Robert Scheer (Los Angeles Times): Bush's blind spot on Iran

[Jack Rabbit]

From the Los Angeles Times
Dated Tuesday August 16

Bush's blind spot on Iran
By Robert Scheer

We don't respect or understand any religious or nationalist fervor other than our own. That myopic distortion has been a persistent historical failure of U.S. foreign policy, but it has reached the point of total blindness in the Bush administration.

The latest exhibition of this approach was President Bush's thinly veiled threat this weekend to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities or even invade the country as a last resort, sparked by Tehran's troubled negotiations with the West over its nuclear program.

It is telling that Bush made the comments on Israeli television, which makes them exponentially more provocative. Israel is, of course, not only Iran's archenemy but is also believed to be the sole possessor of nuclear weapons in the immediate region.

It is as if Bush is not content to rattle his saber at Tehran's hard-liners; he also wants to ensure that he infuriates and publicly embarrasses even moderate Iranians.

Read more.

[lyonn]

1. Listen up U.S.

Bush has some serious silly plans! Scheer describes it well:

"If diplomacy fails, "all options are on the table," Bush said. "You know, we've used force in the recent past to secure our country." But it was precisely Bush's use of preemptive force against Iraq that now makes it so difficult to pressure Iran to abandon its worrisome nuclear program.

-snip-
Bush's Iran policy is rife with contradictions and idiocies. What, for example, is the point of publicly threatening Iran when doing so immeasurably strengthens the hand of hard-line nationalists and religious fundamentalists in Tehran? These are the people who, for more than a century, have secured much of their appeal by posturing as the protectors of the Muslim populace against Western imperialism.
-snip-
What can work is what has worked in the past: carefully maximizing international pressure on Tehran to comply with the demands of the International Atomic Energy Agency so that Iran's program can be monitored and limited to nonmilitary purposes.
-snip-
Perhaps this isn't as exciting to the neocon chicken-hawks in the Bush administration who love treating the world like a big game of "Risk," but it is certainly the most prudent approach if the goal is a more peaceful world."
edited for snips

[Jack Rabbit]

2. You think they would have learned something in Iraq

At least they should have learned that the Powell doctrine is alive and well.

Iran is over twice and large as Iraq and has two and a half times as many people. While an Islamic republic is not a democratic form of government, it has more in common with one than did Saddam's Iraq; there is even less reason to embrace any fantasies about the natives welcoming foreign troops as liberators in Iran than there was in Iraq.

We have 130,000 troops tied down on occupation duty in a quagmire in Iraq. With whose army is Bush going to invade Iran?

Ironically, Iran may present a greater threat to the US than did Saddam's Iraq (which really presented none). However, at this point anybody who takes the word of Bush and the neocons on this matter at face value would have to be a fool.