'Iran war: Clocking down to doomsday'

Press TV -- “The consequence would be that the world would face a higher risk of nuclear Armageddon than existed in the mutually assured destruction of the US-Soviet standoff,” wrote Paul Craig Roberts, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during Ronald Reagan's presidency, in an article titled “'IRAN: The Next War on Washington's Agenda Politics” on infowars.com.

Roberts added, “The raised level of Washington's rhetoric and demonization of Iran” is one of the signals pointing to Washington intent of a military strike on Iran.

“Only the blind do not see that the US government is preparing to attack Iran,” he said.

However, he argued that Iran's nuclear program is merely a pretext for a US attack on the country, saying the US government's war preparations are in fact driven by other factors.

First, he said, is the US government's “neoconservative ideology,” that calls for the US to use its superior military and economic position to achieve world hegemony.

“A second factor is Israel's desire to eliminate all support for the Palestinians and for Hezbollah in southern Lebanon,” Craig Roberts said, adding that by eliminating Iran, Washington removes all obstacles to Israel's expansionism, which ultimately seeks to “seize all of Palestine and the water resources of southern Lebanon.”

A third factor motivating a US strike on Iran, Craig Roberts argues, is to deter or slow China's rise as a military and economic power by controlling China's access to energy.

Washington and Tel Aviv have repeatedly threatened Tehran with the "option" of a military strike, based on the allegation that Iran's nuclear work may consist of a covert military aspect.

Iran has categorically refuted the US-led allegations regarding its nuclear program, saying that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to develop and acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Iranian officials have also promised a crushing response to any military strike against the country, warning that any such measure could result in a war that would spread beyond the Middle East.

“If the missiles aren't launched, Americans would wake up the next day a bankrupt third world country. If the missiles were launched, few Americans would wake up,” Craig Roberts concluded.