War Games Before Diplomacy
As the BBC reported, the USS Abraham Lincoln—a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier—was tracked by 'BBC Verify' near Iran, alongside fighter jets, ostensibly ahead of fresh talks. This visual flexing of military muscle, a staple of US foreign policy in the region, frames any potential diplomacy not as a meeting of equals but as a parley under duress. This is not a new gambit. In 2003, as the US
prepared for its invasion of Iraq, discussions of 'WMDs' were consistently accompanied by massive military build-ups, ultimately paving the way for a war that cost trillions and destabilized the entire region. Similarly, after the 1953 CIA-orchestrated coup that overthrew Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, US military aid to the Shah's regime ballooned, ensuring a
compliant, if dictatorial, ally. The message then, as now, is clear: our terms, or else. Such deployments demonstrate a fundamental double standard in international relations. When Russia conducts military exercises near Ukraine, it is universally denounced as 'aggression' and 'provocation' by Western media and governments. Yet, when the United States, thousands of miles from its border, positions
an armada capable of launching hundreds of sorties and carrying thousands of troops directly adjacent to Iran, it is framed as a precautionary, almost routine, measure – never an act of intimidation or a violation of sovereignty. The pattern is consistent: military posturing by the global hegemon is normalized, while similar actions by sovereign nations are demonized. Readers should understand