As Lobe notes, Americans are conflicted about all of this, on the one hand telling pollsters they want to bring the troops home from Iraq, and on the other buying into the preposterous idea Iran wants to nuke its enemies. “Americans are telling us that they would prefer we pack our bags and leave Iraq now, and yet they appear ready to do some damage to Iran if it proceeds with its nuclear program,” Lobe quotes John Zogby of the polling firm Zogby International. Zogby released a “survey last week in which nearly half of the respondents (47 percent) said they favored military action, preferably along with European allies, to halt Iran’s nuclear program.” Lobe believes “polls do not show eagerness to take military action now or unilaterally. The public appears to prefer an effort to settle the crisis diplomatically, preferably through the United Nations.”

Of course, this is essentially a repeat of the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. “Fool me once, shame on you,” quipped Bush. “Fool me twice—can’t get fooled again.” Obviously, the American public, suckers as Hull knew, are capable of being fooled over and over, provided there is enough time and amnesia inserted between falsehoods.

Woefully ignorant of history and unable to find Iran on a map, these polled Americans consider Iran a dire threat, based entirely on lies and omissive history. A Pew Research poll “found that some 27 percent of respondents cite Iran as Washington’s greatest menace—three times the percentage who ranked it at the top of foreign threats just four months ago,” thus demonstrating that relentless propaganda and psychological warfare work every time.

Brainwashed Americans, unable to discern the difference between televised propaganda and reality, are unaware of the fact the CIA overthrew the democratically elected Iranian government of Mohammad Mosaddeq, thus proving that the United States government is the “greatest menace,” not Iran and its illusory nuclear weapons.

In fact, the United States has intervened repeatedly across the Middle East—in Syria (1956), Egypt (1957; a failed coup against Nasser), and Iraq (1963; support for a Ba’athist coup, eventually to bring Saddam Hussein to power), and of course has uncritically supported (and financed and armed) Israel, the colonial encampment of non-Semitic, European Ashkenazi Jews.

“Israel is to become the watchdog,” the Israeli newspaper Ha’artez wrote in 1951. “There is no fear that Israel will undertake any aggressive policy towards the Arab states when this would explicitly contradict the wishes of the U.S. and Britain. But, if for any reasons the western powers should sometimes prefer to close their eyes, Israel could be relied upon to punish one or several neighboring states whose discourtesy to the west went beyond the bounds of the permissible.” Of course, this is a bit disingenuous, since the Israelis, as evidenced by reams of Zionist literature, have planned to do this all along for their own purposes.

In the weeks ahead, as the March deadline for “action” (i.e., shock and awe mass murder) against Iran closes in, we can expect a shriller and more sharply focused propaganda directed against Iran.

“I have no doubt that Iran and Syria have gone out of their way to inflame sentiments and have used this for their own purposes,” declared Secretary of State Condi Rice, making reference to the Muslim cartoon fiasco, in fact a Straussian neocon provocation (revealed in short order, as the neocons no longer feel obliged to cover their tracks, since most Americans, tuned in to Fox News and CNN, are oblivious to such tactics). “I call upon the governments around the world to stop the violence, to be respectful, to protect property, protect the lives of innocent diplomats who are serving their countries overseas,” Bush demanded, making sure not to criticize the Straussian neocon effort to mock and vilify Islam’s prophet, thus sending a message to his neocon and Christian Zionist supporters that it is indeed open season on Muslims.

However, the Straussian neocons, as represented by the scurrilous Newt Gingrich, liken “the way the Bush Administration is handling Iran today to the way British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin handled Nazi Germany in the 1930s,” an absurdity at best, specifically designed to deceptively characterize the current Bush administration approach to Iran as moderately milquetoast. “The current behavior of the bureaucracy is perfectly compatible with Stanley Baldwin and totally incompatible with Winston Churchill,” said Gingrich, revealing the Straussian neocon belief that Muslims should be killed with weapons of mass destruction, as his mentor, Churchill, urged the British government do when dealing with the Kurds in Iraq, circa 1919. “I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas,” Churchill wrote in a departmental minute. “I am strongly in favor of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes.” Likewise, the neocons are “in favor” of using weapons of mass destruction against the “uncivilized tribes” of Iran, as Scott Ritter told an audience in Santa Fe last week.

Ritter “predicted the military strategy for war with Iran. First, American forces will bomb Iran. If Iranians don’t overthrow the current government, as Bush hopes they will, Iran will probably attack Israel. Then, Ritter said, the United States will drop a nuclear bomb on Iran,” reported the Santa Fe New Mexican. “It’s a damn shame there’s so many more people interested in the Seattle Seahawks and the Pittsburgh Steelers,” Ritter also said.

Obviously, far too many Americans know a lot about their favorite football team, but absolutely nothing about Iran, the fact it does not have nuclear weapons, and the indisputable historical fact the United States subverted a democratically elected government in Iran, deposed a popular leader, and installed a brutal dictator.