Israel lying to create armed conflict between US and Iran: Prof Petras

An American scholar of international relations says the real purpose of the campaign of lies Israel and its proxies in the US has mounted against Iran is to create a conflict between Tehran and Washington which will lead to a war.

Professor James Petras, who has written dozens of books on the Latin America and Middle East, made the remarks in a phone interview with Press TV on Wednesday.

He was commenting on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech about Iran before a joint session of Congress on Tuesday during which the Israeli prime minister ranted for nearly 40 minutes against Iran.

Netanyahu denounced the ongoing talks between Iran and the P5+1 countries – the US, Britain, France, China, Russia, and Germany, which have entered a sensitive final stage.

He accused Washington of negotiating “a very bad deal” with Iran over its nuclear program that he said could leave the Middle East “littered with nuclear bombs and a countdown to a potential nuclear nightmare.”

Professor Petras said that “the lies serve a purpose. We know that Netanyahu’s speeches are full of lies about everything that he talks about, whether it’s about Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians, which Israel has been involved in multiple assaults and almost daily killings of Palestinians for peaceful protests, to his claims that Iran is a belligerent country when Iran has not engaged in any offensive war in over 200 years, to posing Iran as a nuclear threat when there are no nuclear weapons in Iran and over 200 nuclear bombs in Israel.”

Israel and its interest groups in the United States accuse Iran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear energy program.

Iran rejects the allegation, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

“We know that he [Netanyahu] lies. Now the question is that why does he lie? What is his purpose in lying?” Petras asked. "Essentially, it is to build up a period of conflict between the US and Iran so that Israel can use its influence to have the United States engaged in another war.”

“I think the lies are a part of a campaign that Israel has mounted through its proxies in the United States, AIPAC among them to force the US in a nuclear or conventional war as it did against Iraq,” he said,  referring to more than 50 pro-Israeli lobbing groups based in the US, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

“So I think the question of lying is the most superficial charge to make against Netanyahu, and the real purpose of lying is to create a conflict between the United States and Iran which will lead to a war,” Petras stated. “And I think that’s a most dangerous part of his speech.”   

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