[Mb-civic] The Bush Who Cried Wolf
Linda Hassler
lindahassler at sbcglobal.net
Sat Jan 14 15:28:52 PST 2006
from Linda Hassler
The Bush Who Cried Wolf
By Robert Dreyfuss
TomPaine.com
Thursday 12 January 2006
The deteriorating international crisis over Iran is a direct result
of the Bush's administration's ham-handed and mendacious Iraq policy.
Under normal circumstances - that is, under any previous US
administration - the battle over Iran's pugnacious effort in pursuit of
nuclear technology would be amenable to a diplomatic solution. But, by
insisting on a national security strategy of pre-emptive war, by
illegally and unilaterally invading Iraq on false pretenses, and by
hinting that the White House would tolerate an Israeli strike on Iran's
nuclear plants, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have made a
successful diplomatic resolution of the Iran crisis nearly impossible.
Speaking yesterday at the Council for National Policy, Larry
Wilkerson - the former top aide to Secretary of State Colin Powell who
caused a stir last fall when he accused Cheney and Secretary of Defense
Rumsfeld of operating a "cabal" - said that it is likely that Pentagon
officials are polishing contingency plans for a strike against Iran.
Iran, said Wilkerson, is the "principal winner" from the war in Iraq.
As a result of the power of the Shiite religious forces in Iraq, he
said, the Iranians "own the south" of Iraq. Wilkerson insisted that the
United States ought to "talk to the people who really matter in Iran" -
i.e., to the ayatollahs. But he said that US policy has failed so
utterly that the door to negotiations with Iran is virtually closed.
"When you close the door to diplomacy, you have no other option but to
rely on military power," he said. "I hope to hell we don't have to use
it."
Without diplomatic tools, the looming showdown with Iran is
potentially even more dangerous than the Iraq war. Iran is a far larger
and more complex country, with the capability of retaliating against a
US/Israeli attack by fomenting civil war in Iraq, by creating regional
chaos in the Gulf, and by mobilizing its significant international
terrorist capability against Western targets.
As it did in the run-up to the Iraq war, the Bush administration -
along with Israel - is content to exaggerate the threat from Iran. The
ayatollahs appear to be at least five years or more away from a serious
nuclear capacity, according to US intelligence reports. Iran's recent
decision to restart one part of its nuclear research is indeed a
serious threat to diplomatic talks aimed at resolving the matter
peacefully. But the issue is nowhere near an end-game stage. There is
plenty of time, years in fact, for a back-and-forth effort to secure
Iran's compliance with International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.
By crying wolf over Iraq, through claiming that Saddam Hussein's
regime had an active nuclear arms program, the United States lacks
credibility when it now asserts that Iran is trying to develop nuclear
weapons. And by its illegal, unilateral invasion of Iraq, without
allowing the UN and the IAEA to proceed with inspections there, the
United States has made other countries extremely wary of taking Iran to
the UN Security Council, out of fear that it might give the United
States or Israel a pretext to attack Iran unilaterally.
But the international community's justified fear that the United
States is controlled by a war party seeking to attack Iran makes other
states' diplomacy even harder. Normally, the five UN Security Council
powers would take up the matter with some urgency, adopt a resolution
demanding Iran compliance, and threaten political and economic
sanctions against Iran for non-compliance. But Moscow, Beijing and
Paris remember what happened in Iraq. That matter was taken to the
UNSC, a resolution passed - and then Washington declared unilaterally
that Iraq had violated it, and went to war. So the world's capitals may
be forgiven for being reluctant to drag Iran into the UNSC in 2006.
The fact that John Bolton, the belligerent, war-mongering
neoconservative who serves as US ambassador to the UN, takes over as
president of the Security Council in February doesn't help.
Bolton, Cheney and their allies are pushing for a showdown in the
UNSC, even though it is highly unlikely that either Russia or China
would support anti-Iran sanctions. India, the Arab League and other
countries would strongly oppose such measures. And even Western Europe,
furious over Iran for its latest effrontery, doesn't view sanctions on
Iran as a happy outcome. Their resistance to anti-Iran measures comes
despite a string of outrageous provocations from Iranian President
Ahmadinejad, from demanding that Israel be "wiped off the map" to
pooh-poohing the Holocaust to haughtily restarting Iran's nuclear
research.
It is impossible to deny that Iran is a dangerous, out-of-control
regime - yes, a "rogue" regime. But, had the Bush administration
maintained a consistent policy of seeking a dialogue with Iran, had the
neocons refrained from demanding regime change and military action, had
President Bush not referred to Iran as part of a mythical "axis of
evil," and had the United States not immensely strengthened Iran's
position by handing it Iraq on a silver platter, diplomacy would stand
a better chance. A package deal, giving Iran political acceptance and
economic incentives, combined with a regulated nuclear technology
regime, in exchange for Iran's backing down from its hard-line stance,
could likely have been reached over time. It may still, but it seems
highly unlikely now.
So we are left with persistent reports that both the United States
and Israel are planning to strike Iran, and soon. Not only would such
an attack result in a vastly wider conflict in Iran, Iraq and the Gulf,
but it would also probably push oil prices well over $100 a barrel,
making $5-a-gallon gas a reality. Perhaps, because the international
community wants to avoid such a catastrophe, and because the United
States is exerting enormous pressure on Russia, China and other world
powers, first the IAEA and then the UNSC might vote to sanction Iran.
If so, Iran will certainly not back down. And as a result, the United
States will have the pretext it seeks to go to war once again.
Some Democrats - and even a fair number of moderate and libertarian
Republicans - expect the November 2006 elections to take place against
the backdrop of a failed occupation of Iraq. Instead, those same
elections might take place in the midst of yet another crisis
manufactured by the Bush administration.
Robert Dreyfuss is the author of Devil's Game: How the United
States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam (Henry Holt/Metropolitan
Books, 2005). Dreyfuss is a freelance writer based in Alexandria, Va.,
who specializes in politics and national security issues. He is a
contributing editor at The Nation, a contributing writer at Mother
Jones, a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, and a frequent
contributor to Rolling Stone. He can be reached through his website.
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