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.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24278.htm