Source: RT
Following the latest report that the Iranian military has shot down a
US drone in eastern Iran, radio host Stephen Lendman told RT such US
reconnaissance missions point towards greater ambitions for domination,
which might lead to all-out war.
With diplomatic tensions reaching a boiling point between Iran and
the West, Lendman believes such spying operations are part and parcel of
a greater war that the United States has been waging against Iran for
decades.
“Since the 1970s America has had a
running on-and-off war with Iran, basically wanting to change the
regime, to make it subservient to US interests, and Iran has the crazy
notion that it believes it has the right to its own sovereignty, to run
its own government, to conduct its own affairs, it doesn’t have to
answer to Washington. Washington disagrees, and therein lies the
conflict,” he said.
Lendman also claims US Special
Forces are already operating within Iran, as he believes the build-up
for an attack is becoming imminent. According to Lendman, recent events
in Libya, Syria, and now Iran, point towards a greater drive to rein in
everyone who might be opposed to unrestrained US power.
“America
has had for some years, especially since the Bush years, what they call
the greater Middle East project. The project is total dominance over
the region, North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, to Russia’s
borders. Russia of course is being surrounded with US military bases,
China as well. This is part of America’s game. They’re trying to
eliminate countries that are not in America’s orbit. So there was a war
on Libya and Syria is being targeted. The Libyan model is being
replicated in Syria, so far short of NATO bombing. If Syria is delinked
from Iran, Iran is next. "There could be an insurgency in Iran, the same as in Libya, the same as in Syria, very possibly conflict follows.”
Following
a November 8 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report which
claimed Iran had been actively developing nuclear weapons, Lendman
counters that no country has been more transparent with the IAEA than
Iran.
However, Lendman believes that if the allegations
regarding nuclear weapons are used to justify war, Iran, unlike Libya,
is a big country with a powerful military, and any unjustified strike by
Israel or the US could prove disastrous.
“Iran has
been very bluntly saying, if it is attacked by Israel, by America, it
will respond, it will fire back. It can attack Israeli cities, it can
attack US bases. We’re talking about something very serious, we’re
talking about the possibility of general war, dare I say it, World War
III.”
