What
You're Missing in our subscriber-only CounterPunch newsletter
Bush's Worst Appointment
Yet?
Read Jeffrey
St Clair's blazing expose of the new Interior Secretary nominee
, Dirk Kempthorne, and make up your own mind. Even in the dingy
history of Idaho's predators, Kempthorne stood proud as the dingiest
of them all. Now he's poised to seize his place in history. Will
he be the sleaziest Interior Secretary in history, sleazier than
Watt, fouler than Fall?
More on the great Israel Lobby debate! Norman Finkelstein cuts
a new path, asks "Are the Neo-Cons really committed Zionists?" "Bliss was it
in that dawn" Not in Michigan! Raymond Garcia describes
Dem governor's appalling plan to scapegoat youth and teachers. Plus the full print version of Virginia
Tilley's savage dissection on this website of the double-standard
onslaught on Hamas by the US and EU. CounterPunch Online is read by millions
of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely
by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription
to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find
anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions
are tax-deductible.Click
here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please:Subscribe
Now!
Why did the Bush regime create a crisis
over Iran?
The answer is that the Bush
regime is desperate to widen the war in the Middle East.
What has Iran done? Unlike
Israel, Pakistan and India, countries that developed nuclear
weapons on the sly, Iran signed the non-proliferation treaty.
Countries that sign this treaty have the right to develop nuclear
energy. The International Atomic Energy Agency monitors their
energy programs to guard against the programs being used to cloak
a weapons program. Until the Bush regime provoked a crisis,
Iran was cooperating with the inspection safeguards. The weapons
inspectors have found no Iranian weapons programs.
There is no evidence for the
Bush regime's accusation that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.
What the Bush regime is trying to do is to unilaterally take
away Iran's right under the non-proliferation treaty to develop
nuclear energy. It is the Bush regime that is violating the treaty
by attempting to deny its benefits to Iran. The Bush regime
is acting illegally because of its paranoid suspicion that 5
or 10 years in the future Iran will use what it has managed to
learn about uranium enrichment to develop a weapons program.
Why is the Bush regime concerned
about what Iran might do in the future? Is it because the US
government intends to continue its bullying in the MIddle East
and is worried that Iran will get tired of it and develop nuclear
weapons as a check on US hegemony over the Muslim world? Why
does the Bush regime think that its interest in the Middle East
takes priority over the interests of the countries that are located
there?
In a CNN TV interview on Sunday
May 21, the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said that it
was only a matter of months before Iran would be making nuclear
weapons.
Olmert's claim is absurd as
every weapons expert knows, and, indeed, as he knows himself.
The only possible purpose of such a nonsensical claim is propaganda.
Olmert is helping the Bush regime use fear to prepare Americans
to accept an attack on Iran, just as Dick Cheney and Condi Rice
invoked images of mushroom clouds to prepare Americans for the
illegal invasion of Iraq.
One might think that having
been deceived by the Bush regime over Iraq, the American people
would have their eyes open to deception this time around. But
apparently not. The same public that gives Bush a mere 30% approval
rating, largely because of the Iraqi fiasco, is making no demands
that Bush stop his march to war with Iran.
Not a day passes without new
threats and lies issuing from Dick Cheney, Bonkers Bolton, and
Condi Rice, and no one holds them accountable. The US media
is proud to be complicit in lies and war crimes.
Ah, but the Iranian president
said that he was going to "wipe Israel off the face of the
earth."
He did not. He said that Israel
should be wiped off the face of the Middle East in the sense
of being removed to Europe. He was making the rhetorical point
that if the Europeans so favored a Jewish state, why did the
Westerners not give the Jews part of Europe or North America?
Why did they give the Jews Palestine, which was not theirs to
give?
One may agree or disagree with
the Iranian's point, but it was not a threat to kill the Jews.
The Iranians cannot kill the
Jews even if they wanted, because Israel has nuclear weapons.
Being somewhat paranoid--not altogether without reason--Israel
is not going to sit there and be destroyed.
The US cannot forever dominate
the Middle East in behalf of its interests and Israel's. The
US is running out of resources. The US is heavily in debt, yet
continues to hemorrhage red ink. Washington is dependent on
foreigners to finance its wars. Offshoring has diminished America's
ability to manufacture. The US is now dependent on China for
advanced technology products and on Europe and Asia for manufactured
goods. The American middle class is beginning to experience employment
problems and income stagnation. The neocons' idea that the US
can patrol Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and Syria in perpetuity is
insane. The Bush regime has proven that the US cannot even occupy
Baghdad.
Unless the US government intends
nuclear genocide against Muslims, it cannot prevail in war in
the MIddle East. A solution in the Middle East requires diplomacy
and good will, not threats and aggression. Yet, the Bush regime
refuses to even meet with Iranian leaders.
By refusing to meet, talk,
and negotiate, Bush is telling Iranians that they have no choice.
Either they comply and do what Bush demands, or they will be
attacked.
That is the Iranian Crisis
in a nutshell.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury
in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the
Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of
National Review. He is coauthor of The
Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com
Now
Available
from CounterPunch Books!
The Case
Against Israel
By Michael Neumann
CounterPunch
Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid?
CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair
are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues,
as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call
CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.