Bush Must
Be Stopped
Before Starting War With Iran
By JOE PARKO
08/02/08 "Tennessee
Voices" -- 24/07/08 -- -The Bush
administration, in rhetoric that is eerily similar to that used
to build the case for a war against Iraq, asserts that the
Iranian Quds Force is arming anti-U.S. groups in Iraq and
providing them with high-tech roadside bombs and sophisticated
rockets.
It dismisses t
The White House has not provided evidence to back up its claims.
I suspect it never will. And when Israel's Deputy Prime Minister
Shaul Mofaz tells the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth an
attack on Iran is "unavoidable" if Tehran does not halt its
alleged nuclear weapons program, what he is really telling us is
we should prepare for war.
An attack on Iran by either the U.S. or Israel and the ensuing
regional war will propel us into the Armageddon-type scenario in
the Middle East relished by the lunatic fringes of the radical
Christian right. And so, we barrel mindlessly toward a Dr.
Strangelove self-immolation. No one will be able to say we did
not go out with a spectacular show of firepower, gore and death.
Our European and Middle Eastern allies, who are numb with
consternation over our death spiral, are frantically trying to
reach out to Tehran diplomatically.
The instant we attack Iran, oil prices will double, perhaps
triple. This price increase will devastate the U.S. economy. The
ensuing retaliatory strikes by Iran on Israel, as well as on
U.S. military installations in Iraq, will leave hundreds, maybe
thousands, dead. The Shiites in the region, from Saudi Arabia to
Pakistan, will see an attack on Iran as a war against Shiism.
They will turn with rage and violence on us and our allies.
Hezbollah will renew attacks on northern Israel, while Hamas
increases its attacks in southern Israel. And the localized war
in Iraq will become a long, messy and protracted regional war
that, by the time it is done, will most likely end the American
empire and leave in its wake mounds of corpses and smoldering
ruins.
The Israeli leadership, like the Bush White House, is
increasingly bellicose and threatening. The Israeli prime
minister, after a recent 90-minute meeting with Bush in the
White House, said the two leaders were of one mind. "We reached
agreement on the need to take care of the Iranian threat," Ehud
Olmert said. "I left with a lot less questions marks (than) I
had entered with regarding the means, the timetable restrictions
and American resoluteness to deal with the problem. George Bush
understands the severity of the Iranian threat and the need to
vanquish it and intends to act on the matter before the end of
his term in the White House."
This time around, unlike the war with Iraq, the Washington
bureaucracy, loathed by the Bush White House, did not remain
silent and complicit. The NIE on Iran's nuclear program released
Dec. 3 distinguished Iran's enrichment of uranium at Natanz and
Arak from its formal nuclear weapons program, which it said had
halted in 2003 after the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Adm. Fallon, who put his country and his integrity before his
career, spoke out against a war with Iran, tried to stop it, and
lost his job as the head of Central Command. He has been
replaced with Gen. David Petraeus, whose devotion to his career
admits no such moral impediments.
The American people must act to stop this madness. We must raise
our voices in protest. We must demand that Congress exercise its
constitutional authority and block a war on Iran. We cannot
allow the Bush neocons to act out their final bloody fantasy and
destroy all hopes for peace in the Middle East.
Joe Parko is a retired college professor. He lives in
Crossville, where he serves on the steering committee of
Cumberland Countians for Peace and Justice.
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