We Must Remain Skeptical of Any Attempts to Incite War with Iran

Last Saturday Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq petroleum processing facilities and Khurais oil field were attacked by cruise missiles and drones. The Saudis claim that this unconventional attack thwarted their defense systems as both cruise missiles and drones fly too low. Saudi Arabia with its sophisticated air defenses courtesy of its vast military budget claims even if it were able to detect the attack some missiles came from the West when their state of the art defense systems was pointing towards Iran.

Despite a lack of firm evidence, Saudi Arabia claims the attack is unquestionably the work of Iran. On Wednesday Saudi Arabia increased pressure on President Trump to respond to the attack. Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement immediately took credit for the attacks, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani insists the offense has been carried out by Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Nevertheless, Saudi Lt Col Turki al-Maliki says,

“The intelligence community has high confidence that these were not weapons that would have been in possession of the Houthis.”

President Trump said the US was “locked and loaded” for a response at the behest of Saudi Arabia.

Yemeni armed forces have motives for their attack. Largely unreported in the mainstream media is that Saudi Arabia has subjected Yemen to a bombing campaign since March 2015. This violence is backed by US military hardware and tactical support. Along with an illegal blockade of the port of Hodeida, it has left Yemen on the brink of the world’s worst famine in a century. UNICEF warns that Yemen presents the largest humanitarian crisis in the world with more than 80 percent of its 24 million people, including more than 12 million children in need of humanitarian assistance.

Logically, Iran attacking Saudi Arabia, which hosts US troops and is one of the US’s closest allies would be an act of extreme folly. Iran, just like the rest of the developing world, needs peace for its development. It has long been the target of US aggression. The US and other Western powers claim it as being in their ‘Axis of Evil’ due to its human rights record and thus deserving of regime change through the barrel of a gun to free its repressed population.

Western intervention for freeing repressed peoples cannot be taken seriously. Saudi Arabia a key Western ally would be the staging post for attacks on Iran has a more dubious human rights record than Iran.

Quite simply, Iran’s crime is that it seeks its independence in the world system. Its Islamic revolution threw out the Shah who was installed in a US and UK sponsored coup in 1953. This coup was in response to the nationalization of Iran’s fossil fuels by a democratically elected government. Previously, Iran’s oil fields had been owned by British companies. The US and the UK have been looking for revenge ever since and it’s no coincidence that President Trump and British PM Boris Johnson stressed the need for a joint “diplomatic response.”

With an understanding of the historical injustices of the region we should be wary of any attempts to ignite a war with Iran. Too often Western democracies with their ostentatious high-minded intentions have committed acts of the worst atrocities based on lies, misinformation and outright deceit.

History is replete with Western attempts to spark wars and upend governments for their own geopolitical ends. Declassified CIA documents admit that it hired Iranians in the 1950′s to pose as Communists and stage bombings in Iran to turn the country against its democratically-elected prime minister. Iranians working for the CIA and posing as Communists harassed religious leaders and staged the bombing of one cleric’s home in a campaign to turn the country’s Islamic religious community against Mossadegh’s government.

Numerous declassified documents show that in 1962 the American Joint Chiefs of Staff hatched plans to blow up American airplanes and then present this to the public as acts of terrorism. These acts were to be blamed on Cuba to provide a pretext for invasion.

National Security Agency documents confirm that there was no second attack on US ships in the Gulf of Tonkin on August 4, 1964. This lie led to the atrocity that was the US invasion of Vietnam.

In recent memory 9/11 was used to justify the invasion of Iraq which continuous to play out to this day. Even after the 9/11 Commission admitted that there was no connection, Dick Cheney said that the evidence is “overwhelming” that al Qaeda had a relationship with Saddam Hussein’s regime. In Iraq corporations made billions from capturing Iraqi oil supplies the sales of weapons.

The Western public cannot afford to spill the blood of its brave servicemen for the service of its elite. Foreign interventions have sapped their economies and are a scar on the ideals of Western democracy. They openly mock liberal democracy’s claims to moral superiority.

War is a breakdown of all human rights. It is the force that is directly opposed to development the foundation on which the basic quality of human life is built on. Unfortunately, the West with the US at its helm which ostensibly prides itself on its development and human rights has proved time and time again that it is intent on denying these rights to the rest of the world.

The public must remain vigilant and sceptical to all official claims that may be used to gain public backing for heinous acts.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Keith Lamb is a British and Irish expat living in China for the past 15 years. He writes freelance oped articles on international relations and geopolitics.

Featured image is from The Freedom Articles


Comment on Global Research Articles on our Facebook page

Become a Member of Global Research


Articles by: Keith Lamb

Disclaimer: The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in this article. The Centre of Research on Globalization grants permission to cross-post Global Research articles on community internet sites as long the source and copyright are acknowledged together with a hyperlink to the original Global Research article. For publication of Global Research articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: [email protected]

www.globalresearch.ca contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of "fair use" in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than "fair use" you must request permission from the copyright owner.

For media inquiries: [email protected]