Bishop Tutu: Time to outlaw nuclear weapons

Most "serious" policymakers and followers of foreign affairs will dismiss Bishop Tutu's call for an apartheid-like stigmatization of nuclear weapons as naive, dreamy, peacenik stuff.  

Yet if we want to secure ourselves against the only thing that could destroy mankind (besides global climate change), then we must take his call to action seriously. Non-proliferation is not working -- not as long as some countries are allowed to have nuclear weapons, and others are not.  

Nelson Mandela, and now Tutu, condemned the colonialist attitude inherent in that double standard: what is allowed the world's "masters" is denied its "servants." To preserve this double standard, nuclear weapons, the most terrible weapons of mass destruction ever devised by man, are not prohibited under international law. Why not indeed?  

The Cold War is over. Times change. We get smarter and more empathetic.  ... At least I hope we do.

Imagine world without nuclear weapons

By Bishop Desmond Tutu

February 13, 2014 | CNN

In February 1990, the same month that Nelson Mandela, also known as Madiba, walked free after 27 years behind bars, South Africa's then-President, Frederik Willem de Klerk, issued written instructions to dismantle the nation's atomic arsenal.

Like Madiba's achingly long incarceration, the apartheid regime's development of these most abominable weapons, though never officially acknowledged, had become an intolerable blight on South Africa's image abroad. Divesting ourselves of the bomb was -- as de Klerk later remarked -- an essential part of our transition from a pariah state to an accepted member of the family of nations.

In his time as president, from 1994 to 1999, Madiba frequently implored the remaining nuclear powers to follow South Africa's lead in relinquishing nuclear weapons.

All of humanity would be better off, he reasoned, if we lived free from the threat of a nuclear conflagration, the effects of which would be catastrophic. Addressing the U.N. General Assembly in 1998, he said: "We must ask the question, which might sound naive to those who have elaborated sophisticated arguments to justify their refusal to eliminate these terrible and terrifying weapons of mass destruction -- why do they need them anyway?"

Despite Madiba's undisputed moral authority and unmatched powers of persuasion, his cri de coeur for disarmament went unheeded in his lifetime. South Africa, to this day, remains the only nation to have built nuclear weapons and then done away with them altogether.

[Ukraine also got rid of its nuclear arsenal after winning independence from the Soviet Union, but technically it didn't "build" them, at least not alone. - J]

Nine nations still cling firmly to these ghastly instruments of terror, believing, paradoxically, that by threatening to obliterate others they are maintaining the peace. Quite unaccountably, all are squandering precious resources, human and material, on programs to modernize and upgrade their arsenals -- an egregious theft from the world's poor.

Madiba attributed the lack of progress in achieving total nuclear disarmament to "Cold War inertia and an attachment to the use of the threat of brute force to assert the primacy of some states over others."

To his mind, the struggle against the bomb was intertwined, inextricably, with the struggles to end racism and colonialism. He abhorred the double standard, deeply entrenched in today's international order, whereby certain nations claim a "right" to possess nuclear arms -- in the hundreds, even the thousands -- while simultaneously condemning, and feigning moral outrage towards, those who dare pursue the same.

We must vociferously challenge the perceived entitlement of a select few nations to possess the bomb. As Ban Ki-moon, the U.N. Secretary-General, put it succinctly in January of last year: "There are no right hands for wrong weapons."

But how do we uproot the discriminatory order? How do we end the minority rule? In our decades-long fight against apartheid in South Africa, we depended upon the combination of an irrepressible domestic groundswell of popular opposition to the regime and intense and sustained pressure from the international community. The same combination is needed now in the movement to abolish nuclear weapons.

This week, in the Mexican state of Nayarit, ministers and diplomats from three-quarters of all nations -- those not coming include the Permanent Five members of the U.N. Security Council, the U.S., UK, France, Russia and China -- are gathered to discuss the devastating humanitarian impact of nuclear detonations.

This will cover the inability of emergency workers to provide relief to the wounded; the widespread dispersal of radiation; the lofting of millions of tonnes of soot from firestorms high into the upper troposphere; the collapse of global agriculture from lack of sunlight and rainfall; the onset of famine and disease on a scale never before witnessed.

This conference is not only a much-needed reminder of what nuclear weapons do to humans beings -- something seldom mentioned in arms control discussions -- but also a vital chance for the international community to chart a new course.

It is high time for the nuclear-free nations of the world, constituting the overwhelming majority, to work together to exert their extraordinary collective influence.

Without delay, they should embark on a process to negotiate a global treaty banning the use, manufacture and possession of nuclear weapons -- whether or not the nuclear-armed nations are prepared to join them.

Why should these weapons, whose effects are the most grievous of all, remain the only weapons of mass destruction not expressly prohibited under international law?

By stigmatizing the bomb -- as well as those who possess it -- we can build tremendous pressure for disarmament. As Madiba understood well, a world freed of nuclear arms will be a freer world for all.

If Israel wants security, it must give up the bomb

I'm not naive. Iran at least wants to retain the option to produce a nuclear weapon, even if they agree to put their nuclear program on hold. And why wouldn't they? Pakistan and North Korea get special treatment thanks to their nuclear weapons. Economically poor Russia got to join the G-8 (before known as the G-7) because of its nukes. And let's not forget that Iran's biggest rival Israel maintains the only nuke arsenal in the Mideast. Strangely, Israel's nuclear capability is an official "open secret" not only in Israel but in the EU and U.S.

Author of Israel's Occupation Neve Gordon points out that way back in 1974, Iran proposed making the Middle East a nuclear-free zone. But that didn't suit Israel or the U.S., so the idea went nowhere. 

Fast forward 40 years and it would seem stupid of Iran not to pursue nuclear weapons, not only to maintain some military parity with rival Israel, but to forestall any U.S.-backed invasion, a la Iraq.  

Neve argues it's not too late to ask Israel to disarm if Iran will do the same. Surely this would elicit catcalls from conservatives and AIPAC types, but think about it: what's so crazy about the idea of mutual disarmament?    

And there are precedents: South Africa gave up its nuclear weapons in the early 1990s post-apartheid; and newly independent Ukraine gave up its massive Soviet nuclear stockpile in 1991.

Israel must give up its worst-kept secret: the bomb

By Neve Gordon

December 13, 2013 | Al Jazeera

URL: http://aje.me/1kFvZx1

Smith: We can't handle the truth (overseas)

I like the cut of Patrick Smith's jib. This is the second time this year he's caught the scouts' eye, this time on America's Iran policy and the "liberal" U.S. media that supports it:

The adage among properly cynical diplomats used to be that they were sent abroad to lie for their country. During the Cold War, as Washington’s sponsored atrocities grew evident, the thought took a turn: Diplomats were sent abroad to lie to their country.

Consider it a template and apply it to our press folk.

Correspondents used to be sent abroad to keep the country informed (in theory, at least). Now correspondents go forth to send home a simulacrum of truth, a semblance, while keeping their country misinformed.

So why is all this lying necessary? It's our fault. We don't want to know. We don't want to know what's being done in our name, ostensibly in "the interests of peace," or the interests of the world. Wrote Smith succinctly:

We cannot bear to see things as they are because things as they are constitute a refutation of our dearest mythologies, but we must see things as they are if we are to make sense of ourselves in the 21st century.

This is what I was getting at when I said the U.S. needs a moral foreign policy. Our leaders' actions abroad don't support our moral myths at home -- life, liberty, equality, tolerance, etc. -- and what with the Internet and pesky mushrooming terrorists popping up all the time reminding us what we're really up to, it's becoming increasingly hard for us average Americans to ignore the disconnect between over here and over there. Still our politicians and media do their loyal best to iron out the wrinkles in our brains.

Chomsky’s right: The New York Times’ latest big lie

By Patrick L. Smith

November 15, 2013 | Salon

URL: http://www.salon.com/2013/11/16/chomskys_right_the_new_york_times_latest_big_lie/

Russia and American exceptionalism

American exceptionalism in foreign policy is valid only if we believe that U.S. leaders, regardless of party or ideology, always act out of the best interests of the world.

If you're a Republican: do you think President Obama (or Clinton, or Carter) meets that criterion?

If you're a Democrat: do you think Dubya, Bush, Sr., or Reagan met that criterion?  

No, of course not. This alone should give the lie to the myth of American exceptionalism. The bulk of the evidence shows that the U.S. does what's best for itself, according to the judgment of current partisan administrations.

Now here's an interesting historical tidbit that I didn't know, courtesy of Tom Engelhardt.  Did you know? [emphasis mine]:

I’m talking about actual property rights to “American exceptionalism.”  It’s a phrase often credited to a friendly nineteenth century foreigner, the French traveler Alexis de Tocqueville.  As it happens, however, the man who seems to have first used the full phrase was Russian dictator Joseph Stalin.  In 1929, when the U.S. was showing few signs of a proletarian uprising or fulfilling Karl Marx’s predictions and American Communists were claiming that the country had unique characteristics that left it unready for revolution, Stalin began denouncing “the heresy of American exceptionalism.”  Outside the U.S. Communist Party, the phrase only gained popular traction here in the Reagan years.  Now, it has become as American as sea salt potato chips.  If, for instance, the phrase had never before been used in a presidential debate, in 2012 the candidates couldn’t stop wielding it.

Engelhardt spends some time talking about Putin and Russia.  I know a little about both.  We're oddly connected, America and Russia, although we may not realize or acknowledge it.

I mean, if there are two countries on Earth with delusions of exceptionalism, they are the U.S. and Russia. That's the irony of Putin's recent denial of American exceptionalism.  I have confirmed this in many conversations with Russians. They are always curiously eager to convince me of Russia's enduring greatness, its parity with America, what their country means to the world, and so on.  Nobody I've ever met from any other country suggests much less seeks out a conversation like this. A few times Britons, wistful for empire, have told me, "It's your problem now, you deal with it."  As if that's what we've volunteered for! 

The U.S. perspective is a bit different. Since 1992, we have taken our hyper-power status for granted. We basically stopped paying attention to Russia 20 years ago. So what I usually tell Russians, both to enlighten and provoke them, is that the average American doesn't think about Russia at all.  Many ignorant Americans still think the USSR exists; and yet Russians don't figure in our worldview anymore.  (For the mere fact of 8,500 nuclear weapons still in Russia's arsenal, Americans are quite mistaken in their disregard).

What most Americans don't realize is that Russians, like Americans, take inordinate pride from their country's foreign policy, and perceived military prowess. Just as in America, where rednecks who can hardly spell their own names feel an out-sized sense of personal pride for being the citizen of a country that can bomb, drone or nuke anybody on Earth, so do Russians -- who are mostly poor, without basic liberties and cut off from the outside world -- augment their self-esteem with pride in being citizens of a nuclear-armed super power that can bully its near neighbors with impunity and occasionally stand up to the U.S. in the UN Security Council.

So my rhetorical question is: are Americans just Russians with a different political economy? Or are we indeed different?  Is America exceptionally exceptional?  And if so, in what ways? Taking pride in our civilian-controlled (read: political) military can't be the reason why.

UPDATE (30.09.2013): FYI, here's a report on a recent Gallup poll of Americans' attitude toward Russia, "Poll: Half Of Americans See Russia As 'Unfriendly' Or Worse".  Looks like Putin is successfully lowering Russia's rating in the U.S.

Bragging Rights 

By Tom Engelhardt

September 26, 2013 | Tom Dispatch

URL: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175752/

Zakaria: A 'red line' for U.S. but not Israel?

Maybe this op-ed was copy-pasted by Zakaria's interns; nevertheless, it's worth reading.  Here's the key point: Netanyahu's hypocrisy:

Notice that while Netanyahu assails Obama for refusing to draw a clear line, he himself has not drawn such a line. Israel has not specified an activity or enrichment level it would consider a casus belli.The reason is obvious: Doing so would restrict Israel’s options and signal its actions and timetable to Iran. If it doesn’t make sense for Israel to do this, why would it make sense for the United States?

'Red line' folly

By Fareed Zakaria

September 13, 2012 | Washington Post

URL: http://m.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fareed-zakaria-the-folly-over-red-lines-for-iran/2012/09/12/119a6a62-fd10-11e1-8adc-499661afe377_story.html

Who's the real existential threat to Israel?

This one's worth reading in its entirety.

Netanyahu, Not Iran, Is An Existential Threat To Israel

September 12, 2012 | MJ Rosenberg

One ex-Israeli official put it best. Prime Minister  Binyamin Netanyahu seems to be “going berserk.”

He is demanding that the United States set a “red line” that, once crossed, will automatically initiate a US attack on Iran. He doesn’t even bother to pretend that war with Iran is in US  interests.  He just wants his war trigger. But, and this seems literally to be driving him crazy, he sees the chances for war diminishing every day.

I think his latest tantrum was produced by last week’s  New York Times op-ed by its former executive editor, Bill Keller which stated that even if Iran develops nuclear weapons, they would not necessarily  pose a significant threat to Israel, let alone to the United States.

Keller  merely suggested what Israelis say privately: this whole Iran scare is not about nukes per se, it is about Israel’s fear of losing  the ability to do whatever it wants to whenever it wants to. Bomb Gaza. Bomb Lebanon. Bomb relief ships. Bomb whoever, whenever.

It is about regional hegemony. After all, militarily Israel can more than handle Iran and both countries know that. That is why Israelis do not share Netanyahu’s enthusiasm for war.

Not only do they not want war,  they rightly fear that an attack on Iran would result in thousands of missiles, being launched against Israeli population centers by Hizbullah and Hamas. Even though Defense Minister Ehud Barak promises that only 500 Israeli civilians would be killed (how did he come up with that number), Israelis do not want their kids to be among that number.

None of this seems to matters to Netanyahu, who acts less an Israeli leader than a US neocon.  That is why he is the first Israeli prime minister not even to go through the motions of serious negotiations. He is not interested.

Fortunately, President Obama — like President George W. Bush before him — is standing in the way of an Iran war. Netanyahu’s plan requires the United States to jump in to bail Israel out once it begins a war it cannot finish, but Obama, like Bush, won’t permit it.

So what is Netanyahu to do? He will defeat President Obama (at least in his dreams) and bring in a Mitt Romney under the sway of Sheldon Adelson. He believes Romney would go to war and so he is engineering conflict with the United States to tip the election.

Forget the fact that he can’t do it. The percentage of Jews who vote based on Israel’s perceived desires is 3% at best, and not even that 3% necessarily believes war is in Israel’s interests. Nonetheless, that is what Bibi’s whole game is about.

The irony is that it is unlikely a President Romney would go to war either. With the military opposed, one would have to imagine that Romney would risk American interests (most importantly, young lives) to please a donor and the same neocon claque that led Bush to war with Iraq.

Really? A new Republican president would want to begin his term with another Middle East war? Dream on, Bibi.

The only force in the United States that favors war is the Israel lobby (AIPAC and its satellite organizations), neoconservative pundits and some Christian rightists (although the latter are more enthusiastic about going to war against a woman’s right to choose and gay rights than against Iran). War with Iran could destroy Romney’s presidency and he surely knows it.

The bottom line then is that all Netanyahu is accomplishing with his ugly saber-rattling is threatening the survival of the US-Israel relationship.

Don’t kid yourself. No matter what Obama says publicly, he is furious with Netanyahu. Privately, it is hard to imagine that even Republicans like seeing the United States being treated with such contempt by a tiny country we sustain with $3.5 billion a year in aid (exempt from all cuts, unlike every other program) and UN vetoes that make America look like Israel’s satellite. The only thing that keeps them all quiet is intimidation and campaign contributions. That won’t last forever, particularly as younger American Jews have moved toward  indifference to Israel due to the policies it has pursued since an Israeli fanatic killed Yitzhak Rabin.

Israelis need to wake up. IL Kenen, the founder of AIPAC, called the United States Israel’s defense line.  It is. And Bibi is jeopardizing it.

Binyamin Netanyahu poses an existential threat to the Jewish state. Those who claim to care about Israel need to speak out. Will we really allow this rightist egomaniac to destroy a 2000 year old dream?

U.S. nuke commander: Reduce U.S. 'Cold War' arsenal

James Cartwright Calls For Deep Cuts In Nuclear Arms

By Andrea Stone

May 15, 2012 | Huffington Post

URL:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/15/james-cartwright-nuclear-arms_n_1519404.html

What are Iran's motives?

A better understanding of Iran might save us from catastrophe
As Israel plays up the country's nuclear threat, the west should be seeking active dialogue with Tehran
By Peter Beaumont
March 11, 2012 | Observer

"Actions," said Samuel Johnson in his life of the English poet Abraham Cowley, "are visible." What are secret, Johnson added pointedly, are "motives".
In the case of Iran's nuclear programme what we know of Tehran's actions and motives are the following.

With some degree of "overall credibility" – according to the 2011 board of governors' report from the International Atomic Energy Agency – we know that Tehran, in all likelihood, made active studies of technologies associated with nuclear weapon design and payload design. By and large, the report believes, that activity ceased in 2003, coincident with the US-led invasion of Iraq.


We know, too, because it has been even more visible, that Iran has come close to mastering the nuclear fuel cycle as well, including enrichment of uranium up to 20%.

The problem with the present dangerous debate, as it has been framed ever-more closely through the exclusive prism of Israel's security concerns and its ever-louder threats to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, is that far from illuminating what actually motivates Iran in its nuclear ambitions, it has tended to obscure Tehran's motives instead.


So what does Iran really want?

Writing in 2009, Kayhan Barzegar, an expert on Iran who has taught both in Tehran and in the US, described what he called the "paradox of Iran's nuclear consensus". He was attempting to lay bare the complex and competing historical, political and strategic considerations behind the theocratic regime's nuclear decision-making processes.


Referencing two centuries of internal criticism of Iran's failure "to acquire substantial power, influence and wealth", Barzegar cites more recent history that has persuaded many Iranians, not least in the country's elites, that the west, and Britain and America in particular, have long conspired to throw obstacles in the way of Iran's development both economically and as a major regional player.


From an Iranian point of view, there is ample evidence of this: from the overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh's government in a CIA and MI6-led coup in 1953, after he nationalised the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, to western resistance to the shah's Esfahan steel manufacturing project to President Clinton's killing off a $1bn deal for the US energy company Conoco to develop offshore oil fields. It is a suspicion that has been amplified by the country's post-Islamic revolution politics.


Indeed, one of the bleakest of historical ironies is that the early revolution under Ayatollah Khomeini actually halted the western-supported civil nuclear programme in place under the shah and it was only persuaded that it needed to acquire nuclear weapons technology because of Iran's massive losses in the war with Iraq, then supported by the US, which saw Iran targeted with chemical weapons.


It is these twin considerations – a combination of desire for deterrence in a neighbourhood where there are five nuclear powers and a sense of frustrated regional ambitions – that have long driven Iran's pursuit of nuclear technology, summed up in its 20-year strategic plan, ratified by its powerful expediency council, which calls for Iran to "rank first in the region".


Iran's decision-making over its nuclear programme, not least its pursuit of weapons technology, is complicated by a number of other factors. Indeed, the 2010 US National Intelligence Estimate, in agreement with other analysts, argued that far from having already concluded it would build a bomb at any cost, Tehran is more flexible on the issue, "guided by a cost-benefit approach", a judgment recently endorsed by 16 US agencies that have studied the issue and concluded there is no evidence Iran is actively trying to build a bomb.


Indeed, as Barzegar argued: "There are quite a number of reasons why, from the perspective of the Iranian leadership, weaponisation is untenable, unnecessary and unwise."

If Iran's deliberate policy of ambiguity is one complicating factor, a second and equally important issue is how the nuclear programme, and the consequent international pressure on Tehran, has become ever more politicised in both the factional wrangling within the regime and the country's wider politics.


That has meant, counterintuitively perhaps, that as international pressure on Iran over its nuclear ambitions has increased, it has made it harder, not easier, for the regime to come to an accommodation as even some leading members of the Green opposition have criticised President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for any perceived concessions.


If the motivation of Iran is far more complex than that described by the present, simplistic debate, a question needs to be asked, too, about the motivation of Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and those of his Israeli allies who have been pushing most vigorously for military action.


With not even 20% of Israelis believing that Israel should launch a unilateral attack against Iran, according to one poll, and the country divided over how effective a joint Israeli-US strike would be (Israel is not in a position to act alone), Netanyahu, even as he lectured American supporters, has failed to convince his own public.


More cynically, as a recent column in the Economist argued, Netanyahu's promotion of the threat posed by Iran, described in evermore apocalyptic terms, has been a convenient piece of "displacement" by an Israeli leader absolutely determined to avoid any meaningful engagement with the Palestinian peace process or bring an end to the occupation of the West Bank.


Because of this, a debate that should be about Iran's real nuclear ambitions and motives, and about how to engage with the regime constructively to prevent further proliferation, has been hijacked by a largely false premise.


For those of us who were intimate observers of the headlong charge to war against Iraq, it seems nothing more than a dispiriting rerun, not least in David Cameron's hyperbolic claim – counter to the weight of all current available evidence – that Iran is actively pursuing the construction of a intercontinental ballistic missile that could threaten the west, an assertion eerily reminiscent of Tony Blair's untrue claim that Iraq could strike British interests within "45 minutes".


A war with Iran is not inevitable, but it might yet become so if the debate does not become both more honest and realistic. Indeed, the west has misread Iran for the best part of a century and more, not least since the country's revolution.


To go to war twice in the Gulf within the space of a decade based on rhetoric, lies and misunderstanding would not simply be a tragedy but an utter catastrophe that would shame the west.

Chomsky: The truth of attack on Iran

As always, we can't overlook the learned Noamster (an American Jew) when it comes to U.S. policy on the Mideast, Iran, and Israel.

Noam Chomsky agrees that the real solution is, as Obama stated as America's vision in April 2009, a "world without nuclear weapons"... starting with the Middle East!

What Are Iran's Intentions?

By Noam Chomsky

March 2, 2012 | In These Times

The January/February issue of Foreign Affairs featured the article "Time to Attack Iran: Why a Strike Is the Least Bad Option," by Matthew Kroenig, along with commentary about other ways to contain the Iranian threat.

The media resound with warnings about a likely Israeli attack on Iran while the U.S. hesitates, keeping open the option of aggression—thus again routinely violating the U.N. Charter, the foundation of international law.

As tensions escalate, eerie echoes of the run-up to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are in the air. Feverish U.S. primary campaign rhetoric adds to the drumbeat.

Concerns about "the imminent threat" of Iran are often attributed to the "international community"—code language for U.S. allies. The people of the world, however, tend to see matters rather differently.

The nonaligned countries, a movement with 120 member nations, has vigorously supported Iran's right to enrich uranium—an opinion shared by the majority of Americans (as surveyed by WorldPublicOpinion.org) before the massive propaganda onslaught of the past two years.

China and Russia oppose U.S. policy on Iran, as does India, which announced that it would disregard U.S. sanctions and increase trade with Iran. Turkey has followed a similar course.

Europeans regard Israel as the greatest threat to world peace. In the Arab world, Iran is disliked but seen as a threat only by a very small minority. Rather, Israel and the U.S. are regarded as the pre-eminent threat. A majority think that the region would be more secure if Iran had nuclear weapons: In Egypt on the eve of the Arab Spring, 90 percent held this opinion, according to Brookings Institution/Zogby International polls.

Western commentary has made much of how the Arab dictators allegedly support the U.S. position on Iran, while ignoring the fact that the vast majority of the population opposes it—a stance too revealing to require comment.

Concerns about Israel's nuclear arsenal have long been expressed by some observers in the United States as well. Gen. Lee Butler, former head of the U.S. Strategic Command, described Israel's nuclear weapons as "dangerous in the extreme." In a U.S. Army journal, Lt. Col. Warner Farr wrote that one "purpose of Israeli nuclear weapons, not often stated, but obvious, is their `use' on the United States"—presumably to ensure consistent U.S. support for Israeli policies.

A prime concern right now is that Israel will seek to provoke some Iranian action that will incite a U.S. attack.

One of Israel's leading strategic analysts, Zeev Maoz, in "Defending the Holy Land," his comprehensive analysis of Israeli security and foreign policy, concludes that "the balance sheet of Israel's nuclear policy is decidedly negative"—harmful to the state's security. He urges instead that Israel should seek a regional agreement to ban weapons of mass destruction: a WMD-free zone, called for by a 1974 U.N. General Assembly resolution.

Meanwhile, the West's sanctions on Iran are having their usual effect, causing shortages of basic food supplies—not for the ruling clerics but for the population. Small wonder that the sanctions are condemned by Iran's courageous opposition.

[ This is the same Iranian internal opposition that Romney, McCain and other neocons wish to rally to the U.S. cause of freedom for Iran ... while we starve and deprive it. Wake up, Amurika! - J ]

The sanctions against Iran may have the same effect as their predecessors against Iraq, which were condemned as "genocidal" by the respected U.N. diplomats who administered them before finally resigning in protest.

The Iraq sanctions devastated the population and strengthened Saddam Hussein, probably saving him from the fate of a rogues' gallery of other tyrants supported by the U.S.-U.K.—tyrants who prospered virtually to the day when various internal revolts overthrew them.

There is little credible discussion of just what constitutes the Iranian threat, though we do have an authoritative answer, provided by U.S. military and intelligence. Their presentations to Congress make it clear that Iran doesn't pose a military threat.

Iran has very limited capacity to deploy force, and its strategic doctrine is defensive, designed to deter invasion long enough for diplomacy to take effect. If Iran is developing nuclear weapons (which is still undetermined), that would be part of its deterrent strategy.

[ Gee, why in the world would Iran want to deter anybody? Cough! Iraq! Afghanistan! Cough! Cough! - J ]

The understanding of serious Israeli and U.S. analysts is expressed clearly by 30-year CIA veteran Bruce Riedel, who said in January, "If I was an Iranian national security planner, I would want nuclear weapons" as a deterrent.

An additional charge the West levels against Iran is that it is seeking to expand its influence in neighboring countries attacked and occupied by the U.S. and Britain, and is supporting resistance to the U.S.-backed Israeli aggression in Lebanon and illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. Like its deterrence of possible violence by Western countries, Iran's actions are said to be intolerable threats to "global order."

Global opinion agrees with Maoz. Support is overwhelming for a WMDFZ [WMD Free Zone] in the Middle East; this zone would include Iran, Israel and preferably the other two nuclear powers that have refused to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: India and Pakistan, who, along with Israel, developed their programs with U.S. aid.

Support for this policy at the NPT Review Conference in May 2010 was so strong that Washington was forced to agree formally, but with conditions: The zone could not take effect until a comprehensive peace settlement between Israel and its Arab neighbors was in place; Israel's nuclear weapons programs must be exempted from international inspection; and no country (meaning the U.S.) must be obliged to provide information about "Israeli nuclear facilities and activities, including information pertaining to previous nuclear transfers to Israel."

The 2010 conference called for a session in May 2012 to move toward establishing a WMDFZ in the Middle East.

With all the furor about Iran, however, there is scant attention to that option, which would be the most constructive way of dealing with the nuclear threats in the region: for the "international community," the threat that Iran might gain nuclear capability; for most of the world, the threat posed by the only state in the region with nuclear weapons and a long record of aggression, and its superpower patron.

One can find no mention at all of the fact that the U.S. and Britain have a unique responsibility to dedicate their efforts to this goal. In seeking to provide a thin legal cover for their invasion of Iraq, they invoked U.N. Security Council Resolution 687 (1991), which they claimed Iraq was violating by developing WMD.

We may ignore the claim, but not the fact that the resolution explicitly commits signers to establishing a WMDFZ in the Middle East.

58% of Israelis opposed to strike on Iran without U.S. backing

What does this poll tell us, folks? That any decision Israel takes will depend on President Obama's orders.

America is in control of this situation, and don't let anybody tell you otherwise. So take the opportunity now to tell Obama and your Congressmen "NO" to preemptive war on Iran!

Haaretz poll: Most of the public opposes an Israeli strike on Iran

Support for Netanyahu's Likud party is at all-time high, but Israelis still skeptical regarding attack on Iran's nuclear facilities without U.S. backing.

By Yossi Verter

March 8, 2012 | Ha'aretz

URL: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/haaretz-poll-most-of-the-public-opposes-an-israeli-strike-on-iran-1.417282

Dire results of a preemptive attack on Iran

You all remember Richard Clarke, right? He the guy from the Reagan and Bush Admin.'s who criticized the invasion and occupation of Iraq. He's now cautioning against war with Iran.

There could be many very bad consequences. But here's the real strategy behind a preemptive Israeli strike on Iran [emphasis mine]:

Israel can't do long-term, severe damage to Iran's nuclear infrastructure, so its chief purpose in bombing Iran would be to trigger Iranian retaliation and draw the U.S. into the war to defend Israel, and to finish off what Israel started.

Therefore, the U.S. cannot allow Israel to attack Iran unilaterally and preemptively, because as Israel's best ally the United States would get sucked into a war with Iran.

Alternatively, we could tell Israel and the rest of the world that Israel would be on its own if it attacked Iran without international support. But with the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S., and American sentiment being the way it is, such a scenario is almost impossible to imagine.

What Will Happen to the US If Israel Attacks Iran?

By Brian Ross

March 5, 2012 | ABC News

President Obama is meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel at the White House today, and will try to talk him out of an immediate strike on Iran's nuclear sites.

If Israel does decide to bomb Iran, however, what will it mean for the United States? According to former White House counterterrorism official Richard Clarke, Americans should brace for a painful impact. Within a week of the first Israeli attack, says Clarke, a worst case scenario would bring soaring gas prices, terror attacks in U.S. cities, worldwide cyberwar, dead and wounded U.S. sailors, and the real possibility of broad American military involvement.

WATCH An Interview with Richard Clarke: If Israel Attacks Iran

Gas Prices Could Double

According to U.S. government estimates, about 20 percent of the oil traded worldwide passes through the Persian Gulf, bordered by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. If Israel were to bomb Iran, oil prices would immediately go up. If Iran responded by attacking oil tankers going through the Persian Gulf, says Clarke, gasoline prices for U.S. consumers could double.

"You could see very quickly Iranian commandos and their small boats attacking tankers, attacking oil platforms," said Clarke. "You could see mines being laid in the Gulf."

The result, said Clarke, "would be a huge crisis in energy." President Obama would tap the U.S.'s strategic petroleum reserve, alleviating some of the price rise. The spike in prices "might not last long if the U.S. and its allies are able to take control of the Gulf," said Clarke. "But that could take more than a week and under some scenarios it could take almost a month."

Terror Threat Against Americans

If Israel were to bomb Iran, American officials fear there could be a new wave of terrorism directed by Tehran, especially if the U.S. gets pulled in to the conflict.

"If we, the United States, we're bombing Iran, then I think they'd certainly want to try to do something on our homeland because we were bombing their homeland," said Clarke.

Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah have already shown a willingness to act outside their own borders, both with deadly attacks on Jewish targets in Argentina in the 1990s and the apparent attempted hits on Israeli targets in a number of countries earlier this year.

"Both have strong inroads in Asia, Europe, and Latin America, where they could strike Israeli, Jewish, and U.S. targets," said Clarke.

Israeli embassies and consulates and Jewish places of worship in the U.S. have been put on alert.

The World's First International Cyberwar

An Israeli attack on Iran would likely set off the world's first international cyber war. Before striking, Israel will try to blind the air defenses of Iran and its neighbors with cyber warfare. And the U.S. might end up using capabilities it has kept secret until now.

"The United States has a very powerful ability to cause this sort of disruption to electric power grids, communications networks," said Clarke. "It hasn't done it because it doesn't like to expose its tricks as it's afraid once it does it, people will figure out how the United States does it. But in a war with Iran, they would be willing to run that risk."

Iran would also attempt to hit back. Said Clarke, "Iran also has a cyber command, which might try to retaliate by attacking U.S infrastructure such as the power grid, trains, airlines, refineries."

U.S. Navy Casualties in the Gulf

Should the U.S. become involved in the Israeli-Iran conflict militarily, says Clarke, it will be impossible to avoid American casualties.

"The Iranians have hundreds if not thousands of small boats, armed small boats, commando small boats, that will operate in the Gulf," said Clarke. "They can get in, they can swarm a U.S. destroyer. The Iranians now also have cruise missiles, anti-ship cruise missiles."

Clarke said there is a potential for the U.S. to sustain significant damage to a few ships and lose some sailors, just as it did during the war between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s. Two U.S. ships were hit during that conflict, with a loss of nearly 40 American lives.

The U.S. Enters the War

According to Clarke, Israel can't do long-term, severe damage to Iran's nuclear infrastructure, so its chief purpose in bombing Iran would be to trigger Iranian retaliation and draw the U.S. into the war to defend Israel, and to finish off what Israel started.

If Israel bombs Iran, Clarke says the cascade of events will lead to attacks on Israeli cities. "Advisors to Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak are saying that if Israel bombed Iran, the retaliation on Israel would be tolerable," said Clarke. "But if Hezbollah in Lebanon launched thousands of extended range, improved accuracy rockets on Israel, hundreds of Israelis would die. In such a small country, that would be devastating."

The casualties, in turn, would bring the inevitable call to Washington for help.

"You will very quickly see a phone call from Prime Minister Netanyahu to the President," said Clarke, "and he will say to him, 'Only the United States, Mr. President, can find and destroy these mobile missile launchers. Only you can save the lives of Israelis who are dying as I speak in our cities."

Clarke said that message would probably spur any U.S. president into action -- but especially one who is up for reelection within months. "It's likely to get a yes answer from the president," predicts Clarke, "and bring the U.S. into the war."

Israeli spy chiefs: Stop drumbeat of war against Iran

Said Efraim Halevy, director of Israel's Mossad in the early 2000s and later the head of Israel's National Security Council, to Huffington Post:

"If I'm sitting here in the month of March 2012 reading [Romney's latest op-ed on Iran], and I'm an Iranian leader, what do I understand? I have nine more months to run as fast as I can because this is going to be terrible if the other guys get in."

Another ex-director of Israeli intelligence, Meir Dagan, had this to say to 60 Minutes:

"The regime in Iran is a very rational one," says the former top Israeli spymaster. And President Ahmadinejad? "The answer is yes," he replies, but "Not exactly our rational, but I think he is rational. [...] An attack on Iran before you are exploring all other approaches is not the right way."

'Mowing the lawn' in Iran won't work; we must invade

Just be aware that if you vote Romney, you're voting for another preemptive war and occupation -- this time in Iran. Unlike Ron Paul or perhaps even Newt Gingrich, Romney has no real thoughts of his own on foreign policy; all his advisers are neocons. Penned Romney's advisers in 2009: "The Iranian regime threatens not only Israel, but also every other nation in the region, and ultimately the world." That's right, the world. Iran threatens the world. You heard it from Team Romney first.

The only way to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, (and threatening the world), if it really intends to get one, is to invade and occupy Iran. Are you ready for that? Is the android candidate?

Why Bombing Iran Would Mean Invading Iran

By Robert Wright

March 1, 2012 | The Atlantic

Mitt Romney is tired of hearing President Obama threaten Iran in only vague terms. Enough of this "all options are on the table" stuff. Obama, Romney says, should declare that "we are considering military options" and "they're not just on the table--they are in our hand."

According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Romney will get some support next week when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington: Netanyahu will ask Obama to say publicly that "the United States is preparing for a military operation in the event that Iran crosses certain 'red lines'."

Before signing on to this mission, could we get some clarity on what exactly this "military operation" will ultimately entail?

There are two main schools of thought about how air strikes on Iran would work out. Most Americans seem to envision something cleanly surgical--a few days of bombing runs and then we get that "mission accomplished" banner out of the closet. A smaller number of Americans--notably including a lot of national security experts--realize that Iran would probably retaliate, possibly in ways that drew America into a sustained and even far-flung conflict.

What too few people emphasize, it seems to me, is that these two scenarios don't exhaust the possibilities. Even if air strikes don't draw us into an instant conflagration, they could drag us into a long-term conflict with Iran that winds up with American boots on the ground. In fact, when you think about the military and political logic of the situation, the invasion and occupation of Iran is the most likely long-term outcome of bombing regardless of what happens in the short term.

Among national security experts there is nearly universal agreement on the following: Bombing could set Iran's nuclear program back by one or two years, maybe even several, but it would also (1) remove any doubt in the minds of Iranian leaders about whether to pursue nuclear weapons; and (2) ensure that the Iranian nuclear program was revamped to resist future air strikes.

And the new, more entrenched Iranian nuclear program wouldn't be the kind of thing that could be undone by a new generation of bunker-buster bombs. According to experts I've talked to, Iran would probably react to bombing not by burying its nuclear facilities deeper, but by dispersing them much more widely. They would be impossible to identify from the air and for that matter not readily identifiable from the street. Meanwhile, the international inspectors who now keep us apprised of Iran's nuclear status would be banned in the wake of air strikes. So even if we were willing to make additional bombing runs on an annual basis ("mowing the lawn," as some call it), we could never be confident that Iran wasn't producing a nuclear weapon. The only path to such confidence would be to invade the country and seize the instruments of state.

Would we actually do that? Probably. In justifying the initial bombing, President Obama will have driven home how unacceptable an Iran with nuclear weapons is, thus establishing as a kind of doctrine that America will never let Iran acquire them. (The "Obama doctrine" has never acquired a clear meaning, and I'm sure some hawks would be happy to assign it this new one as a way of gluing Obama to his commitment.)

Doctrines can be abandoned, of course, but only at some political cost. And this one would be an especially unlikely orphan when you have a president who (being a Democrat) is insecure about his national security credentials and, on top of that, is insecure about his pro-Israel credentials. Of course, if Obama loses in November, then, one or two years down the road, it won't be the creator of this doctrine who is in the White House. But in the event of a Republican presidency, adherence to such a doctrine is pretty much assured anyway. (See first paragraph, above.)

But why take my word for any of this? I'll close with the judgment of now-retired four-star Marine Gen. James Cartwright. Two years ago, when he was Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he had this exchange with Sen. Jack Reed during Senate hearings:

Senator Reed: I presume that [a bombing campaign] would not be 100 percent effective in terms of knocking them out. It would probably delay them, but that if they're persistent enough they could at some point succeed. Is that a fair judgment from your position?

General Cartwright: That's a fair judgment.

Senator Reed: So that the only absolutely dispositive way to end any potential would be to physically occupy their country and to disestablish their nuclear facilities. Is that a fair, logical conclusion?

General Cartwright: Absent some other unknown calculus that would go on, it's a fair conclusion.

Treasonous U.S. politicians outsourcing war decision to Israel

Remember when Republicans professed that all military decisions should be left to "commanders on the ground" (which is contrary to our citizen-led military designed by the Constitution, but never mind...)?

Well, when it comes to attacking Iran to make Israel feel more secure, U.S. commanders should be ignored, according to neocons like John McCain and Joe Lieberman. In fact, they think America's commander-in-chief should be ignored, because Israel's interests trump ours.

American leaders putting Israel's interests before our own are despicable; they are flirting with treason. Yeah, I said it.

Senators Forcing Obama to War With Iran

By MJ Rosenberg

February 22, 2012 | Huffington Post

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mj-rosenberg/senators-iran-war_b_1294305.html

GOP's demented 'oldthink' on U.S. nuke stockpile

Congressional Republicans just blow my mind. How can they Obama's call to reduce our nuclear stockpile to "only" a few hundred nuclear warheads "unilateral disarmament" when Russia is poised to follow suit, and when the the country they say we should be arming ourselves against, Iran, doesn't have even one nuclear weapon yet??

This is old, Cold-War thinking ingrained so deep it can't be excised. It is like a tumor causing dementia in their rotting brains. These old dinosaurs just need to crawl away from Washington and die in a bog somewhere.

Obama Administration's Proposed Nuclear Weapons Cuts Attacked By House GOP

By Donna Cassatta and Robert Burns

February 15, 2012 | Huffington Post

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/15/obama-nuclear-weapons-cuts-house-gop_n_1279946.html

CIA backs up my years-old warning on Iranian terror response

I've been saying this since Dubya-Cheney-Bolton were threatening to attack Iran preemptively. You don't need an intelligence report to figure this out, it's just logical: Iran can't beat the U.S. in a stand-up fight, so it will resort to terror tactics on American soil if the U.S. attacks them first.

My sad prediction is that U.S. neocons and Congressional chickenhawks will cite the CIA's recent testimony, perversely, as evidence that Iran is a clear and present danger to the U.S. and hence there is yet more reason to attack them preemptively. Mark my words.

Iran, perceiving threat from West, willing to attack on U.S. soil, U.S. intelligence report finds

By Greg Miller

January 31, 2012 | Washington Post

An assessment by U.S. spy agencies concludes that Iran is prepared to launch terrorist attacks inside the United States, highlighting new risks as the Obama administration escalates pressure on Tehran to halt its alleged pursuit of an atomic bomb.

In congressional testimony Tuesday, U.S. intelligence officials indicated that Iran has crossed a threshold in its adversarial relationship with the United States. While Iran has long been linked to attacks on American targets overseas, U.S. officials said they see troubling significance in Tehran's alleged role in a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington last year.

U.S. officials said they have seen no intelligence to indicate that Iran is actively plotting attacks on U.S. soil. But Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. said the thwarted plot "shows that some Iranian officials — probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime."

[...]

He and others testifying Tuesday indicated that their assessment of Iran's willingness to launch attacks in the United States stems mainly from a more-detailed understanding of the country's role in the alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador, Adel al-Jubeir.

As described by U.S. officials in October, the convoluted scheme was to rely on assassins from a Mexican drug cartel to carry out the killing at a restaurant in Washington.

U.S. officials said the plot was devised by an Iranian American with ties to Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. But the plan was foiled when the would-be operative mistakenly hired a paid informant of the Drug Enforcement Administration to carry it out. Iranian officials have denied any role in the plot.

It was "so unusual and amateurish that many initially doubted that Iran was responsible," Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in Tuesday's hearing. "Well, let me state for the record, I have no such a doubt."

Experts said Iran's willingness to back such a scheme may reflect a sense among Iran's leadership that prevailing against the United States and Israel may require adopting new, lower-percentage means of carrying out attacks.

"I see the Iranians feeling that they are under siege," said Daniel Byman, an Iran expert at Georgetown University and a former CIA analyst. Given Iran's resources and ties to terrorist groups, including Hezbollah, Byman said that it is "plausible" that Iran already has agents inside the United States.

[...]

GOP playing political games with our lives

This is exactly what teabaggers voted for: rank idiocy.

"Despite what some Democrats in Congress have suggested, voters did not signal they wanted more cooperation on the Democrats' big-government policies that most Americans oppose," McConnell and incoming House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, wrote in an op-ed article published in the Washington Post.

Yeah, big-spending Democratic policies like reducing Russia's nuclear weapons stockpile -- the biggest existential threat to America's security.

That's right, they're playing with U.S. national security just so they can deny any more legislative wins for the Democrat-controlled 111th Congress, even though Republicans in the Senate have vetted the START treaty for months, and Dick Lugar, the GOP's foremost foreign policy expert, supports it. Typical.


GOP Plans to Block Democratic Bills in Senate
December 1, 2010 AP

URL: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/11/30/senate-republicans-plan-block-nearly-bills/

Attack-Iran propaganda from coastal liberal media

Greenwald alerts us to another Israeli plant in the U.S. media, an IDF soldier, writing in The Atlantic a supposedly objective case for Israel's unprovoked bombing of Iran.

This same journalist urged us to attack Saddam in 2002.

You folks who believe the myth of the lib'rul media are the most susceptible to this propaganda. You read something like this and think, "Well, if that liberal magazine The Atlantic believes that bombing Iran is OK, then heck, that's really saying something!"

You folks forget that supposed bastions of the lib'rul media, the New York Times and Washington Post, were out in front of everyone in agitating for the invasion of Iraq.

How propagandists function: Exhibit A
By Glenn Greenwald
August 12, 2010 | Salon.com

URL: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/08/12/goldberg

Ineffectiveness of sanctions on Iran

There are some really great points made in both of these reports (see below):

- Dictators like sanctions, because they help them stay in power. (Kim Jong Il and Fidel are still in power, for example; nor did sanctions interfere with Saddam's lavish lifestyle).

- Iran's Revolutionary Guard controls about 1/3 of Iran's state budget; and it rules the domestic black market economy which grows in direct proportion to trade sanctions. So, sanctions only increase its wealth and grip on power.

- Ahmadinejad is unpopular, but so far there are no alternative leaders for Iranians to support.

- Ahmadjinejad would like nothing more than to deflect attention away from his failures and the bad economy by blaming the USA.

- Iranians are young, educated, engaged with the outside world, and over 90 percent of the population is literate -- not a good recipe for a docile oppressed nation.

* And most important, any pre-emptive strike on Iran would cause Iranians, including most dissidents, to rally around the current regime, just as most peoples rally around their leaders in war. War would also give the regime an excuse to crack down even harder on dissident leaders, thereby impeding a democratic revolution from within.

Iran Scholar Doubts Effectiveness Of Sanctions

Interview with Dr. Reza Aslan by Guy Raz

June 12, 2010 | All Things Considered on NPR

URL: http://www.npr.org/127799038

Why time is against Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
By Jon Leyne
June 11, 2010 | BBC

URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/mobile/world/middle_east/10296178.stm?SThisEM

FOX commentator: False choices on Iran

It's nice to know a Cornell professor agrees with me. And it's nice to see FOX publishing his views.

The Only Thing That Will Work With Iran
By Jonathan Kirshner
May 21, 2010 | FOXNews.com
The current debate over Iran strategy is focusing on false choices.
URL: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/05/21/jonathan-kirschner-iran-nuclear-weapons-sanctions-diplomacy-bloody/