Lest we forget who the warmongers are re Iran …
The Likudnik neocons in the US are refusing diplomacy, are shunning the advice of better, more level-headed people both within the administration and from other governments trying to help broker talks; they continue their propagations of paranoia, fear and disinformation because they are intent upon another conflagration, regardless. They have control of oil, gas, and maintaining Israel’s regional nuclear balance-of-power at stake.
We can not let this war happen.
See also Virgina Tilley’s excellent piece posted here recently.
[] BBC Newsnight: Cheney Rejected Iran’s Help: Washington ‘snubbed Iran offer’, watch at ICH, or at BBC:
Iran offered the US a package of concessions in 2003, but it was rejected, a senior former US official has told the BBC’s Newsnight programme. Tehran proposed ending support for Lebanese and Palestinian militant groups and helping to stabilise Iraq following the US-led invasion. Offers, including making its nuclear programme more transparent, were conditional on the US ending hostility. But Vice-President Dick Cheney’s office rejected the plan, the official said.
[] Gareth Porter, Neo-con cabal blocked 2003 nuclear talks, Asia Times, 30 March 2006:
WASHINGTON – The George W Bush administration failed to enter into negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program in May 2003 because neo-conservatives who advocated destabilization and regime change were able to block any serious diplomatic engagement with Tehran, according to former administration officials. … Lawrence Wilkerson, then chief of staff to secretary of state Colin Powell, said the failure to adopt a formal Iran policy in 2002-03 was the result of obstruction by a “secret cabal” of neo-conservatives in the administration, led by Vice President Dick Cheney.
Read the rest of this important article about the neocons veto and their prevalance over the ones with good sense in the US administration here
Also see Gareth Porter, How Neo-Cons Sabotaged Iran’s Help on al Qaeda, IPS, 21 Feb 2006
[] Meir Stieglitz, Israel ON the Brink, ICH, 10 Jan 2007
Galvanized by the mounting Iranian nuclear crisis, the “survival” word and its synonymies is the talk of Israel, rising in volume from day to day and spilling to almost all sectors of Israeli life. The prevailing dark mood is epitomized by Prime Minister Olmert rush to publicly stress, for all the world to hear, that for the first time in his life he feels that there is an existential threat against the State of Israel. On this background, an analysis of the Israeli open discourse indicates that the national security paranoia is dangerously nearing “a point of no cure”.
Did Israel really cross the line between legitimate strategic security concerns and existential obsession? Yes, and perilously so. How did it get there? Well, in the last two decades, sowing WMD security alarms was a rather expedient move for the Israeli politicians and media and recently it has reached an exceptional intensity. It is imperative to remember that Israel is a country with long-range strategic capabilities and as such an injection of non-rational survival fears can turn it, in a short time, into a source of global hazard. Read the rest of the article here
[] Salim Lone, Who will stop the US from attacking Iran? National Media, (19 Jan 2007)
HARD AS IT IS TO IMAGINE, it is likely that another major war is being planned by the US, this time against Iran. And the arguments being marshalled by the Bush administration are exactly identical to what was being said against Iraq in the build-up to that war in 2003.
The President and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are accusing Iran of developing weapons of mass destruction and of exporting terrorism, just as Saddam Hussein was allegedly doing.
Iran is also being accused of refusing to abide by United Nations resolutions on its nuclear weapons programme, which, like Iraq then, it denies it has.
Word of American preparations for war against Iran has been rife for months, with renowned US journalist Seymour Hersh revealing covert activities which include the presence within Iran’s borders of US special forces fomenting rebellion against the regime.
But for the first time, President Bush’s war-like words against Iran have now been backed up by overt actions. An Iranian consulate was raided in Iraq’s Kurdistan and five diplomats arrested, in violation of international diplomatic protocols. A new aircraft carrier left the US on Wednesday for Iranian waters. Read the rest of the article here
Let it be known that most of the people in this country are against what Bush and company are doing. It is my hope that someone will put a stop to this madness.
The stuff these PNAC Neocns are pulling is beyond belief.
Now Bush is removing the federal prosecuters that would see any criminal cases brought against him and his buddies. He is replacing them with appointments which will last the term of his presidency. All based on a law he slipped into “The Patriot Act”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNWbJV1eBMk&eurl=
True Patriots must rise up against this cabal and stomp out the fires it has lit before the world is consumed.
Agreed, BlueBear. The PNAC neocons have hijacked decision-making and wrested control from more level-headed Americans in government, demonstrably so in this case. My concern is: where are the checks and balances for the critical next two years? Not just the vaunted ones between judiciary, executive and legislature, but the checks on executive madness.
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