Monday, May 12, 2008
Ratcheting up for war with Iran?
From the RoundTable blog
Read the latest entries
Dennis Welch
Welch lives, teaches and writes in Blacksburg.
According to Lolita Baldor's article ("U.S.: Iran ramps up arms shipments," April 26 news story), the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Michael Mullen, claimed on April 25 that Iran is "ratcheting up" arms shipments and training for Iraqi insurgents. Despite appearing to support diplomacy, his news briefing when read carefully was extremely troublesome because he continued the threat of military action, which (as President Bush indicated last fall) would bring on World War III.
Mullen's remarks were troublesome also in their lack of substantive evidence to demonstrate Iranian weapon shipments and training for Iraqis. He admitted "no ... massive increase" of weapons. Instead, he repeatedly asserted "a consistent increase" of them, never acknowledging that it could easily result from the enormous black market of arms in the Middle East, where weapons from any country -- without its government's say -- are sold in other countries (such as Iraq).
Acknowledging "no smoking gun" to prove Iranian government involvement, Mullen repeated nonetheless the accusations and threats that the Bush administration has been hurling for many months.
The aim of such repetition, of course, is to convince Americans of Iranian wickedness so that another war in the Middle East may be perceived as necessary and patriotic.
Part of the repetition often trots out Iran's notorious President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But Ahmadinejad is a narrow-minded demagogue who, by Iran's constitution, has no control over its military. He's responsible for economic policy, at which he's been a failure (not unlike other chief executives). Hence, his unpopularity among Iranians themselves.
Another aim of repeating accusations and threats against Iran is to scapegoat it for the dire conditions in Iraq. Despite the hoopla, the "surge" has failed in its main objective: to provide enough order and calm so the Iraqi Parliament and people will pull together and set a new and better course for themselves.
Mullen blames Iran for "foment[ing] instability" in Iraq. But every poll taken of the Iraqis in the last two years shows that the vast majority of them want the U.S. to leave because they see us as the destabilizing factor. (Nonetheless, just as Dick Cheney dismisses the views of Americans, so he and Bush disregard the wishes of the Iraqis.) The invasion and occupation have inflamed longstanding sectarian, tribal, economic and political animosities in Iraq that our presence will not resolve.
Let's answer honestly this simple question: Would Americans ever stop resisting the presence of a foreign occupying military even when it claimed benign intentions?
When asked by a reporter why Iran played a role in calming the violence recently in Basra (Iraq's strategic port city), Mullen had no answer. But earlier he acknowledged that, regarding the aims of Iranians, he hasn't "had a conversation with them." He assumes that Iran wants a destabilized Iraq.
But even though the Iranians are Persian and the Iraqis Arab and they have tangled before, they have many commonalities of religion (mostly Shiite), culture and trade. Wouldn't more conversation on all sides and fewer threats be the better course of action?
