The Schlocky Horror Show

OK, so you don't read Murdoch's Australian, but the conga line of suckholes who mislead us, or at least those in their ears, do.

So, to ensure you're in the loop, and not left wondering why, when the shit hits the fan, we too are in like Flynn, here are some snatches of its near constant, remorseless editorial drumbeat for war with Iran - and this for the month of January alone:

"Iran's brinkmanship over the Strait of Hormuz and its threat to choke off oil supplies, an act of hostility that would send energy prices soaring and further imperil the global economy, demands a determined and unflinching response from the international community... Iran must be curtailed now... The mullahs' malevolence is palpable. So is their scurrilous intrique... The international community must be resolute... Difficult though it is, Iran is a challenge from which the international community must not shrink." (Troubled oil on Iran's waters, 4/1/12)

"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's grim warning... about the catastrophic consequences for world security of allowing the Iranian regime to acquire nuclear weapons could hardly be more timely or appropriate... [Sanctions] will work he says, only if accompanied by a clear statement from the international community, led by the US, that military action could follow if sanctions fail... Tehran is up in arms, threatening revenge over the assassination of another its top nuclear scientists. But given its flagrant defiance of world opinion, including 5 UN resolutions, it can hardly be surprised if it is being targeted in a clandestine war, most likely launched by Western and Israeli intelligence.... We need to face the fact that this country, run by a dangerous cabal of mullahs and led by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has vowed to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, is on the cusp of being able to build nuclear weapons... There is no escaping the grim reality, as Mr Netanyahu says, that the world faces catastrophe if Iran gets nuclear weapons. Mr Netanyahu speaks from the perspective of the existential threat Iran poses to his country. But the entire world is threatened... Mr Netanyahu is right to suggest it must be made clear by the international community that if enhanced sanctions fail, military action will become a live option." (Iranian nuclear weapons a threat to global peace, 14/1/12)

"As an act of delusional bravado, the Iranian parliament's rush to impose an immediate embargo on oil sales to Europe as its way of pre-empting EU oil sanctions could hardly be more depressingly indicative of the mood of irrational defiance that persists in Tehran... Israel's defence minister, Ehud Barak, has indicated his government is again considering unilateral military action to prevent Iran from turning nuclear...In that warning by Mr Barak and the defiant response by Tehran to the EU's sanctions are the two sides of the challenge confronting the international community in trying to persuade the mullahs to pull back from the brink... [T]he mullahs must be left in no doubt the alternative to their obduracy and defiance is military action, something Israelis could well want to see happen in an election year when President Barack Obama may find himself left with no alternative but to support it... [U]nless the mullahs can be persuaded that this time sanctions really will cause major damage and that the doom-ladden scenario outlined by Mr Barak is a real possibility if all else fails, attempts to get Iran to negotiate are unlikely to get anywhere." (Hope for Iranian oil sanctions, 30/1/12)

Fair dinkum, is this The Schlocky Horror Show or what? And those mullahs, aren't they simply maleficent? Only in The Australian.