The West sees Iran in a new way

Thursday, 2 February 2023 — Indian Punchline

by M. K. BHADRAKUMAR

A drone exploding over a Defense Ministry workshop in the central Iranian city of Isfahan, on January 29, 2023

The Wall Street Journal reported from Tehran on Wednesday that “a lethal crackdown and an ailing economy have quieted anti-government street demonstrations … organised protests have largely tapered off.” The paradox is, this interpretation is widely applicable in the contemporary world situation, including many G7 countries. How can one pretend there are no “protestor grievances” in Britain or France today, and, yet, how come they are mute?

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Washington sounds the alarm, while its allies withdraw

Tuesday, 22 February 2022 — Voltaire Network

by Thierry Meyssan

The Biden Administration is sounding the alarm, announcing the imminent attack and the certain defeat of Russia. However, one by one, its main allies are pouting. For its part, Russia recalls its demands of December 17, 2021 (the respect of international law by the United States) and demonstrates its military superiority. The veil is about to be torn.

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Coup attempt in Jordan leaves a trail

5 April 2021 — Indian Punchline

By M.K. Bhadrakumar

“What happens in the Middle East has a way of making itself felt everywhere around the world,” Jordan’s King Abdullah II ibn Al-Hussein while addressing the European Parliament, Strasbourg, 15th January 2021

A coup attempt is an orphan unless it succeeds. Therefore, all we can say is that a coup was in the making in Jordan. In a televised news conference on Sunday in Amman, all that Deputy Prime Minister Ayman al-Safadi would admit was that “These were efforts that threatened Jordan’s security and stability, and these efforts were foiled.”

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Diagnosing Disinformation: a reply to Wilson and Starbird

2 December 2020 — Tim Hayward

Author’s note: This article was originally due to appear in Misinformation Review, the Harvard-based journal that published the piece it responds to. The editorial board accepted the article for publication, but because of the challenging nature of my critique, they decided it should be published under the rubric of a letter to the editor so as to allow a right of reply to the authors of the article criticised. Three weeks after it was sent out to those authors, I was informed that ‘we are unable to publish letters on our site at this time.’ [Submitted to Misinformation Review 22 August 2020; Accepted for publication 30 October 2020; notified of non-publication 30 November 2020.]

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Inside the World Uyghur Congress: The US-backed right-wing regime change network seeking the ‘fall of China’

5 March 2020 — The Grayzone

While posing as a grassroots human rights organization, the World Uyghur Congress is a US-funded and directed separatist network that has forged alliances with far-right ethno-nationalist groups.

The goal spelled out by its founders is clear: the destabilization of China and regime change in Beijing.

By Ajit Singh

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NATO Splits Reveal Alliance is Redundant

6 December 2019 — Strategic Culture Foundation

If the NATO summit this week marking the 70th anniversary of its foundation in 1949 was meant to be a resounding celebration, it backfired spectacularly, more as a resounding farce. Amid all the pomp and ceremony afforded by an official reception at Buckingham Palace, hosted by the British Queen, the two-day gathering descended into squabbling, sneering and back-stabbing.
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OPCW: A Site of Struggle for Impartiality, Independence and International Legitimacy in War Crimes Investigations

5 October 2019 — Tim Hayward

By Tim Hayward

The use of chemical weapons is a war crime. The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) – signed by almost every nation[1] – aims to expunge their use from the face of our planet. Charged with implementing the Convention is the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Part of its task is to investigate such use when alleged to have occurred. It has played a particularly prominent role in relation to Syria since the US administration under President Obama declared the use of chemical weapons a ‘Red Line’ the transgression of which would trigger military intervention in the war.

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Faux Humanitarian Irwin Cotler, the White Helmets, and the Whitewashing of an Appalling Agenda

1 August 2019 — Mint Press

Cotler’s campaigns for foreign regime change or intervention almost always march in lock-step with neoconservative U.S. foreign policy. His “humanitarian” branding is but a thin veneer of hypocrisy to conceal his establishment policies — policies that almost always serve the interests of Israel.

Russia tamps down US-Iran tensions By M.K. Bhadrakumar

27 June 2019 — Indian Punchline

(Donald Trump signed an executive order for new sanctions against Iran on June 24, 2019)

The US President Donald Trump is learning that Persian is a tricky language and does not easily yield its hidden charms to westerners. The western media attributed to Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani a remark during his televised speech on June in Tehran 25 to the effect that the White House is “mentally retarded.” But now folks with grounding in the intricacies of Persian language — who else but the BBC Monitoring in London — interpret differently.

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Secret tripartite summit in Jerusalem by Thierry Meyssan

11 June 2019 — Voltaire Network

A summit of the national security advisors from the USA, Israël and Russia has been announced in Jerusalem. The aim of this conference is to untangle the imbroglio around the Axis of Resistance, guarantee the security of all the States in the Middle East, and establish a shared suzerainty of the United States and Russia over all the actors, including Israël.

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Nikolaï Patrouchev and John Bolton meet in Jerusalem, in the presence of Meir Ben-Shabbat.

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Waging War on Iran without Turkey? Is Turkey Sleeping with the Enemy? The Russia -Turkey -Iran “Triple Entente” By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

10 May 2019 — Global Research

Erdongan rouhani putin

Recent reports suggest that Trump’s National Security Advisor John Bolton, together with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, are “doing everything possible to instigate a war with Iran”. Will they succeed?

Bolton-Pompeo are involved in deliberate acts of provocation. The Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group is currently en route to the Persian Gulf  “to send a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime…”

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Will Trump’s Hawks Dare to Risk Israel? By Alastair Crooke

11 March 2019 — Strategic Culture Foundation

It was the eleventh, and perhaps the most important meeting between President Putin and PM Netanyahu on 27 February, writes the well-informed journalist, Elijah Magnier: “The Israeli visitor heard clearly from his host that Moscow has no leverage to ask Iran to leave – or, to stop the flow of weapons to Damascus … Moscow [also] informed Tel Aviv about Damascus’s determination to respond to any future bombing; and that Russia doesn’t see itself concerned [i.e. a party to such conflict] ”.

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What is NATO’s New Mission in Iraq? By Salman Rafi Sheikh

20 January 2019 — New Eastern Outlook

The newly launched ‘NATO Mission in Iraq’ has a clear geo-political underpinning to it which aims to disturb the delicate edifice of peace that Russia, Turkey and Iran have been building for last two years or so. Although the new mission has been announced at a time when the US president has already announced a potential withdrawal of US troops from Syria, the new mission rather explains the counter-narrative of ‘no policy change’ that the various US officials have been building ever since Trump’s announcement of troop withdrawal. The new NATO Mission in Iraq is thus a plan according to which the US is going to shift its base of regional geo-politics from Syria, where the Russians, Turks and Iranians have already established their own stronghold, to Iraq, a country that has still not recovered from the damages inflicted on it first by the US invasion and then by ISIS. Iraq, accordingly, is going to become the new theatre of regional geo-politics.

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The U.S. Has Venezuela in Its Crosshairs By VJ Prashad

17 January 2019 — Independent Media Institute

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro addresses international observers at the presidential palace in Caracas. (Ariana Cubillos / AP)

Last Thursday—on January 10—Nicolas Maduro was sworn in for his second term as president of Venezuela. “I tell the people,” Maduro said, “this presidential sash is yours. The power of this sash is yours. It does not belong to the oligarchy or to imperialism. It belongs to the sovereign people of Venezuela.”

These two terms—oligarchy and imperialism—define the problems faced by Maduro’s new government.

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