NYT Publishes Call to Bomb
Iran
The New York Times continues its slide into
becoming little more than a neocon
propaganda sheet as it followed the
Washington Post in publishing an op-ed
advocating the unprovoked bombing of Iran,
reports Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
March 29, 2015 "ICH"
- "Consortium
News" - If two
major newspapers in, say, Russia published
major articles openly advocating the
unprovoked bombing of a country, say,
Israel, the U.S. government and news media
would be aflame with denunciations about
“aggression,” “criminality,” “madness,” and
“behavior not fitting the Twenty-first
Century.”But when
the newspapers are American – the New York
Times and the Washington Post – and the
target country is Iran, no one in the U.S.
government and media bats an eye. These
inflammatory articles – these incitements
to murder and violation of international law
– are considered just normal discussion in
the Land of Exceptionalism.
On Thursday, the New York
Times printed an op-ed that urged the
bombing of Iran as an alternative to
reaching a diplomatic agreement that would
sharply curtail Iran’s nuclear program
and ensure that it was used only for
peaceful purposes. The Post published a
similar “we-must-bomb-Iran” op-ed two weeks
ago.
The Times’
article by John Bolton, a neocon
scholar from the American Enterprise
Institute, was entitled “To Stop Iran’s
Bomb, Bomb Iran.” It followed the Post’s
op-ed by Joshua Muravchik, formerly at AEI
and now a fellow at the neocon-dominated
School of Advanced International Studies at
Johns Hopkins. [For more on that piece, see
Consortiumnews.com’s “Neocon
Admits Plan to Bomb Iran.”]
Both articles called
on the United States to mount a sustained
bombing campaign against Iran to destroy its
nuclear facilities and to promote “regime
change” in Tehran. Ironically, these
“scholars” rationalized their calls for
unprovoked aggression against Iran under the
theory that Iran is an aggressive state,
although Iran has not invaded another
country for centuries.
Bolton, who served as
President George W. Bush’s ambassador to the
United Nations, based his call for war on
the possibility that if Iran did develop a
nuclear bomb – which Iran denies seeking and
which the U.S. intelligence community agrees
Iran is not building – such a hypothetical
event could touch off an arms race in the
Middle East.
Curiously, Bolton
acknowledged that Israel already has
developed an undeclared nuclear weapons
arsenal outside international controls, but
he didn’t call for bombing Israel. He wrote
blithely that “Ironically perhaps, Israel’s
nuclear weapons have not triggered an arms
race. Other states in the region understood
— even if they couldn’t admit it publicly —
that Israel’s nukes were intended as a
deterrent, not as an offensive measure.”
How Bolton manages to read
the minds of Israel’s neighbors who have
been at the receiving end of Israeli
invasions and other cross-border attacks is
not explained. Nor does he address the
possibility that Israel’s possession of some
200 nuclear bombs might be at the back of
the minds of Iran’s leaders if they do press
ahead for a nuclear weapon.
Nor does Bolton explain
his assumption that if Iran were to build
one or two bombs that it would use them
aggressively, rather than hold them as a
deterrent. He simply asserts: “Iran is a
different story. Extensive progress in
uranium enrichment and plutonium
reprocessing reveal its ambitions.”
Pulling Back on
Refinement
But is that correct? In
its refinement of uranium, Iran has not
progressed toward the level required for a
nuclear weapon since its 2013 interim
agreement with the global powers known as
“the p-5 plus one” – for the permanent
members of the UN Security Council plus
Germany. Instead, Iran has dialed back the
level of refinement to below 5 percent
(what’s needed for generating electricity)
from its earlier level of 20 percent (needed
for medical research) — compared with the
90-plus percent purity to build a nuclear
weapon.
In other words, rather
than challenging the “red line” of uranium
refinement that Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu drew during a United
Nations speech in 2012, the Iranians have
gone in the opposite direction – and they
have agreed to continue those constraints if
a permanent agreement is reached with the
p-5-plus-1.
However, instead of
supporting such an agreement, American
neocons – echoing Israeli hardliners – are
demanding war, followed by U.S. subversion
of Iran’s government through the financing
of an internal opposition for a coup or a
“colored revolution.”
Bolton wrote: “An attack
need not destroy all of Iran’s nuclear
infrastructure, but by breaking key links in
the nuclear-fuel cycle, it could set back
its program by three to five years. The
United States could do a thorough job of
destruction, but Israel alone can do what’s
necessary. Such action should be combined
with vigorous American support for Iran’s
opposition, aimed at regime change in
Tehran.”
But one should remember
that neocon schemes – drawn up at their
think tanks and laid out on op-ed pages –
don’t always unfold as planned. Since the
1990s, the neocons have maintained a list of
countries considered troublesome for Israel
and thus targeted for “regime change,”
including Iraq, Syria and Iran. In 2003, the
neocons got their chance to invade Iraq, but
the easy victory that they predicted didn’t
exactly pan out.
Still, the neocons never
revise their hit list. They just keep coming
up with more plans that, in total, have
thrown much of the Middle East, northern
Africa and now Ukraine into bloodshed and
chaos. In effect, the neocons have joined
Israel in its de facto alliance with Saudi
Arabia for a Sunni sectarian conflict
against the Shiites and their allies. Much
like the Saudis, Israeli officials rant
against the so-called “Shiite crescent” from
Tehran through Baghdad and Damascus to
Beirut. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Congress
Cheers Netanyahu’s Hatred of Iran.”]
Since Iran is considered
the most powerful Shiite nation and is
allied with Syria, which is governed by
Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, both
countries have remained in the neocons’
crosshairs. But the neocons don’t actually
pull the trigger themselves. Their main role
is to provide the emotional and political
arguments to get the American people to hand
over their tax money and their children to
fight these wars.
The neocons are so
confident in their skills at manipulating
the U.S. decision-making process that some
have gone so far as to suggest Americans
should side with al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front in
Syria or the even more brutal Islamic State,
because those groups love killing Shiites
and thus are considered the most effective
fighters against Iran’s allies. [See
Consortiumnews.com’s “The
Secret Saudi Ties to Terrorism.”]
Friedman’s Madness
The New York Times’ star
neocon columnist Thomas L. Friedman ventured
to the edge of madness as he floated the
idea of the U.S. arming the head-chopping
Islamic State,
writing this month: “Now I
despise ISIS as much as anyone, but let me
just toss out a different question: Should
we be arming ISIS?”
I realize the New York
Times and Washington Post are protected by
the First Amendment and can theoretically
publish whatever they want. But the truth is
that the newspapers are extremely
restrictive in what they print. Their op-ed
pages are not just free-for-alls for all
sorts of opinions.
For instance, neither
newspaper would publish a story that urged
the United States to launch a bombing
campaign to destroy Israel’s actual nuclear
arsenal as a step toward creating a
nuclear-free Middle East. That would be
considered outside responsible thought and
reasonable debate.
However, when it comes to
advocating a bombing campaign against Iran’s
peaceful nuclear program, the two newspapers
are quite happy to publish such advocacy.
The Times doesn’t even blush when one of its
most celebrated columnists mulls over the
idea of sending weapons to the terrorists in
ISIS – all presumably because Israel has
identified “the Shiite crescent” as its
current chief enemy and the Islamic State is
on the other side.
But beyond the hypocrisy
and, arguably, the criminality of these
propaganda pieces, there is also the neocon
record of miscalculation. Remember how the
invasion of Iraq was supposed to end with
Iraqis tossing rose petals at the American
soldiers instead of planting “improvised
explosive devices” – and how the new Iraq
was to become a model pluralistic democracy?
Well, why does one assume
that the same geniuses who were so wrong
about Iraq will end up being right
about Iran? What if the bombing and the
subversion don’t lead to nirvana in Iran?
Isn’t it just as likely, if not more so,
that Iran would react to this aggression by
deciding that it needed nuclear bombs to
deter further aggression and to protect its
sovereignty and its people?
In other words, might the
scheming by Bolton and Muravchik — as
published by the New York Times and the
Washington Post — produce exactly the result
that they say they want to prevent? But
don’t worry. If the neocons’ new schemes
don’t pan out, they’ll just come up with
more.
Investigative reporter
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra
stories for The Associated Press and
Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his
latest book, America’s Stolen
Narrative, either in print
here or
as an e-book (from
Amazon
and
barnesandnoble.com).
You also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on
the Bush Family and its connections to
various right-wing operatives for only $34.
The trilogy includes America’s
Stolen Narrative. For details on
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click here.