|
Another Undeclared War?
By Patrick J. Buchanan
01/18/06 -- -- Is the United States about to launch a second
preemptive war, against a nation that has not attacked us, to
deprive it of weapons of mass destruction that it does not have?
With U.S. troops tied down in Afghanistan and Iraq, and
Pakistanis inflamed over a U.S. airstrike that wiped out 13
villagers, including women and children, it would seem another
war in the Islamic world is the last thing America needs.
Yet, the "military option" against Iran is the talk of the town.
"There is only one thing worse than ... exercising the military
option," says Sen. John McCain. "That is a nuclear-armed Iran.
The military option is the last option, but cannot be taken off
the table."
Appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation," McCain said Iran's nuclear
program presents "the most grave situation we have faced since
the end of the Cold War, absent the whole war on terror."
Meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Bush employed the
same grim terms he used before invading Iraq. If Iran goes
forward with nuclear enrichment, said Bush, it could "pose a
grave threat to the security of the world."
McCain and Bush both emphasized the threat to Israel. And all
the usual suspects are beating the drums for war. Israel warns
that March is the deadline after which she may strike. One reads
of F-16s headed for the Gulf. The Weekly Standard is feathered
and painted for the warpath. The Iranian Chalabis are playing
their assigned roles, warning that Tehran is much closer to
nukes than we all realize.
But just how imminent in this "grave threat"?
Thus far, Tehran has taken only two baby steps. It has renewed
converting "yellowcake" into uranium hexafluoride, the gaseous
substance used to create enriched uranium. And Iran has broken
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) seals at its
nuclear facility at Natanz, where uranium hexafluoride is to be
processed into enriched uranium. But on Saturday, the foreign
ministry said it was still suspending "fuel production."
However, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has declared, "There are
no restrictions for nuclear research activities under the NPT,"
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Iran has signed.
Here, Iran's president is supported by his countrymen and stands
on the solid ground of international law. Yet Secretary of State
Condi Rice said last week, "There is simply no peaceful
rationale for the Iranian regime to resume uranium enrichment."
Is Condi right?
Unlike Israel, Pakistan and India, which clandestinely built
nuclear weapons, Iran has signed the NPT. And Tehran may wish to
exercise its rights under the treaty to master the nuclear fuel
cycle to build power plants for electricity, rather than use up
the oil and gas deposits she exports to earn all of her hard
currency. Nuclear power makes sense for Iran
True, in gaining such expertise, Iran may wish to be able, in a
matter of months, to go nuclear. For the United States and
Israel, which have repeatedly threatened her, are both in the
neighborhood and have nuclear arsenals. Acquiring an atom bomb
to deter a U.S. or Israeli attack may not appear a "peaceful
rationale" to Rice, but the Iranians may have a different
perspective.
Having seen what we did to Iraq, but how deferential we are to
North Korea, would it be irrational for Tehran to seek its own
deterrent?
And, again, just how imminent is this "grave threat"?
"We don't see a clear and present danger," Mohamed ElBaradei of
the IAEA has just told Newsweek.
Some put the possibility of an Iranian bomb at 10 years away.
Con Coughlin, defense and security editor of the London
Telegraph, writes that the 164 centrifuges in the Natanz pilot
plant could enable Iran to produce enough highly enriched
uranium for a single bomb – in three years.
If the threat were imminent, Israel, which invaded Egypt in
1956, destroyed the Syrian and Egyptian air forces on the ground
in a surprise attack in 1967, and smashed an Iraqi reactor
before it was completed in 1981, would have acted. And with an
estimated 200 nuclear weapons, Israel is fully capable of
deterring Iran – and of massive retaliation if she is attacked
by Iran.
Iran has attacked neither Israel nor our forces in the Gulf, and
the Ayatollah Khamenei is said to be reining in Ahmadinejad. So,
it would seem that Iran does not want a war.
Congress thus has the time to do the constitutional duty it
failed to do when it gave Bush his blank check to invade Iraq at
a time of his choosing.
Few today trust "intelligence reports," War Party propagandists
or the word of exiles anxious to have us fight their wars.
Congress should thus hold hearings on how close Tehran is to a
nuclear weapon and whether this represents an intolerable
threat, justifying a preventive war that would mean a Middle
East cataclysm and a worldwide depression. Then it should vote
to declare war, or to deny Bush the power to go to war.
The "Bush Doctrine" notwithstanding, if Congress has not put the
"military option on the table," neither George Bush nor John
McCain can put it there. That is the Constitution still, is it
not?
January 18, 2006
Patrick J. Buchanan [send him mail] is co-founder and editor of
The American Conservative. He is also the author of seven books,
including Where the Right Went Wrong, and A Republic Not An
Empire.
Copyright © 2006 Creators Syndicate
Translate
this page
(In accordance with Title 17
U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to
those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes.
Information Clearing House has no affiliation whatsoever with the
originator of this article nor is Information Clearing House
endorsed or sponsored by the originator.) |
