[Peace-discuss] "Iran must be stopped"

[C. G. Estabrook]

The UN Charter, to which the US is a signatory, forbids the use -- or even the
threat -- of force in international affairs, except in immediate self-defense.
Which high office holder in the US government nevertheless said the following
last Sunday?

	"Iran must be stopped. They are a threat to the neighborhood
	and a source of funding for Hamas and Hizbullah."
	[In response to a question about a military strike:]
	"I do think we must not take anything off the table."

No, it was not Bush, although he has said similar things.  Nor was it the
eminence grise of the administration, VP Cheney.  Nor was it Rice or Gates.

The speaker was the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, the country's
highest-ranking Democrat, next in line after the vice-president for the presidency.

Speaker Pelosi's party was given control of the Congress (and she her job) by
the US electorate in 2006, voting against the war.  The election was a
repudiation of the Bush administration's war policy.  But the Democrats have
betrayed those who voted for them by supporting the war policy, even when they
say they aren't.

Israeli Army Radio reported this week that the US administration intends to
attack Iran before the end of Bush's term. It quoted a top official in Jerusalem
claiming that a senior member in the entourage of President Bush, who concluded
a trip to Israel last week, had said in a closed meeting that Bush and Vice
President Cheney were of the opinion that military action against Iran was
called for.  The official reportedly went on to say that "the hesitancy of
Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" was
preventing the administration from deciding to launch such an attack on the
Islamic Republic for the time being.

In Washington today a White House press secretary denied the report.	

In Jerusalem, Bush had said, "Permitting the world's leading sponsor of terror
to possess the world's deadliest weapon would be an unforgivable betrayal of
future generations.”  Many people think that's true -- but that it describes the
United States.

Leading Democrats apparently believe with Bush that it describes Iran.

I still think that the an overt attack on Iran by the US is unlikely.  (We seem
to have been attacking it covertly -- via subversion and military "special
operations" -- for some time). But it is hardly reassuring that our presumed
opposition party doesn't oppose the administration's war-mongering on the issue.

--CGE