Cheney’s War Workshop
Plots Another Attack
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
2006 is a dangerous year for Americans.
The Bill of Rights and Americans’ civil liberties are being
sacrificed on the alter of unaccountable executive power, as
is the separation of powers, the foundation of our constitutional
system.
The Supreme Court is being
packed with a majority that favors more expansive executive rule.
The economy is in danger as
the real estate boom unwinds and reduces the asset base of consumer
demand.
Political money scandals and
evidence of Republican vote fraud in the 2004 presidential election
threaten to undermine confidence in American democracy, which
President Bush is committed to export by force of arms to the
world.
The Republican plan for amnesty
for millions of illegal aliens looms as the final blow to US
borders and the concept of US citizenship.
Perhaps the greatest threat
of all is Israel’s determination to attack Iran, either directly
or indirectly through its surrogate, the Bush administration.
We are witnessing the same
drumbeat against Iranian WMD as we witnessed in the run-up to
the invasion of Iraq. Fox “News,” which in fact is
the most thorough-going dispenser of war propaganda since the
Nazi Third Reich, provides a parade of bought-and-paid-for-consultants
who assure credulous audiences that Osama bin Laden has forged
an alliance with Iran, which will soon be providing al Qaeda
with nuclear weapons.
Even the Bush administration’s
chief warmonger, VP
Dick Cheney, found the Fox “News” charges too absurd
to be useful propaganda. Cheney disavowed close relations between
al Qaeda Sunnis and Iranian Shi’ites: “there’s not a natural
fit there.”
The New York Times, prostituted
itself by permitting Judith Miller to use the newspaper as a
tool for neoconservative war propaganda against Iraq. The Times
prostituted itself a second time by withholding for an entire
year the information that President Bush was illegally spying
on Americans in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act, and a third time by not reporting Al Gore’s challenge to
the Bush administration’s criminal behavior. Now the Times is
prostituting itself a fourth time in serving as a Bush administration
propaganda organ against Iran.
Unlike Israel, which does have
nuclear weapons, Iran is a signatory to the nuclear
non-proliferation treaty. Under the treaty countries are
permitted nuclear energy. Inspections make certain no weapons
are produced. Iran agrees to abide by the treaty and to have
the inspections.
Israel, however, and its neocon
allies in the Bush administration, claim without any evidence
that Iran is making a bomb. The nuclear inspectors find no evidence
of a weapons program. Israel and its neocon allies reply that
once Iran has the know-how for nuclear power, it will be able
to make the material from which to make a bomb, therefore, Iran
must not be permitted its rights under the non-proliferation
treaty. Since Iran refuses to give up its treaty rights to develop
nuclear energy, Israel and the neocons maintain that Iran’s facilities
must be bombed and destroyed.
Americans will pay a heavy price for Israeli paranoia.
The entire world knows that
Israel cannot bomb Iran without US weapons and cooperation.
A US attack on Iran would be
another instance of naked American aggression against a Muslim
country. Aggression is a war crime under the Nuremberg standard
established by the US. Such an attack would further isolate the
US as a rogue country. It would further inflame the Muslim world
against the US and Israel, making any settlement of the Palestinian
issue emotionally impossible for Muslims.
If tactical nuclear weapons
are used in the bombing of Iran, as the neoconservatives advocate,
America will be reviled throughout the world. Americans will
never recover from the burden of shame and war crimes inflicted
upon them by the Bush administration.
An attack on Iran could be
the death knell for our troops in Iraq and for our puppets in
Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. The majority Iraqi
Shi’ites have tolerated the US occupation because the majority
Shi’ites are the gainers from the US insistence on majority rule.
The Iraqi Shi’ites are allied with Shi’ite Iran. They will
recognize an attack on Iran as a blow struck against Shi’ite
power. If the Iraqi Shi’ites turn on our troops, US casualties
will soar.
The best way to ensure US defeat
in Iraq is to attack Iran.
Would Bush and the neocons
accept embarrassing defeat or would they escalate the conflict?
Would a sane government pursue a policy that has no favorable
outcome?
Some analysts believe that Russia and China will protect their
Iranian energy and trade agreements by vetoing UN sanctions that
the Bush administration seeks as a pretext for its aggression.
These two powers, however, might abstain as it is in their interest
to let Bush dig a deeper hole for the US. Disruption of Iranian
oil supplies increases Europe’s energy dependence on Russia and
serves to further weaken US influence in Europe.
The American people need to
understand that with its massive budget and trade deficits, the
US is able to go to war only because the Chinese, Japanese, Europeans,
and oil producing countries finance Bush’s war by purchasing
US debt and holding dollar denominated assets. Once Bush has
the US over-extended, it will be the end of the American superpower
if one of our bankers decides to rein in the rogue American state
by dumping dollar holdings.
Indeed, a number of thinkers
(William
Clark and Krassimir
Petrov, for example) have concluded that the reason that
the Pentagon has plans to attack Iran is Iran’s intention to
establish an international oil exchange in which anyone can buy
or sell oil in any currency.
Such an exchange, it is argued,
would spell the dollar’s death as the currency in which oil is
billed. With countries no longer needing dollars in order to
pay their oil bills, the demand for dollars and dollar denominated
assets would decline. The dollar would further depreciate, bringing
crisis to import-dependent America.
As Bush’s ill-fated adventure
in Iraq has proved, the US is not the superpower it believed
itself to be. If the US wishes to retain a leadership position,
it must abruptly change course. The massive budget and trade
deficits must be immediately curtailed before the currency is
destroyed, and the US must pursue peace instead of war in the
Middle East.
The US breeds terrorism by
its 60-year old policy of interfering in the internal affairs
of Muslim lands and ruling them through surrogates. The US assaults
Muslim sensitivities with the export of “American culture,”
a euphemism for sexual promiscuity. The US creates enormous
animosity by appearing to exploit Muslim oil wealth and by turning
a blind eye while Israel expropriates the West Bank.
Doesn’t it make more sense
to mend our ill-considered ways than to go to war against Afghanistan,
Iraq, Iran, Syria, and who else? Is there no one in the Republican
or Democratic parties who is capable of intelligent leadership?
How many more Americans and Muslims are going to pay for Bush’s
insane policy with their lives, arms, legs, and eyes? How stupid
are the American people?