Psywar keeps Tehran on tenterhooks

[bemildred]

To any intelligence analyst, it should be obvious that the United States has already embarked on a psychological warfare (psywar) campaign to keep Iran on tenterhooks in the hope of thereby breaking its will to resist US pressure to agree to the dismantling of its uranium enrichment capability.

It is in this context that one has to view the rhetoric of "no option excluded" coming at regular intervals from President George W Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other US leaders, orchestrated leaks to the media of Pakistan's cooperation with the US in a possible covert action against Iran's military nuclear capability, of increasing Israeli contacts with Pakistan, of US drones (unmanned surveillance planes) flying unhindered over Iran's nuclear establishments from bases in Iraq, and the latest reports of a mysterious blast near the southern port city of Dailam in Iran on Wednesday.

Iranian leaders would be making a serious miscalculation - as Saddam Hussein of Iraq did - if they underestimated the determination of not only the US, but also of Israel, to see that Iran does not acquire a capability for the production of nuclear weapons.

It would be a serious mistake on the part of Iranian leaders and policymakers to think that the disastrous consequences of the US-led military intervention in Iraq and pressure from the rest of the world - with even the United Kingdom reportedly hesitant to go whole hog with the United States in the case of Iran, as it did in the case of Iraq - would deter any US military or paramilitary action against Iran, despite undoubted difficulties.

Asia Times

[ElectroPrincess]

1. Me thinks with putty Putin and Chinese support ... Iran ain't losing sleep.

[bemildred]

2. Iran is watching us closely, but I don't expect this bullshit will work.

[DinahMoeHum]

3. The neocon RWers have had a 25-year hard-on about Iran since 1979

when they lost their ally the Shah in January and Iranian militants seized the US embassy in November of that year.

Problem is, the Iranians have a longer memory than the neocons. Twice as long, actually. The older ones have not forgotten 1953 when a CIA-backed coup usurped their democratically-elected President Mossadeq and imposed a monarchy-dictatorship on them. They've been suspicious about US intentions ever since. Can't really blame them. They may not be crazy about their mullah-dominated theocracy right now, but as far as they are concerned, it's THEIR problem and THEIR solution, NOT somebody else's, least of all the US's.

Best to leave well enough alone with them. They're already looking at forming alliances with Russia and China. Making themselves a "poison pill", as it were.


:evilfrown: