime.  We can still choose to undue the hostility our 30 year tantrum has produced. 

Sure Iran has engaged in incendiary rhetoric over the years, but essentially their revolution was about self determination more than anything else.  That is their right if we are to believe in our own historical positions on such matters.   The legitimate desire of the Iranian people to be in command of their own destiny has been portrayed to the people of the west and American in particular as a "threat" when it simply is not true.  Iran is a sovereign nation.  As such the people there get to choose, by right, their own leaders.  They have chosen the Islamic Republic and so we must deal with it.  To continue to throw political and military temper tantrums over the assertion of the Iranian people's right to self determination is what is crazy and far crazier than what the mullahs are up to. 

The US must grow up and start dealing with Iran from the basis of mutual respect instead of the mutual contempt we have been fomenting all these years.  It may not be too late to avoid having the US military used to attack Iran and destabilize it.  Look at the long list of benefits we earned by doing that in Iraq for God's sake!  It's a disaster through and through.  We cannot allow our insane ruling class to get away with more pointless killing and destruction that will not produce one positive thing on this earth.