"Anyone can go to Baghdad. Real men go to Tehran."
Or so the senior Bush official said. Of course he was just echoing the popular sentiment in neoconservative circles. Unfortunately for us all, the crazies are back. And this time the insanity has finally percolated its way up to the front page of the New York Times. Glenn Greenwald remarks on the Times finally reporting the serious push for an attack on Iran by the neocons.
It is quite clear that, at some point over the next 12 months, we are going to confront the issue of whether we should commence a war against Iran. The views of Americans on this question -- and about the "Iranian threat" -- are being formed now.
Articles such as the one today from the NYT clearly have the effect -- whether intentionally or otherwise -- of fundamentally skewing the issues by depicting Iran as an unprovoked enemy waging war on the U.S. and by excluding the many steps we have taken to heighten the likelihood of such a war. If this is how the media is going to report on the potential U.S.-Iran war, I'd say the odds of that conflict occurring are quite high.
Greenwald has more to say here on the matter;
But we are so clearly on that path. As Kaletsky points out, even "some even inside the Bush Administration" are plotting "how to prevent 'the crazies' from starting another war." But in each of these internal struggles, the easy victors have always been the assorted neoconservatives and warmongers, led by Dick Cheney, surrounding the President. They are clearly pining for a war with Iran.
But don't take the word of liberal bloggers, listen to conservatives like Pat Buchanan;
With Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan convulsed by ever-widening civil wars, a new danger is that the United States, tied down in two of those wars, may be about to lash out and launch a third – on Iran.
By bombarding the US with a massive PR campaign already underway by this administration,
President Bush will then have his casus belli to take out Natanz and all the other Iranian nuclear facilities, as the Israelis and the neocons have been demanding that he do. This would mean a third Middle Eastern war for America, with a nation three times as large and populous as Iraq. Perhaps it is time to begin constructing a new wing on Walter Reed.
And as he reminds us in an earlier post;
... though Iranians sound bellicose, Iran has not started a single war since the revolution of 1979. [which we undoubtedly instigated by toppling their democratically elected president Mossadegh and implementing a puppet regime all for what... that's right, OIL, as Representative Jim McDermott eloquently educates our history-challenged electorate] Indeed, Iran was the victim of a war launched by Saddam Hussein, whom we secretly supported. Not within living memory has Iran invaded or attacked another country.But in the last 110 years, peace-loving Americans have fought Spain, Germany twice, Austria-Hungary, Japan, Italy, North Korea, North Vietnam, Iraq twice, and Serbia. We have intervened militarily in the Philippines, Cuba, Mexico, Panama, Nicaragua, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Lebanon, and Grenada. We bombed Libya. Now, a case can be made for most of these wars, whose fallen we honor on Memorial Day.
But the point is this. Why would Iran, with no air force or navy that can stand up 24 hours against us, no missile that can reach us, no atom bomb, and no ability to withstand U.S. air and sea attack, want a war with us that could mean the end of Iran as a modern nation and the possible breakup of the country, as Iraq is breaking up?
Whether one is pro-war or antiwar, ought we not – if we are going into another war – do it the right way, the constitutional way, with Congress declaring war? Or does the Democratic Congress think that what is best for America is to let "the decider" decide?
Because that is what George Bush is doing right now.
So what happens if we do it?
Gary Leupp looks into what hap pends after we strike Iran;
Let us suppose that the Bush-Cheney administration answers the neocons' prayer and does indeed bomb Iran sometime soon. The plan apparently involves more than the destruction of nuclear facilities, replicating Israel's attack on Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981. (That attack, by the way was condemned by the whole world, including a furious President Ronald Reagan). It includes an all-out assault on the Iranian political and religious leadership. Government buildings and officials' residences will be targeted, guaranteeing collateral damage.
...I doubt that administration plans for the construction of a post-attack Iranian polity are any more sophisticated than their plans for post-Taliban Afghanistan or occupied Iraq. Some have suggested that the neocons' goal is actually to plunge the Muslim Middle East into prolonged pandemonium, insuring that all foes of Israel are off-balance and terrorized by the might of Israel's protector for generations to come. "Neocons," writes Paul Craig Roberts, "have convinced themselves that nuking Iran will show the Muslim world that Muslims have no alternative to submitting to the will of the US government."
They are "total Islamophobes" who believe that "Islam must be deracinated and the religion destroyed. . ." Others note that Cheney is obsessed with the imagined threat of a rising China and the need to establish permanent U.S. bases in Central and Southwest Asia to "contain" the world's most populous nation. The desire to control the flow of oil, the urge to check China, the passionate drive to destroy Israel's enemies (alongside this neocon Islamophobia) are all reflected in U.S. foreign policy since 9-11.
...
But what will happen here in the U.S. after the Iran attack? How will we react? If it happens, it won't be announced the way the invasion of Iraq was. There will be more and more unattributed reports of Iranian arms deliveries to unlikely recipients like the Taliban or Sunni "insurgents" in Iraq. More alarmist reports on Iran's nuclear progress. More propaganda about Iran's intention to nuke Israel and produce a second Holocaust...As the attack gets underway some Democratic leaders in Congress will indicate support for the move, based on the doctored intelligence reports they've read, or have had on their desk and possibly perused. Some will withhold comment or maybe even object to the action. I have the feeling both timidity and stupidity will initially prevail. There is little precedent for U.S. politicians condemning a U.S. attack on a country just after it's occurred.
So is this what we are devolving into, a nation in which presidential candidates openly support USING NUCLEAR WEAPONS 'PREEMPTIVELY' AGAINST ANOTHER COUNTRY.
Rep. Duncan Hunter of California was the starkest: "I would authorize the use of tactical nuclear weapons if there was no other way to preempt those particular centrifuges," he said. Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said he believed that the job "could be done with conventional weapons," but he added that "you can't rule out anything and you shouldn't take any option off the table." Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore also left "all options are on the table" with regard to Iranian nuclear weapons. Said former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney: "I wouldn't take any options off the table."The top-tier Democrats echoed that familiar phrase, "all options are on the table,"as if a little nuclear war 'over there' was something that needed seriously to be discussed. Since when did nuclear weapons go from "mutually assured destruction" and deterrence to and "option." Imagine these psychopath's would have been in power during the Cold War, during the Cuban missile crisis!
One of their more visible cheerleaders for Armageddon, Lieberman, recently claimed on a Sunday morning talkshow, "I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq," he told CBS on Sunday, "and to me, that would include a strike over the border into Iran."
What I sat their wondering was why the hell the 'newscaster' interviewing him couldn't ask him something like, "hey, that's great, but what about the fact that it would be profoundly illegal and monstrous to wage and aggressive war such as the one you described"?
Or, "you speak of nuclear weapons like they are a legitimate alternative to consider, as if choosing between a pistol or a rifle, are you comfortable with thought of covering and nation with radioactive debris, condemning countless innocents to Chernobyl like effects for generations"?
Or perhaps he could have asked Lieberman, "what would prevent World War III, or IV if you would like, from breaking out with an attack solidifying nationalistic support for the increasingly unpopular Iranian president, and likely facilitating a full-scale regional war with all those countries who were seen as sympathetic to the US cause, i.e. Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Turkey,etc. being attacked by those who were hostile,and what would stop Saudi's from invading Southwest Iraq to secure the Shia oil there, or the Turkish from launching a full-scale invasion of Kurdistan for similar purposes, and Iran retaliating against US assets in Iraq and worldwide etc."?
Of Course, those are the consequentialist arguments and questions posed by a preventative attack. How easily we forget the immoral crimes we condemned past generations and regimes of committing. Crimes which the US prosecuted the Axis powers for. Here's a little refresher on why it would be profoundly hypocritical;
[ Nuremberg principles]
ARTICLE 6
(a) Crimes against Peace: namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a Common Plan or Conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing;
The following acts, or any of them, are crimes coming within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal for which there shall be individual responsibility:
Of course anyone who would study ones adversary would realize that Cheney and the rest of the warmongers share the goal of a hot war with Iran with an old friend -- al Qaeda. As Gareth Porter notes;
The danger of an al Qaeda effort to disguise an attack on the U.S. as coming from Iran was raised in an article in Foreign Affairs published in late April by former NSC adviser and counterterrorism expert Bruce Reidel, who wrote that Osama bin Laden may have plans for "triggering an all-out war between the United States and Iran," referring to evidence that al Qaeda in Iraq now considers Iranian influence in Iraq "an even greater problem than the U.S. occupation".
"The biggest danger," Reidel wrote, "is that al Qaeda will deliberately provoke a war with a 'false-flag' operation, say, a terrorist attack carried out in a way that would make it appear as though it were Iran's doing."
In a briefing for reporters about the article, Reidel said al Qaeda officals have "openly talked about the advisability of getting their two great enemies to go to war with each other", hoping that they would "take each other out".
You can listen to Porter being interviewed here. He and Steve Clemens write that Cheney and his minions are currently in the process of trying to
This strategy would sidestep controversies over bomber aircraft and overflight rights over other Middle East nations and could be expected to trigger a sufficient Iranian counter-strike against US forces in the Gulf -- which just became significantly larger -- as to compel Bush to forgo the diplomatic track that the administration realists are advocating and engage in another war.
I recommend you listen to his full compelling interview here.
So is the only thing preventing the crazies from launching a war a mutiny by the generals and admirals? I posed that very question to a Democratic congressman in a town hall recently and shockingly I was essentially answered in the affirmative. He lamented the 'lack of votes' that Congress had when trying to insert language prohibiting funding for a war with our own during the last supplemental vote. Certainly the Joint Chiefs are unanimously opposed, as Joe Klein reports. And Admiral William Fallon, commander of central command, has reportedly claimed an attack on Iran "will not happen on my watch," adding, "There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box."So what to do now? Spread the word I guess. Raise awareness through Democratic forums. The ostrich approach will surely not achieve anything.
We Have moved from George Washington warning against the dangers of keeping a standing Army,to Thomas Jefferson cautioning against getting involved in foreign entanglements, to John Adams remarking that America does not go abroad in search of monsters to slay, to Dwight D. Eisenhower, warning of the dangers of the military-industrial complex, finally to George W. Bush, with "you're either with us or against us," and "bring em' on."
I feel the coming months will be an interesting time in the history of the American Republic.
