Iran Vows Response to US Attack, Pentagon Forgets Who Attacked First
Al-Monitor dutifully reports that Iran 'vows to strike back' if the U.S. attacks, framing this as an unprovoked escalation from Tehran. One might wonder why a sovereign nation would ever warn against foreign military strikes. Perhaps it's because the U.S. has a rather storied history of, oh, say, orchestrating a coup against Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953,
or supporting Saddam Hussein during the devastating Iran-Iraq War? (That's 'historical context' you won't find on cable news.) This narrative is as fresh as leftover bathwater, echoing every 'Iran is reckless' headline since the 1979 revolution. The U.S. has long maintained military bases across the Middle East, effectively surrounding Iran, but any Iranian response to potential aggression is
presented as inherent 'belligerence.' It’s a remarkable feat of narrative control: the state that initiated countless regime change operations and maintains a global military footprint is perpetually the 'victim' of defensive warnings. How many times must a nation be threatened before its self-defense is no longer labeled 'vowing to strike back' but simply 'existing'?