What's next? Is the Blackberry fiasco Iran's doing?

As US capitalism and its Nato allies seek to strengthen their grip on the economies of the middle east and North Africa where western capitalist interests have been threatened by popular uprisings, the Obama administration is preparing further weapons sales to the Bahraini monarchy to assist it in its violent suppression of protests for democratic rights there.  The US has 30,000 troops in Bahrain to protect the US oil industry's profits in the area.  The damn local's always want control over their own resources for some reason.

The Baharaini royal family that run the island like a family business do well out of the deal too.  In the ongoing struggle for democratic rights, religious freedom as well as for a republic, the absolute monarchy has even imprisoned doctors and other medical personnel who treated protesters.  But the US doesn't just spend money in Bahrain, this is the least of it; Washington had the Saudi thugs send in troops to quell the reformers.  This was safer than using US troops in a predominantly Arab and Muslim country.

The Obama administration and the US mass media is in the process of wiping from public memory its role in the Arab Spring, particularly with regards to Hosni Mubarak's ruthless and undemocratic regime.  It is hoping that folks will forget that the the Obama administration defended the dictator almost until the end when it became obvious all was lost.

The US media is now occupied with the ludicrous idea that the Iranian government attempted to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the US on American soil. Today's Wall Street journal has devoted quite a bit of space to the subject.  This is a serious accusation but they have to do some thing to take people's minds of the sad state of affairs domestically.  The capital of the US state of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, has just declared bankruptcy and there are all sorts of divisions opening up between the representatives of the ruling class as the pressure from below mounts, and the Occupy Wall Street movement is still spreading.

But they are having a hard time convincing an already suspicious public that the Iranians are involved. Experts on the subject are certainly not convinced. "It would be political suicide for Iran's government to do this..." says one Hossein Moussavian, a professor at Princeton and humble non professor me would have to agree with him. Maybe blaming Iran for the Blackberry failures will work.  But the warmongers in Washington and the Pentagon have a better backup story developing that can preoccupy people's minds; they just arrested a Syrian American here who they "allege was part of a campaign to monitor and intimidate dissidents in Syria and the US." You've got to have a backup in this business especially as a new Wall Street Journal/NBC  poll found that 74% of the respondents considered the nation was "off on the wrong track." and a plurality of respondents said they supported the "Occupy Wall Street  demonstrations against the financial sector."


There is a tiny two by one and a half inch column tucked away in today's WSJ about Bahrain; there seems to be some minor opposition from some US senators to the $53 million worth of weaponry, including 40 armored Humvees and 300 missiles that the Obama administration plans to send to the monarchy.

Being the anti-war president, Obama doesn't consider the transfer an arms sale----it's just rent.