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2 Dogs of
war bark in the US By Jeremiah
Goulka
It's the consensus among the
pundits: foreign policy doesn't matter in this
presidential election. They point to the ways
Republican candidate Mitt Romney has more or less
parroted President Barack Obama on just about
everything other than military spending and tough
talk about another "American century."
The
consensus is wrong. There is an issue that
matters: Iran.
Don't be fooled. It's not
just campaign season braggadocio when Romney
claims that he would be far tougher on Iran than
the president by threatening "a credible military
option." He certainly is trying to appear tougher
and stronger than Obama - he of the
drone wars, the "kill
list," and Osama bin Laden's offing - but it's no
hollow threat.
The Republican nominee has
surrounded himself with advisors who are committed
to military action and regime change against Iran,
the same people who brought us the Global War on
Terror and the Iraq War. Along with their
colleagues in hawkish think tanks, they have spent
years priming the public to believe that Iran has
an ongoing nuclear weapons program, making
ludicrous claims about "crazy" mullahs nuking
Israel and the United States, pooh-poohing
diplomacy - and getting ever shriller each time
credible officials and analysts disagree.
Unlike with Iraq in 2002 and 2003, they
have it easier today. Then, they and their mentors
had to go on a sales roadshow, painting pictures
of phantom WMDs to build up support for an
invasion. Today, a large majority of Americans
already believe that Iran is building nuclear
weapons.
President Obama has helped push
that snowball up the hill with sanctions to
undermine the regime, covert and cyber warfare,
and a huge naval presence in the Persian Gulf.
Iran has ratcheted up tensions via posturing
military maneuvers, while we have held joint
US-Israeli exercises and "the largest-ever
multinational minesweeping exercise" there. Our
navies are facing off in a dangerous dance.
Obama has essentially loaded the gun and
cocked it. But he has kept his finger off the
trigger, pursuing diplomacy with the so-called
P5+1 talks and rumored future direct talks with
the Iranians. The problem is: Romney's guys want
to shoot.
Unlike Iraq, Iran would be an
easy sell Remember those innocent days of
2002 and 2003, when the war in Afghanistan was
still new and the Bush administration was trying
to sell an invasion of Iraq? I do. I was a
Republican then, but I never quite bought the
pitch. I never felt the urgency, saw the al-Qaeda
connection, or worried about phantom WMDs. It just
didn't feel right. But Iran today? If I were still
a Republican hawk, it would be "game on," and I'd
know I was not alone for three reasons.
First, even armchair strategists know that
Iran has a lot of oil that is largely closed off
to us. It reputedly has the fourth largest
reserves on the planet. It also has a long
coastline on the Persian Gulf, and it has the
ability to shut the Strait of Hormuz, which would
pinch off one of the world's major energy
arteries.
Then there is the fact that Iran
has a special place in American consciousness. The
Islamic Republic of Iran and the mullahs who run
it have been a cultural enemy ever since
revolutionary students toppled our puppet regime
there and stormed the US Embassy in Tehran in
1979. The country is a theocracy run by
angry-looking men with long beards and funny
outfits. It has funded Hezbollah and Hamas. Its
crowds call us the "Great Satan." Its president
denies the Holocaust and says stuff about wiping
Israel off the map. Talk about a ready-made enemy.
Finally, well, nukes.
The public
appears to be primed. A large majority of
Americans believe that Iran has an ongoing nuclear
weapons program, 71% in 2010 and 84% this March.
Some surveys even indicate that a majority of
Americans would support military action to stop
Iran from developing nukes.
That's
remarkable considering how much less certain most
experts seem. Take, for example, the National
Intelligence Council, the senior panel that issues
the government's National Intelligence Estimates.
It continues to stick with its opinion that Iran
once had such a program, but closed it down in
2003. US, European, and Israeli officials
consistently say that Iran does not have an
ongoing program and hasn't even decided to pursue
one, that at most the Iranians are hanging out
near the starting line. Iran's supreme leader
himself issued a fatwa against building nukes.
Why, then, is the American public so certain? How
did we get here?
There are three main
reasons, only one of which is partially innocent.
What's in a name? The first is
linguistic and quite simple. Say these words out
loud: Iran's civilian nuclear program.
Does that sound familiar? Do those words
look normal on the page? Chances are the answer is
"no", because that's not how the media, public
officials, or political candidates typically refer
to Iran's nuclear activities. Iran has a civilian
nuclear power program, including a power plant at
Beshehr, that was founded with the encouragement
and assistance of the Eisenhower administration in
1957 as part of its "Atoms for Peace" program. Do
we hear about that? No. Instead, all we hear about
is "Iran's nuclear program." Especially in
context, the implied meaning of those three words
is inescapable: that Iran is currently pursuing
nuclear weapons.
Out of curiosity, I ran
some Google searches. The results were striking.
"Iran's disputed nuclear weapons program":
4 hits "Iran's possible nuclear weapons
program": about 8,990 hits "Iran's civil
nuclear program": about 42,200 hits "Iran's
civilian nuclear program": about 199,000
hits "Iran's nuclear weapons program": about
5,520,000 hits "Iran's nuclear program": about
49,000,000 hits
Words matter, and this
sloppiness is shaping American perceptions,
priming the public for war.
Some of this
is probably due to laziness. Having to throw in
"civilian" or "weapons" or "disputed" or
"possible" makes for extra work and the result is
a bit of a tongue twister. Even people with good
reasons to be precise use the shorter phrase,
including President Obama.
But some of it
is intentional.
The proselytizing
Republican candidates The second reason so
many Americans are convinced that Iran is
desperately seeking nukes can be attributed to the
field of Republican candidates for the presidency.
They used the specter of such a weapons program to
bash one another in the primaries, each posturing
as the biggest, baddest sheriff on the block - and
the process never ended.
The hyperbole has
been impressive. Take Rick Santorum: "Once they
have a nuclear weapon, let me assure you, you will
not be safe, even here in Missouri." Or Newt
Gingrich: "Remember what it felt like on 9/11 when
3,100 Americans were killed. Now imagine an attack
where you add two zeros. And it's 300,000 dead.
Maybe a half million wounded. This is a real
danger. This is not science fiction."
And
then there's Mitt Romney: "Right now, the greatest
danger that America faces and the world faces is a
nuclear Iran."
The regime-change
brigade Even if they're not exactly
excusable, media laziness and political posturing
are predictable. But there is a third reason
Americans are primed for war: there exists in
Washington what might be called the Bomb Iran
Lobby - a number of hawkish political types and
groups actively working to make believers of us
all when it comes to an Iranian weapons program
and so pave the way for regime change. It should
be noted that while some current and former
Democrats have said that bombing Iran is a good
idea, the groups in the lobby all fall on the
Republican side of the aisle.
Numerous
conservative and neoconservative think tanks pump
out reports, op-eds, and journal articles
suggesting or simply stating that "Iran has a
nuclear weapons program" that must be stopped -
and that it'll probably take force to do the job.
Just check out the flow of words from mainstream
Republican think tanks like the Heritage
Foundation and AEI. ("It has long been clear that,
absent regime change in Tehran, peaceful means
will never persuade or prevent Iran from reaching
its nuclear objective, to which it is perilously
close.") Or take the Claremont Institute ("A
mortal threat when Iran is not yet in possession
of a nuclear arsenal? Yes…") or neoconservatives
who sit in perches in nonpartisan institutes like
Max Boot at the Council on Foreign Relations ("Air
Strikes Against Iran Are Justifiable").
You can see this at even more hawkish
shops like the Foundation for the Defense of
Democracies, with its "campaign to ensure that
Iran's vow to destroy Israel and create 'a world
without America' remains neither 'obtainable' nor
'achievable.'" (According to one of its
distinguished advisors, a Fox News host, Iran has
"nuclear weapons programs" - plural). At the old
Cold War group the Committee on the Present
Danger, Iran is "marching toward nuclearization."
Retired general and Christian crusader Jerry
Boykin of the Family Research Council even told
Glenn Beck, "I believe that Iran has a nuclear
warhead now."
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