{"id":20051,"date":"2013-05-26T20:05:20","date_gmt":"2013-05-27T04:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=20051"},"modified":"2013-05-26T20:05:20","modified_gmt":"2013-05-27T04:05:20","slug":"iran-war-weekly-may-26-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/26\/iran-war-weekly-may-26-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran War Weekly | May 26, 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

Per Frank Brodhead’s Iran War Weekly<\/em>:<\/p>\n

While huge majorities of the US public oppose war with Iran or US intervention in Syria, Congress and the mainstream US media have stepped up the pressure for a more aggressive stance on both fronts. With these factors in mind, we might ask whether President Obama\u2019s speech this week at the National Defense University \u2013 in which he tried to dispose of liberal pressures on his policies re: drones, Guantanamo, and \u201cthe war on terror\u201d \u2013 should be read as a move away from a confrontation in the Middle East, or as an attempt to secure his liberal base before more intense confrontations with Iran and Syria.<\/p>\n

Following a series of generally unfruitful meetings regarding Iran\u2019s nuclear program, further diplomacy is now on pause until after Iran\u2019s presidential election, which will take place on June 14th. This week Iran\u2019s Guardian Council disqualified the two presidential aspirants who might have challenged the policies of Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader and the ruling conservative circles; but the fact that the candidate who has emerged as favored to win has been Iran\u2019s chief nuclear negotiator may be significant in the future.
\n<\/p>\n

Towards Iran, the US Congress has now done everything but declare war. In the House this week, a committee reported out a bill that moved toward a full trade embargo \u2013 or economic war \u2013 against Iran; while by a vote of 99 to 0 the Senate passed a \u201csense of the Senate\u201d resolution essentially endorsing any military action Israel might take against Iran, and calling on the Obama administration to support whatever Israel does.<\/p>\n

Leading media outlets in the United States are also pushing hard for a more aggressive policy towards Iran, perhaps increasingly so. Several articles linked below illustrate this; the media\u2019s spinning of the latest report by the UN\u2019s IAEA on Iran\u2019s nuclear program is a model of news-as-propaganda. One reason for this may be the greater salience of Hezbollah, generally viewed in \u201cthe West\u201d as a proxy for Iran, in the fighting in Syria. While Hezbollah\u2019s role in the fighting is largely confined to areas of importance to Hezbollah (the Lebanon-Syrian border) and Shi\u2019ism (a shrine desecrated earlier by Opposition forces), Hezbollah\u2019s historic conflict with Israel and its designation by the United States (and perhaps soon by the EU) as a \u201cterrorist\u201d organization have added a new element to the internationalization of Syria\u2019s civil war. As this weekend\u2019s news suggests, the war is well on its way to spilling over into Lebanon.<\/p>\n

Once again I would like to thank those who you who have forwarded this newsletter or linked it on your sites. Please read the rest of this issue of Iran War Weekly at WarIsACrime.org<\/a><\/em>. If you would like to receive the IWW mailings, please send an email to fbrodhead@aol.com. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Per Frank Brodhead’s Iran War Weekly: While huge majorities of the US public oppose war with Iran or US intervention in Syria, Congress and the mainstream US media have stepped up the pressure for a more aggressive stance on both fronts. With these factors in mind, we might ask whether President Obama\u2019s speech this week […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-20051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-iran"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20051"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20056,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20051\/revisions\/20056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20051"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=20051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}