Monday, February 19, 2007
US Plans to Attack Iran Revealed. posted by Richard Seymour
It has been an open secret for some time. Intelligence officials, political figures and anonymous spokespeople have briefed and disclosed left, right and centre already. We have the power to strike soon, they have said, and it looks as if we will. The BBC "has learned" that there are contingency plans in place for precisely that: and they don't include merely a few targeted sites, but the entire military infrastructure. Now, American officials tell the BBC that they don't want war, desperately wish for UN sanctions to work, hope that they don't have to...A good question at this point is who the hell are the permanent members of the security council to censure and sanction the Iranians for enriching uranium? Right now, there is no evidence of anything other than a civilian energy programme being promulgated by what The Sun prefers to call Sunni Iran, but we are right now in the middle of trying to prevent the Prime Minister from investing billions of pounds in a nuclear weapon system that can not only target a few regional foes, but actually wipe out anywhere in the world, rather quickly. The United States has not been above threatening the use of nuclear weapons against Iran. The ultimate, though anticlimactic, irony will be when we discover that the US is in fact sponsoring Sunni insurgents in Iran. It isn't as if they haven't raised the civil war option, is it?
As it stands, Iran has not threatened or invaded another country for a quarter of a millenium (notwithstanding the fabrications about wiping Israel off the map). The idea that this country is a threat to anyone, or that - god save us - its citizens are crying out for liberation, American style, is utterly utterly absurd. It could not be more important to take over London's streets this Saturday.
Meanwhile, David Osler, referring to a debate among socialists about what stance to take on US aggression (I don't believe there is much of a 'debate', in fact), is talking about Third Camps. Further, he tentatively declares his support for the restoration of the Shah as a constitutional monarch (because, like the original Third Campist, he thinks it would open up a breathing space for the left). I only raise it because I expect to hear this brand of nonsense more often. It reflects nothing about the situation in Iran, where the so-called Third Camp are practically non-existent (and I bet you won't find many eager to restore the bloody Shah either), and everything about the political drift of a certain class of former revolutionaries.