Rhetoric on Iran foreshadows another war abroad
Let me begin with a strange bit of a riddle, a mind game if you will. In your mind, try to explain the situation going on in Iran in just a few sentences.
What do you think we’re ultimately trying to achieve there?
If you’re having trouble deciding between overthrowing its sociopathic dictator (who holds little power in his country compared to the more powerful Mullahs) or to combat the threat of Iran having a nuclear weapon (the completion of which is up for debate between United States intelligence and the United Nations), you have just stepped into a little déjà vu, ladies and gentlemen.
Flash back to early 2002 as the administration started to build the case for what would be war in Iraq. The hopes of U.N. weapon inspectors were still somewhat existent in the minds of the people. There was CIA Director George Tenet’s testimony on March 19 of that year before the Senate Armed Services Committee saying Saddam Hussein “had contacts with al-Qaida.” And there were the numerous disputed reports from the White House that al-Qaida was acquiring centrifuges and uranium from Niger. And that goes through August of that year.
Move back to the present day. Inspectors have given way to negotiators from the European Union as well as from Iran. Gloomy predictions of “mushroom clouds” have been replaced by George W. Bush’s pronouncement a few weeks ago that we must deal with Iran to avoid “World War III.”
Even the threat that Hussein would send his terrorist allies to the U.S. to strike us again has been replaced by the belief from intelligence experts last year that Iran would deploy “its intelligence operatives and Hezbollah teams to carry out terrorist attacks worldwide.” Although the speculations are more believable this time, in this context, it’s still worthy of a skeptical eye.
Which leads us back to the beginning, the debate between the U.S. and U.N. over whether Iran’s uranium enrichment is intended for a nuclear weapons program.
Does this sound familiar?
The U.N. promotes a rational, thorough analysis of the situation. The U.S. is promoting a unilateral approach based on intelligence they alone have. And no sign that there would be any chance of a balanced ending here. This is nothing but slow painful bleeding with no end in sight.
Everywhere you turn, the comparisons between Iran and Iraq are too blatant to ignore.
Shouldn’t this be a sign that something’s rotten in the state of Denmark? You’d think so, but I don’t believe the public has that sense of doubt right now – at least not yet, anyway.
It could change with the new president coming into the Oval Office in January 2009, unless we’re talking about a President Mitt Romney or Rudolph Giuliani. In those cases, never mind. By then, though, we may be deep in the mud of Tehran and making more of these same connections in regards to Pakistan or some other hot spot on the map.
For our sake, let’s hope not.
Brian Ault is a columnist for The Nevada Sagebrush. He can be reached at editor@nevadasagebrush.com
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November 13th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
There are a number of reasons going to war with Iran is much more improbable than going to war with Iraq was:
1) The majority of the U.S. public is vehemently opposed to actions that would force a serious ground troop commitment
2) The U.S. armed forces do not have the forces available to commit to another Iraq scale conflict
3) The U.S. did not act unilaterally in 2003; it had a few significant allies and this won’t happen again
And while the rhetoric of the administration might seem eerily similar to the rhetoric pre-Iraq war, the two countries are significantly different. Iran has the support of most of its population, Iraq did not. Iran’s military is superior to what Iraq had in 2003.
This makes a series of strategic strikes designed to slow Iran’s research a more likely outcome of the current situation that a war. This might not be an outcome many people are excited about, but neither is the proliferation of nuclear weapons in regimes dogmatically opposed to the gamut of U.S. policy.