[lit-ideas] The United States, Israel, and the Possible Attack on Iran

From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 22:12:12 -0700 (PDT)
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3251

(excerpt)

A military strike against Iran, either directly by the
United States or through Israel, will not likely
succeed in curbing Iran's nuclear program. Indeed, it
will likely motivate the Iranian government, with
enhanced popular support in reaction to foreign
aggression against their country, to redouble their
efforts. 

Iran has deliberately spread its nuclear facilities
over a wide geographical range, with at least nine
major locations. Even the bunker buster bombs may not
fully penetrate a number of these facilities, assuming
all the secret sites could be located. 

The U.S.-backed Israeli raid of Iraq's Osirak reactor
in 1981, according to virtually all accounts by Iraqi
nuclear scientists, was at most a temporary setback
for Saddam Hussein's nuclear program and ultimately
led to the regime accelerating its timetable for the
development of nuclear weapons until it was dismantled
under the watch of the UN's International Atomic
Energy Agency in the early 1990s. Despite this, the
Congress passed a resolution in 1991 defending
Israel's action and criticizing the United Nations for
its opposition to Israel's illegal military attack. 

The only real solution to the standoff over Iran's
nuclear program is a diplomatic one. For example, Iran
has called for the establishment of a nuclear
weapons-free zone for the entire Middle East in which
all nations in the region would be required to give up
their nuclear weapons and open up their programs to
strict international inspections. Iran has been joined
in its proposal by Syria, by U.S. allies Jordan and
Egypt, and by other Middle Eastern states. Such
nuclear weapons-free zones have already been
successfully established for Latin America, the South
Pacific, Antarctica, Africa, and Southeast Asia. 

The Bush administration and Congressional leaders of
both parties have rejected such a proposal, however,
insisting that the United States has the right to
unilaterally decide which countries get to have
nuclear weapons and which ones do not, effectively
imposing a kind of nuclear apartheid. In 1958, the
United States was the first country to introduce
nuclear weapons into the region, bringing tactical
nuclear bombs on its ships and planes. Israel became a
nuclear weapons state by the early 1970s with the
quiet support of the U.S. government. To Iran's east,
Pakistan and India have developed nuclear weapons as
well, also with U.S. support: the Bush administration
recently signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with
India and has provided both countries with
nuclear-capable jet fighter-bombers. 

Located in such a dangerous region, then, it is not
surprising that Iran might be seeking a nuclear
deterrent. The United States and Israel do not want
Iran to have such a deterrent, however, since it would
challenge the U.S.-Israeli nuclear monopoly in that
oil-rich region. In other words, what those in the
Bush administration, the Israeli government, and the
bipartisan leadership in Congress are concerned about
is protecting the hegemonic interests of the United
States and its junior partner Israel, not stopping the
proliferation of nuclear weapons. 

Such a policy does not protect the interests of the
American or Israeli people, nor does it help the
people of Iran and the Middle East as a whole. It
remains to be seen, however, whether the American
public will once again allow the Bush administration
and the leadership of both parties Congress to
successfully employ exaggerated stories of potential
?weapons of mass destruction? controlled by an
oil-rich country on the far side of the world to
justify a disastrous war. 



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[lit-ideas] The United States, Israel, and the Possible Attack on Iran

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