US, Israel seek to stifle Iran’s progress: Analyst

A letter sent to Congress on Wednesday by a group of nearly 200 retired US military generals urging lawmakers to reject the Iran nuclear agreement is an effort in line with the neoconservative movement to impede Iran’s progress, a geopolitical analyst in New York says.

Iran is the principal defender of the Middle East from extremism, creating a great obstacle for the US and Israel who have considerable interest in spreading terrorism in the region, said Eric Draitser, the founder of Stopimperialism.com.

“Iran maintains a posture of defending the region and defending the resistance axis against these forces, that is what Israel fears, that is what their lackeys in Washington fear and that is why you see this letter being put out there,” Draitser said during a phone interview with Press TV on Thursday.

The letter was sent to Congress by retired generals and flag officers from every branch of the US armed forces, including military officers who served in the White House, under Democratic and Republican administrations.

The letter is a response to one sent last week by three dozen retired senior military officers who support the nuclear accord.

“What they really want is they want to stifle Iran’s economic progress, they want to make sure that Iran cannot integrate into the world community, that Iran maintains a position of isolation within the region, thereby allowing Israel to maintain its hegemony,” Draitser added.

Washington and Tel Aviv “fear that Iran and this nuclear agreement is going to lead to a future in which Tehran plays a leading role in the region,” he said.

Iran and the P5+1 group of countries – the US, Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany – announced the conclusion of nuclear negotiations in the Austrian capital, Vienna, on July 14.

The Obama administration is striving to save the nuclear agreement in the Republican-dominated Congress which is reviewing it and is likely to vote on it in September.

The American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and other pro-Israel lobbying groups in the US have launched a massive campaign to defeat the historic agreement in Congress.

AIPAC has reportedly deployed about 300 lobbyists on Capitol Hill to try to convince lawmakers to vote against the nuclear agreement.

According to reports, the Israel lobby is spending up to $40 million on television commercials and other propaganda material to inform the public “about the dangers of the proposed Iran deal.”