{"id":293965,"date":"2017-02-09T08:26:04","date_gmt":"2017-02-09T07:26:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/trump-plays-cat-and-mouse-with-iran\/"},"modified":"2017-02-09T08:26:04","modified_gmt":"2017-02-09T07:26:04","slug":"trump-plays-cat-and-mouse-with-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/trump-plays-cat-and-mouse-with-iran\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Plays Cat and Mouse with Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<div id=\"attachment_88431\" style=\"width: 520px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-88431\" src=\"http:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2016\/11\/23004913732_693061c5d2_z.jpg\" alt=\"Photo by Ninian Reid | CC BY 2.0\" width=\"510\" height=\"330\" srcset=\"http:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2016\/11\/23004913732_693061c5d2_z.jpg 510w, http:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2016\/11\/23004913732_693061c5d2_z-300x194.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 510px) 100vw, 510px\"\/><\/p>\n<p align=\"right\">Photo by Ninian Reid | <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0\/\">CC BY 2.0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Why is the Trump administration threatening Iran?<\/p>\n<p>On February 1, National Security Adviser Michael Flynn announced that the administration\u00a0was \u201cputting Iran on notice\u201d after it tested a ballistic missile which the US\u00a0sees as\u00a0a violation of\u00a0Iran\u2019s treaty obligations. Flynn\u2019s\u00a0frigid tone\u00a0made it clear that the administration is considering the use of military force. But why?<\/p>\n<p>Under current UN resolutions (Resolution 2231),\u00a0Iran is forbidden \u201cto undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons.\u201d Read that over again.\u00a0Iran is not forbidden from testing \u2018all ballistic missiles\u2019 just missiles that are \u2018capable of delivering nuclear weapons.\u2019 The resolution could not be clearer. There\u2019s no gray area here, none at all. Flynn is just fudging the resolution\u2019s meaning, so he can rattle a saber. But, why?\u00a0\u00a0And why are other members of the administration, including the president himself,\u00a0 making equally belligerent remarks? In a tweet last week, Trump\u00a0 said, \u201cI won\u2019t be as \u2018kind\u2019 to Iran as Obama\u201d which was followed by a speech by\u00a0US Defense Secretary James Mattis\u00a0who called Iran \u201cthe single biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s going on? Why the full court press against Iran?\u00a0\u00a0 And how\u00a0are these threats\u00a0consistent with Trump\u2019s campaign promise to avoid pointless\u00a0confrontations abroad? Here\u2019s an excerpt from a&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2017\/02\/08\/trump-plays-cat-and-mouse-with-iran\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Photo by Ninian Reid | CC BY 2.0 Why is the Trump administration threatening Iran? On February 1, National Security Adviser Michael Flynn announced that the administration\u00a0was \u201cputting Iran on notice\u201d after it tested a ballistic missile which the US\u00a0sees as\u00a0a violation of\u00a0Iran\u2019s treaty obligations. Flynn\u2019s\u00a0frigid tone\u00a0made it clear that the administration is considering the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-293965","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293965\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}