Down the primrose path toward Tehran

Much like the MoveOn ad that re-routed the debate about the credibility of the Petraeus report into a spasm of “patriotism” blather, Ahmadinejad’s arrival in the US today colors the entire Iran/US conflict with a layer of dysfunctional knee-jerk. Kissinger just publicly objected to A’s addressing Columbia University — why we still think he’s anything by a watered-down version of Dr. Stranglove, I don’t know … but we do.

[Actually, I DO know ... if we'd gone forward to impeach Nixon, even after he'd stepped down -- and made a thorough vetting of his cabinet available to the public eye -- Kissinger would have been discredited. THAT was a national error couched in the terminology of "compassion" and "healing" that has led us to this moment of "unaccountable" politics.]

Considering the hysteria this visit will cause … more wrangle over the Holocaust and Mr. A’s newest project, reviving the “Death to America,” “Death to Israel,” “Death to the Great Satan” sloganeering, reminiscent of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei days, which had fallen from popularity in the last years — and renewing the Righty talking points, i.e., academics do not “love America,” and the UN should be dissolved … I think it’s ill timed. We don’t need more gas on Cheney’s bonfire; he’d producing plenty all by himself.

There are two ways to think about this … THE ways [us/them, Left/Right.] But I believe the majority of the world came away from the Cold War understanding, finally, that it was government heads working the real “evil” while the populations of countries, demonized in one anothers eyes, were “just folks.” Now we look out at a global world and see friends, each accountable individually … as are the Iranians. Those of us who have actually investigated the Iranian issue know full well that Ahmadinejad is to Iran what Bush is the America — a cartoon character, full of hot air and hotter rhetoric, jonesing for influence. But he’s a perfect foil for the Dubby, a peer in miscalculation and deluded idealism — and George must be gleeful to have the Axis of Evil brought to his very own doorstep.

Nationalism is losing its hold … so we are hearing the frantic rat-tat-tat of war drums banging at us, attempting to get the response it always got before — but … IF an unwelcomed war is provocated by the Bushies, it will fall squarely on them like a ton of depleted uranium; the people do NOT want this. They’re tired of bluster and posture — they want conversation and cooperation, they do NOT want to make more enemies abroad or spend another nickle on adventurism while their bridges collapse and their houses are repossessed.

Here are important reads — MSM about the visit, the newest accusations by the US, what the Iranians think — there’s disturbing new legislation you need to look at, proposed by [who else] Joe Lieberman, buried in the latest Defense Authorization bill, and a link to a National Review piece that [as one reader put it] “makes your eyes bleed” — read about the newly resurrected Air Force unit called “Project Checkmate,” readying for bombing strafes in Iran — a link to a book review telling us how the Shiia/Sunni sects impact in this current struggle, well worth a read — Andrew Sullivan decodes the Bill Krystal NeoCon element — and the last [op/ed] is excellent.

Pour a little prayer on this issue, dearhearts — world leaders have gone crazy, but the millions on millions of us that want peace can create a morphic field that denies them opportunity for war.

We’ll start with a Fiori … it’s been awhile; he reminds us who actually wants this war, even worse than he wants a straight daughter.

Jude

Cheney-in-Chief: Fireside Chat #2
Cartoon by Mark Fiore
September 20, 2007

Ahmadinejad Arrives for New York Visit
NAHAL TOOSI, AP
September 24, 2007

NEW YORK — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, facing protests and tabloid headlines calling him “evil” and a “madman,” stirred debate Monday about free speech ahead of his appearance at Columbia University.

Columbia President Lee Bollinger has promised to grill Ahmadinejad on subjects such as human rights, the Holocaust and Iran’s disputed nuclear program. The Iranian leader previously has called the Holocaust “a myth” and called for Israel to be “wiped off the map.”

Bollinger said Monday it was a question of free speech and academic freedom.

“It’s extremely important to know who the leaders are of countries that are your adversaries. To watch them to see how they think, to see how they reason or do not reason. To see whether they’re fanatical, or to see whether they are sly,” he told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Ahmadinejad is to speak and answer questions at a Columbia forum Monday, followed by a scheduled address to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday.

The New York Daily News’ front page on Monday read: “THE EVIL HAS LANDED.” The New York Post called Ahmadinejad the “Madman Iran Prez” and a “guest of dishonor.”

Tensions are high between Washington and Tehran over U.S. accusations that Iran is secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons, as well as helping Shiite militias in Iraq that target U.S. troops - claims Iran denies.

“Well, you have to appreciate we don’t need a nuclear bomb. We don’t need that. What need do we have for a bomb?” Ahmadinejad said in a “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday, taped earlier in Iran. “In political relations right now, the nuclear bomb is of no use. If it was useful it would have prevented the downfall of the Soviet Union.”

He also said that: “It’s wrong to think that Iran and the U.S. are walking toward war. Who says so? Why should we go to war? There is no war in the offing.”

Before leaving Iran, Ahmadinejad said the American people have been denied “correct information,” and his visit will give them a chance to hear a different voice, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Ahmadinejad has appealed to the American people before, distinguishing between the population and their government. Recently, he told a television show that Iran wants peace and friendship with America. Since coming to power in 2005, Ahmadinejad also has sent letters to the American people criticizing President Bush’s policies in the Middle East.

Washington has said it is addressing the Iran situation diplomatically, rather than militarily, but U.S. officials also say that all options are open. The commander of the U.S. military forces in the Middle East said he did not believe tensions will lead to war.

“This constant drum beat of conflict is what strikes me, which is not helpful and not useful,” Adm. William Fallon, head of U.S. Central Command, told Al-Jazeera television, which made a partial transcript available Sunday.

Ahmadinejad’s scheduled address to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday will be his third time attending the New York meeting in three years.

His request to lay a wreath at ground zero was denied by city officials and condemned by politicians who said a visit to the site of the 2001 terror attacks would violate sacred ground.

Police cited construction and security concerns in denying Ahmadinejad’s request.
Ahmadinejad told “60 Minutes” he would not press the issue but expressed disbelief that the visit would offend Americans.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, hundreds of young Iranians held a series of candlelight vigils in Tehran.

“Usually you go to these sites to pay your respects. And also to perhaps air your views about the root causes of such incidents,” Ahmadinejad told the network.

Columbia canceled a planned visit by the Iranian president last year, also citing security and logistical reasons. This time, security on campus was tight hours ahead of his arrival, with barriers blanketing the grounds and police patrolling.

Protest signs emblazoned with some of Ahmadinejad’s most notorious quotes about Israel were posted on campus, many by the Columbia Barnard Hillel group.

Sam Krevor, a 25-year-old graduate student in environmental engineering, said he’s watched some interviews with the Iranian president before.

“I appreciate that the event is happening, but even when he gets hard questions he’s not particularly interested in answering them,” Krevor said. “I think it’s doubtful that the actual event will be that enlightening.”

Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York is also being debated back home. Some in Iran think his trip is a publicity stunt that hurts Iran’s image in the world.

Political analyst Iraj Jamshidi said Ahmadinejad looks at the General Assembly as a publicity forum simply to surprise world leaders with his harsh rhetoric.

“The world has not welcomed Ahmadinejad’s hardline approach. His previous address to the assembly didn’t resolve any of Iran’s foreign policy issues. And no one expects anything better this time,” he said.

But conservative lawmaker Alaeddin Boroujerdi said it was a good chance for Iran to air its position.

“This trip gives the president a good chance to meet world leaders and inform them of Iran’s rightful position,” IRNA quoted Boroujerdi as saying. ++

Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi and Ali Akbar Dareini in Tehran, Iran contributed to this report.

US Says Iran Smuggling Missiles to Iraq
SAMEER N. YACOUB, AP
September 23, 2007

U.S. Focus on Ahmadinejad Puzzles Iranians
MICHAEL SLACKMAN, NYT
September 24, 2007

TEHRAN — When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was first elected president, he said Iran had more important issues to worry about than how women dress. He even called for allowing women into soccer games, a revolutionary idea for revolutionary Iran.

Today, Iran is experiencing the most severe crackdown on social behavior and dress in years, and women are often barred from smoking in public, let alone attending a stadium event.

Since his inauguration two years ago, Mr. Ahmadinejad has grabbed headlines around the world, and in Iran, for outrageous statements that often have no more likelihood of being put into practice than his plan for women to attend soccer games. He has generated controversy in New York in recent days by asking to visit ground zero — a request that was denied — and his scheduled appearance at Columbia University has drawn protests.

But it is because of his provocative remarks, like denying the Holocaust and calling for Israel to be wiped off the map, that the United States and Europe have never known quite how to handle him. In demonizing Mr. Ahmadinejad, the West has served him well, elevating his status at home and in the region at a time when he is increasingly isolated politically because of his go-it-alone style and ineffective economic policies, according to Iranian politicians, officials and political experts.

Political analysts here say they are surprised at the degree to which the West focuses on their president, saying that it reflects a general misunderstanding of their system.

Unlike in the United States, in Iran the president is not the head of state nor the commander in chief. That status is held by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, whose role combines civil and religious authority. At the moment, this president’s power comes from two sources, they say: the unqualified support of the supreme leader, and the international condemnation he manages to generate when he speaks up.

“The United States pays too much attention to Ahmadinejad,” said an Iranian political scientist who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “He is not that consequential.”

That is not to say that Mr. Ahmadinejad is insignificant. He controls the mechanics of civil government, much the way a prime minister does in a state like Egypt, where the real power rests with the president. He manages the budget and has put like-minded people in positions around the country, from provincial governors to prosecutors. His base of support is the Basiji militia and elements of the Revolutionary Guards.

But Mr. Ahmadinejad has not shown the same political acumen at home as he has in riling the West. Two of his ministers have quit, criticizing his stewardship of the state. The head of the central bank resigned. The chief judge criticized him for his management of the government. His promise to root out corruption and redistribute oil wealth has run up against entrenched interests.

Even a small bloc of members of Parliament that once aligned with Mr. Ahmadinejad has largely given up, officials said. “Maybe it comes as a surprise to you that I voted for him,” said Emad Afrough, a conservative member of Parliament. “I liked the slogans demanding justice.”

But he added: “You cannot govern the country on a personal basis. You have to use public knowledge and consultation.”

Rather than focusing so much attention on the president, the West needs to learn that in Iran, what matters is ideology — Islamic revolutionary ideology, according to politicians and political analysts here. Nearly 30 years after the shah fell in a popular revolt, Iran’s supreme leader also holds title of guardian of the revolution.

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s power stems not from his office per se, but from the refusal of his patron, Ayatollah Khamenei, and some hard-line leaders, to move beyond Iran’s revolutionary identity, which makes full relations with the West impossible. There are plenty of conservatives and hard-liners who take a more pragmatic view, wanting to retain “revolutionary values” while integrating Iran with the world, at least economically. But they are not driving the agenda these days, and while that could change, it will not be the president who makes that call.

“Iran has never been interested in reaching an accommodation with the United States,” the Iranian political scientist said. “It cannot reach an accommodation as long as it retains the current structure.”

Another important factor restricts Mr. Ahmadinejad’s hand: while ideology defines the state, the revolution has allowed a particular class to grow wealthy and powerful.

When Mr. Ahmadinejad was first elected, it appeared that Iran’s hard-liners had a monopoly on all the levers of power. But today it is clear that Mr. Ahmadinejad is not a hard-liner in the traditional sense. His talk of economic justice and a redistribution of wealth, for example, ran into a wall of existing vested interests, including powerful clergy members and military leaders.

“Ahmadinejad is a phenomenon,” said Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former vice president under the more moderate administration of Mohammad Khatami. “On a religious level he is much more of a hard-liner than the traditional hard-liners. But on a political level, he does not have the support of the hard-liners.”

In the long run, political analysts here say, a desire to preserve those vested interests will drive Iran’s agenda. That means that the allegiance of the political elite is to the system, not a particular president. If this president were ever perceived as outlasting his usefulness, he would probably take his place in history beside other presidents who failed to change the orientation of the system.

Iranians will go to the polls in less than two years to select a president. There are so many pressures on the electoral system here, few people expect an honest race. The Guardian Council, for example, controlled by hard-liners, must approve all candidates.

But whether Mr. Ahmadinejad wins or loses, there is no sense here in Iran that the outcome will have any impact on the fundamentals of Iran’s relations with the world or the government’s relation to its own society.

“The situation will get worse and worse,” said Saeed Leylaz, an economist and former government official. “We are moving to a point where no internal force can change things.” ++

Threatening Lieberman-Kyl Amendment On Iran
Jonathan Schwarz, Tiny Revolution
September 21, 2007

Amazingly, no one anywhere in the US media seems to have noticed that yesterday Jon Kyl (Arizona) and Joe Lieberman filed an extremely threatening amendment on Iran to the FY 2008 Defense Authorization bill. I guess all their time was taken up with the earth-shakingly important issue of newspaper ads.

It’s a “Sense of the Senate” resolution, which means it has no legal force, but as the Congressional Research Service will tell you, “foreign governments pay close attention to [such resolutions] as evidence of shifts in U.S. foreign policy priorities.” If you want you can read it yourself (.doc), but here are the most important paragraphs:

(3) that it should be the policy of the United States to combat, contain, and roll back the violent activities and destabilizing influence inside Iraq of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies;

(4) to support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments, in support of the policy described in paragraph (3) with respect to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies.

If something like this passes both the House and Senate, I think Bush could legitimately argue that between it, the War Powers Act and the 2001 and 2002 Authorizations to Use Military Force, he has all the authority he needs to attack Iran.

UPDATE: It seems one news outlet has noted this — National Review. ++

Cheney seeks pretext for war as US reestablishes elite Air Force wing
John Byrne, Raw Story
Sunday September 23, 2007

The US Air Force has reestablished the elite fighting force which planned the 1991 Gulf War’s air campaign and tasked them with “fighting the next war” as US-Iran tensions bloom, the London Sunday Times reports Sunday.

The news came on the heels of another Sunday report in Newsweek, which confirmed a quotation from a Cheney advisor who said that the Vice President “had been mulling the idea of pushing for limited Israeli missile strikes against the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz - and perhaps other sites - in order to provoke Tehran into lashing out.”

Such a strike would then give the US the ability to launch a strike in response.

Democratic foreign policy expert Steve Clemons, who said this week that President George W. Bush had ruled out a first-strike on Iran, voiced concern that the Cheney team might seek use an “accident” as a casus belli.

“I’m not saying there won’t be any war but nothing in Bush’s posture suggests he’s really with the Cheney gang yet,” Clemons told RAW STORY. “But I do worry about the Cheney gang and the [Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps]/Ahmadinejad crowd in Iran trying to precipitate a spark that produces a very fast escalation that circumvents most of Bush’s national security decisionmaking structure — and that kind of war is something we should worry about. That’s what I think could happen.”

The London Sunday Times, meanwhile, reports that an elite Air Force unit called “Project Checkmate” was resurrected in June. The unit reports directly to US Air Force chief Gen. Michael Moesely and “consists of 20-30 top air force officers and defence and cyberspace experts with ready access to the White House, the CIA and other intelligence agencies.”

“Detailed contingency planning for a possible attack on Iran has been carried out for more than two years by Centcom (US central command),” says the Times’s Sarah Baxter. “Checkmate’s job is to add a dash of brilliance to Air Force thinking by countering the military’s tendency to ‘fight the last war’ and by providing innovative strategies for warfighting and assessing future needs for air, space and cyberwarfare.”

The group is led by Brigadier-General Lawrence Stutzriem, and assisted by a former Israeli military officer and cyberwarfare expert.

Strike force could target other states

Bush faces strong opposition to military action among his own staff, Baxter says. Clemons has said that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and Defense Secretary Robert Gates all oppose a strike.

“None of them think it is a good idea, but they will do it if they are told to,” a ’senior defense source’ told the Times.

According to Baxter, Checkmate’s mission isn’t limited to Iran, but rather “to provide planning inputs to warfighters that are strategically, operationally and tactically sound, logistically supportable and politically feasible.” Targets might also include China or North Korea.

Checkmate was originally formed in the 1970s to counter Soviet threats but fell derelict in the 80s; it was revived to plan for the first Gulf war.

On Saturday, Iran tested a longer-range missile in public for the first time and ran the gamut of anti-Israeli slogans in a military parade marking the start of Iran’s 1980-1988 war with Iraq.

The missile is said to put US bases and Israel within Tehran’s reach.

According to AP, “the parade was marked by a litany of slogans calling for “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”

“The Iranian nation is ready to bring any oppressive power to its knees,” a slogan from supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei read.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad heads for New York today amid a storm of controversy and angry protests over his appearances at the United Nations and Columbia University.

The outspoken Iranian leader, who has openly called for the destruction of Israel and questioned the Holocaust, is due to speak at Columbia Monday, a day before addressing the UN General Assembly.

The trip comes at a low point in relations between Iran and the United States, which have not had formal diplomatic ties since revolutionary students stormed the US embassy in Tehran in 1979. ++

War On Iran Update
Andrew Sullivan, Atlantic Monthly
23 Sep 2007

Bill Kristol knows that the current strategy in Iraq will not work as it was designed to do. He’s not crazy. The chances of national reconciliation in Iraq have gone backward, not forward, this past year, and the U.S.’s empowerment of anti-Shiite propaganda in Anbar will only isolate Maliki further. The best that can happen is an indefinite occupation of a dismembered Iraq to slow down genocide and make ethnic cleansing more orderly. But even that is a very risky proposition. And the events of last week mean that the Republican party now owns the Iraq occupation more exclusively and deeply than they ever had - and indeed intend to maintain it for another decade.

So what to do? Remember that Kristol’s loyalty to the Republicans often trumps national security. How else to explain his support for the GOP last November, even though a Republican victory would have prevented the surge in the first place and kept Rumsfeld in the Pentagon? One option: Change the subject by launching wars against Syria and Iran, and so polarize the country that the choice is framed as: MoveOn or America? That’s much better than having, you know, an actual debate about the merits of the war in Iraq and the war against Islamist terror. On that, Republicans lose. If the war is far wider and more terrifying, if the enemies can be multiplied and amplified, then the dynamic plays to the advantage of the GOP. It’s for us or against us again.

Remember it doesn’t matter to the current Bush Republicans if they cannot persuade a majority of thie necessity of extending the war to Iran and Syria. They have dropped attempting to persuade a majority on the war. They are concerned only with shoring up their own party, which can enable them to launch new wars before the current presidency ends. Hence the two-pronged agenda for the next few months:

Bush needs to prevent others in his own administration–generals (and some civilian leaders) who have given up on the war, or who are jealous of Petraeus, or both–from undermining Petraeus’s efforts and Bush’s strategy in various subtle ways, which, judging from reports from within the Pentagon, is not a trivial danger. And second, Bush needs to succeed in preventing Iran and Syria from subverting our successes in Iraq. They cannot be allowed to serve as safe havens for the training and transporting of enemy fighters, or as providers of advanced weapons used against our soldiers in Iraq.

I’m not sure what the first thing means unless a purge of any voices within the administration wanting to save what’s left of military preparedness under the strain of the Iraq deployments. Gates and Fallon have been warned. But the second is obvious. They’re trying to prepare their base for new wars, under the guise of winning the current one.

This is the game-plan for keeping power. ++

The Victor?
Review by Peter W. Galbraith, The New York Review of Books
of
Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States
by Trita Parsi
October 11, 2007

A Child’s Guide to Iran-US Relations
Russ Wellen, Smirking Chimp
Sep 23 2007

There’s no denying that Iran is an unsavory state. It funds Hezbollah. Its record on women’s rights is abysmal. It hangs citizens — including gay teens — in public. Also, new evidence suggests that not Libya, but Iran, was responsible for the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie.

But, contrary to the administration’s claims, no hard evidence exists that Iran ships arms to Iraq. Nor does the International Atomic Energy Agency believe it’s capable of developing nuclear weapons in the foreseeable future. While only a fool would put such behavior past Iran, as pretexts for war they’re at lest as threadbare as those the administration used on Iraq.

After all, why attack Iran now when we didn’t in response to more obvious offenses, such as the hostage crisis, the Marine Barracks bombing or Hezbollah’s campaign against Israel in Lebanon?

Recently noted analyst Gareth Porter cited a paper called “Rebuilding America’s Defenses.” Written in 2000, it served as the Neocons’ blueprint for the Bush administration’s military policy.

They actually admitted that Iran was “more the status quo power” –- in other words, no real threat. Then why obsess about Iran? It seems, Porter quotes the paper, that it wasn’t the nukes so much as the “constraining effect” a nuclear Iran would have on the administration’s plans for regional transformation.

They expect to achieve said transformation by means of another Neocon catch phrase. “Regime change” though, as Peter Galbraith writes, is “identified with the most discredited part of the Iranian opposition and unwanted by the reformers who have the most appeal to Iranians.” Of course, neither can anyone come up with an example of bombing driving out a country’s rulers.

In fact, it would require sending in troops on the ground to usher Mahmoud and the ruling mullahs out. Shades of Operation Eagle Claw (the star-crossed attempt to rescue the American hostages in 1980).

Why did Iran impose the Great Embassy Embarrassment on us anyway? What triggered it, if you’ll recall, was our decision to admit the deposed Shah into the US for cancer treatment. But the US and Iran have a longer history.

You remember history. It’s that stuff that those who don’t remember it should and those who remember it too much shouldn’t.

The US and Iran’s mutual history –- all history, in fact –- can be broken down to two basic grievances that even a child can understand. In other words: He hit me first and it’s not fair.

In 1952, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP) controlled oil in Iran. At 85% British and 15% Iranian ownership, it sounds like a model for the arrangement the US seeks with Iraq. Worse, the British sought to further leverage their advantage by withholding their financial records from the Iranian government.

In response, Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammed Mossadeq, nationalized the company — just Iran’s 15%, though. That didn’t stop the United States, which stood to benefit from Britain’s hand in the Iranian till, from organizing protests to overthrow Mossadeq.

Once reinstated, our designated despot, the Shah, made his country safe for the West again. Today the administration expects Iranians to accept on faith that democracy will break out in the wake of regime change. But we forget that the rest of the world doesn’t have as short a memory as us. It was only 50 years that we nipped Iran’s democracy in the bud.

In other words, it’s obvious who hit who first.

Unjust as that was, another element of Iran-U.S. relations is even more likely to elicit that plaintive cry no parent is spared: “It’s not fair.” In the words of Iran’s President Ahmadinejad, “Justice demands that those who want to hold talks with us shut down their nuclear fuel cycle program too. Then, we can hold dialogue under a fair atmosphere.” [Emphasis added.]

The injustice in question breaks down to four grievances. First and most obvious: We seek to deny Iran the right to develop nuclear weapons while in possession of same. (Of course, since it insists it’s not developing them, Iran can’t press the point.)

Second: We also seek to to deny Iran the right to develop nuclear energy. Yet that right is guaranteed by the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, which both the US and Iran have signed.

Third: We looked the other way as Israel developed nuclear weapons and we’ve drawn up a plan to provide nuclear energy and technology to India. Unlike Iran, neither are signatories to the NPT. Can you say WTF in Farsi?

Fourth: Not only does the administration fail to draw down our nuclear weapons in blatant noncompliance with the NPT, as well as oppose the Nuclear Test Ban and Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaties, it’s developing new weapons. Americans may console themselves with the thought that nuclear weapons are less dangerous in our hands than in those of other countries supposedly less irrational. But Iranians look on, jaws agape, at how oblivious we are to our hypocrisy.

Like other international treaties, the NPT, thanks to the Bush administration, is on life support. Tearing down the “Do not resusciate” sign is a job for the next administration.

Who better to right these wrongs and restore justice? In other words who will not only save Iran from us, but spare us retaliatory attacks on our troops in Iraq and on our own soil, not to mention the havoc it could wreak on the economy? Every child looks up to heroes — or today’s hi-def version, the superhero.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in the midst of a four-year makeover from hawk to diplomat. Scarcely the stuff of which legends are made, she’s notorious for capitulating when the going gets rough. To pin one’s hopes for avoiding war with Iran on her is to grasp at straws.

Meanwhile, as Porter wrote in another column, CENTCOM chief Admiral William Fallon may have “privately vowed that there would be no war against Iran on his watch.” But he recently met with Arab leaders to convince them to unite against Iran. In other words, “Don’t look at me when it comes to stopping war with Iran in its tracks.”

Is there no public figure speaking out against an attack on Iran? The lack of anything more than an occasional peep from Congress leaves one with a sinking sensation. Where’s the hero who will not only save Iran from us, but ourselves from us?

Such a person, however unlikely looking and despite his advocacy of nuclear energy, exists: Mohamed ElBaradei, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency. He may be a Nobel laureate, but he’s not one to sit on his laurels. A recent New York Times profile termed him “everyone’s best hope.”

But the Washington Post referred to him in a recent editorial as the “Rogue Regulator.” Guess it thinks he takes the “peace” in Nobel Peace Prize too literally. In fact, he’s about all that stands between the administration and its plans to attack Iran.

Here’s a collection of his preemptive strikes against preemptive war:

“I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons.”

“So, [Iran has] the knowledge [to build a nuclear weapon]. Sure, they have the knowledge. Are you going to bomb the knowledge?”

“Careful! If we turn up the heat too high the pot could explode around our ears.”

And, for those who were wondering why, every chance it gets, the administration smears ElBaradei. . .

“I have no brief other than to make sure we don’t go into another war or that we go crazy into killing each other. You do not want to give additional argument to new crazies who say ‘let’s go and bomb Iran.’”

“If practically all nuclear powers are modernizing instead of reducing their arsenals, how can we argue with the non-nuclear states? I deplore this two-faced approach.”

Finally the coup de grace:

“It’s hard to tell people not to smoke when you have a cigarette dangling from your mouth.”

International affairs really aren’t much different from the schoolyard. It’s all about who hit who first, what’s fair and who will stand up to the bully. ++

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

Add comment September 24th, 2007