5 Comments

Nuke ‘em!

The West has become systematically desensitised to the antics of the likes of Iran. So they keep pushing the boundaries a little further each time, and so far they have gotten away with it. I don’t think Western tolerance is infinite though. Even should (when) they get the bomb, they are not home free. While they are working on the frog-in-a-pot theory, we need to remember that there is more than one way to skin the Iranian cat.

Plausible deniability works both ways, though it’s harder for a US administration (at least one under the media scrutiny that Bush’s admin has enjoyed) to get away with creating militias in foreign lands to use as proxies like Iran does.

But a rotten, feudal system of patronage like that run by the mullahs has subtle pressure points that can be exploited.

[...] CLAUDIA ROSETT on Iran’s “Disproportionate” Use of Farce …. [...]

Many brave people fought, sacrificed and died for our cherished Constitutional First Amendment freedom so please respect our freedoms. Misrepresenting Iran doesn’t diminish Iranians, it does diminish Jews. Your insidious attempt to get America to attack Iran in Israel’s best interest is repugnant and unAmerican!

Following, I have recounted a brief history of how America overthrew Iran’s leader, Mossadeq and replaced him with the Shah in 1953. America also shot down Iranian air flight 655, killing 290 passengers plus the crew. America helped Saddam kill 700,000 Iranians during the Iraq/Iran war and now the insidious neocons and many Jews are urging America to again attack Iran, a country that is not a threat to America. In the past (?) hundreds of years, Iran has never attacked another country, unlike Israel

The similarities of the situation in Israel in the early 60s and the present situation in Iran are stunning! The concern that Iran’s civilian nuclear power program would be converted to a weapons program is identical to the situation in Israel in the early 60s which I have recounted as follows:

In early 1951, the Iranian parliament voted to nationalize the facilities of the AIOC, a British company, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which had controlled the extraction, production and marketing of Iranian oil. Mohammed Mossadeq, the main architect of Iran’s nationalization policy, was elected prime minister. Mossadeq was ridiculed in the West as a hypochondriac but in his own country, Mossadeq was revered as a charismatic figure whose defiant opposition to British domination captured the imagination of the Iranian public.

Britain responded harshly to the nationalization of the AIOC’s facilities and imposed an embargo on Iranian oil in an attempt to wreck Iran’s economy. It advocated a military takeover of the AIOC’s oil refinery in Abadan, on the southern coast of Iran. The Truman administration opposed military intervention, fearing that it might provoke a Soviet invasion in Iran.

Meanwhile, Britain’s boycott devastated Iran’s economy which in turn, caused Mossadeq to lose popularity, compelling him to govern in an increasingly authoritarian manner.
Eisenhower took a harsher view of Mossadeq than Truman and in the summer of 1953, the CIA sent Kermit Roosevelt to Iran to recruit officers in the Iranian military to stage a coup against Mossadeq.

Roosevelt hired local gangs to stage anti-government demonstrations in the streets of Tehran. With the city in chaos, the pro-U.S. Iranian army officers seized control of the government, replacing Mossadeq with a pro-shah prime minister.

A consortium of foreign oil companies was allowed to control and market Iran’s oil, with the AIOC surrendering a large share of the operation to American oil companies. Iran became a major recipient of U.S. economic aid. The shah himself was now deeply beholden to the U.S.

At the time, U.S. officials thought they had won a splendid victory, but once the shah was reinstalled in power, he governed much more repressively than before. Ordinary Iranians came to see him as a puppet of Washington; the ultimate consequences of these perceptions were later to become clear in the Iranian revolution of the late 1970.

I recount this history (The Great Courses – The United States and the Middle East: 1914 to 9/11 – Univ. of Chicago) to point out how the U.S. overthrew Iran’s democracy. I believe President Clinton apologized to Iran for this tragic blunder.

In the early 60s, before President Kennedy was tragically assassinated, he was attempting to influence Israeli behavior regarding two principal issues. President Kennedy wanted to prevent Israel from converting its civilian nuclear power program into a weapons program and he wanted Israel to permit the repatriation of Palestinian refugees, something Israel had refused to do since 1948, on the grounds that this would threaten the Jewish character of Israel. Not only had the Arab states called for Israel’s repatriation of Palestinians, but in late 1948, the UN General Assembly had passed Resolution 194 calling on Israel to repatriate all Palestinian refugees who wished to return to their homes in present-day Israel.

To induce the Israelis to make concessions in these areas, Kennedy agreed to sell them advanced antiaircraft guns, Hawk missiles. Kennedy did not establish a formal quid-pro-quo between the arms sale on the one hand and the refugee and nuclear issues on the other. Unfortunately for Kennedy, this lack of formal linkage permitted Israel to pocket the inducement without making significant concessions on the refugee and nuclear issues.

On the nuclear question, Israel appeared to be cooperating with Kennedy, assuring him that the Dimona nuclear reactor was purely for civilian purposes. By evading and thwarting U.S. attempts to conduct meaningful inspections, Israel continued to develop a nuclear weapons capability.

The similarity between America’s attempt to inspect Dimona in the early 60s and the current attempt to inspect Iran’s civilian nuclear power is overwhelming. Both Israel and Iran used religious holidays as excuses to thwart inspection. Both set very rigid ground rules for inspection. Both used numerous ways to delay, etc.

Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 during which time he was growing very frustrated with Israel. President Johnson was no more successful than Kennedy had been at keeping Israel from developing the bomb. Although the Israeli government insisted that it had no intention of acquiring a nuclear weapons capability, the U.S. intelligence community learned otherwise. Israel’s standard statement on the question, “Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East”! It is believed that Israel acquired its first usable nuclear bomb sometime in early 1968.

Americans are acutely aware of the desires of Jews and we do not want to diminish America’s credibility any further by committing acts of terrorism for the “neocon laptop terrorists.” Bill Kristol, in an editorial in the Weekly Standard, a Murdoch rag, stated that Bush should ignore General Shinseki who had recommended against a military operation to remove Saddam on grounds that it would be difficult and would require over 200,000 troops. “Surely the president will step in and save the day. His presidency is on the line, as is the credibility of the U.S. and the whole security structure.” The “laptop terrorists” did not predict that our troops would be met by an insurgency. Wolfowitz predicted, “our soldiers wold be greeted as liberators and flowers would be thrown to them.” Ken Adelman predicted a “cakewalk” and a “crushing win”! Charles Krauthammer predicted a “three week war” and Bush told the enemy, “bring um on“ and indeed the insurgency you did not anticipate met our brave soldiers with IED, not flowers. Neocon “laptop terrorists” lied and are lying and our soldiers died and are dying and neocons must be held accountable for the deaths of so many Americans and innocent Iraqis! They should be sent to Guantanamo after the present occupants have been released.

Neocon ” laptop terrorists” should be in Guantanamo so they cannot provoke anymore conflicts in the Middle East. During WWll, Hitler offered six million Jews to any country that would take them – none obliged! Surprise, Surprise!

Chagrined

[...] CLAUDIA ROSETT on Iran’s “Disproportionate” Use of Farce …. [...]