Why on earth should Iran cooperate?  They have every reason to hold on to what they have, lest the rapacious West steal what plutonium they have. Iran is damned by the warring countries either way, who are never satisfied until they own and control everything. Whether it’s warfare by subversion, bombing, military invasion, chemical warfare, or starvation and deprivation (aka economic sanctions), the West means Iran no good, and will make up any and every excuse to justify their loathsome plans.

“Obama Warns of Iran Sanctions”?  Who, exactly, is Obama warning?  Certainly not the Iranians who know all too well that it is the United States, the world’s largest purveyor of weapons of mass destruction, and the leading rogue, lawless fundamentalist terror-state that is most pre-disposed to use such weapons, that is most determined to maintain the “position of disparity” George Kennan wrote about when he urged that the United States, with “50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its population” to “dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming,” “dispense with the aspiration to “be liked” or to be regarded as the repository of a high-minded international altruism,” which should “cease [talking] about vague and …unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization,” but instead “deal in straight power concepts” where “[t]he less we are hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.”  The Iranians already know, and have known since at least 1953 when the US overthrew a democratically-elected government and installed and supported a brutal military dictatorship, that the West in general, and the US in particular, is a clear and present danger to any real peace in the area.  Witness to the hypocrisy the US displays in its dealings with Israel, coupled with the treatment that the owners of resources coveted by multi-national and increasingly stateless corporations receive at the hands of the world’s most dangerous terrorist state, the Iranians have no need of warning.  Given empire’s endless practice of hypocrisy, of talking peace while engaging in war and despoliation, it is no wonder that Iran is slated to be the next victim of the Western War of Terror.  After all, “The real threat to U.S. military power is nuclear proliferation, because if every little country has nuclear weapons it becomes very tricky for the United States to engage in military action.” (Immanuel Wallerstein)

Who is it that is really being warned here?  I believe that it is the American population, those whose sons and daughters will be sent to die for corporate profit, whose wages and standards of living will have to undergo further decline, whose liberties will have to be further restricted, whose taxes will have to continue to be squandered to feed the insatiable Pentagon and its coterie of for-profit weapons manufacturers, that is being warned.

“Rogue states that are internally free - and the U.S. is at the outer limits in this respect - must rely on the willingness of the educated classes to produce accolades and tolerate or deny terrible crimes.” (Noam Chomsky)

“...the proposal by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Iran should send 75% of its low-enriched uranium to Russia and France, where it would be turned into fuel for medical research.” “Iran must act now to restore confidence in its overall programme,” a statement said. (All this, with Israel breathing down their neck?)
  Can you imagine such a proposal and threat presented to Israel?  Yet Israel’s nuclear “threat” is the main reason why Iran thinks it needs a nuclear “threat” too.
  Everybody knows the logical and historical results of “threats.”  More threats and less understanding, less reconciliation, more anger, more propaganda, more posturing, more weapons, more wars. 
  With the help of countries less obsessed with rigid military power, can’t we somehow get out of the dead end of threat and counter-threat and move toward fair-minded agreements reached through arbitration?  Or is that too flexible?  Too non-belligerent? Too reasonable?  Too humane? Too innovative?  Not “masculine”  enough?  Not intimidating enough?
  What is the hang-up here that prevents sane solutions to problems? How much of it is lazy media vocabulary that keeps stirring the pot of conflict?

It’s all talk.  US Sanctions against Iran would have to be unilateral because neither China nor Russia would participate in an embargo.  The US would have to set up a naval blockade and that won’t happen.  So it’s all talk, talk, talk.

Lets look back at 2007 and 2008.

Its obvious now that the democratic processes of primaries and caucuses within the Democratic Party were subverted.  Democrats who tried to participate in these processes were largely given a choice between Obama and Hillary.  We can see now that this was a fake choice because either choice led to the same outcome.

Obama flat out lied to the Democratic voters.  He pretended to be a left-ward alternative to the pro-corporate, conservative Clintonism that everyone knew from the 90’s. 

Its striking in terms of this article, because Iran was one of the areas where Obama was lying about what he’d do as President to create the myth that he was an alternative to Hillary.

With hindsight, it is now obvious that the entire process of the Democratic party pretending to let the voters choose the direction of the party was a total fraud.  We now can see the reality that no matter which Democrat the people chose, the Democrats were going to rule with exactly the same cast of Clintonistas in high office and follow the exact same policies that the Clintons and the Bushes had been following for the last 20 years. 

Vote Obama or Vote Hillary .. .it was your choice. And it made absolutely no difference which you chose.  The whole titanic Clinton vs Obama struggle that was on the corporate TV sets for so long was all a total fraud.  Well, I guess it was important personally to Obama and Hillary, as it decided which got the title of President and which got the title of SOS.  But to the rest of us, we might as well have been watching college basketball.

Note:  Kucinich was presumably the obvious exception in the field that might have led to real change.  But the Democratic party had that well under control with their super-delegates and the rules that made having tens of millions of dollars in corporate money a mandatory condition to a successful campaign.  Democratic officials made it certain and clear that Kucinich could never win.  And now we know that no matter who did win, the result was going to be exactly the same.

The only part that surprises me is that there aren’t a lot of pissed off Democrats who are mad at the way that their control over their party has been stolen from them by such lies and deceptions.

Oh, great. Obama just groveled a little more abjectly to Israel. So what’s new?

Another day, another victory for Israel in its continuing quest to force America
into a war against Iran.

But of course, Obama simply must continue to threaten Iran, because a lack of
zeal in fighting the phony “Iranian threat” is one of the many definitions of “anti-
Semitism” in America these days.

hello. focusing on Iran, i understand a position of non-involvement to allow preconceived notions to be exonerated or disproved; but to publicly proclaim you are now following a policy recommended months ago by allies, when time was of the essence ... underscores whose side you have really been on all along- without ever having had the balls to voice your opinion. this is a very insecure boy man in office.

The Obama has turned out to be one humiliating disappointment. Yeah, I voted
for President Dumb-ass. Like there were “choices” for circumspect consideration.
Yeah, threaten Iran President ‘Sanctions’. Iran is shaking in their Persian boots no
doubt. What the hell will you do when Iran closes the Straits of Hormuz? Criminy,
Bush was bad enough and now we’ve got Bush-with-a-nice-tan!

After all, sanctions worked so very well in the case of Iraq. We will restrict foodstuffs, medicines, cause much hardship among those who do not make the decisions in Iran, and little to none among those who do.

That Iraq has the right to produce uranium for peaceful purpose matters not. That we seek, basically, to bully and browbeat a nation that has been on the receiving end of constant threats and allegations for a number of years seems to be ignored. The threats that might cause one to consider arming rather than disarming I would think.

Its all such bullshit after all. Thank you President Obama for carrying on the Bush legacy we all loathed.