US 'Pressure' on Iran: A Familiar Script for Manufactured War
The chattering classes and their media megaphones are buzzing about Iran's 'scramble' to shape an endgame amidst growing US military pressure. They depict it as a nation on the back foot, reacting to Washington's reasonable demands. This narrative conveniently glosses over the fact that similar 'pressures' often involve carrier groups, B-52 deployments, and thinly veiled threats of war, all framed
as defensive posturing against an 'aggressive' Iran. This particular episode feels like something we've seen before. It echoes the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq War, where the New York Times dutifully amplified fabricated intelligence on WMDs, leading to catastrophic results. Now, we are told Iran is the problem, despite the United States unilaterally abandoning the internationally recognized Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018. Iran, for its part, adhered to the deal for 14 months after the US withdrawal, an inconvenient truth for those eager to paint them as rogue. The media fails to connect the current 'pressure' to a 71-year history beginning with the 1953 CIA-orchestrated coup against Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. That act set the stage
for 45 years of continuous sanctions, constant regime-change operations, and the demonization of an entire nation. While US military spending hovers around a trillion dollars annually, a 2019 report by the Center for International Policy highlighted that Iran's entire military budget was estimated at a mere $20 billion, demonstrating a staggering cost asymmetry that makes any notion of Iranian