Robert Parry: The Bomb-Bomb-Iran 'Parlor Game'

[laststeamtrain]

consortiumnews.com

The Bomb-Bomb-Iran 'Parlor Game'

By Robert Parry
April 2, 2010

Normally, if two countries with powerful nuclear arsenals were openly musing about attacking a third country over mere suspicions that it might want to join the nuclear club, we’d tend to sympathize with the non-nuclear underdog as the victim of bullying and possible aggression.

You might think that – unless you were told that the two nuclear-armed countries are Israel and the United States and the non-nuclear country is Iran. Then, different rules apply, especially it seems in leading American news outlets like the New York Times.

In what reads like a replay of the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the Times and other major U.S. news media appear onboard for war, again happy to make the likely aggressors the “victims,” and to turn the prospect of a bloody conflict in a Muslim country into a parlor game.

<snip>

The Times’ biased approach toward the Iranian nuclear issue is underscored further by the Times’ refusal to mention that the presumed “victim” in this story, Israel, possesses one of the world’s most sophisticated nuclear arsenals yet has neither publicly admitted that it has nukes nor signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Indeed, it is the fact that Iran is a treaty signatory -- and renounces any interest in building a nuclear bomb -- that is the basis for IAEA inspections of its facilities and for the legal requirement that it disclose new facilities, such as the one at Qum.

But the through-the-looking-glass quality of the Times coverage is that it portrays Israel as the “victim,” although it is a rogue nuclear-weapons state and refuses to abide by international inspections or other safeguards, restrictions that Iran accepts.

<more>

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/040210.html

[ConcernedCanuk]

1. Israel - "it is a rogue nuclear-weapons state and refuses to abide by international inspections

.
.
.

"it is a rogue nuclear-weapons state and refuses to abide by international inspections or other safeguards"

am I supposed to respect Israel?

Israel attacked Egypt in the 40's without provocation

Israel has been the most aggressive nation with it's neighbours in my lifetime

but then again, MY neighbor continues to be the most aggressive military power in the World - since my birth I figure . . .

"it is a rogue nuclear-weapons state and refuses to abide by international inspections or other safeguards"

hmm

sounds like my neighbour just south of me

(sigh)