War's New Script

Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu now seems out of control. The 12-day Iran-Israel war, backed by Big Daddy US, proves that

- Amir Ali

THE case for attacking Iran had all the elements of déja vu. It seemed so much like 2003 all over again, except that the build-up to the invasion of Iraq that year in March was more prolonged as the US and the UK initially sought UN sanctions, even as massive demonstrations took place across the world. There was the infamous ‘sexed up’ and ‘dodgy dossier’ about the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that was the big fat lie used to sell the war and which contained portions from an Oxford University PhD thesis plagiarised by the British government that Colin Powell, then US Secretary of State, speaking in the UN Security Council, referred to as ‘fine’ evidence.

All this happened well within living memory. One of the most famous quotes of Marx is about the repetition of history, the first time as ‘tragedy’ and the second time as ‘farce’. History now recurs with sickening frequency, each time ever more farcically. Back in 2003, when Iraqi WMD became the casus belli, one of the weapons inspectors from the 1990s who figured prominently was a man called Scott Ritter who dismissed claims of Iraqi WMD. In a 2006 book Target Iran, Ritter said that if there was going to be a war in Iran, it would be ‘made in Israel’.

Israel is not the typical client state doing the US’ bidding in the Middle East. Israel keeps proving to be the proverbial tail that wags the American dog. The cause for this twisted neurological inversion of the Israeli extremity prevailing over the US imperial central nervous system is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the larger Israeli lobby, comprehensively explained by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in their 2007 book The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy.