The Iran Threat in the Age of Real-Axis-of-Evil Expansion

by Edward S. Herman and David Peterson (source: Monthly Review)

Thursday, March 18, 2010

The Iran Threat in the Age of Real-Axis-of-Evil Expansion1

It is intriguing to see how whoever the United States and Israel find interfering with their imperial or dispossession plans is quickly demonized and becomes a threat and target for that Real-Axis-of-Evil (RAE), and hence their NATO allies and, with less intensity, much of the rest of the "international community" (IC, meaning ruling elites, not ordinary citizens).  If and when the need arises, any bit of news that is damaging to the targeted state will be fed into the demonization process -- and in the marvelous propaganda system of the West, the grossest distortions will be swallowed and regurgitated without much guilt or apology, even upon the exposure of exceptional gullibility and dishonesty.2  The dishonesty, gullibility, double standard, and hypocrisy are handled with an aplomb that Pravda and Izvestia could never muster in the Soviet era.

Thus, Iran is a threat, for one thing, because it has relations with the Iraqi Shiites, has supported them in the struggle within Iraq, and may even have supplied some of their factions with training and weapons.3  Of course Iran is a neighbor of Iraq, was invaded by it in 1980, with generous U.S. help provided to then-ally Saddam Hussein, and Iran obviously has an important political stake in the outcome of any struggle for power in Iraq.  But only the United States has a right to invade and fight in Iraq and provide arms to the Iraqis of its choice.  As a superpower with dominant military capability, and unlimited chutzpah, it has Aggression Rights, acknowledged by the IC, and the UN Security Council, who not only did nothing to oppose the 2003-2010 invasion-occupation of Iraq, but quickly sanctioned the U.S. right to manage the occupation, in contrast with its indignant vote and action to force the Iraqi eviction from invaded and occupied Kuwait in 1990.  This is the imperial double standard in action, and Iran, trying to interfere in Iraq, despite the IC and Council's approval of the U.S. aggression and conquest, is clearly out of order.  The aggressor may have made false or inflated accusations about Iranian interference, partly to cover over its own aggression-resistance problems, but also to prepare the ground for its next planned aggression, that against Iran itself.  This is not discussible in the establishment U.S. media.

Iran is also a threat because it is hostile to Israel, objects to what Israel has been doing in Palestine and Lebanon, and is a local power rival to Israel.  But Israel, like its patron, has Aggression Rights, and is free to invade Lebanon, as it did on a massive scale in 1982 and 2006, without penalty.  And it has ethnic cleansing and even slow-motion genocide rights, which it has been exercising in Palestine for many years, with U.S. and EU support.  During its last few days in Lebanon in 2006 before its final withdrawal, Israel dropped a million cluster bombs in the countryside in an act of state terrorism and crime against humanity that would have produced huge outrage and possibly sanctions if carried out by a state that was not a U.S. client.  The same is true of its assault on the Gaza Palestinians in December of 2009, where this very civilian-oriented campaign against an essentially defenseless population was openly supported by U.S. officials and hence presented no problem for Israel except for some damage to its image as "a light unto the Nations" (Anthony Lewis4).

Furthermore, Iran has given active support to Hezbollah in Lebanon and to Hamas in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, both "terrorist" organizations by the power rule of language usage;5 Israel and the United States only "retaliate" and engage in "counter-terror" in accord with this rule, firmly adhered to by the establishment U.S. media.  Because of such support in Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories, Iran automatically qualifies as a "state sponsor of terrorism," and its global profile as a "threat" rises for this reason as well.  Yet Iran has not moved beyond its borders in our lifetimes, whereas the United States has regularly attacked and invaded Iran's neighbors, sometimes on a massive scale, and the United States actively aided Iraq's 1980 invasion of Iran, in addition to organizing the 1953 coup within Iran that brought into power an amenable client, the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.6  The United States has even been engaging in and sponsoring terrorist attacks on Iran -- at the same time as it complains about Iran's interference in Iraq -- which, with consistent and unpoliticized word usage, would qualify the United States itself as a state sponsor of terrorism.7  But this is all irrelevant (and largely suppressed) history for the Western media guardians of power -- the immediate point of concern is Iran's support of two officially-designated "terrorist" organizations, both of which weaken the effectiveness of Israel's Aggression Rights and Western domination of this region.

Most frightening, Iran has a nuclear program, which it is implementing within the framework of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).8  This fright comes primarily from the United States and Israel, both major nuclear weapons states.  Given their own extensive and sophisticated nuclear weapons capability, the RAE's fright over the threat of Iran's nuclear "ambitions" is profoundly dishonest and hypocritical, and carries the imperial double standard to another impressive peak.  Contrary to rhetoric about the "existential" threat that an Islamic bomb would pose to Israel and the West, the threat is not based on any genuine fear over Iran's offensive, first-strike use of nuclear weapons (which would entail national suicide), but on the deterrent effect that Iran's possession of nuclear weapons would exercise on the RAE's capacity to engage in offensive military operations against Iran and the greater Middle East.  The other important element in this cultivated fright is that the mythical "threat" alleged to be emerging in Iran can be exploited by the RAE and its allies as a rationale for politically destabilizing and possibly directly attacking Iran.

The further elements of fraud and hypocrisy in this contrived fright are numerous, but it must be recalled that each U.S. target is carefully and vigorously demonized as a prelude to attack, with the help of the IC, UN, UNSC, and Free Press.  From tiny Guatemala (1950-1954) and Nicaragua (1979-1990) to Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction" in 2002-2003, the demonization-lies-hysteria combination has never failed to do its job, making both hypocrisy and aggression workable.  It never elicits laughter or contributes a lesson that interferes with the next round of the same process.  The service being provided is too important for either learning or jokes.

It may be recalled that with the Shah of Iran in power, the United States actually encouraged this dictator to develop a nuclear capability, accepting the argument (now rejected) that Iran needed this additional energy source, and not worrying about any possible diversion of nuclear material from civilian to weapons development with a manageable client-dictator in power.  Back in the mid-1970s, the Ford administration "endorsed Iranian plans to build a massive nuclear energy industry, but also worked hard to complete a multibillion-dollar deal that would have given Tehran control of large quantities of plutonium and enriched uranium -- the two pathways to a nuclear bomb," the Washington Post recalled.  "Ford's team commended Iran's decision to build a massive nuclear energy industry, noting in a declassified 1975 strategy paper that Tehran needed to 'prepare against the time -- about 15 years in the future -- when Iranian oil production is expected to decline sharply'."9

But the ouster of the Shah in early 1979 and his replacement by an unfriendly and independent Islamic Republic led quickly to a U.S.-Israeli concern over Iran's nuclear capability and its supposed threat.  Whereas then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger now says that he doesn't "think the issue of proliferation ever came up" in the Ford administration's talks with the Shah, Kissinger adds that "[Iran] was an allied country, and this was a commercial transaction.  We didn't address the question of them one day moving toward nuclear weapons."10  The blatantly political basis for this transformation from support for the Shah's nuclear capability to rejection of any rights to nuclear capability for the successor regime, even under the terms of the NPT, has escaped the West, aided of course by the demonization process (and in the earlier phase, by the portrayal of the Shah, whose torture chambers were notorious,11 as a "modernizer").

The history of the growth of the Iran threat (especially since 2003) has centered on Iran's alleged quest for nuclear weapons and Iran's noncompliance with its obligations as a party to the NPT.

But the fact of the matter is that Iran did join the NPT (as have all states in the Middle East but one) and has for many years subjected itself to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), while Israel not only has never joined the NPT, it has built up a substantial nuclear weapons arsenal with the material and diplomatic aid of the United States and other Western powers.  And along with supporting Israel's nuclear arms buildup, the United States allowed its client Pakistan to develop nuclear weapons and recently cooperated with India in nuclear agreements that seriously violated the principles of the NPT.  As The Hindu's Siddharth Varadarajan wrote in July 2005, shortly after the first joint statement on the U.S.-India nuclear deal was made at the White House by President George Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh:

The non-proliferation lobby argues that President Bush's decision to sell nuclear technology and equipment to India will encourage other countries to go down the nuclear path.  Not so say the advocates.  Mr. Tellis -- a former RAND Corporation analyst who served as an advisor to Robert Blackwill when he was U.S. Ambassador to India -- is most forthright.  He acknowledges the contradiction between the two goals of U.S. foreign policy -- building India up as a counter to China and upholding the non-proliferation regime -- but says the circle can be squared.  His solution: don't jettison the regime "but, rather, selectively [apply] it in practice."  In other words, different countries should be treated differently "based on their friendship and value to the U.S."  With one stroke of the Presidential pen, India has become something more than a "major non-NATO ally" of the U.S.  It has joined the Free World.  It has gone from being a victim of nuclear discrimination to a beneficiary.  India is not alone.  Israel is already there to give it company.12

Pakistan also gives it company, but clearly not Iraq, Iran, or North Korea -- without a suitable regime change.

Like Iran, the United States signed the NPT in 1968, and both states deposited their ratification of the NPT with the United Nations by the date it entered into force.  But as one of the five declared nuclear weapon states-parties to the NPT (together with the Soviet Union [Russian Federation], Britain, France, and China), the United States undertook to "pursue negotiations in good faith . . . on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control," which of course it has not done -- and in fact the United States keeps refining its nuclear weapons and, along with its many-headed NATO puppet, has made nukes a continuing integral part of its "defense" planning.13  Because of its enormous buildup of nuclear overkill in past years (peaking in the mid-1980s), U.S. officials have been able to negotiate cuts in active nuclear weapons as well as phase out obsolete weapons, but at this point it maintains an estimated 3,000 operational nuclear weapons and with a number of these on constant alert.  Under the Obama administration, funding for nuclear weapons has increased, and whether to claim first-strike rights for the United States is alleged to be one of the points under discussion in finalizing his 2010 Nuclear Posture Review.14  But whether or not the forthcoming NPR literally affirms U.S. first-strike rights, U.S. planners have long presumed such a right; for example, in Clinton's Essentials of Postwar Deterrence (1995), we read that "it is undesirable to adopt declaratory policies such as 'no first use' which serve to specifically limit U.S. nuclear deterrence goals without providing equitable returns," and that "We must be ambiguous about details of our response (or preemption) if what we value is threatened, but it must be clear that our actions would have terrible consequences."15  Furthermore, the continued enlargement of NATO and the "out-of-area" rights and responsibilities that it asserts for itself,16 the expansion of the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the aggressive placement of both missile and anti-missile systems near Russia and China and the encirclement and systematic provocations of them both, which have caused Russia to depend more on nuclear weapons, have increased armaments and tensions across the globe.17

But of all the states-parties to the NPT with nuclear programs, Iran by far is under the closest scrutiny for adherence to all the rules of an NPT signer, and the imperial rights double standard is accepted and here rigorously enforced by the IC, UN, UNSC, and establishment media.  According to the IAEA's most recent Annual Report (2008), as of December 31, 2008, Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant, five different nuclear research reactors (at Esfahan, Arak, and Tehran), two uranium conversion plants (Esfahan), two fuel fabrication plants (Esfahan), a reprocessing plant in Tehran, two nuclear enrichment plants (Natanz), and a nuclear storage facility in Karaj were under IAEA safeguards;18 to this list we now may add the Fordow fuel enrichment plant near Qom, which Iran declared to the IAEA in September 2009, just days before this formal declaration was upstaged by the heads of state of the U.S., U.K., and France at a Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh.19  The point is, the most heavily inspected nuclear program of the past decade most certainly is Iran's, and only Iraq's old and effectively liquidated nuclear program that had been inspected jointly by UNSCOM and the IAEA during the 1990s was more heavily inspected than is Iran's.20  Indeed, of the 48 written reports the IAEA has devoted to its member-states' nuclear programs since January 2003 (through February 2010), it devoted 58% of them (28 in all) to Iran's implementation of its NPT-related obligations, while the IAEA also devoted six to Syria, five to Libya, three to North Korea, three to South Korea, two to Iraq, and one to Egypt.21  During the same period, the IAEA thus devoted only 7% of its written reports to the nuclear programs of states that are allied with the United States -- a remarkable testament to the IAEA's U.S.- and NATO-dominated politicization, which appears to have worsened with the December 1, 2009 succession in its Director General, with Egypt's Mohamed ElBaradei unable to secure a third term, and his replacement by Japan's Yukiya Amano.

The U.S. government initiated a high-profile series of allegations about Iran's nuclear program in May of 2003, and with few interruptions, this series of allegations has continued straight through to the present.  Because it was the U.S. government that accused Iran of violating its NPT obligations, these allegations have been major news stories.  Although the IAEA has produced 28 written reports since June 2003, all of which in one form or another have "continue[d] to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran,"22 the Agency has never resolved what it variously calls the "outstanding questions" and "outstanding issues" still facing it, political terms for any allegation the U.S. government throws at Iran, but all of which neatly can be summed up by the IAEA's inability to "provide credible assurances about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran,"23 and to "confirm that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities."24

In short, the IAEA's focus on Iran is the result of the sheer power of the United States on the international stage, and the fact that once the U.S. latched onto any signs of imperfect cooperation by Iran, and lobbied the IAEA as well as other states about the Iranian "threat," the IAEA and "international community" accepted the seriousness of this threat.  Given the impossibility of proving a negative -- during her statement to the Security Council on Iran's nuclear program, U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice quoted the appropriate Alice-in-Wonderland phrase from the most recent IAEA report: the "IAEA cannot confirm that 'all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities'"25 -- Iran can be alleged guilty by its pursuer for years, with the IAEA always unable to definitively disprove or support U.S. claims and quest.

There is a striking similarity between the U.S.'s ability to use the IAEA these past seven years for its aggressive purposes against Iran, and its use of the inspections-regime of both the IAEA and the UN Monitoring, Verification, and Inspections Commission (UNMOVIC) during the run-up to the U.S. and U.K. war of aggression against Iraq in March 2003.26  In the earlier case, however, the United States and Britain eventually discarded the IAEA and UNMOVIC, because of impatience with their failure to find Iraq's non-existent "weapons of mass destruction," a mission that never could have borne fruit.  But once again, power and the cooperation of establishment media have assured that there won't be any undue dwelling on the similarity of abusive and dishonest manipulation of a UN agency.  Also, U.S. power is so great that even Russia and China tag along with this pretense of honest concern over inspections and NPT rules, dragging their feet in rejecting or approving sanctions on Iran, but still acknowledging Iran's failure to do the U.S.'s and the IAEA's bidding, and calling for patience instead of denouncing the blatant double standard, hypocrisy, and obvious push toward aggression.

Iran's June 2009 presidential election has to be looked at in the same light.  There is no doubt that there are serious flaws in Iran's electoral process, and that there are real internal grievances that justify public protests.  But there can also be little doubt that the huge global focus on Iran's electoral flaws and its "stolen election," and on the protests and violent repression of dissidents within Iran, runs parallel with the campaign of regime change that shows itself in the IAEA's multi-year focus on Iran's nuclear program, the open destabilization effort, the ensuing sanctions, and U.S. and Israeli threats of military action against Iran.  In the great metropolitan centers of the West, no comparable levels of indignant media focus, displays of international solidarity, and demands for states to respect the democratic rights of their citizens were directed towards the violent repression of protesters following the coup d'etat and "demonstration election" in Honduras last year, or towards the "demonstration elections" in U.S.-occupied Afghanistan (which took the occupier two tries rather than one before it got the outcome it sought27), or towards the March 7 parliamentary election in U.S.-occupied Iraq, either.28  Indeed, a good case can be made that Iran's 2009 presidential election was more credible and more closely in line with majority desires than those in Honduras and Afghanistan, as well as Iraq's parliamentary election this year.29

As Table 1 underscores, the U.S. and U.S.-allies' focus on Iran's nuclear program has borne tremendous fruit throughout much of the past decade.

Table 1: Differential Media Focus on Ten Nuclear Programs for the Seven-Year Period, January 1, 2003 - December 31, 2009 30   Wire Services and Newspapers New York Times Egypt 245 1 India 6,237 14 Iran 36,778 276 Iraq 4,265 72 Israel 323 3 North Korea 4,008 13 South Korea 775 0 Libya 632 8 Pakistan 626 0 Syria 106 4

What these data show is that the United States defines what constitutes a "threat" to international peace and security, and as it demonizes the entity alleged to pose the "threat" the establishment media fall into line, help inflame passions about the "threat," and thus facilitate U.S. policy goals towards it, irrespective of the validity or the direction of any real threat.  Thus, Israel may have a substantial nuclear arsenal and may have engaged in cross-border wars and threatened to attack Iran, and Iran may have no nuclear weapons, not engage in cross-border wars, and not threaten to attack the United States or Israel, but the ratio of media attention paid to Iran's and Israel's nuclear programs for the seven-year period we studied was 92-to-1 in the New York Times, and 114-to-1 in a very large sample of wire services and newspapers. 

But these numbers actually understate the degree of bias as they do not take into account placement, tone, and honesty.  Just considering the last, we may note the front-page article in the February 19, 2010 New York Times by David E. Sanger and William J. Broad titled "Inspectors Say Iran Worked on Warhead"31 -- an article in the same class as Michael R. Gordon and Judith Miller's notorious "U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest for A-Bomb Parts" (Sept. 8, 2002), and, further back, Sidney Gruson's 1953 classic "How Communists Won Control of Guatemala" (March 1, 1953).32  In fact, nowhere in the IAEA's February 18 report (GOV/2010/10) does the IAEA assert that "Iran worked on a warhead," only that "information available to the Agency . . . raises concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile" (para. 41), and that the Agency has "sought clarification" from Iran as to "whether [certain] engineering design and computer modeling studies aimed at producing a new design for the payload chamber of a missile were for a nuclear payload" (para. 42).33  A second Sanger-Broad lie is that the IAEA's specific mention on February 18 of the "possible existence" of "undisclosed" work on a "nuclear payload" constituted the "first time" the IAEA had mentioned such activities during its seven-year focus on Iran.  In fact, not only did the IAEA start using the phrase "possible military dimension" in its published reports on Iran as early as February 2008 (GOV/2008/4, para. 5434), and not only has the IAEA used this phrase in every one of its eight reports since, but the latest report has nothing new to say at all.  Instead, under the new General Director Yukiya Amano, the IAEA merely rephrased and re-emphasized past allegations to make it easier for establishment reporters to single out specific charges and inflame passions over them -- as when Sanger-Broad predicted this report will "accelerate Iran's confrontation with the United States and other Western countries" -- and help the push towards war, as the Times also did in dealing with Iraq in 2002-2003, Guatemala in 1953-1954, and other U.S. targets.  As Peter Casey asks in his analysis of Sanger-Broad's "transparently dishonest" article: "Is America's 'paper of record' consciously misrepresenting facts to 'accelerate confrontation' between Iran and the West?"35  The clear answer is: Yes.

The IAEA did not officially release its February 18 assessment until March 3.  This means that the earliest news reports about the content of the document were based on leaked copies, excerpts handed-out by motivated leakers, word-of-mouth, and one reporter repeating what others were reporting.  We find it enlightening, therefore, that the most often-quoted and paraphrased passage from the IAEA document, referring to the "possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile" (para. 41), turned up as immediately and as widely as it did.36  What it shows is that not only the eyes of the New York Times's ever-reliable Sanger and Broad were successfully trained on this phrase and the frightening (and misleading) allegation that it expresses -- but the eyes of a preponderance of journalists around the world.37  As in the buildup to the 2003 Iraq invasion, the media are partners of the war-makers.

Concluding Note

The real threat that Iran poses to the United States and Israel is that of a local rival to Israel which might hamper Israel's dispossession and expansion program in the Palestinian Territories, as well as U.S. domination of this region of the world.  From a global viewpoint, the real threat is that Iran's independence and refusal to grovel might lead to a war of aggression against it by Israel and/or the United States, and such a war could in turn spark an even larger conflagration.  However, the nature of this latter threat is such that it can not be addressed by the "international community," which consistently defers to the power and demands of the Real Axis-of-Evil, as do the United Nations, the Security Council, and the IAEA.

That Iran poses an offensive threat to Israel or the United States is obviously a sick joke.  Both Israel and the United States possess operational nuclear weapons and superior conventional forces -- and while they can attack Iran without facing unbearable retaliation, Iran cannot do the same and couldn't even do so if it developed a small arsenal of nuclear weapons. 

But if Iran did posses a small nuclear arsenal, it would be better able to defend itself, and Israel and the United States would have to be act more cautiously -- their own regular cross-border attacks would have to be considered more carefully, and might be effectively deterred.  Their longstanding domination of the Middle East, with its "stupendous source of strategic power, one of the greatest material prizes in world history,"38 would be threatened.  Thus Iran has no right of self-defense, let alone deterrence.

In short, while nuclear-armed Israel and its patron commit aggression, dispossess, and threaten more of the same, they have managed to transform nuclear-weapons-free Iran into the "threat" that the UN and IC worry about.  The IAEA has never established that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons,39 and Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei continues to reject the acquisition and use of nuclear weapons as contrary to the religious beliefs of the Islamic Republic.40  Yet the mere possibility that Iran might switch its nuclear program to a military dimension, along with a lot of rhetorical heat from the West, have provided the basis for organizing a sanctions regime and potential U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran.  It has even provided a rationale for the installation of missile and anti-missile systems on the periphery of Russia and China, allegedly to counter the Iran menace!  This is the triumph of chutzpah once again, as the Real Axis-of-Evil clears the ground for its ongoing programs of local dispossession and global expansion.

Endnotes

1  Also see Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, "Chutzpah, Inc.: 'The Brave People of Iran' (versus the Disappeared People of Palestine, Honduras, Afghanistan, Etc.)," MRZine, February 20, 2010.

2  In the arena of media-service to imperial power, there are many competitors to wear the crown of the most dishonest and gullible.  But it would be hard to top the U.S. and British media's performance on Iraq's alleged "weapons of mass destruction" during the U.S. and U.K. buildup to their March 2003 aggression against Iraq.  For one very fine critique of this process, see Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith, Iraq: The War Card.  Orchestrated Deception on the Path to War, Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism, January 2008.  In the immortal words of the so-called "secret Downing Street memo" drafted after a meeting of some of Tony Blair's top advisors on July 23, 2002 (Sunday Times, May 1, 2005): "C reported on his recent talks in Washington.  There was a perceptible shift in attitude.  Military action was now seen as inevitable.  Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD.  But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.  The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record.  There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."  For three examples where the "intelligence and facts" were in fact "fixed around the policy" of invading Iraq, see Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction -- The assessment of the British Government, Office of the British Prime Minister, September, 2002; Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Program, Director of Central Intelligence, United States, October, 2002; and "U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell Addresses the UN Security Council," White House Office of the Press Secretary, February 5, 2003.

3  See, e.g., Qassim Abdul-Zahra, "Anti-American Bloc Gains Ground ahead of Iraq Vote," Associated Press, February 25, 2010.

4  Anthony Lewis, "A Light Unto the Nations," New York Times, September 14, 1999, echoing what Lewis alleged U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis and "other early Zionists saw for a Jewish state," as well as Isaiah 42:6: "a light for the Gentiles."

5  See "Foreign Terrorist Organizations ,"Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, U.S. Department of State, January 19, 2010.   Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Movement) is No. 13 on the list; Hezbollah (the Party of God) is No. 16.

6  See Mark J. Gasiorowski and Malcolm Byrne, Eds., Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2004).

7  Seymour M. Hersh has written extensively about U.S. campaigns of destabilization as well as terrorism inside Iran.  See, e.g., Hersh's "Preparing the Battlefield: The Bush Administration Steps Up Its Secret Moves against Iran," New Yorker, July 7, 2008.  It is our opinion that these campaigns have continued under the Obama administration.

8  See Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which was adopted on June 12, 1968, and entered into force on March 5, 1970.

9  Dafna Linzer, "Past Arguments Don't Square with Current Iran Policy," Washington Post, March 27, 2005, citing the Ford administration's "National Security Decision Memorandum 292, titled 'U.S.-Iran Nuclear Cooperation', which laid out the administration's negotiating strategy for the sale of nuclear energy equipment projected to bring U.S. corporations more than $6 billion in revenue. At the time, Iran was pumping as much as 6 million barrels of oil a day, compared with an average of about 4 million barrels daily today."

10  Linzer, "Past Arguments Don't Square with Current Iran Policy."  Also see the treatment of the U.S. reversal on Iran's nuclear program in Noam Chomsky, Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006), Ch. 2, "Outlaw States," esp. pp. 69-78.  As Chomsky comments: "Washington's charges about an Iranian nuclear weapons program may, for once, be accurate.  As many analysts have observed, it would be remarkable if they were not.  Reiterating the conclusion that the invasion of Iraq, as widely predicted, increased the threat of nuclear proliferation, Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld writes that 'the world has witnessed how the United States attacked Iraq for, as it turned out, no reason at all.  Had the Iranians not tried to build nuclear weapons, they would be crazy'.  Washington has gone out of its way to instruct Iran on the need for a powerful deterrent, not only by invading Iraq, but also by strengthening the offensive forces of its Israeli client, which already has hundreds of nuclear weapons as well as air and armored forces larger and more advanced than any NATO power other than the United States" (p. 73).  But, as Chomsky continues (writing in 2006): "It is likely that Washington's saber rattling is not a sign of impending war.  It would not make much sense to signal an attack years in advance.  The purpose may be to provoke the Iranian leadership to adopt more repressive policies.  Such policies could foment internal disorder, perhaps weakening Iran enough so that the United States might hazard military action.  They would also contribute to Washington's efforts to pressure allies to join in isolating Iran" (p. 74) -- a campaign to which the in-all-probability fraudulent "stolen election" response among the Western powers to Iran's June 12, 2009 presidential election has contributed most decisively.  (See Herman and Peterson, "Chutzpah, Inc.: 'The Brave People of Iran' (versus the Disappeared People of Palestine, Honduras, Afghanistan, Etc.).")

11  As William Blum has written: "The notorious Iranian secret police, SAVAK, created under the guidance of the CIA and Israel, spread its tentacles all over the world to punish Iranian dissidents.  According to a former CIA analyst on Iran, SAVAK was instructed in torture techniques by the [CIA].  Amnesty International summed up the situation in 1976 by noting that Iran had the 'highest rate of death penalties in the world, no valid system of civilian courts and a history of torture which is beyond belief.  No country in the world has a worse record in human rights than Iran'."  See William Blum, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II(Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, Rev. Ed., 1995), p. 72.

12  Siddharth Varadarajan, "The Truth behind the Indo-U.S. Nuclear Deal," The Hindu, July 29, 2005.

13  At a recent speech in Warsaw, Poland, devoted to NATO's "Strategic Concept," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen stated that NATO needs "to decide what kind of capabilities will ensure that no one ever thinks that an attack against a NATO member country can be successful.  For our deterrence to remain credible, I firmly believe it must continue to be based on a mix of conventional and nuclear capabilities.  And our new Strategic Concept should affirm that" ("Speech by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen," Warsaw, Poland, March 12, 2010.)  On the question of nuclear weapons, this speech reiterated NATO's current "Strategic Concept," adopted in Washington at NATO's 50th anniversary summit in April 1999.  Therein, we read: "Nuclear weapons make a unique contribution in rendering the risks of aggression against the Alliance incalculable and unacceptable. Thus, they remain essential to preserve peace" (The Alliance's Strategic Concept, North Atlantic Council, Washington, D.C., April 23-24, 1999, para. 46).  Also see the webpage that NATO devotes to its "Strategic Concept."

14  See David E. Sanger and Thom Shanker, "White House Is Rethinking Nuclear Policy," New York Times, March 1, 2010; and Mary Beth Sheridan and Walter Pincus, "Obama Must Decide Degree to Which U.S. Swears Off Nuclear Weapons," Washington Post, March 6, 2010.

15  See Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence, U.S. Strategic Command, 1995 (as posted to the website of the Nautilus Institute).  (For the PDF version of the same document.)  This remarkable testament to nuclear madness included many memorable passages, as when it reminded the world: "Because of the value that comes from the ambiguity of what the U.S. may do to an adversary if the acts we seek to deter are carried out, it hurts to portray ourselves as too fully rational and cool-headed. The fact that some elements may appear to be potentially 'out of control' can be beneficial to creating and reinforcing fears and doubts in the minds of an adversary's decision makers.  This essential sense of fear is the working force of deterrence.  That the US may become irrational and vindictive if its vital interests are attacked should be part of the national persona we project to all adversaries."  And in this document's last five paragraphs, we read:

Just as nuclear weapons are our most potent tool of deterrence, nevertheless they are blunt weapons of destruction and thus are likely always to be our weapons of last resort.  Although we are not likely to use them in less than matters of the greatest national importance, or in less than extreme circumstances, nuclear weapons always cast a shadow over any crisis or conflict in which the US is engaged.  Thus, deterrence through the threat of use of nuclear weapons will continue to be our top military strategy.

Unlike [chemical weapons] or [biological weapons], the extreme destruction from a nuclear explosion is immediate, with few if any palliatives available to reduce its effects.  It is no wonder then that the use of nuclear weapons has become elevated to the highest level of threat that is possible.  The U.S. has now eschewed the use of either chemical or biological weapons and is seeking the complete elimination of such weapons by all nations through the [chemical and biological weapons conventions], but we would consider the complete elimination of our nuclear weapons only in the context of complete and general disarmament.  Thus, since we believe it is impossible to "uninvent" nuclear weapons or to prevent the clandestine manufacture of some number of them, nuclear weapons seem destined to be the centerpiece of U.S. strategic deterrence for the forseeable [sic] future.

In the context of non-Russian states, the penalty for using Weapons of Mass Destruction should not be just military defeat, but the threat of even worse consequences.  President Clinton's statement of July 11, 1994, about North Korea gave some of the flavor of these "other consequences" when he said: ". . .it is pointless for them to develop nuclear weapons. Because if they ever use them it would be the end of their country."   Similarly, President Bush's statement to Saddam Hussein on January 13, 1991, also telegraphed greater consequences: "You and your country will pay a terrible price if you order unconscionable acts of this sort [the use of chemical or biological weapons or terrorist acts against the coalition nations]."  Should we ever fail to deter such an aggressor, we must make good on our deterrent statement in such a convincing way that the message to others immediately discernible is to bolster deterrence thereafter.

We should always attempt to respond to any such breaches of deterrence in ways that minimize the numbers of civilian casualties.  Particularly when dealing with the less than nation-threatening aggression which is likely to characterize WMD conflicts with other than Russia, the U.S. does not require the "ultimate deterrent" -- that a nation's citizens must pay with their lives for failure to stop their national leaders from undertaking aggression.  A capability to create a fear of "national extinction" (as discussed above) by denying their leaders the ability to project power thereafter, but without having to inflict massive civilian casualties, will not only galvanize the deterrence convictions of the U.S. leadership, but will simultaneously help to prevent misinterpretation on the part of the enemy as to whether the U.S. would be willing to act.

16  See The Alliance's Strategic Concept, North Atlantic Council, Washington D.C., April 23-24, 1999, esp. paras. 1, 42, 48, 49, 52, and 53. 

17  See, e.g., Rick Rozoff, "Bases, Missiles, Wars: U.S. Consolidates Global Military Network," Stop NATO, January 26, 2010; Rick Rozoff, "U.S. Tightens Missile Shield Encirclement of China and Russia," Stop NATO, March 4, 2010; and Rick Rozoff, "Rasmussen in Poland: Expeditionary NATO, Missile Shield and Nuclear Weapons," Stop NATO, March 14, 2010.

18 Annual Report 2008 (GC(53)/7), IAEA, 2009; see Table A23, "Facilities under Agency Safeguards or Containing Safeguarded Material on 31 December 2008," here pp. 18-33.

19  See "Statements by Obama, Brown and Sarkozy," New York Times, September 26, 2009.

20  UN Security Council Resolution 687 (S/RES/687 (April 3, 1991), Sect. C, para. 7-14) created the UN Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM), and empowered both UNSCOM and the IAEA to destroy Iraq's chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs, as well as Iraq's ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 k.

21  We'd like to thank the IAEA's Press Office for providing us with these figures.

22  See Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement...in the Islamic Republic of Iran (GOV/2010/10), IAEA, February 18, 2010, para. 46.

23  See Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement . . . in the Islamic Republic of Iran (GOV/209/74), IAEA, November 16, 2009, para. 36.

24  See GOV/2010/10, para. 46.

25 "Remarks by Ambassador Susan E. Rice . . . on Iran and the 1737 Committee ,"United States Mission to the United Nations, New York, USA, March 4, 2010.

26  UN Security Council Resolution 1284 (S/RES/1284 (December 17, 1999)) created the UN Monitoring, Verification, and Inspections Commission (UNMOVIC), and empowered it to ensure Iraq's continued compliance with Resolution 687.  (See n. 20, above.)

27  For a brief narrative of the 2009 U.S. electoral scam in Afghanistan (though the author does not use such terminology), see Kenneth Katzman, Afghanistan: Politics, Elections, and Government Performance, Congressional Research Service, January 11, 2010, pp. 22-25.  As Katzman describes it: "The various pre-runoff scenarios were mooted on November 1, 2009, when Dr. [Abdullah] Abdullah, addressing hundreds of supporters at Kabul University, said he would not compete in the runoff. . . .  On November 2, 2009, the [Independent Electoral Commission] issued a statement saying that, by consensus, the body had determined that [Hamid] Karzai, being the only candidate remaining in a two-person runoff, should be declared the winner and the second round not held.  The United States, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon (visiting Kabul), and several governments congratulated Karzai on the victory.  U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Clinton, praised Dr. Abdullah for his relatively moderate speech announcing his pullout, in particular his refusal to call for demonstrations or violence by his supporters, and called on him to remain involved in Afghan politics.  Dr. Abdullah denied that his pullout was part of any 'deal' with Karzai for a role for his supporters in the next government.  Amid U.S. and international calls for Karzai to choose his next cabinet based on competence, merit, and dedication to curbing corruption, Karzai was inaugurated on November 19, 2009, with Secretary of State Clinton in attendance" (p. 24).

28  This point also holds true on the Left (in the States and elsewhere), which focused indignantly on Iran in 2009, but at the same time virtually ignored Honduras, and failed to reject the "demonstration elections" in Afghanistan and Iraq on the elementary grounds that genuinely free elections cannot be held under conditions of foreign military occupation.  (See Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, "Riding the 'Green Wave' at the Campaign for Peace and Democracy and Beyond," MRZine,  July 24, 2009.)

29  On Iran's June 12, 2009 presidential election, and the probability that, even if some fraud did occur, the official results were valid, see: Results of a New Nationwide Public Opinion Survey of Iran before the June 12, 2009 Presidential Elections, (May 11 - 20), Terror Free Tomorrow, Center for Public Opinion, and New America Foundation, June, 2009;  Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty, "The Iranian People Speak," Washington Post, June 15, 2009;  Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann-Leverett, "Ahmadinejad Won. Get Over It," New America Foundation, June 15, 2009; Reza Esfandiari and Yousef Bozorgmehr, A Rejoinder to the Chatham House Report on Iran's 2009 Presidential Election Offering a New Analysis on the Results (Self-Published PDF), Summer, 2009; Steven Kull, "Is Iran Pre-revolutionary?" openDemocracy.net, November 23, 2009;  Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann-Leverett, "Another Iranian Revolution?  Not Likely," New York Times, January 5, 2010; Steven Kull et al., An Analysis of Multiple Polls of the Iranian Public, PIPA - WPO.org, February 3, 2010 (and the accompanying Press Release); Alvin Richman, Post-Election Crackdown in Iran Has Had Limited Impact on the Minority Expressing Strong Opposition to the Regime, PIPA - WPO.org, February 18, 2010; Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, "Chutzpah, Inc.: 'The Brave People of Iran' (versus the Disappeared People of Palestine, Honduras, Afghanistan, Etc.)," MRZine, February 20, 2010; and, last, Eric A. Brill, Did Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Steal the 2009 Iran Election?, Unpublished Manuscript, 2010.

30  Factiva database searches carried out under the "Wire" (twir) and "Newspapers: All" (tnwp) categories, and separately under the New York Times (nytf), on March 8, 2010, for the seven-year period January 1, 2003 through December 31, 2009.  The exact search parameters are described below.  We used the database-limiter not to exclude from our reported totals all items that also mentioned any one or more of the other search terms.

1a. rst=(twir or tnwp) and (international atomic energy agency or iaea) and (Egypt and nuclear) not (India or Iran or Iraq or Israel or North Korea or South Korea or Libya or Pakistan or Syria):  245
1b. rst=nytf and (international atomic energy agency or iaea) and (Egypt and nuclear) not (India or Iran or Iraq or Israel or North Korea or South Korea or Libya or Pakistan or Syria): 1  
2a. rst=(twir or tnwp) and (international atomic energy agency or iaea) and (India and nuclear) not (Egypt or Iran or Iraq or Israel or North Korea or South Korea or Libya or Pakistan or Syria):  6,273
2b. rst=nytf and (international atomic energy agency or iaea) and (India and nuclear) not (Egypt or Iran or Iraq or Israel or North Korea or South Korea or Libya or Pakistan or Syria):  14
3a. rst=(twir or tnwp) and (international atomic energy agency or iaea) and (Iran and nuclear) not (Egypt or India or Iraq or Israel or North Korea or South Korea or Libya or Pakistan or Syria):  36,778
3b. rst=nytf and (international atomic energy agency or iaea) and (Iran and nuclear) not (Egypt or India or Iraq or Israel or North Korea or South Korea or Libya or Pakistan or Syria): 276
4a. rst=(twir or tnwp) and (international atomic energy agency or iaea) and (Iraq and nuclear) not (Egypt or India or Iran or Israel or North Korea or South Korea or Libya or Pakistan or Syria):  4,265
4b. rst=nytf and (international atomic energy agency or iaea) and (Iraq and nuclear) not (Egypt or India or Iran or Israel or North Korea or South Korea or Libya or Pakistan or Syria):  72
5a. rst=(twir or tnwp) and (international atomic energy agency or iaea) and (Israel and nuclear) not (Egypt or India or Iran or Iraq or North Korea or South Korea or Libya or Pakistan or Syria):  323
5b. rst=nytf and (international atomic energy agency or iaea) and (Israel and nuclear) not (Egypt or India or Iran or Iraq or North Korea or South Korea or Libya or Pakistan or Syria):  3 
6a. rst=(twir or tnwp) and (international atomic energy agency or iaea) and (North Korea and nuclear) not (Egypt or India or Iran or Iraq or Israel or South Korea or Libya or Pakistan or Syria):  4,008
6b. rst=nytf and (international atomic energy agency or iaea) and (North Korea and nuclear) not (Egypt or India or Iran or Iraq or Israel or South Korea or Libya or Pakistan or Syria):  13  
7a. rst=(twir or tnwp) and (international atomic energy agency or iaea) and (South Korea and nuclear) not (Egypt or India or Iran or Iraq or Israel or North Korea or Libya or Pakistan or Syria):  775
7b. rst=nytf and (international atomic energy agency or iaea) and (South Korea and nuclear) not (Egypt or India or Iran or Iraq or Israel or North Korea or Libya or Pakistan or Syria):  0
8a. rst=(twir or tnwp) and (international atomic energy agency or iaea) and (Libya and nuclear) not (Egypt or India or Iran or Iraq or Israel or North Korea or South Korea or Pakistan or Syria):  632
8b. rst=nytf and (international atomic energy agency or iaea) and (Libya and nuclear) not (Egypt or India or Iran or Iraq or Israel or North Korea or South Korea or Pakistan or Syria):  8
9a. rst=(twir or tnwp) and (international atomic energy agency or iaea) and (Pakistan and nuclear) not (Egypt or India or Iran or Iraq or Israel or North Korea or South Korea or Libya or Syria):  626
9b. rst=nytf and (international atomic energy agency or iaea) and (Pakistan and nuclear) not (Egypt or India or Iran or Iraq or Israel or North Korea or South Korea or Libya or Syria):  0 
10a. rst=(twir or tnwp) and (international atomic energy agency or iaea) and (Syria and nuclear) not (Egypt or India or Iran or Iraq or Israel or North Korea or South Korea or Libya or Pakistan):  106
10b. rst=nytf and (international atomic energy agency or iaea) and (Syria and nuclear) not (Egypt or India or Iran or Iraq or Israel or North Korea or South Korea or Libya or Pakistan):  4 

31  David E. Sanger and William J. Broad, "Inspectors Say Iran Worked on Warhead," New York Times, February 19, 2010.

32  See Michael R. Gordon and Judith Miller, "U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest for A-Bomb Parts," New York Times, September 8, 2002; and Sidney Gruson, "How Communists Won Control of Guatemala," New York Times, March 1, 1953.

33  See GOV/2010/10, para. 41 and para. 42.

34  See Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement . . . in the Islamic Republic of Iran (GOV/2008/4), February 22, 2008, para. 54.

35  See Peter Casey, "Read the IAEA Reports on Iran," AntiWar.com, March 1, 2010.  Also see Robert Parry, "U.S. Media Replays Iraq Fiasco on Iran," ConsortiumNews.com, February 18, 2010; Ray McGovern, "New Grist for Hype on Iran," ConsortiumNews.com, February 21, 2010;  Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, "IAEA Douses Furor over Iran Report," Asia Times Online, February 24, 2010; and Paul McGeough, "Mutually Assured Destruction," Sydney Morning Herald, March 6, 2010.

36  For examples of wire-service and print-media reports that singled-out the phrase "nuclear payload for a missile" (or that paraphrased something very close to it without quoting it) during the first 48 hours after the IAEA's February 18 report on Iran was completed, see: Simon Morgan, "IAEA 'Concerned' Iran Working on Nuclear Weapon," Agence France Presse, February 18, 2010; George Jahn, "UN Nuke Agency Worried Iran May be Working on Arms," Associated Press, February 18, 2010; "Iran Nuclear Missile Fear Raised by UN Report," BBC News, February 18, 2010; Warren P. Strobel, "Iran May Be Seeking Nuclear Warhead, U.N. Watchdog Says," McClatchy Newspapers, February 18, 2010; Peter Greir, "Inspectors: Iran Possibly Working on Nuke. What's the Evidence?" Christian Science Monitor, February 19, 2010; Anna Fifield and Daniel Dombey, "US Uses Iran Nuclear Report to Push Case for Sanctions," Financial Times, February 19, 2010; Julian Borger, "Iran Could Be Building a Warhead, Says UN Inspector," The Guardian, February 19, 2010; David Usborne, "Iran May Be Closer than We Think to Having Nuclear Missiles, Says UN," The Independent, February 19, 2010; Borzou Daragahi and Julia Damianova, "U.N. Nuclear Agency Expresses Concern on Iran," Los Angeles Times, February 19, 2010;  David E. Sanger and William J. Broad, "Inspectors Say Iran Worked on Warhead," New York Times, February 19, 2010; Mark Heinrich, "New Chief Amano Gives UN Watchdog More Bite on Iran," Reuters, February 19, 2010; David Crawford and Jonathan Weisman, "IAEA Suspects Iran Seeks Nuclear Arms," Wall Street Journal, February 19, 2010; Joby Warrick and Scott Wilson, "Iran Might Be Seeking to Develop Nuclear Weapons Capability, Inspectors Say," Washington Post, February 19, 2010; "IAEA Report Highlights More Cause for Iranian Sanctions: U.S. Envoy," Xinhua News Agency, February 19, 2010; Simon Mann, "Watchdog's Report Bolsters Iran's Nuclear Critics," The Age, February 20, 2010;  Catherine Philp, "Russia Hints It Will Back New Calls for Iran Sanctions," The Times, February 20, 2010; and Paul Koring, "UN Watchdog Raises Stakes in Showdown with Iran," Toronto Globe and Mail, February 20, 2010.

37  For an earlier example of reporting anonymous leaks to the New York Times and Times of London about the "Possible Military Dimensions of Iran's Nuclear Program" alleged to be contained in an unpublished "Secret Annex" to a series of IAEA reports, see, e.g., William J. Broad and David E. Sanger, "Report Says Iran Has Data to Make Bomb," New York Times, October 4, 2009; and Catherine Philp and Giles Whittell, "Iran Could Make an Atomic Bomb, according to UN Report's 'Secret Annex'," The Times, October 5, 2009.

38  See "Draft Memorandum to President Truman" in Diplomatic Papers, 1945: The Near East and Africa, p. 45, Vol. VIII, Foreign Relations of the United States, U.S. Department of State, University of Wisconsin Digital Collections (Homepage).

39  As the Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair told the U.S. Congress in early February: "We continue to assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons . . . should it choose to do so.  We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons. . . .  We continue to judge Iran's nuclear decisionmaking is guided by a cost-benefit approach, which offers the international community opportunities to influence Tehran.  Iranian leaders undoubtedly consider Iran's security, prestige and influence, as well as the international political and security environment, when making decisions about its nuclear program.  That is as far as I can go in discussing Iran's nuclear program at the unclassified level" (see Dennis C. Blair, Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, Text of Prepared Unclassified Testimony before the U.S. Senate and House Committees on Intelligence, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, February 2-3, 2010, pp. 13-14.  Also see the National Intelligence Estimate, Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, November 2007).

40  See, e.g., Farhad Pouladi, "Supreme Leader Denies Iran Wants Atomic Weapons," Agence France Presse, February 19, 2010.  This report quotes Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as saying: "Recently some Western and US officials have been repeating some outdated and nonsensical comments that Iran is seeking to build nuclear weapons.  Iran will not get emotional in responding to these nonsensical comments, since our religious beliefs are against the use of such weapons.  We in no way believe in an atomic weapon and do not seek one."

Edward S. Herman is professor emeritus of finance at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and has written extensively on economics, political economy, and the media. Among his books are Corporate Control, Corporate Power (Cambridge University Press, 1981), The Real Terror Network (South End Press, 1982), and, with Noam Chomsky, The Political Economy of Human Rights (South End Press, 1979), and Manufacturing Consent (Pantheon, 2002).  David Peterson is an independent journalist and researcher based in Chicago.

counterpunch.com

May 12, 2009

By GARY LEUPP

T here is clearly a faction of the power elite that is, and has for some years been pressing, for a U.S. military attack on Iran. It is not advocating a war, at least openly, or an occupation of that vast nation; rather, it is advocating an operation similar in concept to the Israeli attack on Iraq’s French-built Osiraq nuclear reactor in 1981. In a word, it is both advocating an Israeli-like action and justifying it explicitly as one on behalf of Israel.

That Israeli raid on the Iraqi reactor in 1981, justified at the time by Tel Aviv as an act of “preemptive self-defense,” was condemned by the entire world as an egregious violation of international law. President Ronald Reagan directed the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations to vote with other members of the Security Council to condemn the attack. It is a measure of the Israelification of U.S. foreign policy that a quarter-century later Vice President Cheney and the neconservatives who used his office as their general headquarters praised this action and raised preemption to the status of a sacred U.S. military doctrine. What was the attack on Iraq in 2003, to eliminate its (imaginary) weapons of mass destruction, but a preemptive Osiraq raid on crack?

George Bush declared that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction threatening its neighbors, requiring U.S. action (despite lack of UN approval). Iran and Kuwait, recent victims of real Iraqi aggression, stated that they did not feel threatened. Neither did any other bordering state. That left, by implication, Israel. But Israel was not much discussed as an issue during the massive propaganda build-up to the Iraq War. The last thing its proponents wanted was to convey the impression that this was a war for Israel, although that was in fact the only country in the world where the war enjoyed any popularity outside the U.S. (It was, as Joe Klein put it in a 2003 column, “the casus belli that dare not speak its name.”)

With Iran, it’s very different. Those advocating the attack on Iran don’t mince words: the U.S. must , they tell us, use its armed might to destroy Iran’s nuclear program for Israel. For years now they’ve been telling us that Iran is months away from the bomb and that therefore Israel hovers on the edge of the abyss. Oh, the issue of Iranian nukes threatening Europe is also used to justify the construction of the Polish missile base and Czech tracking radar system which many mainstream analysts find at best strategically futile and diplomatically provocative to Russia. No one in Europe takes an Iranian nuclear threat seriously. And the U.S. rhetoric about those facilities last year following the Russian invasion of Georgia (following the Georgian attack upon South Ossetia), exposed their real purpose.

But to the Chicken Littles crying that the sky is falling, Iran’s nuclear program is an existential issue for Israel, hence for the Jewish people. There is a certain intransigent reasoning here and manifest desperation. One saw it in the screeching editorials of Norman Podhoretz in 2007 praying for Bush to bomb Iran to prevent a “nuclear holocaust.” One saw it in the Wall Street Journal op-ed piece by neocon Iran expert and Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute Michael Ledeen, “Iran and the Problem of Evil” in June 2008 linking the entire history of anti-Semitism culminating in its European fascist varieties with Iranian Khomeinists and the Saudi Wahhabis. And one sees this craziness too in the ceaseless barrage of AIPAC-backed congressional resolutions targeting Iran.

The call for an attack on Iran, to the extent it is being voiced in the ruling class, is being most sharply framed by neocon columnists including some who recently served in the Bush administration. It is echoed by AIPAC and other Lobby organizations. In a just world the former would be completely disgraced by now, their lies about Iraq having been fully exposed, and the latter would be shamed into silence by the Israeli espionage scandal. But now that the Justice Department has dismissed the AIPAC spying charges filed in 2005, the Lobby and neocons are proclaiming the decision as a “vindication” of the activities of Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman (passing U.S. documents pertaining to Iran to Israeli Embassy staff). An emboldened Jane Harman addressing AIPAC can made light of her wiretapped conversation with the “Israeli agent” revealed by Jeff Stein of the Congressional Quarterly. (You know, the guy who offered AIPAC money to buy her the chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee in return for getting Rosen and Weissman off the hook.)

The message of the AIPAC spy case dismissal seems to be: the foreign policies of these two countries are one , or if not so, the desire of the smaller to determine that of the greater is understandable and legitimate (since its very existence is at stake). There is really no such thing as “spying” or “treason” in this relationship. We’re all family, for God’s sakes! AIPAC emerges as strong as ever with half of Congress dutifully attending its convention.

That message rankles many in the Justice Department, including prosecutors who thought they had a cut and dried case against the AIPAC operatives. And I’d think there are many in the “intelligence community”---the professionals who use their research skills to prepare such reports as the November 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that stated “with a high degree of confidence” that Iran did not have an operative nuclear weapons program---who are galled by apparent Israeli influence on their work. They must be irked their findings can be ignored by higher-ups who tell them, “No, you don’t understand; Iran threatens Israel with nuclear holocaust.” They are, in effect, being told that Israeli policy requires the circulation of false propaganda concerning Iran’s nuclear program, and that Washington is going to cooperate in that propaganda, ignoring its own intelligence.

That’s the message George Bush conveyed to his own intelligence services when, after the NIE was released (having been delayed a year by the intervention of Cheney’s office), he met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and told him the document didn’t “reflect his own views” about the Iranian nuclear program. (As though a man challenged to pronounce “nuclear” has “views” about Iran’s nuclear program of comparable sophistication to the heads of the Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, etc.!) What better manifestation of the division within the ruling class than this division between a president, fed bogus intelligence by neocon advisors with a Southwest Asia regime-change agenda, and his own intelligence agencies?

There is a section, a rather larger section, of the ruling class that doesn’t buy the alarmist depiction of Iran, and doesn’t see the point of a U.S. attack. Certainly they don’t see Iran’s nuclear program as an existential threat to themselves. Indeed, the blowback potential of such an attack is obvious to all with eyes to see, conscious of the existing increasingly problematic consequences of the U.S. alliance with Israel, and not blinded by paranoia. Maybe I’m projecting, but allotting some common sense to these people I’m assuming they realize there’s no way that public opinion in Europe, or in Latin America, Japan, China, South Asia, would see an Iran attack as anything other than an insanely immoral deployment of the preemption principle that underlay the Iraq attack. They’d see it as a ratcheting up of the bullying tactics that an hyper-puissance ---in precipitous decline, maybe---felt compelled to adopt. Obama’s reputation would be toast.

There’s no way the 67 million Iranian people, most of whom view the nuclear program as an object of national pride, would understand a U.S. attack as anything other than a savage assault on the Iranian nation, and not the first by the U.S. As all Americans should know, the CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953 to punish it for its efforts to nationalize the nation’s oil industry. It installed the Shah whose vicious rule provoked the most mass-based revolution ever to sweep an Islamic society in 1979.

But we must understand, a neocon like Ledeen (whom by the way an Italian parliamentary investigation has linked to the Niger uranium documents forgeries behind Bush’s infamous State of the Union speech claim) sees the CIA overthrow of Mossadegh as a great moment in history, a great CIA success story. And he emphasizes that no people in the Middle East love Americans more than Iranians and are more eager to be freed!

This kind of delusion recalls neocon predictions the U.S. troops would be greeted in the streets of Baghdad with flowers. It also recalls what the unnamed White House official told New York Times columnist Ron Suskind in the months leading up to the war based on lies in Iraq. He berated Suskind for being rooted in the “reality-based community,” among those who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” The Bush insider warned against such belief, dismissing it as naïve: “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he declared. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality, we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” The Bush administration is gone, but that (Straussian?) mindset persists in some quarters.

Those who don’t buy the alarmist case against Iran may be becoming increasingly concerned over time about the success of the attack-advocates in advancing their cause; indeed, the frontal attacks on the Israel Lobby from academics like John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt and former President Jimmy Carter--- unthinkable just a few years ago---testify to such concern. (On the Lobby and Iran, see especially pages 283-294 of the Mearsheimer-Walt book.)
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Similarly the analyses of the “neoconservative” phenomenon, both as an intellectual movement that influences elite public opinion through such organs as the National Review and the Weekly Standard and editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal and as a self-proclaimed “cabal” within government, have come under scrutiny especially since 2003 when journalists like Seymour Hersh, Jeet Heer and William Pfaff all indicated concern with a genuine threat. These days a well-known Jewish columnist, Time Magazine ’s Joe Klein, in an exchange with Abraham Foxman notes a “dangerous tendency among Jewish neoconservatives to encourage a pre-emptive attack on Iran’s nuclear program. Their gleeful, intellectual warmongering—given the vast dangers and complexities of an attack on Iran--is nauseating.” (He wrote this in response to Foxman’s allegation that his critique of the influence of neoconservatism in producing the Iraq War constituted “anti-Semitism.”)

The neocons are sometimes described as an intellectual movement influenced by University of Chicago philosopher Leo Strauss as well as (in a curious way) Trotskyism, the principle proponents of which are almost entirely secular Jews and passionate Zionists. They argue that the U.S. should use its military power to bring “democracy” to the world and so many see them as neo-Wilsonians (with all the shoddy cynicism the originals represented). But Strauss, as leading authority on his thought Shadia Drury points out, argues that deception is the norm in political life, that the big lie is necessary to get the masses to embrace wise policy. (Thus the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq really have nothing to do with “democracy” but with unspoken geopolitical objectives.) The neocons have yet to be sufficientlyexposed, or defeated as a political force, but they’ve come under scrutiny in part because of the alarm some in the power structure feel at their rise to power in the early Bush years.

In Bush’s first State of the Union address, in January 2002, he made the reference to the “Axis of Evil,” bizarrely linking Iraq, Iran and North Korea to one another and---in that surreal atmosphere, in the minds of his audience, as the U.S. flag fluttered in the background of every TV screen 24/7---to 9/11. He somehow, when he held the respect of 90% of the people (when he served as what the Straussian would call the “gentleman” ruler manipulated in the background by the “wise”), was able to conflate the rogue Saudis who destroyed the Twin Towers and attacked the Pentagon with absolutely unrelated phenomena---the countries of Iraq, Iran and North Korea, which had little to do with or even hostile relations with one another. Who was responsible for this preposterous phrase but neocon David Frum, associate of neocon Richard Perle, head of the Defense Policy Board who was to insist that Mohamed Atta met Saddam Hussein in Baghdad?

That phrase “Axis of Evil”---placing Iran in the same crosshairs as Iraq---drew consternation from European allies. Asked at a security conference in February what it meant , Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, the top-ranking neocon in government, replied mysteriously, “You’re either for us or against us,” prompting continental editorialists to muse darkly about the descent of a kind of Manichaenism upon the post 9/11 U.S. Here in this country while (following, one might say, the Straussian game plan) fear fed gullibility and the Big Lie generally worked well, many in the intelligentsia (and academia in particular) suspected that the Iraq War was based on calculated deception. Whether it was the lies of Big Oil or the Military-Industrial Complex, clearly there were lies here. It was only after Iraq was firmly under U.S. occupation that the role of the neocons in the war preparations, and of Douglas Feith’s “Office of Special Plans” (what Mother Jones appropriately called the “Lie Factory”) in particular, became clear. (Most people still don’t know that Leo Shulsky, who headed the OSP under Feith, wrote this interesting paper “Leo Strauss and the World of Intelligence” with Gary J. Schmitt earlier in his career.)

Since then many have come to think that in their desire to reconfigure Southwest Asia in what they suppose to be the interests of Israel the neocons are (1) prepared to lie through their teeth, and (2) threaten to severely jeopardize U.S. security.

My own critique of the neocons, the Lobby and Israel differs from the mainstream ones, coming as it does from a left anti-imperialist perspective. I’ve made as much a fuss as anyone about the neocons’ lies, by way of exposure. (My first forays out of academic writing into political column writing were to perform the sort of exposure which was not entirely absent in the mainstream press---in fact it was there in bits and pieces for those who looked for it---but seldom sharply expressed.) But liars are of course representative of bourgeois politics and mainstream journalism in general; lying is quite normative and so it, even of a Straussian variety, is not the main issue here.

Nor is “U.S. national security” as mainstream analysts understand it---the security of an imperialist country, a country which is as about as aggressive as a country can possibly be in the history of the world---the issue for me. For me the issue is that this faction of the power elite has a known project---there’s no secret about it---to transform (or in their cynical euphemism “bring democracy to”) what they call “the Greater Middle East.” This includes Afghanistan and whatever other parts of Central Asia they find useful. Various benefits accrue from their project, which they link to such ruling-class objectives as the Indian Ocean-Caspian oil pipeline project and the establishment of permanent military bases in the region. And they are prepared to slaughter hundreds of thousands to achieve their aims.

A conception of Israeli security guides their project, and central to it was the bloody conquest of Iraq. But this is only the beginning of the project. Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser (who also worked in the OSP), and Meyrav Wurmser (of the Middle East Media Research Institute) all participated in the drafting of a white paper for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996 entitled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.” http://www.iasps.org/strat1.htm Many have observed how it envisions “regime change” throughout the region to “secure the realm” of Israel. The “effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq,” according to the report, “—an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right.”

Those bearing responsibility for the Iraq War, for the propaganda campaign leading up to it, for the editorials, for the disinformation, for the forged documents, for the coordinated public statements (“We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud over New York”), for the war---bear a heavy responsibility indeed. They are not limited to the neocons; as many have pointed out, Wolfowitz would be nothing without Rumsfeld, Libby would be nothing without Cheney, the Lie Factory products nothing without the performance of shame of Colin Powell at United Nations in February 2003. And Bush as Commander-in-Chief is ultimately responsible. But the neocons were unquestionably central players in the crime.

The neocons have generated enemies and lost credibility. But they’ve successfully eluded responsibility for their actions and continue to appear as respectable commentators on Fox News (if that’s not an oxymoron) and write columns for reputable publications. (Bill Kristol was just recently terminated as a New York Times columnist but was picked up by the Washington Post .) They are not without a lingering presence in the halls of power. Dennis Ross, Hillary Clinton’s Special Advisor on the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia (i.e., key advisor on Iran), also known as “Israel’s lawyer” for his efforts on behalf of the Jewish state as a U.S. diplomat during Israeli-Palestinian talks in 1999-2000), is probably the key such figure at present and a person to watch. He co-authored an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal Sept. 22, 2008 with Richard Holbrooke, R. James Woolsey, and Mark D. Wallace entitled, “Everybody Needs to Worry About Iran.” It stated without evidence that, “Iran is now edging closer to being armed with nuclear weapons, and it continues to develop a ballistic-missile capability.” In other words it was intended to make you worry and make you forget about the 2007 NIE.

(Former CIA boss Woolsey by the way seems a big enthusiast of the Noble Lie concept, having originally promoted the lie about the meeting between Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi embassy official in Prague and praised the disinformation articles about Saddam-al-Qaeda ties published by Jeffrey Goldberg in the New Yorker in 2002. He claimed that by showing that the Kurdish al-Ansar group was al-Qaeda affiliated and operating on Iraqi territory, Goldberg had decisively established Saddam’s al-Qaeda ties and put the CIA to shame.)

Ross is known to favor a policy of ultimatums to Iran followed by a naval blockade to prevent gasoline imports, then a blockade of oil exports, then massive air strikes on the nuclear facilities and military facilities. The goal would be not only the crippling of the nuclear program for a few years but the destruction of the military and regime. His may be a minority view within the administration, and his appointment even a sop to the Lobby, but he is dangerous.

The ruling class is clearly divided over how to deal with Iran, with the rise of Iran that has paradoxically accompanied the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Maybe this precipitous ascent occurred as a result of the cluelessness of neocon policymakers, few of whom understand Arabic or Persian or Middle East culture and history behind that of Israel. Maybe they genuinely didn’t understand the historical specificities of Shiism or the strength of Shiite solidarity. But by toppling the Sunni-based Baathists (whom the CIA had once favored as an alternative to communists or Islamists), the U.S. brought pro-Iranian Shiite Islamists to power---to Tehran’s great delight.

Meanwhile China, replacing Japan as Iran’s main oil customer, signs more and more contracts for pipeline construction and Russia continues work on the Bushehr nuclear reactor. The Russians and Iranians say that that reactor is for entirely peaceful purposes, and the IAEA backs them up, while the Israelis insist that it (like Osiraq 28 years ago), ought to be bombed---by the U.S., preferably. But the fact that that hasn’t happened yet, and that indeed the Bush administration denied the Israelis bunker-busting bombs in 2008, shows that the “bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” faction of the U.S. ruling class has been on the defensive if not decline for some time now.

I’m not saying the U.S. ruling class is fundamentally divided into factions that are divided over Israel or an Israeli security agenda, more deeply than it is divided, say, about how to grapple with the collapse of the economy. Nor am I suggesting that the struggle between these factions is the only dynamic shaping Middle East policy or foreign policy generally. Foreign policy is generally shaped by its framers’ perception of what serves the interests of the ruling class as a whole, which is to say, what generates maximum profit for corporations in which U.S. capitalists are invested. It’s not unusual for the interests of the oil companies, for example, to diverge from the interests of Israel as promoted by the Lobby, although they can also converge. But there is a faction in the U.S. polity whose commitment to Israel, or to a particular vision of Israel’s security, seems to trump all other considerations including the broader “global interests” of U.S. imperialism. It is an understatement to say that during the George W. Bush years that faction was extraordinarily bold.

The general consensus in the ruling class seems to be at present that its needs are best served by this popular president as a uniting figure with a centrist politics that can distance the country from the Bush policies abhorred by the world and the American people while avoiding any major shifts in foreign policy. Thus we have plans for a gradual withdrawal from Iraq in accordance with the agreement already worked out by the Bush and Maliki regimes; a continued counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan that isn’t yet too controversial; continued Predator drone attacks on Pakistan, etc. The plan is to stay the course on the Bush foreign policy that meets with the approval of the generals. There may be some significant shifts from the preceding administration in U.S. policy towards Latin America and Europe, Russia. On Iran we have renewed diplomacy, and perhaps even the vital concession that Iran indeed has the right under the NPT to enrich uranium and master the nuclear cycle despite some technical violations of the agreement years ago which the U.S. has used to vilify Iran but have nothing to do with Iran as a nuclear weapons threat. In this context we might be seeing the twilight of the neocons as a political force.

But it is important to note the obvious, without being overly delicate about it: the government of Israel, its friends and advocates in the U.S., the neocons and the Lobby retain enormous political power to affect the course of policy. When AIPAC met last week, more than half the members of the House and Senate attended its gala Monday night dinner, featuring the “roll call” when all the legislators rise when asked to demonstrate the lobbyists’ clout on Capitol Hill. Their willingness to take part in such a ritual under current circumstances is itself an extraordinary statement of Lobby power.

But this takes place at a time when the Obama administration is rumored to be heading for a confrontation with the new Netanyahu administration in Israel over the fundamental problem in the Middle East: the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories seized during the (preemptive) war of June 1967. By his selection of former Senator George Mitchell as special envoy to the Middle East Obama signaled that the U.S. would start getting serious about obliging Israel to comply with international law. This provoked an outcry from those worried about a shift from the Bush policy of ignoring the expansion of illegal Jewish settlements on the West Bank, Golan Heights and Shebaa Farms.

“Senator Mitchell is fair,” complained Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. “He’s been meticulously even-handed. But the fact is, American policy in the Middle East hasn’t been ‘even handed’ — it has been supportive of Israel when it felt Israel needed critical U.S. support. So I’m concerned. I’m not sure the situation requires that kind of approach in the Middle East.”

Obama however may be quite sure that after eight years of slavishly, unprecedentedly pro-Israeli policy the U.S. needs to try to establish some credibility as a rational if not dispassionate party in the Middle East. That means telling the Israelis they have to make peace with the Palestinians, stop settling their land and leave the illegal settlements they’ve established.

What he’s likely to be told is what Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s new foreign minister (whom many Israeli’s consider a “fascist” for his views on Palestinians, a particularly harsh designation in the Jewish state) told the Jerusalem Post in a recent interview. He complained that “People try to simplify the situation with these formulas — land-for peace, two-state solution — it’s a lot more complicated.” The real problem, he declared, “is not occupation, not settlements and not settlers. The biggest obstacle is the Iranians .”

Lieberman has also surprised many lately by stating that Israel after years of threats would not attack Iran after all. On April 26 he told the Austrian Kleine Zeitung, “We are not talking about a military attack. Israel cannot resolve militarily the entire world’s problem. I propose that the United States, as the largest power in the world, take responsibility for resolving the Iranian question.” In other words, he’s leaving it to the U.S. to solve the problem of Iran as the precondition for Israel addressing the problem of peace with the Palestinians.

Meanwhile we read of another Israeli Air Force refueling drill between Israel and Gibraltar, a 3,800 km flight the first week of May. This could be preparatory for an attack on Iran or designed to signal the U.S.: “We’re serious. You do this for us, or we’ll do it ourselves. Either way, you’ll take the consequences with us, as your Vice President Cheney noted in January 2005 when he said, ‘the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards.’ So understanding our resolve, please do the right thing and do it instead of us!”

Because that really is the logic. And within the ruling circles of this imperialist country, where the interests of the masses don’t have much to do with decision-making, there are those who are terrified by this il logic. But then again you have the broad bipartisan support for AIPAC-drafted Congressional resolution 362 designed to provoke war with Iran. Your characteristic politician—shallow, amoral, pragmatic, ignorant of the world and of history but acutely sensitive to constituency issues, calculating, reliant on opportunistic arrogant staffers---can simultaneously understand that something doesn’t make sense and yet requires political support. (Just like he/she may have concluded in high school that there probably was no God but for campaign purposes has to have a religious affiliation.) How many politicians have so much as cited the NIE?

Where this is all going to go is anyone’s guess. There’s a meeting coming up between Obama and Netanyahu May 18 in Washington. The Israeli press is expressing some anxiety about the encounter since U.S. officials have made it clear the U.S. president will pressure Netanyahu on the settlements issue. Obama seems to want to say to the world that he’s serious about getting some justice for the Palestinians. He may believe he can do so at minimal political expense, and this could be a shrewd political device at this juncture given the deterioration of the U.S. position in the world. Following the global revulsion at the New Year’s Gaza blitzkrieg the U.S. can obtain political capital from a period of public tension with its de facto ally over the settlements.

In that likely context of tension, the calls for bombing Iran will continue, coming from Israel, from the neocon columnists, from the Lobby, maybe from some inside the State Department and Pentagon. The cooler heads in the power structure, including in the intelligence community fighting heroic rear-guard actions, will continue to say in various ways privately and publicly: “Look, this is stupid. Not only does Iran not constitute an ‘existential threat’ to the state of Israel, it doesn’t have a nuclear weapons program, period. That’s just not what the science says (not that these people care about science). That’s what some people want you to believe to scare you into supporting their criminal plot to attack a sovereign country, just like they did Iraq on the basis of lies.”

Again, I’m not saying this matter of attacking Iran is the most fundamental issue dividing the power elite at this time. Nor is it the main issue on the minds of the people. But it’s something a strongly determined faction in this country have successfully placed on the policy agenda. They owe a great debt to Dick Cheney who bearing no outward marks of Zionist sentimentality but merely Big Oil written all over his face while nurturing the neocons during two Bush terms in office constantly declared and gave pseudo-legitimacy to the argument that Iran could have a nuclear program for one reason only: nuclear weapons. (This despite the fact that successive U.S. administrations had promoted an Iranian civilian nuclear program in the ‘60s and ‘70s when the Shah was in power and the Ford administration was doing so when Cheney served as Ford’s chief of staff.)

Let’s now see what kind of clout this “bomb Iran” faction can muster vis-à-vis the reasonable people within the crisis-ridden U.S. ruling class. As pro-Taliban Islamists take power in much of Pakistan, the Taliban continues its revival in Afghanistan, and the policy of paying off the Sunni tribes in Iraq crumbles, U.S. imperialism confronts the limits of its power and has (so to speak) to rethink. “Time for some real apocalyptic savagery” think some, the crazy ones, who imagine using nukes against Iran. They know that there are tens of millions of Christian Zionists, including Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins readers, who’d be down for unprecedented fireworks tomorrow, no questions asked. These folks aren’t providing intellectual leadership to the movement; they’re just yearning for the End Times and that affects their judgment.

Others probably think this has to be the time for a show-down with the nuts. One faction in the power elite must be thinking: They cannot be allowed to get their Iran attack on the basis of fantasy. Whatever one thinks about the mullahs, or Ahmadinejad, or Islam---they can’t be allowed another war-based-on-lies.

People on the radical left should observe the efforts of this faction, encouraging it of course, but observing how the root problem is really the system which nurtures and validates nuts like Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, Bolton, and their media cheerleaders like Kristol and Podhoretz. But we should raise, if only for discussion the question: why is a system based indifferently on the pursuit of profit (which is what capitalist imperialism is all about) being asked to risk its health for this minor accretion to itself---the nuclear-powered settler-state of Israel--in a confrontation with Iran, a country that doesn’t even threaten the U.S. system (but actually in fact holds open broad investment opportunities with other imperialist countries are expoiting)?

What role do purely ideological factors play here? How do Zionism and, for some, biblical mythology about a Chosen People and a Promised Land intersect with and even outweigh other considerations such as “national security” in a conventional sense and most fundamentally, U.S. corporate profit?

In the collective mind of the U.S. ruling class, such questions are no doubt being posed, probably sometimes in wrong ways. Accused AIPAC spy Rosen now tells the Jerusalem Post his arrest was all due to anti-Semitism. There is such a thing as anti-Semitism, and a deep almost instinctual tendency to think in terms of ethnic stereotypes corrupts the American soul. The blogosphere abounds with commentaries that mix rational critique of U.S. policy with essentializing nonsense about the power of “the Jews” behind policy, without recognizing the diversity of Jewish opinion and the vital role of Christian Zionists with their belief in the End Times in enhancing Lobby strength.

But if the Lobby and the neocons step up their efforts to get the U.S. to bomb Iran on behalf of Israel (because make no mistake, that is exactly what is happening here), their opponents may respond in a way that produces a widespread campaign of criticism in society pertaining to Israeli influence and Lobby power such as we have not seen in this country. That would be a very good thing. The objects of scrutiny will likely however claim that they are victims of anti-Semitism, and some of this will be imaginary. But there is real anti-Semitism in this country, and there can be dangerously essentializing explanations and attributions that contribute to it.

This is the first time that a major U.S. foreign policy question has been posed very frankly as an Israeli security question , posed as such, it must be said, by the “bomb Iran” advocates themselves. If the debate heats up in the coming months, during which by everyone’s calculations Iran is reaching goals which it says are milestones in peaceful nuclear energy development and Israel says are unacceptable, many issues not typically central to U.S. political discourse may come up. The public debate won’t be about blood and oil, bases and pipelines.

It will be about whether Israel is really threatened by Iran, a nation that hasn’t attacked another in centuries. It will be about whether the Lobby, on behalf of a nuclear power exposed as such, can successfully make the case that Israel as a nuclear power is truly threatened by a country with three thousand centrifuges producing small test batches of low enriched uranium. It will be about whether conventional political discourse in this country (which has always in any case been conducted in code obscuring the raw class interests involved, always broadcast in a cynical language in which “democracy” means “capitalism” or at least U.S. imperialist interests), will be eclipsed for a time by a discourse in which “Islamofascism” and “nuclear holocaust” and other sensationalistic terms (ridiculous terms which the neocons got Bush to vocalize publicly) designed to stifle thought are at the center of public discussion.

And it may be in part about the usages of the anti-Semitism charge. It will be necessary to carefully follow and objectively analyze the “bomb Iran” faction, its struggle with its opponents, and its defenses from criticism in the months to come.

Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University, and Adjunct Professor of Religion. He is the author of Servants, Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan; Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan; and Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's merciless chronicle of the wars on Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, Imperial Crusades.

He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu

counterpunch.com

May 7, 2009

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

O n October 16, 2004, President George W. Bush signed the Israel Lobby’s bill, the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act. This legislation requires the US Department of State to monitor anti-semitism world wide.

To monitor anti-semitism, it has to be defined. What is the definition? Basically, as defined by the Israel Lobby and Abe Foxman, it boils down to any criticism of Israel or Jews.

Rahm Israel Emanuel hasn’t been mopping floors at the White House.
As soon as he gets the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 passed, it will become a crime for any American to tell the truth about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and theft of their lands.

It will be a crime for Christians to acknowledge the New Testament’s account of Jews demanding the crucifixion of Jesus.

It will be a crime to report the extraordinary influence of the Israel Lobby on the White House and Congress, such as the AIPAC-written resolutions praising Israel for its war crimes against the Palestinians in Gaza that were endorsed by 100 per cent of the US Senate and 99 per cent of the House of Representatives, while the rest of the world condemned Israel for its barbarity.

It will be a crime to doubt the Holocaust.

It will become a crime to note the disproportionate representation of Jews in the media, finance, and foreign policy.

In other words, it means the end of free speech, free inquiry, and the First Amendment to the Constitution. Any facts or truths that cast aspersion upon Israel will simply be banned.

Given the hubris of the US government, which leads Washington to apply US law to every country and organization, what will happen to the International Red Cross, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, and the various human rights organizations that have demanded investigations of Israel’s military assault on Gaza’s civilian population? Will they all be arrested for the hate crime of “excessive” criticism of Israel?

This is a serious question.

A recent UN report, which is yet to be released in its entirety, blames Israel for the deaths and injuries that occurred within the United Nations premises in Gaza. The Israeli government has responded by charging that the UN report is “tendentious, patently biased,” which puts the UN report into the State Department’s category of excessive criticism and strong anti-Israel sentiment.

Israel is getting away with its blatant use of the American government to silence its critics despite the fact that the Israeli press and Israeli soldiers have exposed the Israeli atrocities in Gaza and the premeditated murder of women and children urged upon the Israeli invaders by rabbis. These acts are clearly war crimes.

It was the Israeli press that published the pictures of the Israeli soldiers’ T-shirts that indicate that the willful murder of women and children is now the culture of the Israeli army. The T-shirts are horrific expressions of barbarity. For example, one shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a crosshairs over her stomach and the slogan, “One shot, two kills.” These T-shirts are an indication that Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians is one of extermination.

It has been true for years that the most potent criticism of Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinians comes from the Israeli press and Israeli peace groups. For example, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz and Jeff Halper of ICAHD have shown a moral conscience that apparently does not exist in the Western democracies where Israel’s crimes are covered up and even praised.

Will the American hate crime bill be applied to Haaretz and Jeff Halper? Will American commentators who say nothing themselves but simply report what Haaretz and Halper have said be arrested for “spreading hatred of Israel, an anti-semitic act”?

Many Americans have been brainwashed by the propaganda that Palestinians are terrorists who threaten innocent Israel. These Americans will see the censorship as merely part of the necessary war on terror. They will accept the demonization of fellow citizens who report unpalatable facts about Israel and agree that such people should be punished for aiding and abetting terrorists.

A massive push is underway to criminalize criticism of Israel. American university professors have fallen victim to the well organized attempt to eliminate all criticism of Israel. Norman Finkelstein was denied tenure at a Catholic university because of the power of the Israel Lobby. Now the Israel Lobby is after University of California (at Santa Barbara,) professor Wiliam Robinson. Robinson’s crime: his course on global affairs included some reading assignments critical of Israel’s invasion of Gaza.

The Israel Lobby apparently succeeded in convincing the Obama Justice (sic) Department that it is anti-semitic to accuse two Jewish AIPAC officials, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, of spying. The Israel Lobby succeeded in getting their trial delayed for four years, and now Attorney General Eric Holder has dropped charges. Yet, Larry Franklin, the DOD official accused of giving secret material to Rosen and Weissman, is serving 12 years and 7 months in prison.

The absurdity is extraordinary. The two Israeli agents are not guilty of receiving secrets, but the American official is guilty of giving secrets to them! If there is no spy in the story, how was Franklin convicted of giving secrets to a spy?

Criminalizing criticism of Israel destroys any hope of America having an independent foreign policy in the Middle East that serves American rather than Israeli interests. It eliminates any prospect of Americans escaping from their enculturation with Israeli propaganda.

To keep American minds captive, the Lobby is working to ban as anti-semitic any truth or disagreeable fact that pertains to Israel. It is permissible to criticize every other country in the world, but it is anti-semitic to criticize Israel, and anti-semitism will soon be a universal hate-crime in the Western world.

Most of Europe has already criminalized doubting the Holocaust. It is a crime even to confirm that it happened but to conclude that less than 6 million Jews were murdered.

Why is the Holocaust a subject that is off limits to examination? How could a case buttressed by hard facts possibly be endangered by kooks and anti-semitics? Surely the case doesn’t need to be protected by thought control.

Imprisoning people for doubts is the antithesis of modernity.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com