Bush
Invokes Threat Of “World War III”
By Patrick Martin
19 October, 2007
WSWS.org
The
press conference held by President George W. Bush Wednesday was, like
all of his press appearances, full of non-sequiturs, evasions and political
bullying. Bush called the news conference to present himself as an opponent
of excessive federal spending, by which he meant a few billion for children’s
health insurance in the bill he vetoed last week, not the hundreds of
billions his administration has squandered on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
or the trillions in tax cuts for the rich.
The routine of his 20th press
conference of the year was broken only when Bush was asked about the
visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Tehran, widely seen as
undercutting the Bush administration’s campaign to isolate Iran
and pave the way for military action against it. Putin took part in
a meeting of the five states bordering on the Caspian Sea, each of them
pledging not to allow their territory to be used for military action
against any of the others.
Bush was asked about Putin’s
statement, made with Iranian President Ahmadinejad at his side, that
there was no evidence of an Iranian effort to build a nuclear bomb and
that no country should threaten a military attack against Iran.
Referring to the Iranian
regime, Bush declared, “I believe they want to have the capacity,
the knowledge in order to make a nuclear weapon. And I know it’s
in the world’s interests to prevent them from doing so. I believe
that the Iranian—if Iran had a nuclear weapon, it would be a dangerous
threat to world peace. We’ve got a leader in Iran who has announced
that he wants to destroy Israel. So I’ve told people that, if
you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you
ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge
necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”
Before analyzing this remarkable
statement, let us consider the reaction of the journalists assembled
at the press conference. The president of the United States, the man
who proverbially has his finger on the nuclear button, has issued a
threat of world war. His language—“World War III”—suggests
the use of the US nuclear arsenal against a country of 75 million people,
which would represent an act of mass murder without parallel in human
history.
But not a single representative
of the “fourth estate” chose to ask a follow-up question
on the subject. No one asked why a conflict between Iran and the United
States should become global in character, or which countries around
the world would be likely to become combatants, or what weapons the
United States might use against Iran or other targets. There were a
few desultory questions about the diplomatic travels of Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice in the Middle East, about the crisis in the housing
market, the health care veto, Iraq and torture, and then the press conference
ended.
The ensuing media coverage
was of a similarly perfunctory character. The initial wire service and
broadcast accounts did not even make mention of the “World War
III” remark. Even though NBC News led its evening news with the
extraordinary threat, there were only relatively brief news articles
in the daily newspapers, and not a single editorial expressing any opposition.
The language of Bush’s
threat deserves scrutiny. He said, “If you’re interested
in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested
in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear
weapon.” This represents a further step beyond the threats used
in the run-up to the US war against Iraq, when the regime of Saddam
Hussein was first accused of possessing weapons of mass destruction,
and then, when no such weapons turned out to exist, charged retroactively
with having had the intention to build them. Now even “having
the knowledge necessary” to build WMD is enough to justify a US
preemptive war.
Moreover, what precisely
does “preventing them from having the knowledge” mean? How
does the US government propose to enforce a ban on techniques which,
in the 62 years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, have become widely understood
among those working in the nuclear power industry throughout the world?
Will it kill every scientist and engineer in Iran? Will it kill every
Iranian who might someday grow up to become a scientist or engineer?
The most important aspect
of the Bush remark is what it reveals about the internal deliberations
of the US national security apparatus. Bush is hardly an original or
far-sighted thinker, and he would hardly come up with a comment on the
threat of World War III unless this was being actively discussed in
the White House, Pentagon, State Department and CIA.
The Bush administration clearly
envisions a military clash with Iran on some pretext or other—alleged
Iranian involvement in anti-US resistance in Iraq, an alleged Iranian-backed
terrorist attack, or the alleged Iranian nuclear weapons project—that
could escalate into a broader conflagration.
Israel could become involved
immediately, if it did directly trigger the conflict through a preemptive
air strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Last month’s Israeli
attack on a Syrian site is widely considered a dress rehearsal for such
an action. Significantly, the day after Putin’s appearance with
Ahmadinejad in Tehran, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert traveled to
Moscow, with no advance notice, to hold discussions with the Russian
president.
A US-Iran clash could easily
escalate into a wider struggle, involving the US stooge regimes among
the Arab states, Britain, perhaps France, and whatever US client-states
could be dragooned into a new Iraq-style “coalition of the willing.”
On the other side would be
Iran, most likely backed either passively or actively by Russia, China
and the other states of the Caspian basin and Central Asia, all of which
have begun to react with hostility to the increasingly brazen and aggressive
US intervention in the area.
Russia and China conducted
joint military exercises in Kazakhstan this year, together with the
other states of the Shanghai organization, a loose alliance set up by
Moscow and Beijing to push back against US domination. Both regimes
have a vital need to secure access to critical raw materials, particularly
the rich oil and gas resources of the region.
In relation to Russia, the
Bush administration has conducted a flagrantly provocative policy, seeking
to install a US-controlled anti-missile system in Poland and the Czech
Republic, ostensibly directed against Iran, but regarded by the Russian
military as an initial step in an effort to neutralize the Russian nuclear
deterrent. The State Department has backed anti-Russian regimes in Georgia,
Ukraine and the Baltic states, while seeking to promote the establishment
of additional US clients in Central Asia.
China, for its part, is regarded
as the principal obstacle to American world domination in the long term.
On an array of issues, from trade and currency disputes to the status
of Taiwan and Bush’s appearance Wednesday with the Dalai Lama—the
ousted theocratic ruler of Chinese-controlled Tibet—the administration’s
China policy has been nearly as reckless as its policy in relation to
Russia and Central Asia.
Bush’s warmongering
posture has the backing of the entire US political establishment. All
the major presidential candidates of both Democratic and Republican
parties have declared that they would not “tolerate” or
“permit” a nuclear-armed Iran, and all have voiced their
opposition to supposed Iranian “interference” in Iraq. In
nearly every Republican presidential debate, the major candidates have
gone even further than the Bush administration, explicitly supporting
the US use of nuclear weapons against Iran’s nuclear power and
research facilities.
The frontrunner for the Democratic
presidential nomination, Senator Hillary Clinton, gave an additional
rationale for war with Iran, telling a town hall meeting in South Carolina
last Saturday that an attempt by Iran to disrupt oil supplies from the
Persian Gulf would warrant military retaliation.
Her only reservation was
the need to gather international support for such a war. “I would
hope that the world would see that was an action of last resort, not
first resort,” she said. “Because we need the world to agree
with us about the threat that Iran poses to everyone.”
At the same time, the newly
installed chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen,
told reporters at the Pentagon that the US military had “more
than enough reserve” to carry out military action against Iran,
if that was ordered by the White House.
Leave
A Comment
&
Share Your Insights
Comment
Policy
Digg
it! And spread the word!
Here is a unique chance to help this article to be read by thousands
of people more. You just Digg it, and it will appear in the home page
of Digg.com and thousands more will read it. Digg is nothing but an
vote, the article with most votes will go to the top of the page. So,
as you read just give a digg and help thousands more to read this article.