December 11, 2007
by Robert Fantina
Demonstrating once again his disregard of facts, President George Bush has stated that 'nothing has changed,' following the National Intelligence Estimate report that states that Iran ceased its nuclear weapons program four years ago. This assessment is, of course, in direct contradiction to what Mr. Bush has been saying for some time. But following his tried and true method of ignoring reality, he said the following: "I think the NIE makes it clear that Iran needs to be taken seriously as a threat to peace."
The biggest threat to peace that the world faces today seems to be Mr. Bush himself.
As recently as October of this year, Mr. Bush was acting in his alarmist role by saying that a nuclear-armed Iran could ignite World War III. This was apparently part of his own disturbed agenda to convince Congress that a 'pre-emptive' strike against Iran is necessary. The president successfully introduced and implemented the concept of pre-emption against Iraq four years ago, using alarmist jargon coupled with his own brand of rabid jingoism to get approval from a weak-kneed, rudderless Congress.
At that time he and his simpering yes-men - Secretary of State Colin Powell chief among them - looked the United Nations Security Council, and the world, straight in the eye and lied about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction in its possession. On February 5, 2003, Mr. Powell appeared before the U.N. and displayed some satellite photographs that he claimed indicated the presence of 'active chemical munitions bunkers' disguised from inspectors.
More recently, Mr. Bush has claimed that Iran was well on its way to developing nuclear weapons and he 'left open' the possibility of a so-called pre-emptive strike, once again conjuring up the image of the United States vulnerable and fragile against the forces of a nation thought to be developing nuclear weapons. It does not appear that Mr. Bush has learned anything from the colossal mistake he made of invading Iraq.
With that country now in civil war; with U.S. soldiers trying their best to achieve something good there when nothing positive can occur while they are present; with Iraq's infrastructure in ruins thanks to Mr. Bush's 'Shock and Awe' campaign and the continued occupation of that nation by U.S. soldiers; with the rivalries between the Shia, Sunni and Kurd people, once contained but now full-blown, the president is apparently willing to expand America's Middle East imperial disaster to a nation with three times the population of Iraq. One also wonders how long Mr. Bush expects to invade Middle Eastern nations with international impunity. How long will it be before some nation decides it cannot wait to be invaded, and will launch a pre-emptive strike of its own?
With virtually all military experts expressing concern about the over-stretched U.S. military, currently at war in two countries, it is inexplicable that Mr. Bush can think that another major front can be opened up with current military power. Or perhaps he will once again summon his over-used pseudo-patriotism to convince Congress to reinstate the draft. After all, he will say, Americans who enjoy whatever is left of U.S. freedoms must be willing to fight and die for those freedoms.
He will not trouble himself to attempt to explain the impossible: how invading Iran will protect the U.S. He did not have to explain that to Congress in 2003, and the new Congress has proven itself as weak, spineless and lacking in leadership as its predecessor. It is far too likely that a few well-chosen phrases (can one forget Mr. Bush's description of Iraq as a 'cauldron of chaos'?) from fawning speechwriters will cause the members of Congress to dance to Mr. Bush's somewhat discordant tune.
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The U.S. is less than a year from a presidential election where, with few exceptions, the choices currently offered to the voters range from Mr. Bush clones (e.g. former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney), to those who voted for the Iraq war when all credible evidence suggested that the opposite vote was the far more reasonable (e.g. Senator Hillary Clinton, former Senator John Edwards). Any presidential candidate who wants to stand out from the crowd, who seeks to demonstrate leadership rather than cowardice, should now be pointing to the NIE report and discussing ways to engage Iran diplomatically.
He or she should be constantly and publicly questioning why Mr. Bush says 'nothing has changed,' when the fundamental argument he has continually made for instituting sanctions against Iran, and considering the invasion of that nation, have been proven groundless by respected government agencies. They should question why he seems so willing to expend more lives and 'treasure' (an odd term since lives are the ultimate treasure) when current conditions indicate no need to do so.
It would be difficult for any candidate to attempt to push Mr. Bush to this accountability without asking him the same questions in retrospect about Iraq. Why did he rush to invade Iraq when the fundamental argument for doing so - that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction it planned to use against the U.S. - was far from verified before the invasion? Why did he not allow the U.N.'s weapons inspectors to complete their work? Why did he not exhaust every possible diplomatic avenue? Why did he send U.S. soldiers to fight, kill and die in Iraq when doing so was not the last possible resort?
Perhaps for Mr. Bush it was the last resort; there was no other way to gain access to Iraq's oil fields without invading. Frightening talk about weapons of mass destruction, the threat to America, and Iraq's (non-existent) links to the 9/11 attacks were necessary to put the string through the noses of members of Congress so they could easily, almost willingly, be dragged along on the president's murderous imperial adventure. One must wait now to see what Congress will do.
Will its members, many of whom have already betrayed the trust that was given to them in November of 2006 when they were elected to end the war, prove their spinelessness again? Will they follow Mr. Bush's example and state that, despite what the NIE says about Iran not pursuing a nuclear weapons program, that nation is still a danger? Will they twist the NIE assessment as Mr. Bush has done, and lead the U.S. off to still another endless, needless bloodbath?
The current Congress has not sent Mr. Bush the funding bill he wants for the country's current wars, but one must not think that it won't. Mr. Bush has begun trotting out his 'Congress isn't supporting the troops' line, which always proves so effective with Congress. The members of that body will concede that the troops must be supported, and the best way to do that is not, as some people say, by removing them from mortal danger, but by increasing their time in it.
If they follow along with this bizarre line of reasoning, it only makes sense, in a nonsensical way, that they will agree that a nation not pursuing the creation of a nuclear weapon is a threat to the U.S. because it might consider developing a nuclear weapon. Pre-emptive strike, here we come!
The NIE report indicates that Iran is at least ten years from having a nuclear bomb, assuming that that nation decides soon that it wants to obtain one. That gives Mr. Bush and his successors ten years in which to normalize relations with Iran and work jointly to prevent escalating tensions. But this is not Mr. Bush's style; there is no need for negotiations and diplomacy when sufficient numbers of young Americans to fight his wars can be persuaded that their only way out of a life of poverty is a stint in the U.S. military.
That they come home in coffins, or physically and/or emotionally scarred is of no concern to Mr. Bush; his own twisted agenda, his macho self-image as a 'war president' and the enrichment of his oil-loving cronies seems to be what drives him.
Facts about Iran will not get in his way.
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Robert Fantina [send him email] is a long-time activist for peace and social justice. He has worked with the Coalition for Peace Action in New Jersey. Following the 2004 presidential election, he moved to Canada, where he now resides. Robert is the author of Desertion and the American Solder: 1776-2006.
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