Vijay Prashad: Fog of needless war grows thicker over Iran
NORTHAMPTON - Something is bound to happen. The United States and Europe have attempted to cage Iran in harsh economic sanctions. The Iranian rial has spiraled out of control, with imports so expensive that goods are simply not available in many parts of the country.
Assassination of four Iranian scientists has chilled the academic community in the country.
The Sunday Times of London suggests that this is the handiwork of Israel's secret service. Iran's response has been a letter to the international community calling on an end to acts of terror against its intellectuals.
U.S. warships dog the Iranian coastline, and U.S. drones fly over its airspace in contravention of international laws.
What has Iran done to deserve this? As a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran is legally allowed to develop a nuclear program (as have 40 other countries around the world). Iranian nuclear developments are under scrutiny from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose last report from November 2011 states that Iran could be developing "nuclear capability." On Jan. 8, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta mused, "Are the Iranians developing a nuclear weapon? No. But we know that they're trying to develop a nuclear capability, and that's what concerns us."
Why does this concern the United States? After all, in 2005, the U.S. and India signed a Civil Nuclear Agreement that allowed India to import nuclear materials from the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
India is not a member of the NPT, and it illegally conducted a series of nuclear tests in 1998.
Israel and Pakistan are also not member of the NPT. Their nuclear weapons programs are outside the gaze of the IAEA. In 1969, President Nixon told Prime Minister Golda Meir to "make no visible introduction of nuclear weapons or undertake a nuclear test program." In other words, the U.S. colluded with Israel toward a policy of nuclear ambiguity.
If the U.S. is willing to create strategic alliances with India, Israel and Pakistan who have illegal nuclear arsenals, what is the agitation about Iran's legal nuclear program?
The IAEA team that visited Tehran in late January noted that it focused "on the clarification of possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear programme."
There was no red flag in the report. Most people who comment on the report have not read it.
Yet, the war drums beat louder and louder in the U.S., with the news media offering up alarmist theories that "Iran may be prepared to strike on American soil" (as NBC's Brian Williams said on Jan. 31). Williams said nothing about the actual attacks taking place, the killing of the Iranian scientists in cold blood on the streets of Tehran (including the assassination of 32-year-old Mustafa Ahmadi Roshan on Jan. 11).
The fog of war is getting thicker and thicker. It is clear that there is no military solution to the tension in the region. Seventy-eight million Iranians are not going to be pacified for the dreams of neo-conservative thought.
A regional rapprochement is essential, but the first step has to be a drawdown of the war rhetoric. Murad Saghafi, a secular reformist who is close to the clerical leadership, notes that Iran is not averse to a rational deal.
"If (the United States leadership) say, Iran has a place in the world, we don't want to attack Iran, let's make Iran a leading natural gas producer, (Iran) will say yes." More yes, less no. That should be the basis of our foreign policy.
Vijay Prashad of Northampton is professor and director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, Conn.
Comments
Israel is the guilty party.
The country which has had expansionist policies since before its inception is Israel. The country bombing its neighbors is Israel. The country with nuclear weapons is Israel. Israel wiped Palestine off the map! Israel has been conducting ethnic cleansing since 1947. The country that has been assassinating nuclear scientists is Israel. And the country that launched the cyber attack is Israel.
Whatever sympathy Israel may have enjoyed in 1947 and 1948 has been squandered. Only a fool cannot see that. Keep it up! Keep trying to silence Israel's legitimate critics by slandering them. (I don't even know what chardonnay is.) Concerned reasonable people think that Israel's behavior may lead it to end in a ball of fire. You'd have to be a fool to think you can go on committing ethnic cleansing forever without people wanting to put a stop to it. Right now, Israel thinks it can handle the Palestinians and their supporters with more and more violence. They value building settlements on occupied land more than they value peace.
Israel has only one sane choice. They should pay reparations to the Palestinians whose land they have stolen and to the families of the Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, Jordanians, Egyptians, Turks and Americans that they have murdered. They should get out of the occupied territories. They should disband the settlements and treat the settlers for their serious mental illnesses. They should get out of the Golan Heights. They should pay reparations to the governments of Palestine and Syria. And they should stop squandering water. They need a sane water policy, the cornerstone of which should be solar powered desalination projects.
Stop using the term "oil rich." Israel's per capita income is almost twice as high as most other countries in the Middle East. Iran is an oil exporting nation, and like all nations, it knows how much oil there is left on earth and how rapidly it is being depleted. Iran has been rationing petro at least since 2007. World oil production has peaked and cannot keep up with demand. In the long term, Iranians, like Americans and Israelis should learn to appreciate the beauty of wind turbines. In the short term, Iran does have a legitmate need for nuclear power.
Iran IS pursuing nuclear weapons
Cathy, I know that you don't like facts to get in the way of what you feel, but perhaps you'll believe the Iranians themselves.
However, this is from the raging conservative, foaming at the mouth rag called the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/formerly-secret-te...
What nonsense!
Every year, supporters of Israel resort have to resort to more and more torturous reasoning to come up with any sort of justification for Israeli actions. Your arguments don't stand up to any sort of fact checks or logical analysis. The arguemt in the article that VSM linked goes like this: If Bill knows George and George says something that I can twist into something brutal and ridiculous then I can tar Bill with being guilty of having brutal and ridiculous ideas. That's the old straw man debate technique. If Bill says something based on solid facts and logic, then I must distort what Bill said and then argue with the distortions of my own creation. It is a slander against Bill because you're alleging that he said things that you know he did not say. In this case, you're setting up a straw man once removed, because you're not even alleging that Bill said anything. You're only alleging that he knows someone who said something.
Spilled chardonnay
Cathy, put down the wine for a few minutes and read the chain of posts between us.
I commented that Iran is constantly threatening to wipe out Israel at the same time they are pursuing nukes.
You retorted that I must be reading unreliable right-wing garbage.
I replied back listing the news organizations that have reported the comments of the Iranian leadership and have also reported the world's fears that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons.
Dispelling your false accusations must have been like spilling a glass of good chardonnay to you. Now you come back with a tangled "straw man" ploy to divert attention from the fact that you're initial accusation was blown out of the water.
Has Israel behaved like a saint since their inception? No. What country has?
Let me try to address it this way to you:
Let's say that someone keeps threatening to level their neighbor's home and kill everyone in it - and does it with a creepy smile.
Well, the police don't take the threat seriously because the neighbor has no way of actually carrying the act of leveling that persons home - so they just call that person a crackpot and go on their merry way.
Suddenly that crackpot starts tinkering with high power explosives and starts to get pretty good at it. Add to it that crackpot intensifies their actions and starts bragging about how they are going to send their neighbor's house up on a huge ball of fire and kill everyone in it.
Does the person being threatened have a justifiable reason to be concerned? Might it make sense for the police to step in and see what's going on? And what if that crackpot won't let the police check his house (like the Iranians won't let the U.N. in to inspect)? What is the person being threatened to do?
According to you, everything is fine and if the person being threatened has their home blown to bits and everyone inside is killed, well they simply deserved it.
Genocide, Cathy, should NEVER be tolerated for ANY reason.
Iran does not attack or occupy its neighbors.
I don't know what right wing newspapers Valley Survivor Man has been reading. Probably warmongering, racisty nonsense form Fox News and Newsmax, throw in some Jerusalem Post. I might suggest to Israel, that if you don't want people to say bad things about you, stop attacking your neighbors. Stop occupying your neighbors. Stop building settlements on your neighbor's land. Stop assassinating scientists. Stop bugging your neighbor's computers.
It isn't hard to figure out why Israel's neighbors hate them. The US would do itself and Israel a huge favor if it would engage in an honest assesment of Israeli behavior, instead of pandering to AIPAC and other right wing Israeli controlled lobby groups.
Even NPR.............
Oh, let's see Cathy, who has reported the comments of the Iranian leadership stating that they want to "Kill the Jews," "Wipe Israel Off The Map," "Exterminate the Jews," "Israel will end in a ball of fire," ad nausem....... Well, we have the typical right-wing / radical foaming at the mouth rabid conservative news outlets of ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, NPR, The Washington Post, The LA Times, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, Al Jazera and a plethora of other racist warmongering publications.
I encourage you to go look at an atlas too, Cathy. Israel is not a neighbor of Iran. Between Israel and Iran are Syria and Iraq. I don't think its possible for Israel to occupy any part of Iran - which the reason you seem to give the green light to Iran publicly stating that they want to commit genocide against the Israelis.
Oh, and what about the nukes? Interestingly, many aspects of pursuing nuclear power are also used in the development of nuclear weapons. Perhaps you can explain to me why an oil rich nation NEEDS to pursue nuclear power.
"Wipe out Israel." "Kill all Jews."
Mr. Vijay,
I recommend that you pick up a few newspapers and read them.
Headlines like "Wipe out Israel," "Israel will end in a ball of fire," "Kill all Jews" coming out of the regime in Iran should be looked at and understood - especially since they are pursuing a nuclear weapon.
Here is just the latest in a string of provocative language from the unstable and unpredictable country of Iran:
http://www.wnd.com/2012/02/ayatollah-kill-all-jews-annihilate-israel/
Add on top of this their war games to close down the Strait of Hormuz and the writing is on the walls for anyone to see - anyone that is except for someone with absolutely no skin in the game, is not sitting in ground zero and is wearing blinders - namely you and those that think like you.