It is this reporter's opinion that after having covered the fiasco in Afghanistan and Bush’s pre-emptive war in Iraq, President Bush and company appear bent on going to war with Iran.
This is absolute insanity.
There is an unmistakable message being sent through the neo-conservative transmission belts that there is war ahead — that it is unavoidable with no alternative. There is every indication the direction for this is coming from Vice President Dick Cheney and those surrounding him.
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, speaking before Conservative Party delegates in Britain, stated, “U.N. efforts to negotiate with Iran have failed.” Bolton sees no alternative to a pre-emptive strike on the nuclear facilities in Iran.
Influential conservative thinker and author, Norman Podhoretz, has told a British paper that he has advised President George W. Bush to do exactly that. Bolton, speaking in England, repeats the same message that Iran’s capabilities must be taken out because of a potential threat posed to both Israel and the United States.
Bolton says any strike should be followed by an attempt to remove Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — the source of the problem. He says that any strike against Iran must be accompanied with an effort at regime change — that we are not attacking the people of Iran but the nuclear weapons program.
Ahmadinejad asserts that a vacuum is developing in Iraq and he is willing to fill the void.
Are the increasingly strident statements by the president, State Department, and Pentagon officials a signal that a U.S. military attack on Iran is imminent?
One source indicates that the vice president and his cabal will roll out a campaign for war with Iran coordinated with a sustained assault on the airwaves designed to promote public sentiment from which another war can be maintained.
The Sunday Times of London reported on Sept. 2 that the Pentagon had already drawn plans for a “three-day blitz” on over 1,000 targets designed to take out Iran’s entire military. The plan of attack also includes airstrikes against 1,200 targets aimed at annihilating Iranian nuclear facilities in three days.
There is increasing talk of the proposed massive pre-emptive military strike on Iran with prominent spokesmen openly calling for the United States to use “tactical nuclear missiles.”
Our sometimes ally, Vladimir Putin, president of the Russian Federation, offers a stern warning against any U.S. possible attack against their trading partner, Iran.
It is time that Bush, Cheney, and company listen to those who have witnessed first-hand trial by fire: Gens. Wesley Clark, Ricardo Sanchez, Eric Shinseki, and John Abizaid.
Gen. Abizaid warns that bombing Iran would be “catastrophic,” and it would set the entire Middle East ablaze, that Iran could mount a million men on the ground. And though the younger generation in Iran admires the West for our movies, our culture and our lifestyles, bombing Iran would bring a national unification regardless of Iran’s leadership.
These generals know from hands-on experience that imposed democracy on the Middle East is simply impossible. They have learned that imposing participatory democracy is not only completely foreign to Middle East cultures, but has proved impossible when attempted in the past.
It is time for the American people who have witnessed the fiasco in Iraq to rise up in opposition against Bush, Cheney, and the war mongers. These tribes in the Middle East have been fighting amongst themselves for 1,000 years, a fighting that will continue long after we have departed the earth.
A pre-emptive attack against Iran borders on insanity. The struggle in Afghanistan, Iraq, and growing troubles with their neighbors, including Turkey, point to absolute disaster.
Our problems in the Middle East can only be solved through the highest level of diplomacy. Let’s begin that diplomatic effort now or face World War III!
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