I keep reading about how Iran has greatly increased its influence in the Middle East, but did it do it by winning wars or using its intelligence to install favorable regimes in other counties? No, it's been just sitting back and watching this to happen because the US and its allies have brought it on themselves .
Behind only North Korea, Iran is the country the Trump administration vilifies most. The White House endorses Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s injunction that “We must all stand together to stop Iran’s march of conquest, subjugation and terror.”
President Donald Trump speaking to the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 19, 2017, and devoting much of his speech to denunciations of Iran. (Screenshot from Whitehouse.gov)
Parroting Netanyahu’s claim that Iran is “busy gobbling up the nations” of the Middle East, CIA Director and conservative GOP stalwart Mike Pompeo warned in June that Iran — which he branded “the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism” — now wields “enormous influence . . . that far outstrips where it was six or seven years ago.”
In an interview with MSNBC, Pompeo elaborated, “Whether it’s the influence they have over the government in Baghdad, whether it’s the increasing strength of Hezbollah and Lebanon, their work alongside the Houthis in Iran, (or) the Iraqi Shias that are fighting along now the border in Syria . . . Iran is everywhere throughout the Middle East.”
Few would deny that Iran’s influence in the region has grown over the past decade. What’s missing from such dire warnings of its imperial designs, however, is any reflection on how aggressive policies by the United States and its allies have consistently backfired, creating needless chaos that Iran has exploited as a matter of self-interest and self-defense.
Consortium News: Jonathan Marshall: How US Blunders Strengthened Iran
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