Villainous lunacy is abundant these days as the bombing of Iran by Israel and the United States continues.  The rationale for this illegal pre-emptive war that not only lacks legitimacy but should land its perpetrators in the docks of the International Criminal Court, continues to get increasingly muddled.  With US President Donald Trump now given to giving press conferences on the conflict, loony bin mutterings are becoming increasingly the norm.

A common assumption behind these attacks is Israel’s firm, unremitting stranglehold on the US President.  Combined with the considerable influence of what John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt called the “Israeli Lobby”, American foreign policy in the Middle East has been tenanted by Israeli interests.  And Israel has shown itself to be a particularly bruising tenant in this regard.

While the central rationale is both fantastic and mendacious – namely, the destruction of a nuclear capability that had been, in any case, apparently obliterated last June – the view that Iran was going to unilaterally strike either Israel, the United States, its allies or all of the above, is fascinatingly absurd. 

READ: Iran’s interim leadership council meets to discuss successor to Khamenei and military measures

In a classified briefing with Republican and Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill on 2 March, senior administration officials put forth the position that Israel had already planned to strike Iran, with or without US support.  Present were Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the increasingly deranged Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine.  Prior to the briefing, Rubio put forth the view that “there was going to be an Israeli........

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