Iran will deliver telling blow

[Pseudo Intellectual]

Hamas and Hezbollah along with resistance fighters in Afghanistan and Iraq have their own histories, structures and agendas – remember, they are not Iran and their existence is not reliant upon Iran. There is no doubt these groups receive financial aid and smuggled weapons from external providers, though this is not uniquely or even mainly due to Iran – in differing areas, Saudi Arabian, Egyptian, Syrian, Lebanese and obviously Afghan and Iraqi sources are also involved amongst others. I understand that Western media persistently attempts to portray the groups as synonymous with Iran but any investigation below the surface of such opinion shows this is not the case.

Huh? All you're saying is that others fund and arm those terrorist groups, too. This does not change the fact that Iran arms and funds terrorist groups whose sole purpose is the destruction of Israel.

If we are to bring these other groups into the discussion, rather than focussing purely on Iran as an entity in itself, then it also becomes necessary to consider the roles of Israel and the U.S. which can be strongly argued have contributed more than anybody to current conflict in the Middle East. To balance this out, Iran is reported to provide Hamas with $3 million funding per year… a considerable amount… now take into account that the U.S. provides Israel with military aid of $3 billion per year. I’m sure that I don’t need to go into the facts of how the U.S. is by far and away the world’s largest arms exporter.

Another huh. I'm befuddled. We're talking about Iran's funding and arming of terrorist groups, and you bring the US into it and talk about military aid to Israel.

All of this maintains that –Iran- have not initiated war with another country for 150+ years. and there is no reason at all to believe this record will be broken in the foreseeable future.

Keep telling yourself that, buddy.

The problem is that I don’t think people take the time to look into all of the wider issues; they have time only to accept the newspaper editorial and provocative words of the news reporter, and with the regularity I hear, “Iran’s nuclear weapons programme” or “the Iranian backed Hamas” it is understandable how people are misled. It’s tempting for me to launch into an attack on our media but I don’t want to lose the message, and that is, don’t believe everything you read and hear - research for yourself.

Go on Pseudo, give it a try.

Yes, go on and assume I'm just another mindless bot brainwashed by "the media", which is, ironically, leftist and has done everything it can to foil the neocons' efforts to invade the peaceful Iran.

[J.B.]

"Yes, go on and assume I'm just another mindless bot brainwashed by "the media", which is, ironically, leftist and has done everything it can to foil the neocons' efforts to invade the peaceful Iran."

"The media" also includes Fox News, who are most certainly /not/ Leftist.

[Pseudo Intellectual]

Fox News, okay, I suppose they're part of "the media." But what about NBC, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, PBS, New York Times, LA Times, etc.?

Fox News and the Wall Street Journal (which is centrist/center-right, if you ask me) are but two. How does that translate to "the entire media is brainwashing the ignorant masses into supporting war against innocent Iran"?

Face it, pal, the "you're brainwashed by the media" trick doesn't work on American conservatives.

[MARAB0D]

So WWII was primarily over international trade, then? That may have been the excuse Japan used, but not even A.H.* tried to push the argument that the invasion of Poland was over trading rights, surely.

* to avoid paying Dr. Godwin royalties

WW2 only happened because due to the Russian, Finnish, Hungarian and German Socialist Revolutions, WW1 failed to be completed by any suitable agreement. The Socialist states were mostly put down, but the immediate result of the war was robbing Germany of its overseas assets, as the peace was forged in a rush at Versailles. This caused rapid re-militarization of Germany and WW2 to achieve the fair result of WW1. These two wars are linked because the European and World Order after WW1 was unstable. The period between them is better seen as an armistice, than as peace. So the main cause of WW2 was WW1.

As for WW1, it happened exactly due to the international trade. German capital was dominating Austro-Hungary and the rest of central and eastern Europe; Germany for example was the main investor in Russia (which was hurting French and English interests). But this was hurting the interests of Russian businesses too, so the monarchy (German in origin, same house of Hanover as the present Queen Elizabeth II), was seen as promoting the family interests over the national ones, hence the monarchy was forced to claim a war on Germany in August 1914. Practically all monarchies fell due to the war, and the peace was signed by the different (revolutionary) governments then those who started the war, as a result the uncertainty, including the uncertainty with the new national borders in Europe. Here it comes, Poland - it was a part of Russia and Germany, and suddenly it became a separate state, including some previously German lands... WW1 did not go along the initial scenario at all, and resulted organization of the Winners, League of Nations, was dealing with the mess.

Growing Japan has its own, irrelevant contradictions with USA about the trade rules in Pacific area, so these two countries occurred to be involved too.