Agreed but add it was Jean Chrétien who told Bush Jr Canada didn’t support his Iraq BS without proof other than Cheneys made up intelligence. Saved a lot of Canadian soldiers lives but Canada lived in the US doghouse for years. So what.
Very true. To this day there are Cons who still resentful that Chretien did not automatically follow the UK & Australia into America's war and end up disgraced.
You do realize Hamas and Hezbollah are de facto armies of Iran? They’ve been funded, armed and trained by Iran since their inception with the singular goal of eliminating Israel. Easier to fund terrorists than use your own country’s armed forces to avoid an outright war with another nation.
So yes, being obsessed with Iran is a very wise move.
This is a title from article in Al Jazeera today:
Iran’s Khamenei: Hamas and Hezbollah resistance means ‘defeat’ for Israel
LO< "Iran's leader proclaims _____ " is always going to be followed by some bullshit on his part. They also claim they destroyed a bunch of Israeli F35's, when there's no evidence they even scratched one of them. Do not take this bluster at face value.
Incorrect basis for contending that Hamas and Hezbolah are puppet organizations of Iran, at the very least.
Hamas ended up supported by Iran when they went to the sunni Arab powers like Saudi Arabia or help and got told "no, we can't be bothered with you".
Hezbollah was created by the Lebanese shiites (not Iran) after Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 to fight with the PLO and support the (christian) Falangist fascists in Lebanon. Nobody on either of those sides gave a fuck what it did to the people who actually lived there, so they formed their own group to fight until the other Lebanese factions (Sunni and Christian) had to back the fuck off and Israel would have to eventually leave Lebanon. Iran supported them for shiite solidarity reasons, but for strategic power projection also. But make no mistake, none of these groups would be silent and docile if Iran did not support them. They have their own lives & agendas to worry about, and take their benefits where they can find them.
Qatar gives as much support to Hamas as Iran does, but you do not hear about it in our media as much because Qatar is also hosting western military forces in the Persian Gulf, and nobody wants to fuck with that. They quite literally buy influence in the West with that and their gas production.
Look behind the screen of media (of which Al Jazeera is a proxy for the sunni UAE & Saudi & Qatar powers), and you will see what Iran's motivation is: rub Saudi Arabia's nose in the shit.
They get to point out how they have met those needs of the downtrodden, while the filthy rich Arab oil-monarchies have allowed their fellow muslims to get slaughtered by "Israeli, American, and European infidels", etc. - basically you are lookign at a sort of pissing contest over who are the true defenders of Islam, which happens to coincide with their strategic competition over who really controls the Persian Gulf. They are never not fucking with each other in some convoluted way.
By the way, Israeli & US hardliners all know this, and also benefit from what Iran does, it gets them what they want (war, therefore political dominance over their own electorates).
And vice-versa, Iran's hardliners get what they want - a state of siege that also glosses over how much Iran's people would love to overthrow them, if not for the nationalistic effects of always having foreigners that are attacking your country in some way.
Whether inside Israel, the US, or inside Iran, peace would actually endanger their current regimes & leaders. So they make sure there is none.
It is a cynical game these regimes all play, and you really need to see beyond the surface level of it.