It has been underway for 30 years now—so the cumulative web of deceit, disinformation, distortions and fabrications has become nearly impossible to untangle, and for good reason: Keeping alive the notion that America is threatened by a fanatical incipient nuclear state is a vital lynch-pin justifying the presence of the vast US war machine in the Persian Gulf and our incessant interventions and meddling in the regions conflicts.