http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20070213&art icleId=4774 Global Research February 13, 2007
Fool Us Twice? From Iraq to Iran by Marjorie Cohn It's déja vu. This time the Bush gang wants war with Iran. Following a carefully orchestrated strategy, they have ratcheted up the "threat" from Iran, designed to mislead us into a new war four years after they misled us into Iraq. Like its insistence that Iraq had WMD, the Bush administration has been hyping claims that Iran seeks nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), however, has found no evidence that Iran is building nuclear weapons. IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei says there is plenty of time for negotiation with Iran. ["A day after the U.S. military charged Iran's government with shipping powerful explosive devices to Shiite Muslim fighters in Iraq to use against American troops, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Monday that he hasn't seen any intelligence to support the claim." From The McClatchy Newspapers, February 13, 2007 - Ed] Bush has sent two battle carrier groups, replete with nukes, to the Persian Gulf and a third is reportedly preparing to follow. In support of Bush's case that Iran poses a danger to the U.S., three unnamed American officials ceremoniously trotted out metal parts found in Iraq and claimed Iran supplied them to kill our soldiers in Iraq. This "evidence" - or "packaging," as the Associated Press calls it - doesn't pass the straight face test with most reputable observers. "The officials offered no evidence to substantiate allegations that the 'highest levels' of the Iranian government had sanctioned support for attacks against U.S. troops," according to Monday's Washington Post. Saturday's New York Times cited information gleaned from "interrogation reports" from Iranians and Iraqis captured in the recent U.S. raid on the Iranian embassy in northern Iraq. They allegedly indicated money and weapons components are brought into Iraq over the Iranian border at night. If those people indeed provided such information, query what kind of pressure, i.e. torture, might have been applied to encourage their cooperation. Recall the centerpiece of Colin Powell's 2003 lies to the Security Council about ties between Iraq and al Qaeda came from false information tortured out of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi. Any Iranian weapons in Iraq may belong to the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a Shiite resistance group the U.S. used to support. There could be old Iranian munitions lying around which are left over from the Iran-Iraq war during the 1980s. A former high level U.S. military officer told me it was not uncommon to find large caches of weapons around Iraq. He cited the 2004 discovery of 37,000 American Colt 45 handguns in a warehouse near the Iranian border on the Iraq side, likely procured "when Saddam was our friend." The United States armed both sides in the Iran-Iraq conflict. The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, released last week, concluded that Iranian or Syrian involvement is "not likely to be a major driver of violence" in Iraq. Paul Krugman wrote that even if Iran were providing aid to some factions in Iraq, "you can say the same about Saudi Arabia, which is believed to be a major source of financial support for Sunni insurgents - and Sunnis, not Iranian-backed Shiites, are still responsible for most American combat deaths." Indeed, 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis. But as Krugman mentions, the Bush administration's "close personal and financial ties to the Saudis" have caused it to downplay "Saudi connections to America's enemies." American troops are still fighting in Afghanistan. Yet the Bush administration hasn't complained about the Taliban attacks on Afghanistan that originate in Pakistan, a country with documented nuclear weapons. Of course the Bush administration is cozy with the Pakistani regime. The government of Israel, which also has nukes, is fueling the call for an invasion of Iran. On February 7, the Los Angeles Times cited Israeli politicians and generals warning of a "second Holocaust" if no one fails to prevent Tehran from acquiring nukes. Israel would like to start a war with Iran and supports this desire by citing a quote from Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Israel should be wiped off the map. But this is an erroneous translation of what he said. According to University of Michigan professor Juan Cole and Farsi language analysts, Ahmadinejad was quoting Ayatollah Khomeini, who said the "regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time." Cole said this "does not imply military action or killing anyone at all." Journalist Diana Johnstone points out the quote is not aimed at the Israeli people, but at the Zionist "regime" occupying Jerusalem. "Coming from a Muslim religious leader," Johnstone wrote, "this opinion is doubtless based on objection to Jewish monopoly of a city considered holy by all three of the Abramic monotheisms." Iran has not threatened to invade Israel. Indeed, only 36 percent of the Jews in Israel told pollsters last month they thought a nuclear attack by Iran posed the "biggest threat" to Israel. Americans concur. Seventy-five percent want negotiations in lieu of war with Iran. Yet Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards, all beholden to the Israel lobby, have bought into Bush's dangerous rhetoric about Iran. It would be sheer lunacy to make war on Iran. Three former high-ranking U.S. military officers and a coalition of 13 British think-tanks and faith groups have warned that an attack on Iran would have disastrous consequences. Bush probably won't ask Congress to bless his Iran war. He will provoke a confrontation and then claim we have to fight back. Last year, the New York Times documented a January 2003 meeting with Prime Minister Tony Blair, where Bush "talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation [with Iraq], including a proposal to paint a United States surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire." A nuclear attack on Iran would violate U.S. obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Any attack would violate the U.N. Charter. All treaties we ratify become part of U.S. law under the Constitution's Supremacy Clause. Twelve European, international, and U.S. legal and human rights groups issued an open letter warning of the illegality of any offensive military action by the U.S. against Iran. (http://www.nlg.org/news/statements/Military_Iran_2007.htm) Congress has tied itself in knots over a non-binding resolution on Iraq. If our elected representatives responded to their constituencies instead of the Bush gang's fear mongering, they would stand up to him and pass a modern day Boland Amendment forbidding military action against Iran. Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, president of the National Lawyers Guild, and the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the American Association Jurists. Her new book, Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law, will be published in June. *** Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2007 16:39:40 -0500 (EST) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] IPS via Electronic Intifada - Feb 8, 2007 http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6538.shtml Arabs Less Worried About Iran, Poll Finds By Jim Lobe WASHINGTON, Feb 8 (IPS) - U.S. and Israeli hopes of forging of a Sunni Arab alliance to contain Iran and its regional allies may be misplaced, at least at the popular level, according to a major survey of six Arab countries released here Thursday. The face-to-face survey of a total of 3,850 respondents in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates found that close to 80 percent of Arabs consider Israel and the United States the two biggest external threats to their security. Only six percent cited Iran. And less than one in four Arabs believe Iran should be pressured to halt its nuclear programme, while 61 percent, including majorities in all six countries, said Tehran had the right to pursue it even if, as most believe, the programme is designed to develop nuclear weapons. The poll, the fifth in an annual series conducted by Zogby International and designed by Shibley Telhami, a senior fellow at the Saban Centre for Middle East Policy at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, was carried out in November and early December -- after last summer's war between Lebanon's Hezbollah and Israel, but just before the controversial execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The latter event has widened the divide between Shi'a and Sunni Muslims throughout the region, according to some reports, and played into recent efforts by the U.S. to forge a de facto alliance between Israel and Sunni-led Arab states, including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf sheikhdoms, to contain what they see growing Iranian influence in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine. But Telhami, who will present his findings at a major Brookings-sponsored conference of Islamic leaders in Doha next week, told IPS he doubts these sectarian tensions are changing basic attitudes among the general public on key regional issues in the countries covered in the survey, with the exception of Lebanon. "The public of the Arab world is not looking at the important issues through the Sunni-Shi'a divide," he said. "They see them rather through the lens of Israeli-Palestinian issues and anger with U.S. policy (in the region). Most Sunni Arabs take the side of the Shi'as on the important issues." Indeed, the survey strongly suggests that the U.S., whose image in the Arab world has fallen to an all-time low over the past year according to this and other recent polling, faces a steep uphill battle in rallying Arab public opinion behind it on critical regional questions. More than three out of four of all respondents described their attitudes towards Washington as either "somewhat" (21 percent) or "very" (57 percent) unfavourable. Negative feelings were strongest in the three monarchies: Jordan, where 90 percent of respondents described their views as unfavourable, Morocco (87 percent), and Saudi Arabia (82 percent). After aggregating the poll results in each country and weighting them by national population, the survey found that nearly four out of 10 Arabs named President George W. Bush as the foreign leader they most disliked, far ahead of two Israeli leaders, Ariel Sharon (11 percent) and his successor, Ehud Olmert (seven percent). That result was particularly remarkable, according to Telhami, because, in his 2005 survey, Sharon led Bush in the "most disliked" category by a 45-30 percent margin. Even in Lebanon, Bush was found to be more than twice as disliked as Olmert, despite the latter's responsibility for destroying much of the country's infrastructure during last summer's war with Hizbollah. The most effective way for Bush to improve Arab views of the U.S., according to the survey, would be by brokering a comprehensive peace between Israelis and Palestinians based on Israel's return to its 1967 borders. Asked to choose among six possible steps Washington could take to improve its image, substantial majorities or pluralities of respondents in every country except Saudi Arabia opted for a comprehensive peace settlement. The other choices included withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq and from the Arabian Peninsula, stopping aid to Israel, promoting democracy and providing more economic aid to the region. Ironically, only 16 percent of respondents in Saudi Arabia, whose leaders have pressed Bush hardest in recent months for a more vigorous U.S. effort to achieve a peace agreement, chose the Arab-Israeli option. That was their fourth choice, behind withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula and stopping aid to Israel. Asked to rate the importance of the Arab-Israeli conflict in developing their attitudes towards the U.S. on a five-point scale, 76 percent of Jordanians, 65 percent of Moroccans, 62 percent of Lebanese, and 54 percent of Saudis gave it a five, or "extremely important". Majorities in every country said they were prepared for peace with Israel based on its return to the 1967 borders, but, among those who said so, majorities also said they did "not believe the Israelis will give up the territories (it has occupied) peacefully." On the other hand, pluralities in both Saudi Arabia (42 percent) and Jordan (36 percent) said that "Arabs should continue to fight Israel" even if it returned to its 1967 borders. Weighted by national population, the survey found that 61 percent of Arabs would accept such an agreement. "That is much more than I had expected," noted Telhami. Twenty-nine percent said Arabs should keep fighting. If Bush displaced Sharon as the most disliked leader in 2006, the Iranian-backed leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, has displaced French President Jacques Chirac as the most admired, according to survey. Asked to volunteer their favourite for that category, the weighted aggregate of 14 percent named Nasrallah; eight percent, Chirac; four percent, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; and three percent, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. "These are people who are seen to have stood up to the U.S.," Telhami said, adding, "Not a single one is a Sunni Arab." As in the past several years, large majorities of Arabs attribute less benign objectives to U.S. policy in the region, including "controlling oil" (75 percent, "protecting Israel"; 69 percent "weakening the Muslim World"; and 68 percent, "the desire to dominate the region." Only nine percent of the weighted aggregates they believed one of Washington's main objectives was promoting democracy. Majorities, ranging from 51 percent in Lebanon to 68 percent in Jordan and 77 percent in Morocco, believe Iran has the right to pursue its nuclear programme. "Even in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, whose governments are really frightened about Iranian power, their publics do not define Iran as the major threat," noted Telhami, who added that tended to confirm that Arab leaders and their citizenries do not see key issues through the same prism. === SCOTT RITTER and JEFF COHEN Fighting Disinformation with Real Intelligence Kicks off Tonight Join former UN weapons inspector SCOTT RITTER (author of "Target Iran") and media analyst JEFF COHEN (author of "Cable News Confidential") for a discussion on the corporate media's coverage of the "War on Terror." 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