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takin’ it to the streets…

Posted on Friday 28 September 2007


Ironically, the right-wing clamor for war is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Here’s why:

  • The success of the right-wing’s push for military action hinges on establishing that the U.N. Security Council can’t stop Iran’s nuclear program. As the Sun notes, the U.S. and French are already considering an effort to proceed “without U.N. approval,” in essence forming a “coalition of the willing” that ignores the U.N. (It wouldn’t be the first time.)
  • Russia and China, both members of the permanent five, have rebuffed efforts to increase sanctions on Iran, fearing that they “will be exploited to support a U.S. policy of regime change or military action.”
  • That fear, precipitated by right-wing rhetoric, then inhibits the U.N.’s ability to agree on sanctions that could be used “to increase the pressure on Tehran to comply with the Security Council’s demand to suspend uranium enrichment.” The failure to instill a new sanctions regime then allows the administration to push for confrontation.
I’d like to say something that’s so obvious that it shouldn’t even need to be said. There is no reason for the United States of America to bomb, attack, or go to war with Iran right now. Just like there was no reason for the United States of America to urgently invade Iraq in 2003. If the Bush Administration does any of those things with Iran, it’s because they just want to for some other reason. Even with their now disgraced Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive, unilateral action, there’s still absolutely no urgency about anything. They pulled this in 2002-2003, and now they’re doing it again. The only force I can think of that pushes them is the fear that their successors won’t do it.

In the released transcripts from the conversation between Bush and the Spanish Prime Minister, Bush says:
BUSH:  …This is the Chinese water torture. We must end it.
AZNAR: I agree, but it would be good to count on the maximum number of possible people. Then a little patience.
BUSH: My patience is exhausted. I do not plan to go beyond the middle of March. [Saddam] is a thief, a terrorist, a military criminal. Compared with Saddam, Milosevic would be a Mother Teresa. When we enter we are going to discover many more crimes and we will take them to the Court the International of Justice. Saddam Hussein thinks that already it has escaped…
George W. Bush’s impatience, or impulsiveness, or petulance is no reason to go to war. Dick Cheney’s Neoconservative Allegances and Corporate Oil ties are no reason to go to war. What either of them said to some Israeli Prime Minister is no cause to go to war. What John Bolton, Michael Ledeen, and Laurie Mylroie say is no reason to go to war. No trumped up scenerio that they create with the U.N. [which they hate] is a reason to go to war. As George Bush is unable to say, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

If they bring it off, it will not be in the best interests of America or the world, it will be because we let these thugs do it [again] just because they wanted to do it for whatever their own reasons. It’s about time for America to be takin’ it to the streets too…

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