Home

US-Iran Talks, Propaganda

Comment by Larry Ross, December 11, 2006

If the US wants to "calm escalating violence in Iraq " it should stop its war and withdraw its troops. Reaching out to Iran and Syria to do this simply perpetuates US propaganda myths that Iran and Syria are responsible for the escalating violence in Iraq.

The US has accused Syria and Iran of this as part of their campaign to build a case for justifying a war against these states.  To justify the war on Iraq they accused Iraq of making weapons of mass destruction , including nuclear weapons to attack the US and UK "in 45 minutes" according to Bush's eager accomplice, Tony Blair. This, and accusations of links to the 9/11 attacks and al-Qaeda, were enough to convince the American people and Congress to approve a US war on Iraq.

It was found to be all lies, but that does not stop the Bush Administration, who now claim its war is to introduce 'Democracy' to the Middle East . Bush has killed an estimated 655,000 Iraqis in his illegal and totally unjustified war. So US war propaganda about Syria and Iran helping stop the violence is just a psywar invention to divert attention from the monstrosity of continuing  US genocide in Iraq. That it was allegedly from the Iraq Study Group, suggests that they are little more than dupes of the Bush Administration - buying into his litany of lies to justify and expand his war.

The propaganda pitch also suggests that Bush and his neocons are using the same type of lies to build a case for attacking Iran and that they are creating a situation where they will blame Iran and Syria for not stopping the violence provoked by the US war. With the US said to be planning to use nuclear weapons against Iran , they may use any number of tactics and psywar inventions, such as a 'False Flag' operation to convince the public that this was the right thing to do.

Unfortunately they may succeed, as the capacity of the US public to be fooled seems to be infinite. The mass media in the US has demonstrated that it is little more than a war propaganda arm of the Bush Administration - repeating every Bush lie as holy truth and suppressing any who would tell the real truth. Perhaps it is no wonder the American people appear to be so woefully ignorant and easily fooled, yet again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Iran sees no sign of change in US policy

Reuters, December 11, 2006

TEHRAN: Despite talk of a possible rapprochement between Tehran and Washington, Iran sees no sign of the United States changing its policy towards the Islamic state, Iran's Foreign Ministry has said.

The Bush administration has come under growing pressure to reach out to Iran to try to calm escalating violence in Iraq . A key recommendation of a bipartisan US report on how to tackle Iraq said Washington should engage Iran and Syria directly.

Iran 's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Saturday that Iran was prepared to talk to the United States about Iraq , but only once Washington had announced clear plans to withdraw its troops from the country.

On Sunday Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said Iran also wanted to see a clear indication that Washington had changed its attitude towards Iran .

" America should change its policies in practice," Hosseini told a weekly news conference.

" America 's policies towards Iran have been to extend sanctions for five more years, to freeze Iran 's assets and to put pressure on the (nuclear) negotiations.

"These are the policies that we have seen in practice from America , we have not witnessed a major change," he said.

Hosseini said the most important factor behind the violence in Iraq was the presence of foreign troops.

"We don't have any preconditions for helping the Iraqi government," he said. "What we emphasise is that the occupiers must leave the region . . . and then we will have security and stability and progress."