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Iran as the New Official Enemy in Iraq
by Jacob G. Hornberger

Uh, oh! It seems as though U.S. official are preparing the mindsets of the American people to accept a new official enemy in Iraq — Iran.

You’ll recall that when the U.S. government invaded Iraq five years ago, the official enemy was Saddam Hussein. U.S. officials did everything they could to mold the mindsets of the American people into believing, falsely, that Saddam Hussein was about to unleash mushroom clouds and other weapons of mass destruction on America. The success of that propaganda campaign was what caused the great majority of Americans to support an invasion that has resulted in the deaths and maiming of hundreds of thousands of people, none of whom ever attacked the United States.

After Saddam was captured, U.S. officials unleashed a new propaganda campaign intended to switch people’s mindsets to a new official enemy in Iraq — “the terrorists,” which consisted of Iraqi people who were resisting the wrongful invasion of their country.

As an increasing number of Americans became somewhat confused over why a person who is resisting the wrongful invasion of his country should be considered a “terrorist,” U.S. officials came up with a new official enemy to justify their indefinite occupation of Iraq — al Qaeda.

But now it seems that U.S. officials, for some reason, are trying to shift people’s mindsets to a new official enemy in Iraq, which is Iran. According to an article in Saturday’s Washington Post, “Last week’s violence in Basra and Bahgdad has convinced the Bush administration that actions by Iran and not al-Qaeda, are the primary threat inside Iraq, and has sparked a broad reassessment of policy in the region, according to senior U.S. officials…. The intensified focus on Iran coincides with diminished emphasis on al-Qaeda in Iraq as the leading justification for an ongoing U.S. military presence in Iraq.”

As the Post article also points out, “During their Washington visit, Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker barely mentioned al-Qaeda in Iraq but spoke extensively of Iran.”

Why would U.S. officials begin shifting people’s mindsets to Iran as the new official enemy in Iraq? Who knows? But we can only hope that the reason is not to generate support for a bombing campaign against Iran. Not only would such action kill countless more innocent people — that is, people whose government has never attacked our country — it would also produce greater chaos in Iraq, the potential for new terrorist blowback against the United States, more federal infringements on our liberty and well-being, and even deeper monetary crises than we’re already experiencing. And, of course, it would once again confirm the U.S. government’s solid placement within the ranks of regimes that wage wars of aggression against other countries, a type of war that U.S. officials themselves condemned as a war crime at Nuremberg.

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. Send him email.

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