By Justin Raimondo

As the American people amuse themselves with the illusion that they have any say in the way they are presently governed, our rulers are moving toward war. Two recent incidents underscore the imminence of this prospect.

The Iranian “provocation” in the straits of Hormuz has set the stage for a new “crisis” manufactured wholly by the War Party, the rationale for which is uncritically accepted by our passive “mainstream” media. We are expected to believe that five minuscule speedboats “menaced” the USS Hopper, a destroyer armed with missiles; the cruiser USS Port Royal; and the USS Ingraham, a frigate. That’s rather like five gnats “menacing” a trio of elephants. Oh, but that’s not all. In addition to intercepting the American flotilla, CNN reports the Iranians supposedly issued explicit threats:

“In one radio transmission, the Iranians told the U.S. Navy: ‘I am coming at you. You will explode in a couple of minutes,’ the U.S. military officials told CNN.”

The Iranians, for their part, say nothing untoward occurred that doesn’t happen all the time in the Gulf: they simply asked the ships to identify themselves, and it was all very routine.

I challenge anyone to look at the following video and tell me honestly they hear or see anything that looks like an Iranian “provocation.” It’s all very murky and dubious:

In any event, this is a provocation, all right – on the part of the Bush administration. As our president travels to Israel, the fulcrum of our policy of Mideast expansionism, there can be little doubt that this is all part of a carefully stage-managed effort to portray Iran as an aggressor – a scenario made doubly ironic when one considers that the U.S. has sent two aircraft carriers into the Gulf and has massed 150,000 troops in neighboring Iraq, where Washington accuses the Iranians of “interference.”

We, of course, are allowed to invade countries with impunity: but Iran, which shares a long border with Iraq, and has close political and economic ties with the Iraqis, has no right to secure its own interests in the region. Israel has the right to defend itself: that’s the mantra we hear without respite whenever the Israelis take it into their heads to launch yet another “incursion” into the Gaza strip or invade Lebanon – but the Iranians have no such reciprocal right, even a few miles from their own shore.

Funny how that works.

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