YOU WANT WAR WITH IRAN?
It’s “WMD” all over again.
The President has positioned two aircraft carrier fleets in the Persian Gulf, obviously pointed at Iran. Sources have leaked detailed plans for air strikes to take out most of the Iranian military infrastructure.[1]
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty grants signatories the peaceful use of nuclear energy.[2] Iran wants its own program because outside nations have reneged on contracts to provide them with plant construction and fissile materials.[3]
In 2003, Iran delivered a written offer to negotiate all outstanding issues with the U.S., including their nuclear program and their relation to Iraqi Shiites. The offer was spurned.[4]
The U.S. itself stands in violation of the Non-Proliferation treaty, in failing to reduce its own arsenal, as agreed, and recently in work to add a new generation of “bunker-busting” nuclear weapons.[5]
If Iran were seeking a nuclear weapon, the best U.S. intelligence indicates this would take ten years to achieve. Even the most pessimistic analysis is three years.[6]
In any case, where do we get the right to bomb them? That didn’t happen in the case of Pakistan, India, or Israel.
If we really were concerned about nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists, we would restore funding for the program to secure the nuclear materials of former Soviet states.[7]
Israel has revealed its own preparations for a strike on Iranian nuclear sites, including distance runs to Gibraltar and bombing practice on mock-ups in Israel.[8]
A pre-emptive strike would allow Israel to remain the sole and unchallenged nuclear power in the region, and to continue its annexation of the choice parts of the Palestinian West Bank.
If we provided military assistance in an Israeli strike, or in defense of Israel against Iranian retaliation, we would be bogged down in war for at least twenty years.[9] Iran is three times the size of Iraq. If Iraq has increased global terrorism, what would be the effect of adding a war with Iran?
War is not necessary. In the “Beirut Declaration” of 2002, the Arab League offered peace if Israel would return to its 1967 boundaries (with some land swaps possible) and would make some accommodation for displaced Palestinians (perhaps financial settlements).[10] In 2003 Iran offered to endorse the plan.[11]
So why are we planning war? There is no question of our having access to oil, which will inevitably be sold, on the international market, at prices set by supply and demand.
The problem is that all the profits are going to the Iranian people, who manage their own oil industry. Very offensive to the neo-cons.
The Iraqi people managed their own oil industry, until we got hold of them. Now they will be granting top Western oil companies “production sharing agreements” – 30 year contracts giving them up to 75% of profits until they have recovered their infrastructure costs, and 20% of profits thereafter, according to initial reports.[12]
Cheney’s old company, Halliburton, is moving its headquarters to Dubai.[13] He’ll want to keep a strong military presence indefinitely. Blame Iran for the Iraqi resistance, and double the ante: make war with Iran.
No ground invasion, just air control and a regime of sanctions. That’s what we did with Iraq, from 1991 until we invaded in 2003. How will the Iranians react to this scenario?
And how long are we willing to act as the military enforcers for a set of international corporate thugs who will pocket the profits and leave us the anguish?
Tell your representatives and Congressional leaders to support HR 770, prohibiting the use of funds for military aggression against Iran without the Congressional authorization required under our Constitution and law.[14]
Roger Dodds for Fort Collins Coloradoan, April 9, 2007
_________________________
[1] BBC News, “US ‘Iran Attack Plans’ Revealed,” 2/20/07, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6376639.stm. Matthew Stannard, “How an Attack Would Unfold,” San Francisco Chronicle, 10/1/06, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/10/01/ING9ULB4N11.DTL.
[2] Article IV acknowledges the “inalienable right” of non-nuclear-weapons states to research, develop, and use nuclear energy for non-weapons purposes: Arms Control Association, “The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty at a Glance,” Apr 05, http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/nptfact.asp. See also: Wikipedia, “Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Non-Proliferation_Treaty.
[3] See Elaine Sciolino, “Russia Gives Iran Ultimatum on Enrichment,” New York Times, 3/20/07, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/world/europe/20iran.html?th&emc=th; Aljazeera, “Iran’s Nuclear Program,” 1/1/03, http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10023. Probably the best single source on the subject is William John Cox, “War Without Win: A White Paper on Iran,” 3/20/07, http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_william__070320_war_without_win_3a__a_.htm.
[4] Michael Hirsh, “A Failed Shot at Peace with Iran?” Newsweek, Feb 8 2007, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17050142/site/newsweek/. For details of the document, see “An Iranian Peace Proposal?” in the same issue: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17049526/site/newsweek/.
[5] The Preamble and Article VI commit the nuclear-weapons states to reductions and negotiations toward a complete disarmament treaty: Wikipedia, “Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Non-Proliferation_Treaty. On the 1997 deployment of the B61 nuclear bunker-buster, and subsequent work on a more robust version, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_bunker_buster. For a detailed and chilling discussion of Administration-ordered military planning to integrate nuclear with conventional weaponry and to use them for “anticipatory action,” including such action in Iran, see Michel Chossudovsky, “Is the U.S. Planning a Horrific Global Nuclear War?” Information Clearning House 1/17/07 http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17206.htm.
[6] See House Resolution 770, “The Iran Nuclear Nonproliferation Act,” Section 2, Findings: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.770:. The ten years’ estimate was provided to Congress by John Negroponte, following a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate: Gareth Porter, “Intel Estimate on Iran Blocks Neo-Con Plans,” Inter Press Service, 9/6/06, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0906-03.htm. Recent scare stories in the press are reminiscent of “WMD” in the lead-up to war with Iraq.
[7] The White House budget for FY 2007 cut funds for the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction programs by 10%, to $372.1 million: http://news.greencross.ch/index.php?mode=singleview&language=english&id=154&table=news_english&action=overview.
[8] Plans include the use of a low-yield nuclear device: “Focus: Mission Iran,” The [London] Sunday Times, 1/7/07, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2535177,00.html. The Times has been following these plans for some time: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1522978,00.html; http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article757224.ece.
[9] Former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski: "If the war is enlarged in the next 20 months to include Iran -- if that happens -- for the next 20 years the United States is going to be bogged down in a war which spans Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and then you can forget about American global leadership": “Brzezinski: Avoid Disaster in Iran,” Durham Herald Sun, 7/30/07, http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-834412.cfm.
[10] For text, see “The Beirut Declaration,” 3/28/02, http://www.bitterlemons.org/docs/summit.html. The recent meeting of the Arab League has returned the Beirut Declaration to the news: see BBC, “Saudi: U.S. Presence Illegal,” 3/29/07, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6505803.stm. For indications of support from prominent Israelis, as well as 72% of Palestinians, see Americans for Peace Now, Middle East Reports, Vol 8 Issue 21 (3/26/07), http://www.peacenow.org/mepr.asp?rid=&cid=3569.
[11] “An Iranian Peace Proposal?” Newsweek, 2/8/07, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17049526/site/newsweek/.
[12] Oil accounts for over 90% of Iraqi government revenue. The initial reports of the draft law were in the UK Independent: “The Future of Iraq: The Spoils of War,” 1/7/07, http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2132569.ece. “Production sharing agreements” are so disadvantageous to the host countries that they cover only 12% of world oil production, and no one in the Middle East grants them: Antonia Juhasz, “Whose Oil Is It, Anyway?” New York Times, 3/13/07, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/opinion/13juhasz.html?th&emc=th. The term has been removed from the draft approved by the Cabinet, but the law places the creation of model contracts and the approval of negotiated contracts in the hands of a “Federal Oil and Gas Council” – appointed and outside of Parliamentary control – which itself will rely on a “Panel of Independent Advisors” composed of Iraqi and foreign oil experts (i.e representatives of the Western oil companies): see the draft of 2/15/07 at http://priceofoil.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/Iraqoillaw021507.pdf. See also Richard Behan, “George Bush’s Land Mine, 3/30/07, http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/03/30/201/: as Behan makes clear, this is the inner truth of the new oil law whose outer face is a commitment to share oil revenue with all provinces on a per-capita basis, and whose passage is one of the “benchmarks” demanded by Democratic and Republican leadership alike.
[13] Jim Krane, “Halliburton Will Move HQ to Dubai,” Washington Post, 3/11/07, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/11/AR2007031100643.html. The plan to take over production from Iraq’s oil field dates back at least to Cheney’s Energy Task Force in 2001 (before 9/11): Joshua Holland, “Bush’s Petro-Cartel Almost Has Iraq’s Oil,” Alter Net, 10/16/06, http://www.alternet.org/story/43045/. See also Michael Meacher, “The Rape of Iraq’s Oil,” The Guardian, 3/22/07, http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michael_meacher/2007/03/the_recent_cabinet_agreement_i.html: he cautions against “intensified and unending insurgency because of perceived US seizure of Iraqi oil rights, especially if extended to Iran.”
[14] See House Resolution 770, “The Iran Nuclear Nonproliferation Act,” at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.770:. which also prohibits “covert action for the purpose of causing regime change in Iran.” The War Powers Act (http://www.cs.indiana.edu/statecraft/warpow.html) allows the President to initiate a situation of military hostilities “only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.” The act does not permit a preemptive attack or assistance in an Israeli attack. And a local clash with Iranian forces would not constitute the requisite “national emergency,” so our armed forces would have to respond proportionately and the President could not order a major assault upon Iranian facilities. We must be clear that a violation of the War Powers Act would constitute immediate grounds for the impeachment or removal of anyone complicit.