To bomb or not to bomb Iran, that's the question the Bush administration appears to be debating these days, once again revealing the extraordinary disconnect between the White House and the American people. With a catastrophic occupation of Iraq and polls showing the American public so skeptical about the use of military force that only eight percent support military action against Iran, there is nevertheless a clear and present danger that Cheney and the neocons will again prevail and lead this administration into another disastrous military misadventure.
The parallels between now and the run-up to the Iraq War are troubling. Nobel Peace Prize-winner Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who warned the Bush administration in 2003 about the lack of a nuclear program in Iraq and was subsequently attacked for his position by the Bush machine, the neocons and by many in the mainstream media, has now struck a deal with Iran to answer questions about its nuclear program within a defined timeline and improve access for inspectors. ElBaradei has called for a "double time-out" of all enrichment activities and new sanctions.
The result of ElBaradei's attempt to shed light on Iran's nuclear program? More attacks by the Bush administration. More outright hit jobs like this one from the Washington Post, or even the more subtle shading by the New York Times that ultimately portrays ElBaradei as a dictatorial loon. The result is, once again, an amplifying of the administration's drumbeat calling for war.
What is really needed right now -- as was the case in 2003 -- is for ElBaradei and the IAEA to be given a fair hearing and support. As Joseph Cirincione, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and author of Bomb Scare, says, "ElBaradei is doing what any diplomatic leader should do: talking directly to a nation to find a way to resolve difficult issues short of the use of force... He's painfully aware of the lessons of the pre-Iraq War period. Then, he was convinced that there was no evidence of a nuclear program in Iraq. He told the UN Security Council that in his reports of January and March 2003. But could he have done more to prevent a disastrous and unnecessary war? Weren't others too quiet, too complacent to stay in their assigned roles? He does not want to see this happen again, with even more catastrophic consequences."
Had ElBaradei's work been heeded before, imagine the treasure, the lives -- not to mention our international reputation an security -- that would have been saved. But instead of learning from the current tragedy in Iraq, and taking responsibility, this administration continues to build on its legacy of arrogance and the media once again accepts the administration line or fails to ask tough questions -- making it more difficult for the IAEA to play the vital role that it could.
"Administration officials, including Secretary Rice, attacked the credibility of the director-general [in 2003] too," Cirincione says. "The Washington Post also blasted ElBaradei on his Iraq assessment. They were dead wrong. But this hasn't stopped them from attacking with guns blazing again. ElBaradei's record is far better on these issues than either the secretary of state's or the Washington Post's. You would think they would have some humility given the magnitude of their past mistakes. But some people have no shame."
In an excellent piece for Salon.com , Steven Clemons, Director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, lays out the efforts by Cheney and the neocons to promote a strike against Iran by either Israel or the US -- perhaps through "some kind of 'accidental'... contrived confrontation." A former administration official suggested to Clemons that Bush has now received a memo on "a bleak binary choice" -- either take military action against Iran or accept an Iran with nuclear weapons. According to the official, Rice was to develop a "third option," but the official predicted that option would be "a corpse." "I don't see how we come out of this without military action," the official said.
Cirincione takes issue with the binary, either/or option. "US hardliners are presenting a false, binary choice: either Iran buckles under the pressure of sanctions, or the US will be forced to attack," he says. "Since they don't believe Iran will shut down its enrichment plant, then we must attack. This logic is the result of another false choice: either we attack Iran or Iran will get a nuclear bomb. Missing from the equation is direct US-Iran negotiations. The sanctions are having an impact, but it's a mistake to believe that sanctions alone can compel a nation to comply or collapse. They never have. Sanctions can be a prod towards a negotiated compromise. What is missing now is the direct US-Iranian talks that could forge such a compromise. ElBaradei is opening up that option. His lead should be followed by the United States, not scorned.... At the very least, we should try talking to a nation before we attack it."
The fulminations of Ahmadinejad against Israel aren't to be ignored. As Richard Falk reported in The Nation last year, "Such hostility [as Ahmadinejad's] would agitate the security concerns of any state, especially one that has faced threats throughout its history, as has Israel." But, as Falk and others have pointed out, the reality regarding Iran as a nuclear threat needs to be looked at squarely. Representative Dennis Kucinich has been at the forefront of that effort, as was evident in a hearing he conducted in October 2006 which I wrote about here. Distinguished witnesses at that hearing -- including Cirincione, former IAEA/UNSCOM Chief Nuclear Weapons Inspector, Dr. David Kay, and Colonel Sam Gardiner (Ret.) -- agreed that Iran is at least 5 years, but more likely 10 or more years, away from producing weapons-grade nuclear materials.
And then there are the consequences of a strike against Iran. As Cirincione testified at the Kucinich hearing, "If you like the war in Iraq, wait until you see the war in Iran. It will be a massive, global war." Among the possible outcomes Falk listed in his Nation piece: "a devastating retaliation with conventional weapons, including its Shahab-3 missiles, which can reach targets in Israel with reasonable accuracy"; a deep, worldwide recession as Iran - the world's 4th largest oil producer -- embargoes its oil; the strengthening of "Islamist tendencies throughout the region" and the hand of hardliners in Iran. And Clemons writes of the probable military response by Iran in Iraq, Afghanistan, or both; "the reaction of the other world major powers [that] would be at best reserved"; and the destabilizing impact and popular unrest that would occur in Muslim countries with significant Shia minorities. Finally, there is the question of how effective any attack would be given that the Iranians have dispersed nuclear sites that are underground.
So what should be done exactly? Not what the Bush administration -- along with its compliant European allies like France and Germany -- is trying to do. On the eve of the UN General Assembly meetings in New York, the Washington Post reports that a new "coalition of the willing" will work to impose broader military and economic sanctions against Iran -- in what a Western diplomat dubbed a kind of "sanctions of the willing."
Instead, Cirincione argues, "We should learn from the North Korean and Libyan experience. Both were determined foes of the United States, both had weapons programs the US wanted to stop, both were subjected to sanctions and US pressure. But it was only when the United States began direct talks with these nations that we were able to develop a diplomatic path to end these programs. The Libya model is the polar opposite of the Iraq model: instead of invading a nation to change a regime, you negotiate with a nation to change the regime's behavior. North Korea is a more difficult case than Libya, but the same approach shows signs of working there as well. Iran is the most difficult case of all, but direct dialogue with the pragmatists could very well produce a compromise that satisfies the security concerns of both Iran and the United States."
Additionally, as the IAEA marks its 50th Anniversary this year, and ElBaradei once again attempts to instill a measure of sanity into a dangerous game of brinksmanship, we should focus on ways to support the IAEA mission and make it as effective as possible. John Holum, who served as Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, said recently, "We rely on the IAEA to safeguard nuclearmaterial in facilities all over the world. Yet the IAEA has never spent in excess of 120 million US dollars in any year to administer its worldwide nuclear materials inspection regime. At less than what the US spends per day in Iraq, the safety of the world is dramatically compromised."
Ultimately, the international community needs to work in conjunction with the IAEA to secure real nonproliferation of weapons -- and as Falk pointed out in his Nation article, that means multilateral nuclear disarmament: "... It is disastrous folly to suppose that some will agree to live forever beneath the nuclear Sword of Damocles without trying to obtain such weapons themselves." In the meantime, while the Bush administration plays cowboy at the expense of global security -- and influential newspapers like the Washington Post hurl hit jobs at el-Baradei, Congress should follow the wise advice of The Nation's defense correspondent, Michael Klare, who wrote in the magazine that legislation should be passed banning the use of federal funds for any attacks on Iran or Syria without prior authorization.
Most importantly, we need to confront the insanity of a military confrontation with Iran.
Thanks for your artticle.
You get rich if you can get oil out of the land locked Caspian area (one of the largest reserves on the planet) to the Arabian Sea, Pakistan and India. Now that the Russians tried and failed and no longer own the Caspian area it is time for someone else to try.
You need to export oil via the Arabian Sea and supply oil the massive Indian energy market are obvious but why Pakistan? Well there was this little company called Enron that invested Billions of dollars Pakistan and without gas these plants they went broke. There is still massive investment that can still earn a lot of money that needs gas.
To get oil from the Caspian to Pakistan & India there is a pesky little place called Afghanistan you need to cross. If they are not cooperative, do as is always done. Invade and install a puppet government.
How to get oil to the Arabian sea? That involves crossing a more powerful country called Iran. Iran is sandwiched between two countries, Afghanistan (hey we will already control that) and Iraq. If we have them closed in on all sides we can apply immense pressure on them to let us do what ever we want and if need be invade Iran from both sides. The Iraqi population is only about one third the size of Iran and should be no problem subjugating.
OK now that you have a plan how do you get you feeble minded citizens to go along with this plan that will make you and you buddies super freaking rich. Most of these do-gooders would not go along with plundering the area so scare them. Tell they are evil, murderers, what to come and kill them, tell them they almost have nuclear weapons, they really gets them terrified. In no time they’ll be begging you to invade.
This process should take weeks, perhaps a few months, certainly not years.
So good luck and don’t forget to invoke god as often as possible. People love that crap.
When the first bombs fall in Iran,the entire Muslim world is coming after us.It's that simple.
Just once, it would be nice to hear these alleged fulminations from Ahmadinejad himself.
We are constantly bombarded with reports that he wants to wipe Israel off the map and that he is a Holocaust denier. Yet the few times I have heard him speak (twice on 60 Minutes, once on French TV and today at Columbia University) he didn't make any such statement. True, he has repeatedly called for a referendum in "Palestine", which probably includes Greater Israel and various occupied territories, such as the West Bank and Gaza.
Why does calling for a one-person one-vote referendum amount to an existential threat to Israel worthy of a devastating preemptive strike? Isn't Israel the beacon of democracy in the Middle East?
Regarding the Holocaust, Ahmadinejad made it clear today at Columbia that he does not deny it. What he does deny is that it gives Israel the right to ethnically cleanse and make live unbearable for 5 million Palestinians.
We Americans are not going to find peace and respect in the world until we face up to these questions in a more even handed manner.
Countering is tough but so long as we keep hammering at the truth we have a chance. The truth will set us free in the end.
Jerry Northington
We are hearing the same false stories from the same sources. They worked when the Chickenhawk warmongers wanted their war with Iraq. They got what they wanted and are evidently pleased with themselves. Now they want war with Iran. So they come at us with the same lies. If anything this one has even less justification than that other one which had none. But that doesn't stop Bush or Cheney or any of those Neocon advisors. Nor does it get any special urge toward truth from our ..... controlled Press.
My question is: given that certain lobbies have more clout than any of us mere citizens, what can we do to prevent the crime being planned in front of our eyes?
Has our country been irretrievably lost?
Jerry Northington
Says Mr. Cirincione :
"This logic is the result of another false choice: either we attack Iran or Iran will get a nuclear bomb."
However, he then goes on to discuss the sanctions/negotiations that must take place to ensure that Iran is willing to drop its weapons program.
Excuse friggin me.
Where is there any proof that Iran has a weapons program that it is not only willing to, but MUST, discuss in order to not be attacked by the US?
This is just furthering the administration's falsehoods, and I am embarrassed to see it posited on this site.
"You MUST give up the program, or we will attack!"
"But we have no program."
"Give it up or we will attack now!"
Kabooom!
"Hey, we gave them a choice, and they chose war".
In case Mr. Cirincione is not reading Mr. elBaredi's reports, as I know he is, there is no proof whatsoever in existence that Iran has any nuclear weapons program to give up.
There is none.
So, out of all of the false binaries that Mr. Cirincione exposes in this posting, his is the most false.
Yes, we need time for elBaredi's work to be successful, but let us not presume to know what the results of that work will be.
The answer or lack of one is hardly reason to go to war, thus the binary choice.
Maybe you know more than I do here.
Taken from (GOV/2005/87, para.6) which is the Director General's report to the IAEA Board:
"Also among the documents was one related to the procedural requirements for the
reduction of UF6 to metal in small quantities, and on the casting and machining of enriched, natural and depleted uranium metal into hemispherical forms, with respect to which Iran stated that it had been provided on the initiative of the procurement network, and not at the request of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI)."
Noting there is no mention of "highly-enriched-uranium(HEU). Also, natural and depleted uranium would be of no consequence, nor would the LEU coming out of the enrichment process allowed by the NPT. I recall it was Bonkers Bolton and his aides who claimed that such an item could only be useful for nuclear warheads.
This position was challenged in many places as that such a hemispherical-shaped charge could be used to increase the power of more conventional, non-nuclear, warheads.
Yes, we need negotiations and they need to be between the US and Iran, among others.
But Mr. C used Libya and North Korea as examples, and both of them did apparently have a weapons program.
Thus my claim of his presenting a false binary option of his own.
How do you negotiate away something you do not have?
wolfowitz,
perle,
kristol,
saffire,
netayaho,
sharon,
feith,
lie_berman,
chertoff,.
We could also lose our ally (?) in Pakistan, Musharraf - his government is already less than truly stable, and could be toppled at any time by an uprising from Islamist factions within the Pakistani military, thus yielding the Islamic bomb as a fait accompli even without Iran being the recipient. Our undersized contingent in Afghanistan would likely need to be air-evac'ed, as the chances of a secure land route out through hundreds of miles of hostile territory would be unmeasurably small.
And it's best to take the recently formed SCO into account, as they are likely to view this as our aggression in their backyard, not to mention disrupting China's oil supplies.
That whole part of the world is rather unstable. Do we really want to push it over into complete chaos?
Yup, China is the largest importer of Iranian exported oil.
Haven't we had enough fun in the middle east to last a decade or two?
The war-hawks in the United States see no particular reason to be overly concerned about such "pretenses" this time.
Articles and amendments authorizing this action have been quietly introduced in the Senate and we should all be able to see them tomorrow on thomas.loc.gov. These articles will no doubt be quietly approved and after that the "Hot War" can begin.
"Hot War?" Yes, "World War, Episode Three: The Return of the Nukes."
We all must be VERY-soberly aware of this lesson which History has taught us about the global wars: the technologic improvement which stopped the previous episode, figured prominently in the next episode. You do not have a world in which there are now tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, without inferring that in the next World War episode, whenever it does come, those weapons WILL be used. And the Government of the United States has, while variously couching its intentions in euphemisms like "bunker buster," said as much.
Clouds of atmospheric radiation could be explained-away, at least for a short while, by pointing out that "a nuclear facility was attacked." But it's still Fallout.
The American people do have, clearly enshrined in the words of its Constitution, the power to stop these criminals in their tracks, casting them from office and bringing them to justice. But key members of the same criminal enterprise operating within the House of Representatives are actively preventing Impeachment.
I wonder how the future historians, if there be any, will judge this generation: will it in fact be true that, given more than six years' proof of what their rogue-leader was doing, would do nothing at all to stop him ... and thus permitted Nuclear War?
Will they say that we put our heads into the sand until that sand turned into green glass?
Thank you. It's been over four years since we invaded Iraq, after they had been weakened by over a decade of sanctions, and WE'RE STILL THERE. I don't know what the hell Cheney and Co. are thinking. Iran's GDP is seven times that of Iraq an its population is nearly trple, with a disproportionate amount of young males. Plus they would present a united front where the Iraqis have doomed their own cause by infighting.
And that doesn't even get into the fact that the Russians don't want us near their border and the Chinese don't want us further interfering with the oil trade. Not only would our overstretched military be on their own (again), we'd actually face MUCH harsher global opposition. A renewed Cold War state with Russia and/or China is a real possibility if this happens.
"...no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."
Oh, that's right. The Constitution is "quaint."