And that is indeed what Obama did, as Goldberg makes clear in describing the interview:

Obama told me earlier this week that both Iran and Israel should take seriously the possibility of American action against Iran’s nuclear facilities. “I think that the Israeli government recognizes that, as president of the United States, I don’t bluff. . . . I think both the Iranian and the Israeli governments recognize that when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say.” . . .  In the interview, Obama stated specifically that “all options are on the table,” and that the final option is the “military component.”

Regardless of how one wants to rationalize these threats of an offensive military attack — they’re necessary to persuade the Israelis not to attack, they’re necessary to gain leverage with Iran, etc. — the U.N. Charter, to which the U.S. is a signatory, explicitly prohibits not just a military attack on another nation, but also the issuance of threats of such an attack. From Chapter II, paragraph 4:

All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

Does this matter at all? Should we even pretend to care in any way what the U.N. Charter prohibits and whether the U.S. Government’s threats to attack Iran directly violate its core provisions? I’m not asking this simple question rhetorically but rather to hear the answer.

* * * * *

Several related points: (1) for those claiming that Obama has no other viable choice but to sanction and threaten Iran, recall that his own former adviser on Iran, Vali Nasr, harshly criticized the administration last month for failing to pursue a course of negotiations with Tehran; (2) The New York Times today has two Op-Eds on the sanctions regime being imposed on Iran — one pro and one con — which both make the point that the primary effect of this sanction regime is to cause serious suffering, even hunger, among the Iranian people; such “crippling” sanctions are usually advocated by the very same individuals who feign such concern for The Iranian People when it comes to railing against the abuses of their government (unnamed Israeli officials were quoted in the Israeli press today urging mass hunger as a means to force Iran to concede); (3) Noam Chomsky has a very dispassionate, excellent new article laying out some clear and basic facts about the Iran situation that are rarely aired; and (4) The Atlantic‘s Robert Wright explains why an air attack on Iran would almost certainly require ground force activity.

UPDATE: A few other related points: (1) the U.N. Security Council in 1981 harshly condemned the Israeli air attack on Iraq’s nuclear power facility as a “clear violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the norms of international conduct”; that Resolution also “call[ed] upon Israel urgently to place its nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards” (via MediaLens, which notes that “even the US didn’t abstain”); (2) former Obama Pentagon official Colin Kahl argues today that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the 1981 Israeli attack on Iraq made Iraqi proliferation more likely, not less likely; (3) a cartoon from VastLeft on Obama, Iran and sanctions; and (4) Chris  Toensing of the Middle East Research Information Project has an excellent article rebutting the claim (issuing from the predictable circles) that Obama is not to blame for the sky-high tensions and possible war.

Yesterday, the NYT published an Op-Ed by Amos Yadlin, one of the Israeli Air Force pilots who attacked the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 and then became chief of Israeli military intelligence, arguing for the necessity of an attack on Iran and warning that Israel will do it if President Obama does not give absolute commitments of his intent to do so. Today, the NYT has a news article by incoming Jerusalem Bureau Chief Jodi Rudoren summarizing the views of Israeli President Shimon Peres that an attack on Iran is imperative (“This is an unavoidable situation. It’s not exactly the Nazi situation, but my God, what a catastrophe”) and warning Obama that “if the White House [is] not resolute, Israel might have to go it alone.” Also today, the NYT has a news article by outgoing Jerusalem Bureau Chief Ethan Bronner summarizing the views of Netanyahu and other Israeli officials in advance of their meetings this week with Obama: “Israel will not outsource what it views as its vital security interests based on an American promise to take military action if sanctions fail. Israel’s goal is an American attack on Iran, but it seems unlikely to wait till it no longer can do it by itself.”

For months, Americans have been subjected to this continuous, coordinated, repetitive messaging from Israeli officials, amplified through the U.S. media. This is generally how the establishment American media conducts the debate over whether to attack Iran: here are Israeli officials explaining why an attack is urgent and why the U.S. must conduct it. Now here are American officials explaining why an attack can wait a little while longer but that it will happen if necessary to stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon. Occasionally, here are American foreign policy experts arguing why an attack would be too difficult and costly. What is missing from the debate are the views held not only by Iranian leaders but also large populations in numerous capitals and nations around the world: that Iran has the right to pursue its nuclear program; that it is Israel and the U.S. — not Iran — that poses the greatest threat to world peace; that American and Israeli aggression against non-nuclear states (along with their massive stockpile of nuclear weapons) is what makes it rational for a nation to want to proliferate, etc. One does not have to agree with any of those views to recognize how widely they are held in the world and how much of a place they (therefore) merit in the discussion.

If one searches hard enough, one can likely find American media accounts attempting to describe or present the views of Iran on this conflict or other nations which support it — just like NBC News can point to a single Iranian source among the tidal wave of American and Israeli government and military officials who brief its top executives and shape their understanding of the issue. But overwhelmingly, the American media continuously amplifies the views of American and Israeli officials while all but suppressing the views of those on the other side. For every one Iranian official Americans are permitted to hear from (and they are treated with extreme skepticism by American journalists), they hear from countless Israelis (who are treated with the utmost deference). The same thing happens on an even more extreme scale with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (one almost never hears from Palestinians in our media debates), and more extremely still when it comes to demonizing America’s designated enemies (who are virtually never heard from, and are sometimes even officially excluded from media reports). This is the dynamic by which the American establishment media, often without even consciously realizing they’re doing it, severely narrows and distorts our national political debates while pretending to host free-ranging and vibrant discussions.

UPDATE: Speaking of how the American media and the U.S. government jointly function, here is a little mathematical formula:

This:

plus this:

equals this:

That’s the reward system in action. Goldberg twice assures everyone concerned that President Obama is “tougher” on Iran than even the Republicans were or are (Obama Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter proudly re-tweeted Goldberg’s Toughness praise), and Goldberg then is granted “the most extensive interview [Obama] has given about the looming Iran crisis,” in which he again assures everyone that Obama Is Tough and Means Serious Business.

UPDATE II [Sat.]:  As’ad AbuKhalil writes:

New York Times casually open its op-ed pages for Israeli officials or former Israeli officials to call for and agitate for bombing of Iran, or some Arab country.  Would the New York Times allow Arabs to write “opinion pieces” in which they call for bombing of Israel?

AbuKhalil’s blog is well worth reading in general: one doesn’t have to agree with his substantive policy views to appreciate his unique, expertise-based ability to highlight the contradictions and propaganda that is disseminated on a daily basis in the U.S. about that part of the world. And his rhetorical question here underscores the point: the way in which the American establishment media, which depicts itself as “neutral” and a facilitator of open debate, constantly restricts those very debates in quite rigid ways.

For more than a decade, questions have lingered about the possible role of the Saudi government in the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, even as the royal kingdom has made itself a crucial counterterrorism partner in the eyes of American diplomats.

Through seven years of war an exclusive club has quietly flourished at the intersection of network news and wartime commerce. Its members, mostly retired generals, have had a foot in both camps as influential network military analysts and defense industry rainmakers. It is a deeply opaque world, a place of privileged access to senior government officials, where war commentary can fit hand in glove with undisclosed commercial interests and network executives are sometimes oblivious to possible conflicts of interest.

Few illustrate the submerged complexities of this world better than Barry McCaffrey. . . . General McCaffrey has immersed himself in businesses that have grown with the fight against terrorism. . . .

Many retired officers hold a perch in the world of military contracting, but General McCaffrey is among a select few who also command platforms in the news media and as government advisers on military matters. These overlapping roles offer them an array of opportunities to advance policy goals as well as business objectives. But with their business ties left undisclosed, it can be difficult for policy makers and the public to fully understand their interests.

On NBC and in other public forums, General McCaffrey has consistently advocated wartime policies and spending priorities that are in line with his corporate interests. But those interests are not described to NBC’s viewers. He is held out as a dispassionate expert, not someone who helps companies win contracts related to the wars he discusses on television.

Despite Barstow’s Pulitzer, neither Brian Williams nor anyone else at NBC News ever mentioned any of these groundbreaking stories to their viewers (even as Williams reported on other Pulitzer awards that year); the controversy over the Pentagon propaganda program was simply suppressed. And NBC continued to feature those same ex-Generals as “analysts” — including McCaffrey — as though the whole thing never happened.

Apparently, not only does NBC continue to present McCaffrey to its viewers as some sort of objective analyst, but NBC News executives use him as some kind of private consultant and briefer on the news. On January 12, 2012, McCaffrey presented a seminar to roughly 20 NBC executives and producers — including NBC News President Steve Capus — entitled “Iran, Nukes & Oil: The Gulf Confrontation.” We’ve obtained the Power Point document McCaffrey prepared and distributed for his presentation, and in it, he all but predicts war with Iran within the next 90 days: one that is likely to be started by them. The first page of the breathlessly hawkish document is entitled “Iran & the Gulf: Creeping Toward War,” and the first sentence excitedly proclaims (click to enlarge):

Most of the report emphasizes the likelihood that Iran — not the U.S. — will act aggressively and trigger a war:

He adds: “We should not view the Iranian rhetoric as empty threats. They are likely to further escalate. There is great opportunity for miscalculation on their part. . . . They will not under any circumstances actually be deterred from going nuclear. They will achieve initial nuclear capability within 36 months.” About a war with Iran, he says: “Israel would welcome such a confrontation. They have an existential threat to their survival looming in their very near future.” Among his conclusions:

The last page of his presentation pointedly notes what he called “The American People: A Crisis of Confidence in Institutions.” The accompanying chart showed that 78% of Americans have faith in the military — by far the most admired institution in America — but near the bottom was “television news,” with 28%.

While McCaffrey’s office failed to return several calls seeking comment — I was particularly interested to know whether any of his ample consulting clients would benefit from a war with Iran — Lauren Kapp, an NBC News spokeswoman, confirmed the existence of this meeting. She said: “We regularly host editorial board meetings with our editorial board staff,” and besides McCaffrey: “we have heard from top ranking current and former US Government officials” (she also says that they once heard from an Iranian ambassador to the U.N.). She added:

We are exhaustive in our conversation with people from various perspectives and expertise when we over a story of this magnitude.  And we are confident in the level and breadth of the conversations we are having with representatives from all viewpoints.

Council for foreign relations, etc….

Not just current and former U.S. government officials and Generals, but also members of the “Council for foreign relations”: the diversity of viewpoints is staggering.

It is interesting to see the sources on whom NBC News executives rely to develop their understanding of the world, and it’s even more interesting to learn what they’re being told about that. The reason Barstow won a Pulitzer Prize for his two stories is because it revealed the merger between the the American media and the military establishment, many of whose members have all sorts of vested interests in Endless War. This meeting and document provides a nice glimpse for how this process continues to function.

UPDATE: Among the many attributes one might attribute to McCaffrey and his report, incoherence is near the top of the list. He does, as I noted, make statements suggesting imminent military conflict, including his claim that “there is a significant probability of Iranian escalation in the coming 90 days” and “they are likely to further escalate,” along with the title of his first page: “Creeping toward war.” But as several emailers point out, he also tacks onto the end of the discussion on the first page the assessment of “15% probability of major military action in the coming 90 days.” The document is devoted to making military conflict appear quite likely, though he places a relatively low percentage on “major military action in the coming 90 days.”

McCaffrey also purports to compare the military capabilities of Iran and Israel, though Juan Cole this morning has much more illuminating data in that regard.

UPDATE II: The Huffington Post has an article with this headline — “NBC News Fires Back At Glenn Greenwald’s McCaffrey Report” — which publishes the full statement issued by NBC in response to this story. Let’s examine it piece by piece, beginning with the first line:

The Salon piece is a woefully inaccurate, ignorant, insulting depiction of our editorial process.

That’s quite an ambitious set of accusations to prove. I’m looking forward to reading about all of the “woefully inaccurate” and “ignorant” aspects of my article (I’ll agree with the adjective “insulting,” though that’s simply the by-product of my describing NBC’s conduct). I will note that after a link to this article was sent by Salon to NBC spokesperson Lauren Kapp, she replied by email and complained about only one claimed inaccuracy: the inconsequential inclusion of the word “board” in her quote, which was immediately corrected (“She said: ‘We regularly host editorial board meetings with our editorial board staff’”). If the piece were rife with substantive inaccuracies, one would have expected her to identify them, or at least one; but perhaps they’re in NBC’s newest response. It continues:

Mr. Greenwald has stumbled upon a defining journalistic and organizational tool that differentiates us as a global news organization: our longstanding tradition of editorial board meetings with leading analysts and news makers. He chose to write the piece while not personally having one conversation with anyone from this news organization, so to critique how we do our reporting is quite ironic.

The claim that I did not “personally have one conversation” with anyone from NBC is disingenuous in the extreme. I worked on the reporting for this article with my Salon colleague Jefferson Morley. In addition to doing the work to write this, I took responsibility to try to get comment from Gen. McCaffrey’s office, while Jeff worked on getting comment from NBC. All of his communications with NBC were in the form of emails between him and Kapp, all of which were sent to me as they took place. I worked with him on the follow-up questions, and I quoted or otherwise included the entirety of Kapp’s responses to Jeff’s questions in this article. NBC knows all of this yet tries to imply, deceitfully, that I did not get its input in writing this. Then:

We listen to and value the views of retired Four-Star General Barry McCaffrey. He presented his thoughts on Iran in a recent editorial board meeting at NBC News. As have several senior officials from countries throughout the Middle East that represent vastly different world views. In similar sessions, we have received the views of current and former US government officials. We have been afforded the views of Israeli and other foreign governmental officials. We have heard from non-governmental organizations, respected journalists and opinion leaders.

NBC “listens to and values the views of” Gen. McCaffrey despite his ample conflicts of interest and other undisclosed commercial activities which David Barstow won a Pulitzer Prize for documenting, and in this case, those views are absurdly alarmist and fear-mongering. Without identifying from whom else they heard, it’s impossible to assess the validity of NBC’s claim that they invite to their editorial meetings those with “vastly different world views” when it comes to Iran, but suffice to say, both Kapp’s original response (which I quoted in the original article) and this latest one from NBC make clear that it is composed largely of government and military officials and the supporting Foreign Policy Community venues which exist to support them. That’s why it’s utterly unsurprising that NBC has produced junk propagandistic war-drum-beating like this about the Iranian Threat.

Note that NBC does not claim that any part of my discussion of its involvement in the Pentagon propaganda program — including the suppression by Brian Williams and the rest of its news division of all discussion of that huge story — is inaccurate. Nor does it dispute any of the facts I conveyed about McCaffrey. Indeed, despite its opening flurry of accusations, NBC does not even purport to identify a single inaccuracy in any thing I reported. Replies like this one — that are long on screeching invective and short on any identified inaccuracies — do more to bolster the validity of the original article than anything else could.

UPDATE III: TPM has a good article on this matter which emphasizes why it is so imperative to aggressively scrutinize media behavior on Iran.

The NYPD surveillance scheme took place in secret, with no oversight or legal framework. It was accomplished in part through the use — and abuse — of the post-9/11 police state and Drug War funding bonanza from the White House, which gave the NYPD the funds (ostensibly to fight the drug trade) that were then used to pay for the surveillance trucks used to track Muslim communities. Once revealed, city officials like Mayor Michael Bloomberg and NYPD Chief Ray Kelly immediately hauled out the all-purpose justifying, fear-mongering term — Terrorism – to insist that the indiscriminate spying program was both necessary and proper to Keep Us Safe. Right-wing, neocon, Murdoch-owned media outlets churn out vehemently anti-Muslim agitprop to justify the program. Only a small handful of groups — in this case the ACLU and CAIR — object to the surveillance abuses, as both groups called yesterday for an official investigation into the NYPD as well as the role the U.S. Government played in enabling the spying; one Bloomberg appointee, a Muslim lawyer, said the spying was “obviously illegal.” But, as usual, those handful of dissenters are drowned out by the long line of political figures from both parties — including Democrats in super safe seats — which eagerly forms in order, out of a mix of cowardice and conviction, to defend the civil liberties assaults:

Sen. Chuck Schumer stands up for the NYPD’s fight against terrorism 

Finally, after weeks of innuendo, half-truths and distortions that have depicted the NYPD as spying on the city’s Muslim communities, an elected official has spoken the truth.

There’s no there there, said Sen, Chuck Schumer of reports that the department’s Intelligence Division invasively monitored New Yorkers based on their religious beliefs. . . .

Referring to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, Schumer said: “I don’t think he has a bigoted bone in his body.”

He added: “There is nothing wrong with the NYPD collecting and assessing publicly available information from New York, New Jersey, the other 48 states or around the world in the effort to prevent another terror attack like 9/11. In fact, it is widely understood that the NYPD’s actions have kept us safer. . . .”

Schumer’s statement is just false — much of the information was not at all “public” but was compiled through infiltration and spying — and one would like to see how he’d react if the NYPD were compiling dossiers on entire Jewish communities or law-abiding Christian groups. And then there’s this, from the only politician in America who appears competitive with Mitt Romney in terms of being so desperate for power that they’re willing to contort themselves into anything that the moment requires:

New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn on Monday said she supports police monitoring of Muslim groups, making her the first major potential 2013 mayoral candidate to endorse the controversial surveillance effort.

In a statement on the topic, Quinn suggested that she would continue the strategy if voters elect her to succeed Mayor Michael Bloomberg next year. “Unless we know that laws were broken or someone’s civil liberties were violated, I do not think the NYPD should stop the practice,” she said — an indication that she doesn’t believe police have breached anyone’s rights in its surveillance program based on the information that has been made public so far. . . .

Quinn, who started out her career as a housing- and gay-rights activist deeply entrenched in the rabble-rousing, liberal wing of city politics, has moved to the center over the years. She’s formed a tight alliance with Bloomberg, who is widely seen as a potential supporter of her yet-to-be announced mayoral candidacy.

Similarly, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said he sees no reason to investigate the spying program, and was supported in that decision by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Notably, as New York Democrats line up to praise the anti-Muslim surveillance, Newark’s Democratic Mayor Cory Booker, as well as GOP New Jersey Governor Chris Christie — have both denounced the spying program insofar as it was aimed at their city and state.

So that is basically the story of the general civil liberties assault and the accompanying demonization of Muslims in America since 9/11. The Government spies on whomever it wants in total secrecy and with no checks or oversight. In those rare instances where it is revealed, those responsible immediately screech Terrorists! to keep fear levels high, while politicians in both parties, with rare exception, line up to support these assaults. The bigoted equation of Muslims with Terrorism is incrementally bolstered each time. And all of this becomes more and more normalized — not an aberration but the norm in American political life.

* * * * *

Along with Faiza Patel of the Brennan Center for Justice, I was on Al Jazeera’s The Stream program yesterday to discuss the NYPD spying program; that segment can be seen here:

UPDATE: Here are 3 questions I submitted this morning to Speaker Christine Quinn regarding her support for the NYPD spying program and her vow to continue it if she becomes Mayor. Meanwhile, here is one comment from one of the Congress’ best members, Rep. Rush Holt of New Jersey:

NYPD spying on NJ Muslims is reprehensible. In Sept I asked AG Holder to name special counsel. Still waiting. http://is.gd/LjGeSL

That link goes to an AP article reporting on a letter sent by Holt to Attorney General Eric Holder in which he writes: “I believe that these serious and significant allegations warrant an immediate investigation.”

Protesters in Kabul interviewed on the road and in front of Parliament said that this was not the first time that Americans had violated Afghan cultural and religious traditions and that an apology was not enough.

“This is not just about dishonoring the Koran, it is about disrespecting our dead and killing our children,” said Maruf Hotak, 60, a man who joined the crowd on the outskirts of Kabul, referring to an episode in Helmand Province when American Marines urinated on the dead bodies of men they described as insurgents and to a recent erroneous airstrike on civilians in Kapisa Province that killed eight young Afghans.

“They always admit their mistakes,” he said. “They burn our Koran and then they apologize. You can’t just disrespect our holy book and kill our innocent children and make a small apology.”

And:

Members of Parliament called on Afghans to take up arms against the American military, and Western officials said they feared that conservative mullahs might incite more violence at the weekly Friday Prayer, when a large number of people worship at mosques.

“Americans are invaders, and jihad against Americans is an obligation,” said Abdul Sattar Khawasi, a member of Parliament from the Ghorband district in Parwan Province, where at least four demonstrators were killed in confrontations with the police on Wednesday.

The U.S. has violently occupied their country for more than a decade. It has, as Gen. Stanley McChrystal himself explained, killed what he called an “amazing number” of innocent Afghans in checkpoint shootings. It has repeatedly — as in, over and over — killed young Afghan children in air strikes. It continues to imprison their citizens for years at Bagram and other American bases without charges of any kind and with credible reports of torture and other serious abuses. Soldiers deliberately shot Afghan civilians for fun and urinated on their corpses and displayed them as trophies.

Meanwhile, the protesters themselves continue to be shot, although most American media accounts favor sentences like these which whitewash who is doing the killing: “running clashes with the police that claimed the lives of another five Afghan protesters” and “in Nangarhar Province, two Afghans protesting the Koran burning were shot to death outside an American base in Khogyani District” and “protesters angry over the burning of Korans at the largest American base in Afghanistan this week took to the streets in demonstrations in a half-dozen provinces on Wednesday that left at least seven dead and many more injured.” Left at least seven dead: as As’ad AbuKhalil observed, “notice that there is no killer in the phrasing.”

It’s comforting to believe that these violent protests and the obviously intense anti-American rage driving them is primarily about anger over the inadvertent burning of some religious books: that way, we can dismiss the rage as primitive and irrational and see the American targets as victims. But the Afghans themselves are making clear that this latest episode is but the trigger for — the latest symbol of — a pile of long-standing, underlying grievances about a decade-old, extremely violent foreign military presence in their country. It’s much more difficult to dismiss those grievances as the by-product of primitive religious fanaticism, so — as usual — they just get ignored.

UPDATE: Beyond all these points, it’s perversely fascinating to watch all of this condescension — it’s just a book: who cares if it’s burned?  – pouring forth from a country whose political leaders were eager to enact a federal law or even a Constutional amendment to make it a criminal offense to burn the American flag (which, using this parlance, is “just a piece of cloth”). In fact, before the Supreme Court struck down such statutes as unconstitutional in 1989 by a 5-4 vote, it was a crime in 48 states in the nation to burn the flag. Here is what Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote in dissent about why the Constitution permits the criminalization of flag burning (emphasis added):

The American flag, then, throughout more than 200 years of our history, has come to be the visible symbol embodying our Nation. It does not represent the views of any particular political party, and it does not represent any particular political philosophy. The flag is not simply another “idea” or “point of view” competing for recognition in the marketplace of ideas. Millions and millions of Americans regard it with an almost mystical reverence, regardless of what sort of social, political, or philosophical beliefs they may have.

Might one say the same for Muslims and the Koran? Along those lines, just imagine what would happen if a Muslim army invaded the U.S., violently occupied the country for more than a decade, in the process continuously killing American children and innocent adults, and then, outside of a prison camp it maintained where thousands of Americans were detained for years without charges and tortured, that Muslim army burned American flags — or a stack of bibles — in a garbage dump. Might we see some extremely angry protests breaking out from Americans against them? Would American pundits be denouncing those protesters as blinkered, primitive fanatics?