| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2005 4:40 pm Post subject: Cheney's Man Slated to Replace Feith |
| Cindy Sheehan is right about the PNAC Neocons being responsible for the murder of her beloved son (Casey Sheehan):
Cindy Sheehan to ABC's 'Nightline' about PNAC Neocon cabal:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/08/11/cindy-sheehan-s-letter-to-nightline-about-pnac-neocon-cabal.php
Cindy Sheehan Confronts Judith Miller's War
by Ahmed Amr
(Sunday August 14 2005)
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/17749
http://www.livejournal.com/~mparent7777/1943176.html
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Cheney's Man Slated to Replace Feith
http://www.antiwar.com/barry/?articleid=6920
by Tom Barry and Tanya I. Garcia
A career diplomat and foreign policy operative, Eric S. Edelman has just replaced the controversial Douglas Feith at the Pentagon as the new undersecretary of defense for policy, having been appointed by President Bush during a congressional recess. Many observers had wrongly assumed that Edelman would become Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's top deputy. Instead Rice named former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick as Deputy Secretary of State.
Inside and outside the administration, Feith's announcement in late January 2005 that he would resign when a replacement was found was greeted with widespread relief. Feith's role in establishing the Office of Special Plans within the Pentagon, his connections to officials being investigated for passing intelligence to Israel, and his role in drafting the new national security directive on Iran have created unwanted attention to the Pentagon's policy division. Although the administration wanted Feith out of the Pentagon, there were no signs that his departure signaled any change in policy direction. To the contrary, Feith's replacement by Edelman underscored that the administration was continuing with the foreign policy agenda set forward by the neoconservative camp.
As a career Foreign Service officer, Edelman has been less outspoken than his predecessor and, unlike Feith, not directly connected with many of the neoconservative organizations, such as the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs and Center for Security Policy, with which Feith was associated. However, Edelman will bring with him to the top DOD post his own political baggage and radical ideological views.
Over his government career, Edelman has shuttled back and forth between the State Department and DOD. His latest assignment was as ambassador to Turkey, where he gained the reputation as a meddlesome critic of the government at a time when anti-Americanism began flaring up throughout the country.
President Bush named Edelman ambassador to Turkey a few months after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The Pentagon had been counting on Turkey to provide a backdoor into Iraq for its invasion force, but despite repeated entreaties by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Ankara declined to provide the access into northern Iraq that the Pentagon coveted. After the Turkish parliament rejected the Pentagon's request on March 1, 2003, Wolfowitz met with the country's military leaders in an attempt to reverse the decision.
Serving at the time as Vice President Cheney's national security adviser, Edelman assumed the ambassadorship in Ankara in July 2003. It was widely speculated that Edelman was named to this key post not only because of his close ties to Washington's war party but also due to his family connections to Turkey. Edelman's grandmother fled Russia in the early 1920s, and his mother was born in Turkey. His great uncle taught at Ankara University.
Rather than improving U.S.-Turkish relations, Edelman's two-year stay in Ankara was a lightning rod for deepening anti-U.S. sentiment in Turkey. Typical of the anti-U.S. and anti-Edelman sentiment in the media was an assessment by columnist Ibrahim Karagul that "Edelman is probably the least-liked and -trusted American ambassador in Turkish history."
In his column in Yeni Safak, Karagul wrote: "Considering the range of his activities, his statements which violate the decorum of democracy, and his interest in Turkey's internal affairs, Eric Edelman acts more like a colonial governor than an ambassador… Edelman's actions have exceeded his diplomatic mission. His 'interest' in nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the Turkish media, and ethnic minorities make him go beyond his role as an ambassador. His presence here has never contributed to Turkish-American relations, and it never will. If we want to address the reasons for anti-Americanism, Edelman must be issue one. As long as Edelman stays in Turkey, the chill wind disturbing bilateral relations will last."
Another prominent columnist, Can Dündar, wrote an article in Milliyet entitled, "Persona Non Grata," in which he observed: "If Turkey today is the leader in the race of 'America-hating countries,' Edelman is a major part of it."
As the war and occupation in Iraq went badly for the United States, the U.S. government blamed Turkey for failing to join the "coalition of the willing." DOD chief Donald Rumsfeld told Fox News on March 20, 2005 that "the insurgency today would be less" if Turkey had cooperated with U.S. invasion plans. "Given the level of the insurgency today, two years later, clearly, if we had been able to get the Fourth Infantry Division in from the north through Turkey, more of the Iraqi Saddam Hussein Ba'athist regime would have been captured or killed," said Rumsfeld.
Washington also charged that Turkey viewed "liberated" Iraq with increasing hostility. As tensions with Syria increased, rather than siding with the United States, Turkey increased its contacts with the besieged regime of President Bashar Assad. A turning point in Syrian-Turkey relations was Assad's visit to Ankara in 2004, and when President Ahmet Necdet Sezer told the media in mid-March that he would visit Syria as planned in mid-April, Washington and the U.S. Embassy in Ankara quickly reacted.
Angering Washington, Turkey did not echo the U.S. government's and France's demand that Syria remove all its troops from Lebanon. Many in Turkey believe that Washington has attempted to "franchise" what is increasingly called the "Cedar revolution" in Lebanon. Stepping into the fray, Edelman said, "What can be said on Syria is that the international community is completely unanimous on UN Security Council Resolution 1559," which calls on Syria immediately to withdraw its troops from Lebanon. "We hope Turkey will join the international community," said Edelman.
All but chased out of Turkey as a "persona non grata," Edelman is being promoted to undersecretary of defense for policy. Like many other top officials of the Bush administration's foreign policy team, Edelman began his government career in the Reagan administration. While completing his doctorate in history at Yale University, Edelman joined the U.S. Middle East Delegation to the West Bank/Gaza Autonomy Talks. He then became a special assistant to Secretary of State George Shultz. In 1990 Edelman moved from the State Department to the Pentagon, where he officially served as assistant deputy undersecretary of defense for Soviet and East European affairs.
Edelman served under Defense Secretary, now Vice President, Cheney during the administration of the president's father. At that time he worked as part of a team headed by Paul Wolfowitz that was charged with formulating a Defense Policy Guidance that would serve as the post-Cold War framework for U.S. military strategy. Others working on the draft grand strategy were Zalmay Khalilzad and I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff. According to Nicholas Lehman, writing in the New Yorker, this team picked by Cheney was "generally speaking, a cohesive group of conservatives who regard themselves as bigger-thinking, tougher-minded, and intellectually bolder than most other people in Washington." In the draft Defense Policy Guidance, Wolfowitz and team laid out a policy agenda for U.S. military power that stipulated that the U.S. should wage preventive war to maintain unchallenged U.S. military supremacy.
During the Clinton administration, Edelman moved back to the State Department. As ambassador-at-large and special adviser to the secretary of state on the Newly Independent States, Edelman oversaw defense, security, and space issues.
Vice President Cheney brought Edelman back under his wing as principal deputy assistant for national security affairs. As an assistant to Cheney, he was part of the foreign policy network that hurriedly established the "intelligence" rationales for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Edelman, who is close to such leading neocons as Michael Ledeen and Richard Perle, worked closely in the vice president's office with Scooter Libby in establishing a policy network of hawks and neocons that was based at the Pentagon and Cheney's office but extended through key figures into State, the various intelligence agencies, and the National Security Council.
Replacing Douglas Feith with Edelman allows the radicals running U.S. foreign policy to leave behind the controversies building around Feith and get a relatively clean start with a new undersecretary of defense for planning.
Tanya I. Garcia is a research associate with the IRC's Right Web program.
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Forwarded:
Bypassed the Senate to slip him in, too:
(Guardian)Wednesday August 10, 2005 2:01 AM
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush for the second time in a week used a constitutional power to bypass the Senate and fill a senior Pentagon post with an official whose nomination was stalled in the Senate.
The White House announced on Tuesday that Bush named Eric S. Edelman to be undersecretary of defense for policy, the chief policy adviser to the secretary of defense. Edelman replaces Douglas J. Feith, whose battles with Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., over the release of documents related to Iraq stalled Edelman's nomination.
Edelman is a career foreign service officer. He served as ambassador to Turkey from July 2003 to June 2005 and he was a national security assistant to Vice President Dick Cheney from February 2001 to June 2003.
Edelman's nomination to replace Feith was sent to the Senate on May 16.
The Constitution gives the president the authority to put an official in a position without waiting for Senate confirmation when Congress is in recess. The official then can serve until the end of the current Congress, which in this case is January 2007.
Last week Bush approved a recess appointment for Peter Flory to be assistant secretary of defense for international security policy, a post that had not been filled by a Senate-confirmed official since J.D. Crouch left in 2004.
On Aug. 1 Bush used the same power to install John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations.
<And let us not forget the leverage exerted to get Wolfowitz into the World Bank slot>
This is democracy?
Last edited by Alpha on Tue Aug 16, 2005 8:23 am; edited 7 times in total | |  | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2005 6:50 pm Post subject: How Bush would gain from war with Iran |
| http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1549335,00.html
How Bush would gain from war with Iran
The US has the capability and reasons for an assault - and it is hard to see Britain uninvolved
Dan Plesch
Monday August 15, 2005
The Guardian
President Bush has reminded us that he is prepared to take military action to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. On Israeli television this weekend, he declared that "all options are on the table" if Tehran doesn't comply with international demands.
In private his officials deride EU and UN diplomacy with Iran. US officials have been preparing pre-emptive war since Bush marked Iran out as a member of the "axis of evil" back in 2002. Once again, this war is likely to have British support.
A plausible spin could be that America and Britain must act where the international community has failed, and that their action is the responsible alternative to an Israeli attack. The conventional wisdom is that, even if diplomacy fails, the US is so bogged down in Iraq that it could not take on Iran. However, this misunderstands the capabilities and intentions of the Bush administration.
America's devastating air power is not committed in Iraq. Just 120 B52, B1 and B2 bombers could hit 5,000 targets in a single mission. Thousands of other warplanes and missiles are available. The army and marines are heavily committed in Iraq, but enough forces could be found to secure coastal oilfields and to conduct raids into Iran.
A US attack is unlikely to be confined to the suspected WMD locations or to involve a ground invasion to occupy the country. The strikes would probably be intended to destroy military, political and (oil excepted) economic infrastructure. A disabled Iran could be further paralysed by civil war. Tehran alleges US support for separatists in the large Azeri population of the north-west, and fighting is increasing in Iranian Kurdistan.
The possible negative consequences of an attack on Iran are well known: an increase in terrorism; a Shia rising in Iraq; Hizbullah and Iranian attacks on Israel; attacks on oil facilities along the Gulf and a recession caused by rising oil prices. Advocates of war argue that if Iran is allowed to go nuclear then each of these threats to US and Israeli interests becomes far greater. In this logic, any negative consequence becomes a further reason to attack now - with Iran disabled all these threats can, it is argued, be reduced.
Iraq is proving an electoral liability. This is a threat to the Bush team's intention to retain power for the next decade - perhaps, as the author Bob Woodward says, with President Cheney at the helm. War with Iran next spring can enable them to win the mid-term elections and retain control of the Republican party, now in partial rebellion over Iraq.
The rise in oil prices and subsequent recession are reasons some doubt that an attack would take place. However, Iran's supplies are destined for China - perceived as the US's main long-term rival. And the Bush team are experienced enough to remember that Ronald Reagan rode out the recession of the early 1980s on a wave of rhetoric about "evil empire".
Even if the US went ahead, runs the argument, Britain would not be involved as Tony Blair would not want a rerun of the Iraq controversy. But British forces are already in the area: they border Iran around Basra, and will soon lead the Nato force on Iran's Afghan frontier. The British island of Diego Garcia is a critical US base.
It is hard to see Britain uninvolved in US actions. The prime minister is clearly of a mind to no more countenance Iran's WMD than he did Iraq's. In Iran's case the evidence is more substantial. The Iranians do have a nuclear energy programme and have lied about it. In any event, Blair is probably aware that the US is unlikely to supply him with the prized successor to the Trident submarine if Britain refuses to continue to pay the blood sacrifice of standing with the US. Tory votes might provide sufficient "national unity" to see off Labour dissenters.
New approaches are needed to head off such a dismal scenario. The problem on WMD is that Blair and Bush are doing too little, not too much. Why pick on Iran rather than India, Pakistan, Israel or Egypt - not to mention the west's weapons? In the era of Gorbachev and Reagan, political will created treaties that still successfully control many types of WMD. Revived, they would provide the basis for global controls. Iran must not be dealt with in isolation.
As the Iran debate unfolds, we will no doubt again hear about the joint intelligence committee. We should follow the advice of a former head of the committee, Sir Paul Lever, to remove US intelligence officials from around the JIC table, where they normally sit. Only in this way, argues Lever, can the British take a considered view themselves.
We need to be clear that our MPs have no mandate to support an attack on Iran. During the election campaign, the government dismissed any suggestion that Iran might be attacked as ridiculous scaremongering. If Blair has told Bush that Britain will prevent Iran's nuclear weapons "come what may", we need to be equally clear that nothing short of an election would provide the mandate for an attack.
· Dan Plesch is the author of The Beauty Queen's Guide to World Peace, about which he is speaking at the Edinburgh Book Festival
dan@danplesch.net
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Buchanan doesn't address the threat of nuclear attack on Iran here, and I wish he had, but he clearly sees the stupidity in threatening at all:
http://www.theamericancause.org/
Is this Iran crisis for real?
by Patrick J. Buchanan
August 15, 2005
Are the Iranian mullahs close to acquiring the bomb? Has Iran violated the Non-Proliferation Treaty by restarting its conversion of yellowcake into uranium hexaflouride? The answer to both is no.
By a recent U.S. intelligence review, Iran may be 10 years away from a bomb. And under the NPT, Iran is allowed to enrich uranium for use in her own nuclear power plants.
Why, then, this talk of confrontation and pre-emptive strikes? Even if Iran had a weapon, to give it to a terrorist or to use it on a U.S. target would be an act of suicidal insanity by a regime that, no matter how militant, has shown no desire for war with America.
What is the worry? Just this. If or when Iran goes nuclear, she has a deterrent to intimidation. U.S. freedom of action in the Persian Gulf comes to an end. We would have to behave as gingerly with the mullahs as we do with Kim Jong Il, something intolerable to our neoconservatives and President Bush.
For the Israelis, an Iranian bomb would have the same impact as Stalin's explosion of a bomb had on us in 1949. Israel's invulnerability would come to an end. She would enter the world of Mutual Assured Destruction, like the one we had to live in during the Cold War. Thus, for Israel, the sooner the Americans pulverize Iran's infant nuclear facilities, the better. But herein lies the problem for President Bush.
Britain, France and Germany do not want to take the first step to confrontation by asking the U.N. Security Council to vote sanctions on Iran for restarting the enrichment process. And even if the Europeans agree to go to the Security Council, a resolution calling for sanctions would face vetoes by Russia and China.
If the council then rejects sanctions, but America and her NATO allies impose them, the world will be divided between Russia-China-Iran on one side and the United States and its backers on the other. It would be interesting to see how many U.S. allies are willing to support sanctions on the third-largest oil producer on earth when oil is running at $65 a barrel.
Moreover, if the present negotiations end in sanctions on Iran, then, just as North Korea sped up its nuclear program when talks broke down, Iran might do the same. That would leave the United States with the final option: air and missile strikes to destroy all of Iran's known facilities for the enrichment of uranium.
But as Iran is permitted such facilities as long as it allows absolute freedom for U.N. inspectors, how could we justify such acts of war?
After all, we give a $160 billion trade surplus to China, though she is targeting our cities with nuclear missiles. President Bush cut a deal to help India develop nuclear power, though she has tested bombs. We give foreign aid to Pakistan and Israel, which had clandestine and successful programs that built atomic weapons. And we have a basket of goodies on offer to Kim Jong Il if he will shut down his nuclear facilities and hand over any bombs.
Where is the consistency here?
There is another consideration. Iran's response to any U.S. strike is unlikely to be to go limp like a peacenik demonstrator. As Michael Mazeer of the U.S. National War College writes in the New Republic, Iran's best strategy might be to lash out in retaliation.
What could Iran do? Plenty. Send Revolutionary Guards into Iraq to make that country a worse hell for the 135,000 U.S. troops. Incite Hezbollah to launch rockets on Israel to widen the war. Attack U.S. allies in the Gulf. Encourage the Shias in Iraq and Saudi Arabia to attack Americans. Mine the Strait of Hormuz. Activate Islamic loyalists to bring terror home to the United States.
In short, a U.S. attack on Iran could lead to war across the region and interruption of the 15 million barrels of oil a day that come from the Gulf, which would drive the world economy into instant cardiac arrest.
And as the United States lacks the ground forces to invade Iran and topple the regime, U.S. retaliation would be restricted to air and cruise missile strikes. But just as 9-11 united Americans behind President Bush, attacks on Iran might unite the Iranian people behind the mullahs' regime, enhancing its prestige as it fought America to protect Iran's equal right to pursue nuclear power and nuclear technology, an issue upon which almost all Iranians agree. President Bush should think long and hard before yielding to the War Party a second time. Iran is a nation three times the size of Iraq and with three times the population. This would be no cakewalk.
© 2005 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
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Whose War is this?:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/2001-09-27-ncguest1.htm
Whose War (Israel's War)?:
http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html
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Who's Behind the Coming War with Iran?
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/08/06/who-s-behind-the-coming-war-with-iran.php
http://nomorewarforisrael.blogspot.com
Last edited by Alpha on Tue Aug 16, 2005 8:44 am; edited 4 times in total | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2005 6:56 pm Post subject: The triumph of neoconservatives in Iraq |
| Forwarded:
This article was in the 10 August Editorials. They run some excellent articles and this one lays out all of the important information very succinctly and in layman's terms. The people is the Middle East are so well informed and relatively unbiased so the whole picture of Iraq and the motivation to go there and remain there is without political influence. Thought you would like this.
You can go to The Jordan Times link and click on the Wednesday
newspaper in the left margin, then go to the Opinions & Analysis section for the article.
www.jordantimes.com
The triumph of neoconservatives in Iraq
By Abbas J. Ali
In his speech on June 28, President George W. Bush accurately characterised the situation in Iraq as ?horrifying, and the suffering is real.? Previously, Bush had described the invasion of Iraq as a ?catastrophic success.? Foreign affairs analysts agree that in both cases, Bush accurately captured the reality of the Iraqi mess, but were equally surprised by his insistence on staying the course. The fear is that Iraqi hardship and bloodshed may be deepened and reversing the state of disorder is a remote possibility.
Three recent developments in the Iraqi political arena reaffirm the growing fear: US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld predicts that the mess in Iraq could go on for 12 years, The New York Times reported (June 30) that a type of federalism is supported by Washington, where each region in Iraq gains power approaching true sovereignty, and Zalamy Khalilzad assumed his position as the American ambassador in Baghdad. The last two developments are interrelated and are certain to turn the transformation of Iraq into a bloody mess.
In particular, Khalilzad is a pivotal factor in the Iraqi equation. Khalilzad was a member of the team that planned the invasion of Iraq and aggressively promoted a vision for Iraq where the Iraqis play only an advisory role in determining the future of their country. As a hard line neoconservative, he is an adamant advocate of the virtue of perpetual war and the use of forceful approaches to world problems. When Henry Kissinger, a neoconservative strategist, in November 2001 articulated a plan for creating ?a central Kabul government of limited reach, with tribal autonomy prevailing in various regions,? in Afghanistan, it was Khalilzad who translated it into a reality.
Back in 1970s, the neoconservatives recognised that Iraq constituted a threat to their design for the Middle East. Not because Iraq has ample natural resources, especially oil and water, but because the Iraqis were considered a spirited and cultured people, displaying pride, patriotism, and independent thinking. General Eric Shinseki, then the US army chief of staff, pointed out in 2002 that Paul Wolfowitz, as a young Pentagon analyst and a neoconservative, designated Iraq in 1979 as a menace that must be dealt with. Since then, the invasion and occupation of Iraq has been primarily a neoconservative venture.
In targeting Iraq, the neoconservatives envision war and military intervention as instrumental in the polarisation of Iraq's ethnic and sectarian divisions and ultimately ending Iraqi Arab identity. For example, in 1982, Oded Yinon accentuated the usefulness of internal strife and war with Iraq to foster the demise of Iraq as an Arab state. Yinon noticed that: ?In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel? and that a division of Iraq ?into provinces along ethnic/religious lines ... is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shiite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north.?
Critics and political commentators agree that the neoconservatives are obsessed with a grand design to militarise the globe and globalise fear. Knowledgeable observers, however, acknowledge that the core of the neoconservatives' thinking revolves around the Middle East and the role of Israel. Unlike Bush, the neoconservatives harbour the belief that freedom for the Arab people, prosperity, and cultural renaissance are a threat to Israeli security and vitality. It is for this reason that neoconservatives make a powerful argument for creating instability and chaos in the Middle East. This was well expressed by Michael Ledeen, former US undersecretary of state and a leading neoconservative, when he stated: ?Stability is an unworthy American mission, and a misleading concept to boot. We do not want stability in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and even Saudi Arabia; we want things to change. The real issue is not whether, but how to destabilise.?
Indeed, the neoconservatives have been exceptionally successful in promoting four primary propositions:
1. The welfare of American people and the prestige of the US in the world are contingent upon the ability to dominate the world and especially the Middle East,
2. The US invasion of and military presence in Iraq ensures American safety, security and world peace,
3. The US goals coincide with Israeli goals. Therefore, the invasion of Iraq served the interests of both countries
4. The Arab people are inherently anti-American and a threat to American interests. Thus, the presence of American forces in the region is an imperative necessity and is essential for world peace.
Neoconservative thinkers Lawrence Kaplan and William Kristol assert in their book, The War over Iraq, that the decision about what course to take in dealing with Iraq, ?is about more even than the future of the Middle East and the war on terror. It is about what sort of role the United States intends to play in the word in the 21st century.? They argue that the only plausible and sensible mission is to persistently apply American might in these parts of the world that constitute a threat to American interests and foresee Iraq as a starting stage; the ?mission begins in Baghdad, but it does not end there.?
The mission, as Michael Ledeen defines it, is to ensure the total submission of the people in the region. He stated in 2001, ?we will not be sated until we have had the blood of every miserable little tyrant in the Middle East... and every last drooling anti-Semitic and anti-American mullah, imam, sheikh, and ayatollah is either singing the praises of the United States of America or pumping gasoline for a dime a gallon on an American military base near the Arctic Circle.?
From the beginning, the neoconservatives' viewed the invasion of Iraq either as a staging ground for their perpetual war or securing its instability. While the introduction of economic sanctions against Iraq in August 1990 and the subsequent attack in 1991 along with the presence of an oppressive regime have tremendously weakened Iraq and demoralised its people, it was the invasion in March 2003 that enabled the neoconservatives to directly manage Iraqi affairs and put their vision into practice.
Contrary to their claim of nation-building in Iraq and nurturing democratic institutions, the neoconservatives have made sure that every effort must be made to prevent the Iraqis from exercising their rights to run their own country and establish an open and free country. When General Jay Garner attempted, in early 2003, to allow Iraqis to chart their own destiny, he was immediately replaced. His successor, Paul Bremer, closely followed the neoconservatives' agenda.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported (June 3, 2005) that the occupational authority has institutionalised corruption. The corruption has paralysed the economy and fostered the creation of dysfunctional institutions. This, along with the ever rising new trend of terrorism, constitutes a threat to Iraq's social fabric. Indeed, a growing number of Iraqis question the virtue of the decision taken by the occupational authority in mid-2003 to dissolve the Iraqi border police and leave the Iraqi borders open for extremists. The Iraqis also question the reluctance of the occupational forces to train the newly-established Iraqi army and police and supply them with adequate weapons to defend themselves and their country.
In a radical but alarming move, the neoconservatives have espoused a sectarian and ethnic policy in conducting government and political affairs in Iraq. The policy is contrary to America's officially pronounced goal of nation building and constitutes a formidable obstacle to Bush's vision of a democratic and unified Iraq. In fact, the policy has devastating consequences and may lead to the ruin of Iraq. It should be mentioned that, in practice, Saddam Hussein espoused a sectarian and racial outlook after 1978. But this was never acknowledged as a guiding principle and was disliked by the majority of the population. .
In Bush's second term, the neoconservatives appear to have secured undisputed domination in designing American foreign policy. They have situated themselves at the core of the three primary agencies responsible for foreign affairs: The National Security Council, and the state and defence departments. With the presence of Ambassador Zalamy Khalilzad in Baghdad, the neoconservatives are positioned to pursue their vision for Iraq with zeal, confidence, and energy.
Middle East experts and responsible international observers make a strong point that the neoconservatives are progressing with unexpected ease in translating their vision for Iraq into practical steps, which will eventually change the fate of Iraq profoundly. In particular, the neoconservatives have strengthened and widened their network of influence well beyond their traditional allies (e.g. Ahmad Chalabi, Masood Barzani, Barhem Saleh, Ayhem Al Samarai, Meshaan Al Jabory, Moufaq Al Rebuey, etc) to include powerful individuals and newly emerging organisations inside and outside Iraq that actively promote and espouse the neoconservative design for fragmenting Iraq and creating semi-independent sectarian/ethnic units in its place.
The presence of terrorism and extremism in Iraq is a development that accompanies the occupation. Its threat is real with predictable consequences, especially the sudden and mass exodus of whatever is left of the middle class. Nevertheless, once the Iraqis are free and are in charge of their destiny, they will more likely be able to uproot terrorism and extremism. The kindling and institutionalisation of sectarian and ethnic discord, however, have unpredictable and frightening consequences. For many decades sectarianism and racial discrimination were almost alien concepts for the majority of Iraqis. Since the invasion, sectarian and divisional ethnic terminologies have become conspicuously common in daily political discourse.
Regardless of the outcome of the ongoing debate concerning the constitution, the neoconservatives have already inflicted damage to the fabric of Iraqi society.
Fragmenting Iraq and kindling sectarian/ethnic discords are weapons of cultural and national destruction, a menace to civilisation. They represent a threat to American interests and to regional stability. More importantly, they evidence a purposeful activation of the clash of civilisations.
The writer is a professor and the director of the School of International Management in Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He contributed this article to The Jordan Times.
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Last edited by Alpha on Mon Aug 15, 2005 7:02 pm; edited 1 time in total | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2005 6:59 pm Post subject: Armageddon Gets No Press |
| Armageddon Gets No Press
http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts114.html
What has become of the print and TV media watchdogs who hounded President Nixon from office because he lied about when he learned of a minor burglary of no consequence in itself?
What became of the watchdog media that bayed after President Reagan because some low-level neoconservative officials sold arms to Iran and diverted the money to anti-communist insurgents in Latin America?
President Clinton was impeached by the House, though not convicted by the Senate, for lying about a sexcapade with a White House intern.
Now that we really need them, the watchdog media has hired out as public relations and propaganda shills for the Bush administration and the neocon network.
The entire Bush administration—not merely the president—is involved in the most extraordinary lies and fabrication of false intelligence claims in order to lead America into an unwarranted and illegal invasion of Iraq, an invasion that has cost the US taxpayers $300 billion and resulted in the deaths and maiming of tens of thousands of people.
The sordid affair has been revealed in leaked top-secret Downing Street memos, which were prepared for UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and his cabinet. Unlike the Nixon episode, there is no need to search for a "smoking gun." Smoking guns have been printed all over the pages of the London Times. Yet hardly a peep from the watchdog media.
The August 1 issue of The American Conservative reports that Vice President Cheney has instructed the US Strategic Command to prepare a plan to spread the war by attacking Iran with tactical nuclear weapons in the event of another terrorist attack on the US. Appalled US Air Force officers have leaked the story, but you have not learned of it from the tamed media.
A federal prosecutor seems to be closing in on Karl Rove, president Bush’s right-hand man, and on Scooter Libby, vice president Cheney’s right-hand man. The two are suspected of leaking the identity of a covert CIA agent, a felony. Both have had to hire lawyers. But there is no demand for accountability from the US media.
American civil liberties have been trounced by the "Patriot" Act. Torture of detainees is now a routine practice of the US government and defended by the attorney general. Senators and military officers who try to place constraints on the inhumane treatment of detainees are stonewalled by the White House.
The mainstream media has been co-opted as propaganda organ for the Bush administration. How did this come about?
It came about through media concentration. There are no longer independent voices in the mainstream media. American news reporting is a corporate operation run with a view to advertising profits and the accommodation of government in order to protect holdings of valuable federal licenses. For reporters and editors, knowing what to say and not to say is the main qualification for job security.
A person who wants to find out anything must go online and spend time learning the sites that are trustworthy.
The Internet, thought invaluable for spreading news, hasn’t the impact on the public of a story pounded over and over on TV news or newspaper front pages. Exposure on the Internet doesn’t have the same embarrassment factor as exposure on TV news and the New York Times front page.
The public is still socialized into taking its cue from the old TV and print media. This media is now heavily controlled, partly through job fears of editors and reporters.
This raises the question whether government officials who have broken the law and betrayed trust will be held accountable.
Consider the implications if the Bush administration escapes accountability:
The executive branch will have established itself as above the law.
The executive, armed with a compliant media, will have war-making power subject only to successful PR spin. It means the final end of the people’s right to declare war via elected representatives in Congress.
The few remaining restraints on the executive’s ability to detain people indefinitely without charges will be removed. This power will silence the Internet.
Spiteful neighbors, employees, former spouses, whomever will gain the power to report any disliked person. The anti-terrorist apparatus needs victims to demonstrate its effectiveness, and as warrants, hearings, and evidence are no longer required, Americans will simply disappear like Soviet citizens in the Stalin era.
The "imperial judiciary" will disappear overnight. No checks and balances will remain.
Gentle reader, you can continue with this theme in "How the Worst Get on Top," a chapter in F.A. Hayek’s classic, The Road to Serfdom. You might as well learn what it is going to be like as you are already half way there.
The worst rise rapidly as the honest depart the corrupt system. Two US Military prosecutors, Major Robert Preston and Captain John Carr, resigned after denouncing rigged Guantanamo trials of detainees as "a severe threat to the reputation of the military justice system and a fraud on the American people."
Altogether now, let’s yell, "I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any longer."
August 2, 2005
Dr. Roberts [send him mail] is John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, former contributing editor for National Review, and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2005 8:46 pm Post subject: Get Ready for World War III |
| http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=6936
August 15, 2005
Get Ready for World War III
by Paul Craig Roberts
With every poll showing majorities of Americans both fed up with Bush's war against Iraq and convinced that Bush's invasion of Iraq has made Americans less safe, the White House moron proposes to start another war by attacking Iran. VP Cheney has already ordered the U.S. Strategic Command to come up with plans to strike Iran with tactical nuclear weapons.
Bush refuses to meet with Cindy Sheehan, instead using his vacation time at the Crawford ranch to talk war with Israeli television. In a recent interview with Israeli TV, Bush said "All options are on the table" with regard to Iran.
Likudnik Israel is Bush's last remaining ally, or egger-on, in his war against "Islamic terrorism." Israel, which is loaded with nuclear weapons and is not a signatory to the nuclear pacts, is the accuser against Iran, asserting that Iran's nuclear energy program is just a veil behind which to produce weapons. Israel's Likud Party fears that Iranian weapons would be a check to its plans to complete the dispossession of the Palestinians and further expand Israel's borders.
Iran has signed the nonproliferation pact and is willing for the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor the nuclear energy program.
Bush, however, dismisses all facts and assurances and is willing to attack Iran based on nothing but Israel's paranoia.
Bush can ignore the American public, because the Democrats, like the Tory Party in the UK, have completely collapsed as an opposition party. The Republican Party is now increasingly referred to as the Republikud Party.
The only check on Bush is the lack of U.S. troops. Bogged down in the Iraqi quagmire, U.S. commanders are stating that a third rotation of our exhausted and demoralized troops in Iraq can be avoided only by troop withdrawals by next spring.
However, on Aug. 11, Bush nixed the military's talk of reducing U.S. troops in Iraq. The next day, the commander of U.S. logistics in Iraq announced that the number of insurgent attacks on US forces along supply routes has doubled in the last year, making it clear that far from winning, the U.S. is not even holding its own.
Cindy Sheehan has the right question for Bush: What noble cause is being served by all this suffering and destruction?
Bush is in hiding from Mrs. Sheehan, because he knows only ignoble causes are being served. According to the CIA, the main beneficiary of the war is Osama bin Laden's recruitment drives. While America's military recruitment falters and U.S. generals announce that the war has broken the Reserves and National Guard, the cause of Islamic extremism basks in the Iraqi war.
Gentle reader, do you realize the danger of having a president so disconnected from reality that he plots to attack Iran – a country three times the size of Iraq – when he lacks sufficient forces to occupy Baghdad and to protect the road from Baghdad to the airport?
Despite all the high profile "sweeps" of U.S. forces through insurgent strongholds, U.S. commanders report a doubling of insurgent attacks.
The Bush administration is insane. If the American people do not decapitate it by demanding Bush's impeachment, the Bush administration will bring about Armageddon. This may please some Christian evangelicals conned by Rapture predictions, but World War III will please no one else. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2005 2:55 am Post subject: Is this Iran crisis for real? |
| Buchanan doesn't address the threat of nuclear attack on Iran here, and I wish he had, but he clearly sees the stupidity in threatening at all:
http://www.theamericancause.org/
Is this Iran crisis for real?
by Patrick J. Buchanan
August 15, 2005
Are the Iranian mullahs close to acquiring the bomb? Has Iran violated the Non-Proliferation Treaty by restarting its conversion of yellowcake into uranium hexaflouride? The answer to both is no.
By a recent U.S. intelligence review, Iran may be 10 years away from a bomb. And under the NPT, Iran is allowed to enrich uranium for use in her own nuclear power plants.
Why, then, this talk of confrontation and pre-emptive strikes? Even if Iran had a weapon, to give it to a terrorist or to use it on a U.S. target would be an act of suicidal insanity by a regime that, no matter how militant, has shown no desire for war with America.
What is the worry? Just this. If or when Iran goes nuclear, she has a deterrent to intimidation. U.S. freedom of action in the Persian Gulf comes to an end. We would have to behave as gingerly with the mullahs as we do with Kim Jong Il, something intolerable to our neoconservatives and President Bush.
For the Israelis, an Iranian bomb would have the same impact as Stalin's explosion of a bomb had on us in 1949. Israel's invulnerability would come to an end. She would enter the world of Mutual Assured Destruction, like the one we had to live in during the Cold War. Thus, for Israel, the sooner the Americans pulverize Iran's infant nuclear facilities, the better. But herein lies the problem for President Bush.
Britain, France and Germany do not want to take the first step to confrontation by asking the U.N. Security Council to vote sanctions on Iran for restarting the enrichment process. And even if the Europeans agree to go to the Security Council, a resolution calling for sanctions would face vetoes by Russia and China.
If the council then rejects sanctions, but America and her NATO allies impose them, the world will be divided between Russia-China-Iran on one side and the United States and its backers on the other. It would be interesting to see how many U.S. allies are willing to support sanctions on the third-largest oil producer on earth when oil is running at $65 a barrel.
Moreover, if the present negotiations end in sanctions on Iran, then, just as North Korea sped up its nuclear program when talks broke down, Iran might do the same. That would leave the United States with the final option: air and missile strikes to destroy all of Iran's known facilities for the enrichment of uranium.
But as Iran is permitted such facilities as long as it allows absolute freedom for U.N. inspectors, how could we justify such acts of war?
After all, we give a $160 billion trade surplus to China, though she is targeting our cities with nuclear missiles. President Bush cut a deal to help India develop nuclear power, though she has tested bombs. We give foreign aid to Pakistan and Israel, which had clandestine and successful programs that built atomic weapons. And we have a basket of goodies on offer to Kim Jong Il if he will shut down his nuclear facilities and hand over any bombs.
Where is the consistency here?
There is another consideration. Iran's response to any U.S. strike is unlikely to be to go limp like a peacenik demonstrator. As Michael Mazeer of the U.S. National War College writes in the New Republic, Iran's best strategy might be to lash out in retaliation.
What could Iran do? Plenty. Send Revolutionary Guards into Iraq to make that country a worse hell for the 135,000 U.S. troops. Incite Hezbollah to launch rockets on Israel to widen the war. Attack U.S. allies in the Gulf. Encourage the Shias in Iraq and Saudi Arabia to attack Americans. Mine the Strait of Hormuz. Activate Islamic loyalists to bring terror home to the United States.
In short, a U.S. attack on Iran could lead to war across the region and interruption of the 15 million barrels of oil a day that come from the Gulf, which would drive the world economy into instant cardiac arrest.
And as the United States lacks the ground forces to invade Iran and topple the regime, U.S. retaliation would be restricted to air and cruise missile strikes. But just as 9-11 united Americans behind President Bush, attacks on Iran might unite the Iranian people behind the mullahs' regime, enhancing its prestige as it fought America to protect Iran's equal right to pursue nuclear power and nuclear technology, an issue upon which almost all Iranians agree. President Bush should think long and hard before yielding to the War Party a second time. Iran is a nation three times the size of Iraq and with three times the population. This would be no cakewalk.
© 2005 Creators Syndicate, Inc. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2005 3:45 am Post subject: |
| http://www.independent.co.uk
UN Nuclear Watchdog Rebuts Claims that Iran Is Trying to Make A-Bomb
By Anne Penketh
The Independent UK
Sunday 14 August 2005
The UN nuclear watchdog is preparing to publish evidence that Iran is not engaged in a nuclear weapons programme, undermining a warning of possible military action from President George Bush.
The US President told Israeli television that "all options are on the table" if Iran fails to comply with international calls to halt its nuclear programme. Both the US and Israel - the Middle East's only nuclear-armed power - were "united in our objective to make sure Iran does not have a weapon", he said.
However, Iran is about to receive a major boost from the results of a scientific analysis that will prove that the country's authorities were telling the truth when they said they were not developing a nuclear weapon. The discovery of traces of weapons-grade uranium in Iran by UN inspectors in August 2003 set off alarm bells in Western capitals where it was feared that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon under cover of a civil programme. The inspectors took the samples from Iran's uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, which had been concealed from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for 18 years.
But Iran maintained that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes, and that the traces must have been contamination from the Pakistani-based black market network of scientist AQ Khan. He is the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb.
The analysis of components from Pakistan, obtained last May by the IAEA, is now almost complete and is set to conclude that the traces of weapons-grade uranium match those found in Iran. "The investigation is likely to show that they came from Pakistan," a Vienna-based diplomat told The Independent on Sunday.
The new information, which strengthens Iran's case after last week's contentious IAEA board meeting in Vienna, will be a central part of the next report to the board by Mohamed ElBaradei, the IAEA chief. "The biggest single issue of the past two years has now fallen in their [the Iranians'] favour," the diplomat said. The meeting of the 35-nation board, which ended last Thursday, urged Iran to suspend the uranium-related activity at its Isfahan plant, which many fear will be the first step towards building a nuclear weapon.
The resumption of uranium conversion at the plant last week caused an international crisis and prompted Britain, France and Germany, which have been attempting to find a negotiated solution to the dispute, to call the emergency IAEA meeting. In its resolution concluding the meeting, the board also asked Dr ElBaradei to report back by 3 September. Hardliners on the board - including Britain, the United States and Canada - had hoped that Dr ElBaradei's next report would be sufficiently damning to increase the pressure on Iran.
However those hopes will be dashed by the revelation about the IAEA analysis of the particles from Pakistan, which will remove any chance of Iran being referred to the UN Security Council. But the IAEA is not closing the book on its investigation of Iran's possible weapons programme. A team of IAEA experts arrived in Iran on Friday to pursue other outstanding issues, but they are unlikely to be resolved by the time Dr ElBaradei reports to the board.
The three European countries are fast running out of options, as there is no appetite among non-nuclear states on the IAEA board to report Iran to the Security Council for punitive sanctions, when there is no legal basis to do so. Iran, which agreed to suspend its uranium conversion during the talks with Britain, France and Germany, insists on its right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes.
The Iranian authorities restarted Isfahan after rejecting a package of security and economic incentives submitted to Iran 10 days ago by the three countries which sought a binding commitment that Iran would not pursue fuel cycle activities. "It's difficult to see things moving ahead if Europeans think that every country can have enrichment facilities except Iran," one Western diplomat said.
Dr Ian Davis, the director of the British-American Security Information Council (Basic), an independent nuclear thinktank, said that if the Europeans were prepared to compromise on the fuel cycle issue, "the negotiations may yet prevent a crisis".
However, a Foreign Office spokesman insisted that a new round of negotiations scheduled with Iran for 31 August would go ahead only if Tehran again suspended uranium conversion. "There are no talks with no suspension," the spokesman said.
Iran, sensing that it is gaining international support for its stand and with a new hardline President in power, also looks as if it is in no mood to compromise at this point.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Britain Keeps Distance from Talk of Strike on Iran
By Andrew Porter and Tom Walker
The Sunday Times, UK
Sunday 14 August 2005
The foreign secretary Jack Straw sought to distance Britain yesterday from comments by President George W Bush that he would not rule out a military strike against Iran.
It came as diplomats gave warning that British attempts to solve the crisis prompted by Tehran's resumption of its nuclear programme last week were doomed to failure.
Bush raised the temperature by giving an interview to Israeli television from his ranch in Crawford, Texas. Asked if he would consider force, he replied: "All options are on the table." He added: "The use of force is the last option for any president and you know we've used force in the recent past to secure our country."
The Foreign Office reacted swiftly. "Our position is clear and has been made very, very clear by the foreign secretary," a spokesman said. "We do not think there are any circumstances where military action would be justified against Iran. It does not form part of British foreign policy."
So soon after the invasion of Iraq, which has led to so much political turmoil for Tony Blair's administration, Straw is anxious not to be seen trying to talk up any future forays. But some rightwingers in Washington have criticised Straw's position, saying that every time the foreign secretary rules out any remote chance of military action the Iranians know there is no need to compromise.
Bush's veiled remarks came as Foreign Office negotiators launched a new round of shuttle diplomacy to try to persuade Tehran to reverse last week's decision to resume its enriching of uranium - seen by Washington and the European Union as a smokescreen for a secret nuclear weapons programme.
A spokesman said Britain's negotiators had "worked their socks off" to convince a meeting in Vienna of the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to call on Iran to freeze activity at its Isfahan and Natanz plants.
Britain has made it clear that if Iran has not backed down by September 3, when Mohamed ElBaradei, the IAEA's secretary-general, is to report on the country's nuclear programme, it will push for Tehran to be taken to the United Nations security council. Officials in Vienna warned, however, that any attempt to impose sanctions on Iran would be likely to be vetoed by Russia and China.
"Iran has all the cards," said one official close to the talks. "It's going to be embarrassing for the Brits."
Russia has a civilian nuclear contract with Iran worth £500m while China is increasingly reliant on Iranian oil and gas. Last October Sinopec, the Chinese state oil company, signed a £39 billion deal giving it a 51% stake in Yadavaran, Iran's largest onshore oilfield.
For two years Britain, France and Germany have represented the EU in negotiations with Iran, which insists that it has a legal right to make its own nuclear fuel. The issue has become a rallying call in Iran, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the new president, is thought unlikely to make any concessions.
Cyrus Nasseri, Iran's chief negotiator, dismissed EU sweeteners as "lollipops" and denounced the IAEA resolution.
Last week scientists at Isfahan broke IAEA seals that had mothballed the plant and began converting uranium "yellowcake" ore into uranium hexafluoride gas, breaking an agreement made with the EU.
Hawks in the Bush administration have been less vocal in their calls for military intervention against Iran recently, and the president's remarks are said to belie a lack of appetite for another all-out confrontation in the Middle East.
"What you've got to remember is everything Iran could do for Bush," said one diplomat. "They could make his Middle Eastern dreams come true: think of their influence in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Palestine. Think of their influence on oil prices."
------- | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2005 6:00 am Post subject: An Attack on Iran Will Usher in World War III |
| An Attack on Iran Will
Usher in World War III
By Mike Whitney 8-9-05
The facts about Iran's "alleged" nuclear weapons program have never been in dispute. There is no such program and no one has ever produced a shred of credible evidence to the contrary. That hasn't stopped the Bush administration from making spurious accusations and threats; nor has it deterred America's "imbedded" media from implying that Iran is hiding a nuclear weapons program from the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency). In fact, the media routinely features the unconfirmed claims of members of terrorist organizations, like the Mujahedin Klaq, (which is on the State Depts. list of terrorist organizations) to make it appear that Iran is secretively developing nuclear arms. These claims have proved to be entirely baseless and should be dismissed as just another part of Washington's propaganda war. Sound familiar?
Iran has no nuclear weapons program. This is the conclusion of Mohammed el-Baradei the respected chief of the IAEA. The agency has conducted a thorough and nearly-continuous investigation on all suspected sites for the last two years and has come up with the very same result every time; nothing. If we can't trust the findings of these comprehensive investigations by nuclear experts than the agency should be shut down and the NPT (Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty) should be abandoned. It is just that simple.
That, of course, is exactly what the US and Israel would prefer since they have no intention of complying with international standards or treaties and are entirely committed to a military confrontation with Iran. It now looks as though they may have the pretext for carrying out such an attack. Two days ago, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman formally rejected a plan submitted by the EU members that would have barred Iran from "enrichment-related activities". Foreign Minister Hamid Reza Asefi said, "The Europeans' submitted proposals regarding the nuclear case are not acceptable for Iran."
Asefi did the right thing; the offer was conspicuously hypocritical. The United States doesn't allow any intrusive inspections on its nuclear weapons sites even though it is the only nation that has ever used nukes in battle and even though it is developing a whole new regime of tactical "bunker-buster" bombs for destroying heavily-fortified weapons sites buried beneath the ground.
The US is also the only nation that claims the right to use nukes in a "first-strike" capacity if it feels that its national security interests are at stake. The NPT is entirely designed to harass the countries that have not yet developed nuclear weapons and force them to observe rules designed by the more powerful states. It was intended to maintain the existing power-structure not to keep the peace. Even so, Iran is not "violating" the treaty by moving ahead with a program for "enriching uranium". They don't even have the centrifuges for conducting such a process. The re-opening of their facility at Isfahan signals that they will continue the "conversion" process to produce the nuclear fuel that is required in nuclear power plants.
This is all permitted under the terms of the NPT. They temporarily suspended that right, and accepted other confidence-building measures, to show the EU their willingness to find a reasonable solution to mutual concerns. But, now, under pressure from the Bush administration, the EU is trying to renege on its part of the deal and change the terms of the treaty itself. No way. So far, Iran has played entirely by the rules and deserves the same considerations as the other signatories of the treaty. The EU members (England, Germany, and France) are simply back-pedaling in a futile effort to mollify Washington and Tel Aviv. Besides, when Iran re-opens its plant and begins work, the UN "watchdog" agency (IAEA) will be present to set up the necessary surveillance cameras and will resume monitoring everything that goes on during the sensitive fuel-cycle process. Iran has shown an unwillingness to be bullied by Washington.
The Bush administration has co-opted the EU to enforce its double-standards by threatening military action, but that doesn't' conceal the duplicity of their demands. Why should Iran forgo the processing of nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes if it is written right into the treaty? Would Israel or Pakistan accept a similar proposal? Of course, not. Both countries ignored the treaty altogether and built their own nuclear weapons behind the back of the international community. Only Iran has been singled out and punished for COMPLYING with the treaty. This demonstrates the power of Washington to dictate the international agenda. Iran's refusal puts the EU in a position to refer the case to the IAEA, where the board members will make their determination and decide whether the case should be sent to the UN Security Council.
Whether the IAEA passes the case along or not makes little difference. Bush, Sharon and the western media will exploit the details in a way that condemns Iran and paves the way for a preemptive attack. The drive to war will not be derailed by mere facts. Iran has weathered the media criticism and the specious claims of the Bush administration admirably. They have responded with caution and discipline seeking reasonable solutions to thorny issues. Never the less, they have been unwavering in defending their rights under the NPT. This consistency in behavior suggests that they will be equally unswerving if they are the targets of an unprovoked attack. We should expect that they will respond with full force; ignoring the threats of nuclear retaliation. And, so they should. One only has to look at Iraq to see what happens if one does not defend oneself. Nothing is worth that.
The Iranian people should be confident that their government will do whatever is their power to defend their borders, their national sovereignty and their right to live in peace without the threat of foreign intervention.
That, of course, will entail attacking both Israel and US forces in Iraq. Whether or not the US actually takes part in the initial air raids is immaterial; by Mr. Bush's own standards, the allies of "those who would do us harm" are just as culpable as those who conduct the attacks. In this case, the US has provided the long-range aircraft as well as the "bunker-busting" munitions for the planned assault. The administration's responsibility is not in doubt. We should anticipate that the Iranian government has a long-range strategy for "asymmetrical" warfare that will disrupt the flow of oil and challenge American interests around the world. Certainly, if one is facing an implacable enemy that is committed to "regime change" there is no reason to hold back on doing what is necessary to defeat
that adversary. So far, none of the terrorist bombings in London, Spain, Turkey, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia or the US have implicated even one Iranian national.
That will certainly change. Iranian Intelligence has probably already planned covert operations that will be carried out in the event of an unprovoked attack on their facilities. Iran is also likely to become an active supporter of international terrorist groups; enlisting more recruits in the war against American interests. After all, any attack on Iran can only be construed as a declaration of all-out war. Isn't that so?
If Iran retaliates against Israel or the US in Iraq, then both nations will proceed with a plan that is already in place to destroy all of Iran's biological, chemical and conventional weapons sites. In fact, this is the ultimate US strategy anyway; not the elimination of the "imaginary" nuclear weapons facilities. Both the US and Israel want to "de-fang" the Mullah-regime so that they can control critical resources and eliminate the possibility of a regional rival in the future. In the short term, however, the plan is fraught with difficulties. At present, there is no wiggle room in the world's oil supply for massive disruptions and most experts are predicting shortages in the 4th quarter of this year. If the administration's war on Iran goes forward we will see a shock to the world's oil supplies and economies that could be catastrophic. T
hat being the case, a report that was leaked last week that Dick Cheney had STRATCOM (Strategic Command) draw up "contingency plans for a tactical nuclear war against Iran", is probably a bit of brinksmanship intended to dissuade Iran from striking back and escalating the conflict. It makes no difference. If Iran is attacked they will retaliate; that much is certain. It is always the mistake of extremists to misjudge the behavior of reasonable men; just as it is always the mistake of reasonable men to mistake the behavior of extremists. We should not expect the Bush administration to make a rational choice; that would be a dramatic departure from every preceding decision of consequence. The President of the United States always has the option of unleashing Armageddon if he so chooses. Normally, however, sanity prevails. When the bombs hit the bunkers in Iran; World War 3 will be underway.
Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at:
fergiewhitney@msn.com
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/08/09/on-the-road-to-world-war-3-for-israel-and-oil.php | | | | Alpha | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
