The Iranian "Threat" in a Kafkaesque World

From June 2003 to August 2012, the International Atomic Energy Agency published thirty-eight full written reports on Iran’s nuclear program and conducted numerous inspections in the country. Yet although the Agency has never determined that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, Iran has never been able to free itself from the relentless U.S. campaign against its nuclear program. This article shows how the United States has mobilized the multilateral institutions to place Iran’s nuclear program on the international stage and kept it there. It also examines the parallel role played by the news media, which have resumed their role of a decade ago when they helped Washington make a fraudulent case for invading Iraq on “weapons of mass destruction” grounds. The essay contends that the alleged Iranian nuclear weapons threat is a U.S. and Israeli propaganda construct intended to mask their own real threat to attack Iran.

Edward S. Herman is professor emeritus of finance at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and has written extensively on economics, political economy, and the media. Among his books are Corporate Control, Corporate Power (Cambridge University Press, 1981), The Real Terror Network (South End Press, 1982), and, with Noam Chomsky, The Political Economy of Human Rights (South End Press, 1979) and Manufacturing Consent (Pantheon, 2002). David Peterson is an independent journalist and researcher based in Chicago. Together they are the co-authors of The Politics of Genocide (Monthly Review Press, 2nd ed., 2011).