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Erroneous reporting by PBS and Washington Post (WaPo), by Peter Hart,  FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), Jan. 10, 2012:

Herding Americans to War with Iran, by Robert Parry, Consortiumnews, January 12, 2012: http://consortiumnews.com/2012/01/12/herding-americans-to-war-with-iran/  “The murder of a fifth Iranian scientist on the streets of Tehran had all the earmarks of an Israeli-sponsored assassination. The killing also worsened tensions at a moment when the momentum toward war with Iran seems unstoppable, …  For many Americans the progression toward war with Iran has the feel of cattle being herded from the stockyard into the slaughterhouse, pressed steadily forward with no turning back, until some guy shoots a bolt into your head. … Another front in Israel’s cold war against Iran appears to be the propaganda war being fought inside the United States, where the still-influential neoconservatives are deploying their extensive political and media resources to shut off possible routes toward a peaceful settlement, while building support for future military strikes against Iran. Fitting with that propaganda strategy, the Washington Post’s editorial page, which is essentially the neocons’ media flagship, published a lead editorial on Wednesday (Jan. 12) urging harsher and harsher sanctions against Iran and ridiculing anyone who favored reduced tensions. … The Post recommended instead “that every effort must be made to intensify sanctions” and to stop Iranian sale of oil anywhere in the world. In other words, continue to ratchet up the tensions and cut off hopes for genuine negotiations. … The escalating neocon demands for an ever-harder U.S. line against Iran — and Israel’s apparent campaign of killings and sabotage inside Iran — come at a time when President Barack Obama and some of his inner circle appear to be looking again for ways to defuse tensions. But the Post’s editorial – and similar neocon propaganda – have made clear that any move toward reconciliation will come with a high political price tag. … Obama also has faced resistance within his own administration, especially from neocon-lites such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. … The Turkish-Brazilian initiative revived a plan first advanced by Obama in 2009 – and the effort had the President’s private encouragement. But after Ahmadinejad accepted the deal, Secretary Clinton and other U.S. hardliners switched into overdrive to kill the swap and insist instead on imposing harsher sanctions against Iran…. So the question now is: Will the President of the United States take his place amid the herd of cattle getting steered into the slaughterhouse of another war?”

Iran embargo gathers support in Asia, Europe, Parisa Hafezi, Reuters, Jan 12 2012: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/12/iran-idUSL6E8CC12F20120112  “TEHRAN, Jan 12 (Reuters) - U.S. allies in Asia and Europe voiced support on Thursday for Washington's drive to cut Iran's oil exports, though fear of self-inflicted economic pain is curbing enthusiasm for an embargo that a defiant Iran says will not halt its nuclear programme. … A high-level team from the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is expected to visit Iran around Jan. 28. … Japan … pledged to take concrete action to cut its oil imports from Iran. … Korean minister … “it was too early to say” if Seoul would reduce oil imports. … China, the biggest buy of Iranian crude, gave no hint on Wednesday (Jan. 11) of giving ground to U.S. demands.   India faces pressure to cut crude purchases from Iran, … The European Union is more sympathetic to U.S. pressure on Iran. … Firms in Iran’s three biggest EU oil customers, Italy, Spain and Greece … have extended existing purchase(s).”

U.S. Warns Israel on Strike - Officials Lobby Against Attack on Iran as Military Leaders Bolster Defenses, By ADAM ENTOUS, JULIAN E. BARNES and JAY SOLOMON, Wall Street Journal, January 14, 2012: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204409004577159202556087074.html?mod=WSJ_World_LEFTSecondNews  “WASHINGTON—U.S. defense leaders are increasingly concerned that Israel is preparing to take military action against Iran, over U.S. objections, and have stepped up contingency planning to safeguard U.S. facilities in the region in case of a conflict. … Insults, taunts and threats between Israel and Iran have been heating up in recent months:

Preventing a Nuclear Iran, Peacefully, By SHIBLEY TELHAMI and STEVEN KULL, New York Times,  January 15, 2012: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/16/opinion/preventing-a-nuclear-iran-peacefully.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print “Washington - Many people assume that Israel must choose between letting Iran develop nuclear weapons or attacking before it gets the bomb. But this is a false choice. There is a third option: working toward a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East. And it is more feasible than most assume. … Most important, when asked whether it would be better for both Israel and Iran to have the bomb, or for neither to have it, 65 percent of Israeli Jews said neither. And a remarkable 64 percent favored the idea of a nuclear-free zone, even when it was explained that this would mean Israel giving up its nuclear weapons. … Israeli security experts — the Mossad chief, Tamir Pardo, a former Mossad chief, Efraim Halevy, and a former military chief of staff, Dan Halutz — all recently declared that a nuclear Iran would not pose an existential threat to Israel. While full elimination of nuclear weapons is improbable without peace, starting the inevitably long and arduous process of negotiations toward that end is vital.” (Note: Shibley Telhami is a professor of government at Univ. of Maryland, and director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes.)

Iran Charts Complex Strategy for Potential War with U.S., Ehsan Mehrab, InsideIran.org, January 16th, 2012: http://www.insideiran.org/featured/iran-charts-complex-strategy-for-potential-war-with-u-s/ “Iran and the United States could be closer to a military confrontation now than at any other time since the 1979 revolution. According to my numerous encounters with Iranian military officials, Iranian officials assume a military confrontation with the United States will be a decisive and quick operation. Therefore, Iran is planning to respond with a war of attrition and sabotage in the region and across the globe.”

 

WASHINGTON'S CRIMES AGAINST IRAN, By Peter Symonds, WSWS, January 16, 2012
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jan2012/pers-j16.shtml  ”The murder of Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan on January 11 is further testimony to the criminality of U.S. foreign policy.  Despite the official denials of the Obama administration, the assassination bears all the hallmarks of an operation carried out by the Israel intelligence agency, Mossad, in league with the U.S. …  The killing of Roshan underlines the fact that the U.S. will stop at nothing as it seeks to destabilise the Iranian regime and replace it with a more pliable alternative.  Washington’s predatory activities in the Middle East are being driven by the vast erosion of the global economic position of the United States.  As it has already done in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, the U.S. is using its military muscle to undermine the economic and strategic interests of its main European and Asian rivals. … The American and international working class must oppose any war, covert or overt, against Iran on the basis of a socialist and internationalist strategy directed at abolishing the crisis-ridden capitalist system, which can offer nothing but plummeting living standards and the slide towards a third world war.”

Think Before Acting on Iran - America is once again stumbling toward war. If we’ve learned anything from the past, it’s that we’d better debate Iran policy before, not after, the fighting begins. Leslie H. Gelb, Jan. 17, 2012, The Daily Beast: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/16/leslie-h-gelb-think-before-acting-on-iran.html “We’re doing this terrible thing all over again. As before, we’re letting a bunch of ignorant, sloppy-thinking politicians and politicized foreign-policy experts draw “red line” ultimatums. As before, we’re letting them quick-march us off to war. This time their target is Iran. And heaven knows Iran’s leaders are bad guys capable of doing dangerous things. But if we’ve learned anything, anything at all, from plunging into war in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, it is this: we must have a public scrubbing of fighting rhetoric before, not after, the war begins. … In every major war of the last decades, the public assumed the government and the experts knew what they were talking about and proposing to do. But after a year or so, that faith collapsed. … For our own sake, don’t let this happen again. Let’s have carefully planned and extended public hearings on the pros and cons of war with Iran. … Yes, yes, I realize full well that a public pretrial is far from a perfect or even a good solution. But I cannot think of another way to slow down our familiar passive march toward war. … I realize full well that a public pretrial is far from a perfect or even a good solution. But I cannot think of another way to slow down our familiar passive march toward war.” (Note: Leslie H. Gelb is author of Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy, and president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.)