Top 10 Things You Didn't Know About Iran

Juan Cole busts up the myths the West has with Iran. Here's example #2:

"Belief: Iran is a militarized society bristling with dangerous weapons and a growing threat to world peace.

Reality: Iran's military budget is a little over $6 billion annually. Sweden, Singapore and Greece all have larger military budgets. Moreover, Iran is a country of 70 million, so that its per capita spending on defense is tiny compared to these others, since they are much smaller countries with regard to population. Iran spends less per capita on its military than any other country in the Persian Gulf region with the exception of the United Arab Emirates."

As per Republican policy, you always build the threat, real or imagined, to the point where you use it to push your own agenda. Scare Americans so they feel you have to "save" them.

Leo Strauss, father of the Neo-con movement would be proud. He thought, "A political order can be stable only if it is united by an external threat . . . . Following Machiavelli, he maintained that if no external threat exists then one has to be manufactured".

I wonder what the equivalent would be for Israel, which the US partly pays for.

Source: Juan Cole