Loose Lips on Iran Could Sink America

The omnipresent World War II-era posters
with the words "Loose Lips Sink Ships" served as a warning to members
of the U.S. military to take heed lest they divulge information that
could tip off the enemy and result in defeat in battle.

I believe we need a new poster, because
loose lips can also sink whole countries - including our own.

This is a lesson that members of Congress
and Washington's media honchos should have learned from the disastrous
invasion of Iraq; especially the ones whose lips helped President George
W. Bush portray Saddam Hussein as a monster bristling with "weapons
of mass destruction."

In that time frame, of course, cooperating
with Bush was "the smart play" for one's career, even for many
Democrats and liberal opinion leaders. But those politicians and pundits
now should share responsibility for having allowed Bush to mislead the
nation into a war that has maimed and killed thousands of American soldiers,
not to mention hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, with millions
more driven from their homes into fetid refugee camps.

The complicit lawmakers also helped sail the American ship of state
into a vast iceberg of debt.

In Washington, however, holding such
powerful people accountable has become what former White House counsel
and then Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, would call "quaint"
or "obsolete" - like adhering to the Geneva Conventions.

But wait; unless our Constitution has
been relegated to the same status, we do have a chance every two years
to make a judgment about politicians, whether they should continue to
represent us or be driven from office. (Sadly, there's less public
leverage over the fate of pundits.)

Recently I have been looking on in
disbelief as some of the same Democrats (and media personalities) who
helped grease the skids for the unnecessary, unprovoked attack on Iraq,
are doing a reprise - changing the script from Iraq to Iran.

The same kind of macho language (by
no means limited to testosterone-laden men) is coming from lips of lawmakers
who think that hyping the "threat" from Iran will position them
well in winning an election (or perhaps buy some street cred with some
campaign funders or the media mainstream).

'Real Men Go to Tehran!'

Think back seven years and recall the
Blackwater-style bravado from the lips of neoconservatives like Donald
Rumsfeld's crony Kenneth Adelman - the fellow who assured us all
that Iraq would be a "cakewalk."

Even as this proved to be a fantasy,
his neoconservative colleagues were beating their breasts like Tarzan
and setting their eyes on Iran. The neocon joke at the time questioned
what the next target should be - Syria or Iran? - with the punch
line, "Real men go to Tehran!"

Then and today, however, it was not
just Tarzans who were spoiling for a fight in the Middle East, but some
Janes-in particular, Rep. Jane Harman, a California Democrat who was
a senior member of the House Intelligence Committee at the time of the
Iraq invasion.

From her position on the Intelligence
Committee, Harman was better positioned than most of her colleagues
to know that Bush was hyping or inventing the evidence of Iraq's alleged
WMD, but she still joined the stampede to war. Inventing evidence? Sadly
true.

After the invasion and an exhaustive
bipartisan investigation, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay
Rockefeller concluded that the Bush/Cheney administration "presented
intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted,
or even non-existent."

Back in 2003, however, it would have
taken some political courage to call out Bush and his team on their
flimsy "evidence" or their outright lies. Career-wise, there was
plenty of upside - and no discernable downside - to go along.

But why am I reprising this history
now, you ask? Because it turns out Jane and some of the Tarzans are
at it again, hyping the "threat" from Iran, where "real men"
- and apparently some "real women" - still want to go.

Speaking on the House floor on April 22, Harman said:

"I am often asked to name those
countries I think pose the greatest threat to the security of our country
and the world. ... My answer every time is Iran, Iran, Iran.
... Given its myopic obsession with the destruction of Israel
... and its implacable, duplicitous march toward a nuclear weapons capability,
in my view no other country comes close."

(More objective observers might say,
"Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan," an unstable Islamic nation that
actually acquired nuclear weapons with the acquiescence of the Reagan
administration in the 1980s and is today the home for al-Qaeda and other
terrorist groups, including the trainers of alleged Time Square bomber
Faisal Shahzad. Shahzad's father, Bahar Ul Haq, was a former Pakistani
air vice marshal reportedly with some responsibility over the security
of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.)

Iran-Obsessed

But Harman is focused on Iran, which
is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has renounced
any intention of having nukes, and is considered years away from building
one even if it wanted to.

To punish Iran for its speculative
interest in nuclear weapons, Harman called for sanctions to "cripple
Iran's ability to import refined petroleum products." (As a Harvard-educated
lawyer, she should be aware that, under international law, such a blockade
would be an act of war. It also would inflict widespread hardship on
the Iranian people.)

But Israel's right-wing Likud government
and America's neocons have identified Iran as the new enemy. So, in
line with that assessment, Harman ended her oration thusly:

"Iran with nuclear weapons not
only poses an existential threat to Israel; it poses an existential
threat to us [vocal emphasis hers] and to countries
everywhere which espouse democratic values."

Not even hawkish Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton goes that far. At a formal press conference in Qatar,
she said, "Iran doesn't directly threaten the United States,"
though she added that Iran was a threat to U.S. friends in the region.
Clinton's momentary deviation from the more alarmist rhetoric that
official Washington favors when discussing Iran came while answering
a question at a formal press conference in Doha, Qatar on Feb. 14. (Check
it out; last time I looked, it was still on the State Department's
Web site.) Clinton said:

"Part of the goal
... we were pursuing was to try to influence the Iranian decision regarding
whether or not to pursue a nuclear weapon. And, as I said in my speech
... the evidence is accumulating that that [pursuing a nuclear weapon]
is exactly what they are trying to do, which is deeply concerning, because
it doesn't directly threaten the United States, but it directly threatens
a lot of our friends, allies, and partners here in
this region and beyond."

When his turn came, Qatari Prime Minister
Sheikh Al-Thani did not join in the fear mongering, even when asked
directly about "the danger that the Secretary just alluded to ...
if Iran gets the bomb." In answer, he implied, diplomatically but
clearly, that he was at least as much afraid of what Israel and the
U.S. might do, as what Iran might do. [For more, see "Is Iran Really
a Threat?", April 26, 2010.]

Unspoken Friend

The chief unspoken "friend" that
Secretary Clinton claims is "directly threatened" by Iran is, of
course, Israel, a nation which already has 200-300 nuclear weapons,
has refused to sign the NPT and won't even acknowledge its own nuclear
arsenal in defiance of U.S. policy favoring adherence to the NPT and
greater transparency on nuclear weapons.

The Israeli arsenal could easily incinerate
Iran - if Iran does manage to build one or two nukes and is eager
to commit suicide by threatening Israel. But let's just assume, for
argument's sake, that the Israeli leaders really do consider Iran
an "existential threat" to Israel. Should American lawmakers and
opinion leaders hype a theoretical threat to Israel as a threat to the
United States?

On one level, Clinton's candor that
Iran is not threatening the United States was refreshing. She seemed
to be following the example of the Director of National Intelligence
and his subordinates, who are carefully hewing to the judgments of the
most recent formal National Intelligence Estimate, "Iran: Nuclear
Intentions and Capabilities," approved unanimously by all 16 U.S.
intelligence agencies in November 2007.

That Estimate began with these words:

"We judge with high confidence
that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program; we also
assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is
keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons...

"We assess with moderate confidence
Tehran had not restarted its nuclear program as of mid-2007, but we
do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons...

"Tehran's decision to halt its
nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear
weapons than we have been judging since 2005."

That National Intelligence Estimate
(NIE) is now being updated, but recent congressional testimony by senior
intelligence community officials has been consistent with the judgments
of late 2007.

Gen. Ronald Burgess, director of the
Defense Intelligence Agency, and Gen. James Cartwright, Vice Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, addressed these issues in testimony before
the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 21.

Answering the question as to how soon
Iran could have a deliverable nuclear weapon, Gen. Cartwright said:

"Experience says it is going to
take you three to five years" to move from having enough highly enriched
uranium to having a "deliverable weapon that is usable."

The NIE of 2007 stated that if Iran
does decide to pursue nuclear weapons, "We judge with moderate confidence
that Iran probably would be technically capable of producing enough
HEU [highly enriched uranium] for a weapon sometime during the 2010-2015
time frame."

It appears that the time line for the
hypothetical Iranian nuclear "threat" is slipping backward-not
leaping forward, as Israeli officials and others insist.

According to press reports, the NIE-update
will not be ready until August, and the Obama administration won't
release its key judgments, as was done in late 2007. It is a safe bet,
though, that we shall learn of the revisions in due course and thus
have a better take on any changes in Iran's nuclear capabilities and
intentions.

Getting Played Again

What concerns me greatly, however,
is that the American people are being played again by those both in
government and the media who wish to zap Iran.

"Do you think Iran currently has
nuclear weapons, or not?" Americans were asked in a CNN poll taken
earlier this year (Feb. 12-15). Seventy-one percent of Americans polled
answered incorrectly, Yes.

That's very close to the percentage
of Americans misled into believing that Saddam Hussein was developing
nuclear weapons before the attack on Iraq in March 2003. Only later
was the Bush administration forced to admit that its claims about an
active Iraqi nuclear program were bogus.

Of equal concern to me are the statements
of politicians who apparently believe we have forgotten the hype that
got us into the Iraq mess - and are trying again to stoke a confrontation
with Iran. The front-burner question today is whether loose lips and
looser thinking will lead to an even more disastrous war with Iran BEFORE
the intelligence community finishes its update on Iran's nuclear capabilities
and intentions.

Given the consistency of the recent
testimony of top intelligence officials, I will be much surprised if
the NIE update comes to conclusions that differ substantially from the
judgments of November 2007.

Ironically, that possibility provides
more incentive for those who wish to attack Iran sooner rather than
later, much as President Bush pushed United Nations inspectors out of
Iraq in March 2003 and rushed ahead with the invasion before Americans
woke up to the fact that the inspectors weren't finding any Iraqi WMD
stockpiles because none existed.

I worry that Israeli Prime Minister
Netanyahu will take the initiative now and provoke hostilities with
Iran, judging that political realities in the United States would then
leave President Barack Obama little choice but to "finish the job."

No Confidence in the FCM

Another concern is that the Fawning
Corporate Media remains as easily manipulated by the neocons and other
hardliners as it was in 2003. Again, there are plenty of career rewards
for talking tough about Iran and none for showing moderation. In this
overheated climate of anti-Iran hysteria, politicians also will be tempted
to ratchet up their rhetoric to come across as tough and "realistic."
That, in turn, might convince Netanyahu that the time is right to force
Obama's hand.

One might have hoped that after the
Iraq fiasco, American voters would be smarter - and more resistant
to clever propaganda - but the CNN poll on their misplaced confidence
about Iran having nukes provides little reassurance.

As for Harman, she is facing a strong
Democratic challenger, progressive Marcy Winograd, in the June 8 primary
for California's 36th district. Because Harman has a personal fortune
of about a half-billion (that's right, billion) dollars from which
to draw - and Winograd says she is accepting "not one dime" of
corporate money - the race is viewed as a test of whether it is possible
for candidates to win without heaps of money for ad buys and other expenses.

The race also could measure whether
Democratic voters will demand some accountability for lawmakers who
sided with President Bush and the neocons in rushing the United States
off to war in Iraq - and who now are spoiling for another fight with
Iran.

I don't know how those tests will
work out, especially given the continued sludge of one-sided propaganda
that flows from the FCM.

What I do know is that incendiary rhetoric
from lips like Harman's about the option of a military strike on Iran,
her strident advocacy of an act of war (blockade), and her pretense
that Netanyahu's claim of an "existential threat" from Iran applies
also to the United States is a highly flammable mix.

It is just the kind of rhetoric that
could give Netanyahu confidence that he can take matters into his own
hands.

This will go in spades if Harman proves
to be correct in thinking that her constituents are just as gullible
as the ones who answered CNN pollsters in mid-February.