Israelis prepare public for conflict with Iran

Israelis prepare public for conflict with 'genocidal' Iranian regime

By Anne Penketh in Herzliya, Israel
Published: 22 January 2007

Senior Israeli politicians and analysts appear to be preparing the public for military conflict with Iran as the Iranian President again refused to bow to international demands to curb its nuclear ambitions, and Tehran announced fresh military manoeuvres.

Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu told a security forum in Herzliya yesterday that individual states and companies should go beyond the UN economic sanctions. He argued that the first step should be to invoke financial sanctions to "divest genocide" and "delegitimise the regime of Iran through economic and political pressure".

The hawkish Likud leader added: "Either it will stop the nuclear programme without the need for a military operation, or it could prepare for it. When we are talking about rallying public opinion on genocide, who will lead the charge if not us? No one will come defend the Jews if they do not defend themselves. This is the lesson of history."

Talking to journalists, Mr Netanyahu said he doubted that the "genocidal regime" of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was "deterrable". This view was shared by Shmuel Bar, an Islamic specialist at the Herzliya centre, who said that the US and Iran were engaged in "very dangerous brinkmanship". He said that seen from Tehran, "the conspiracy theory goes that the US, with the UK and Israel, will take action to topple the Islamic regime, and that this has nothing to do with the nuclear issue."

Tehran has shown no sign of yielding to UN demands to halt uranium enrichment. "The resolution was born dead and even if they issue 10 more it will not affect Iran's economy and policies," Mr Ahmadinejad said yesterday in a televised speech.

Stop the Next War

January 19, 2007

Before it starts. Support H. J. Resolution 14.

by Justin Raimondo

The times, they sure are a-changin'! Why, I remember when you could count congressional opponents of the war on the fingers of one hand. Back then, it was just the likes of Ron Paul and Neil Abercrombie who were introducing resolutions trying to get us out of the Iraqi quagmire, but today there are no less than eleven such resolutions vying for attention. The great problem with most of them is that they are either unconstitutional – such as the Kennedy bill, that would prohibit the spending of war funding on Bush's "surge" – or non-binding resolutions, which have no effect except to distance Democrats who initially voted for the Iraq war from their own handiwork. All these legislative initiatives deal with Iraq, with only one – House Joint Resolution 14 – confronting the key issue on the war-and-peace front: Iran. This is a binding resolution that forbids the President from ordering an attack on Iran absent military action against U.S. forces, or a demonstrably imminent threat of attack. Authored by Rep. Walter B. Jones, of North Carolina – the formerly pro-war Republican who did a dramatic turnaround long before it became fashionable to do so – the resolution has an impressively bipartisan list of co-sponsors, including GOPers John Duncan (Tennessee), Wayne Gilchrest (Maryland), and Ron Paul, the libertarian Republican congressman from Texas whose announcement of a presidential exploratory committee is causing much excitement in antiwar circles. If H.J. Res. 14 ever sees the light of day on the House floor, it will be a miracle. Yet miracles have been known to happen. On the other hand, of all possible Speakers, Nancy Pelosi seems one of the least likely to let it come to a vote, let alone throw her support behind it. I had a call into her office early this [Thursday] morning, but, as we posted this piece – some 10 hours later – I had yet to hear from her representatives as to their position on the Jones resolution. The likely answer – given Pelosi's past position – is that she's opposed, just as she opposed a previous resolution by Lynn Woolsey (D-California), calling for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq (now the official Democratic majority position). Can the Speaker be persuaded to evolve, as it were, and go with the flow, California-style, of her own party, the grassroots of which are undoubtedly opposed to war with Iran? There is reason to doubt it. Madam Speaker, after all, co-sponsored a bill during the last session of Congress, introduced by Rick Santorum and Ileana Ross-Lehtinen, both Republicans, that not only tightened sanctions on Iran, but also made "regime change" in Tehran official U.S. policy. The measure was originally opposed by the President, and the Republican leadership, on the grounds that it would interfere with efforts to negotiate with Tehran, but the AIPAC lobby, in a show of bipartisan strength, forced the White House to accept a compromise bill, which was eventually passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President. Last year, the Israel lobby in the U.S. launched a major campaign to demonize the Iranians and ramp us up for a showdown with Tehran. The last AIPAC national convention, held in Washington, D.C., featured lurid exhibits detailing the horrors – and imminence – of a nuclear-armed Iran. Here is what Pelosi had to say about Iran to the 2006 AIPAC conference: "The greatest threat to Israel's right to exist, with the prospect of devastating violence, now comes from Iran. For too long, leaders of both political parties in the United States have not done nearly enough to confront the Russians and the Chinese, who have supplied Iran as it has plowed ahead with its nuclear and missile technology. Proliferation represents a clear threat to Israel and to America. It must be confronted by an international coalition against proliferation, with a commitment and a coalition every bit as strong as our commitment to the war against terror." As the Israelis, and their American lobby, push Washington to take action against Tehran, Pelosi and her fellow Democrats are meekly going along, just as they went along with the President in the run-up to war with Iraq. The Democrats are trying to cover up their co-responsibility for the Iraq disaster by offering up all kinds of symbolic, non-binding resolutions disdaining the "surge," and calling for "phased redeployment" (which, one gathers, is distinct from simple withdrawal). This is pure show-boating. The only resolutions that matter are H.J. Res. 12, and H.R. 413, introduced by Rep. Sam Farr, which repeals the Iraq war resolution of 2002 outright, and requires the President to start withdrawing the troops. This one has zero co-sponsors – and that ought to tell us everything we need to know about our elected representatives' seriousness when it comes to stopping this war. The irony is that the Farr legislation would have the plurality of votes if the various "antiwar" bills were submitted to a popular referendum. The Democrats, however, are not about to ride this horse, perhaps for fear it might throw them. The greater danger, however, is that they'll be trampled in the general stampede to get ahead of the issue as popular opposition to our crazed foreign policy increases by leaps and bounds. The Farr resolution embodies what needs to be done as far as Iraq is concerned: it corrects the big mistake of 2002, and counterposes a course diametrically opposed to the escalation favored by the administration. If the Democrats had any brains, they would immediately embrace it – yet they are still stuck in the 2002 zeitgeist, which prevented them from halting or even delaying the rush to war. The Jones resolution has the best chance of passing, and it is, at the same time, the most pressing. Iraq, after all, was yesterday: Iran is tomorrow. The time to stop a war is before it starts: the most we can do, at this particular moment, is to prevent the current war from spreading. And that is precisely what is behind the "surge," as I pointed out the other day: it's no accident that the "new" strategy being pushed by the President was announced in tandem with fresh provocations directed at the Iranians. The groundwork for forcible "regime change" in Iran was laid by both parties: plans even now being hatched in the Pentagon were funded by Pelosi and her fellow Democrats, in alliance with the most pro-war Republicans. Now that the Democrats are in power, at least in Congress, they have no intention of reversing their stance. Democratic party chairman Howard Dean asserts that the great "tragedy" of our involvement in Iraq is that we aren't free to go after "the real enemy," which, says the Screamer, is Iran. And Hillary Clinton, the party's leading contender for the presidential nomination, out-neocons many Republicans when it comes to Iran: "Let's be clear about the threat we face now: A nuclear Iran is a danger to Israel, to its neighbors and beyond. The regime's pro-terrorist, anti-American and anti-Israel rhetoric only underscores the urgency of the threat it poses. U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal. We cannot and should not – must not – permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons. In order to prevent that from occurring, we must have more support vigorously and publicly expressed by China and Russia, and we must move as quickly as feasible for sanctions in the United Nations. And we cannot take any option off the table in sending a clear message to the current leadership of Iran – that they will not be permitted to acquire nuclear weapons." For those Kossacks and antiwar Democrats who have placed their hopes in Barack Obama, the supposed anti-Hillary expresses his view on the Iran war question in eerily similar language, averring that all options, including war with Iran, are "on the table." The leading Democrats are expending all their political capital on opposing Bush's "surge," and yet Michael Moran, in a piece posted on the Council on Foreign Relations website, identifies a "surge" of an entirely different sort than the one named in the Democrats' toothless resolutions. It is a surge "in the direction of Iran." According to Moran, the USS Stennis, an aircraft carrier, and its attendant battle group, will meet the USS Eisenhower and its flotilla in the Arabian Sea in the first weeks of February. The Brits, too, have built up their naval forces in the area. Yet it isn't just the gathering of this armada that lends support to the view that the Bush administration means to attack Iran. Moran underscores the turnabout of newly-installed SecDef Robert Gates, who now opposes dealing with Iran and/or Syria in order to secure a political settlement for the entire region. "Gates agreed with that premise in 2004 when he co-chaired a CFR Independent Task Force on Iran," Moran notes. "CFR President Richard N. Haass reiterated it this summer in a CFR.org interview." As the diplomatic option is being rapidly foreclosed by an apparent policy shift in Washington, the military option seems in the ascendancy. The movements of American and British forces, in tandem with the ratcheting up of the administration's bellicose rhetoric, are seen in the region as preparations for war with Iran, and Tehran is not sitting idly by. The War Party hopes the mullahs can be lured by some provocation into making the first move, and Rep. Ron Paul has rightly warned against another "Gulf of Tonkin incident." Not a single Democratic, or Republican, presidential candidate, aside from Paul, has come out against the administration's warmongering when it comes to Iran. Yet the American people, in their overwhelming majority, oppose another war in the Middle East. Isn't democracy wonderful? So, you thought you voted for a new era of diplomacy as opposed to perpetual war? You've been bamboozled, and badly – so what are you going to do about it? What's needed is a popular outpouring of support for H. J. Res. 14 – and you can do your part by calling the office of La Pelosi, urging her to let the House vote on the Jones resolution, and urging her to support it. That number is: 202-225-4965.

Stopping the Iran War - after it starts

Jan 18, 2006
By Everest42

The big question on everyone's mind these days seems to be "when are we gonna go to war with Iran?"

It's kinda scary that we seem to be moving beyond the mere "will we go to war?" and breezing quickly past the "why should we go to war" to:

Who: Iran
What: Attack them
Where: In their country
Why: Islamofacism / WMD / because their former neighbor tried to kill my daddy / because historically we oppose Aryan nations / because Osama once visited Qom / because of Tehran’s scheduled opening of the Iran Oil Bourse on March 20, 2006 / because either Jesus or Frederick Kagan or my dog Barney told Dick and me to / classified, but trust me.
How: With good ol' American gumption (translation: we don't have the resources, but don't tell the American people that)

So that leaves
When: UNDETERMINED

Let's set aside the known unknowns (hah! And you thought Rummy was gone from the American consciousness! Hell no!).

Hey, let's also set aside all of those things we aren't even sure are unknowns. (The unknown unknowns).

And let's pretend all of the things we can discern are acknowledged (the known knowns).

Simply put: AFTER the war has started, and AFTER we've begun impeaching the relevant people, AFTER, perhaps, we've closed the purse strings in congress....how do we stop the war? How do we effectively back up and achieve a separation of forces? Will Iran let us back out after we begin wreaking havoc? Will they simply agree that it was the will of a single political creature, and not the will of the American people, who led us all down this insane path? And, even if they reach that point of agreement, will they allow for a separation of forces...will they allow us to just walk away?

Historically, Iran doesn't seem to be that kind of country:

FROM THE WIKIPEDIA ENTRY ON IRAN:

Although Saddam Hussein's forces made several early advances, by 1982, Iranian forces managed to push the Iraqi army back into Iraq. Khomeini refused a cease-fire from Iraq, demanding huge reparation payments, an end to Saddam's rule, and that he be tried for crimes against humanity. Khomeini also sought to export his Islamic revolution westward into Iraq, especially on the majority Shi'a Arabs living in the country. The war then continued for six more years until 1988, when Khomeini, in his words, "drank the cup of poison" and accepted a truce mediated by the United Nations.

I don't think the Iranians are looking for that particular cup to runneth over. They know we are militarily at our breaking point, and may press for the advantage.

So how do you end a war that has already begun? Hell, I don't know.

How did we do it in Vietnam?

Stephen Bergman wrote a piece entitled From Vietnam to Iraq: How to stop the war back in November of 2005 where he analyzed how we ended the war:

The student resistance movement and the draft. The fact that every male student was eligible to be drafted and sent to Vietnam created great anxiety and, with time, organized resistance to the war.

The media. TV newscasts at that time showed an incontrovertible truth: Real bleeding bodies were brought into everyone's living room. Screams of the wounded were heard. Dead bodies were seen sprawled in the graceless horror of death. Both American and Vietnamese casualties were shown. There was a nightly tally of the dead and wounded.

Leaders. Both within and outside of Congress there were great leaders who spoke to the link between racism and classism and the obscene images on the TV and in the papers.

Bergman, of course, was talking about the current imbroglio in Iraq.

Stopping a war is difficult, especially given the hubris, spin, and tragic incompetence of the Bush-Cheney administration. Yet even Kissinger and Nixon were able to manage it, however clumsily and with a great cost of lives on both sides. We Americans can stop it in time to save many thousands of wounded and dead. Now.

He goes on to evaluate each of the three categories (from his quote above) as a feasible means of stopping the war:

The draft. Introduce legislation to institute the draft. At once, no exceptions, not even gender. Mothers, fathers, and their children would be in the streets. There might be a violent response. The resistance to the war would focus. Many returning soldiers and their families and loved ones would join in.

The media. Corporate controlled, it is probably beyond repair. Some of the alternative and foreign media are often more reliable truth-tellers. But there is one question for the TV commanders to which we must demand an answer: Why are you not showing the bloody bodies of the wounded and dead Americans and Iraqis?

Leaders. The only leader of national note is a dead soldier's mother, Cindy Sheehan. The Congress, with few exceptions -- Maxine Waters, Barbara Lee, Russ Feingold, and now John Murtha -- is as quiet as 500 invertebrates. In this silence is opportunity. Most Americans see Iraq as a mistake. If a leader of some stature stands up and asks, again, ''How do you ask someone to be the last person to die for a mistake?" there will be an audible sigh of national relief. A simmering movement will ignite. This requires courage, probably from someone outside of Congress -- Wes Clark or John Edwards come to mind. It may seem risky to take that stance, but that person might well be elected president in 2008.

Obviously, leaders have stepped up since the article was written a year ago. But the President seems inclined to ignore them when convenient.

And you have to factor in the other side, when you speak of ending the conflict. And you have to factor in the Rah-Rah Go-USA mentality that we can infuse ourselves with. It took several years and over two thousand dead before the tide shifted here at home against Iraq. If the evil Iranians are killing our soldiers, we want them to pay, dammit! The self-fulfilling war machine.

So again, I ask the question: how do we stop the war once the shooting starts? Go on, flame away.

"Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events."
Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)