Saturday, February 13, 2010

Talking up war


By Marwan Bishara in Imperium on February 13th, 2010
Al-Jazeera

"....Repetitive Israeli, Arab and American bellicose statements are banalising war and paving the way towards violent self-fulfilled prophecies.

Paradoxically, ominous statements aimed at deterring perceived threats are instead creating a dangerous environment of conflict.

In the process, the fault lines of war are being drawn and redrawn by political expediency as a vicious cycle of menacing statements and counter statements take a life of their own in the media and public sphere.

And wars that are in no way imminent are being made inevitable because of populist, inflammatory and irresponsible escalation of threats over the last few weeks......

Meanwhile, certain American and Western officials and pundits continue to threaten Iran with imminent Israeli attack if it does not comply with their conditions.

However, Tehran has made it clear that any attack by Israel will be seen as having American complicity and that it will respond accordingly......

While US officials have used the Israeli menace to nudge members of the UN Security Council to take action and impose more sanctions against Iran, in reality, the Obama administration has been restraining Israel from taking any military action.

Two of the leading security officials in the Obama administration, Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General James Jones, the national security advisor, have discouraged Israel's use of force and discounted any military attack against Iran as "very, very destabilising"........"

No comments: