March 9, 2006
Listening to Vice President
Cheney and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad exchange threats of war
while both nations hover, like vultures, over the moribund carcass of
Iraq's insurgency-racked shotgun democracy, I was reminded of David
Low's famous 1939 cartoon, "Rendezvous." Mr. Low, you'll recall,
depicted Hitler and Stalin as bloodthirsty tyrants, tipping their hats
in salutation while standing over Poland's corpse. Thus, Hitler saluted
Stalin: "The scum of the earth I believe?" Stalin replied: "The bloody
assassin of the workers, I presume?"
But, unlike Hitler and Stalin, who collaborated to effect Poland's
dismemberment, Cheney and Ahmadinejad play 'winner take all." Thanks to
the criminal dishonesty and gross incompetence of Cheney, his fellow
"cabal-mate," Rumsfeld, a sycophantic Condoleezza Rice and their
"Bubble-boy President," George W. Bush, the debacle crafted in Iraq by
America's war party has strengthened both the position and confidence
of Iran - not only in Iraq, but throughout the Middle East. Moreover,
America's debacle in Iraq has emboldened Ahmadinejad -- Cheney's
ultraconservative "double" -- to contemplate a clash of civilizations
aimed at the eradication of Israel. Now, both bloodthirsty
megalomaniacs seem ready to wage war.
For Cheney - and, thus, for Rumsfeld, Rice and their "Bubble-boy" --
the pretexts for war will be Iran's pursuit of the bomb and its
"putting people into Iraq to do things that are harmful to the future
of Iraq." [Rumsfeld, 7 March 2006] To be persuasive, however, they must
once again count on the patriotic suspension of disbelief by the
mainstream news media and widespread public ignorance of foreign
affairs, both of which served them so well during the run-up to war in
Iraq.
Ahmadinejad waxes confident in the knowledge that Iran's oil
can be leveraged against the American economy, that virtually all
Iranians will unite behind him in the event of a U.S. attack, that
America's conventional military forces have been stretched to the
breaking point and that an attack on Iran might ignite a Middle East
explosion that destroys Israel.
Unfortunately, Cheney's pretexts appear to be seeping through. First,
the mainstream media helped to "frame" Iran in the minds of countless
Americans. It did so when it engaged in a feeding frenzy over
allegations (never proven) that newly elected President Ahmadinejad
personally held Americans hostage during the American embassy seizure
of 1979. And it did so by linking those false, but viscerally felt,
allegations to America's current suspicions about Iran's nuclear
program.
Today, the media dutifully reports Ahmadinejad's obnoxious
views about Israel, Iran's surreptitious shipments of IEDs "capable of
penetrating U.S. troops' armor" [ABC News,
March 6, 2006], and the worst-case nuclear scenarios propagated by
officials in Bubble-boy's administration. As a result, Americans now
believe that Iran constitutes their most dangerous security threat.
Yet, thanks to some excellent recent reporting by the New York Times,
anyone possessing even half a brain should know that, unless it
receives some enriched uranium from an outside source, Iran probably is
years away from possessing the capability to build a bomb (assuming it
seeks a bomb).
Moreover, after putting aside their outrage over the
hypocritical gall exhibited by members of Bubble-boy's administration
who complain about any other country's meddling in Iraq, Americans
would do well to recall that it was Bubble-boy's chaotic "success" in
removing Saddam Hussein that freed Iraq's Shiites to welcome the
meddling by Iran's coreligionists.
Thus, here's a safe prediction: Were the U.S. to attack Iran, many of
the same Iraqi Shiites who temporarily tolerate America's occupation of
their country -- as long as the occupiers devote their attention to the
Sunni insurgency - would immediately come to the aid of their
cross-border religious brethren.
Consequently, neither Iran's alleged pursuit of the bomb nor its
indisputable meddling in Iraq constitute legitimate near-term national
security threats justifying an American attack.
Thus, if an attack occurs, it probably will be limited to
missile strikes and bomb drops on selected nuclear facilities. And if
the attack occurs before or during October, you can bet it's because
Karl Rove has persuaded the Bubble-boy that measures greater than
heated rhetoric and threats of war are required to prevent the
Democrats from taking control of the House of Representatives after
November's mid-term elections.
Republicans will use the threat of war, or war itself, to deflect
attention from the Bubble-boy's "high Crimes and Misdemeanors," as well
as his string of abysmal failures. Such failures increasingly penetrate
the minds of even the most politically obtuse of Americans and, thus,
jeopardize continued Republican control of the House.
Simply consider Bubble-boy's record: (1) failure to prevent the
terrorist attacks of 9/11, (2) lies and deceit about Iraq's weapons of
mass destruction and links to al Qaeda to scare gullible Americans into
supporting an illegal, immoral preventive war, (3) gross incompetence
in conducting America's post-invasion occupation, (4) war crimes
committed at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo (5) criminal neglect while
Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, (6) illegal eavesdropping on
innocent Americans in willful violation of his oath to uphold the
Constitution.
Had such evil and incompetence occurred in Japan, where people
truly understand shame and honor, the whole administration might have
committed seppuku.
But this is twenty-first century America, teeming with unshakable Bush
supporters - abetted by FOX News, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean
Hannity, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, the Washington Times
and neoconservative "dead-enders" at The Weekly Standard -- who understand neither shame nor honor, just the inflating Bubble-boy's bubble.
Which is why honorable Americans have no recourse but to impeach,
convict and remove Bush/Cheney from office -- as a prelude to their
criminal indictments, trials and probable convictions.
Sentiment to impeach has gathered steam. In November 2005 a Zogby poll
indicated that 51% of Americans supported the impeachment of Bush, were
it proved that he lied to them in order to invade Iraq. On March 1st,
Garrison Keillor called for Bush's impeachment, as did the esteemed
Lewis Lapham, in the March 2006 issue of Harper's.
(This writer made the case for impeachment in June 2005, see
http://www.walter-c-uhler.com/Reviews/impeach.html , which he
supplemented in January 2006, see
http://www.walter-c-uhler.com/Reviews/Gestapo.html .)
Thus, it was no accident that the 8 March 2006 issue of the Wall Street Journal raised the issue of impeachment. Yet the thrust of the Journal
article was that Democrats are wary about pursuing impeachment, having
seen how swing-voting Americans rebuked Republicans at the polls for
having impeached President Clinton.
Although the Journal raises a legitimate question,
when it asks whether Democrats can achieve a majority in the House of
Representatives by campaigning for Bubble-boy's impeachment; the entire
tenor of the article would have changed, had it acknowledged the
obvious: that lying to conceal a "blow job" is profoundly less
impeachable than lying to invade another country.
Judging by the rhetoric of officials in Bubble-boy's administration, however, they're not counting on help from the Wall Street Journal.
Instead, they appear ready to risk spreading religious war across the
entire Middle East, causing an untold number of deaths and bringing
forth near universal condemnation by launching a preemptive strike on
Iran.
Thus, although the pretext will be one of preventing Iran from getting
the bomb, you can bet the farm that if the bombs cause an October
surprise - they will have been dropped to prevent any possibility of
Bubble-boy's impeachment.
Walter C. Uhler is an independent scholar and freelance writer
whose work has been published in numerous publications, including The
Nation, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Journal of Military
History, the Moscow Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. He also is
President of the Russian-American International Studies Association
(RAISA).
waltuhler@aol.com