By Kenneth J. Theisen, 9/17/07
In the midst of threats of war, Mohamed ElBaradei, the head
of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chastised the U.S. and other nations for making such threats
of force against Iran
over its nuclear program. On September 17, 2007, he stated, “By November
or December we will be able to know if Iran is acting in good faith or not…I
would not talk about any use of force”There are rules on how to use force, and
I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq
situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the
suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons.” Of course he was aiming
this barb directly at the U.S.
which had used the accusation that Iraq
had weapons of mass destruction and a nuclear weapons program to justify its
2003 invasion of Iraq.
ElBaradei went on to say, “I do not believe at this
stage that we are facing a clear and present danger that requires we go beyond
diplomacy.” He also said that the IAEA had no information “the Iran program is
being weaponized…We need not to hype the issue.” His statements came one day after the French
Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner threatened Iran
with war if Iran
obtains nuclear weapons. The French
minister’s warning was not unlike many issued by various Bush regime officials,
including the President, who have said that no options are “off the table” to
prevent Iran
from obtaining nuclear weapons.
In fact, the same day that Kouchner spoke his words, U.S. Defense
Secretary Robert Gates said the following in an interview on Fox News Sunday, “I
will tell you that I think that the administration believes at this point that
continuing to try and deal with the Iranian threat, the Iranian challenge,
through diplomatic and economic means is by far the preferable approach. That’s
the one we are using. We always say all options are on the table, but clearly,
the diplomatic and economic approach is the one that we are pursuing.”
Notice the qualifying words, “at this point.” While the Bush regime had already made the
decision to launch the war against Iraq, it also continued to pretend
to be pursuing “diplomatic solutions” including going before the U.N. to seek
resolutions. So we should not be fooled by “diplomacy” conducted by the Bush
regime. Bush regime diplomacy could
easily be an illusion meant to disguise war preparations.
ElBaradei is well aware of how the U.S. used diplomacy to disguise its war
preparations before invading Iraq. He has recently negotiated an agreement with Iran that requires Iran to stop blocking IAEA experts
and end its secrecy on previous nuclear work by the end of the year. ElBaradei also highlighted the hypocrisy of
the declared nuclear weapons states when he urged them to set the example and
reduce their own nuclear arsenals with deep cuts.
The U.S.
has been using the excuse that Iran
may one day acquire nuclear weapons to bludgeon the Iranian regime on the
diplomatic front and to isolate Iran,
while at the same time developing plans for a possible military attack against Iran. On Friday, September 21st, we can expect the
diplomatic sledge hammer to be brought out again when Britain, China,
France, Russia, Germany,
and the U.S. meet in Washington to discuss new penalties against Iran. The U.S.
will push tough economic and other sanctions against Iran at this conference. At the same time the Bush regime will continue
to turn its henchmen loose in the media to claim that Iran’s civilian
nuclear power program is just a cover for developing nuclear weapons.
The regime frequently launches accusations against Iran accusing the Iranian government of arming
terrorists, insurgents, and militias in Iraq
who then are allegedly killing U.S.
troops. In this last week, Ambassador
Crocker, General Petraeus, Defense Secretary Gates and even President Bush have
made such charges in the media. Expect
these and various other accusations to increase as the likelihood of war with Iran also
increases.