Its an American tradition to ‘meddle’ in Iran. Recall Kermit Roosevelt? The particulars here:
And his book Countercoup, a political self-apologetic.
Former senior adviser to the Obama administration and Council on Foreign Relations Iran expert, Ray Takeyh,[16] writing in 2014, states that “Contrary to Roosevelt’s account [in Countercoup], the documentary record reveals that the Eisenhower administration was hardly in control and was in fact surprised by the way events played out.”[17] William Blum wrote that Roosevelt provided no evidence for his claim that a Communist takeover in Iran was imminent, but rather “mere assertions of the thesis which are stated over and over”.[18] Abbas Milani wrote that “Roosevelt’s memoir inflated his own and, in turn, America’s centrality to the coup. He tells the story with the relish of a John le Carré knock-off. … Eisenhower, for one, considered reports like this to be the stuff of ‘dime novels.'”[19]
After Bush The Younger’s declaration of the War On Terror and an invasion and subjugation of Iraq, and the mendacious incompetence of Viceroy Paul Bremer, what need the reader think of the latest chapter in this murderous political melodrama?
Headline: Iran’s top military leader Soleimani killed in US air strike
Sub-headline: World powers call for restraint after killing fuels fear of fresh conflict in Middle East
https://www.ft.com/content/4e8f9fbc-2dcf-11ea-bc77-65e4aa615551
Beside the usual cliche mongering, three quotations captured my attention:
US officials in the region said they were braced for Iranian retaliation across the Middle East. “It’s one of the most consequential assassinations in the Middle East in years and will have violent and first order implications primarily for the US, Iran and Israel,” said Aaron David Miller, a former state department official at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“The so-called shadow war will intensify with terror and additional assassinations,” he added. Mr Miller said there was a risk of full-blown war between the three countries.
Aaron David Miller is a stolid member of America’s Foreign Policy Technocracy : whose mendacity, and record of continuous failure, allied to bogus claims to that expertise can be born out, by the exercise of the weakest of empirical tests.
Next, in order of appearance, is the certifiably comic political figure of Joe Biden:
Joe Biden said the president had thrown “dynamite into a tinderbox” with the assassination. Mr Biden, who is leading the Democratic nomination race to challenge Mr Trump in the November presidential election, criticised the air strike as a “hugely escalatory move in an already dangerous region.”
Last to be quoted is former CIA analyst Helima Croft , now an employee of a global investment bank: https://www.rbccm.com/en/
Helima Croft, a former CIA analyst who heads up commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, said that the strikes increased risks for US oil companies such as ExxonMobil and Chevron that are active in Iraq, should Iran retaliate.
“But it is not just Iraq,” she said. “Iranians have the ability to target Americans anywhere where their proxy groups operate.”
The central concern for this newspaper is always economic , or more accurately stated the protection of profit over people.
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