Attacking Iran for Israel?
By Ray McGovern, Consortium News. Posted November 1, 2007.
With 200-300 nuclear weapons in their arsenal, Israelis enjoy a
nuclear monopoly in the Middle East. They mean to keep it that way,
and they want the U.S. to help.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is at her mushroom-cloud
hyperbolic best, and this time Iran is the target. Her claim last week
that "the policies of Iran constitute perhaps the single greatest
challenge to American security interests in the Middle East and around
the world" is simply too much of a stretch.
To gauge someone's reliability, one depends largely on prior
experience. Sadly, Rice's credibility suffers in comparison with
Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA). Basing his judgment on the findings of IAEA inspectors in
Iran, ElBaradei reports that there is no evidence of an active nuclear
weapons program there.
If this sounds familiar, it is in fact déjà vu. ElBaradei said the
same thing about Iraq before it was attacked. But three days before
the invasion, American nuclear expert Dick Cheney told NBC's Tim
Russert, "I think Mr. ElBaradei is, frankly, wrong."
Here we go again. As in the case of Iraq, U.S. intelligence has been
assiduously looking for evidence of a nuclear weapons program in Iran,
but, alas, in vain. Burned by the bogus "proof" adduced for Iraq --
the uranium from Africa, the aluminum tubes -- the administration has
shied away from fabricating nuclear-related "evidence." Are Bush and
Cheney again relying on the Rumsfeld dictum, that "the absence of
evidence is not evidence of absence?" There is a simpler answer.
Cat out of the bag
The Israeli ambassador to the United States, Sallai Meridor, let the
cat out of the bag while speaking at the American Jewish Committee
luncheon on Oct. 22. In remarks paralleling those of Rice, Meridor
said Iran is the chief threat to Israel. Heavy on the chutzpah, he
then served gratuitous notice on Washington that countering Iran's
nuclear ambitions will take a "united United States in this matter,"
lest the Iranians conclude, "come January '09, they have it their own
way."
Meridor stressed that "very little time" remained to keep Iran from
obtaining nuclear weapons. How so? Even were there to be a nuclear
program hidden from the IAEA, no serious observer expects Iran to
obtain a nuclear weapon much sooner than five years from now.
Truth be told, every other year since 1995 U.S. intelligence has been
predicting that Iran could have a nuclear weapon in about five years.
It has become downright embarrassing -- like a broken record,
punctuated only by so-called "neoconservatives" like James Woolsey,
who in August publicly warned that the United States may have no
choice but to bomb Iran in order to halt Tehran's nuclear weapons
program.
Woolsey, self-described "anchor of the Presbyterian wing of the Jewish
Institute for National Security Affairs," put it this way: "I'm afraid
that within, well, at worst, a few months; at best, a few years; they
[the Iranians] could have the bomb."
The day before Ambassador Meridor's unintentionally revealing remark,
Vice President Dick Cheney reiterated, "We will not allow Iran to have
a nuclear weapon." That remark followed closely on President George W.
Bush's apocalyptic warning of World War III, should Tehran acquire the
knowledge to produce a nuclear weapon.
The Israelis appear convinced they have extracted a promise from Bush
and Cheney that they will help Israel nip Iran's nuclear program in
the bud before they leave office. That is why the Israeli ambassador
says there is "very little time" -- less than 15 months.
Never mind that there is no evidence that the Iranian nuclear program
is any more weapons-related than the one Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld
persuaded President Gerald Ford to approve in 1976. Westinghouse and
General Electric successfully lobbied for approval to sell the Shah
for $6.4 billion the kind of nuclear facilities that Iran is now
building, but the deal fell through when the Shah was ousted in 1979.
With 200-300 nuclear weapons in their arsenal, the Israelis enjoy a
nuclear monopoly in the Middle East. They mean to keep that monopoly,
and Israel's current leaders are pressing for the United States to
obliterate Iran's fledgling nuclear program.
Anyone aware of Iran's ability to retaliate realizes this would bring
disaster to the whole region and beyond. But this has not stopped
Cheney and Bush in the past. And the real rationale is reminiscent of
the one revealed by Philip Zelikow, confidant of Condoleezza Rice,
former member of the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board
and later executive director of the 9/11 Commission. On Oct. 10, 2002,
Zelikow said this to a crowd at the University of Virginia:
"Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I'll
tell you what I think the real threat is -- it's the threat to Israel.
And this is the threat that dare not speak its name ... the American
government doesn't want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because
it is not a popular sell."
See: http://www.alternet.org/audits/66607/
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