There's a week left to the ultimatum that the Bush administration and its European friends gave to Iran to respond to the "freeze for freeze" proposal under which for six weeks Iran would freeze the expansion of its enrichment program and the U.S. would freeze the expansion of sanctions. Under the proposal, during the six weeks of the "freeze," pre-negotiations would take place that could lead to formal talks.
The catch from the Iranian point of view is that the Bush administration has not changed its position that in order for formal talks to start, Iran must suspend the enrichment of uranium. Furthermore, the Bush administration has not changed its position that the goal of the talks is to shut down all uranium enrichment by Iran, regardless of whether such enrichment could be verifiably confined to enrichment for a peaceful, civilian nuclear energy program.
Thus, many in Iran and elsewhere question whether there is an offer of real negotiations on the table from the U.S., or whether "Recent talks the United States held with Iran are aimed at creating legitimacy for a potential attack against Iranian nuclear facilities," as Israeli defense officials suggested to the Jerusalem Post.
Francis Boyle, Professor of International Law at the University of Illinois, proposes that Iran sue the United States, Britain, and Israel in the World Court, seeking the "international equivalent of a temporary restraining order" to compel the U.S. to abandon threats to attack. Boyle notes that threats to attack Iran violate the UN Charter, and that there is a relevant precedent for effective action by the World Court:
There is a precedent here; [in]1992 ...the Bush Senior administration started to blame Libya for the Lockerbie bombing ... in 1988...President Bush Senior then sent the Sixth Fleet on hostile maneuvers off the coast of Libya, [and] had US jet fighters penetrating into Libyan airspace in order to provoke ... a confrontation...
..we filed papers with the International Court of Justice in the Hague, on behalf of Libya against the US and the UK, we demanded an emergency hearing of the world court, and a temporary restraining order against the US and the UK, prohibiting the threat and use of force...after we filed the papers, and the court made it clear we were going to get our hearing, President Bush Senior ordered the 6th Fleet to stand down. They ended their hostile military maneuvers off the coast of Libya, the matter was submitted to the ICJ, there were hearings, a lawsuit, a judgment. And eventually that World Court judgment led to a peaceful negotiated solution of the Lockerbie dispute between the US and Britain on one hand and Libya on the other. And today there is normal diplomatic relations between these three countries... I think the same could be done here...
Furthermore, Professor Boyle notes that the lawsuit itself could force the commencement of real negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, as it did in the Libyan case:
If the United States government is not prepared to engage in reasonable direct unconditional good faith negotiations with Iran, then my advice is the Iranian government go forward with these lawsuits...if someone isn't going to talk to you, you sue them. And then they have to talk to you. And indeed it was during the course of the World Court lawsuit proceedings with Libya that the proceedings themselves were used to start negotiating a peaceful resolution of that dispute between the lawyers handling the lawsuit, because there were no diplomatic relations at that time between the United States, Britain, and Libya. So, again, the same could happen here...
Professor Boyle notes that publicly stated Iranian positions provide ample room for negotiation if the Bush administration were compelled to negotiate:
If you read the Iranian position...their previous response to the IAEA, Iran indicated that although Iran would insist upon its rights, under the NPT, to engage in nuclear reprocessing on its own territory, nevertheless it would be prepared to have that nuclear reprocessing under the auspices of an international consortium. Now certainly that could be negotiated in such a way as to lend some degree of control of the reprocessing to the international consortium, and also the question of transparency, that everyone would know that the reprocessing there stays at a level of reactor fuel, which it currently is. Secondly, Iran has indicated that it would be prepared to continue to observe the IAEA Safeguard Agreement that it does have and has complied with. Third, Iran has indicated it would be prepared to accept the additional IAEA protocol on inspections, snap protocol, and a more stringent regime of inspections for its nuclear reprocessing activities. It seems to me that is a reasonable basis upon which negotiations should proceed. But if the US government is not going to do that, then Iran should sue them at the World Court and protect itself, and then by means of the World Court proceedings, force negotiations, which Iran can do, as Libya did before it.
What finally brought about real negotiations in the Korean case was when the Bush administration publicly conceded that it would not attack North Korea militarily. When the illusion of the possibility of military action was dropped, the discussion about negotiations became serious.
If we want to see real negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, then Congress -- hopefully with some assistance from the World Court -- should take the threat of military action off the table. In particular, it should reject House Concurrent Resolution 362, which effectively demands that the president work to impose an embargo on Iran's imports of gas. You can ask Congress to oppose this resolution here.
My question is this.
Ofcourse in addition to protecting the homeland from a foreign attack etc. Does the military have an oath to protect the Consititution of the US or do anything the President tells them? I'd like to know.
Acts of War
by Scott Ritter
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/29/10681/
http://www.tehran24.com/tehran/photos/index.cfm?year=2007&month=12&day=7&theStart=11&keywords=&special=0&image=071207-018
Saw the trailer of "W." by Oliver Stone? I don't know who's the actor playing dubya, but he's miscast. He should have been played by an actor who could reproduce the deep corruption that man has in his heart, in W's face.
Neo-cons want everything to break in order to swoop in to create their own industry of "reconstruction." That's why in the U.S., in the face of outrageous tax cuts, they've increased spending beyond anything any supposed Tax-and-Spend Liberal could ever dream of. They are deliberately trying to destroy Medicare, Social Security and all other government programs they deem odious (of course not the precious bail-outs). The phrase "kill the beast" (referring to big government programs) first started being bandied about during the Reagan years, where many of these neo-cons cut their teeth.
Similarly, they WANT to make a mess in the Middle East so that -- as reported here in HuffPo regarding Richard Perle in northern Iraq -- they can swoop in and create a whole new market for rebuilding infrastructure, coopt existing oil fields and basically expand their pathetic notions of empire (not to mention exponentially increase their own individual wealth).
The Libya precedent, as explained by Professor Boyle, forestalled further military escalation in Libya and set the stage for normalized relations between Libya and the U.S. Perhaps the same strategy will force the hand of the present administration to negotiate rather than make a further mess of things, which they will undoubtedly do if there's not at least an attempt to impede them.
They WANT WAR. They want a pretense for a war. And they would do NOTHING, to have that perfect pretense "Uranium Enrichment" be wrestled from their clinging hands.
Iran is the last pin to fall in tne ME, to make the NEOCON's victory complete and fulfill their agenda in their own, twisted minds..
I call it the "Capt'n Ahab-Syndrome". GWB, Cheney and others are after Iran like Ahab was after the White Whale - crazy for a kill at all costs.
I would call it a small wonder if the Bush-administration went out of office without having tried a last-minute-attempt to finally get, what they yearned for for eight years now: "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran..."
The United States has vetoed or ignored judgments by the ICJ before (e.g. condemnations of the US' involvement in Nicaragua in the 1980's). So I'm not sure there's any way to enforce any rulings.
It sounds like the precedent that Boyle described, with respect to Libya in 1992, never got off the ground because GHWB called for the military to stand down. It's hard to know whether this order had anything to do with the imminent ICJ suit, or if GHWB felt that the threat of military action had achieved the desired effect.
Boyle didn't necessarily say that the ICJ would have to do anything; just bringing the lawsuit may be enough to delay the momentum of the Bush administration to lead up to an attack against Iran. The attack just has to be delayed by a few months, until Bush leaves office.
I'd like to see the World Court involved in pushing us out of Iraq too.
And it is my fervent hope that Obama will sign on to the Intl Criminal Court for the duration of our time on earth. Otherwise, we might not have anymore time on earth.
The Bush administration has made it quite clear that they want to "re-interpret" (aka violate) the NPT to allow 1- India to be a "recognized" nuclear power, by legitimizing India's nuclear program, and 2-preventing any new countries from acquiring nuclear enrichment technology, thus effectively monopolizing the future's sole source of energy in the hands of the few.
Needless to say, the US has no intention whatsoever of abiding by its own NPT obligations of disarmament either.
So, those who keep speculating about Iran's nuclear program are being DISTRACTED. This has nothing to do with nukes.
I doubt the neocons will allow any practical steps to be taken though.
They need another war to keep avoiding accountability.