Neocons Don’t Believe Their Own Anti-Iran Propaganda by Sheldon Richman, December 7, 2011
We’re being lied to about the purported Iranian nuclear threat, and the war party knows it.
In ways eerily reminiscent of the 2002 buildup to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the American people are being fed a steady diet of war propaganda about Iran and its alleged quest for a nuclear weapon. As with Iraq’s president, Saddam Hussein, comparisons to Hitler circa 1938 abound. Max Boot, the neoconservative columnist, is just one of many propagandists working to agitate Americans into supporting a military attack on Iran. He wrote recently, .. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-boot-iran-20111201,0,6032838.story .. “After the failure to stop Hitler and Bin Laden, among others, Westerners were said to have suffered a ‘failure of imagination.’ We are suffering that same failure today as we fail to face up to the growing threat from the Islamic Republic.”
The message is unmistakable: Time is running out. Get Iran now before it’s too late.
But despite what Boot and his ilk would have us think, there is no evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon. The U.S. government’s dozen and a half intelligence agencies have twice said so. The latest International Atomic Energy Agency report recycled some old, discredited claims and fabricated “evidence” while nevertheless certifying that Iran has diverted none of its uranium to weapons production.
Yet those who are bent on war are undeterred. Republican president candidates (except for Ron Paul) try to outdo each other in their anti-Iran saber-rattling. Michele Bachmann has gone the furthest, recklessly peddling the falsehood that Iran’s president (who doesn’t control the military) has vowed to launch a nuclear attack on Israel and the United States as soon as a bomb is in hand. This is a lie.
An attack on Israel or the United States would be suicidal, and no one seriously thinks the ayatollahs seek the destruction of Persia. Moreover, Iran’s leadership has issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons.
Now we know that even the neocon vanguard doesn’t believe its own propaganda.
Occasionally, leading neoconservative intellectuals forget that the wider world is listening and say things that belie their own case for war. Take, for example, Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. In a recent video statement .. http://www.aei.org/events/2011/12/06/the-costs-of-containing-iran-more-than-the-us-is-bargaining-for/ .. Pletka said,
The biggest problem for the United States is not Iran getting a nuclear weapon and testing it, it’s Iran getting a nuclear weapon and not using it. Because the second that they have one and they don’t do anything bad, all of the naysayers are going to come back and say, “See, we told you Iran is a responsible power. We told you that Iran wasn’t getting nuclear weapons in order to use them immediately. …”
And they will eventually define Iran with nuclear weapons as not a problem.
Let that sink in: the biggest — biggest — problem with Iran’s acquiring a nuclear weapon is that it might not use it. Got that? And why would that be bad? Because “naysayers” (that is, people against war) would be able to point to Iran’s responsible conduct as proof that Iran is not irresponsible. Imagine that!
Pletka leaves the implication that the U.S. government should attack Iran, which would devastate that country and murder countless innocent people, in order to stop it from demonstrating that it is not a reckless, insane, and suicidal power in the Middle East. Has there ever been a worse reason to launch a war?
This is what passes for reason and logic among our “serious” foreign-policy thinkers in Washington. These are the same people who gave us Operation Iraqi Freedom, which killed or injured hundreds of thousands and created four million refugees.
But those who are prepared to sacrifice innocent Iranians to solve this “problem” aren’t mad. In their worldview, they are right to worry about Iran being perceived as a responsible power. Pletka’s colleague Thomas Donnelly spelled it out in The Weekly Standard: “We’re fixated on the Iranian nuclear program while the Tehran regime has its eyes on the real prize: the balance of power in the Persian Gulf and the greater Middle East.”
In other words, how dare a country located in the Middle East aspire to challenge the American empire’s dominance there!
Sheldon Richman is senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation in Fairfax, Va., author of Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State, and editor of The Freeman magazine. Visit his blog Free Association at www.sheldonrichman.com. Send him email.
That little twist is new to me. Neither of these take away at all from your expressed concern re the obstacles to Obama negotiating with Iran .. that's spot on .. and yours was a good article .. three wants and then focus on enlarging the Venn intersection .. a nice simple encapsulation .. i'll call it the Venn Intersection Enlargement Process (VIEP) for now ..
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You're right huge obstacles .. this one i'm a bit confused on .. the headline suggests , Philip Weiss, is saying Jewish neocons were not as pushy toward the Iraq war as other newocons .. and that that idea has not prevailed since .. am i reading that right? is he downplaying the influence of the Jewish neocons? Was that the situation?
Kampeas: Jewish neocons are more than 2 degrees removed from Bush’s decision to invade Iraq
by Philip Weiss on December 31, 2011
Yesterday I posted a question that I'd sent to Ron Kampeas of JTA: why is it that the Walt and Mearsheimer thesis, .. http://mondoweiss.net/2011/12/you-dont-write-you-dont-call-ron-kampeas-version.html .. that the Israel lobby played a crucial role in pushing the Iraq war, has become more and more mainstream in recent months/years?
Short answer, no, it has not become acceptable in mainstream discourse because it is still not true, and yes, it at least flirts with anti-Semitism. Long answer after the jump, with a couple of small modifications to the Facebook message I sent him.
A) Do I think the Walt-Mearsheimer position, specifically on the centrality of pro-Israel feelings by Jews spurring the Iraq War, has prevailed?
Why Israel Might Believe Attacking Iran Is Worthwhile
Israel's Foreign Minister Lieberman addresses Israeli diplomats during a conference in Jerusalem Reuters
Michael Hirsh Feb 12 2012, 8:01 AM ET
A barely perceptible but hugely important shift has occurred in recent months. Israel now appears to believe that the benefits of attacking Tehran's nuclear sites outweigh the costs. As Iran builds an enrichment complex underground near the city of Qom, the timing has also become critical. All of which may mean that, as Defense Secretary Leon Panetta reportedly told a Washington Post columnist [earlier this string at http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=71668986 ], Israel will probably strike Iran in April, May, or June. (Panetta wasn't quoted directly, and a Pentagon spokesman tells National Journal that the secretary has "refused to comment" on the story.)
Western powers had thought that a preemptive strike on oil-rich Iran could have devastating implications for the region and the world. It could undermine the global economy (especially at a time of high oil prices) and peace in the Middle East. It could rain rocket fire on Israeli towns and possibly shift global power balances. But now, some American and Israeli experts--both inside and outside their governments--argue that Iran is less likely to retaliate in a serious way. An attack, in other words, may have fewer drawbacks than the skeptics first thought.
Partly, this has to do with Iran's internal problems. Its government is mired in chaos and infighting, its military is weak and disorganized, and its economy is crippled. Iran's main proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, are not eager to attack Israel, and the United States is less vulnerable in Iraq now that its military has withdrawn. Tehran's lone ally in the region, Syria's Bashar al-Assad, is fighting a civil war. Iran "basically only has three asymmetric options for retaliation," says Matthew Kroenig, who recently published a controversial essay [ http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/136917/matthew-kroenig/time-to-attack-iran ] in Foreign Affairs urging a U.S. attack on Iran as "the least bad option."
First, it could support terrorists and proxy groups. But Kroenig points out that Hezbollah and Hamas, which both possess missiles and rockets along Israel's border, do not want to relive the devastating Israeli counterattacks of the 2000s. "Neither wants to provoke another Israeli invasion," Kroenig says. "They might engage in some kind of token retaliation just to satisfy Iran," but it wouldn't fundamentally change life for Israelis.
Second, Iran could fire ballistic missiles "at population centers in the region and at U.S. bases and ships," says Kroenig, who until last July was a special adviser to then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates. "But their missiles aren't all that accurate."
Third, its irregular navy, run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, could wreak havoc in the Persian Gulf or even possibly close strategic oil-shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz, as Tehran warned recently. "They do have a bunch of guys on speedboats," Kroenig says. "But if we bombed half a dozen nuclear facilities, I don't think their response is going to be to close the straits, especially if we issue a clear deterrent threat.... We could completely destroy their navy in a matter of weeks." Anyway, Iran desperately needs oil sales to keep its sanctions-damaged economy going, so it is unlikely to halt the petroleum trade. That fact could assuage White House fears about a spike in gas prices bad enough to shake the global economy during an election year.
The pressure is growing to act soon. Israel has previously used its air force to demolish nuclear facilities in Iraq and Syria, and it has warned for a decade that it would do the same to prevent Iran from getting a bomb. "This time, the Israelis seem truly serious," says one European diplomat who works on Iran negotiations. The reason is that Iran's new facility at Fordo is buried so deep in the mountains that Israel may not be able to destroy it. So if it can't at least cripple the station before Iran transfers many more than the several hundred centrifuges it already has there, Fordo's enrichment program may be out of reach. Those transfers are happening this year.
Meanwhile, Arab states in the Persian Gulf region--beginning with Saudi Arabia, whose former intelligence chief, Prince Turki al-Faisal, warned bluntly last year that an Iranian bomb would lead to a Saudi one--are more eager than ever for action to stop Tehran. President Obama even spent half of his pre-Super Bowl interview with NBC's Matt Lauer (before an audience of 110 million Americans in an election year) worrying about Iran.
Still, some experts argue that a miscalculation--say, striking before Obama's sanctions run their course--could actually make the danger from Iran far worse, particularly for Israel. Because the Israelis don't have the firepower the Americans do (their "bunker-buster" bombs are smaller), "the biggest worry is that the attack will be ineffective, that it just won't take out enough to make a difference," says David Albright [ http://isis-online.org/about/staff/albright/ ] of the Institute for Science and International Security. "Then what you get is an Iran that feels justified in racing to get nuclear weapons, potentially sooner than they would if we just continue this [current sanctions] pressure." Nevertheless, Israeli strategists believe the danger of a nuclear-armed Iran is "far greater" than the potential danger of retaliation, according to a senior Israeli official who asked to remain anonymous.
The most likely response to an attack, analysts agree, would be Iranian-sponsored terrorist attacks on Jews--and possibly Americans--worldwide. American diplomats in Shiite-dominated Iraq are still vulnerable, as are U.S. forces in Afghanistan, says Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "The biggest issue," he says of an Iranian response, "is that you don't know what you don't know."
Last month Jamie Fly and Gary Schmitt got a lot of attention by arguing [ http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137038/jamie-m-fly-and-gary-schmitt/the-case-for-regime-change-in-iran ] that the garden variety bomb-Iran plans aren't ambitious enough. Rather than just use surgical strikes to set back Iran's nuclear program, they said, we should expand the target list and keep bombing until the government falls. Then you would get regime change without the hassle of boots on the ground.
But Duss, co-host of the Bloggingheads show Foreign Entanglements [ http://bloggingheads.tv/programs/foreign-entanglements ], apparently believes that everyone deserves their day in court. He gave Fly his. Here is the heart of their exchange:
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