Arkin (WP): Iran Threat RHETORIC Grows

[leveymg]

http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2006/04/iran_threat_rhe.html#comment-15838672

Iran Threat Rhetoric Grows

Iran tested a new torpedo!

Iran would respond to an attack with terrorist strikes in the United States!

Nuclear diplomacy in Iran is beginning to look a lot like the United Nation's inspection work in Iraq before the 2003 war. The parties are committed to a peaceful outcome but the accumulation of bad blood torpedoes any hope for a peaceful outcome.

I know that Iran's president continues to call for the state of Israel to be "wiped off the map." I know that the country is clandestinely developing nuclear weapons, that it has been a state sponsor of terrorism for years. The more interesting question though is whether the Iranian "threat" has reached a tipping point, where a potential threat to the West and oil is declared an imminent threat. This again mirrors Saddam Hussein's Iraq in 2003, a country on a sure path to confrontation with the United States regardless of whether it was really a threat to regional and international security, regardless of whether a peaceful outcome was even possible.

On Sunday, The Washington Post ran a front page story by Dana Priest declaring that as tensions increase between the United States and Iran, "U.S. intelligence and terrorism experts say they believe Iran would respond to U.S. military strikes on its nuclear sites by deploying its intelligence operatives and Hezbollah teams to carry out terrorist attacks worldwide." Terrorism experts, Priest reported, consider the country's Ministry of Intelligence and Security operatives, Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah "to be better organized, trained and equipped than the al-Qaeda network."

On Monday, the Pentagon's Press Service happily picks up wire service copy about an Iranian military exercise to trumpet Iran's new torpedo and other military hardware.

Isn't it just a little transparent that a drumbeat of stories about the Iranian "threat" has begun?

SNIP

Torpedoes on one side, routine weapons tests -- even nuclear simulations -- on the other. The U.S. does what the U.S. does, Iran does what Iran does. Both can be seen as threats -- and will be played out that way by all of the peace-loving people of the blogosphere -- because that's the treadmill we are all on.

By William M. Arkin | April 5, 2006; 08:45 AM ET TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/4603495

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Iran Threat Rhetoric Grows:

________________________________________________________________
(MY RESPONSE)

Comments

Caught on a treadmill? Then, allow me to suggest that we get off, climb out of the cage, and bite the hand that's feeding us these incendiary materials.

The motive behind the big hand is obvious here: to create the sort of crisis environment in which reason is shoved out of the picture, and hysterial is steered in calculated vectors.

What do you make of the Chief of the Russian General Staff refusing to confirm or deny reports in major Russian newspapers that 250 Ukranian warheads made their way to Iran after the breakup of the Soviet Union? http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060403/45107320.html Kinda gives one pause, doesn't it?

You know the Israelis have been saying the same thing without attaching any numbers to it for some years now. It would be helpful to us all if the CIA simply revealed what it thinks it knows about this, rather than the likes of us having to speculate about how this is going to be spun.

I give it slim odds that this is just Russian disinfo. Or, it could be partial truth. Maybe Iran got a handful of warheads -- not all 250 -- the problem with this is that some idiots might be tempted to try a commando raid if they thought all the eggs could be grabbed at once. These things have a way of going disastrously wrong, and the threat could itself trigger a war.

That is what I think is the most serious threat presented by these things, if they exist. The Israelis have talked about commando raids, and this may be the target they're referring to.

If there's even partial truth to this, then here's a contrarian take. Everybody relax. If its true, Iran has shown itself to be a responsible member of "the club"

That would have happened in the early 1990s. If Iran has had nuclear weapons all this time, they certainly haven't used them. Then, what makes Iran any different from Pakistan in this respect? It completely undermines the argument made so far for a preemptive strike to eliminate the threat that Iran could make the bomb.

What's the point of a strike if they already have the bomb, but haven't used it?

If they do have nuclear weapons, that's yet another reason not to bomb Iran. That's the only reaction a sane person can have. Don't you think?

Finally, Bill, thank you for alluding to the fact that this perception management is going on, and may be the reason we're hearing about all this Iranian hardware. How about joining us in escaping the cage? See, http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/

I know you could use a day off from the treadmill.

Mark G. Levey

Posted by: leveymg | Apr 5, 2006 1:31:13 PM | Permalink

[H2O Man]

1. Nominated.

This is an important thread, about a topic that we should be paying close attention to. I'm reminded of last night, flipping through the channels, and hearing one of the drones on Fox speaking of Iran's aggression. By no means am I a fan of the Iranian government, but the aggressive kid on the block is named George.