Fantasyland
For Poker Diplomacy: Iran
By
Pablo Ouziel
17 December,
2007
Countercurrents.org
After
reviewing the mainstream media reports on the political response to
the National Intelligence Estimate, it seems clear to me that the leaders
of the 'Axis of Good' are bent on betting all their stakes on Iran.
Although the summary of the findings of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies
reveals that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in the fall of
2003 and has shown no signs of restarting it, President Bush is calling
it a "warning signal" instead of extending a formal apology.
In the year
2000, Professor Noam Chomsky spoke of the reasons for hostility towards
Iran; "Until 1979 the U.S. system for controlling the Middle East
was based on Iran, Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan... Actually
the hostility to Iran is because it pulled out of the system and when
it is willing to pull back into the system it will become a non-terrorist
State again."
In 2006,
Seymour M. Hersh in an article revealing plans by the White House to
attack Iran, quoted a high-ranking diplomat in Vienna who told him;
"the real issue is who is going to control the Middle East and
its oil in the next ten years.” Donald Rumsfeld then U.S. Defense
Secretary dismissed the article as a trip to "fantasyland."
However,
just tracking some of the statements made by "world leaders"
in regards to Iran over the last few years, reveals that a trip to "fantasyland"
is exactly where we are heading. The "warning signals" have
been flashing long enough, and the public should react and demand responsibility
from our democratically elected governments.
In February
2005 in his state of the union address, President Bush singled out Iran
as "the world's primary state sponsor of terror -- pursuing nuclear
weapons."
In 2006,
the United Nations Security Council acted unanimously to tighten sanctions
on Iran, in response to the country’s uranium-enrichment activities,
expressing doubts about the country’s nuclear program being “exclusively
for peaceful purposes”.
In October
of 2007, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused Iran of "lying"
about the aim of its nuclear program, saying there's no doubt Tehran
wants the capability to produce nuclear weapons and has deceived the
U.N.'s atomic watchdog about its intentions.
In August
of 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy addressing France's ambassadorial corps, praised
diplomatic initiatives by Western powers pushing for tougher sanctions
on Iran, as the approach "that can enable us to avoid being faced
with an alternative that I call catastrophic: an Iranian bomb or the
bombing of Iran."
One would
have expected that after the release of NIE's report last week, the
war pushing rhetoric would have been silenced and that "global
leaders" would redirect the media's spotlight towards other events.
However, the mainstream media is still being used to divulge propaganda
about the eminent threat of a nuclear Iran. In fact, the NIE has increased
the beat of aggression. Following the report of the findings, Condoleezza
Rice said; "I continue to see Iran as a dangerous power in international
politics". President Bush's U.N. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, added
that Iran had undertaken an "assertive pursuit of regional hegemony"
promoting "its ideology and theocratic state as models to be exported
or imposed on others," and emphasized that Iran would require "a
sustained U.S. military presence in the gulf region."
The aggression
is further emphasized by US defence secretary, Robert Gates who speaking
at a weekend security conference in Bahrain, said that Iran may secretly
have resumed efforts to build a nuclear weapon. A situation which he
suggests, requires intensified international pressure on Tehran, together
with recommendations to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states to develop
a joint air and missile shield to ward off future threats.
Throughout
this poker diplomacy, the allies have remained firmly behind the U.S
on its bluff on Iran; "The world is right to insist by sanctions
that Iran comes back into line," Gordon Brown told a parliamentary
committee. And EU foreign ministers have added that the council of member
states "reiterates its full support to the work in the U.N. Security
Council to adopt further measures."
This aggressive
push by "world leaders", suggests that everywhere you turn
the U.S and its allies are promoting a policy aimed at fomenting instability
and chaos. Indifferent to the devastating consequences of this "fantasyland",
western government officials are gambling the fate of humanity, in hope
of retaining control of strategic locations necessary for the control
of global trade. Concerned global citizens should unite to do something
about this, because according to a British official working closely
with the UN, Iran is already a country whose people are victims to sanctions
that "are having a deeply negative effect on the Iranian economy
and there is the prospect of more to come."
Pablo
Ouziel is an activist and a freelance writer based in Spain.
His work has appeared in many progressive media including Znet, Palestine
Chronicle, Thomas Paine’s Corner and Atlantic Free Press.
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