Déjà vu all over again

Clearly, I'm not the only one who started flashing back to 2003.  Remember Colin Powell at the UN with his tube of fake anthrax?  (We geezers also remember the Tonkin Gulf "incident" of 1964.)

This time around, the pastiche of "evidence" consists of a grainy black-and-white video and a lot of "trust us" from a pack of known liars.

Apparently the earlier attacks, discussed in my previous post,  were not sufficiently impressive.  The attackers escalated a bit – enough to create some better visuals and edge up oil prices, but not enough to impede traffic through the Straights of Hormuz.  Nobody died.

Most of the rest of the world is extremely skeptical of the claim that the Iranians are going out of their way to provoke a war with the US; a war that would be a lot more damaging to Iran than Tr*mp's punitive sanctions.  That leads many of TV's talking heads to opine that the attacks were carried out by "the more radical elements in Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps" rather than its central authorities – slightly more plausible, but not by much.

According to Mike Pompeo, intelligence sources have concluded that no non-state actor could have launched the attacks, presumably excluding the Houthis and Hezbollah; but certainly not excluding the Saudis or the Emiratis, who have purchased more than enough high-tech weaponry from the US.  As for the skill set, Erik Prince and his Academi mercenaries are conveniently located in Abu Dhabi.

Of course, there is another state actor with very close ties to Erik Prince: the Tr*mp Administration, which may see open conflict with Iran as a means to gin up nationalist sentiment and distract from its leader's increasingly apparent dementia and/or psychotic breakdown.

Yes, this is a conspiracy theory: I have no solid evidence of its validity.  It is possible that Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who turned 80 in April, is battier than Tr*mp; or that somebody else's conspiracy theory is closer to the mark.  What is certain, though, is that the whole truth remains unavailable.

The "threat" from Iran

How do you win a war without actually fighting one?  You don't.  You can, however, create the appearance of war: engage in a lot of bloviating and sabre-rattling, and then declare victory.  You don't need a real war to "wag the dog."

When I saw the first photographs of the damage done to those oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, I was, to say the least, incredulous — describing the damage as "minimal" is an overstatement.  No oil was spilled; no flames; no casualties.  Compared to the attack on the USS Cole in 2000 or the attack on the Limburg tanker in 2002, the recent acts of sabotage were flea bites.

All four tankers were able to proceed under their own power: there was no disruption of traffic in or around the port of Abu Dhabi, to the great "relief" of the Emiratis. If the Iranians truly were responsible, it's evidence that they're too incompetent to present a credible threat to anybody. Just the same, the "attacks" helped to justify the accelerated buildup of US military force in the region and the sale of $8 billion worth of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. In the absence of any evidence implicating Iran, the obvious question is qui bono? — and the obvious answer is Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the Tr*mp Administration.

Then there is the "intelligence" indicating Iran presents a "credible threat" to US forces in the region.  Such intelligence always exists: what changes is its interpretation, depending on what those who control it want it to say.

Those who want evidence of Tr*mpian "collusion" with a foreign government will do better examining the Saudis than the Russians.  Everybody expects Saudi support for Jared's "peace plan" for Israel and the Palestinians (and nobody will be surprised if the plan seeks to institutionalize apartheid in the name of "economic development.")

One final note: Erik Prince runs Academi, the successor to Blackwater, out of Abu Dhabi — and he employs a substantial number of former Navy Seals.