[Peace-discuss] Iran.

[Morton K. Brussel]

A view from France/Belgium.

When wishful thinking replaces resistance
Why Bush can get away with attacking Iran
by Jean Bricmont; CounterPunch; September 09, 2007

     Many people in the antiwar movement try to reassure themselves:  
Bush cannot possibly attack Iran. He does not have the means to do  
so, or, perhaps, even he is not foolish enough to engage in such an  
enterprise. Various particular reasons are put forward, such as: If  
he attacks, the Shiites in Iraq will cut the US supply lines. If he  
attacks, the Iranians will block the Straits of Ormuz or will unleash  
dormant terrorist networks worldwide. Russia won't allow such an  
attack. China won't allow it -- they will dump the dollar. The Arab  
world will explode.

     All this is doubtful. The Shiites in Iraq are not simply  
obedient to Iran. If they don't rise against the United States when  
their own country is occupied (or if don't rise very systematically),  
they are not likely to rise against the US if a neighboring country  
is attacked. As for blocking the Straits or unleashing terrorism,  
this will just be another justification for more bombing of Iran.  
After all, a main casus belli against Iran is, incredibly, that it  
supposedly helps the resistance against U.S. troops in Iraq, as if  
those troops were at home there. If that can work as an argument for  
bombing Iran, then any counter-measure that Iran might take will  
simply "justify" more bombing, possibly nuclear. Iran is strong in  
the sense that it cannot be invaded, but there is little it can do  
against long range bombing, accompanied by nuclear threats.

     Russia will escalate its military buildup (which now lags far  
behind the U.S. one), but it can't do anything else, and Washington  
will be only too glad to use the Russian reaction as an argument for  
boosting its own military forces. China is solely concerned with its  
own development and won't drop the dollar for non-economic reasons.  
Most Arab governments, if not their populations, will look favorably  
on seeing the Iranian shiite leadership humiliated. Those governments  
have sufficient police forces to control any popular opposition --  
after all, that is what they managed to do after the attack on Iraq.

     With the replacement of Chirac by Sarkozy, and the near-complete  
elimination of what was left of the Gaullists (basically through  
lawsuits on rather trivial matters), France has been changed from the  
most independent European country to the most poodlish (this was in  
fact the main issue in the recent presidential election, but it was  
never even mentioned during the campaign). In France, moreover, the  
secular "left" is, in the main, gung-ho against Iran for the usual  
reasons (women, religion). There will be no large-scale  
demonstrations in France either before or after the bombing. And,  
without French support, Germany -- where the war is probably very  
unpopular -- can always be silenced with memories of the Holocaust,  
so that no significant opposition to the war will come from Europe  
(except possibly from its Muslim population, which will be one more  
argument to prove that they are "backward", "extremist", and enemies  
of our "democratic civilization").

     All the ideological signposts for attacking Iran are in place.  
The country has been thoroughly demonized because it is not nice to  
women, to gays, or to Jews. That in itself is enough to neutralize a  
large part of the American "left". The issue of course is not whether  
Iran is nice or not -- according to our views -- but whether there is  
any legal reason to attack it, and there is none; but the dominant  
ideology of human rights has legitimized, specially in the left, the  
right of intervention on humanitarian grounds anywhere, at any time,  
and that ideology has succeeded in totally sidetracking the minor  
issue of international law.

     Israel and its fanatical American supporters want Iran attacked  
for its political crimes -- supporting the rights of the  
Palestinians, or questioning the Holocaust. Both U.S. political  
parties are equally under the control of the Israel lobby, and so are  
the media. The antiwar movement is far too preoccupied with the  
security of Israel to seriously defend Iran and it won't attack the  
real architects of this coming war -- the Zionists -- for fear of  
"provoking antisemitism". Blaming Big Oil for the Iraq war was quite  
debatable, but, in the case of Iran, since the country is about to be  
bombed but not invaded, there is no reason whatsoever to think that  
Big Oil wants the war, as opposed to the Zionists. In fact, Big Oil  
is probably very much opposed to the war, but it is as unable to stop  
it as the rest of us.

     As far as Israel is concerned, the United States is a de facto  
totalitarian society--no articulate opposition is acceptable. The  
U.S. Congress passes one pro-Israel or anti-Iran resolution after  
another with "Stalinist" majorities. The population does not seem to  
care. But if they did, but what could they do? Vote? The electoral  
system is extremely biased against the emergence of a third party and  
the two big parties are equally under Zionist influence.

     The only thing that might stop the war would be for Americans  
themselves to threaten their own government with massive civil  
disobedience. But that is not going to happen. A large part of the  
academic left long ago gave up informing the general public about the  
real world in order to debate whether Capital is a Signifier or a  
Signified, or worry about their Bodies and their Selves, while  
preachers tell their flocks to rejoice at each new sign that the end  
of the world is nigh. Children in Iran won't sleep at night, but the  
liberal American intelligentsia will lecture the ROW (rest of the  
world) about Human Rights. In fact, the prevalence of the "reassuring  
arguments" cited above proves that the antiwar movement is clinically  
dead. If it weren't, it would rely on its own forces to stop war, not  
speculate on how others might do the job.

     Meanwhile, an enormous amount of hatred will have been spewed  
upon the world. But in the short term, it may look like a big Western  
"victory", just like the creation of Israel in 1948; just like the  
overthrow of Mossadegh by the CIA in 1953; just like the annexation  
of Alsace-Lorraine seemed to be a big German victory after the French  
defeat at Sedan in 1870. The Bush administration will long be gone  
when the disastrous consequences of that war will be felt.

     PS: This text is not meant to be a prophecy, but a call to  
(urgent) action. I'll be more than happy if facts prove me wrong.


     Jean Bricmont teaches physics in Belgium and is a member of the  
Brussels Tribunal. His new book, Humanitarian Imperialism, is  
published by Monthly Review Press. He can be reached at  
bricmont at fyma.ucl.ac.be.