- 4 February 2010
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- 4 Comments
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- US-Iran War
Deja Vu All Over Again
4 February 2010 Posted By Jamal Abdi
On the heels of last week’s testimony by Tony Blair before Britain’s Chilcot panel regarding the Iraq war, Seumas Milne discusses in the Guardian yesterday the parallels between the 2002 run up to war with Iraq and the current escalation in rhetoric and military forces aimed at Iran .
In his column, “The lessons of Iraq have been ignored. The target is now Iran”, Milne writes, “We were supposed to have learned the lessons of the Iraq war. That’s what Britain’s Chilcot inquiry is meant to be all about. But the signs from the Middle East are that it could be happening all over again.”
He goes on to compare the current Iran rhetoric and George W. Bush’s “Axis of Evil” speech, and analyzes the recent US announcement that it is “boosting its naval presence and supplying tens of billions of dollars’ worth of new weapons systems to allied Arab states. The target is of course Iran.”
“In case anyone missed the parallels, Tony Blair hammered them home at the Iraq inquiry last Friday.” Milne writes, “Far from showing remorse about the bloodshed he helped unleash on the Iraqi people, the former prime minister was allowed to turn what was supposed to be a grilling into a platform for war against Iran. “
Tony Blair isn’t the only one who has apparently learned little from the lessons of Iraq. In Daniel Pipes’ February 2 piece in the National Review, “How to Save the Obama Presidency: Bomb Iran”, Pipes offers the Obama Administration some free political advice: “He needs a dramatic gesture to change the public perception of him,” Pipes writes. The answer to Obama’s political difficulties? Bomb Iran.
Pipes states that such an attack would be “more politically palatable” because it would be limited to aerial strikes and thus “would require few ‘boots on the ground’ and entail relatively few casualties”. No mention, however, of the Pentagon’s broadly accepted assessment that such strikes would not eliminate Iran’s nuclear program and would play into the hands of Iran’s government as it attempts to fight a growing popular uprising.
Like any good political strategist, instead of making the case that starting a war with Iran is good policy, Pipes argues that its good politics—he even supports his argument with polling data. The cynicism in Pipes’ argument is underlined when he compares his proposed new war with Iran to 9/11, noting that the most deadly terrorist attacks on US soil were a political boon that “caused voters to forget George W. Bush’s meandering early months”—just think what bombing Iran could do for President Obama’s poll numbers.
“If Obama’s personality, identity, and celebrity captivated a majority of the American electorate in 2008, those qualities proved ruefully deficient for governing in 2009.” So in Pipes’ world, “bomb, bomb Iran” is new “Yes we can”.
4 Responses to “Deja Vu All Over Again”
Not to diminish the importance of this, but Daniel Pipes has virtually no credibility in the foreign policy community. He is pretty much on the fringe right…..
In contrast to Tony Blair and Pipes the British-based IISS (International Institute for Strategic Studies in London) in my view proposes an excellent future-compliant and realistically forward-loking approach of how to arrange, design and organize current relations with Iran politically on the part of the USA or Europe through its consulting senior fellow and former special assistant to UN-Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Nader Mousavizadeh:
»In […] Iran […] decades of Western sanctions have achieved a perfect storm of deprivation for the people, wealth and job security for their rulers, and strategic influence for those countries unmoved by complaints about human-rights abuses. Indeed, in isolating repressive regimes, the West often hands them an excuse to block the forces of reform most likely to undermine their rule, and even to rally their people behind a hated government in the name of opposing foreign intervention. A new strategy is needed.
Nothing would more dramatically disrupt this status quo than to provide rogue leaders with what they fear most: a complete end to broad economic sanctions, open and unfettered trade with the traditional commercial classes, educational exchanges for their students, and less restrictive travel policies on the broad population — even as arms embargoes and visa restrictions on the ruling elite are kept in place. Such a policy would stand a far greater chance of gaining support among rising and rival powers — as well as the peoples of the rogue states — and set in motion a chain of events more likely to result in greater security and accountable government.«
source:
“End of the Rogue – The world that created ‘rogue states’ is gone, and the sooner Washington recognizes it, the better” by Nader Mousavizadeh, in: NEWSWEEK magazine issue dated Feb 8, 2010
link (newsweek article):
http://www.newsweek.com/id/232796
Mr. Pipes should recall the beating Bush junior took in the polls during the near to long term aftermath of the invasion of Iraq.
And a US air offensive against Iran would not be limited to US air strikes. Iran has many ways of hitting back, in a scheme of escalation planned out in advance and commensurate with the threshold of US attacks.
Pipes is another one of those chicken hawks who needs an M4 carbine to slug around for a year’s duty in Afghanistan, to cure him of his affliction for warmongering.