US-Imposed “Deal” part of “Hitlerian Method” towards Iran: Analyst

As many celebrate the potential softening of the USA’s ongoing, 62 year stint of killing and torturing Iranians for their resources and strategic position, Thomas L. Knapp, director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism, reminds us to take every US action or statement with a grain of salt.

Responding to an editorial in the Washington Post noting that Democrats and Republicans regularly compare the US “deal” with Iran to appeasement of Hitler in Munich, Knapp says that comparison gets it backwards.

“The nuclear talks ARE a lot like Munich in 1938,” Knapp agrees, “But it’s Iran acting out the role of Chamberlain in response to a US strategy that’s textbook Hitler.”

The Hitlerian method is this: Invent a “controversy” (for example, “ethnic Germans in Czech Sudetenland are oppressed”). Make a set of demands. If the demands are met, add new conditions. When you’ve pushed things as far as they can go and the other party finally refuses, accuse that other party of acting in bad faith and claim justification for doing what you wanted to do anyway (invade and occupy Czechoslovakia).

The Iran “nuclear weapons controversy” is an invented crisis of that Hitlerian type.

He reminds us that all US spy agencies say Iran does not appear to be after nukes (Israeli spies concur), that the IAEA does not even say Iran “might be” developing nukes, and that Iran is perfectly entitled under international law (and supported by the vast majority of the world) to a civilian nuclear program.  It is the US that has no right to any say in that program whatsoever.

But the US, for reasons which are quite obvious, has imposed deadly sanctions on Iran, targeting all Iranian civilians, and changes the conditions for removing the sanctions “every time the Iranian government agrees” to meet the current conditions.

The US, including Obama, has done this numerous times.  For example, Knapp notes that in March, “all parties seemed ready to sign an agreement – so the US piled on new conditions … at the last minute”, then said Iran had created the impasse.

The new US “deal” with Iran includes “up-front demands on Iran with the dangling fruit of lifted sanctions in the future.” (bold added)

Knapp then makes a prediction: that the US will break the agreement and make new demands within a few months, without ever lifting the sanctions: “the Hitlerian method in spades.”

“Appeasing the US in 2015”, he concludes, “is a bad idea, for the same reasons (and likely to produce the same results) as appeasing Hitler was in 1938″, meaning the US or one of its proxies will invade and attack Iran anyway.  (However, he reminds, as it supposed to be “our” government, it is our responsibility to ourselves engage, lift the brutal sanctions, and ensure our government is in no way used to commit aggression against Iran.)

Indeed, CNN, in a piece serving to bolster the US “Hitlerian method” towards Iran, notes that the US and Israel are still openly (and illegally) discussing plans to commit aggression against Iran: “…the United States would need to use land-based aviation, rather than aircraft carrier-based jets that can’t hold the same payload, and would likely launch an attack from air bases in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or Bahrain.”  (This is a threat of force, completely illegal under international law but casually printed in US media outlets on a virtually daily basis.)

A 2009 strategy guide on how to conquer Iran, titled “Which Path to Persia”, produced by the US-based and funded Brookings group, considered the world’s most influential think tank, states that one US strategy for re-conquering Iran should be to try to make it appear to the world that Iran has rejected an amazing “deal”, then use that as an excuse to attack Iran – the precise “Hitlerian method” Knapp describes.  Another option listed is to “leave it to Bibi”, meaning allow Israel to attack Iran as a US proxy, placing as much of the blame as possible on Israel, as the report suggests.

CNN continues: “…if Iran violates the term [sic] of the agreement, that could open up the door for Israeli action…”, an aggressive “attack” on Iran.

And US “Defense” Secretary Ash Carter announced a few days ago that the US will still bomb Iran, despite any deal, if it wants.

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