Truthdig: What Would You Do if You Were Iran?

[marmar]

What Would You Do if You Were Iran?

Posted on Mar 5, 2007


By Tad Daley

Editor’s note: American saber rattling aimed at perpetuating the nuclear double standard will lead instead to perpetual nuclear proliferation.

Any New Yorker will tell you that the best views of Manhattan are to be found not on the island, but from across the water. The most sublime commentator on the workings of “democracy in America,” it is often argued, was not from America, but Europe—Alexis de Tocqueville, in his majestic work by that very title. The Hubble Space Telescope has snapped many breathtaking photographs of wondrous spiral galaxies millions of light years away, but no human has ever held such a perspective on our own spiral galaxy, the Milky Way, because no human (nor even any human artifact) has ever viewed it from the outside.

The greatest insight into a difficult and complex matter often comes from an outside observer. In late February the International Atomic Energy Agency announced that Iran had accelerated rather than suspended its uranium enrichment activities. Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking from Australia, immediately warned Tehran, “All options are still on the table.” Two days later Cheney suddenly showed up, publicly unannounced, in Pakistan, setting off a flurry of talk radio and Internet speculation that the true purpose of the visit was to negotiate flyover rights for an impending air assault on Iran. In response, an Iranian deputy foreign minister stated, “We’re prepared for any situation—even for war.”

To the dismay and astonishment of the peace and progressive Democratic base that swept the party back into power last November, the three early front-runners for the 2008 presidential nomination—Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and former Sen. John Edwards—have consistently expressed a similar hawkishness on Iran. Clinton and Edwards have even uttered the identical “all options on the table” phrase!

Why is Iran so intent on pursuing its atomic ambitions, despite such naked saber rattling from the planet’s overweening military leviathan? The most candid, unvarnished answer to that question has recently come not from any Iranian or American but from someone viewing the impasse from across the water. From Europe. From the outside.
Vladimir Putin. ....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070305_what_would_you_do_if_you_were_iran/

[Demeter]

1. I'd Sit on My Hands for 2 Years

and watch the US disintegrate before my eyes.