George
Bush's Samson Option
By Stephen Lendman
10 March, 2007
Countercurrents.org
The
Samson Option is terminology used to explain Israel's intention to use
its nuclear arsenal as an ultimate defense strategy if its leaders feel
threatened enough to think they have no alternative. It comes from the
biblical Samson said to have used his great strength to bring down the
pillars of a Philistine temple, downing its roof and killing himself
and thousands of Philistine tormentors. It's a strategy saying if you
try killing me, we'll all die together, or put another way, we'll all
go together when we go. Richard Wagner had his apocalyptic version in
the last of his four operas of Der Ring des Nibelungen - Gotterdammerung,
or Twilight of the Gods based on Norse mythology referring to a prophesied
war of the Gods resulting in the end of the world.
The Bush Doctrine isn't that
extreme, and it's not the intent of this essay to suggest its unintended
consequences may turn out that way even though the threat it may is
real if they start firing off enough nukes like they're king-sized hand
grenades. The Doctrine refers to the administration's foreign policy
first aired by George Bush in his commencement speech to the West Point
graduating class in June, 2002. It was later formalized in The National
Security Strategy of September, 2002 and updated in more extreme form
in early 2006 that makes for scary reading not recommended at bedtime.
It mentions Iran in it 16 times stating: "We may face no greater
challenge from a single country than from Iran" while failing to
acknowledge what Pogo said about us on an Earth Day poster in 1970 and
in a 1972 book titled - "We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us."
The updated NSS details an
"imperial grand strategy" with new language more belligerent
than the original version that was intended to be a declaration of preemptive
or preventive war against any country or force the administration claims
threatens our national security. It followed from our Nuclear Policy
Review of December, 2001 claiming a unilateral right to declare and
wage future wars using first strike nuclear weapons that in enough numbers
potentially can destroy all planetary life, save maybe some resilient
roaches and bacteria. In still other national security documents, the
administration intends being ready by maintaining total control over
all land, surface and sub-surface sea, air, space, electromagnetic spectrum
and information systems with enough overwhelming power to defeat any
potential challengers using all weapons in the arsenal, including those
nukes masquerading as king-sized grenades.
The doctrine got its baptism
in Afghganistan right after the 9/11 attacks and before the 2002 NSS
was released. It then played out in real time "shock and awe"
force (without nukes) in Iraq that seemed to work like a charm until
it didn't. That brings us to today and an administration feeling cornered
by failure and needing to change the subject and get a victory in the
face of major defeat or at least buy enough time to run out the clock
on its tenure so a new administration can take over and deal with the
mess left over. It'll be king-sized if the audible war drums now beating
are for real.
Enter Iran to play dual roles
for the Bush administration plus the same one always center stage when
strategic resources are at stake. It's the designated target to pull
George Bush's Middle East fat out of the fire and fulfill our 28 year
commitment to regime change in the country since its 1979 revolution
ousted Shah Reza Pahlavi whom we installed to replace democratically
elected prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 in the CIA's first-ever
go at regime change. Those events began and ended the same way - violently,
but if George Bush proceeds as he's now threatening, they'll seem like
tempest-in-teapot prologues to the main event ahead looking like full
scale war large enough to engulf the whole region and entire Muslim
world with it.
CIA's assessment is blunt.
If the US attacks Iran, Southern Shia Iraq will light up like a candle
and explode uncontrollably throughout the country. CIA ought to know
and likely concluded big trouble won't just be in Iraq, Shia Islam and
the Middle East. It may show up anywhere including a neighborhood near
you but not to express reconciliation and friendship.
Washington's other motive
is no mystery to anyone knowing why we attacked and now occupy Iraq.
It had nothing to do with nonexistent weapons and everything to do with
removing a leader unwilling to accept our imperial management rules
whose country happens to have the fourth largest and easily accessible
proven oil reserves in the world we want to control. The joke goes -
how did our oil end up under his sand. The same is true for Iran and
has since 1979. The country's leaders reject our rules, and it too has
easily accessible oil reserves that are the world's third largest behind
Saudi Arabia and Canada (including the country's heavy reserves). Further,
both countries have vast untapped more of them adding to their allure
and Washington's determination to control them alone to have veto power
over who gets access.
If the US attacks Iran, all
bets are off on what's to come. The echoes of Waterloo could turn George
Bush's Middle East adventurism into his inadvertent Samson option by
expanding the Iraq conflict to a regional one with impossible to predict
consequences that won't be good for Western interests and especially
US ones. It will inflame the region and produce a tsunami of Shia rage
and solidarity enough to inflame and unite the whole Muslim world in
fierce opposition to America, its culture and people. It may irrevocably
transform the region making it unwelcome for decades or longer to anything
Western that only arrives for what it can take and doesn't take no for
an answer.
It's backlash may also affect
the administration and its party as unintended fallout from an ill-conceived
adventure gone sour and beyond repair. And it may have further unintended
consequences as well - the painful blowback kind from angry people striking
back in catastrophic payback ways far harsher than ever before. It could
be a dirty bomb or two detonated in one more US cities or a nuclear
reactor core meltdown from sabotage or attack releasing lethal radiation
in amounts great enough to make downwind areas from it forever uninhabitable.
Imagine a nightmarish vision of New York or Chicago (surrounded by 11
aging nuclear power plants) as ghost towns, their structures intact
but unfit to be occupied.
There is a macabre bright
side, however, once past the onslaught if it comes and its aftermath.
In six years, the Bush administration achieved the near-impossible.
It made the US a pariah state alienating the whole Muslim world and
vast numbers more everywhere including growing numbers at home with
George Bush's approval rating at numbers approaching the lowest ever
for a US president. Its policies of permanent war on the world, repression
at home, entrenched corruption, worship of wealth and privilege, and
indifference to human needs and the people he was elected to serve already
destroyed any notion the country is a model democratic state or that
Bush and his neocon fanatics should be governing it. Their imperial
arrogance accelerated the country's fading global hegemony well advanced
since the 1970s and likely irreversible. They buried the nation's influence
and dominance in Iraq's smoldering sands and Afghanistan's rubble that
are now both graveyards for US ambitions in those regions and beyond.
Attacking Iran will just
make things far worse. It would be a fanatical "hail Mary"
act of insanity that by one definition is repeating the same mistakes,
expecting different results. It has no more chance of success than our
misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. And if nuclear weapons are used,
including so-called low-yield ones, it will be an appalling crime against
humanity and catastrophic event potentially affecting millions in the
region by radiation poisoning alone. If it happens, it will irreversibly
weaken US influence and credibility everywhere accelerating our decline
even faster toward second-class status and loss of world leadership
already hanging by a thread. It could also be a potentially lethal blow
to the benefits of "Western civilization" always arriving
through the barrel of a gun and thuggish heel of a colonizer's boot
with the US having the biggest barrels and largest shoe sizes.
Key US players know the risks
and want our losses cut before it's too late to act. They want an end
to war, not more of it in a strategically vital world region too important
to lose while fearing it's likely too late. The National Intelligence
Estimate supports them believing the war in Iraq is unwinnable, transforming
the country into a pro-American state impossible, and the president's
notion of victory illusory. George Bush ignores its assessment and presses
on.
Reports by Seymour Hersh
and others now say the administration wants to weaken the Bashir Assad-led
Syrian government's alliance with Iran and further undermine Hezbollah's
influence in Lebanon and the region by funding Sunni extremist groups
with known ties to al-Queda in what's called a "redirection program."
It's the brainchild of Dick Cheney/Elliott Abrams (of Iran-Contra notoriety)/Zalmay
Khalilzad/Condi Rice/Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan/Israeli elements
& Co. with CIA's hands are all over it covertly beyond Congress'
reach. It includes a larger effort, with Saudi help, to fund and unleash
Sunni extremist elements against Tehran at the same time Washington
is preparing to include Iran and Syria in regional discussions on the
situation in Iraq. It proves again duplicity and shameless hypocrisy
are never in short supply in Washington. They're only topped by the
neocon leadership's crazed strategy to make a hopeless Middle East debacle
catastrophic.
The Concocted Myth
of Iran's Threat
The ancient Persian empire
became Iran on March 21, 1935. From that time till now, Iran obeyed
international law, never occupied a foreign territory, and never threatened
or attacked another state beyond occasional border skirmishes over unsettled
disputes of the kinds other nations engage in that are far short of
all out wars. It only had full-scale conflict defensively after Saddam
Hussein launched a full-scale invasion in September, 1980 backed, equipped
and financially aided by Washington that included supplying chemical
and biological weapon precursors and crucial intelligence on Iranian
field positions and force strength.
The conflict became known
as the Iran-Iraq war. It lasted till August, 1988 over which time a
million or more people died, countless numbers more were wounded and
displaced, with America all the while inciting both sides to keep up
the killing. It hoped to destroy both countries and then move in to
pick up the pieces like it's been trying to do since in the Middle East
and elsewhere with growing difficulty as not everyone likes our rules
and some are even bold enough to renounce them.
Iran became a major US adversary
after its 1979 revolution established the Islamic Republic in February,
1980. Since then, the two countries have had no diplomatic ties and
relations between them have been frosty and uncertain at best with Washington
only interested in normalization on its usual one-way dictated terms.
They're the same kinds offered other developing states - we're "boss,"
surrender your sovereignty to ours, and accede to neoliberal market-based
rules made in Washington that aren't negotiable. Iran refuses so it's
public enemy number one topping the US target queue for regime change.
Rule by extremist mullahs and reactors aren't the problems. They're
just pretexts like all the phony intelligence about Iran destabilizing
Iraq discussed below.
Despite a hopeless quagmire
in Iraq, the Bush administration seems focused on further escalation
notwithstanding the danger, near-impossible chance of success, and mounting
opposition and anger to its agenda in the homeland. It's coming from
the public on Iraq and even the Congress with some there getting twitchy
enough to voice concern, though still far short of acting as they can
and should with too many there twitching to fight, not quit. It's also
heard in the highest ranks of power from both parties first circulated
in the Jim Baker-led Iraq Study Group that reported its rumor-leaked
findings December 6. It represented a clear rejection of Bush administration
Iraq policies gone sour, a proposed rescue plan and effort to save his
family name, and a scheme to restore US Middle East dominance, fast
slipping away, and near past the point of no return by now from which
there's likely none.
Despite its clout, its recommendations
went unheeded, especially regarding engaging Iran and Syria to help
bail Bush's Middle East fat out of its self-made fire. And nothing's
changed in the wake of Washington's agreeing to include those countries'
officials in initial and follow-up discussions on Iraq's security along
with members of the Arab League, Organization of Islamic Unity, G 8
countries, and five permanent members of the Security Council.
The decision represents no
softening of the US's position, and the administration likely will use
the talks to repeat unproved claims Iranian elements support anti-American
forces in Iraq, continue refusing broader diplomatic discussions unless
Tehran stops enriching uranium which it won't nor should it be forced
to or be punished for, and keep negotiating the way it always does -
making ultimatums and accepting no compromise, meaning nothing will
be resolved and tensions will only be further heightened. And if anyone
doubts that's how things will unfold, the New York Times was front and
center spelling it out. It reported any US discussions involving Iran
and Syria won't be "from a position of weakness (so the administration
intends) ratcheting up the confrontational talk (to show) the United
States was in more of a driver's seat" and not planning to negotiate
in good faith. No surprise.
The Bush administration's
rejectionism has even deeper roots going back at least to a 2003 "grand
bargain" offer from Iran - unreported, of course, in the corporate
media. It was approved by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, former
President Mohammad Khatami and former Foreign Foreign Minister Kamal
Kharrazi. Former Bush National Security Council official Flynt Leverett
revealed it calling it a "serious proposal (he knew from multiple
sources) went all the way up to former Secretary of State Colin Powell
(who) 'couldn't sell it at the White House.' " It was part of a
six year Bush administration pattern of rejecting all Iranian overtures
with responses of ultimatums, threats and Washington-style bullying
all framed to send the same message. Washington wants nothing less than
regime change and may go to war for it.
Fast forward to today and
the largely unreported testimony of former Carter administration National
Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski before the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee February 1. He highlighted it in an op ed piece in the Los
Angeles Times February 11 calling "The war in Iraq....a historic
strategic and moral calamity undertaken under false assumptions....
undermining America's global legitimacy (and) tarnishing America's moral
credentials. (It's) driven by Manichean impulses and imperial hubris,
it is intensifying regional instability." It's too bad he ignored
the most damning fact of all - the Iraq and Afghan wars are both acts
of illegal aggression the Nuremberg Tribunal called "the supreme
international crime" and Nazis convicted of it were hanged. Don't
expect a hint of that from a spear-carrying member of the empire in
good standing.
Brzezinski did say the conflict
is ominous for the national interest, and if the country stays bogged
down in Iraq it's on track for a "likely head-on conflict with
Iran and much of the Islamic world." He believes if it happens
it will mean a "spreading and deepening (protracted) quagmire lasting
20 years or more and eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan
and Pakistan (causing) pervasive popular antagonism" and plunging
the US into growing political isolation. He stated a "plausible
scenario (for war with Iran) might be "some provocation in Iraq
or a terrorist act (real or otherwise) blamed on Iran."
Brzezinski represents powerful
interests using him as their influential spokesman. They want an end
to policies gone sour they see harming "the national interest"
meaning their own. He and they want "a significant change in direction"
with a strategy to "end the occupation of Iraq" with a serious
US commitment to "shape a regional security dialogue that includes
all Iraq's neighbors including Iran and Syria and other major Muslim
countries like Egypt and Pakistan." He's calling for an unambiguous
"determination to leave Iraq in a reasonably short period of time,"
and believes the US should "activate a credible and energetic effort
(to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without which) nationalist
and fundamentalist passions (will eventually doom) any Arab regime (perceived
supporting) US regional hegemony." Brzezinski sounded alarmist
about the Bush administration's hostile intentions toward Iran, and
his implications are clear. Washington's agenda is ominous and threatening
the national interest. He denounced the scheme and pressed Congress
to engage Iran, not attack it. His message so far is unheeded.
Brzezinski's influential
voice was joined by Russian President Vladimir Putin's addressing the
international security conference in Munich February 10. He stunned
listeners with his harsh frankness accusing the US of endangering the
world pursuing policies aimed at making it "one single master (in
a) unipolar world." He went on saying "It has nothing in common
with democracy (and the people) teaching us democracy (but) don't want
to learn it themselves." He continued that US policy "overstepped
its national borders in every way....in the economic, political and
cultural policies it imposes on other nations."
He claimed the US is responsible
for "a greater and greater disdain for the principles of international
law (and) no one can feel that international law is like a stone wall
that will protect them." He also accused the US of stimulating
"an arms race (in an environment where) peace is not so reliable."
He added "Unilateral actions have not resolved conflicts but have
made them worse," and force should only be used when authorized
as international law requires by the UN Security Council. He sounded
an alarm gone unheard in the West that "Today we are witnessing
an almost uncontained hyper use of force - military force.... that is
plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts (and) Finding
a political settlement....becomes impossible." He further warned
about the use of "space (or) high tech weapons" with implications
of a new cold war, nuclear arms race and frightening possibility of
devastating nuclear war that was unthinkable before the age of George
Bush.
The Dominant Media
React
As President of a major world
power, Putin's comments went out to the world getting broad coverage,
if only for a day or so, while Brzezinski's were largely and shamelessly
ignored by the corrupted corporate media still carrying the administration's
water and trumpeting its phony claims like verifiable gospel. It happened
on February 11 in the New York Times as reported by correspondent James
Glanz. His column breathed the scantiest hints of skepticism that smacked
of the same kind of Judith Miller-type journalism about WMDs helping
take the country to war with Iraq in 2003. He said the US military showed
"their first public evidence of the contentious assertion that
Iran supplies Shiite extremist groups in Iraq with some of the most
lethal weapons in the war....used to kill more than 170 Americans in
the past three years" with only hints about its reliability or
the source presenting it having none.
He cited senior defense officials
in Baghdad February 11 displaying "an array of mortar shells and
rocket-propelled grenades with visible serial numbers (claimed to be
directly linked) to Iranian arms factories." Without credible proof,
they said "Iranian leaders had authorized smuggling those weapons
into Iraq for use against Americans (basing their judgment) on general
intelligence assessments (of the same kind used to justify attacking
Iraq, meaning phony ones.) The specious Times report reeked of innuendos
for what it lacked in hard proof about lethal weapons. They could have
come from any source, manufactured anywhere, including by Pentagon contractors
easily able to duplicate anything scattered around the country and on
Iraqi streets for years after the Iranian conflict and now used by resistance
fighters or anyone else who has them.
Typical Times saber rattling
was at it again after Bush's inept February 14 news conference trumpeting
his claim Iran was sending weapons to Iraq to undermine security and
kill Americans while never looking more pathetic and awkward doing it.
In "Times talk," reporters Stolberg and Santora stated "Mr.
Bush's remarks amounted to his most specific accusation to date that
Iran was undermining security in Iraq....(and he) dismissed as 'preposterous'
the contention by some skeptics that the United States was drawing unwarranted
conclusions about Iran's role." They barely questioned the president's
nonsensical claim he's certain "the (paramilitary) Quds Force,
a part of the government, has provided these sophisticated I.E.D's that
have harmed our troops" that has as much credibility as those WMDs
we had to fear along with that "mushroom shaped cloud" we
couldn't afford to wait to see before acting.
Facts On the Ground Trump
the Propaganda
Revealed facts on the ground
in Iraq belie all Pentagon and administration phony assertions along
with their shameless daily echoing on the Times front pages. The military
couldn't even get its evidence straight in presenting an 81mm mortar
shell Iran doesn't make, and the ones shown the media had fake markings
in English for a Farsi-speaking country. It's also inconceivable Shia
Iran would be fighting Iraq's Shia government it's allied with and aids.
The US has been fighting an anti-Iranian Sunni resistance largely in
al-Anbar province and the most violent parts of Baghdad. It stretches
credibility to imagine Iran is arming its enemy that denounces Iraq's
dominant Shia puppet government as a US pawn.
That hardly deters Washington
claiming further solid evidence Iranian agents are involved in what
the State Department calls "networks" (meaning Iranians) working
with individuals and groups in Iraq sent there by the Iranian government
without a shred of evidence to prove it. Even General Peter Pace, US
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, dismisses the claim as unproved and
further said during a February trip to the Pacific region there is "zero"
chance of a US war with Iran.
He may be echoing the kind
of sentiment the London Times reported February 25 that "highly
placed defence and intelligence sources (say) Some of America's most
senior commanders are prepared to resign (in protest) if the White House
orders a military strike against Iran." The paper calls this type
of high-level internal dissent unprecedented signifying great distaste
and misgivings in the Pentagon for an attack on Iran. That's a sentiment
even its Joint Chiefs Chairman may share as well as the six retired
generals (and likely others) who publicly denounced the Pentagon's handling
of the Iraq war last spring and the administration's incompetence overall.
Nonetheless, preparations
for war go on that veteran journalist Seymour Hersh again wrote about
in late February in the New Yorker magazine. According to Hersh's informed
sources: "The Pentagon is continuing intensive planning for a possible
bombing attack on Iran....at the direction of the President. (It includes)
a contingency plan...that can be implemented (in) 24 hours....The Iran
planning group (is assigned) to identify targets in Iran that may be
involved in supplying or aiding militants in Iraq (on top of its previous
focus to destroy) Iran's nuclear facilities and possible regime change."
Hersh's report supplements others, like one from BBC, saying the US
military is planning an all out "shock and awe" blitzkrieg
on the country's nuclear facilities, military and infrastructure that
may come in the spring that's now just days away.
A clear sign of that possibility
is the huge naval buildup in the Gulf and Eastern Mediterranean with
two heavily equipped and armed carrier groups in theater and a reported
third en route either to replace one there or add to it. The combined
task force in place is a formidable assemblage of 50 or more warships
with nuclear weapons, hundreds of planes and contingents of Marines
and Navy personnel.
The buildup is part of former
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's plan for preemptive nuclear war
specifically targeting Iran and North Korea. Earlier, Dick Cheney originated
the idea when he served as GHW Bush's Defense Secretary in the early
1990s. Rumsfeld picked up the scheme in 2004 as authorized by the 2002
National Security Strategy proclaiming an official doctrine of preemptive
or preventive war for the first time. From it he approved a top secret
"Interim Global Strike Alert Order" for military readiness
against hostile countries that included the nuclear option. He drew
on CONPLAN (contingency/concept plan) 8022 completed in November 2003
detailing a plan to preemptively strike targets anywhere in the world
judged a national security threat including hardened structures using
tactical so-called low-yield nuclear bunker busters with Iran the apparent
first target of choice. The Omaha-based US Strategic Command (StratCom)
would run any operation if undertaken as it's the command center for
the country's nuclear deterrent and overseas the military's nuclear
arsenal.
All military branches have
ready battle plans to implement against Iran under the name TIRANNT
for Theater Iran Near Term. If an attack order comes, it can be launched
from the assembled Naval task force in the region and/or by long-range
US-based bombers and other warplanes and missiles strategically based
in locations like Diego Garcia and elsewhere within striking distance
of Iranian targets. It will be able to assault Iran round the clock
for weeks against a claimed number of 1500 nuclear-related sites located
at 18 main locations in the country. Also designated are thousands of
strategic military and civilian targets including vital infrastructure,
industrial sites, air, naval and ground force bases, missile facilities
and always command-and-control centers with possible help from Israeli
warplanes that might, in fact, initiate an attack with US forces then
joining in to support their regional partner.
That kind of devious scheme
could persuade Congress to go along never wanting to offend the Israeli
Lobby that's been spoiling for a fight with Iran for years and now may
get it horrifically with unimaginable consequences. They'll affect Israel
and the US alike as well as spillover to unstable countries in the region
like the Saudis, Egyptians, Jordanians and Lebanese and may be unsettling
enough to unseat sitting rulers and governments replacing them with
the kinds of fundamentalist regimes not likely to welcome US presence
or influence in the region and intending to do something about it.
The Bush Roadmap
to War with Iran
Reports circulated as early
as last year and in 2005 that the Bush administration signed off on
a "shock and awe" attack against Iran to destroy its perfectly
legal commercial nuclear program that may involve using so-called "mini-nuke
robust earth penetrator bunker-buster" weapons that won't be "mini"
in their catastrophic effects if indeed used. These are powerful dangerous
weapons. They can be made to any desired potency, would likely be from
one-third to two-thirds as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb that destroyed
an entire city, but could have far greater explosive capability that
potentially will be catastrophic to the area struck and well beyond
by radiation contamination alone.
Pentagon false and misleading
reports about them claim they're "safe for civilians" because
they penetrate the earth and explode underground. Test results prove
otherwise showing when released from 40,000 feet a B61-11 nuclear earth-penetrator
burrowed about 20 feet in the soil for a pre-explosion depth able to
produce intense fallout over the area struck that's unremediable and
would result in enough permanent surface contamination to be unsafe
for human habitation. Nonetheless, weapons able to cause a nuclear holocaust
are cleared for use real time along with conventional ones if a "shock
and awe" attack is ordered against Iran or any other nation on
the false and misleading pretext of protecting the national security
only threatened by a rogue leadership at home willing to risk catastrophic
mass destruction in pursuit of its insane and unachieveable imperial
aims.
Not surprisingly, we have
an eager partner in Israel straining at the leash to fulfill its long-term
agenda to attack Iran alone (possible but doubtful) or along with its
US ally that keeps getting reinforced by bellicose statements by its
high officials like the one reported February 13 by ultra-right wing
Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman. He commented in a radio
interview that if necessary "We will have to face the Iranians
alone, because Israel cannot remain with its arms folded, waiting for
Iran to develop non-conventional (nuclear) weapons." Officials
like Lieberman, current Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and former
prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu are dangerous men on the far right
allied with others in government and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)
all dripping war talk that must be taken seriously from a nation dedicated
to conflict and never shy about striking the first all out aggressive
blow.
The same theme comes from
a report published February 11 that vice-president Cheney's national
security advisor, John Hannah (who replaced Lewis Libby just convicted
of obstruction of justice, perjury and lying to the FBI), speaking for
the Bush administration, considers 2007 "the year of Iran"
saying a US attack is a real possibility. Hannah played a key role in
the run-up to the Iraq war having written the first draft of Colin Powell's
infamous pre-war speech to the Security Council citing bogus evidence.
He also played a lead role putting out phony pre-war intelligence from
Iraqi exiles. Now he's at the seat of power and must be taken seriously,
especially since his boss barely disguises his aggressive posturing
for war against the Iranian state he's wanted for 15 years or more.
They're both part of the
high-level propaganda messaging similar to the lead-up to the Iraq war.
It's aim is instill fear to make the administration's case that Iran
poses serious threat enough to justify military action against it. It
follows UN Resolutions 1696 in July demanding Iran suspend uranium enrichment
by August 31, which it didn't, and 1737 in December imposing limited
sanctions on Iran for not abiding by what the Security Council demanded
in July. A second deadline passed putting the Iranian matter back in
the Security Council to consider new sanctions be imposed and ratcheting
things closer to a US attack as further events unfold.
And so the beat goes on with
US oil reserves being stockpiled, Iranian diplomats apprehended in Iraq,
the Pentagon and Israeli forces scheming together, the US military buildup
in the Gulf and Eastern Mediterranean continuing, US ground forces moved
to the Iran-Iraq border, Patriot missiles strategically installed in
Israel and neighboring Arab states, a "surge" of up to 50,000
additional troops planned, and a change of commanders on the ground
in Iraq made replacing less hawkish ones with others supporting the
Bush war strategy.
They're part of the new Pentagon
team under Defense Secretary Robert Gates who told the Senate Armed
Services Committee the military needs to prepare for large-scale operations
against countries like Russia, China, North Korea and Iran that reaffirms
the administration's commitment to its "long war" Dick Cheney
said won't end in our lifetime, but may end up shortening it. Clearly
Iran is the next planned target, the dominant media echoes the threat,
and Congress is just a talking-shop like always posturing as the gathering
storm in the Gulf intensifies.
Published reports, citing
credible sources, point to an attack on Iran by April by an administration
on total expanded war footing with the president spoiling for a fight
by goading Iran to react in response to his order to "seek out
and destroy" (supposed) Iranian "networks" in Iraq. Bush
minced no words in a radio interview saying "If Iran escalates
its military action in Iraq (even though there's none)....we will respond
firmly." Other officials joined the jingoistic chorus accusing
Iran of involvement in sectarian violence practically signaling an upcoming
attack that easily could follow a manufactured pretext if Iran fails
to provide one on its own which it won't. It's never hard to do, and
the infamous trumped up Gulf of Tonkin one in August, 1964 shows how
easy it is to fool the public and get Congress to go along.
Iran could save us the trouble
by responding to US provocations going on now for months by illegally
flying unmanned aerial surveillance drones across its airspace and secretly
placing special forces reconnaissance teams on the ground "to collect
targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic
minority groups" according to an earlier report by Seymour Hersh.
So far, Iran hasn't taken the bait even though it knows what's happening
and reportedly downed one or more intruding aircraft it has every legal
right to do but is treading dangerously against an adversary looking
for any pretext to pounce. It's leaders also knew what Washington was
up to after being made a charter member of Bush's "Axis of Evil."
In that status, it's blamed for the administration's failure in Iraq
with false claims of arming the resistance and inciting violence.
War on Iran may, in fact,
have already started, and two bombings in Southeastern Iranian Zahedan
bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan the week of February 12 may have
been one of its volleys. Arrests were made and a video seized according
to provincial police chief Brigadier General Mohammad Ghafari. From
it he claims the "rebels (have an) attachment to opposition groups
and some countries' intelligence services such as America and Britain."
An unnamed Iranian official also told the Islamic Republic News Agency
one of those arrested confessed he was trained by English speakers,
and the attack was part of US plans to provoke internal unrest.
While none of this conclusively
proves US involvement, there's no secret Washington wants regime change,
is actively stirring up internal ethnic and political opposition toward
it, and reportedly is working with exiled Iranian leaders including
the Mujahideen el-Khalq (MEK) Iranian opposition guerrilla cult the
US State Department lists as a terrorist organization, but not apparently
when it's on our side.
Full-scale war on Iran may
just be a concocted terrorist attack away from starting the "shock
and awe." There's no secret what's planned and none whatever that
doing it will be another unprovoked, unwarranted act of preemptive illegal
aggression only the US and Israel support. It's also no secret Iran
is no pushover. It's no match for US and/or Israeli power, but it's
got powerful weapons one writer says are "unstoppable" like
Russian-built SS-N-22 Sunburn Missiles and more advanced SS-NX-26 Yakhont
anti-ship ones designed to sink a US carrier that's a formidable weapon
of war but not invulnerable. Iran also has Russian 29 Tor M-1 anti-missile
systems and NATO-made Exocet and Chinese Silkworm anti-ship missiles
that pack a punch and can sink our ships when launced from land, surface
ships or submarines along with 300 or more warplanes, and a large ground
force estimated at around 350,000.
US engaging Iran may now
hinge on resolving the Washington power struggle between Bush administration
neocons and more practical trilateralist types in the camp of Zbigniew
Brzezinski, Jim Baker, and other powerful Washington figures including
the president's father. It's also up to Congress to decide which side
it's on and whether it will act or watch from the sidelines and risk
nuclear war and its fallout. It may not be long finding out how events
will unfold. Just the kind and level of rhetorical noise will tell who's
winning with congressional inaction and media complicity so far giving
the hawks a big advantage. Haven't we seen this script before, and isn't
the likely ending clear, except this time the stakes are far greater
and so is the risk to everyone on both sides.
Stephen Lendman
lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected].
Also visit his blog site
at sjlendman.blogspot.com and tune in online to hear
The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on The Micro Effect.com
each Saturday at noon US central time.