Cross posted at http://www.peaceisactive.com
All you have to do is listen to the President to realize he is preparing the American public for a war with Iran.
In his speech to the American Legion, Mr Bush hit back, accusing Iran's Revolutionary Guards of funding and arming insurgents in Iraq.
And he said Iran's leaders could not avoid some responsibility for attacks on coalition troops and Iraqi civilians.
"I have authorised our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran's murderous activities," he said
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...
My belief is that a war with Iran has been the goal of many American political leaders since the islamic revolution kicked out the American supported dictator in the late 1970's.
Just as in Iraq, the real reasons for war will not be the reason given for going to war. The President knows the American public will not support a war based on the idea that we should use military force to rearrange the Middle East to our benefit. The American people know we can achieve our Middle East goals without the use of violence.
In order to gain support for war in Iran, the President will continue to mislead the American people.
For example, the President has been talking a lot about how Iran is supporting Shiites in Iraq who are attacking Americans. He fails to mention that Saudi Arabia has been supporting Sunni tribes that have been attacking American forces. He fails to mention that 70% of the Al Qaeda forces in Iraq are coming from Saudi Arabia. However, the President doesn't want to attack Saudi Arabia. He wants to attack Iran.
Also, according to the reasons the President cites for war with Iran, we might have to attack ourselves. We are supporting militias throughout the Middle East in our attempt to control the region. We helped bring Saddam Hussein to power and we supported him during his war with Iran. We supported Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and continue to support the repressive Saudi Arabian and Egyptian governments Al Qaeda is fighting against.
The President says Iran is supporting Shiites in Iraq, but so are we. We are supporting the government in Baghdad that is made up of people who were exiled to Iran while we supported Saddam Hussein. Did we expect Iran not to play a role in a post Saddam Iraq even though we took military action to allow democracy to elect the religious rulers backed by Iran?
Why is it OK for the United States to travel thousands of miles to take an active role in determining the future of the Middle East, but it is not OK for Iran to be involved in Middle Eastern affairs? Would we feel threatened and a need to intervene if a foreign power was threatening the United States while invading and occupying Mexico and Canada?
Why did the United States overthrow the democratically elected leader of Iran in 1953?
Why did the United States support a ruthless dictator in Iran who used massive amounts of violence to control the Iranian people?
Why did we support Saddam Hussein as he attacked Iran in the 1980's?
Why did the United States support Iran (remember the Iran Contra scandal?) as they fought back against Iraq?
Why do we want to go to war with Iran now in 2007?
The answer to all of these questions is the same. Access to oil.
No matter what excuse (or "trigger event") is used to justify war, the reason is the same as it always has been. The goal is to privatize the entire Middle East so that oil and other resources will be open to extraction by American and other western companies.
I want democracy and open markets in the Middle East, but I don't support using war to achieve the goal. I especially don't support misleading the American public into war in order to make the desired political changes.
For example, I wanted democracy and open markets in the former Soviet Union. If the current Administration was in power, they might have been misleading the American people to support war with the USSR. If people opposed the idea of war, I'm sure they would have accused us of not being patriotic and not supporting the troops and not supporting the goal of democracy and open markets.
That is a standard linguistic trick of the Bush Administration. If you don't support their violent strategies, they claim you don't support the goals of freedoms, democracy, and open markets. The problem with their argument is that the Soviet Union fell and has been transitioning to greater freedom, democracy, and open markets without the need for a nuclear war that would have killed millions without guarantees that the USSR would have been reborn in our image.
Strategies of peace take longer than strategies of war, but they are often more effective and less expensive - both in terms of taxpayer expense and human lives. The Soviet Union didn't fall because of our nuclear weapons and strategies of war. It fell because the Soviet people saw the American example as something they wanted to follow. We didn't force them to support democracy at gunpiont - or by killing them with nuclear weapons - we got them to support democracy and open markets by winning their hearts and minds with our example.
Also, the President says we have crucial national interests in the Midle East (oil) and he has said we are addicted to oil. However, he is like a junkie who knows he has a problem but continues to rob other neighborhoods to support his habit. We are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on strategies of war to secure oil. We have the ability to spend hundreds of billions of dollars researching a new sustainable and less polluting energy source, but we are choosing to use strategies fo war instead.
The President makes it sound like we have to attack Iran right away. This is not the case. He wants to privatize Iran and he wants to use American troops and taxpayer money to do it, but we have other strategies available to us.