The Trump administration may be gearing up to attack Iran, as a “response” to the recent attacks on Saudi oil refineries. And they seem to be lying to justify it.
Three paragraphs from the New York Times article on the matter tell the entire story. Here are the first two:
The Trump administration intensified its focus on Iran Sunday as the likely culprit behind attacks on important Saudi Arabian oil facilities over the weekend, with officials citing intelligence assessments to support the accusation and President Trump warning that he was prepared to take military action.
The government released satellite photographs showing what officials said were at least 17 points of impact at several Saudi energy facilities from strikes they said came from the north or northwest. That would be consistent with an attack coming from the direction of the Persian Gulf, Iran or Iraq, rather than from Yemen, where the Iranian-backed Houthi militia that claimed responsibility for the strikes operates.
And then the telling point, which for some reason is buried in paragraph 10 (emphasis mine):
Administration officials said on Sunday they would seek to declassify more intelligence to buttress their case against Iran in the coming days. The satellite photographs released on Sunday did not appear as clear cut as officials suggested, with some appearing to show damage on the western side of the facilities, not from the direction of Iran or Iraq.
So they’re lying. Damage on the western side of these facilities could not have come from Iranian cruise missiles. Once again, a Republican president and his national security “team” are lying in order to beat the drum for war.
There are millions of reasons why we shouldn’t even think about bombing Iran, even if the Iranians were responsible for these attacks. (And for all I know, perhaps they were involved, directly or indirectly — they often work through proxies, as do other regional powers such as Saudi Arabia itself.) For one, we have no compelling national interest in getting involved in a regional war between the Saudis and the Iranians. Quite the opposite, actually — why would we do something insane like this on behalf of a country that slaughters American journalists?
Military action on our part, regardless of the culprits, would be an obscenity. But military action based on lies? That would be even worse. We cannot let this go unchallenged.