By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS, published 1/30/06 on counterpunch.org
In keeping with its established role
as purveyor of disinformation, Fox “News” talking head
Brit Hume misreported Fox’s own poll. On “Special Report”
(January 26) Hume said that 51% of Americans “would now
support” air strikes on Iran. What the poll found is that
if diplomacy fails, 51% would support air strikes.
Can we be optimistic and assume
that the American public would not regard an orchestrated failure
by the Bush administration as a true diplomatic failure? Alas,
we cannot expect too much from a population in thrall to disinformation.
The “evidence” that
Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons consists of mere assertion by
members of the Bush administration and the neoconsevative media.
Iran says it is not pursuing nuclear weapons, and the International
Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have found no evidence of a weapons
program.
Iran is a signatory to the
nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Under the treaty, signatories
have the right to develop nuclear energy. All they are required
to do is to make reports to the IAEA and keep their facilities
open to inspection. Iran complies with these requirements.
There is no Iranian “defiance.”
When news media report “defiance,” they purvey disinformation.
The “seals” on Iranian nuclear facilities were placed
there voluntarily by the Iranians while they attempted to resolve
the false charges brought by the Bush administration.
The “Iran crisis”
is entirely the product of the Bush administration’s determination
to deprive Iran of its rights as a signatory of the non-proliferation
treaty. It is one more demonstration of President Bush’s belief
that his policies are not constrained by fact, law and international
treaties.
Despite the clear and unambiguous
facts, the Fox/Opinion Dynamics poll reports that 60% of Republicans,
41% of Independents, and 36% of Democrats support using air strikes
and ground troops against Iran in order to prevent Iran from
developing nuclear weapons. This poll indicates an appalling
extent of ignorance and misinformation among the American public.
The Bush administration will take advantage of this ignorance
to initiate another war in the Middle East.
A majority of Americans have
now been deceived twice on the same issue. Just as there was
no evidence that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons, there is
no evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. There is
nothing but unproven assertions, assertions, moreover, that are
contradicted by the evidence that does exist. Americans, it would
appear, are so eager for wars that they welcome being fooled
into them.
One wonders, also, where the
60% of Republicans, 41% of Independents, and 36% of Democrats
think the US will find the ground troops with which to invade
Iran. As the three-year old “cakewalk war” in Iraq
has made completely clear, the US does not have enough ground
troops to successfully occupy Iraq and to suppress a small insurgency
drawn from a Sunni population of 5 million people.
We hear report after report
from military authorities that the Iraq war is straining our
armed forces to the breaking point. For example, a Pentagon study
by Andrew Krepinevich (AP news report, January 24) concludes
that the US Army cannot sustain the pace of troop deployments
to Iraq long enough to break the back of the insurgency.
Every military expert knows
this to be true, although few dare to say it. If the US military
is on the breaking point from trying to deal with an insurgency
drawn from 5 million people, how can Bush send ground troops
into vastly larger Iran with a population of 70 million people?
It boggles the mind that a majority of Americans favor an impossible
policy.
Another recent poll, a LA Times/Bloomberg
poll, finds that 57% of the respondents “favor military
intervention if Iran’s government pursues a program that could
enable it to build nuclear arms.” These are the same respondents,
53% of whom believe it was not worth going to war against Iraq.
The poll thus reveals the American
public as grist for the neoconservatives’ war mill. If a country
can produce material for nuclear energy, it can, with additional
facilities and knowledge, produce material for nuclear weapons.
Thus, if Iran exercises its rights under the non-proliferation
treaty, 57% of Americans support a US military attack on Iran!
American politicians, whose
strings are pulled by the American-Israeli Political Action Committee
despite AIPAC’s current engulfment in spying charges against
the US, are demanding that the US attack Iran in order to protect
Israel.
One excuse for these demands
is the statement by the new Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
that Europeans should give Israel a piece of Europe and move
the country there. His statement that Israel should be wiped
out is a statement intended for Muslim ears, not a declaration
of an Iranian program of action. The Iranian president is simply
elevating Iran’s standing among Muslims by taking advantage of
the anger that President Bush has created against the US and
Israel.
The notion that Iran might
march into Israel is laughable. Iran has four routes into Israel:
through Turkey and Syria, through Iraq and Syria, through Iraq
and Jordan (or Lebanon), and through Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
Three of these routes are foreclosed by US troops on the ground,
and the fourth by the Turkish Army.
Moreover, Israel has never
signed the non-proliferation theory, and, unlike Iran, Israel
does have nuclear weapons. An Iranian invasion of Israel could
be fatal for Iran.
Why, then, is the American
population being whipped up by the Bush administration and Fox
“News” into war hysteria against Iran?
Fox is aggressively agitating
for war with Iran. On shows such as Hannity and Combs, guest
after guest–Newt Gingrich, various retired generals, pundits,
and even Democratic politicians–agitate for attacking Iran.
For example, on January 26th
and 27th Liberal Democrat Bob Beckel said on Fox that the US
has “a moral obligation to take out what we could of Iran’s
nuclear capabilities.” Newt Gingrich said that the Iranian
“dictatorship” is “too dangerous to leave it in
charge of one of the world’s largest supplies of oil.”
On January 27 Democratic strategist
Pat Cadell expressed mystification as to how strongly the polls
surged, literally overnight, in support for attacking Iran.
One wonders if Americans ever
think of the consequences of the rash actions they favor. The
Bush administration has placed Iraq in the hands of the majority
Shia, who are allied with Iran, which is allied with Hizbollah,
the strongest military force in Lebanon, which is friendly to
Hamas, the new Palestinian authority. What response might a US
attack on Iran bring from the Shia population in Iraq? What terrorism
might Iran unleash throughout the Middle East? What US puppets
might fall? What consequences might follow if Iran not only shuts
off Iranian oil, but knocks out facilities throughout the region
and blocks oil flows from the Middle East?
Compared to attacking Iran,
attacking Iraq was a small if reckless risk. Nevertheless, the
unexpected consequences of the US invasion of Iraq have prevented
the Bush administration from achieving its goals.
Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda
must be marveling at the rank stupidity of the American people.
Maybe Fox “News” only pretends to be the Ministry of
War Propaganda for the Bush administration and is in the employ
of al Qaeda instead.
War is not strengthening America’s
position in the Middle East, as gains by extremists in Palestinian,
Iraqi, Pakistani and Egyptian elections attest. There is no prospect
of the Bush administration imposing its will on the Middle East.
To paraphrase Gingrich, if Bush and the neocons don’t know this
by now, they are too dangerous to leave in charge of the US government.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury
in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the
Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of
National Review. He is coauthor of The
Tyranny of Good Intentions. He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com