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TechnoratiPrayer for the War-Weary
As if the imperial hubris displayed by the Bush administration in Iraq wasn't enough, we're seeing the pieces to another pre-emptive war puzzle fall into place.
Last week, the Senate passed the Lieberman-Kyl amendment, 76-22 - a resolution urging the State Department to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a "terrorist" organization.
The Sens. Joseph Lieberman and Jon Kyl proposal drew bipartisan support, while a small group of Democrats sounded alarms that the Iranian "terrorist" label could be interpreted as congressional authorization to use military force against Iran.
Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., who voted against the amendment, reminded his spineless colleagues about the 2002 congressional vote authorizing President Bush to launch the illegal Iraq invasion. "We shouldn't repeat our mistakes and enable this president again."
Sen. James Webb, D-Va., called the Lieberman-Kyl measure Dick Cheney's "fondest pipe dream" - a reference to Cheney cheerleaders and other Bush hawks who have been beating the war drums over Iran.
On Sunday, former UN ambassador John Bolton and now a war-mongering shill for the American Enterprise Institute, gave a speech in England over the weekend, frothing at the mouth about how the U.S. should "consider the use of military force" against Iran.
Bolton talked about "a limited strike against their nuclear facilities," adding that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was "pushing out" and "is not receiving adequate push-back" from the West. He said air strikes should be followed by an attempt to remove "the source of the problem"- Ahmadinejad.
"If we were to strike Iran it should be accompanied by an effort at regime change as well, because I think that really sends the signal that we are not attacking the people, we are attacking the nuclear weapons program," he said. Sigh.
Norman Podhoretz, who is now a senior foreign policy adviser with Rudy Giuliani's 2008 presidential campaign, told London's Sunday Times that he urged Bush to bomb Iran in a meeting with the current White House Occupant late last spring at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York.
Regime change? A reality-distorting demonization campaign focusing on one man? Sound familiar.
One hint that the attack-Iran crowd is not dealing with reality is symbolized by the amateurish attempt of Columbia University President Lee Bollinger to give Ahmadinejad a tongue-lashing. Look, Ahmadinejad's Holocaust-denial is disgusting, nor is he a champion of human rights, but we shouldn't let emotion blind us to reality. As the Hasidic proverb reminds us, when you add to the truth, you subtract from it.
Bollinger called Ahmadinejad "a dictator." As a well-known legal and free-speech scholar, I hope Bollinger was embarrassed. He ought to know that the Iranian president doesn't really run the country. The big decisions in Iran are made by the Grand Ayatollah, who has forbidden the development of nuclear weapons by Iran as being contrary to Islam.
And what about the 1981 Algiers Accord, which secured the release of the American hostages held in Tehran? The U.S. pledged in that agreement to forsake overthrow attempts of the Iranian government, as we did to the Mossadegh regime in 1954.
In typical Bush-world fashion, Bolton calls for "regime change" without acknowledging the reality, on-the-ground.
While neocons argue that air and missile strikes against Iran would cripple the regime to a point where opponents would rise up against the government, Iranian opposition leaders, on the ground, say that war "would certainly unify the (Iranian) population around the regime and would be used to justify further repression," Middle East expert Stephen Zunes points out.
Zunes also rightly dashes unrealistic hopes for a coup, given that pro-U.S. elements in the Iranian military were "thoroughly purged soon after the revolution."
"The leadership of Iran's military and security forces, while not necessarily unified in support of the more hard-line elements in government, cannot be realistically expected to collaborate with any U.S. efforts for regime change in their oil-rich country."
What recent history has shown, over and over again, is that the most effective means for democratic regime change comes from internal nonviolent movements, like the kind that toppled dictatorships in countries such as the Philippines, Bolivia, Madagascar, Czechoslovakia, Indonesia, Serbia, and Mali, Zunes elaborates, citing a study by the conservative-leaning think-tank, Freedom House.
The Freedom House study, after examining the 67 transitions from authoritarian regimes to varying degrees of democratic governments over the past few decades, concluded that the changes were not because of "foreign invasion, and only rarely through armed revolt or voluntary elite-driven reforms, but overwhelmingly by democratic civil society organizations utilizing nonviolent action and other forms of civil resistance, such as strikes, boycotts, civil disobedience, and mass protests."
Lord, wake us from our slumber.
Sean Gonsalves is an assistant news editor with the Cape Cod Times and a syndicated columnist. He can be reached at sgonsalves@capecodonline.com
10 Comments so far
Show AllThe US elite are like an alchoholic compulsive gambler. Addicted to the oil, and drunk on desires for power, after losing all their wages, and the capital of their family home, they want to throw the dollars in again for another pull on the poker machines handle. The dream of success of even a limited strike on Iran is to relinquish all of their current losses. Israel is the poker machine owner, the gateway to the premises, raking in the cash. At best the US cannot make good its losses. At worst, they will bring ruin to their own family, shame their neighbours, and lash out with violence against the innocent.
Not only Bolton but also Norman Podhoretz(sp?), the dean of the neocons is advising Bush to bomb Iraq.
Also Giuliani is getting advice from the neocons and Amer Ent Inst
PJD:
"This comment is directed to readers in Europe, particularly the UK..." (...and etc).
Unfortunately PJD, -as in America, the Brits don't have a lot of control over the media!
For some reason the BBC (once more impartial, but now much neutered since the oligarchy of poisonous Blair ruled the roost) keeps on inviting the super-arrogant dead brained Bolton on, to speak on various US topics.
'Why?' (we might wonder).
Maybe 'someone' has lent on them to do so?
Having said that, the Brits have (once?) been treated to hearing Dennis Kucinich talk about US politics.
Nb: Usually that venomous piece of devil's spawn, -Bolton- and his like, are generally interviewed via video link from the USA. Maybe he's afraid of getting within range of the many rocks-aimed-at-head he deserves?
One day the world will be free of such noxious, ignorant toads.
Come the day, -please nicely.
"Now, I assume that there is almost unaminous opinion on the eastern side of the Atlantic that Bolton is a mad, rabid, psychopath.
THEN WHY, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, ARE YOU GIVING HIM LEGIMIACY BY INVITING HIM OVER TO YOUR COUNTRY TO GIVE SPEECHES? Invite him to speak? You should as a minimum, be siezing him when he get off the plane, cancelling his visa, strip search, him, interrogate him, then send him straight back to the US!"
He spoke to the Tory Party (Conservative Party.)
At any rate, just a few more US of A cock-ups and the "New War to End All Wars" shall have begun.
Dear PJD
I'm afraid I missed the John Bolton show here in the UK, as I was on vacation and had decided to give politics a miss for a week. I don't think many over here give two squirts of goat's piss (as my mother used to say) about what Bolton has to say. No one who wears such a bad wig as he does gets anything more than a sardonic laugh over here.
It's clear that several countries' top leadership are in cahoots with the Bush New World Order. England, Canada, Australia, perhaps France & Germany as well to one degree or the other.
This comment is directed to readers in Europe, particularly the UK.
Mr. Gonsalves wrote: "On Sunday, former UN ambassador John Bolton and now a war-mongering shill for the American Enterprise Institute, gave a speech in England over the weekend, frothing at the mouth..."
Now, I assume that there is almost unaminous opinion on the eastern side of the Atlantic that Bolton is a mad, rabid, psychopath.
THEN WHY, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, ARE YOU GIVING HIM LEGIMIACY BY INVITING HIM OVER TO YOUR COUNTRY TO GIVE SPEECHES? Invite him to speak? You should as a minimum, be siezing him when he get off the plane, cancelling his visa, strip search, him, interrogate him, then send him straight back to the US!
if all your European opposition to US aggression going to amount to is so much effete, snob-chatter in your fucking cafes, then we don't want your help. but, if you are going to get serious and call for boycotts and divestment, pursuant to economically isolating the US, then we can talk.
Sean,
I always look forward to reading your editorials.
I met you once while I was living on the Cape and complimented you on your writing, you could never remember me that's ok.
I spent several years growing up on the Cape so I know where you are at from a historical frame of reference, and I really admire that. You have kept your journalistic independence through it all!
When you are writing about people communicating and mis communicating I think you are at your best. And when you see where the downtrodden are coming from, it comes from the truth.
I was very close to the naturalist John Hay in Brewster when I was a child and he was constantly referring to the destruction of the natural world in his private life. And Hay pointed our attention to the demise of nature on the Cape, and the damage done by the automobile and over development.
I would echo your prayer at the end and it goes for the Cape as well. It is Ahmadinejad himself in many interviews who claims, "these problems too shall pass. a bright future is awaiting everyone one filled with brotherhood peace and closeness."
You have helped bring that to the Cape, Sean, may you provide the same unassuming assistance to the world.
"It's clear that several countries' top leadership are in cahoots with the Bush New World Order. England, Canada, Australia, perhaps France & Germany as well to one degree or the other."
The election of Sarkozy was France's darkest day since the ascension of Pétain. The Fifth Republic turns fifty next year, time for a sixth.