[Peace-discuss] FW: [ufpj-activist] NYT op ed: bomb Iran

[Karen Aram]

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/03/28/nyt-publishes-call-to-bomb-iran/
 
NYT 
Publishes Call to Bomb Iran
March 28, 2015

Exclusive: 
The New York Times continues its slide into becoming little more than a neocon 
propaganda sheet as it followed the Washington Post in publishing an op-ed 
advocating the unprovoked bombing of Iran, reports Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
If two major newspapers 
in, say, Russia published major articles openly advocating the unprovoked 
bombing of a country, say, Israel, the U.S. government and news media would be 
aflame with denunciations about “aggression,” “criminality,” “madness,” and 
“behavior not fitting the Twenty-first Century.”
But when the newspapers 
are American – the New York Times and the Washington Post – and the target 
country is Iran, no one in the U.S. government and media bats an eye. These 
inflammatory articles – these incitements to murder and violation of 
international law – are considered just normal discussion in the Land of 
Exceptionalism.
 
An 
Iranian man holding a photo of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. (Iranian government 
photo)
On Thursday, the New 
York Times printed an op-ed that urged the bombing of Iran as an alternative to 
reaching a diplomatic agreement that would sharply curtail Iran’s nuclear 
program and ensure that it was used only for peaceful purposes. The Post 
published a similar “we-must-bomb-Iran” op-ed two weeks ago.
The Times’ article 
by John Bolton, a neocon scholar from the American Enterprise Institute, was 
entitled “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.” It followed the Post’s op-ed by 
Joshua Muravchik, formerly at AEI and now a fellow at the neocon-dominated 
School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins. [For more on that 
piece, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Neocon 
Admits Plan to Bomb Iran.”]
Both articles called on 
the United States to mount a sustained bombing campaign against Iran to destroy 
its nuclear facilities and to promote “regime change” in Tehran. Ironically, 
these “scholars” rationalized their calls for unprovoked aggression against Iran 
under the theory that Iran is an aggressive state, although Iran has not invaded 
another country for centuries.
Bolton, who served as 
President George W. Bush’s ambassador to the United Nations, based his call for 
war on the possibility that if Iran did develop a nuclear bomb – which Iran 
denies seeking and which the U.S. intelligence community agrees Iran is not 
building – such a hypothetical event could touch off an arms race in the Middle 
East.
Curiously, Bolton 
acknowledged that Israel already has developed an undeclared nuclear weapons 
arsenal outside international controls, but he didn’t call for bombing Israel. 
He wrote blithely that “Ironically perhaps, Israel’s nuclear weapons have not 
triggered an arms race. Other states in the region understood — even if they 
couldn’t admit it publicly — that Israel’s nukes were intended as a deterrent, 
not as an offensive measure.”
How Bolton manages to 
read the minds of Israel’s neighbors who have been at the receiving end of 
Israeli invasions and other cross-border attacks is not explained. Nor does he 
address the possibility that Israel’s possession of some 200 nuclear bombs might 
be at the back of the minds of Iran’s leaders if they do press ahead for a 
nuclear weapon.
Nor does Bolton explain 
his assumption that if Iran were to build one or two bombs that it would use 
them aggressively, rather than hold them as a deterrent. He simply asserts: 
“Iran is a different story. Extensive progress in uranium enrichment and 
plutonium reprocessing reveal its ambitions.”
Pulling 
Back on Refinement
But is that correct? In 
its refinement of uranium, Iran has not progressed toward the level required for 
a nuclear weapon since its 2013 interim agreement with the global powers known 
as “the p-5 plus one” – for the permanent members of the UN Security Council 
plus Germany. Instead, Iran has dialed back the level of refinement to below 5 
percent (what’s needed for generating electricity) from its earlier level of 20 
percent (needed for medical research) — compared with the 90-plus percent purity 
to build a nuclear weapon.
In other words, rather 
than challenging the “red line” of uranium refinement that Israeli Prime 
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drew during a United Nations speech in 2012, the 
Iranians have gone in the opposite direction – and they have agreed to continue 
those constraints if a permanent agreement is reached with the p-5-plus-1.
However, instead of 
supporting such an agreement, American neocons – echoing Israeli hardliners – 
are demanding war, followed by U.S. subversion of Iran’s government through the 
financing of an internal opposition for a coup or a “colored revolution.”
Bolton wrote: “An 
attack need not destroy all of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, but by breaking 
key links in the nuclear-fuel cycle, it could set back its program by three to 
five years. The United States could do a thorough job of destruction, but Israel 
alone can do what’s necessary. Such action should be combined with vigorous 
American support for Iran’s opposition, aimed at regime change in Tehran.”
But one should remember 
that neocon schemes – drawn up at their think tanks and laid out on op-ed pages 
– don’t always unfold as planned. Since the 1990s, the neocons have maintained a 
list of countries considered troublesome for Israel and thus targeted for 
“regime change,” including Iraq, Syria and Iran. In 2003, the neocons got their 
chance to invade Iraq, but the easy victory that they predicted didn’t exactly 
pan out.
Still, the neocons 
never revise their hit list. They just keep coming up with more plans that, in 
total, have thrown much of the Middle East, northern Africa and now Ukraine into 
bloodshed and chaos. In effect, the neocons have joined Israel in its de facto 
alliance with Saudi Arabia for a Sunni sectarian conflict against the Shiites 
and their allies. Much like the Saudis, Israeli officials rant against the 
so-called “Shiite crescent” from Tehran through Baghdad and Damascus to Beirut. 
[See Consortiumnews.com’s “Congress 
Cheers Netanyahu’s Hatred of Iran.”]
Since Iran is 
considered the most powerful Shiite nation and is allied with Syria, which is 
governed by Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, both countries have remained 
in the neocons’ crosshairs. But the neocons don’t actually pull the trigger 
themselves. Their main role is to provide the emotional and political arguments 
to get the American people to hand over their tax money and their children to 
fight these wars.
The neocons are so 
confident in their skills at manipulating the U.S. decision-making process that 
some have gone so far as to suggest Americans should side with al-Qaeda’s Nusra 
Front in Syria or the even more brutal Islamic State, because those groups love 
killing Shiites and thus are considered the most effective fighters against 
Iran’s allies. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The 
Secret Saudi Ties to Terrorism.”]
Friedman’s 
Madness
The New York Times’ 
star neocon columnist Thomas L. Friedman ventured to the edge of madness as he 
floated the idea of the U.S. arming the head-chopping Islamic State, writing 
this month: “Now I despise ISIS as much as anyone, but let me just toss out a 
different question: Should we be arming ISIS?”
I realize the New York 
Times and Washington Post are protected by the First Amendment and can 
theoretically publish whatever they want. But the truth is that the newspapers 
are extremely restrictive in what they print. Their op-ed pages are not just 
free-for-alls for all sorts of opinions.
For instance, neither 
newspaper would publish a story that urged the United States to launch a bombing 
campaign to destroy Israel’s actual nuclear arsenal as a step toward creating a 
nuclear-free Middle East. That would be considered outside responsible thought 
and reasonable debate.
However, when it comes 
to advocating a bombing campaign against Iran’s peaceful nuclear program, the 
two newspapers are quite happy to publish such advocacy. The Times doesn’t even 
blush when one of its most celebrated columnists mulls over the idea of sending 
weapons to the terrorists in ISIS – all presumably because Israel has identified 
“the Shiite crescent” as its current chief enemy and the Islamic State is on the 
other side.
But beyond the 
hypocrisy and, arguably, the criminality of these propaganda pieces, there is 
also the neocon record of miscalculation. Remember how the invasion of Iraq was 
supposed to end with Iraqis tossing rose petals at the American soldiers instead 
of planting “improvised explosive devices” – and how the new Iraq was to become 
a model pluralistic democracy?
Well, why does one 
assume that the same geniuses who were so wrong about Iraq will end up being 
right about Iran? What if the bombing and the subversion don’t lead to nirvana 
in Iran? Isn’t it just as likely, if not more so, that Iran would react to this 
aggression by deciding that it needed nuclear bombs to deter further aggression 
and to protect its sovereignty and its people?
In other words, might 
the scheming by Bolton and Muravchik — as published by the New York Times and 
the Washington Post — produce exactly the result that they say they want to 
prevent? But don’t worry. If the neocons’ new schemes don’t pan out, they’ll 
just come up with more.
Investigative 
reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated 
Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. 


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