[Peace-discuss] silence on Iran

[Tom Mackaman]

It is of ominous significance that noone in the Bush administration has yet officially denied that apparently advanced plans for an aggressive "preventative" war on Iran are in place, despite protestations that discussion to that effect brought on by the Hersh article amounts to "wild speculation."  Nor has any Bush administration official disavowed the use of so-called "tactical" nuclear weapons in such an event.    
   
  The world stands perhaps closer to the deployment of nukes than it has at any point since Nagasaki, and plans for the use of these weapons of mass destruction are being rationalized as a means to stop --Hypocrisy of Hipocrisies!--the building of weapons of mass destruction-- the same bogus rational used to justify the invasion of Iraq.  So where is the urgency on the left and in the anti-war movement?   
   
  Many, perhaps most, critics of the current war in Iraq have not taken the threat of war on Iran seriously for two reasons.  First, and most importantly, they fear upsetting alliances that, in the end, threaten the political subordination of the anti-war movement to the Democratic Party--which has been if anything more hawkish on Iran than the Bush administration-- as a recent contribution to this list by Carl makes clear.  Second, they presume that because of the US debacle in Iraq, the US is in no position to launch a war on Iran.  
   
  The first rationale demonstrates once again the urgency for a break with the pro-war Democratic party and its left hangers-on-- such as United for Peace and Justic-- and the need to build a mass political movement of the working class.  The second rationale is naive to the core, and forgets the historically-vindicated maxim that the weaker the regime, the stronger the measures it will be prepared to take.  Indeed, like a rat trapped in a corner, the more that crisis consumes the Bush administration, the more it is apt to lash out with all means at its disposal.  
   
  The stakes are high, as the article linked below points out.  It is difficult to imagine a war on Iran not provoking terrorist attacks on the United States and its interests.  It would also provoke enormous mass opposition in the US.  The former factor would then undoubtedly be cynically manipulated to curtail the latter, through a further and accelerated attack on democratic rights in the US.
   
  "US threats against Iran—the specter of nuclear barbarism" http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/apr2006/iran-a13.shtml
   
   
  Regards,
  Tom
     
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