Is an attack on Iran imminent?

There's a lot of buzz in various circles that Bush's recent speech on Iraq revealed an intent to soon attack Iran. Actually the Bush regime has been wanting and planning to attack Iran for quite some time--according to State Department insiders--but Bush and gang seem to have been so far scared off by their total loss of credibility and public support over Iraq. While the mainstream media is pretty much downplaying the now public saber rattling on Iran, voices as diverse as progressive journalist Robert Perry and rightist Pat Buchanan as well as the Independent newspaper in England think this is serious business. One would suggest that Bush's sending a third aircraft carrier battle group to the region has to be taken more seriously than the media or the Congress seems to take the situation. What is particularly ominous over the past week or so is the leak or intentional release by Israel of a plan to attack Iran's research sites with "bunker buster" low yield nuclear weapons. This may of course be nothing more than a psychological technique, intended to terrorize and confuse the Iranian government. However, Perry has suggested that with Bush and Co stymied on their own intent to act, they might be giving Israel the green light. If the Israelis or US do attack Iran, whether after a fabricated incident or just because they can, that action will not only kill lots of innocent people and put the Iranian public (which has shown a serious interest in secularizing the Iranian government)back into the camp of their Ayatollah leadership and stir the fires of anti-Americanism and of expanded war (That much is not new). But it has even larger repercussions because of an unanswered question: would an attack on Iran further consolidate opposition to George Bush's insane plans to divide conquer the Middle East or might it have the opposite affect of bolstering the flagging and failing presidency. I have no crystal ball, but I offer that if Israel attacks Iran, the Democrats, especially some of the most liberal Democrats will support the action. Their unfailing support for whatever aggression Israel perpetrates has been proven over and over again. In a speech to AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee)a year or more ago anti-Iraq War California Senator Barbara Boxer stated that the Iraq war is in no way related to the Israel-Palestine crisis. The latter she said is not about Palestinian rights nor about the Middle east in general, but only about Israel's right to exist. This widespread liberal Democrat outlook, blind to Israeli aggression, predicts that the Democrats in general--and the liberals in the Senate in particular--will back Bush and Israel if they start a war against Iran. The unpredictable consequences of that type of a new and united front for war in the US polity, emmanating from a US and Israel coordinated action, could plunge us into world war, even if that was not Bush's intention.

So what does this have to do with media criticism? The answer is not difficult. As Retro Poll has shown in several polls the public, because the corporate media in the US has conspired to keep that public so ignorant of the real conditions that exist on the ground for the Palestinian people--the conditions of apartheid, blantant robery of land and resources, and unrelenting terror against their lives and livelihoods, preventing them from even keeping their homes and farmlands or an economy--that U.S. public will continue to be too confused by such events to react forcefully against an expanding war, one that the media may describe as unrelated to US regional designs and be represented in the media as a "defensive" action by Israel against a potential nuclear threat by maniacs who simply want to kill all Jews. The problem we face regarding this situation, even if the worst does not occur, is how can the actual relationship of dominance of Israel over the Palestinian people be forced into the public discourse in the corporate Media?

vox populi