Iranian Economy Screaming In Pain

One thing the U.S. knows how to do is “make economies scream” (in the notorious words of Nixon, giving Richard Helms, CIA gestapo boss, his marching orders on Chile in 1970, being told by his leader to “make the economy scream,” according to Helms' notes of a meeting with Nixon). It's done it to Iraq, it's been trying to do it with some success to Cuba for 50 years, and now it's doing it to Iran. The Iranian currency just plunged 50% in a week, and is continuing to plunge. A full-fledged currency panic and loss of confidence is in train. (You see, “Bibi” Netanyahu? All We Are Saaay-ing, Is Give Sanctions A Chance.)

An Iranian rial will now get you an American dollar- or rather, 37,000 rials will buy you a buck. That's a lot more than the 24,600 rials it would have cost you a week ago. The rial is down over 80% year to date. (Talk about Weimar Germany-style inflation and currency debasement! I hope the Iranians stocked up on wheelbarrows already- the U.S. Is probably getting set to embargo those too. Maybe the U.S. will let some wooden barrels through so Iranians will have something to cover themselves with when their clothes wear out.)

Of course, the question that is never asked or answered in the U.S. media is: what if Iran says “uncle” and knuckles under to U.S.-led demands? The assumption the gullible U.S. public is allowed to believe is that then sanctions will be lifted. Not so. There's a propaganda technique at work here, that I called Deception by Omission.

The “offer” on the table from the U.S. Is this: Iran, shut down and demolish the Fordow uranium enrichment site (the one that's under a mountain that our bombs can't destroy), and hand over ALL your enriched uranium, and then MAYBE we'll EASE the sanctions.

I kid you not. That's the U.S. “offer” on hand.

Now maybe that's just a hardball negotiating position, to give the U.S. some bargaining room. But then there's the matter of U.S. Law.

As the latest rounds of sanctions was passed by Congress at the end of July, various Congresspeople stipulated that in order for the sanctions to be lifted, not only does Iran have to completely dismantle its nuclear program, it must also let its people vote the mullahs out of power i.e. Congress is demanding regime change to lift the sanctions- and abandon Hezbollah and Hamas, i.e. give Israel a totally free hand to do with them as it wishes. It's called “The Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Human Rights Act of 2012.” Funny title. “Accountability” of course is U.S. Imperialist code for “we're gonna make you pay for crossing us.” And the chest beating putative concern for the human rights of Iranians is just ludicrous, on many grounds, but I'll mention just two in passing: 1) the sanctions hurt the Iranian people most of all, and 2) the U.S. Imposed a brutal dictatorship on Iran from 1953 to 1979, during which a quarter of a million Iranians were killed, the CIA mentored the world's most savagely torturing secret police, the SAVAK, and Amnesty International branded the Shah's regime the worst violator of human rights in the world- which is quite something, considering the competition.

You see, until the Iranians “come clean on their nuclear program, end the suppression of their people and stop supporting terrorist activities, they will face deepening international isolation and even greater economic and diplomatic pressure,” Senator Tim Johnson, Democrat of South Dakota, said. (AP, 7/31/12, in NY Times, “DealStruck to Tighten Sanctions Against Iran.”)

And the always execrable Florida Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who sponsored the bill in the House, brayed that the latest law attacking Iran “blacklists virtually all of Iran’s energy, financial and transportation sectors, and cuts off companies that keep doing business with Iran from access to our markets in the United States.” This Stateswoman heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee. (Oh, here's a surprise- she really really hates the Castro regime in Cuba. No, really, she does.)

Our good Congresspeople also wanted to punish the directors and shareholders of Swift, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, which handles interbank transactions, unless they stop providing services to the Central Bank of Iran, thus cutting Iran off entirely from the world financial system. (The official, aboveground system anyway.) They didn't go that far- yet.

But maybe they don't really mean it. After all, it barely squeaked through the House by 421-6.

At the time the bill passed. Binyamin (his actual name) Netanyahu and current War Secretary and lifelong apparatchik Leon Panetta (his last gig was overseeing assasinations at the CIA) stood shoulder to shoulder and jointly issued a bellicose statement telling Iran that “time is running out” and other threatening language.

Of course, this is all about power, and the desire to prevent Iran under its current regime from acquiring more leverage in the region, NOT about a threat to Israel's survival. The Iranian mullahs aren't the mindless fanatics the Taliban are, nor are they like suicidal car bombers. They know what would happen if they launched a nuclear attack on Israel. (It would take them years to develop miniaturized warheads that can be carried on missiles, and to build enough missiles to penetrate Israel's anti-missile defenses, plus Israel has an arsenal of several hundred warheads, and by the way, Israel's backer the U.S. has thousands of nuclear weapons, and for icing on the cake, Britain and France also have nuclear arsenals, and are allies of Israel.)

So here's how the propaganda technique, of misleading the public by omission, what I call Deception By Omission, works. You bury the crucial facts in the fine print and let the blaring trumpets and pounding drums drown out the whispers of critical information. Of course, people who go over printed media with a magnifying glass every day, and recall the one-time mentions of significant facts, and recognize their importance, AND remember them, aren't fooled. But everyone else is. We can't say “the media” didn't report it. See, they reported it! (Some did, anyway, one time.) But it's hardly the impression that's conveyed by the deluge of “coverage” we are fed on this issue. (And others as well.)