The Washington Post - An assessment by U.S. spy agencies concludes that Iran is prepared to launch terrorist attacks inside the United States, highlighting new risks as the Obama administration escalates pressure on Tehran to halt its alleged pursuit of an atomic bomb.
In congressional testimony Tuesday, U.S. intelligence officials indicated that Iran has crossed a threshold in its adversarial relationship with the United States. While Iran has long been linked to attacks on American targets overseas, U.S. officials said they see troubling significance in Tehran’s alleged role in a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington last year.
U.S. officials said they have seen no intelligence to indicate that Iran is actively plotting attacks on U.S. soil. But Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. said the thwarted plot “shows that some Iranian officials — probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime.”
The warning about Iran’s more aggressive stance was included in written testimony that Clapper submitted to Congress on Tuesday as part of the intelligence community’s annual assessment of the nation’s most serious security threats.
Hmmm... perceiving a threat from the other side and thinking about preempting them. Gee, who does that sound like? See the global military precedent Bush's doctrine of preemption and his Iraq War have set? He has legitimized preemption and now America's enemies are using it as a justification for their aggression.
Meanwhile, the establishment is rattling sabers at Iran for developing its nuclear capabilities and warmongering because of the perceived threat that Iran poses, so ultimately both sides are threatening the other one because they feel threatened, which is just a vicious cycle with no rational cause nor end in sight that doesn't involve conflict or a President Ron Paul.
It's like two close friends who have been quarreling for ten years and not speaking to each other, but neither can remember what the fight was actually about. Good God, is Washington's foreign policy that petty and small-minded? Are the cheerleaders for war in both Tehran and Washington the equivalent of two bitter, old, feuding ladies who are fighting for no reason other than they are fighting?
And is anyone else curious about the timing of the most recent wave of warmongering against Iran, which coincides nicely with the deployment of this monstrous "mother ship" to the Middle East? A war might be just what the president needs as extra insurance to win the general election in November.
Wes Messamore,
Editor in Chief, THL
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