Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran

15Jan08

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has again threatened Iran with military attack, affirming on Monday that Israel is “ruling out no options” in preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. “Anything that can prevent the nuclearization of Iran is a part of the legitimate context of dealing with the issue”, he declared, speaking before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

The threat, a violation of the UN Charter, came after a particularly tense week in the Gulf. President Bush is in the region seeking to drum up support from the Arab states for the U.S.’ campaign of intimidation and economic warfare against Iran. After a naval “confrontation” in the Straits of Hormuz between U.S. battleships and three tiny Iranian speedboats – played up by the Pentagon and the media to make Iran look like a threat – Bush branded Iran “the world’s leading state-sponsor of terror” (a bit rich coming from one of the world’s leading practitioners of state terror) and called on U.S. allies to “confront this danger before it’s too late.” Meanwhile, Bush’s speech in the UAE met a cool reception. As one noted analyst observed,

“You have all types of contradictions…Talking about freedom when you’re occupying two countries in the region: Afghanistan and Iraq. Talking about justice while you’re against the (Palestinian) right of return. Talking about democracy while you’re against elected groups you don’t like…Was he listening to himself?”

To top it off, Bush yesterday notified Congress of his intention to sell $120 million of “smart bombs” to Saudi Arabia. This is a part of the U.S.’ “Gulf Security Dialogue”, announced last August, which involves the sale of some $20 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE, for the express purpose of “containing” Iran. Imagine if Iran sold $20 billion of arms to Venezuela with the explicit intent to ‘counteract [America's] increasing military threat’, accompanied by Iranian destroyers conducting war games a few miles off the coast of Florida and the Iranian government refusing to take an attack on the U.S. “off the table”. Both Tehran and Caracas would be bombed flat before the day was out.

This all comes, remember, after the IAEA reported in November that all of Iran’s declared nuclear material has been accounted for and that there is no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, and after the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate concluded that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons. Iran has promised to clarify remaining questions with respect to its nuclear program within a month, after talks described by a diplomat close to the IAEA as “positive, constructive and substantive”. The fact that, despite all this, the U.S. and Israel are able to continue their campaign of hostility and aggression towards Iran suggests that, no matter how unlikely a war may seem, we cannot afford to get complacent.

Filed under: Iran, Israeli / Palestinian, News and politics, US, WMD   |  2 Comments
Tags: IAEA, International & Foreign Policy, Mahmadounejad, nukes, proliferation