It has been often reported over the last few years that the likes of Cheney consider going to Baghdad is for wimps but real men go to Tehran - or some such macho posturing. But the way the propaganda is building lately it is clearly pointing to a US led war on Iran happening sooner rather than later and real men will then be strutting their thing as irradiated skeletons. Unfortunately so will everybody else.

In a recent article, carried by TomDispatch , Dilip Hiro argues that the USA's unipolar moment following the collapse of the Soviet Union has ended and a multipolar world is being re-entered. If right, and I think he is having previously written similarly, then we are at a most dangerous time with the imperialist beast injured, cornered and desperate for a way to re-assert its authority. That way is looking more and more likely as being an attack on Iran.  

The attempts by American military commanders in Iraq to blame Iran for attacks on the invading/occupying forces has been stepped up and which are, to put it bluntly, just propaganda. And as Dylan has sung; 'Propaganda, all is phoney'.

Gareth Porter writing for IPS (via ZNet ) clearly shows that the recent upsurge in attacks on the occupiers around Baghdad is simply a direct result of the increased attacks by American troops on Iraqi Shiite militias loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr. It is also well accepted that Moqtada al-Sadr is an Iraqi nationalist and not an Iranian puppet.

The weapons that are being used against the occupying armies such as the improvised explosive devices are said to be to sophisticated for the iraqis to manufacture and that the Iranians are supplying them . The arguement is that these IEDs are 'shaped' explosives able to penetrate the armour of the American Abrams tank and can only be manufactured outside of Iraq by another state. This is rather delusional as the shaped charge can quite easily be manufactured on a lathe in a small garage. It smacks of a racist attitude toward Iraqis to believe they don't have the nous to work a lathe. A part of the nature of modern urban guerrilla warfare is to organise small workshops - 'garages' - as armouries producing a continuous supply. Such a process can be achieved quite easily when you have the support of most of the population against the occupier. Then of course there is the ability to buy these weapons on the corrupt international arms market .

In a more recent article by Gareth Porter writing for Huffington Post (via ZNet ), he points out that the Cheney cabal are pushing for a provocative air strike on an alleged training camp for Iraqis in Iran so as to try and elicit a response from Iran which could act as a pretext for a full scale air assault on Iranian military and nuclear power sites, as well as the whole gamut of civilian infrastructure. Basically try and bomb Iran 'back to the stone age'.

And then there is the reports that the US administration is thinking of placing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard on a global terrorist list. An integral part of the Iranian military structure being declared terrorist by the leader of a country with the world's worst record of terrorism - the USA: Now that is chutzpah!
 
These are just a couple of the more recent indicators from the blood lusting US administration pointing to war on Iran. They add to the demonisation of the country since the Islamic revolution of 1979 overthrew their man in Tehran - the dictatorial Shah with his vicious, CIA run security apparatus SAVAK.

On Monday 20.08.07, the Guardian carried an article by Michael Howard with the headline, "Kurds flee homes as Iran shells villages in Iraq". According to the article the Iranians were fighting/chasing members of a Kurdish group of guerrillas operating in Iran - the Kurdish Free Life Group (PJAK). Besides this being the first time I have ever heard of the group, the article goes on to say; "On a recent visit to PJAK camps in the Qandil mountains the Guardian saw no evidence of American weaponry. The majority of its fighters toted Soviet-era Kalashnikovs. In an interview Biryar Gabar, a member of the leadership committee, said the group had no relations with the Americans, but was "open to any group that shares our ideals of a free federal democratic and secular Iran.""

Leaving aside that the US has been destabilising Iran via funding for opposition religious and ethnic groups since at least the announcement of an $85m fund for it by US Secretray of State Condaleezza Rice earlier this year, it was reported by the BBC on 06.08.07 that the US forces in Iraq "cannot account for 190,000 AK47 assault rifles and pistols". It makes me wonder if Michael Howard has joined with Simon Tisdall in lazy journalism for the Guardian.

Another symbolic indicator of the tension, to me anyway, was the pictures of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, stripped to the waist on a fishing trip to Siberia with Prince Albert II of Monaco. Assuming that the timing of every picture released of Putin has a political reason then there are at least two on this occasion and which are interrelated. The first is for domestic consumption and shows Putin as a strong, macho leader able to defend the Russian motherland. The second is for a foreign audience showing that he is capable of defending himself and Russia if attacked as well as projecting the ability to inflict violence. This is also related to the recent publicity surrounding his expertise as an exponent/writer of Judo. This is on top, so to speak, of the resumption of long distance, nuclear ready bomber flights by Russia which have already forced the RAF to scramble and intercept.

It might be a bit of a stretch to place Putin's bare torso in the context of a possible US led attack on Iran, and it can very well just be to do with the siting of US anti-missile missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic, but the importance of Iran to Russia's geopolitical interest as a balance to the US nuclear armed client in the region - Israel -  should not be underestimated. Iran has been given observer status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation which recently held a joint military exercise in the Urals. The SCO is a regional alliance covering central Asia and includes China, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan who all have a vested interest in Iran being war free.

In the build up to the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan those well know feminists, Laura Bush and Cherie Blair were claiming that it was for the liberation of Afghani women oppressed by Islam. It was part of the general propaganda war in demonising all Muslim Afghani men and helped demobilise, if not legitimise, the invasion amongst the broad left in the USA, Britain as well as the rest of the European members of NATO. The same has been going on with Iran, though with limited affect this time round, it having become so obvious a ploy after 6 years of occupation and a worsening of the plight, not an improvement for Afghani women.

So expect another oppression to come to the fore as a means to create doubts and demobilise elements of the opposition to war on Iran. My bet would be the use of the known anti-gay and lesbian attitude of the Iranian government. Gay and lesbian politics were being integrated into the left's theories of exploitation during the 1970s and 1980s. It had a positive impact on the left and brought a new sensitivity to our practise but now, due to the lack of any affective left, it will probably be used as a means to criticise and use as a wedge against the resolve of the anti-war movement.

To use an analogy: In the debate over global warming and climate change 99% of the world's scientists agree that by our life-styles in the advanced industrial nations, we human beings are responsible for it. Yet a few scientists working for such entities as the oil companies, receiving a lot of money and publicity, argue against this consensus and create a feeling of doubt amongst the general public. That is all the oil companies want - doubt - because it can demobilise and keep people away from campaigning against the polluters.

And it is all the warmongers want; doubt from those who would normally oppose war on the political or moral grounds that the Iranians do not deserve to be attacked.  

Below is a statement from CASMII , Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran, which speaks for itself.

CASMII Statement
 
24 August 2007
 
Several ex-CIA officers including Robert Baer and Ray McGovern with inside information on the plans of the White House strategists have recently raised the alarm that the Bush administration is intent on waging a military attack against Iran in a few months. Only mass action can stop a catastrophic new war in the Middle East which would dwarf the permanent carnage the US and the UK and their allies have created in Iraq.
 
As in the run-up to the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, the drumbeats of the march to war against Iran are pounded into the US public by the neo-conservative cheerleaders of the FOX news network.
 
The Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran calls on all its supporters and the international community to sign the on-line petition to urge major media networks not to follow FOX down the road to war against Iran.
 
Please take a few minutes to watch the video and sign the petition, and ask all your friends and contacts to do the same. In the US we also urge you to contact all your local advertisers on FOX and ask them to support this campaign.
 
Visit http://foxattacks.com/iran
 
 
Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII)
http://www.campaigniran.org