Unsolicited Advice to the Government of Iran

Presuming that you are not actually ignorant enough to desire war with the United States, you might be well advised to read the history of the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana harbor in 1898 and the history of the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964.

Having done so, you will surely recognize that Americans are reluctant to go to war unless attacked. Until Pearl Harbor, we were even reluctant to get involved in World War II. For historians of American wars the question is whether we provoke provocations.

Given the unilateral U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, you are obviously thinking the rules have changed. Provocation is no longer required to take America to war. But even in this instance, we were led to believe that the mass murderer of American civilians, Osama bin Laden, was lurking, literally or figuratively, in the vicinity of Baghdad.

Given all this, you would probably be well advised to keep your forces, including clandestine forces, as far away from the Iraqi border as you can. You might even consider bringing in some neighbors to verify that you are not shipping arms next door. Tone down the rhetoric on Zionism. You've established your credentials with those in your world who thrive on that.

If it makes you feel powerful to hurl accusations at the American eagle, have at it. Sticks and stones, etc. But, for the next sixteen months or so, you should not only not take provocative actions, you should not seem to be doing so.

For the vast majority of Americans who seek no wider war, in the Middle East or elsewhere, don't tempt fate. Don't give a certain vice president we know the justification he is seeking to attack your country. That is unless you happen to like having bombs fall on your head.

Comments

[SAMORAMACHEL]

Good advice Gary...
That advice may , if heeded, would give Hillary's campaign for President the playing field, necessary to maneurve a victory.
You see, they, (Dick and George) are playing for another war campaign to scare our trembling middle class, who daily are losing their courage to continue to build a progressive and successful America.

[benalbanach]

If the whole of Iraq went on an 18 month vacation to Rome and converted to Christianity.And if pictures of Ahmadinajad were taken as he walked hand-in-hand with George Bush.And if Iran gave up all attempts to go nuclear. They'd still be bombed by the USA.
How do you spell DIPLOMACY ? W.A.R.

[jenniferforpeace]

well, perhaps our government should stop threatening to drop bombs on iran. look, everyone should look at the situation from both the american side as well as the iranian side. america and israel are not the only countries who can posses nuclear power without regulation; that is not fair. noone should be able to posses nuclear weapons, and to thrive to posses them and to actually use them whether it is called depleted or not should be a war crime.
as far as the zionist comments, he is right. one only has to look at the history of israel to see who is running that country as well as who is running our country.
also, to tell someone that he should not comment about america's policy, because we may be provoked to go to war, is rediculous. why should he have to shut his mouth? we should shut our mouths about going to war with them. he mentions the gulf of tonkin....that was used by our country as a catalyst for us to invade; like 9/11. government sponsored terror is nothing new.
Ahmadinejad is not the enemy, of course he has questionable policies and questionable comments. he also has a few ideas and policies that we could benefit from. we must talk and talk and talk and when that is done, we must talk some more. war is never the answer. war is not healthy. war is wrong and we do not need anymore deaths on our hands. we in america have blood on our hands, will we allow more deaths in our names?
thank you for reading.
peace, love and respect,
jen

[Scipio]

Mr. Hart, you left out another historic incidence of the U.S. looking (or, really, creating) a casus belli for intervention/invasion: the so-called Tampico Incident (1914). Some Mexican harbor troops arrested some Marines in Tampico for some minor infraction and when there was some dawdling on apologizing and saluting our flag, Woodrow Wilson rallied Congress into authorizing an invasion of Veracruz. His ambassador in Mexico City had gotten it into his head that there should be a regime change, since the Mexican President, Victoriano Huerta, was not only a murderer but an alcoholic who smoked pot. Wilson was quoted as saying, "It's time we taught the Mexicans to elect good men." Harumph! Bush's macho knows no bounds. And, unfortunately, the Dem leaders know no backbone.

[ThomasDoubting]

Senator Hart,
I think that you chose some very bad examples to use, unfortunatly some of the attacks that provoked these wars, were "False Flag" operations. The U.S. government is notorious for them. Some examples are blowing up an American ship in Havana harbor, another is the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, In Havana it was a MIHOP (make it happen on purpose) Pearl Harbor was a LIHOP (let it happen on purpose operation). It now appears that the events of 911 seem to be a MIHOP operation. We got two wars out of this one, and we are now in the process setting up Iran.

[FirstShirt]

You need to take an antiparanoia pill...maybe two.

[bottomdwellah]

You need to "Wake up" I bet you know all about last nights episode of 24, ER, and the rest of the electronic excrement meant to keep you satiated!

[AlKhateeb]

Wow! So Iran can't have nuclear weapons because they cannot be trusted. But the only country on Earth that actually has used nukes against civilians can be trusted with them? Hmmm! And Iran can't be trusted because their elected leader has said some assinine things, but the country in which the twice elected leader either wasn't astute enough to know truth from fiction or deliberately mislead his country into war is trustworthy (and the leader is clearly just as assinine)? Hmmm! Iran supports terrorist versus support to Pinochet, Marcos, Botha, and yes even Saddam Hussein! Hmmm! Now what in the world would cause anyone to think there was a double standard?

[bottomdwellah]

psssst! Hey Gary, sssshhhh. Don't you know that under Dick Cheney's "Rules of Warefare, Foreign and Domestic", you could be kidnapped, blindfolded, stripped, put in a diaper, drugged, and flown half-way (or more) around the world? You could be subjected to water torture, sleep deprivation, threats against your family (yes, including children), beaten, forced into postions that will tear apart your insides for extended periods of time, along with other things? Why? you are aiding and abetting an enemy of the United States, by telling them what to do to outmanuever the Commander in Chief! In short, you are supplying the State of Iran with strategic and or tactical advice! This makes you a worthless traitor, at least according to George W. Bush, Richard B. Cheney, New York's Daily News, New York Post, and Fox News!

[eliandbo]

We (America) elected the enemy, (GEORGE)!

[wsmelt]

To Caniculus,

You need to understand that your first response is not to even think one party vs. the other party. There are many people who are running for President under a party banner or as TRUE independents that need your vote. IF Americans would show up at the voting booth and vote for the person and not who has the best chance of winning then we might make some progress.
However, real progress will be possible when a poll is taken and the majority has said “none of the above”. Now that the news is driven by Internet communications perhaps hundreds of people will make an attempt to run for President or a seat in the Congress.
Let us not be fooled. We need to clean sweep both the White House and the Congress to break the current this system.
Early voting is only a ploy to destroy any reasonable debate before the voters are ready for the contest.
With over a year left before the election I am sure that the defeat of the party system is still possible. Sure new parties will spring up but would you say it's about time?

By the way, there is a way to peacefully reorganize our country.

[Richar44d]

This is insane. We don't need provocative language. We need border security between Iraq and Iran. Then, when our soldiers come home, we can use that training and experience to secure our own borders.

Something we should already be doing. Oh, and BTW: Tonkin Gulf was staged. The Maine was hyped by the media as an attack. Incompetent coal storage was the real cause of the Maine sinking. The U.S.S. Turner Joy was never damaged by enemy fire. Incompetent gunners caused the internal explosion.

So, Americas real enemies, in all these instances, were incompetence and media misdirection. Something we've got a lot of today.

[dooley09]

Mr. Hart is not trying to provoke the Iranins. He is simply stating the facts. Those facts being that the US gov't has attacked countries based on false pretense and if Iran doesn't watch out, they will join the list of said countries. The Iranians are smart enough to know that Mr. Hart does not speak for the Bush admin.

He is warning them that this White House is looking for a reason to attack and that they should walk a fine line.

[rajiype]

This is your idea of a justifiable provocation for attacking a country? "we were led to believe that the mass murderer of American civilians, Osama bin Laden, was lurking, literally or figuratively, in the vicinity of Baghdad"????

What exactly does that mean -- hiding figuratively? And even if Osama was hiding in Iraq, you don't go to war with another country to find an individual. There are other means available to countries to go about finding fugitives.

[bottomdwellah]

Yes, Mamoud does seem to thrive adversity. Perhaps he knows something we don't? I always hear how he has "threatened Israel with destruction" or "called for the destruction of Israel". Never any real evidence of it though. In fact, he just mouths the prophecies of the Koran, and incidentally the Bible. The Bible states that Israel will be destroyed as a nation in the end times, and its surviving inhabitants will "see the light" and convert to Christianity. Iran has a role to play in the Apacolypse, and he is just stepping up, that's all. Remember that God speaks to GWB, and tells him what to do! What fool out there thinks that "Babylon" in the Bible actually refers to a town in Iraq!

[Kendo Nagasaki]

Darth and Dumbo need to have their telephone conversations monitored under the authority of the Patriot Act by the CIA to ensure that they are not hatching a treasonous plot.

A new Pearl Harbor ?

[Levittown]

Bush and Cheney personally dodged every fight or war they faced. It would not surprise me if they started a war somewhere else ( ? ) before they left office. " Mission Accomplised " Send 'em on" Saddam was in on 9/11"
take the money and run " and the see them run away and hide. .

[DLW]

I never dreamed I'd ever agree with Gary Hart. Right on, Gary!!!

[Mannycongo]

Yes, indeed, Gary Hart, I've been saying this very thing among friends for a long time now. The Iranians need to remove every possible objection the NeoCons could possibly use to hype the country into a strike in the next 16 months. My father had Admiral Kimmel (Commander of Pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941) as a patient at the end my father's career in the Navy and at the end of the admiral's life. He assured my father that Churchill and Roosevelt had put a deal into play to shut off oil supplies to Japan which then provoked a strike against Pearl Harbor that they knew was coming - and they did nothing to prevent it. They conspired to let our sailors, soldiers and airmen be cut down as sacrifices to get the U.S. into the war. Now even PBS is war-mongering with Ken Burns's new series playing to set the stage for the next crusade. There are no good wars and the one now planned for Iran is the worst possible idea that anyone can imagine. We've got to stop the HYSTERIA. Governments do as they choose and the rest of us? Straw Dogs!!!!!

[legacy2]

Mannycongo,
I agree with you wholeheartedly. PBS has opted out of the truth telling business. Ever since they fired Bob Edwards. They live in such fear of having more of their funding reduced so they naturally have in the words of their producers" offered a more balanced reportage.

What a crock. They have pilloried Hillary every chance they get, conveying the latest digs to her from the likes of Rudi. Speaking of Rudi what is his claim to fame. Other than standing on top of the rubble at ground zero.
I didn't see that as any great heroism.

As for the Ken Burns project; it is a cheap glorification of war in general.
To hear senator Inoueye say that he felt exhilaration at killing a man is indicative of the American shoot first and ask questions later syndrome. When will we ever learn to holster our sixgun mentality?

I have a theory. Americans are angry because deep down inside they know that they are not the beneficiaries of democratic freedom. That it has been usurped by the corporatocracy.
That governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed just doesn't fly in the cold light of day.
It is this anger that allows people like the Rush Limbaugh's of this country to continually feed this anger. It is a gradual destruction of the country as it was conceived. It is also the justification needed to find the acceptance for preemptive war.

[berniebear]

Citing two "false flag" operations and ignoring the fact of Roosevelt bring us into WWII by design, what is your point? It is obvious to me that the USA does indeed, "... provoke provocations."

If you are serious about the message to tone down the rhetoric, why are you doing it in such a threatening, neocon-like manner?

Ahmadinejad quietly explained his country's rights and goals in numerous venues, and even Charlie Rose exhibited an incredible inability to actually have a civilized discourse with him.

Truth is, the media have bought into the demonization of Iran, and will be seen, in tomorrow's history,to have been complicit when the crazies in the White House once again attack a nation pursuing its own interests and rights.