Military Rumblings on Iran

Lest anyone doubt that the highly esteemed New York Times is anything but a propaganda mouthpiece for the American powers-that-be regardless of which "wing", Democrat or Republican, holds power in the White House, the story below should put those doubts to rest.

What follows is a thinly disguised left-wing criticism of the Bush administration and the quite obvious verbal threats towards Iran following Dubys'a second inaugural speech. What is interesting about the editorial below is that by appearing to criticize Bush's latest round of war-mongering, the NYT's subtly introduces a number of commonly held assumptions that in fact support the current adminstration's drive towards complete control over the Middle Eastern region.

But first the editorial...

Published: January 27, 2005
New York Times

President Bush began his second term with speculation rising about future military moves against Iran. Last week, Vice President Dick Cheney placed Iran first on the list of world trouble spots and darkly hinted that unless tougher measures were taken to curtail its nuclear program, Israel might launch its own pre-emptive airstrikes. Earlier this month, Seymour Hersh reported in The New Yorker that secret reconnaissance operations have already gotten under way inside Iran, as the Pentagon prepares target lists of nuclear sites that could be attacked from the air or by ground-based commando units.

So far, so good. Pretty much sticking to the facts, with even a brief mention of Sy Hersh's piece in the New Yorker that paints a chilling picture of the Neocon's plans for the next axis-of-evil target. What is interesting about this paragraph is the way the writer non-chalantly mentions American spying and secret intelligence operations inside a sovereign and independent nation like it was commonplace and wholly acceptable, and not in violation of international law.

Thus far, Mr. Bush has kept his own counsel. But these hawkish rumblings eerily recall the months before the American invasion of Iraq when some of the same officials pressed hardest for military action, while the president remained publicly uncommitted. Given that experience, it would be foolhardy to dismiss the current rhetorical buildup. We hope that this time, wiser heads in the administration will intervene before it is too late.

Talk about an understatement! Not only are the latest hawkish rumblings against Iran eerily similar to those in the run up to the Iraqi invasion, they are virtually identical. It's as if they are reading from the exact same script except with "n's" instead of "q's". One might consider that the strategy of publicly accusing one's enemy of having WMD in order to justify a later invasion, even though no evidence exists of such weapons, worked so well in Iraq that the PTB, knowing the majority of American public is generally too lazy to do any actual research and fact checking, decided to use the exact same strategy twice over.


As for the misguided hope that this time "wiser heads in the administration will intervene before it is too late", is pure manipulation and wishful thinking.

There is no question that Iran has been covertly developing the capacity to build nuclear weapons, and that diplomacy has so far failed to end these efforts. But precipitate American military action would almost certainly do far more harm than good. No major American ally, including Britain, favors such an approach. American planes and missiles alone cannot knock out all of Iran's many secret nuclear sites.

Baloney! If anything, Iran has been quite open with it's intentions to develop the capacity to build nuclear reactors for energy purposes. By putting the word "weapon" in there is nothing more than the parroting of Neocon propaganda for the intention of instilling fear into the reader and further demonizing a country that in next on the U.S. hit list. Dilpomacy, headed by the European Union and supported by the IAEA, appears to be working quite well, and the main reason the States oppose these peaceful efforts is because they explicitly want war with Iran, and are not interested in peace at all. And even if Iran does seek to manufacture nuclear weapons for their own defense, they appear to have every justification for doing so, seeing that their close neighbour Israel has numerous such weapons and has verbally threatened Iran many times with such a pre-emptive strike.

It is the epitome of hypocrisy that the strict standards applied to Arabic states in the region are not equally applied to the U.S. and Israel, who by any objective standard constitute the real axis-of-evil in the world. But then, those who have power, money and weaponry make the rules and therefore any such rules do not apply to them. Such is the arrogance and corruption of power.

American planes and missiles alone may not be able to knock out all of Iran's many secret nuclear sites, but an initial unprovoked attack by Israel, later supported by a US invasion may indeed be capable of such a feat.

An invasion of a country almost three times as populous as Iraq is well beyond the means of America's depleted ground forces. And an American military attack is probably the one thing still able to unite Iran's restive but nationalist population behind the unpopular clerical dictatorship.

Perhaps, winning a war against Iran is not the Neocons objective at all. Perhaps they will have Israel initiate an attack and then follow with an American invasion, not for the purpose of winning, put for the purpose drawing in other powerful countries like China, Russia and India who are sympathetic to Iran's interests, with the objective of embroiling the entire world in an end-times war in the Middle East.

The most effective leverage available to Washington is international economic sanctions. If American diplomacy can line up traditional European allies, there is a fair chance that the Iranian nuclear program can still be stopped.

Again, more flagrant propaganda from the NYT's. The so-called "European allies" have been trying to formulate a united strategy against Iran for some time, repeatedly asking for American assistance with the negotiations, and each time members of the Bush administration have adamantly refused using one assinine excuse after another.

Bottom line; the Neocons want war with Iran and will use every facet of their power to ensure that any kind of peaceful settlement fails.

Iran's nuclear ambitions predate the 1979 Islamic revolution. With crucial help from Pakistan and perhaps other countries, Iran now has centrifuges capable of enriching uranium to weapons grade. It also has considerable supplies of uranium ready to be enriched. Iran has promised not to enrich any of that uranium for now, under the terms of an agreement recently negotiated with Britain, France and Germany, and some experts believe there are still technical hurdles to overcome. Even if it mastered enrichment, Iran would still have to design, build and test a usable weapon. The best guess is that Iran remains at least three to five years from having the bomb.

It is interesting to note here, 3/4 of the way through the editorial, that the author actually mentions the possibility that Iran's nuclear intentions may indeed be for peaceful purposes, as they have been claiming all along. Also, given that Iran is still "three to five years from having the bomb", one can only wonder why heated Israeli and American rhetoric is being turned up at this point in time. It seems that those pulling Bush's strings are anxious for the great war to begin long before Iran has a chance of even becoming a threat, almost as if they are following a timeline of some kind.

A nuclear-armed Iran is an alarming prospect, given the radical nature of the Iranian regime, with its long and continuing record of sponsoring international terrorism, its undiluted hostility to the United States and Israel, and its intense regional rivalries with Iraq and Saudi Arabia. So effective crisis diplomacy needs to move into high gear.

Well, that mild semblance towards objectivity didn't last long. Now that the article is coming to a close, the lies have to be bucked up a notch and repeated a few more times so that they stick in the mind of the reader until the bitter end.

The freeze on uranium enrichment that Iran agreed to is only temporary. Its duration depends on the results of talks in which the Europeans are seeking a more definitive renunciation of nuclear enrichment. The Iranians, in return, want economic and trade rewards.

Expanded commercial ties with America and Europe are very appealing to Iran's ruling mullahs. Having marginalized the reformist political parties, they now see economic sluggishness and high unemployment as the only remaining threat to their continued grip on power. But the mullahs are unlikely to give up their nuclear weapons efforts, which are popular among Iranians of all political persuasions, unless they are plainly told that refusing will bring punishing economic isolation in the very near future. European leaders have not been willing to send that firm message yet, and need to do so.

So, there's your answer and the seeming point of the whole article; the imposition of economic sanctions against this radical, America/Israel-threatening, terrorist-sponsoring, oppressive regime is the only way to bring those nasty freedom-hating Mullah's to their knees.

What a waste of paper.

The next step should be a unified European-American stand that forces Iran to make a clear choice. Either fully renounce its nuclear enrichment programs and win significant trade and economic incentives or fail to do so and suffer severe economic penalties.

The Iranian nuclear challenge could not be more dangerous or more pressing. It is time to put aside unilateral American military bluster and European wishful diplomacy and get serious.

So, by offering the economic sanction solution to the unverifiable threat from Iran's supposed nuclear weapons program that will only be possibly operational in 3-5 years, this NYT's editorialist performs an indispensable service to the ruling elite by appearing to offer an alternative viewpoint to the war-mongering Republicans and yet doesn't appease those surrender-monkey's of Old Europe.

That way, the so-called liberal left of the American intelligensia can have something to debate over latte's at Starbucks, while the Neocon/Likudnik alliance quietly prepare an all out invasion of Iran in the very near future.

In the words of some not-so-famous guy...

"Iraq'd my karma after Iran over your dogma"

Relic