Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
June 7, 2006
A New "Perle Harbor": Neocon Foreign Policy Architect Richard Perle reveals
U.S. War Plans in the Iranian Theater
By Dr. Michael
Carmichael
"I think of war with Iran as the ending of
America's present role in the world. Iraq may have been a preview of that, but
it's still redeemable if we get out fast. In a war with Iran, we'll get dragged
down for 20 or 30 years. The world will condemn us. We will lose our position in
the world" -- Zbigniew Brzezinski, Vanity Fair, 2006
One U.S. carrier task force is already in position
in the Persian Gulf. Two more task forces are moving swiftly to take up their
positions in the Iranian theatre.
The controversial neoconservative American bureaucrat, Richard Perle,
visited Britain on the eve of the papal audience between Prime Minister Tony
Blair and Pope Benedict XVI. Earlier in the same week, the Iranian Nobel
Laureate for Peace, Dr. Shirin Ebadi, was in Britain to voice her concerns about
a confrontation between the west and Iran. In London, Metropolitan Police
swooped down on two suspected Islamist terrorists believed to be in the process
of building a chemical bomb. Summertime tensions are building.
In bland remarks delivered to a small audience of students at the
Oxford Union, Richard Perle outlined the Bush administration’s response to the
crisis of 9/11 and the neoconservative doctrines of pre-emptive war. In a
droning monotone designed to anaesthetize his keen academic audience, Perle
explained the need for an invincible American military apparatus and a foreign
policy predicated on the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive war permitting direct and
simultaneous interventions into multiple theatres.
While Perle stated his hope that the need for military interventions
would be minimal, he left the impression that his definition of excessive use of
military power might well differ from that of the average American or European
citizen. Perle is on the public record advocating pre-emptive strikes against
North Korea, Syria, Iran and a list of other countries. Some of his critics
accuse Perle of darkly malignant machinations. (Richard N. Perle,
Sourcewatch)
Citing Iraq as a glowing example of an obvious need for direct
intervention, Perle admitted that he had long advocated military solutions for
regime change in that theatre. In his talk, he reminded us that President Bush
had launched the invasion on the basis of several triggering factors including
Nigerian yellow cake, WMDs, terrorist connections, democracy-building and
humanitarian issues. Thus, Perle was finally reduced to justifying the Iraq War
as a humanitarian crusade – a theme that struck hollow in the midst of reports
of civil war, torture and U.S. war crimes against innocent civilians in
Haditha.
Questioned by a largely supportive audience of admiring students
willing to attend a late lecture on a Friday night, Perle touched upon the
diplomacy between the West and Iran in the most insipid terms he could muster.
Taking into account the latest diplomatic developments, he gave his Oxford
audience the impression that the outcome remains obscure in spite of the fact
that he is one of the principle architects – and the sternest - of the Iran
negotiations.
Perle emphasized that President Ahmadinejad holds fanatical religious
beliefs involving the necessity for an Armageddonite conflict to trigger the
return of the Hidden Imam at the end of the world in the Shiite tradition for
the Last Judgment and the Islamic Apocalypse. Perle singled out the fanaticism
of Islamic terrorism as the most serious threat to international security, and
he praised the Israeli air-strike against Saddam’s nuclear reactor in 1981 as a
model of pre-emptive military intervention. In his view, the threat of precision
air-strikes against the nuclear infrastructure of Iran constitute the best
negotiating option.
An Iranian student asked Perle whether he considered the Mearsheimer
and Walt paper, “The Israel Lobby”, to be, “anti-Semitic”. Castigating the
eighty-five page paper as, “bad scholarship”, Perle admitted that he did not
know what he was talking about when he confessed that he had not read it in its
entirety. This question put Perle on the defensive, and he asserted that there
was no secret agenda amongst America’s plethora of, “Jewish groups”, that sought
to place the national security of Israel above that of the United States.
In the limited time available, no one was able to follow up Perle’s
pregnant point about the non-existence of a secret agenda with a question about
the Israeli spy scandal that shook his own office at the Pentagon, when Israeli
agent Larry Franklin (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Franklin)
was discovered to be the conduit between the Office of Special Plans (OSP) and
two Israeli officials who were later identified as espionage agents assigned to
the embassy (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIPAC_espionage_scandal).
Neither was Perle questioned about the incident that took place in 1970,
when an FBI wiretap revealed that Perle discussed classified intelligence with
an official at the Israeli embassy. Washington insiders have long considered
Perle to be, “an Israeli agent of influence”.
Another fact fuels these suspicions swirling around Perle since he
serves as a director of Hollinger International which owns the Jerusalem Post.
Perle has been paid millions for his “work” for Hollinger even though he is the
only ‘outside’ director on the Executive Committee. Perle’s complicated business
dealings have brought him under suspicion for conflicts of interest and the
charge that he is attempting to profit from wars that he was strenuously working
to create and implement through his official capacity in the Department of
Defense. In 2004, Perle’s conflicts of interest resulted in his resignation from
the Defense Policy Board. (ibid)
When a perceptive student asked about his preferences for the next
president of the United States, Perle made some riveting remarks. He immediately
stated his hope that Senator Joseph Lieberman would be the Democratic candidate.
Failing that miracle, Perle hopes former Governor Mark Warner will win the
Democratic nomination. Perle warmly praised both right-leaning Democrats who are
doyens of the Democratic Leadership Council. Richard Giuliani is Perle’s
favorite Republican. When asked about potential presidential candidates who
would cause him concern, Perle swiftly reeled off a long list of Democrats led
by Governor Howard Dean, followed closely by Senator John Kerry, former Vice
President Al Gore, former Senator John Edwards, and he finished his list of
neoconservative hate figures with a revealing comment about Senator Hillary
Clinton.
It is hardly secret that Senator Clinton has attempted to appeal to the
Israeli right. When she visited Israel, she condemned the Palestinians, but
Perle was not impressed. Quite the contrary, Perle said that while she had made
some smart moves in her attempt to appeal to the right, the left did not believe
her. This comment gave the clear impression that Perle did not believe her,
either. Criticizing other Democrats, Perle said that Senator John Kerry, “did
not understand power”, and was not able to perform the duties of the president
of America. In his form of damnation by faint praise, Perle said that Howard
Dean was a much nicer man off the podium than on it – and he gave him pride of
place at the top of his most worrisome Democratic politicians.
The love affair between Perle’s base in Likud on the hard line Israeli
right and the neoconservatives of both U.S. political parties is alive and
kicking. Perle has long been associated with Likud that has been reduced to a
weak rump huddling around Benjamin Netanyahu in the new Knesset. As a close
associate of Netanyahu, Perle is seen as Likud’s top-ranking advocate in Europe
and America with his tentacles into both political parties, the Bush White
House, the Pentagon and many other leading institutions. Next year, it would not
be surprising to find Perle’s name on contributors lists to Giuliani, Lieberman
and Warner.
The morning after his Oxford talk, Perle appeared on the very
influential BBC radio program, Today, where he was interviewed by John
Humphries, the ranking heavyweight commentator in Britain. Admitting President
Bush’s political weakness, Perle made a revealing comment when Humphries pressed
him on U.S. plans to bomb Iran. When Humphries pointed out that a unilateral
U.S. bombardment of Iran would be greeted with global howls of derision, Perle
said, “No American president who believes that there is a last opportunity to
prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state is going to be deterred by
derision. He will do what he believes to be in the best interests of the
protection of those who might come under attack from an Iranian nuclear weapon
including the United States”. (Today, BBC4, 3rd June
2006)
When Humphries pressed him harder by pointing out that the former
British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, had termed the U.S. bombing of Iran,
“inconceivable”, Perle shot back with a revealing retort. “Well, it’s no longer
conceivable that he’s the Foreign Secretary”. Humphries then asked whether Straw
had been sacked over his offence putting Perle on the spot by asking, “You think
there’s a link there?” Perle replied,
“I don’t know. He was expressing a
view that the government had not concluded yet in a way that diminished the
leverage to produce a political result, a diplomatic result. That’s obviously
unwise”. (ibid)
This response left the clear impression that Straw had been removed
specifically because he had ridiculed Washington’s negotiating position and that
Perle had been intimately involved in ordering and engineering the surprise
sacking.
While Perle was undergoing his public interrogation before six million
listeners on the BBC, Tony Blair was entering the Vatican for his long-awaited
audience with Pope Benedict XVI. Blair’s last papal audience occurred in early
2003 shortly before the launch of the Iraq War, when he pleaded with the late
pontiff. John Paul II, to support the Crusade against Islamist terrorism.
The German Pope has been a strident critic of, “fundamentalist terror”,
the Vatican’s code term for Islamism. According to the published accounts, Blair
and the pope discussed the current negotiations with Iran. The Sunday Times
reported, “Pope Benedict XVI pressed Tony Blair to find a diplomatic resolution
to the Iran nuclear crisis”. The Pope is more than well aware of the escalation
of the military planning on both sides.
There can be little serious doubt that George Bush had given Tony Blair
his marching orders - the assignment of negotiating a papal blessing for his
pre-emptive bombing campaign against Iran. From the Pope’s remarks, it is clear
that Benedict dreads a new level of violence in Bush’s wars in the Middle East.
As a very public supporter of George Bush during the 2004 presidential campaign,
the Pope rightfully fears the political consequences he will suffer in the
aftermath of a new phase in what is seen globally as a western religious crusade
against Islam. Smarting from a punishing round of criticism for ignoring the
Anti-Semitic dimension of the Holocaust during his visit to Auschwitz only one
week ago, Benedict XVI is praying to avoid any more political controversies that
would undermine his increasingly challenged papacy.
Last week, Ray McGovern, a former high-ranking CIA intelligence
analyst, appeared on the Alex Jones Show where he expressed his fears that
staged terrorist attacks in Europe and America are being prepared to pave the
way for public approval of pre-emptive air-strikes against Iran. McGovern said,
“There is already one carrier task force there in the Persian Gulf, two are
steaming toward it at the last report I have at least - they will all be there
in another week or so. The propaganda has been laid, the aircraft carriers are
in place, it doesn't take much to fly the bombers out of British and U.S. bases
- cruise missiles are at the ready, Israel is egging us on."(Former CIA Analyst
Says Iran Strike Possibly Set For June Or July)
McGovern predicted dire consequences would result from Bush’s policy of
pre-emptive war. In McGovern’s opinion, Iran would retaliate with a cruise
missile attack against the U.S. fleet then launch a military invasion of Iraq
and simultaneously activate a world wide ring of terrorists that would make
al-Qaeda look like, “a girls netball team”.
McGovern’s predictions may be unfolding already. The London police raid
that coincided with Perle’s visit to Britain netted two men suspected of
terrorist plotting to build a massive chemical bomb. But, after four days of
excruciating forensic examination of their premises, the police found no
evidence of bomb-building activities. Whether this “swoop” was staged or not
remains to be seen, but this episode resonates with an official campaign to
ratchet up the public concern about terrorism. The non-productive raid has
produced a predictable backlash among the local residents who are demanding some
form of official confirmation that the raid was based on credible evidence
rather than a melange of Islamophobic paranoia.
Last week in Wales at the annual literary festival at Hay-on-Wye, Dr.
Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian Nobel Laureate for Peace in 2003, explained her
opposition to western military intervention in Iran.
“America says that Iran would pose a threat if it gains access to
nuclear weapons because it is not a democratic country, and because its
government is fundamentalist, and this could pose a danger to the whole region,
but America has forgotten that Pakistan has nuclear weapons, and Pakistani
Muslims are much more fundamentalist than Iranian Muslims, and Pervez Musharraf
did not come to power as a result of an election. The only difference between
Iran and Pakistan is that Pakistan is friendly towards America and obeys
America, while Iran does not obey America. This double standard is something
that the Iranian people cannot understand".
Exactly as Richard Perle intimated to the BBC, the world is witnessing
the machinations in a game of geopolitical poker. The stakes are high. In spite
of his perceived weakness, George Bush holds a very strong hand, The White
House, the Pentagon, the Supreme Court and both houses of Congress. Yet his
political weakness with the American public is the primary factor motivating him
to launch a pre-emptive attack against Iran. With his approval rating falling
into the low 30s, Bush has too little – if anything - to lose to worry about
current public opinion.
Because of his chronic unpopularity, Bush is already in a complicated
political predicament. Bush is facing the loss of his American political
hegemony in the midterm elections this November. If Bush loses even one house of
Congress, he will face the immediate threat of official probes led by partisan
special prosecutors and a rising demand for his impeachment. In his game of
poker with Ahmadinejad, Bush has nothing to lose by upping the ante and wrapping
himself in the American flag while dropping a massive bombardment onto the
primary vortex of his Axis of Evil, Iran.
However, if Bush were to attack Iran, he would instantaneously
transform Ahmadinejad into the most powerful figure in the increasingly
Anti-American world. With that transfiguration, Ahmadinejad would have nothing
to constrain him from launching attacks not only against American targets as Ray
McGovern suggests, but the Iranian Prime Minister would be free to join forces
with Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad in an attack against America’s primary ally in
the region, Israel. Bristling with potential targets from its vulnerable nuclear
facility at Dimona as well as its major population centers including Tel Aviv,
Haifa and Elat, Israel would be in the frontline of any potential counter-attack
by Ahmadinejad.
With leaders like Bush, Ahmadinejad, Blair, Olmert and Benedict XVI
there can be little wonder why the world – driven by achingly inept religious
fundamentalists holding the reigns of power in Washington, London, Tehran, Rome
and Tel Aviv - is lurching forward into battle toward what can, indeed, be
called a new Perle Harbor.
Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) a distinction not shared with three nuclear
states, India, Israel and Pakistan, who have declined to sign the
document.
* Michael Carmichael became a professional public
affairs consultant, author and broadcaster in 1968. He worked in five American
presidential campaigns for progressive candidates from RFK to Clinton. In 2003,
he founded The Planetary Movement, a nonprofit public affairs organization based
in the United Kingdom. He has appeared as a public affairs expert on the BBC's
Today, Hardtalk, and PM, as well as numerous appearances on ITN, NPR and
European broadcasts examining politics and culture. He can be reached through
his website: http://www.planetarymovement.orgReferences