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EUA - Iran

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Map: US bases encircle Iran - Interactive. Doha, Qatar - US military bases continue to form a strategic envelope around Iran, although the American withdrawal from Iraq at the end of 2011 may have changed the regional balance somewhat towards Iran's favour.

Map: US bases encircle Iran - Interactive

While US forces are scaling back in many parts of the globe due to budget cuts - and have begun a gradual depature from Afghanistan to be completed by 2014 - their international presence remains vast. From an active-duty force of 1.4 million soldiers, the US has deployed some 350,000 troops to at least 130 foreign countries around the world. Some are at Cold War-era installations, but many are in or near combat zones in the Middle East. At more than 750 bases internationally, private contractors and third-country nationals also form a large percentage of the staff, in addition to military reservists and civilian employees of the Pentagon.

Click on installations for more information about facilities and troops, or view American Military Bases near Iran in a larger map. Univision goes neoconservative. Washington, DC - It's not often that Univision, the leading Spanish-language television network in the United States, releases its content in languages other than Spanish.

Univision goes neoconservative

It is, after all, a Spanish-language television network. But earlier this month the broadcaster did something out of the ordinary, screening an English version of a recent report on Iran that's received a rapturous reception from neoconservatives in Washington. And it at least appears to have done so at the behest of its hawkish new fan club. Why would a network best known for sappy telenovelas shift to producing sloppy war propaganda - and English-language propaganda at that? Perhaps, as is usually the case with the corporate press, Univision's bias and peculiar programming choices are best explained by simply noting who owns it: Israeli-American businessman Haim Saban, a self-described “one-issue guy” - that issue being Israel - who has been up front about purchasing media outlets to promote his own political views.

Obama's Iran choice. Washington, DC - An article in Tuesday's New York Times suggests that there is a method to the madness of the Republican presidential candidates' hawkish rhetoric on Iran.

Obama's Iran choice

I had thought that the reason all the Republican candidates (with the exception of Ron Paul) are such noisy warmongers is because that is their natural proclivity - and because it pleases donors (such as Sheldon Adelson, Newt Gingrich's big campaign funder) who base their political choices on Binyamin Netanyahu's desires. But Times reporter Mark Landler suggests that one of the results of this year's conveniently timed Iran crisis is to present President Barack Obama with a choice of two options, either of which the GOP could successfully exploit to defeat him in the election.

As Landler points out: Under normal circumstances, a president's decision to invoke a national security waiver on any foreign policy matter is hard to challenge. But the political consequences of waiving could be dire. Then, oil prices rise. Estados Unidos está esperando la guerra - El Universal - Columnas. Jueves 16 de febrero de 2012 En el Departamento de Estado de EU, donde manda Hillary Clinton, están convencidos de que cualquier día de estos amanecemos con la noticia de que Israel está bombardeando Irán.

En privado, en corto, sus funcionarios hablan abiertamente del tema con periodistas, consultores y agentes gubernamentales. No están guardando el secreto: filtran documentos que luego, como parte de la misma estrategia de deslinde, minimizan en público con declaraciones oficiales vagas. Fomentan artículos que, en toda la prensa americana citando fuentes públicas y privadas, convergen en el mismo sentido: Israel puede atacar las instalaciones estratégicas de Irán avisando a la Casa Blanca con sólo unos minutos de anticipación. Los proiraníes reclaman que por qué si tantas potencias tienen bombas atómicas, a los ayatolas se les prohíbe tener una. Sigue saliendo el cochinero del Bicentenario.

Drums of war: The US media's 'Iranian threat' - Listening Post.