We're Braiding a Rope to "Hang" Iran

I’m seeing several strands that, if woven together, may well result in a U.S. attack on Iran:

1. The refusal to withdraw our troops from Iraq. As so clearly stated by Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com, in his post on March 24, Iran-Britain conflict shows the danger of our ongoing presence in Iraq, “The ‘debate’ over whether to withdraw our troops constantly highlights the dangers of leaving but almost completely ignores the dangers of staying….. The seizure this week of 15 British sailors by Iran illustrates how grave those risks are.”

2. The press consistently reports that Iran is at fault. In February, it was the ''explosively formed penetrator,'' announced by the New York Times as the Deadliest Bomb in Iraq Is Made By Iran, U.S. Says, since discredited.

Now it’s a CBS News’ headline, Iran Nabs British Soldiers in Iraqi Waters, as though, according to Greenwald, this is an “established, unchallengeable fact -- and the article then framed the story almost entirely from the perspective of the British, with virtually no indication that there was another version of events”

Greenwald adds, “The only independent evidence on this conflict available thus far -- at least that I've seen -- is this:

'The Iraqi military commander of the country's territorial waters cast doubt on claims the Britons were in Iraqi waters.

We were informed by Iraqi fishermen after they had returned from sea that there were British gunboats in an area that is out of Iraqi control,' Brig. Gen. Hakim Jassim told AP Television News in the southern city of Basra. ‘We don't know why they were there...."

3. The fear engendered by the “Global War on Terror.” The March 25, Washington Post op-ed by Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor to President Carter, Terrorized by War on Terror, wrote “To justify the 'war on terror,' the administration has lately crafted a false historical narrative that could even become a self-fulfilling prophecy. By claiming that its war is similar to earlier U.S. struggles against Nazism and then Stalinism (while ignoring the fact that both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were first-rate military powers, a status al-Qaeda neither has nor can achieve), the administration could be preparing the case for war with Iran. Such war would then plunge America into a protracted conflict spanning Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and perhaps also Pakistan."

On January 20, I posted, “Does Fear of Islam Stalk the Land?” and received numerous responses and comments, many of which revealed that the responder does indeed fear Islam. Brzezinski points out in his op-ed “The atmosphere generated by the 'war on terror' has encouraged legal and political harassment of Arab Americans (generally loyal Americans) for conduct that has not been unique to them…The culture of fear has bred intolerance [and] suspicion of foreigners.”

4. Bush’s vision of his mission: As Glenn Greenwald reported in his March 14 post, The president receives "lessons" from his neoconservative tutors luncheon, “Finally, the neoconservatives left Bush with the overarching instruction -- namely, the only thing that he should concern himself with, the only thing that really matters, is Iran. Forget every other issue -- the welfare of the American people, every other region around the world -- except the one that matters most…history would judge the president on whether he had prevented the nuclearization of the Middle East. If Iran gets the bomb, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other countries will follow. “

5. Think it will get better if the a Democrat wins the presidency in 2008? Think again. On March 25, David Rieff’s article in the New York Times, The Way We Live Now - But Who's Against the Next War? ran down the leading Democratic candidates’ positions about Iran. He states, “…[I]t’s their positions on Iran’s nuclear program, a subject that is almost certain to bedevil whoever becomes president in 2009, that most strongly suggest that the foreign-policy differences between Democratic and Republican policy elites have been vastly overblown…. Senator Clinton used virtually the same formulation as Vice President Cheney. When dealing with Iran, she insisted, no option can be taken off the table.’ Speaking to a meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), a lobbying group, on March 2, Senator Obama said pretty much the same: the Iranian regime was ‘a threat to all of us,’ and ‘we should take no option, including military action, off the table.’ John Edwards has been even more categorical. In a January speech in Israel, he said, ‘Under no circumstances can Iran be allowed to have nuclear weapons.’ And he added, ‘We need to keep all options on the table.’”