In 1953 the United States and United Kingdom overthrew the democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. The catalyst was the Iranian government’s decision to exert more sovereign control over the extraction, export and revenues from its domestic energy industry, which British Petroleum and the UK opposed…
…After Israeli influence over Iran ended, Israel’s U.S. lobby AIPAC began working to precipitate a U.S.-Iran military confrontation in order to improve Israel’s strategic position. The most recent of these efforts included:
1. Lobbying to create the U.S. Treasury Department’s “Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence” unit in the aftermath of 9/11 to wage U.S. economic warfare against Iran. The unit has until recently been led by a string of Zionist ideologues. See “Treasury Sanctions Foreigners for Israel” Antiwar.com, August 30, 2018.
2. Stealing Department of Defense secrets in concert with convicted spy for Israel Col. Lawrence Franklin. AIPAC intended to channel the secrets to the Washington Post in 2004 to convince Americans that it was time for troops fighting in Iraq to pivot to Iran. Though the Pentagon source was convicted, the two AIPAC officials involved in espionage escaped justice after a series of judicial contortions. See Congressmen Pressed Obama to Pardon Spy Lawrence Franklin Antiwar.com, November 27, 2017.
3. Demanding cyber-attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities under threat of Israeli military action, costing the U.S. billions of dollars, unintentionally unleashing sophisticated cyber weapons across global computer networks. See “Israel and the Trillion-Dollar 2005-2018 US Intelligence Budget” Antiwar.com, November 7, 2018.
4. Coordinated opposition to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) designed to provide transparency into Iran’s nuclear program and avert war. While Israel spied on negotiations, releasing them to U.S. operatives. AIPAC corralled mainstream Israel lobby opposition to the deal, and helped insert a “poison pill” requiring proactive action in the form of a presidential waiver to keep the deal from expiring. President Trump withdrew from the deal to thunderous Israel lobby applause in May of 2018.
5. Demanding the U.S. designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organization. AIPAC began demanding sanctions on the IRGC through the Treasury Department in 2007. The April 2019 Trump administration formal designation of IRGC cleared the way for the U.S. to assassinate Iranian leaders as part of the “War on Terror.”
Israel and its lobby will likely labor mightily to keep U.S.-Iran hostilities going, while attempting to avoid blame for the conflict they labored so mightily to precipitate. This will have many ancillary benefits for Israel and its lobby. Armed conflict will empower additional Israeli demands for U.S. foreign aid. Israel has received more than $282.4 billion in unclassified aid since 1948. Conflict will boost the prospects of Israeli military contractors in Israel and those streaming into the U.S. under various state subsidy programs. Most of all, the conflict will allow Israel to divert world attention away from its brutal ongoing ethnic cleansing of the native populations in Palestine and ever more robust systematized apartheid. Report page