The Coming Attack on Iran: A Perfect Storm of Madness
Friday, 11 July 2008 by Dr. Bernard Weiner
The question is not whether Iran will be attacked, but by whom and whether the bombing will commence within the next several months or shortly after the November election.
The U.S. for many months has made bellicose noises about thwarting Iran’s nuclear ambitions with force — complete with a virtual repeat of its pre-war propaganda campaign prior to “shock&awe” against Iraq. Israel is reported to have just carried out a military exercise practicing for an attack on Iran. Iran is letting it be known how destructive and unconventional its retaliation would be if it is bombed. What is going on?
Though one can decry it, at least one can understand why Israel, just a short missile flight from Iran, might want to take “pre-emptive” action against that country were it to possess nuclear-weapons capabilities. But what’s driving the neocons in the White House to push so insistently for an attack on Iran?
It seems clear that Cheney and Bush want Iran’s nascent civilian nuclear program taken out now before it could become operational in a military sense five or ten years down the road. If this is true, why would the Administration have wanted to attack Iraq?
For decades, you may remember, Iraq was the buffer between an ambitious, strengthening Iran and the West’s strategic interests in the Middle East, and for that reason the U.S. under Reagan helped Saddam in his war against his country’s Iranian neighbor. But with Iraq sinking into military/economic irrelevance after what Cheney and Bush have done to ruin that country, Iran not surprisingly is filling the political and military vacuum in that Islamic region of the Greater Middle East.
The neocons argue that if Iran is not stopped now, America will lose all hopes of future influence and control in the oil-rich region.oil-rich region. [more]