Origin of the Classic Nuclear Bully

The Iran and North Korea situations can be used to envision the similarities between nations that are bullies and individuals who are bullies.

Much of McTell News is all aTwitter about whether or not their bully idol should or should not hit the victim harder.

Or instead, should they simply continue taking their lunch and goodies from them?

This portion of the chatter is not in contention much in the ongoing chattering class's waste of time, but what is sorely disputed is who the bully is.

The media in the various nations are and have been the propaganda mouthpieces for the agenda of epigovernment; an agenda that includes, among other things, dividing and conquering the thinking of the masses (Epigovernment: The New Model).

In that pursuit, in general the media support their government's script faithfully, giving new meaning to "lip service."

For example, consider the actual recent middle east nuclear proliferation history:

High-level talks between Israel and its Muslim neighbors regarding a nuclear weapons-free zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East have been cancelled by the US and Israel.

A nuclear weapons-free zone has been repeatedly proposed, only to have Israel – the only state in the region with nuclear weapons – reject it in favor of maintaining this nuclear monopoly, further destabilizing the region, and keeping the threat of others’ nukes as a primary excuse for its militarism.

Diplomats tell the Associated Press that the US, one of the organizers of the meeting on this latest NWFZ proposal, would likely make a formal announcement of its cancelation soon, claiming that “the time was not opportune.”

While Iran is a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has publicly pledged its opposition to nuclear weapons development, has subjected itself to thorough international inspections, and in fact has exactly zero nuclear weapons, Israel has done none of the above and has approximately 200 nuclear warheads. Iran is being severely punished and threatened with attack, Israel is supported with unparalleled economic, military, and diplomatic support.

(The Peak Of The Oil Wars - 8). What makes it all the more bully ludicrous was caught and pointed out in the British press yesterday:

By coincidence two clashes over nuclear issues are hitting the headlines together. North Korea and Iran have both had sanctions imposed by foreign governments, and when they refuse to "behave properly" they are submitted to "isolation" and put in the corner until they are ready to say sorry and change their conduct. If not, corporal punishment will be administered, since they have been given fair warning by the enforcers that "all options are on the table".

It's a bizarre way to run international relations, one we continue to follow at our peril. For one thing, it is riddled with hypocrisy, and not just because states that have hundreds of nuclear weapons are bullying states that have few or none. The hypocrisy is worse than that.
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Rami Khouri, the distinguished US-trained Lebanese writer, calls it "professionally criminal". After a month in the US recently, he found that coverage of Iran was based on "assumptions, fears, concerns, accusations and expectations almost never supported by factual and credible evidence". In as much as these distortions build public support for a military attack on Iran, he finds it as culpable as the media's role in the runup to the attack on Iraq a decade ago.

(Guardian, "... it's the US that's the rogue state", emphasis added). Drugs ruin an individual's mind eventually, and the drug of oil mixed with propaganda destroys a nation's "collective mind" as well.

Eventually that toxic combo pigeon-holes a nation into using bullying as its foreign policy.

The next post in this series is here.

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An Iranian Band:

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