The Iran hawks try to justify a war, as did the discredited Iraq hawks a decade ago

I've been sort of quite busy lately so any update to this blog will have to be quick and dirty, but there's so much to cover and I'm not sure where to start. I'm hoping more of my regular visitors and commentators will use the open comments on this blog to add their own updates on what's going on in US-Iran relations

Of course, we have to start with the recent assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist -- 32-year old Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, who was in fact merely a procurement officer at Natanz, which happens to be a completely civilian uranium enrichment facility that is under constant IAEA monitoring. This forms a pattern: everytime the P5+1 are about to enter negotiations, a nuclear scientist is murdered. I suppose the message is that whoever is responsible will not tolerate a negotiated settlement to the nuclear standoff, but in effect they're shooting themselves in the foot. The openly-expressed glee by Santorum and the Israelis only serve to exacerbate the sense of revulsion even in the West at such tactics and portray Iran as the victim, nevermind to mention the nationalistic outrage by the people in Iran who naturally view such actions as a sign of vindictiveness and desire to keep Iran subservient. No wonder a thousand Iranian college students have reportedly switched their major to nuclear science.

Second, I recommend reading B's post over at Moon of Alabama, where he points out that the current P5+1 negotiations with Iran have already been killed by US preconditions -- in this case that Iran simply hand over its enriched uranium for nothing -- which is quite normal and usual since the last thing the US wants is for the negotiations to actually succeed and thus deprive the US of the "nuclear weapons threat" justification for its regime-change policies.

Third, Mark Perry has a sensational piece accusing Israel of arming of the Baluchi Jundallah terrorist group in Eastern Iran. According to Perry, Israeli Mossad agents posed as American spies to recruit members of the terrorist organization Jundallah, and have consistently ignored US objections at portraying themselves as CIA officers. Of course there's speculation that Perry is actually trying to disassociate the real US policies by blaming them on Israel. Frankly, I don't care. Makes very little difference whether the Israelis are doing this with the open  connivance of the US, or merely the silent toleration of the US, because in the end the result is the same.

Then we have a series of "experts" writing a variety of articles in which they seek to justify a war on Iran.  Kroenig wrote in Foreign Policy that  bombing Iran's nuclear facilities would be the "least bad option." Fly and Schmidt further suggest that not only should the US bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, but should engage in a prolonged battle to totally topple the regime -- a policy they refer to as "Go Big then Go Home."

There are enough analysts who have pointed out that this sort of argument sounds a lot like the bullshit that the NeoCons promoted to justify the invasion of Iraq -- including the claims that the people of Iran would would direct their resentments towards the regime rather than the US, and would welcome such an attack (remember, the Iraqis were going to toss flowers at invading US troops.) How exactly is the US realistically going to "go home" after launching a war on Iran, considering that it has just now managed to extricate itself from the mess it created in smaller, weaker Iraq almost a decade after the initial invasion, is left to the imagination. 

Also, I suppose it is a sign of the times and NeoCon thinking no one bothers to ask themselves how things have gotten so bad that launching a war is considered to be a preferable course of affairs, but in any case all three writers' arguments rely on framing the issue as a false choice: either Iran should be bombed, or Iran will acquire the bomb. I've written about this false choice before, since it is a common "talking point" by the NeoCons as it conveniently ignores a whole range of intermediate options between the two extremes, and is thus intended to ultimately corner the US into bombing Iran.  The idea of engagement -- a real engagement, not the pretense we've witnessed thus far -- is naturally left out. As I've written before, as far as the NeoCons are concerned, their real ambition it to prevent a US-Iran engagement and topple the regime, not just to end any supposed "nuclear weapons threat" from Iran.

I also recommend reading Gareth Porter's explanation on why Hillary Clinton's claim that the Fordow nuclear enrichment facility in Iran was supposedly a "secret" is false -- and also Eric Brill's debunking of torture-supporting John Yoo's justification of an attack on Iran -- and Pepe Escobar's rather funny article on how the myth of an "isolated" of Iran.

Comments

[Kr]

http://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/semiconductors/nanotechnology/are-we-witnessing-a-nanoaxis-of-evil

[mb]

Tell these bastards that Iran is not Iraq. Neither the US or their proxy Zionist army can never ever invade Iran and win a victory. Tell these morons in their cozy chairs of their think tanks, that Iranians are NEVER afraid of dying. Matter of fact, they welcome and embrace death. Very simple. Case closed.

[wt]

"surrendering its entire nuclear program to the western imperialists" would have to mean western imperialists will have to be granted unrestricted rights of inspection everywhere and anytime in Iran, simply giving up enrichment, ratifying additional protocol etc. would still allow western imperialists to claim Iran is secretly enriching etc.

[Al]

What if Iran gave-up its natural and national rights, and perfectly legitimate nuclear technology, and became a coward and surrendered its entire nuclear program to the western imperialists? This is one reply by an International Law professor: U.S. knows no end to its hostility to Iran and even if Iran had ratified the Additional Protocol to NPT, it will say Iran has not joined the international campaign against terrorism, Iran must end its support for Hezbollah of Lebanon and should no longer support the Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and must form relations with Israel and improve human rights. http://irna.ir/NewsShow.aspx?NID=30769875