Tehran tells Trump: “destroy us, and we destroy Israel”

I’m kicking myself. In my rushed post two days ago, the first of two on the subject, I gave three reasons why I will not cheer for regime change in Iran:

• Our politicians and corrupt media have every interest in misrepresenting the situation …
• The anger of Iranians is a direct result of US imposed sanctions which have crippled the economy and were designed to cause lethal suffering … 
• It is stupid or cowardly or both for Westerners to voice anger over the misdeeds, real or concocted, of the ayatollahs in Tehran while doing nothing about the crimes of empire. ¹

How could I have missed the most compelling reason of all? That the protests on the streets of Iranian cities – much larger ones in support of the Iranian government  dutifully ignored by our systemically corrupt media – have been instigated, Maidan 2014 style, by elements under CIA and Mossad control?

How do I know? I don’t as a matter of smoking-gun fact but do know that:

• such a thesis is consistent with CIA dark ops and NGO backed ‘colour revolutions’ in the Americas, Central Asia, Ukraine, Georgia – and above all in the Middle East; ^{2 3}

• the regimes in Washington and Tel Aviv have compelling motives to resume hot war on the Islamic Republic but, as shown by the abortive decapitation strikes in June, have not given up on the idea of Tehran as a “house of cards” easily toppled from within given a push from without;
• Alastair Crooke, who is adamant on the point, is for my money the most informed and erudite Western commentator on the Middle East. Unusually well connected, versed in Arabic, Persian and Judaist culture, this former British diplomat and MI6 officer presents the case for US/Israeli interference before considering how, with the street violence on his assessment now running out of steam, Tehran will respond in the highly likely event of another US-Israeli attack.

Note, the video – an interview with Col. Daniel Davis ⁴ – is sixty-eight minutes long. Alastair Crooke, understated and unwordy, is always worth watching in full but those pushed for time might consider this twenty-one minute cut-down.

But the brevity comes at a price. The question of CIA/Mossad having orchestrated the violence (mainly in the streets of smaller cities while far larger pro government rallies, says Mr Crooke, in Tehran, Mashad, Tabriz and elsewhere are ignored by Western media) is dropped. Instead the discussion focuses on the two other questions: what drivers in Israeli and US domestic politics make a new attack highly likely, and how will Iran respond? ⁵

* * *

1. In the follow-up post – They who damn Tehran AND Washington – I featured Caitlin Johnstone calling out the ‘phony neutrality’ of Leftists who “pretend they live in an imaginary fantasy land where the Iranian government could be overthrown without benefitting the US empire”.
2. ‘Such a thesis’ – of CIA dark ops – also falls too far outside corporate media’s Overton Window to be openly discussed until years have elapsed, at which point journalists will garner Pulitzers and plaudits for their fearless investigative work! I’m minded of the words quoted by a US journalist and widely thought to be those of Bush aide, Karl Rove. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you [journalists] will be left to just study what we do”
3. Yet again I’ll borrow from Disgusted of Melbourne. In her post today, Caitlin Johnstone points out that “the regime change supporter’s favorite trick is to pretend the people in the targeted country are an ideological monolith. All Iranians hate their government, all Venezuelans wanted freedom from Maduro, etc. They do this constantly.”  Indeed they do. And we fall for it every time: even those of us who, as with advertising, think we’ve ‘seen through it’ and are therefore immune. But propaganda, whether of commercial or political stripe, does most of its work subliminally, on the unconscious mind. All the more so when amplified and reinforced by ideologically saturated world views imbibed cradle to grave not just from news media but every facet of our culture.
4. Daniel Davis, a retired US Army colonel and foreign policy analyst, was one of the first military officers to publicly criticize the war in Afghanistan. As such he joins others of his rank – Larry Wilkerson and Karen Kwiatkowski spring to mind, as does former Swiss army colonel Jacques Baud, now ‘sanctioned’ by the EU for voicing Wrong Thoughts; i.e. heretically prioritising evidence over official narrative – on the Ukraine proxy war. There are too many such gamekeepers turned poacher for coincidence. Colonel is the highest rank before officers become, ipso facto, politicians and as such compromised.
5. Minutes after posting I had an alert from reader Dave Hansell of a third podcast featuring Alastair Crooke. Unlike the two versions posted here, with Daniel Davis, I haven’t seen the one with Judge Napolitano but it would be good to have a shorter version of Alastair giving his reasoning for assuming Mossad/CIA orchestration.