[Nyclocal] Fwd: EdgeLeft: War with Iran?

[William Wharton]

--- David Mcreynolds <dmcreynolds at nyc.rr.com> wrote:

> From: "David Mcreynolds" <dmcreynolds at nyc.rr.com>
> To: "David Mcreynolds" <dmcreynolds at nyc.rr.com>
> Subject:  EdgeLeft: War with Iran?
> Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2008 23:59:52 -0400
> 
> 
> 
>   since, for the moment, my email is working, let me
> get out an EdgeLeft on the Iran situation.
>   This may be a wandering analysis, the sort of
> thing I used to do for War Resisters League when
>   I was on staff. Please feel free to circulate to
> friends or use in any way you can. David
> 
> 
> 
>   Edge Left: Will Bush Attack Iran?
> 
>   by David McReynolds
> 
>   There is no simple answer to this question. I've
> followed the reports as closely as possible, both
> the threats from
>   US officials, and the rumblings from Israel, and I
> offer this as guidance to local activists. Last week
> I was lucky
>   in that Jeremy Scahill, an unusually competent
> journalist, and my friend Bruce Cronin, a professor
> in interntional
>   relations, both dropped by my apartment and we
> looked at the problem together.
> 
>   Jeremy felt that while he was sure Bush and Cheney
> wanted to strike Iran, he was far from sure they
> would be
>   able to. Bruce felt it was too late in Bush's term
> for him to take action. There is, of course, another
> bit of the 
>   puzzle, which is what Israel might do. I've found
> much of the discussion on the Left very frustrating
> and simplistic.
> 
>   Let's first take Israel,  clearly a client state
> of the US, but quite able to act independently 
>   (as it is doing just now, to the dismay of
> Washington, as it negotiates indirectly with the
> Syrians via Turkey,
>   simply side-stepping the US). The US has some
> control over Israel - but only some. Contrary to
> what many
>   seem to think, Israel does not control the US.
> Yes, AIPAC and the odd combination of pro-Israeli
> Jews
>   (increasingly a minority within the Jewish
> community) aligned  with the "Christian Zionists" -
>   who are a crucial part of the pro-Israeli lobby in
> Washington - take a hard line on Iran.
>   But the days when AIPAC and "the major Jewish
> organizations" ruled the roost are being challenged,
> 
>   both by such political realities as President
> Carter's visit to the Middle East and his
> statements, 
>   and by the formation of an alternative Jewish
> lobby in Washington, to press for a less strident
> view.
> 
>   So the Left would do itself, and the country, a
> great favor if it did not assume that US foreign
> policy was made
>   in Tel Aviv.  Yes, many of the neo-conservatives
> are Jews, but most of them were also Trotskyists in
> an earlier
>   part of their lives. Israel is a highly
> militarized state, it is also - to the dismay of the
> majority of Israelis - a deeply
>   corrupt state. The Israeli daily, Haaretz, is
> available online - more people should check it out
> if they want a
>   sober view of Israeli life. 
> 
>   It is true that Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz
> has said that an Israeli attack on Iran seems
> "unavoidable" 
>   (for which he was  publicly scolded by Mohammed
> ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy
> Agency). 
>   But the reality of Israeli politics is that Mofaz
> represents a far right party, that, as is often the
> case in Israeli 
>   politics, the people who do the loudest talking
> are the least likely to be given control of actual
> policy. Still,
>   the Israelis may indeed launch an air strike
> against Iran. This would be an act of clinical
> madness - but so was
>   the US invasion of Iraq.  We know that States are
> not immune to acts of insanity. The excuse for such
> an 
>   attack is the danger that Iran might develop a
> nuclear weapon. The Israelis have managed to work
>   themselves up into a state of hysteria over the
> statements by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, elected as Iran's
>   President in 2005. Because of errors in
> translation, his statements about hoping for an end
> of the Zionist
>   regime were mis-translated as calling for the
> literal destruction of Israel. It would be better if
> we saw his
>   hostility to the Zionism of Israel as similar to
> Reagan's hostility to the Soviet Union as an "evil
>   empire", or Bush's famous "Axis of Evil" remarks
> before he invaded Iraq. Americans (and Israelis) are
> now
>   learning what it is like to be seen as evil. In
> short, Ahmadinejad hopes for the end of the Jewish
> State as a
>   Jewish State - but has never said or implied that
> he sought the destruction of Israel. Of more concern
>   (at least to me) was his denial of the Holocaust.
> And there we don't have a problem of
> mis-translation. We
>   have a problem of cultural differences that are
> profound. There are thousands of Jews living
> peacefully in
>   Iran (one is a member of the Iranian parliament),
> but Ahmadinejad reflects a Middle Eastern view that
> the
>   Holocaust was a European matter for which the
> Arabs are being forced to pay. There is, actually, a
> great
>   deal of justice to this point of view and if we
> could replay history the case for establishing a
> Jewish State
>   in middle of the Arab world in 1948 would be very
> weak. 
> 
>   Unhappily, politics doesn't make it possible to
> roll back history. If it could, the Native Americans
> would love
>   to roll the Pilgrims back to England, and all of
> Latin America would happily roll the Spanish and
> Portuguese
>   back to their homelands. We are here, the Jews are
> in Israel, most of those now in Israel were born
> there,
>   and the urgent need to to proceed to find some
> just solution that would cover both the Palestinians
> and the
>   Israeli Jews. (Another side note for the American
> Left - it does not really help to talk about the
> "Zionist
>   Jews" - most Israelis think of themselves as
> Israelis, not as Zionists).
> 
>   Do I wish Ahmadinejad was more cautious in his
> speech? Yes - and the same thing can be said about
>   American leaders. The key issue is whether Iran is
> going to develop a nuclear weapon and, if so, what
>   should be done about it. Israel is perhaps the
> last country that should raise this question, since 
>   it has about 150 nuclear weapons of its own, and
> those weapons are seen by all the Arab states and by
>   Iran (not an Arab state) as threatening, and as a
> reason to seek some deterrent. After all, in its
> short
>   history Israel has launched at least two wars of
> aggression - the one in 1956, launched in concert
> with
>   France and Great Britain in an effort to keep
> Nasser from gaining control of the Suez Canal,
> categorically
>   cannot be seen as a war of self defense.  
> 
>   The Iranians say they are only seeking nuclear
> energy (which no longer seems strange, even for an
> oil rich area,
>   given the current oil crisis).  The highest
> authorities in Iran - the religious leaders who pack
> a good deal
>   more punch than Ahmadinejad - have said they are
> absolutely opposed to nuclear weapons. I tend to
> doubt
>   them, but they do, in fact, carry more power in
> the political structure.
> 
>   In addition, we should remember three things about
> Iran. First, it has not launched an attack on any of
> its
>   neighbors for several hundred years, in sharp
> contrast to Israel, or Iraq, (which attacked Iran
> and had a
>   terrible 8 year war in which the US supported the
> Iraqi attack, poison gas and all). Second, the US
> has played
>   a terrible role in Iran. The "coup" of 1953,
> jointly organized by US and British intelligence
> which sought to
>   maintain control of Iranian oil, ousted Dr.
> Mosaddeq, who had been elected Prime Minister, and
> who had
>   nationalized the oil industry. The CIA brought to
> power Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. From 1953 on,
>   the Shah crushed the opposition, used violence and
> torture against dissidents through the dreaded
> secret 
>   police - SAVAK. All of this laid the basis for the
> Islamic revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini in
> 1979.
>   Third, any military action against Iran will drive
> up the price of oil still further and could totally
> cripple the
>   US economy. It would be an action sharply opposed
> by both Russia and China.
> 
>   Having tried to lay out some basis for the Israeli
> mindset, and the situation as it may be viewed from
> Iran,
>   the reality that drives Washington (particularly
> Cheney and Bush) is that one immediate result of the
> Iraq
>   War is the increase of Iranian influence. It was
> humiliating to the Americans that while Bush had to
> fly
>   into Baghdad under heavy military cover,
> Ahmadinejad was given a public welcome with only
> moderate
>   security, when he made his recent visit to Iraq.
> It is no secret that the Iranians have close ties to
> the Shiites,
>   many of whom spent their time in exile in Iran. It
> is no secret that, just as Saudi Arabia ships
> military
>   supplies to the Sunni insurgents, Iran supplies
> the Shiites (though the actual evidence for this is
> sketchy
>   and the US has had to back off many of its recent
> claims).
> 
>   Bush and Cheney would like, I am sure, to leave
> office with one last blast - an air strike deep into
> Iranian
>   territory. The question is whether this is
> actually possible, and here is where, as I sat
> talking with Jeremy
>   and Bruce, we simply don't have an answer. Gates,
> at the Defense Department, is opposed to the action.
>   Most of the military is opposed. The State
> Department is opposed. My hunch - but no evidence -
> is that
>   the CIA is opposed.
> 
>   So the question is who would give the order and
> who would obey. Bush may be an idiot, but he is not
>   a dictator. Even dictators have found that it is
> often hard to get their orders obeyed. Bush is much
> more
>   Cheney's agent than he is an independent agent of
> his own. Rumsfeld is gone. Rove is gone. Cheney's
>   chief aide was sent to jail (and pardoned by
> Bush). The publishing world has given us volumes of
> information
>   about the lies of Bush, and the complicity of the
> media. So the once compliant media is now skeptical.
> 
>   All of this suggests to me that an attack is not
> going to happen. Seymour Hersh, a very reliable
> source,
>   has been discussing this for some time in New
> Yorker pieces and I have no doubt at all that there
> are
>   strong forces left in the Administration which
> want to attack Iran. I just think the chances of
> that attack
>   diminish as it becomes clearer that the
> Republicans may well lose the White House.
> 
>   What should we do? I certainly don't think we
> should sit on our hands and wait to see what
> happens.
>   Nor do I think the peace movement should waste ten
> seconds on planning "day after" demonstrations.
>   The issue is what can we do now. We cannot control
> Israel, but I think there are things that can be
> done
>   now by local and national peace groups.
> 
>   First, impeachment is really off the table - the
> time frame between now and the November election is
> far
>   too short for that process, even if it started
> tomorrow. So "moves to impeach" may make us feel
> good but
>    they will not change the minds of war-makers in
> Washington. (This isn't to say I don't wish 
>   Bush had been impeached - I do. Or that I don't
> hope for his eventual trial at some international
> tribunal
>   - I do). I think we can, in every Congressional
> district, get in touch with our members of Congress
> and
>   Senate and press them on this issue, ask what they
> know, tell them what we feel. Make it clear we want
>   them to come out, publicly, now - deploring an
> attack after it has happened won't help anyone.
> 
>   Second, groups such as UFPJ, or an independent
> collection of academics and intellectuals such as
>   Seymour Hersh, Noam Chomsky, etc., should draft a
> public statement directed at the military, urging
> them
>   to refuse orders for a military attack. The
> military is trained, above all, to obey orders. War
> is a very
>   serious matter - it is about killing people, and
> about being killed. No army is really happy to
> plunge
>   forward toward machine guns and snipers. Our
> military has been deeply trained to obey civilian
>   authorities - a very good thing. But a strong
> public statement needs to be made to the military -
> a statement
>   signed by religious leaders and legal scholars as
> well as by academics - pointing out that under the 
>   Nuremburg Tribunal decisions, a war of aggression
> is a violation of international law, and that no 
>   soldier, whether a private or a general, can avoid
> the obligation to say "no" to an order to launch
> such a war.
> 
>   So, for what it is worth, that is my advice.
> Local, strong, immediate pressure on members of
> Congress,
>   and a concerted and powerful public appeal to the
> military to recognize that only the Congress has the
>   Constitutional authority to launch a war - not the
> President. 
> 
>   Finally, for any of us with international
> contacts, those should be used now. Our movements in
> Japan, Europe,
>   Latin America, Africa, should arrange visits with
> US Embassies and Consulates to make clear our deep
>   opposition to any military strike on Iran.
> 
>                                                     
>                    - 30 -
> 
>   David McReynolds writes occasional EdgeLeft
> columns, which may distributed without permission.
> He is
>   a former Chair of War Resisters International,
> served for many years on the staff of War Resisters
> League, and
>   ran for President as the Socialist Party's
> candidate in 1980 and 2000. He is retired and lives
> in the East
>   Village with two cats. He can be reached at:
> dmcreynolds at nyc.rr.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
>