Paul Craig Roberts: Israel Rules
Mark Graffis
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info:80/article24278.htm
Israel Rules
By Paul Craig Roberts
December 29, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- On Christmas eve
when Christians were celebrating the Prince of Peace, the New York
Times delivered forth a call for war. "There's only one way to stop
Iran," declared Alan J.
Kuperman, and that is "military air strikes against Iran's nuclear
facilities."
Kuperman is described as the "director of the Nuclear Proliferation
Prevention Program at the University of Texas at Austin," but his
Christmas eve call to war relies on disinformation and contradiction,
not on objective scholarly analysis.
For example, Kuperman contradicts the unanimous report of America's
16 intelligence agencies, the reports of the International Atomic
Energy Agency, and Russian intelligence with his claim that Iran
has a nuclear weapon program. Astonishingly, it does not occur to
Kuperman that readers might wonder how an academic bureaucrat in
Austin, Texas, has better information than these authorities.
Kuperman is so determined to damn President Obama's plan to have
other countries enrich Iran's uranium for Iran's nuclear energy
program and medical isotopes that Kuperman commits astounding
blunders. After claiming that Iran has a "bomb program," Kuperman
claims that "Iran's uranium contains impurities" and that Ahmadinejad's
threat "to enrich uranium domestically to the 20 percent level . .
. is a bluff, because even if Iran could further enrich its impure
uranium, it lacks the capacity to fabricate the uranium into fuel
elements."
What was the New York Times op ed editor thinking when he approved
Kuperman's article? Iran, Kuperman writes, needs "90 percent enriched
uranium" to have weapons-grade material, but cannot reach 20 percent
or even make fuel elements for its nuclear energy. So, how is Iran
going to produce a bomb? Yet, Kuperman writes that "we have reached
the point where air strikes are the only plausible option with any
prospect of preventing Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons. The
sooner the United States takes action, the better."
It could not be made any clearer that, as with the US invasion of
Iraq, a military attack on Iran has nothing to do with weapons of
mass destruction. An "Iranian nuke" is just another canard behind
which hides an undeclared agenda.
One wonders about Kuperman's non-proliferation credentials. How
does a wanton military attack on a country encourage non-proliferation?
Aren't America's bullying, threats and acts of war more likely to
encourage countries to seek nuclear weapons?
At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the United
States has wars ongoing in Iraq where the ancient Chaldean Christian
community was destroyed--not by Saddam Hussein but by the
neoconservatives' illegal invasion of Iraq--in Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Yeman, and Sudan. The US initiated a war, which it lost, between
its puppet ruler in the former Soviet province of Georgia and Russia.
The US, the world's greatest supporter of terrorism, is the main
financier of terrorist groups that stage attacks within Iran, and
US money succeeded in financing protests against President Ahmadinejad's
re-election and in dividing the ruling Islamic clerics. It was
American money, weapons, and diplomatic cover that enabled the
Israeli war crimes against the Lebanese people during 2006 and
against Palestinian civilians in Gaza during 2008-2009, crimes
documented in the Goldstone Report.
Iran has never interfered in US internal affairs, but the US has a
long record of interfering in Iranian affairs. In 1953 the US
overthrew Iran's popular prime minister, Mohammed Mosaddeq and
installed a puppet who tortured Iranians who desired political
independence.
Despite this and other American offenses against Iran, Ahmadinejad
has repeatedly expressed Iran's interest to be on friendly terms
with the United States, only to be repeatedly rebuffed. The US wants
war with Iran in order to expand US world hegemony.
One might expect a non-proliferation expert to take history into
account, but Kuperman fails to do so. Kuperman also has nothing to
say about Israel's, India's and Pakistan's nuclear weapons. Unlike
Iran, none of these countries are signatories to the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty. Israel, India, and Pakistan all developed
their nuclear weapons in secret, and many experts believe Israel
had American help, an act of treason. All three countries have been
rewarded by Washington despite their perfidy. Why is Kuperman
concerned about Iran, which submits to the IAEA inspections, but
is unconcerned with Israel, a country that has never permitted a
single inspection?
The answer is that the Israel Lobby, the US military-security
complex, and the "Christian" Zionists have succeeded in demonizing
Iran. Every real expert knows that an Iranian nuclear weapon would
have no function other than deterring an attack on Iran. Ever since
the US lost its monopoly on nuclear weapons, after using them
offensively and pointlessly against a defeated Japan, nuclear weapons
have served no purpose other than deterrence.
The US has no conflicting economic interests with Iran. Iran is
simply a supplier of oil, an important one. A US attack on Iran,
such as the one advocated by Kuperman, would most likely shut down
oil flows to the West through the Strait of Hormuz. This might
benefit refiners, who sell gasoline to the West and could charge
enormous prices, but no one else would benefit.
Adding to the war cry are congregations of fake Christians. A great
number of them, organized by someone's money under the banner,
"Christian Leaders for a Nuclear-free Iran," has written to Congress
demanding sanctions against Iran that amount to an act of war. The
roll call http://www.clnfi.org/ includes the "Christian" Zionist
John Hagee, who, according to reports, denigrates Jesus Christ and
preaches to his illiterate congregation that it is God's will for
Americans to fight and die for Israel, the oppressor of the Palestinian
people.
Among the signatories of the "Christians" demanding an act of war
against Iran, are Dr. Pat Robertson, president of Christian
Broadcasting Network, Nixon-era criminal Chuck Colson, and Richard
Land, president of Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Southern
Baptist Convention. Obviously, for southern baptists ethics means
murdering Islamists, and religious liberty excludes everyone but
"Christian" Zionists.
It is a simple matter for an educated person to make fools of these
morons who profess to be Christians. However, these morons have
vast constituencies numbering in the tens of millions of Americans.
There are, in fact, more of them than there are intelligent, informed,
moral, and real Christian Americans.
The votes of the morons will prevail.
In the second decade of the 21st century, America's Zionist wars
against Islam will expand. America's wars in behalf of Israel's
territorial expansion will complete the bankruptcy of America. The
Treasury's bonds to finance the US government's enormous deficits
will lack for buyers. Therefore, the bonds will be monetized by the
Federal Reserve. The result will be rising rates of inflation. The
inflation will destroy the dollar as world reserve currency, and
the US will no longer be able to pay for its imports. Shortages
will appear, including food and gasoline, and "Superpower America"
will find itself pressed to the wall as a third world country unable
to pay its debts.
America has been brought low, both morally and economically, by its
obeisance to the Israel Lobby. Even Jimmy Carter, a former President
of the United States and Governor of Georgia recently had to apologize
to the Israel Lobby for his honest criticisms of Israel's inhumane
treatment of the occupied Palestinians in order for his grandson
to be able to run for a seat in the Georgia state senate.
http://www.counterpunch.org/amiri12252009.html
This should tell the macho super-power American tough guys who
really runs "their" country.