[Peace-discuss] Why the Democrats won't stop an attack on Iran

[C. G. Estabrook]

[A US attack on Iran is so obviously crazy  (in addition to being a 
supreme international crime, worse than terrorism, according to the 
Nuremberg tribunal) that it's hard to believe that it's seriously being 
planned in DC, but apparently it is.  The latest indication is the quiet 
announcement, two days ago, as the president went on vacation, that 
Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, the country's 125,000-strong elite 
military branch, would be declared a "specially designated global 
terrorist."  The post below -- from Arthur Silber 
<http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2007/08/worsening-nightmare.html>, 
by way of Chris Floyd 
<http://www.chris-floyd.com/Articles/Articles/Goodbye_to_All_That%3A_Silber%27s_Last_Word_on_the_War_Against_Iran/> 
--- begins with this designation.  I think that much of Silber's stuff 
is quite debatable, but I think he's right about the implications of 
Wednesday's announcement.  There is clearly a strong group within the 
administration who want to attack Iran.  (I and a few others think BTW 
that's the unstated issue over which Rove resigned.)  They are being 
opposed -- apparently by groups in the State Department and the Pentagon 
-- but not by the Democrats.  This post begins to explain why. --CGE]


...one of the major purposes of this designation is to bring an attack 
on Iran within the 2002 Authorization of Military Force against Iraq. 
But what many people miss is that the "terrorist" designation also 
brings an Iran attack within the language of the 2001 AUMF. Moreover, 
while the specific language in the final sections of both AUMFs is 
relevant, no one seems to pay attention to the critical prefatory 
statements.

The final introductory paragraph of the 2001 AUMF states:

     "Whereas, the President has authority under the Constitution to 
take action to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against 
the United States..."

And Congress underscored its approval of this view of Executive 
warmaking authority in the 2002 AUMF:

     "Whereas Congress has taken steps to pursue vigorously the war on 
terrorism through the provision of authorities and funding requested by 
the President to take the necessary actions against international 
terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, 
organizations or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the 
terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001 or harbored such 
persons or organizations;

     "Whereas the President and Congress are determined to continue to 
take all appropriate actions against international terrorists and 
terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations or 
persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist 
attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such persons or 
organizations;

     "Whereas the President has authority under the Constitution to take 
action in order to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism 
against the United States, as Congress recognized in the joint 
resolution on Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 
107-40); and

     "Whereas it is in the national security of the United States to 
restore international peace and security to the Persian Gulf region..."

But, you might object, these provisions empower the executive branch to 
do whatever it wants, provided it manages to bring its actions within 
the rubric of acting "to deter and prevent acts of international 
terrorism against the United States," and/or "to restore international 
peace and security to the Persian Gulf region." Exactly -- and that is 
exactly what the Bush administration has argued for the last several 
years. Didn't you believe they meant what they said?

This is why some of us have objected to both AUMFs from the beginning, 
and why Congress should never have approved them. This is why I've 
consistently recommended that, if Congress wished to deter an attack on 
Iran, they had to rescind both AUMFs, not only the 2002 AUMF concerning 
Iraq...

The AUMFs must be viewed in the context of the history of Executive war, 
as that doctrine has developed since World War II. Surely I need not 
remind readers that no Constitutionally required declaration of war has 
been utilized since the last World War. But that has not stopped a long, 
unending series of wars -- from Korea, through Vietnam, through Latin 
America and the Middle East, and in Yugoslavia (see the second half of 
that entry). Both parties approve the doctrine of Executive war in its 
essential outlines; their only argument is about which party "best" 
utilizes it. Neither party has any principled objection to Executive 
war, although they might strongly criticize a war begun by a president 
of the opposing party -- and even then, their criticisms are only about 
matters of strategy and tactics, not about the basic immorality of what 
is unquestionably a war of aggression, and therefore an international crime.

The strongest criticism of the Iraq catastrophe is that it represents 
"the worst strategic blunder" of the last hundred years. No one who is 
prominent in our national political life will say that it is a monstrous 
war crime. (Even that claim about Iraq is not true as things stand at 
present, although it might turn out to be accurate: for the worst 
"blunder" of the last century, and setting aside the fact that our 
entrance into World War I was also a deliberate and carefully calculated 
decision, designed to maintain and expand the global power of the United 
States and England, you need to look to Woodrow Wilson. World War I and 
its aftermath set in motion the long series of events that led to World 
War II, the Cold War, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the other 
occurrences that led to 9/11 -- and to the present crisis. If the United 
States should attack Iran, then this period may very well represent the 
worst decisions in foreign policy of the last century, depending 
specifically on how events play out. But we don't know that...not yet.)

With regard to Iran in particular, the current Democratic Congress has 
already approved the critical rationales for an attack. The Senate 
approved -- by a vote of 97 to nothing -- an amendment that accuses Iran 
of committing acts of war against the United States. Thus, if we were to 
attack to Iran, we would purportedly only be acting defensively, and in 
response to what Iran has already done. This amendment, based entirely 
on unproven, propagandistic, intentionally warmongering allegations, was 
pushed in large part by Lieberman. Democrats (and progressive bloggers) 
may condemn the former Democrat all they wish: the fact remains that 
every Democratic Senator who voted on this measure voted for it. When 
the wider war begins, they will have no serious basis on which to object.

In a similar manner, the House approved a resolution -- by a vote of 411 
to 2 -- that contained this language:

     "Whereas Iran has aggressively pursued a clandestine effort to arm 
itself with nuclear weapons...."

...In this manner, the Democratic House concedes, sanctifies, and gives 
its nearly unanimous support to the major propaganda point of the 
Bush-Cheney-Israel drive to war with Iran.

Thank God the Democrats took back Congress. That's all I can say. 
Otherwise, who knows what might have happened! Why, we might be on our 
way to a nuclear world war!

Please note: Iran disputes, as it has always disputed, the truth of this 
charge. Moreover, it is very far from clear just how far Iran may have 
gotten in its pursuit of nuclear weapons, even if one assumes that is 
what they are doing.

And I repeat: even if Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, SO WHAT?

But now, the House is fully on board with the Bush-Cheney-Israel 
program. When Bush gives his speech announcing that bombing runs began 
four hours earlier, that some of Iran's nuclear installations have 
already been destroyed, and that the rest of them will be similarly 
destroyed in another two or three days, on what grounds will the 
Democrats object? As war, possibly with nuclear weapons, spreads across 
the Middle East and beyond, on what grounds will the Democrats object?...

I still hope and would like to think that, if the issues were made 
unmistakably plain, enough Americans would respond ... The issues are 
not that complicated. What dooms us is the current conspiracy of 
silence: a culture where no one dares to identify with stark clarity 
what is at stake, and what will result from our actions. And it must be 
made absolutely clear that if we were to launch yet another series of 
attacks on a country that does not threaten us, and if we were to use 
even one nuclear weapon of any kind, the mantle of "exceptionalism" 
would still be ours -- but it would be the kind of exceptionalism 
accorded to the worst monsters of history...

The Democrats don't object and they completely fail to mount serious 
opposition to our inevitable course toward widening war and an attack on 
Iran, not because they are cowards, not because they're afraid of being 
portrayed as "weak" in the fight against terrorism, and not because of 
any of the other excuses that are regularly offered by their defenders. 
They don't object because -- they don't object. That is: they agree -- 
they agree that the United States is the "indispensable" nation, that we 
have the "right" to tell every other country how it is "permitted" to 
act, that we must pursue a policy of aggressive interventionism 
supported by an empire of military bases. They agree about all of it; 
moreover, in most critical respects, they devised these policies in the 
first instance, and they implemented and defended them more vigorously 
and more consistently than Republicans, with the exception of the 
criminal now residing in the White House.

They agree. Try to wrap your head around it. Try to absorb the 
indisputable fact, which has been proven over and over and over again in 
the last century, and particularly in the last 60 years

...the aftermath of an attack on Iran and what would almost certainly be 
a rapidly widening war would wipe every other issue out of existence. 
Consider only some of the possibilities.

First, despite the monumental Judith Miller embarrassments (and other, 
similar instances of unquestioningly transmitting government lies), the 
New York Times has been carrying administration propaganda about Iran on 
its front pages for months ... the mainstream media continue to 
dutifully convey whatever arguments and whatever "facts" the government 
wishes to be disseminated. The public is already convinced that Iran 
represents "the new Hitler," and the latest incarnation of "Ultimate 
Evil," even though they may have some generalized resistance to further 
war. But that would quickly be overcome, and all the major press organs 
will happily see to it that it is...

Second, one of the standard objections to the likelihood of an attack on 
Iran is that it will put American troops in Iraq in grave peril. If you 
make that objection, I have only one thing to say to you: Wake the hell 
up. Of course it will put American troops in Iraq in grave peril. A 
great many of them will probably be killed. But -- and please try as 
earnestly as you can to get this -- the administration is counting on 
exactly that happening ... this must be true, given the logic of the 
situation, at least implicitly; in individual cases, it might also be 
true explicitly, in the sense that a particular person is consciously 
aware of what must happen ... Imagine that 500, or a thousand, or even 
several thousand, American soldiers are killed in a single engagement, 
or over several days or a week. What do you think would happen?

The administration would immediately blame "Iranian interference" and 
"Iranian meddling." They do that now. Every major media outlet would 
repeat the charge; almost no one would question it. Pictures of the 
slaughtered Americans would be played on television 24 hours a day. The 
outrage would grow by the minute. Within a day, and probably within 
hours, certain parties would be calling for nuclear weapons to be 
dropped on Tehran. Almost everyone would be baying for blood, and for 
the blood of Iran in particular.

No one, and certainly no prominent politician, would dare to remind 
Americans that we have no right to be in Iraq in the first place. They 
won't say that now. Who would point it out after 800 Americans have been 
killed? And what Democrat would dare to oppose the tide, especially with 
a presidential election looming? Not one. Everyone with a national voice 
would be demanding the destruction of the current regime in Iran. No one 
would oppose such a course.

And Congress would begin impeachment proceedings in this atmosphere? 
Please tell me you're kidding.

That is only one way events might play out ... Perhaps Israel is 
attacked. Again, the calls for retribution would be universal, and not a 
single major voice would be raised in opposition. Probably the 
government of Pakistan is toppled; that is close to happening even 
today. And then we would need to worry about actual nukes getting into 
the hands of those who might genuinely wish to attack us. The 
possibilities are many, but they all lead to the same end: widening war, 
war, and more war.

And now it is too late. The kind of educational campaign I recommended 
as essential might have had a chance six months ago; it has no chance at 
all today, even if someone were prepared to undertake it -- and no one 
is. I see only one possibility that might stop these events: a massive 
demonstration or series of demonstrations in Washington, probably 
accompanied by a massive sit-in in the offices of Congress. Nothing 
short of that has a chance in hell.

But that's not going to happen. So we proceed on our path to a still 
worse and deepening nightmare. Our destination was set a long time ago. 
The intention to provoke a wider war has been announced repeatedly. No 
one believed it could happen, or wanted to believe it could happen. Such 
resistance and denial are common before all catastrophes of this kind. 
The warning signs are all around us and have been for years. Almost no 
one paid attention. No one acted to prevent what was obviously coming...

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