{"id":1216,"date":"2019-06-22T05:17:40","date_gmt":"2019-06-22T04:17:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/codir.net\/?p=1216"},"modified":"2019-06-22T05:17:40","modified_gmt":"2019-06-22T04:17:40","slug":"a-us-war-with-iran-looms-dont-for-one-second-think-that-it-is-justified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/codir.net\/?p=1216","title":{"rendered":"A US war with Iran looms. Don\u2019t for one second think that it is justified"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Trump\u2019s allies will try to paint Iran as a threat, as they did with Iraq. We must not fall into step with their prefab bloodlust<\/p>\n<header class=\"content__head content__head--article tonal__head tonal__head--tone-comment\n     content__head--byline-pic\"><\/p>\n<figure id=\"img-1\" class=\"media-primary media-content ()  \" data-component=\"image\" data-media-id=\"90514b23173fee36596571a70ce23bee5700942e\"><figcaption class=\"caption caption--main caption--img\"><span class=\"inline-triangle inline-icon hide-until-tablet\">\u00a0<\/span>\u2018It is clear where we\u2019re heading \u2026\u2019 US Navy patrol boats carry journalists to see damaged oil tankers in the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday. Photograph: Kamran Jebreili\/AP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"content__article-body from-content-api js-article__body\" data-test-id=\"article-review-body\">\n<p><span class=\"drop-cap\"><span class=\"drop-cap__inner\">W<\/span><\/span>e know how the story goes. The decision for war is made long in advance. That becomes the end point, and the evidence must be marshalled to achieve that goal. A long-lasting regime suddenly becomes an imminent threat. Exiles with minimal connections to their country of origin, but with fat bank balances, extensive links with rightwing thinktanks, multinational companies and western security services are wheeled out to solemnly declare that war must be waged on their homeland. A litany of never-ending human rights abuses is endlessly detailed: the sort ignored by our elites if they are committed by our allies, like the Saudi dictatorship, which has plunged\u00a0Yemen\u00a0into the world\u2019s worst humanitarian crisis. Critics of war are demonised as stooges or useful idiots of an enemy that imperils national security and menaces its own people, and as haters of their own country.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"element element-pullquote element--supporting\"><span class=\"inline-garnett-quote inline-icon \">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"pullquote-paragraph\">While our Tory overlords committing to another military escapade is predictable, Trump\u2019s &#8216;coalition&#8217; will extend further<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/aside>\n<p>It happened in Iraq, it happened in Libya, too: both countries were swiftly drowned in blood and chaos. In a just world, one might expect the cheerleaders of these catastrophes \u2013 which ended in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands, the maiming and traumatising of countless others, created millions of refugees and internally displaced persons, and turned both nations into playgrounds for violent extremists \u2013 to be driven from public life in disgrace. Instead they retain their influence \u2013 within the US administration (most strikingly in the form of\u00a0John Bolton, Trump\u2019s national security adviser), within the leading echelons of the Conservative party, and within the commentariat. And, without shame but with much bloodlust, they set about building the case for a new war with Iran.<\/p>\n<p>After Jeremy Corbyn suggested that the Trump administration\u2019s pronouncement of Iranian guilt over the tanker attacks\u00a0needed to be scrutinised, and that \u201cBritain should act to ease tensions in the Gulf,\u201d he faced a barrage of denunciations. You see, you are more likely to be regarded as a respectable politician if you casually call for wars that will incinerate sleeping infants and\u00a0annihilate wedding parties\u00a0than if you call for de-escalation and peace. Never mind that EU foreign ministers echoed Corbyn\u2019s position, demanding an\u00a0independent UN investigation\u00a0and more evidence. Corbyn was \u201cpathetic and predictable\u201d, pronounced flailing Conservative leadership candidate Jeremy Hunt, asking why Corbyn could \u201cnever bring himself to back British allies, British intelligence or British interests.\u201d This is somewhat curious given the Labour leader had the same line as Britain\u2019s European allies, and only the delusional or the wicked could imagine a new Middle Eastern conflagration amounts to \u201cbacking British interests\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>It is the comments of fellow flailing Tory leadership candidate Michael Gove that are particularly instructive: Corbyn\u2019s \u201ccomments on Iran show once again he is not fit to be trusted with our national security\u201d. Here is a man who called for the invasion of Iraq\u00a0two days after 9\/11\u00a0and who remains gruesomely supportive of it. According to Tory ex-chancellor Ken Clarke, with Gove as prime minister \u201cwe\u2019d go to war with at least three countries at once\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>This lust for war should frighten us because, while the likes of Gove will not become prime minister, the consensus among the Tory elite is clear. For Boris Johnson \u2013 already ordained by the US president as his favoured candidate \u2013 \u201ctaking back control\u201d means becoming the lapdog of Donald Trump\u2019s US. If indeed the US gets its war \u2013 back in 2012, Trump himself\u00a0suggested that Barack Obama might \u201cplay the Iran card in order to start a war in order to get elected\u201d, so it is a strategy he is familiar with \u2013 then do we really think our Trumpified government won\u2019t commit British support?<\/p>\n<p>But while our Tory overlords committing to another disastrous military escapade is predictable, Trump\u2019s \u201ccoalition of the willing\u201d will surely extend further. There was a certain type of self-described \u201ccentrist\u201d, or \u201cmoderate\u201d, or \u201cliberal\u201d, or however they choose to describe themselves, who would denounce Trump as an authoritarian menace to humanity, as a would-be fascist dictator, but applaud him as soon as he started firing missiles. That\u2019s how they\u00a0responded\u00a0when he directed US firepower at Syria; surely they will do the same if missiles rain down on Iran.<\/p>\n<p>Tony Blair is a bellwether here: rehabilitated among some over Brexit, this\u00a0Saudi-funded\u00a0warmonger has repeatedly demanded\u00a0regime change in Iran, including through\u00a0direct military action. Earlier this year, his institute\u00a0attacked western governments\u00a0for being too complacent over the Iranian threat.<\/p>\n<p>And here is the danger. If Trump \u2013 after ripping up the nuclear deal \u2013 gets the war his advisers crave, there will be influential so-called \u201cmoderates\u201d who will say yes, the US president is a very real danger, yes he\u2019s a menace to democracy and to global peace, and yes he\u2019s really terribly vulgar, but I\u2019m sorry we must back him, because Iran is the imminent menace we once claimed Iraq to be. They do not lack in either connections or influence, and they will use both to attempt to marginalise opponents of the latest disastrous act of US-led aggression. We know how this film ends \u2013 we\u2019ve watched it before \u2013 and a movement to stop a repeat of Iraq and\u00a0Libya\u00a0needs to get its act together now.<\/p>\n<p>Iran underlines the absurdity of the given pretexts for these wars. If threats to national security, or human rights abuses, were genuinely the basis for military intervention, we would have fired missiles at\u00a0Saudi Arabia\u00a0long ago: whether it be for exporting international terrorism, or for dropping bombs on buses full of Yemeni children en route from picnics. But it is clear where we\u2019re heading. War looms \u2013 that\u2019s barely sunk into the consciousness of the wider public \u2013 and if the cheerleaders of the Iraqi and Libyan wars get their own way, a worse calamity than either could beckon.<\/p>\n<p>Owen Jones<\/p>\n<p>Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"share-this\">\n                    <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share\"\nclass=\"twitter-share-button\"\ndata-count=\"horizontal\">Tweet<\/a>\n                    <script type=\"text\/javascript\"\nsrc=\"http:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\"><\/script>\n                    <div class=\"facebook-share-button\">\n                        <iframe\nsrc=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fcodir.net%2F%3Fp%3D1216&amp;layout=button_count&amp;show_faces=false&amp;width=200&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light&amp;height=21\"\nscrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border:none;\noverflow:hidden; width:200px; height:21px;\"\nallowTransparency=\"true\"><\/iframe>\n                    <\/div>\n                <\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Trump\u2019s allies will try to paint Iran as a threat, as they did with Iraq. We must not fall into step with their prefab bloodlust \u00a0\u2018It is clear where we\u2019re heading \u2026\u2019 US Navy patrol boats carry journalists to see [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1217,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-news-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/codir.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/codir.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/codir.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/codir.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/codir.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1216"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/codir.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1218,"href":"https:\/\/codir.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216\/revisions\/1218"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/codir.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/codir.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/codir.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/codir.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}