Pretenses for War
Published in Junge Welt
(Germany) on 3 December 2011
by Werner Pirker (link to original)
The stranglehold is getting tighter. On Friday the U.S. Senate unanimously approved increased sanctions against the Iranian central bank. That was too much for even the White House, where it is feared the action could have a negative effect on oil prices and the U.S. economy. In addition, Washington fears that such an extreme step could weaken the international front against Iran's nuclear program.
None of these worries made any impression on the 100 senators. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, “Iran’s actions are unacceptable and pose a danger to the United States and the entire world.” He added that an Iran with nuclear arms outweighed the reservations about oil prices. That means, to paraphrase Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, that American capitalists now don't want to sell Iran the rope it could use to lynch the U.S. These business interests, those business interests, there is still the matter of principles.
The list of transgressions laid out by Reid reads as follows: “Iran supports terrorist groups, arms the killers of American soldiers, lies about its nuclear program, violates its citizens' basic rights and threatens Israel's security.” The frantic efforts by the senators to come up with pretenses for escalating the situation are obvious. They regurgitate the old alarmist warnings with frightening passion.
The fact that national liberation movements such as Hamas or Hezbollah appear on terrorist organization lists in Washington and Brussels is, of course, nothing new. Support for national resistance to military occupation is branded as anti-American crime, while at the same time, the senators ignore the question of what right the United States has to kill innocent people in a foreign country and then expect to be granted immunity from prosecution. And that's apart from the fact that no Iranian claims about its nuclear program could be shown as lies. If sanctions had been placed on the United States as a result of the lies it told to justify its military aggression, the whole country would be a wasteland by now.
The assertion that Iran is a threat to Israeli national security is an absurd perversion of reality. Hardly a day goes by without Israel in some way threatening to take military action against Tehran’s nuclear program. Where Iran is suspected of working to develop nuclear weapons, Israel has actually had them for years. The nuclear threat in the Middle East therefore comes from Israel, with Iran as its favorite target. The idea that a nuclear military strike by Israel on Iran is justified based on the suspicion that Tehran is willing to launch a similarly annihilating nuclear strike on Israel shouldn't be taken lightly.
None of these worries made any impression on the 100 senators. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, “Iran’s actions are unacceptable and pose a danger to the United States and the entire world.” He added that an Iran with nuclear arms outweighed the reservations about oil prices. That means, to paraphrase Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, that American capitalists now don't want to sell Iran the rope it could use to lynch the U.S. These business interests, those business interests, there is still the matter of principles.
The list of transgressions laid out by Reid reads as follows: “Iran supports terrorist groups, arms the killers of American soldiers, lies about its nuclear program, violates its citizens' basic rights and threatens Israel's security.” The frantic efforts by the senators to come up with pretenses for escalating the situation are obvious. They regurgitate the old alarmist warnings with frightening passion.
The fact that national liberation movements such as Hamas or Hezbollah appear on terrorist organization lists in Washington and Brussels is, of course, nothing new. Support for national resistance to military occupation is branded as anti-American crime, while at the same time, the senators ignore the question of what right the United States has to kill innocent people in a foreign country and then expect to be granted immunity from prosecution. And that's apart from the fact that no Iranian claims about its nuclear program could be shown as lies. If sanctions had been placed on the United States as a result of the lies it told to justify its military aggression, the whole country would be a wasteland by now.
The assertion that Iran is a threat to Israeli national security is an absurd perversion of reality. Hardly a day goes by without Israel in some way threatening to take military action against Tehran’s nuclear program. Where Iran is suspected of working to develop nuclear weapons, Israel has actually had them for years. The nuclear threat in the Middle East therefore comes from Israel, with Iran as its favorite target. The idea that a nuclear military strike by Israel on Iran is justified based on the suspicion that Tehran is willing to launch a similarly annihilating nuclear strike on Israel shouldn't be taken lightly.