Self-Defense? Or a Coordinated Campaign of Aggression?
What Rubio, and the corporate media parroting his lines, conveniently omit is the long, documented history of Western aggression that precedes any Iranian response. This isn't a spontaneous act of self-preservation. This is a carefully orchestrated sequence of events, designed to further destabilize a region already reeling from perennial interference. The recent deployment of the USS Dwight D.
Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group, carrying some 90 aircraft and 5,000 personnel, to the Eastern Mediterranean isn't a defensive posture, it's a co-belligerent force supporting Israeli military operations. Remember the 1967 USS Liberty incident, where Israeli forces attacked a US Navy technical research ship, killing 34 American servicemen, in an effort to draw the US into its regional conflicts?
The parallels to current dynamics, where US naval assets are explicitly intertwined with Israeli aggression, are chillingly precise. The narrative of Iranian provocation is a worn-out trope that ignores 45 years of crippling sanctions, constant regime-change operations since the 1953 CIA coup, and the betrayal of the JCPOA, not to mention Washington's continued support for the Saudi-led war in
Yemen and the daily murder of Palestinians and Lebanese. Sanctions alone have cost the Iranian economy an estimated $1 trillion since 1979. Attacking Iran, whether directly or through proxy, during ongoing negotiations, while simultaneously strangling Cubans and providing endless arms to Israel, isn't about safety. It's about maintaining hegemony, regardless of international law or the immense