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Bush, Iran and Israel's Hidden
Hand
By KATHLEEN and BILL CHRISTISON
Former CIA Analysts
Counterpunch
Friday September 7, 2007
The internet is
loaded these days with reports of the inevitability of a U.S.,
or a U.S.-Israeli, attack on Iran. Some writers allege that the
attack is imminent. Others, including the writers of this article,
argue only that the attack will happen sometime before January
2009, when the Bush administration leaves office. Many of these
stories have by now been picked up by the mainstream media. In
fact, it is probably safe to say that today a majority of the
traditionally cautious and so-called respectable foreign policy
experts in the U.S. think it is at least possible that Bush will
attack Iran before he leaves office.
Such is the power of recollection with respect to how Bush bulled
his way into invading Iraq in 2003 that many people simply accept
that he might gamble on doing it again. He has made it clear that
in this "War on Terror," victory means everything to
him. He might also believe that a win in Iran could reverse current
setbacks in Iraq and also bring victory closer for the U.S. and
Israel in Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine. And he has already shown
that he is willing to accept the killings of hundreds of thousands
or even a million people in the hope of going down in history
as a great commander-in-chief.
The people of the United States are the only ones with a chance
of stopping him, and it can only happen if a powerful majority
of voters will join in a maximum effort to impeach both Bush and
Cheney right now. This has to happen before the U.S. and/or Israel
undertake any expanded military efforts against Iran.
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All of this will be difficult, and many will think it impossible.
We citizens of the U.S. who do not want our country to become
involved in a greater war with Iran will not have most of the
print and TV media with us, nor the military-industrial complex
that wants more wars. The Israel lobby will desperately oppose
efforts to impeach Bush and Cheney, because it will recognize
instantly that the two top U.S. leaders are the lobby's strongest
backers of war with Iran. At the same time, most of the Democratic
Party leadership and all but one or two of the Democratic presidential
candidates will be reluctant to support impeachment because they
are competing with the Republicans in an effort to show that each
party supports Israel more strongly than the other.
But the people of this country have plenty of power to defeat
all these forces if they will use it to support justice, particularly
in the Middle East, which is today the highest priority area where
U.S. and Israeli foreign policies play a major role, and the area
where those policies are the most unjust. We believe it will be
by no means impossible to persuade a majority of American voters,
given their already established distaste for U.S. failures in
Iraq, to rip off the cocoon of pleasant but apathetic consumerism
in which they have encased themselves, and participate more seriously
in the political processes of our country than they ever have
in recent years.
The impeachment itself will have more to do with the past than
the future, since a legal action can only indict (impeach) and
then convict a person for past actions, not for actions that may
be likely in the future. So impeachment will concern Iraq and
domestic policies of the Bush administration, not Iran. But at
the same time, once we get their interest, people should have
a heightened awareness of future planned acts as well as of past
policies of the government. If we can move fast, we will have
time to show how the plans to attack Iran create a greater need
than ever for an impeachment effort to succeed, and to succeed
now.
The first point to make in persuading people is that Iran itself
claims it has no nuclear weapons now, and no intention to produce
them in the future. The first part of this statement is true;
the supporting evidence is overwhelming. But Iran's claim that
it will not in the future develop nuclear weapons is subject to
doubt, even though the International Atomic Energy Agency has
found no evidence to the contrary. The other nations in the Middle
East and South Asia that have been developing nuclear weapons
over the last 50 years -- Israel, India, and Pakistan -- all lied
to the U.S., the U.N., and other countries, claiming that they
were not building nuclear weapons when in fact they were. Iran
might well do the same.
More important is the sheer logic of the situation. As one nation-state
in a world of nation-states, Iran knows that it has every bit
as much right to develop nuclear weapons as the U.S., Israel,
and other present nuclear powers. Compared to Israel, Iran has
both a population and a land mass that are much larger. So why
is it permissible for Israel to have several hundred nuclear weapons
and impermissible for Iran to have any? The answer given by Israel
supporters that Israel never signed the NonProliferation Treaty
of 1970 while Iran did, is spurious. The NPT is, for practical
purposes, a dead letter. Under the treaty, the U.S. and other
signatory states already possessing nuclear weapons promised to
begin serious negotiations to eliminate their own weapons, but
they have never done so, or even tried, in the years since 1970.
If Iran were in fact discovered to be developing its own weapons,
Iranian officials could say, hand on heart, that they would be
pleased to quit violating the treaty when the U.S. did.
Since the U.S. right now is embarking on a program to upgrade
its nuclear weapons and delivery systems capabilities, and shows
absolutely no intention to negotiate toward eliminating those
capabilities, Iran would seem to have quite a strong legal case.
Iran might also argue that the situation has so changed in its
region of the world (with Israel, India, and Pakistan all now
having their own nukes) that it must withdraw from the treaty
and obtain its own deterrent force. It has not done that yet because
it still claims that it does not want any nuclear weapons, but
that option is always, and quite legally, open to it. By the way,
any argument that Israel is a more moral and "better"
country than Iran -- and thus more deserving of nuclear weapons
-- is a bit of sanctimony worthy only of being rejected out of
hand.
The key point here is that Iran's nuclear capabilities are not
now, and will not be at least for a few more years, a significant
threat to the U.S., although over the same period they could be
seen in Israel as a somewhat greater threat. Therefore, to the
extent that Iran's nuclear weapons potential is at all a real
cause of present U.S. and Israeli aggressive policies toward Iran,
these aggressive policies are being carried out more to benefit
Israel than the U.S. It is actually likely that the main motive
behind U.S. and Israeli policies (as was the case in Iraq) has
nothing to do with nuclear weapons but is rather to bring about
regime change in Iran and strengthen the joint dominion of the
U.S. and Israel over the entire Middle East. This raises the broader
question of whether such joint dominion is truly in the best interest
of the United States, or whether it is favored in Washington mainly
because it is being pushed by the Israel lobby.
Another point needs to be made that should also help persuade
U.S. voters to oppose a war against Iran with all their strength.
Bush is fond of saying that Iran is the world's leading state
sponsor of terrorism. Of course, when he says this, he never tells
his listeners what his definition of terrorism is. In fact, we
cannot recall any occasion or speech since the so-called War on
Terror was launched in which Bush has spelled out what he means
when he uses the word.
The best definition of terrorism is "the use of violence
against civilians for a political purpose." If one buys this
definition, which is widely used, Bush's statement that Iran is
the leading state sponsor is plainly false. Using any criterion
you choose that covers all civilians -- killings, destruction
of homes, shootings or beatings or mistreatment of the sick at
checkpoints -- what governments would you say were the leading
purveyors of terrorism in the last five years? Hint: creating
"shock and awe" is a good definition of at least one
form of terrorism using aircraft, modern bombs, and missiles.
Sniper shootings of children in Gaza is another. Destroying the
olive trees that provide basic income for an entire family and
then forcibly confiscating the land on which the olive trees stood
is yet another form. But then, there are numerous others, including
the use of torture on prisoners.
It is so easy, yet so reprehensible to list Iran as the number-one
terrorism culprit. At a minimum, we Americans must understand
that many others around the world regard us as far worse terrorists
than any in Iran. For pushing "terrorism" as a justification
for waging war against Iran when the U.S. is just as guilty of
even greater terrorism, Bush and Cheney must beyond question be
impeached and convicted with all possible speed, so that they
can never start that war.
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