Europeans fear US attack on Iran as nuclear row intensifies

[sabra]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2002329,00.html

Europeans fear US attack on Iran as nuclear row intensifies

· Transatlantic rift emerges over how to handle crisis
· America builds up its naval forces in the Gulf

The Guardian

Senior European policy-makers are increasingly worried that the US administration will resort to air strikes against Iran to try to destroy its suspect nuclear programme.
As transatlantic friction over how to deal with the Iranian impasse intensifies, there are fears in European capitals that the nuclear crisis could come to a head this year because of US frustration with Russian stalling tactics at the UN security council. "The clock is ticking," said one European official. "Military action has come back on to the table more seriously than before. The language in the US has changed."

As the Americans continue their biggest naval build-up in the Gulf since the start of the Iraq war four years ago, a transatlantic rift is opening up on several important aspects of the Iran dispute.

The Bush administration will shortly publish a dossier of charges of alleged Iranian subversion in Iraq. "Iran has steadily ramped up its activity in Iraq in the last three to four months. This applies to the scope and pace of their operations. You could call these brazen activities," a senior US official said in London yesterday.

...

Senior members of the US Congress have raised concerns that the US will attack Iran in retaliation for its alleged activities in Iraq. The official said there were no plans for "cross-border operations" from Iraq to Iran. But he said: "We don't want a progressively more confident and bolder Iran ... The perception that Iran is ascendant in the region and that there are no limits to what Iran can do - that's what is destabilising."

...

"There's anxiety everywhere you turn," said a diplomat familiar with the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. "The Europeans are very concerned the shit could hit the fan."

[msongs]

1. the US will not attack Iran, George W Bush and Dick Cheney will! nt

[BeHereNow]

3. Unfortunately, that is not how the rest of the world sees it.

After all, our tax dollars and dependence on a consumer addictive
culture has provided "them" with all they need to succeed.
The rest of the world knows this all too well.

BHN

[nealmhughes]

2. Gold and platinum must be booming in Frankfurt and London these days.

Going to war with Iran is ridiculous in military terms. A true war with Iran would require not merely a draft, but a huge outflow of capital that the government is not prepared to expend, prefering tax breaks while screaming "War time powers!"

The ease with which we, the almighty press-led popular we, were led into war with Spain and Iraq on the basest of lies is apalling in hindsight. I believe that if anyone did a simple look on the map, the population, the geography, the armament of Iran is simply staggering in comparison to that of Iraq.

Iraq was a simple case of bullying. Iran would make Iraq look like a Grenada heroic intervention in comparison. Not to mention to where Iran might send its air force if the US air force started sorties... Ridyadh, anyone? Tel Aviv? Amman? Islammabad? Sort of a Thermopolae scenario for the Iranians, a last stand, a Battle of Franklin, if one will.

This is rapidly disintegrating into a Sunni/Shiite thing, an Arab/Persian thing, with both having significant foreign investment in the global oil economy and both sharing the Inddian Ocean.

The United States, and indeed, the West should not have a dog in this fight. Let them squabble over who the legit heir of the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh)and whether Riyadh or Shariz High has the best team in the league.

All a bunch of lines on Whitehall-drafted maps, anyhow. Screw nationalism and ethnocentrism. I shall opt for the brotherhood of man, and cultivate the myriad problems facing my own family and our turf, not whether the Sunnis or Shiites are worthy of being in my camp, and as I can neither read nor understand spoken Arabic or Farsi, relying merely upon English and various Romance languages for communications, I say this Frank wishes not to be a part of any of it. I have no quarrel with Iran nor with Arabia, Turkey, Greece or any other bickering neighbors. Now, I must plan on when to sow winter peas.

[twilight_sailing]

6. Well done,

nealmhughes.

[niceypoo]

8. I believe Bush wants a regional war

Its a power grab on his part. The neocons see this as their only "cure" for the mess in Iraq. The whole thing is so irrational as to be laughable, strategically. They are starting up with the same systematic lying campaign we heard with Iraq. The media is once again falling into place. If the dem congress falls to pressure to be "patriotic" as happened with Iraq we are screwed. The only good I can see coming from this is that perhaps the GOP will find itself outlawed as being just too dangerous.

[Peace Patriot]

4. Oh, now it's IRAN that is destabilizing Iraq!!! I thought it was Al Qaeda!

This would be hilarious if it weren't so scary and appalling.

"The perception that Iran is ascendant in the region and that there are no limits to what Iran can do - that's what is destabilising." --anonymous "senior US official."

Iran invaded Iraq, don't you know? Slaughtered 100,000 people in the initial bombing alone. Tortured thousands of innocents in prison. Stole billions and billions of "reconstruction" money. And set up a puppet government with which to steal Iraq's oil.

That evil Iran. We'd better nuke 'em. They're causing all the trouble.

God, these Bushites. Where do they come from? How does our democracy and our educational system produce people like this? I realize they are in the minority, and always have been. It's one of the few propaganda successes of the war profiteering corporate news monopolies that truthful, rational, progressive Americans who despise Bush are, or ever were, in the minority, and that lying, stupid, irrational fascists who love Bush are the majority. But still, I am shocked at how many lying, stupid, irrational fascists got born on these shores and became members of the Bush Junta. And I'm really at a loss as to what to do with this spawn of the Devil. Re-education camps? What? Maybe they should all be stripped of their U.S. citizenship and sent to live in Saudi Arabia. Can they be taught to be useful, reasonable, honest citizens of a democracy? I don't think so.

This is what corporations teach. Lying. How to say anything at all, no matter how untrue, to sell products. Snake oil salesmanship, writ large. Capitalism gone starkraving mad. So maybe it's not so surprising that the land of the free, home of the brave could produce this assembly-line of robotic, lying S.O.B.s who work for Bush. But I think their kind may have a more ancient lineage, back to the witch-burners and inquisitionists of the Middle Ages--a type of ungodly freak Puritan that has always been with us, and that the Corporate Rulers have chosen to promote and have given a Big Trumpet to, in order to smash all the accomplishments of the Enlightenment, science and reason that gave birth to democracy and progressive ideals. The Corporate Rulers couldn't be more undemocratic. Corporations are medieval institutions--throwbacks to the 10th century--and are as hostile to democracy and progressive ideals as were the Medieval Popes. So, ultimately, these Bush "pod people" derive from a mistake that American democracy made, some time around the Reagan era, by overly associating our democracy with capitalistic greed and its methods. We've always had capitalism. However, prior to Reagan, it was tempered with democratic regulation and curtailment of big business, and the more socialist notions of the New Deal. People could get rich here, but the poor were given a leg up with good schools, unemployment insurance, Medicare, Social Security, small business loans, a progressive tax system, free lending libraries, free community colleges and nearly free public universities, upward mobility and the common goal of a Good Society. And big business was kept in check--not allowed to accumulate too much wealth and power in vast corporate monopolies.

I don't know if our system can be saved, it's gone so bad. But I do know this. Most Americans are NOT Bushites (stupid, lying fascists). Most Americans want to restore the ideals of the Good Society. And that gives me hope.

[HuffleClaw]

5. ...a dossier of alleged...

i don't know who, other than freepers, will believe such a pack of lies. also, the dems could easily debunk this crap via a quick investigation. maybe thats why its since been delayed?

[ohio2007]

7. It's all setting the stage for the Feb. 21st deadline

Brinkmanship for Iran's decision on what they plan to do about their nuke program per UN resolutions.

[pinniped]

9. These punks have cited two alleged reasons to battle Iran.

Alleged WMDs and alleged 'meddling' in Iraq.

They don't want to make the same mistake with Iraq, when their BS WMD excuse continuously morphed into liberation BS, Sadaam tyrant, and a host of other crap.

Indeed, they are making the same mistakes, idiots.

They are prepared with two reasons.

Wow.