They Wouldn’t Really Attack Iran, Would They?
ZNet, MA by Paul Street
Remember the old neoconservative half-joke that “sacking Baghdad is fine but real men go to Teheran?� We are moving into the time when many Washington watchers have thought it possible and even likely that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney would order an attack on Iran (1).
They wouldn’t really do it, would they?
God knows there are a large number of reasons for a rational White House NOT to attack. United States and global public opinion is opposed to a U.S. assault on Iran. So are European and other leading and allied governments, the U.S. intelligence community and much of the nation’s military leadership. According to a February 25th London Times report, “most senior [United States] commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a strike against Iran� (1.5).
Key sections of the U.S. foreign policy establishment oppose attacking Iran. The Baker-Hamilton Commission’s Iraq Study Group advocated engaging Iran diplomatically to help de-escalate the mess in Iraq and the Middle East.
Expressing concerns that the administration will manufacture false pretexts for attacking Iran, former National Security Advisor Zgbniew Bzrezinski recently told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Bush’s “imperial hubris� is “undermining America’s global legitimacy,� “intensifying regional instability� and putting the U.S on track for a “quagmire lasting 20 years or more and eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan� (2).
United States troops are overstretched and have been badly bloodied in Iraq. The American Empire’s strung-out, battered and mostly working-class soldiers are increasingly skeptical about Bush’s military adventurism (3).
As Samar Sepehri notes in the latest International Socialist Review, “Iraq is a glaring example for the U.S. (as Hezbollah was for Israel) that superior firepower and the best laid [military] plans are no guarantee of imperial success� (4).
While “Iran cannot [militarily] defend itself against U.S. attack,� Noam Chomsky recently noted, “it can respond in other ways, among them by inciting ever more havoc in Iraq. “Some issue warnings that are more grave,� Chomsky adds, noting British military historian Corelli Barnett’s judgment that “an attack on Iran would effectively launch world war three� (5).
According to ZNet writer Stephen Lendman, citing a CIA assessment, “if the U.S. attacks Iran, South Shia Iraq will light up like a candle and explode uncontrollably throughout the country…expanding the Iraq conflict to a regional one with [unpredictable] consequences that would not be good for U.S. interests. It will inflame the region,â€? spark “a tsunami of Shia rageâ€? and “unite the Muslim world in fierce opposition to America,â€? Lendman says (6).
Iran has signaled its readiness to strangle oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz – the crucial and narrow passageway between the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean – and thereby to damage the global economy if the U.S. and/or Israel attack its nuclear facilities.
A military strike against Iran would be thoroughly illegal under international law and the U.S. Constitution. It would evoke horror and condemnation across the world, further tarnishing the United States’ fading “moral credentials� (Bzrezinski), especially if it employs (as it likely would) “low yield� nuclear missiles that would (as a senior U.S. intelligence official told Seymour Hersh) produce “mushroom clouds, radiation, mass casualties and contamination over years�(7). [more]