Iran in the Crosshairs

April 11, 2006

Unbeknownst to most Americans, the Bush administration is getting ready to start another war. While the Congress and the public are gradually coming to grips with the fact that the Iraq war was built upon pretext and false accusations, the President is actively preparing to divert their attention by starting another one, this time in Iran. As before, the war propaganda is heating up. As before, the talk is only the tip of the iceberg.

Reliable reports, including especially Seymour Hersh in an upcoming New Yorker, now make clear that the Pentagon is, again, preparing battle plans and targets within a country with which we are at peace. As before, the claim will be that Iran is a nuclear danger. As before, the President is preparing this war on his own, without checks or restraints from the US congress. As before, the President is armed with a messianic belief that he has been sent to save the world.

As before, the attack is likely to be launched for maximum political advantage here at home, which means probably some time between July and November, hoping to bring a new flock of hawks to the Congress in mid-term elections. As before, the American public, raised on school books that say we are a peaceful nation, cannot quite believe that any president would be so bold, so out of touch, so likely to commit crimes of aggression. And so, therefore, as before, the people are likely to attend more to school and work, recreation and football than to the unthinkable of another war.

One has only to follow the path of statements by the President, Vice President, and Secretary of State over the past year to see that a pre-determined plan is unfolding. All three have begun to repeat slogans from 2002 that “all options are on the table,” a way of saying that regardless of diplomatic efforts, we intend, on our own timing and in our own way, to go in militarily. This week, thrown on the defensive by Hersh’s report, the White House asserts that they still seek a diplomatic solution. That, of course, is what these same people said only two weeks before they invaded Iraq.

Network news stations are playing the same role that they did the last time, gradually adopting the Administration’s terminology that this is a “crisis,” as if Iran somehow posed a realistic threat to the United States, or would ever commit suicide by launching a nuclear attack against the United States. The absurdity of the proposition does not deter reporters from treating the problem as if it were real. They do not, however, report another real crisis which is that a once-proud democracy is becoming a global empire, destroying all in its path.

The Iranians have been smart enough to bury some of their nuclear sites deep within the earth, making them largely invulnerable to conventional US warheads. According to Hersh, therefore, a difference for this war is that there is serious secret discussion, perhaps even an intent, to use American nuclear bombs to destroy underground sites in Iran.

After 50 years during which every American president since World War II has made every possible effort to contain use of nuclear weapons, now, this president will, on his own, driven by ideology and messianic imagination, march blindly forth into the nuclear night. Unleashing a new nuclear age will, of course, be a diplomatic catastrophe for the United States and send a message to every potential terrorist in the world that a nuclear response anywhere in America is entirely fair.

The war plans are not limited to bombing Iran’s nuclear sites. According to Hersh, targets also include chemical production plants, airfields, aircraft, cruise missile sites and Iranian diesel submarines. The destruction will be massive and, as is usual when ideology overrides common sense, no one will count the losses of innocent Iranian lives.

Perhaps the biggest illusion is that our attacks will be welcomed by the people of Iran who will thereupon rise up and overthrow the existing government. Which reminds us that Rumsfeld and Cheney said that Iraqis, too, would welcome us with flags in the streets. The thinking is delusional and that the president is receiving such advice is tragic beyond imagining.

It seems more than coincidental that once again the President is concerned with a regime that produces huge amounts of oil while allowing other nuclear regimes, such as in India, China, Pakistan, and North Korea to develop as they will, using only diplomatic pressures to restrain them. When oil lies beneath the sand, former-oil-men Bush and Cheney have an apparently unquenchable imperial appetite. They are no longer after bin Laden, but they are still after territory, with mostly all the same excuses.

Craig Barnes
Santa Fe, NM
April 9, 2006
www.craig-barnes.com