War drums on the Potomac

By Weekly Archive On Mar 21, 2012

The drums of war are sounding loudly once again in Washington, despite the fact that the White House today is occupied by a less bellicose chief-executive than the previous one and President Obama is as loathe to engage in a new war during an election year as the American people are sick of U.S. military involvement in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

The target this time is Iran, the excuse is similar but even more flimsy than the last time, and the camp pushing the president toward hostilities is mainly made up of the usual suspects that backed Bush’s Iraq misadventure: neoconservatives, pro-Israel hardliners, virtually all top Republicans, and more than a few Democratic hawks.

The main reason the Bush administration used to sell the Iraq war to the American people was the contention that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction – possibly even nuclear bombs – which threatened the security not only of the region but that of Great Britain and even the United States.

No one outside our borders – with the exception of a few leaders like Spain’s Aznar and the UK’s Blair who bucked the will of their people – bought this rationale for war. The United Nations failed to go along, despite the “evidence” produced by Colin Powell. This means that even if the U.S. allegations had been true – and they were anything but – the Iraq war was an illegal war of aggression.

The same would be true – in spades – of an attack on Iran to try to destroy its nuclear program. Iraq was alleged to already possess fearsome weaponry along with a proven proclivity for aggression, including the invasions of Iran and Kuwait plus the gassing of its own Kurdish population.

Iran, on the other hand, is suspected only of having the intention of developing nuclear weapons, despite Iranian statements that it seeks to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes and the fact that the last U.S. National Intelligence Estimate concluded that Iran had suspended its nuclear weapons program. Iran has not invaded anybody nor attempted genocide against its own people. Rather, it suffered an attack by Iraq that killed a million Iranians, and despite this toll once the war was over Iran did not set about trying to wipe Iraq from the face of the earth.

Given these facts, the UN Security Council would never give its blessing to an attack on Iran by the United States, Israel, or both, making such an attack an illegal act of war – a small detail that has seldom worried American administrations and Israeli governments even less, even though Israel’s foundational international legitimacy rests on the United Nations.

None of this concerns the warmongers pressing the Obama administration to harden its sanctions even more, threaten Iran more directly, and ultimately deliver a massive air attack on Iran. And, as The New York Times reports in its March 18 edition, once again the voices clamoring for war clearly have the upper hand in the debate, despite the fact that there are dissenters even within the U.S. Jewish community.

The three leading Republican presidential hopefuls, for one, are deadlocked in a fierce competition around who can sound more threatening toward Iran – and who can bash President Obama and his policies on Israel and Iran most ferociously. Santorum has sounded as extreme on this issue as on every other. Gingrich is so far out there he has called the Palestinians “an invented people,” language scarcely heard since the long-gone days of Golda Meir. His principal financial backer is an American Jewish billionaire so hard-line he withdrew his monetary support for AIPAC, the formidable hard-line pro-Israel lobbying group, for not being tough enough. Taking a page from the Bush-Cheney politics of fear, Mitt Romney, almost certainly the eventual nominee, constantly repeats the line that if Obama is elected the Iranians will get a nuclear bomb but if he is elected it will not happen.

Then there is Congress, where according to the New York Times story, “even in the oft-divided Senate, a measure last fall to impose tough economic sanctions on Iran passed 100-0 despite White House concerns.” The unanimity of the vote proves the assertion in the Times article that “there is almost no constituency in either party for anything other than tougher sanctions against Iran and clear expressions of solidarity with Israel.”

This state of affairs is driven almost completely by domestic political considerations. “In the standoff with Iran, it is the hawkish groups supporting military action that wield more money, political clout and high-profile names than do the advocates of a diplomatic solution,” reports the Times.

Despite charges by ultra-hardliners in the U.S. that the administration is soft on Iran and its policy toward Israel is “abysmal,” Obama basically has followed the course carved out by previous presidents: $3 billion annually in economic aid, transfer of some of the most advanced military technology in the U.S. arsenal, weak pressure on Israel to offer the Palestinians a fair peace settlement.

The election – and Republicans’ ever-more determined attempts to wrestle the Jewish vote from the Democrats – gives the aggressive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu additional leverage to obtain more concessions from the U.S. government. While in his recent meeting with Obama, Netanyahu reportedly extended the president the “favor” of agreeing not to attack Iran before the election and accepting the reality that the United States would not do so either, the Israelis have also said they would not necessarily even give advanced warning to the Americans if they decide to attack.

What is clear is that after the U.S election all bets are off. Romney has spoken as if he is likely to attack Iran sooner or later. Obama, probably to win the election, has painted himself into a corner by equating the interests of the United States with those of Israel and stressing that the military option “is on the table.” Whoever is elected, there is a distinctive chance that the same actors that paved the way for the Iraq war will continue to push to get their way.