War Against Iran and the Logic of Dominance
If the Bush administration launches an attack on Iran, the reason won't be that Iran was about to obtain a nuclear weapon. The real reason will be that United States, as the world's only superpower, wants to establish clearly that it -- not Iran -- is the dominant power in the Middle East. That would make us all less secure, but the insistence on asserting dominance in the Middle East is the essence of the Bush administration's policy.
That quest for dominance over all other states in the Middle East can be traced back to the 1992 Draft Defense Planning Guidance, drafted by Paul Wolfowitz's staff at the Pentagon -- Zalmay Khalilzad and Scooter Libby. It said, "[We] must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role".
For the neoconservatives and their allies, that has meant that Iran could not be allowed to emerge as a power center in the Middle East. Of course the Bush administration has had cover their designs in a fog of propaganda portraying Iran as the worst thing to come along since Hitler. But at least one insider in neoconservative circles has been honest enough to reveal the real problem the hawks in the administration have with Iran.
Tom Donnelly was the main author of the neoconservative September 2000 blueprint for military policy in the Bush administration, "Rebuilding America's Defenses" which involved four prominent figures on the neoconservative right who would take prominent positions in the administration: Libby, Wolfowitz, Stephen A. Cambone, and John Bolton.
In a chapter in the book "Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran", published in 2005, Donnelly admitted that, contrary to the official U.S. line depicting Iran as a radical state threatening to plunge the region into war, Iran was "more the status quo power" in the region in relation to the Bush administration's "project of regional transformation". The problem with Iran, he explained, is that it "stands directly athwart this project of regional transformation".
The Bush project for bringing the magic of advanced capitalist democracy to the benighted Arab states of the Middle East has proven to be a neoconservative pipe dream in Iraq, Lebanon and in the Palestinian territories. But forget the "spreading democracy" ploy and think of that "regional transformation" as simply another layer of justification for exerting military pressure and, if necessary, war on states that refuse to fall in line. Donnelly cut through the façade of official propaganda to write that the prospect of a "nuclear Iran" was unacceptable to the Bush administration mainly because of "the constraining effect it threatens to impose upon U.S. strategy for the greater Middle East".
In other words, Iran could not be allowed to have even the option of a nuclear weapon capability, because the United States had to be able to operate with a completely free hand militarily in the region. What Donnelly did not say, but which follows from that posture, is that even a non-nuclear Iran that has links to strong allies such as Hezbollah and Hamas, could not be allowed to be a regional power.
What Donnelly -- and presumably his friends in the Bush administration -- regarded as the "greatest danger" in regard to Iran was that the "realists" in the administration would "pursue a 'balance of power' approach with a nuclear Iran, undercutting the Bush 'liberation strategy'".
With this valuable key to the real thinking of the Bush administration's most influential figures -- most, but not all of which have now departed -- we can understand a series of policy decisions on Iran that otherwise make no sense.
First, there was the administration's dismissal of the proposal from the Iranian leadership in early May 2003, to negotiate with the United States on the very issues which the administration had claimed were the basis for its hostile posture toward Tehran: its nuclear program, its support for Hizbollah and other anti-Israeli armed groups and its hostility to a peace settlement with Israel.
Instead, the Pentagon was pushing for the adoption of an official policy of regime change in Iran. Although the administration never explicitly said that it has pursued that policy, it openly wielded the threat of regime change as part of its pressure on Iran. Rice, on a trip to the Middle East in May 2005, warned Iranian leaders that were not immune to the "major changes doing on in the region" -- a code phrase for the U.S. pursuit of the "regional transformation" to which Donnelly referred.
Finally, the Bush administration refused to tolerate any real negotiations by the Europeans with Iran over its uranium enrichment program in 2004-2005, even though those negotiations could have resulted in an agreement that would limited Iran to a level of uranium enrichment that would have only a small fraction of what is required for the production of a nuclear weapon. In March 2005, Iran proposed to its European negotiating partners to submit to a system of their devising to guarantee against enrichment that could support a nuclear weapons through an inspection system. But under U.S. pressure the Europeans refused even to discuss it.
The administration's argument against such an agreement was that there was a secret enrichment program paralleling the acknowledge program that would fall under international inspection. But as Sy Hersh reported last November , after years of trying, the CIA still had found "no conclusive evidence" a such a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program running parallel to the one being monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. In fact the still classified National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear program in mid-2005 concluded that no final Iranian decision had been made to pursue the manufacture of a nuclear weapon.
We know that the policy of attacking Iran is being pushed by a handful of men with extreme views, and that it has been opposed by many in the State Department, the intelligence community and the military leadership. But the "moderates" in the administration, as well as the leading Democratic candidates and virtually everyone in the Democratic Party leadership -- have been supporting the threat of war against Iran for years, in large part because they share the illusions of power that go with being the militarily dominant state in the world. The chief illusion is that one can and should use U.S. power to coerce an uncooperative state.
The entire spectrum of political leadership in this country now appears to accept that idea, which is an indication of just how far U.S. military dominance has tilted the policy debate in this country.
The implication of the general acceptance of the threat of war against Iran as instrument of policy is that neither the "moderates" inside the administration nor the Democrats will be in a position to offer effective resistance to actual war against Iran before it is too late. Unless someone begins to push back soon, the distorted logic of dominance may carry this nation into an irrational and criminal war whose consequences for us and for the world would be the gravest imaginable.
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finally, someone on HuffPo who knows what's really going on inside the twisted minds of the Washington Swamp.
Arrogance, hubris, and an idiotology unseen by any major power in recent history is going to end the American Empire before most Americans would even acknowledge it’s existence. Any fiasco involving Iran will hopefully lead to a reawakened American public and media. I’m not betting on it. Most people are presently in denial or willful ignorance.
Things can always get worse: our military could suffer embarrassing losses of men and machines, the economy could collapse with rampant fear of real terrorism, tens of thousands could be locked up for the crime of protesting under martial law, and our unitary executive could deem elections harmful to morale.
But in the meantime, there is big money to be made. The Saudi oil fields may take a hit, but that just opens the door to drill in Alaska – in a permanent national emergency, of course.
So, who will be our allies now?
The neo-con logic appeals to Bush because it is such a simplistic and overarching theory. In an unstable region vital to our national interests, confront unfriendly or problematic regimes by overthrowing them militarily and then the people of the country will throw roses at you and the neighboring regimes will embrace the flourishing democracy. This theory is really contradicting by all our experience with third world countries who have kicked out their foreign occupiers. No country wants to be occupied. Our occupation of Irag has radicalized surrounding countries instead of leading them to embrace democracy. Elections in the Palestinian terroritories have demonstated this result. As Bush postures aggressively, the people of these countries embrace their radical elements and conservative religiousity for answers.
So few of the neo-cons have military experience and do not know the horrors of battle. Losing the lives of a few thousand soldiers is a small price to pay in a larger calculus for the neo-cons. Bush wants to be loved so he embraces such a simplistic theory in the hopes it may change the world. Instead, he will be loathed.
Think about this. I'm 100% certain that BUSHCO doesn't believe a word that it says about Iraq. They have to know that any effort by us to do anything in Iraq other than to help it stay in complete and utter turmoil would be a complete failure. The turmoil serves a purpose. It keeps Iraqi oil off of the world market and ensures a high market price for all of the various oil ventures of BUSHCO.
We're not now dominating anything in the Middle East, nor can we. Those folks are too feisty, too well armed, and too certain of their ascension to paradise throgh an act of martyrdom. In addition, the Saudi Royal Family owns enough of our Treasury Bonds that it is able to pull strings. There appears to be a subtle dance under way in that part of the world and an actual attack on Iran seems like ti would harm more things than it would help. The apearance of a willingness to attack, however, seems like it fits into the dance nicely.
Iran, through its takeover of our Embassy in the process of getting rid of our Shah, has already brought the entire BUSHCO nightmare into power. I have to think that they are well aware of their power to forcefully create truly beneficial change for themselves. In this regard, they can't refuse to continue the dance, but one wants to believe that they are well aware of the danger of having a riot break out in the dance hall.
Surely the Democrats know that for them to allow Bush to attack Iran would be an act of political suicide.
The Dems are already, in my opinion, a party on the brink of collapse because of their inability to stand up to the most unpopular Administration in history.
Surely they know this would be political suicide. But it is a measure of how contemptible I believe they are that I do not put it past them to be cowed into escalating a war that most Americans wish fervently had ended yesterday.
But the disgusting Democrasts are enslaved by the same Zionists who are now running the country with their Republican puppet toadies. So they won't do anything to stop Bush. In fact, when they are in power, they will (perhaps under different pretexts) continue the Neocon driven stupidity of the Bush administration.
If we elect that weirdo Hillary,we'll get more of the same,the balance of world power is slowly changing.W
Really? It won't be because Iran has nuclear weapons? How do you know this?
He can read.
Zing.
The author provided a link to an article he had written about the rejection of an Iranian propsal that would have sharpened oversight of Iranian nuclear activities, including those relevant to nuclear weapons:
[The "document" referred to was sent to then-U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Khalilzad on May 2, 2003.]
"To meet the U.S. concern about an Iranian nuclear weapons program, the document offered to accept much tighter controls by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in exchange for "full access to peaceful nuclear technology
The outcome of this was that the U.S. reprimanded the Swiss official who passed it on. The irony, of course, is that the Iranian hand had been immeasurably strengthened by the U.S. taking out the regimes hostile to Iran on both sides of its borders- the Taliban and Saddam's Iraq. It would have been wise to negotiate with Iran at that point, before the relative balance of power shifted even more dramatically with the U.S. being caught in wars of attrition in Iraq and Afghanistan (of course this hadn't happened yet, but SOME foresight is required by public officials) .
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