Manufacturing Consent Machine Goes Into Overdrive

My last article about nuclear weapons, and Israel’s nuclear weapons in particular, was published about three hours before Israel started bombing Iran. The discredited pundit class thought an attack unlikely because they bought the lie of a rift between Trump and Netanyahu. Those who watched Israel commit a genocide and who’ve paid attention to the ultimate goals of Zionists in Israel and the west had no doubt the attack was coming.

After the bombing started, the propaganda began.

The western media regurgitated Israeli propaganda that these were ‘strikes on nuclear and military targets,’ (like the BBC here) and then we found out that more than two hundred civilians had been killed across Iran, including children, in apartment blocks in Tehran and other cities.

Iran inevitably retaliated. But what was completely missing from all western news coverage was the fact that under international law, Israel’s bombing of Iran was illegal (first strike, no UN resolution, not in response to an attack), whereas Iran’s was legal (a response to actually being bombed and therefore a legitimate claim of self-defence). On top of that, attacking nuclear power stations (Israel bombed Iran’s Natanz power station) is explicitly prohibited under Article 56 of the Additional Protocol to the Geneva Convention. The IAEA said Israel’s strike had caused ‘radioactive and chemical contamination,’ but I’m guessing you missed the news. (Compare this to when Russia attacks Zaporizhzhia or Chernobyl. Bombing nuclear power stations is only selectively bad, appears to be the western rule). On social media, experts in international law were exasperated that none of the coverage mentioned this at all. One of the world’s pre-eminent experts on the subject, Professor Ben Saul, the head of Sydney University’s international law department and the UN special rapporteur on human rights, was clear: Israel’s action was illegal and Iran’s was legal.

Professor Kevin Jon Heller, professor of international law and security at the University of Copenhagen said Israel’s attack was ‘unequivocally illegal.’ The straightforward fact of one party acting illegally and other other acting legally is one you won’t find anywhere outside social media.

Why? Because when it comes to Israel, none of this matters. The law literally doesn’t apply. And the so-called free press has no interest in reminding its readers about something as antiquated as international law. Western leaders sided with the illegal action. From Mark Carney in Canada, to Starmer in the UK to the EU chief Von Der Leyen to Germany’s Merz, and of course Trump. They all posted similar statements about the ‘grave concerns’ over Iran’s nuclear programme, and ‘Israel’s right to defend itself’, as if choreographed from Tel Aviv. Germany posted a statement about ‘Iran’s indiscriminate attack’ before Iran had even retaliated! And all presented as if the country that attacked first isn’t currently committing genocide.

International law lies dead in the rubble of Gaza, and it’s frightening to watch the impunity expand. It’s frightening to watch the attempts to manufacture consent for illegal mass murder. It’s frightening to see the Orwellian-level inversion of reality. It’s frightening to watch Israel be granted the right to kill whoever it wants, wherever it wants. It’s frightening that international law is no longer even a footnote in reports of Israel’s violence. We’re watching the obliteration of legal guardrails against the mass slaughter of innocents. We’re witnessing the complete devaluing of human life. In Tehran, an entire family were killed in their homes, possibly, and it’s hard to believe but appears to be true, because they shared the same surname as one of Iran’s top nuclear scientists. Just living your life and marked for missile death by a stranger in another land because you have the same surname as someone they don’t like. And the Israelis can do as much mass murder as they want because they know there’ll be no consequences. Allowing so much consequence-free slaughter imperils all of humanity.

There has also been a huge amount of propaganda by omission.

The first, and to my mind the most important one, is that Iran is one of the world's biggest producers of radiopharmaceuticals used for cancer diagnostics and treatments. And to diagnose cancer and make cancer drugs, you need medical isotopes. And you can’t make medical isotopes without enriching uranium. Iran is in the top five global exporters of radioactive drugs, supplying fifteen countries, including in Europe, with nuclear medicines. On top of that, sanctions against Iran prohibit the import of radiopharmaceuticals. So without a nuclear program, Iran would find it hard, if not impossible, to diagnose and treat people with cancer and other illnesses. CT scans and PET scans use radioactive tracers to image your body. Radiation therapy, which requires medical isotopes, which require uranium, is the primary way to treat cancer. In other words the enrichment of uranium is foundational to modern medicine. When Israel, the US and the west demand zero enrichment from Iran, as they have done, they are demanding Iran abandons modern medicine and condemns millions to illness and death.

It’s an impossible condition to fulfil.

Which is why you never hear about it. Because the manufacturing of consent for bombing Iran requires that we are ignorant about how Iran uses nuclear technology. Alongside the radiopharmaceuticals, the programme also provides electricity to millions of people.

Iran has always agreed to limit enrichment for medicine and energy, and this was precisely the terms of the agreement the US ripped up in 2018. Iran was in full compliance with that deal, a deal which allowed enrichment for peaceful purposes. The west is well aware that Iran needs uranium for critical life-saving reasons. They know, rationally, that zero enrichment is impossible to accept. Which means Israel, with the backing of the US and the west, bombed Iran for not agreeing to something that would destroy an industry critical to Iran’s economy, and would kill people. Iran was bombed for wanting to treat cancer.

I’m not trying to do propaganda for Iran. I’m just relaying factual information that mainstream reporting on Iran completely starves us of. And the media starve us of these facts because they know those three magic words - “Iran’s Nuclear Programme” - hide all context. The media and political class know that most people will hear these words and simply think: nuclear weapons. They’ll hear “nuclear scientists” and think of cartoon evil-style baddies in underground lairs stroking missiles, not nuclear medicine and cancer specialists.

However, it’s also pretty obvious that if Iran did have nuclear weapons, they wouldn’t be facing Israeli aggression, hundreds of innocent people would still be alive, we wouldn’t be on the way to a bigger war, and Israeli hegemony over the region would be weaker. Iran has consistently said it was not making a nuclear weapon and would have returned to the conditions of the Obama-era deal if they’d been offered again. But now, if Iran comes out of these attacks with nuclear capacity still intact, they will of course seek a nuclear weapon. They’d be naive not to. This is the logic that Israel’s attack has forced on them.

Then there’s the regime change element in all of this. In the last 24 hours it's been reported that Trump vetoed an Israeli plan to kill Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei. We now know that the reporting about a ‘rift’ between Trump and Netanyahu over attacking Iran was a ruse to lull Iran into a false sense of security. What this means is that Trump probably has given the go ahead for an assassination, and this is another ruse to trick Iran.

And Western media are salivating over the thought of regime change. The Times called for it in an opinion piece on Sunday.

A few hours later, The Guardian became the latest to smack its lips over the prospect.

Regime change in Iran of course has long been the wet dream of many politicians and security state figures, from liberals to conservatives. In February a resolution in the US House of Representatives calling for regime change in Iran was supported by 150 politicians, Democrats and Republicans.

What would the reality of regime change precipitated by western aggression look like? We only have to cast our eyes to Iraq, to Libya, or to Afghanistan where the results of violent western-backed regime change have been catastrophic. Iran would descend into sectarian violence, many thousands would be killed, the economy would collapse, millions would fall into poverty and the country wouldn’t see stability for a generation. This is what the majority of the media and political class are hoping to happen. It’s utterly depraved. Of course there are Iranians who oppose the current rulers. But opposition groups have said they want to determine their own future, because they know what western intervention leads to. Because they’ve seen western models of regime change. The Iraq model, where a puppet regime granted western companies all the oil contracts, did one election then watched as the country effectively balkanised. The Afghanistan model, where twenty years of corrupt leaders backed by the west ended in the same place they started and with the return of the Taliban. The Libya model, where Gaddafi’s murder in the aftermath of NATO bombing has unleashed brutal clan-on-clan violence, mass death and the effective end of the Libyan state.

It’s not for the west to decide any of this. It’s not for our leaders to use our votes and our bombs to violently change the political structures of other countries. What arrogance. And it’s not for us to judge who should or who shouldn’t lead Iran, how religious or secular they should be. We have more than enough of our own problems to deal with. But so far, the western media class has refused to acknowledge how our own brand of secular authoritarianism has emerged. From America to Germany to the UK, western countries are disappearing, prosecuting and locking people up for peaceful protest and for speech. The British government just charged a member of a rap group with terrorism for flying a Hezbollah flag at a gig. He might go to prison. For opposing a genocidal state our leaders support. A state our leaders provide weapons and political cover to as they murder, starve, maim, torture and summarily execute hundreds of thousands of people. All the talk of the ‘tyranny of the Iranian regime’ is premised on a moral high ground we simply don’t occupy. It’s laughable.

And never forget that none of the morally righteous talk about repression in Iran we’ll hear in the coming days and weeks is uttered in good faith. From Egypt to Jordan to Saudi Arabia to the UAE, the west backs religious and military dictatorships because they’re on our side. In Jordan, which is ruled by a monarchy, the government has actively entered the war on the side of Israel. In Egypt, which is ruled by a military dictatorship, government agents are detaining and deporting activists for trying to deliver aid to Gaza. We like them because they turn a blind eye to genocide and western aggression. These dictators are our dictators.

Weasel words about freedom in Iran are so audaciously hypocritical it’s enough to send you insane. And while hypocrisy isn’t a crime, it’s a clue. A clue about what the media and political class think of us. A clue about what they think we’ll fall for. A clue about how they are manipulating narratives.

So stay sane. Stay clued up. Understand the propaganda when you’re fed it. Understand the war on Iran is about western geostrategic interests, nothing more, nothing less. Iran poses absolutely zero threat to the west. It’s a war for Israel. Understand that when the BBC tells you how hard it is to to report from Iran, it’s an excuse for them to spew Israeli propaganda.

Question why they never had the same disclaimer about Gaza, even though Israel has prohibited western reporters from going to Gaza to report first-hand on genocide.

Question why the BBC will tell you about Iran’s censorship but won’t tell you Israel has a military censorship law and a military censor unit that pre-approves news articles. And then understand it’s because they are hacks and stenographers for empire, not journalists.

Understand it’s because the consent manufacturing machine is in overdrive, and they want your blessing for even more violence and war.

Don’t give it to them.