Exclusive: For months, Israeli hardliners and their neocon allies in the United States have been beating the war drums over Iran. But apparent resistance to war from President Obama has brought a softening of rhetoric in Israel, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern…
Category: Intelligence
Obama Signals Israel on Iran War
President Obama postponed a military exercise with Israel out of concern that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was drawing the U.S. into war with Iran, Gareth Porter and Jim Lobe reported. Obama took the step despite pressure from Republicans and Congress to line up behind Israel’s desires.
The Gulag That Is Gitmo
Still under powerful neocon influence and fearing the old “soft on terror” label Congress has blocked President Obama’s efforts to close “the gulag at Guantánamo,” forcing Obama to retreat from his promise to Americans and an outraged world, as Marjorie Cohn…
Herding Americans to War with Iran
Exclusive: The murder of a fifth Iranian scientist on the streets of Tehran had all the earmarks of an Israeli-sponsored assassination. The killing also worsened tensions at a moment when the momentum toward war with Iran seems unstoppable, reports Robert…
The Enduring Shame of Guantanamo
On President Obama’s second full day in office, he promised to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, but then encountered fierce resistance from Congress, leading to a humiliating retreat underscored now by the prison’s tenth anniversary — and by renewed worldwide…
Neocons Dream Up Scary Iran Scenarios
As American neocons continue to walk the United States toward another war in the Middle East, this time with Iran, they have been laboring to come up with rationales, including alarmist scenarios of what a nuclear-armed Iran might do geopolitically,…
Is Iran-Nuke Fear Realistic?
As U.S.-Iran tensions gain a dangerous momentum with an Iranian court just giving a death sentence to an alleged CIA spy neocon-dominated Washington has jumped on the bandwagon toward war. But the Independent Institute’s Charles V. Peña says the underlying…
How Propaganda Targets Iran
America’s Founders saw press freedom as a key check on government dishonesty, but today’s media has become a powerful ally of official lies by funneling sophisticated propaganda especially in support of war, as Lawrence Davidson notes about the hysteria over Iran.
Occupying Fears About Iran
In an election year, as many U.S. politicians compete to out-macho one another over fighting a new war with Iran, there is little self-reflection on whether the American side bears its own share of guilt in this troubled bilateral relationship, as…
A Betrayal of the Founders
Exclusive: Though voicing “serious reservations” about encroachments on civil liberties in a military authorization bill, President Obama signed the law anyway to avoid a nasty veto fight with Congress. But ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern says courage, not timidity, is what’s…