{"id":56236,"date":"2020-12-29T16:50:34","date_gmt":"2020-12-29T21:50:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=56236"},"modified":"2020-12-29T16:50:34","modified_gmt":"2020-12-29T21:50:34","slug":"2020-ends-as-it-began-with-the-looming-threat-of-a-us-war-with-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=56236","title":{"rendered":"2020 Ends as It Began: With the Looming Threat of a US War With Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"
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2020 Ends as It Began: With the Looming Threat of a US War With Iran<\/a><\/h3>\n

2020 began and ended with high-profile assassinations of Iranians, a buildup of the US military on Iran\u2019s borders, and fears of another major war in the Middle East.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A<\/span>mid increasing hostility towards Tehran, the United States is building up its military presence on Iran\u2019s borders. In the past three weeks alone, the U.S. has flown in a squadron of fighter jets and extra B-52 bombers while deploying the U.S.S. Nimitz aircraft carrier (with its strike group) and a large submarine to the Persian Gulf. This comes on top of the\u00a02,500 troops<\/a>\u00a0it sent to Saudi Arabia earlier in the year, the first build-up of forces in the country in 17 years. The nuclear powered Nimitz is home to\u00a0nine squadrons<\/a>\u00a0of fighting aircraft and has also long been rumored to carry nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0military insists<\/a>\u00a0that all the new measures are purely \u201cin the name of deterrence.\u201d However, the few journalists who have paid attention to the news appear skeptical. \u201cThat\u2019s provocation!\u201d\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0Rania Khalek. \u201cYou\u2019re sending this shit thousands of miles away from your border to try to provoke Iran and then playing the victim.\u201d<\/p>\n

The move comes in the midst of worsening hostilities between the United States and Iran. Last week, the U.S. embassy in Baghdad (a massive citadel in the center of the city, almost as large as the Vatican) was hit by a rocket strike that the Trump administration blames on Iranian-sponsored groups. On Wednesday, Trump gave \u201csome friendly health advice\u201d to Iran,\u00a0tweeting<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cIf one American is killed, I will hold Iran responsible. Think it over.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. also recently\u00a0upped<\/a>\u00a0its already\u00a0extensive<\/a>\u00a0sanctions on the Islamic Republic, with Trump\u2019s Special Representative for Iran and Venezuela, Elliott Abrams,\u00a0claiming<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cThanks to the success of our sanctions, Iran is looking to come back to the negotiating table to get relief,\u201d even as he imposed new ones.<\/p>\n

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\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

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2020 Ends as It Began: With the Looming Threat of a US War With Iran 2020 began and ended with high-profile assassinations of Iranians, a buildup of the US military on Iran\u2019s borders, and fears of another major war in the Middle East. Amid increasing hostility towards Tehran, the United States is building up its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[21949,441,522,23910,827,862],"class_list":["post-56236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-alan-macleod","tag-iran","tag-middle-east","tag-mint-press-news","tag-united-states","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56236\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}