At this time, it is up to Israel whether or not war occurs between the US and Iran. Israel very much wants this war as a means of putting Iran and Syria into chaos, thus leaving Hezbollah isolated and unsupplied. Then Israel can succeed in occupying southern Lebanon.
The American neoconservatives want Iran in chaos, because then the chaos can be exported into the Muslim regions of the Russian Federation with the purpose of causing sufficient internal turmoil to remove Russia as a constraint on US unilateralism.
Israel and the Neocons have Trump where they want him. Trump’s outrageous and reckless murder of Qasem Soleimani has provoked serious Iranian threats against the US to which Trump has replied with threats. Although there is some indication that Trump has realized his mistake and is trying to calm the situation, a calmed situation is not what Israel and the neoconservatives want.
Polls of the American public indicate that anti-Iranian propaganda has succeeced. All Israel or the neoconservatives, who are well placed, need to do is to conduct a false flag attack on some American entity, military base, personnel or ship, and blame it on Iran. The American press will demand Iranian blood and so will most of Trump’s constituency. As Trump has already committed himself to a response, he will have to deliver.
All wars have unknown and unintended consequences. As a result of Putin’s caution, Iran lacks sufficient air defense to prevent saturation bombing of the country. Washington would send in jihadists rather than its own soldiers, and the jihadist assignment would be to carry turmoil into Russia.
If it looked like Iran was prevailing in the conflict with the US, Trump would save the day for himself by nuking Iran. Indeed, some of the American rightwing are already calling for nuking Iran.
Rather than speculate on the consequences, I ask, “why risk them?”
A defensive alliance between Russia, Iran, and China, and any others inclined to join, would tie Israel’s hands and prevent the outbreak of war. Neither Trump nor Natanyahu are going to go to war with Russia, China, and Iran.
The reason US and Israeli aggression continue unabated is that no defense alliance has formed against them.
As an attack on Iran is an attack on Russia, forming a defensive alliance is a way to prevent the attack, perhaps the only way. An alliance would simply be a formalization of the implied, de facto alliance that already exists. It would actually reduce the threat against Iran and Russia and is the surest way of stabilizing the dangerous situation.
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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts writes on his blog, Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
