The Viewpoint: Is the Israel-Iran Issue a Perfect Storm in the Making?
By Miss Maudine
“Plausible deniability” is the language of state actors or people whose work represents state policies. It works for and is used by domestic sticky-stories as well as national and international ones. Its phrasing originated in the national intelligence community. The farther one is from a situation, the more useful and convincing the phrase is. A situation is ripe for plausible deniability when public’s consumption believes there is credibility in and from the source. Repetitive lying reduces credibility.
Here’s how it works fitting at least one of these motives: (1) there is a reasonable chance that one entity doesn’t have any knowledge of the specific work or actions of another entity; (2) when there has been, at least, public pronouncements indicating disassociation with an act or actions prior to and as a result of an event or events; or (3) the stealth of one party’s action catches one state actor completely off-guard which is unlikely in alliances where intelligence is shared. There may be more plausibles, but you get the message. None of the “answers” is perfect, but their use allows for some breathing space as the various state actors shift their public course of action.
Sitting in the Kennedy Center on Wednesday, June 11th to see ” Les Misérables,” the famous musical of the Victor Hugo story about the French Revolution, is not a real cover and no one will think that the US didn’t know that the bombing in Iran was going forward on that Friday. After all, US weaponry is a large part of the defense materiel of Israel. So, if a country is stockpiling materiel, then it is not too much of a jump to figure that it will be put to use sooner than later. Moreover, that deflated military parade in DC on the 14th, conveniently the 250th “birth” of the US army and a certain person’s birthday, was hardly subterfuge for what was in the sky over Teheran and Eastern Azerbaijan from the 13th onward. Far from key nuclear sites, bombs rained down on residences, too. We are aware of some of the damage done. From those among us, at least one person’s family was impacted. No surprise, ordinary citizens bore the brunt of the killing.
On any number of levels, this Middle East situation is a conundrum. The aggressive support by the US of the State of Israel, now aggressively in the hands of ultra-conservative interests, is reminiscent of the French in Vietnam. And, so is the American situation. Netanyahu is priming the pumps for an all out military assault in the area. Then as now, the steps and shading as to how the US got caught up in that war — somebody else’s war — which cost this country tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars, seems to be upon us. Vietnam tore this country apart emotionally and politically. Will this Israel-Iran issue do the same? Is this a perfect storm in the making?
Miss Maudine is an alias that was created by From The G-Man in order to conceal the author’s identity.