If you’re labouring under the misconception that the Bush Administration is going to leave office without first confronting the Iranians, it’s time to start paying serious attention.

The propaganda machine is in full swing, led by a new report by the State Department that labels Iran the most active sponsor of terrorism. If you can believe it, the Sudanese government actually ranked lower despite the fact that it has been complicit in supporting the Janjiweed who have been responsible for a genocidal campaign in Darfur.

Falling conveniently in line with the State Department’s release, the United States has deployed a second US carrier group to the Gulf with the specific purpose of “developing new options for attacking Iran” - a directive issued directly by The Pentagon. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is justifying the move as a response to what the United States now believes is official Iranian policy – “killing American servicemen and -women inside Iraq”. Michael Hayden, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, recently asserted at a lecture at Kansas State University…

“It is my opinion, it is the policy of the Iranian government, approved to highest level of that government, to facilitate the killing of Americans in Iraq.”

It would seem that it is more than Mr. Hayden’s opinion, and a very crucial question has to be asked – why is the director of the CIA making such claims during a lecture? This is the same man whose agency provides the White House with a daily brief, which means that Hayden’s position has not only been presented the President, but also obviously adopted. If it hadn’t been, the White House would have condemned his assertion during that lecture, which it hasn’t, meaning that Hayden’s mentioning of it is being used as a tool with regards to circulating policy in the press without it coming directly from the President’s mouth.

Added to all of this, rather conveniently, is also another Pentagon assertion that the Iranians are directly aiding the Taliban in Afghanistan, a claim that was originally made last year and denounced by both the Iranians and the Afghan government. It should also be noted that it was made around the same time as US allegations that the Iranians were also supporting Sunni extremists in Iraq, which were quickly attacked by various analysts as being utterly preposterous given the massive, and historic, ideological differences between the two. Not surprisingly, the promotion of that information was tracked back to the office of the Vice President.

On the nuclear front, the Israelis are playing their part, with Israeli Transportation Minister, Shaul Mofaz, claiming yesterday that Iran will likely possess the ability to produce a nuclear weapon before the end of 2008. His source? Israeli intelligence, of course. Ironically, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert refused to comment on Mofaz’s claim, which is interesting being that his office is in direct control of the Israeli intelligence apparatus and has far more insight than that of the office of the Transportation Minister.

So what does all of this add up to? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out. Fishermen call it baiting a hook; the intelligence community refers to it as Psy-Ops. And if you think it’s the Iranians that are the target with regards to psychological initiatives employing the media as their primary conduit, think again. It is, in fact, the American people being targeted.

The question is, have the people of the United States learned their lesson?

Iraq was invaded because they supposedly possessed weapons of mass destruction, or, at the very least, were in the process of obtaining them.

After that justification fell through, the toppling of the regime of Saddam Hussein took its place, and human rights, liberty, and democracy became the bugle call.

After Hussein’s capture, and the continued occupation of the country to combat the insurgency, al-Qaeda was used as the primary justification despite the fact that their numbers in Iraq, which didn’t exist prior to the occupation, constituted less than 5% of the insurgency itself.

And so here we find ourselves, five years after the fact, with the Iranians having become the new justification. Like Hussein’s regime prior to the invasion, the Iranians are being accused of attempting to secure a nuclear weapon. Their intended target? Israel. The consensus, of course, is that were they to acquire one they would use it, that it would not be seen as the acquisition of a deterrent, but rather an offensive weapon.

In my next entry, although I have covered the subject before, I will delve into the reality of why that line of thought is based on nothing more than the desire to militarily confront Iran, not the Iranian regime’s desire to actually engage in a nuclear exchange.