For those of us who remember the build up to the Iraq War in 2003, the American shifting of Iran into it's gun-sight has a very similar and alarming ring to it.
In 2003, George W Bush and Tony Blair agreed to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and set about fitting the evidence so that they could sell the war to their sceptical public.
After many false starts (Nuclear ambitions, links to Al Queada), they settled upon his stockpile of Weapons of Mass Destruction as the reason they had to remove him.
Saddam said he never had any and the UN Weapons Inspectors spent six months fruitlessly looking until Bush and Blair told them to get out and launched a devastating attack which killed over a million Iraqis, allowed the place to become full of terrorists and plunged it into a tailspin which continues today.
Saddam was removed and executed but the WMD's were never found as the UN continued to shout before, during and after the American attack.
It appeared that Bush and Blair would have their war no matter what and Donald Trump seems to be desperate to have one now and it looks like the recipient of America's own WMD's will be either North Korea or Iran.
Donald Trump is expected to withdraw his endorsement of the nuclear deal with Iran next week citing that the Iranian regime 'supports terrorism' and 'exports violence and chaos across the Middle East'.
The deal which Trump looks set to wash his hands of, is supported by the US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany and as recent as a fortnight ago the UN and senior American security officials announced that Iran was abiding by the 2015 nuclear agreement.
The defence secretary, James Mattis, said last week that staying with the deal awas in US national security interests and the European signatories are determined to sideline America and stick with the deal if Trump, as expected, pulls out of it.
Business leaders who gathered for an Iran-Europe forum in Switzerland last week said they were prepared to do everything possible to salvage the deal in the event of a US withdrawal including pushing for retaliatory legislation and protective legalisation's.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has certified that Iran has restricted its nuclear activities and the British Government tweeted how Iran had been abiding on it's side of the deal by closing down two thirds of their centrifuges, shipping 95% of all weapons grade material abroad, destroying heavy water plants and signing up to 25 years of UN 'extraordinary and robust monitoring,
verification, and inspection' with Inspectors from the IAEA, already continuously monitoring Iran's nuclear facilities and verifying that there was 'no credible indications of weapons development'.
Like Bush back in 2003, Trump is unable to point to a smoking gun upon which to hoist Iran and has come up with the weaselly 'violated the spirit of that deal' and although he has not said he will pull out of the deal on the 15th October, it is expected that is exactly what he will do.
So the UN’s nuclear watchdog has reported that Iran is sticking to its obligations but unlike with Bush and Blair, the Europeans as well as China and Russia are not on board and have roundly rejected the Trump assessment and come down on the side of Iran in the argument so we can expect Trump and his supporters to take a leaf from the Bush and Blair playbook and throw out accusations until it can find one that sounds just shady enough to give Trump the war that he seems so determined to have.
Hopefully, the UN and the rest of the World won't be quite so ready to play along this time and the American warmongering is strangled at birth before it builds up a head of steam and Trump is removed, whatever way is quickest, before he unleashes devastation.
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