[Peace-discuss] Sense about Iran

[C. G. Estabrook]

[There's some suggestion that there's a real struggle going on within the 
administration as to whether to attack or befriend Iran.  The latter certainly 
seems unlikely, given the subversion and sabotage that the US has been carrying 
out there for a while, but the situation in the entire Mideast War (not 
excluding Israel) may make it feasible. US domination of the region -- the 
constant goal of US policy -- may be enhanced with Shia Islam as an ally. 
That's why the new administration -- always attuned to the rhetorical cover of 
its imperialism -- has been downplaying any suggestion that it's engaged in a 
"clash of civilizations." They were happy to see Samuel Huntington go.  --CGE]

	February 27, 2009
	Return of the War Party
	by Patrick J. Buchanan

"Real men go to Tehran!" brayed the neoconservatives, after the success of their 
propaganda campaign to have America march on Baghdad and into an unnecessary war 
that has forfeited all the fruits of our Cold War victory.

Now they are back, in pursuit of what has always been their great goal: an 
American war on Iran. It would be a mistake to believe they and their 
collaborators cannot succeed a second time. Consider:

On being chosen by Israel's President Shimon Peres to form the new regime, 
Likud's "Bibi" Netanyahu declared, "Iran is seeking to obtain a nuclear weapon 
and constitutes the gravest threat to our existence since the war of independence."

Echoing Netanyahu, headlines last week screamed of a startling new nuclear 
breakthrough by the mullahs. "Iran ready to build nuclear weapon, analysts say," 
said CNN. "Iran has enough uranium to make a bomb," said the Los Angeles Times. 
Armageddon appeared imminent.

Asked about Iran's nukes in his confirmation testimony, CIA Director Leon 
Panetta blurted, "From all the information I've seen, I think there is no 
question that they are seeking that capability."

Tuesday, Dennis Ross of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a front 
spawned by the Israeli lobby AIPAC, was given the Iranian portfolio. AIPAC's top 
agenda item? A U.S. collision with Iran.

In the neocon Weekly Standard, Elliot Abrams of the Bush White House parrots 
Netanyahu, urging Obama to put any land-for-peace deals with the Palestinians on 
a back burner. Why?

"The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is now part of a broader struggle in the 
region over Iranian extremism and power. Israeli withdrawals now risk opening 
the door not only to Palestinian terrorists but to Iranian proxies."

The campaign to conflate Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria as a new axis of evil, a 
terrorist cartel led by Iranian mullahs hell-bent on building a nuclear bomb and 
using it on Israel and America, has begun. The full-page ads and syndicated 
columns calling on Obama to eradicate this mortal peril before it destroys us 
all cannot be far off.

But before we let ourselves be stampeded into another unnecessary war, let us 
review a few facts that seem to contradict the war propaganda.

First, last week's acknowledgement that Iran has enough enriched uranium for one 
atom bomb does not mean Iran is building an atom bomb.

To construct a nuclear device, the ton of low-enriched uranium at Natanz would 
have to be run through a second cascade of high-speed centrifuges to produce 55 
pounds of highly enriched uranium (HUE).

There is no evidence Iran has either created the cascade of high-speed 
centrifuges necessary to produce HUE or that Iran has diverted any of the 
low-enriched uranium from Natanz. And the International Atomic Energy Agency 
inspectors retain full access to Natanz.

And rather than accelerating production of low-enriched uranium, only 4,000 of 
the Natanz centrifuges are operating. Some 1,000 are idle. Why?

Dr. Mohamed El-Baradei, head of the IAEA, believes this is a signal that Tehran 
wishes to negotiate with the United States, but without yielding any of its 
rights to enrich uranium and operate nuclear power plants.

For, unlike Israel, Pakistan and India, none of which signed the Nuclear 
Non-Proliferation Treaty and all of which ran clandestine programs and built 
atom bombs, Iran signed the NPT and has abided by its Safeguards Agreement. What 
it refuses to accept are the broader demands of the U.N. Security Council 
because these go beyond the NPT and sanction Iran for doing what it has a legal 
right to do.

Moreover, Adm. Dennis Blair, who heads U.S. intelligence, has just restated the 
consensus of the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that Iran does not now 
possess and is not now pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

Bottom line: Neither the United States nor the IAEA has conclusive evidence that 
Iran either has the fissile material for a bomb or an active program to build a 
bomb. It has never tested a nuclear device and has never demonstrated a capacity 
to weaponize a nuclear device, if it had one.

Why, then, the hype, the hysteria, the clamor for "Action This Day!"? It is to 
divert America from her true national interests and stampede her into embracing 
as her own the alien agenda of a renascent War Party.

None of this is to suggest the Iranians are saintly souls seeking only peace and 
progress. Like South Korea, Japan and other nations with nuclear power plants, 
they may well want the ability to break out of the NPT, should it be necessary 
to deter, defend against or defeat enemies.

But that is no threat to us to justify war. For decades, we lived under the 
threat that hundreds of Russian warheads could rain down upon us in hours, 
ending our national existence. If deterrence worked with Stalin and Mao, it can 
work with an Iran that has not launched an offensive war against any nation 
within the memory of any living American.

Can we Americans say the same?

http://antiwar.com/pat/