Iran is not the chief sponsor of terror.

The war party is hot to trot on waging war on Iran. Some appreciation appears to exist in American military thinking of (1) the vulnerability of Saudi oil facilities, Reaper drones, shipping in the Straits of Hormuz, and carrier task forces as well of (2) Iranian and Hezbollah missile arsenals, S-400 capabilities, and the inconvenient presence of Russian forces in Syria. Just possibly this appreciation is operating to damp down the urge for all-out war with Iran.

But none of that seems to have transited any nerve synapses in the numb presidential skull, from which very recently issued the order to attack the armed forces of the sovereign state of Iraq. Sort of one of those act of war dealy bobs.

This stupid escalation in the context of a stabilizing situation in Iraq and Syria will now go through the usual filter of anti-Iran hysteria and bloviation on "terror" for the immediate future, almost certainly in the context of what will be adjudged to be irrational, vicious, and downright naughty retaliation by enraged Iranians and Iraqis. As the nonsense about Iran as the chief sponsor of terror in the world will be flogged like a rented mule by administration spokesmen and shameless shills on the sound stages of CNN and the rest of the scum-sucking media outlets, let me at least contribute these skeptical views on that here:

Self-delusion and denial with regards to Iran's alleged status as the leading sponsor of international terrorism are rampant in Washington and among the punditry. It is crazy, it is dishonest and it is wrong. This is not my opinion. I can do math. I can count. If Iran was actually continuing to act like it did 30 years ago, when it was a major sponsor of terrorism, then we would be able to point to those attacks.

Here are the statistics for 2018.^[1]

Mr. Johnson runs the numbers.

See also the 12/21/17 memo from the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity:

The depiction of Iran as “the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism” is not supported by the facts. While Iran is guilty of having used terrorism as a national policy tool, the Iran of 2017 is not the Iran of 1981. In the early days of the Islamic Republic, Iranian operatives routinely carried out car bombings, kidnappings and assassinations of dissidents and of American citizens. That has not been the case for many years. Despite frequent claims by U.S. officials that Iran is engaged in terrorism, we simply note that the incidents recorded annually in the U.S. Department of State’s Patterns of Global Terrorism rarely identifies a terrorist incident as an act by or on behalf of Iran.^[2]

And for one last bit of perspective on this sick focus on "terror" who but U.S. officials can forget that it has been the Saudis, Qataris, Turks, and the U.S. and its NATO lickspittles who have waged an illegal war on the sovereign state of Syria and caused thereby the death of over 500,000 civilians? Oh. That! But, but Iranian terror.

What terror?

Notes
^[1] "Iran Is Not a Major Sponsor of Terrorism, Not Even Close." By Larry C. Johnson, Sic Semper Tyrannis, 5/16/19.
^[2] "Is Iran the 'World’s Leading Sponsor of Terrorism?'" By Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, 12/21/17.