Neocons Won't Stop Until They Get Their War With Iran
May 15, 2019
Several recent indicators strongly suggest President Donald Trump’s administration appears to be angling for a war with Iran. On Monday, The New York Times reported that the White House has been reviewing military plans against Iran. According to sources, “Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan presented an updated military plan that envisions sending as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack American forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons.”
To no one’s surprise, it was Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton who ordered the updated plan. Bolton has made it his mission to spark a war against Iran, and he was part of the apparatus of building the false case for the disastrous 2003 U.S. war against Iraq. So hawkish is Bolton that in an interview with Foreign Policy in 2007 he said, “Once upon a time, we knew how to do clandestine regime change. We need to reacquire that capability.” As the Times pointed out, Bolton’s new review of military plans to attack Iran is reminiscent of preparations made ahead of the 2003 Iraq war. Clearly Bolton is chomping at the bit a little over a year since he accepted his position at the White House.
Bolton’s war plan for Iran began with the Trump administration abandoning the hard-won Obama-era nuclear deal a year ago and imposing harsh new sanctions on Iran. In mid-April, Trump designated Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard forces a terrorist group. It was the first time a military arm of a foreign nation was placed on the list of terrorist groups. In a statement, Trump said the designation “underscores the fact that Iran’s actions are fundamentally different from those of other governments.” Then in early May, the U.S. military sent an aircraft carrier and bomber task force on course to Iran, which Bolton announced was “in response to a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings.” He also made clear the military threat was intended “to send a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force.”
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/neocons-wont-stop-until-they-get-their-war-with-iran/
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