I agree with Mr. Nasr's assessment, but disagree that any war against Iran in the next 12 months will be "accidental." USrael is already at war with Iran, killing its scientists, imposing sanctions, etc. and has been for a long time. Any "accident" will be the predictable outcome of a longstanding belligerent policy on the part of the US and Israel.

Most USAmericans love war. If they didn't they would not allow their government to continue with its wars. There are over 300 million USAmericans. There are a few hundred politicians and a few hundred CEO's who want war. They could not have war if 300 million did not want war. USAmericans love war and want war. This is the only logical conclusion.

I notice that the propaganda is hard at work here. Mr. Nasr refers to an acceleration of Iran's nuclear weapons program. Speaks of "getting beyond the mushroom cloud."

He and everybody else ignores the fact that the NIE of several nations, and the UN, have found no evidence of a nuclear weapons program. When that came out while we were being Bushwhacked, Israel immediately said we had to nuke them before they made a bomb. (The prediction at the time was that if Iran did begin a nuclear weapons program, it would take some ten years to produce a bomb.) The only reason the UN made a sort of washy comment last year that could be interpreted as Iran possibly having a weapons program is that we now have an American running the Agency, and most likely furthering the Obamanation's policies.

As to the threat of a nuclear attack by Iran, let's look at the facts. Israel has two to four hundred nuclear armed ICBMS. The US has over three thousand.

Picture Iran after ten years of sacrifice and effort producing a bomb, even two or three. They are going to fire a nuclear weapon at either of these crazies, knowing that they are just looking for an opportunity to turn their country into slag?

My main fear is that there will be a black op pointing to Iran and We the Sheeple will go along with it just like we did on 9/11. That missing cruise missile has had me uneasy for several years.

if isreal knew it ran the risk of an end to u.s. assistance by attacking iran, they might think twice about doing that. the fact that this ultimatum has not been issued to the isreali government clearly emboldens them to shoot first, ask questions later.

this is how unconditional support for a rogue state ends up. sad but predictable.

The sanctions never were going to do much against Iran. Italy imports 25% of its oil from Iran and won't join in. Russia, China, Brazil, India---the list goes on. But of course, the state of USrael would rather die (or I mean, kill) than learn anything and have to change its deliciously narcissistic psychotic state. After all, when you actually have no values that you really practice, you've got to have "evil enemies" to keep your own people in terrified order. USrael is the threat to world peace---period.

I disagree with the headline that the policy failed. The Empire's Iran policy is a smashing success. Why? Simple. The goal was and is perpetual war and maximum destabilization of the Middle East region. Mission accomplished. The goal is maximum war budgets and maximum profits for the military-industrial-security cabal. Again--Mission accomplished. The goal is total economic devastation so that our sons and daughters have two choices when they drop out of school--Burger King or the Army. Once again--Mission accomplished. Our Iran policy has been and still is a smashing success--a "remarkable achievement" to quote a well-known war-monger.

The US does not engage in negotiation because it does not want a solution to the nuclear problem. It knows Iran is not on the verge of obtaining the bomb. What the US wants is regime change. It wants to bring in the Western oil companies to get Iranian oil--and to set up a Western presence in Iran to guarantee Western access to oil. Why did NATO get involved with Libya? Same thing. That involvement had nothing to do with supporting democracy in the Middle East but with securing access to energy reserves. I'm surprised neither the interviewer nor the person interviewed brings up these facts.

"Obama's Drift Toward War With Iran
The president has made no comment on the situation. He has let it heat up for three years now, while the public mind grows swollen with false facts, and while negotiations, to the extent that there are negotiations, proceed under cover and in secret. As if negotiation were a shameful thing. Time does not tell for Obama. He will always have time. That was his philosophy in drawing out the health care debate for twelve months as his popularity sank from 70% to 45%. It was his policy once again, in catastrophically misjudging the odds for an agreement on the debt ceiling. In that affair, Obama hung back. He left it all in the hands of William Daley before sacking Daley and heading out on the campaign trail...

Let us grant the obstacles, both internal and external. Obama is radically unsuited to crisis, in several ways we are now familiar with. He hates to be involved in negotiations; is easily bored, easily rankled, and hasn't the patience and the power of suspending vanity that are necessary for the work. Also (and this abets inertia), his convictions have surprised him by being weaker than he supposed. He came to the presidency with a sense of himself and the world that was fundamentally immature; his time in office has seen a slow process of public recognition of that fact. He is not a fighter. He is not a "good hater." He is not particularly loyal to his party. He is only now learning what it is to be a good explainer. Finally -- a tremendous error, with Iran -- he delegates rather than takes charge. Distaste for the battle of politics (a different thing from the contest of campaigning) is accompanied, in him, by a love of speculative discussions. So Obama waits; and while he waits, on any given question, the public mood drifts in a direction opposite from what he thought he was aiming for.

To whom has he delegated the matter of Iran? Dennis Ross above all -- the member of the DC permanent establishment who is most reliably associated with the Israel lobby. And Tom Donilon, who gained the president's favor by applauding his 2009 middle-range solution on troop escalation in Afghanistan. The major previous achievements of Dennis Ross are the Clinton and Obama approaches to Palestine. The result speaks for itself. Donilon has been as little in evidence as any head of the National Security Council; before Obama elevated him, he was best known for helping to organize the eastward expansion of NATO: a disaster whose consequences the American people have yet to appreciate fully. So these are the men the president trusts -- in the first case, because of the impeccability of his renown; in the second, because he falls in with Obama's own propensity to continue Cheney-Bush policies but do it slowly in a softer tone."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bromwich/obama-iran-war_b_1250668.html

Not my son, not my daughter, not my grand child.
I have lost faith and trust in my government.

Either his intent is war with Iran or he's allowing Netanyahu to set his agenda. I hope he thinks that's good for his re-election efforts. I am guessing Israel matters more than the electorate. Or perhaps his handlers view Israel as more of determining factor than US citizens when it comes to domestic elections. In which case I wonder why Israel decides our president and we don't.

When Israel attacks Iran, the USSA* will join in.
*United Soviet States of America

What happened to:

"Let me also say this: the promotion of human rights cannot be about exhortation alone. At times, it must be coupled with painstaking diplomacy. I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation. But I also know that sanctions without outreach - and condemnation without discussion - can carry forward a crippling status quo. No repressive regime can move down a new path unless it has the choice of an open door."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34360743/ns/politics-white_house/t/full-text-obamas-nobel-peace-prize-speech/

Did Obama forget what he presented in his Peace Prize Acceptance speech?

I fail to see how Iran's progress towards nuclear power for civilian usage is a failed policy. If it was bad, then Bush wouldn't have promised to aid the Saudis in accomplishing the same thing. But then he normalized trade with Libya didn't he? Must have been some sort of disconnect, but then we aren't arming rebels in Saudi Arabia or cutting off their support in gaining nuclear power are we? Were't the Saudis the majority of the hijackers on 09/11? And Saudia Arabia must be a democracy? Isn't it? Wasn't Bin Laden Saudi?

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/20/as_us_threatens_iran_over_enriching

All the so-called negotiations, sanctions ect. are just an excuse to go to war. Just like the treaty's with the Native Americans was an excuse to steal their land and resources, nothing has changed today. The same modus opeandi, just different people and resources. Just like Iraq and Libya before it, Iran is selling its oil to Russia, China, India among others, in gold and other petrodollars rather than U.S. petrodollars. That is the financial weapon of mass destruction, that scares the hell out of the 1% and the financial elite, because where the average Westerner could lose thousands, If the dollar loses its value, the International financiers and bankers could lose trillions of dollars. Example: Gold has climbed to an all time high, because the dollar, on the world market, has crashed to an all time low. The primary thing that keeps the $ from losing much of its value is that the world currency is based on American petrodollars. Case in point: The first thing after the shock and awe attack on Iraq was the Iraq oil bourse was changed back to U.S. petrodollars; the first thing after the assassination of Gaddafi in Libya, was they no longer sold their oil in gold Dinars. The racket is that while saving the $ from becoming a diminshed currency on the world market, the banksters make billions of dollars in war profits from financing wars.

"Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise. "

Adolph HItler