Berserker Cheney Escalates Push for World War III
kadiye8
escalated its drive for senseless military action against Iran,
through a combination of new unilateral sanctions against the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and a new hyperventilating
propaganda push, led by the Vice President and President, aimed at
provoking Tehran into providing a pretext for war. At the same time,
anti-war forces around the globe-including Russian President Vladimir
Putin, and some factions within the Bush Administration itself-have
taken some extraordinary actions, aimed at averting an attack on Iran,
that would almost certainly escalate out of control to global war.
One of the most stunning denunciations of the Cheney war schemes was
delivered in Washington on Oct. 17 by Wesley Clark, a retired five-
star general and former candidate for the Democratic Presidential
nomination. Speaking before several hundred American and Arab policy-
makers at the 16th annual conference of the National Council on U.S.-
Arab Relations (NCUSAR), Clark urged a vigorous public debate on the
Iran situation, leading to a new diplomatic dialogue with Tehran, and
denounced the Bush Administration's war policies as part of a
continuing "political coup d'état" that was carried out, from the
White House, after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Clark charged that, following 9/11, a small group inside the Bush
Administration imposed a new strategy, without debate, without
Congressional authorization, and without consultation with America's
allies. Clark recounted a May 1991 private conversation he had with
then-Pentagon official Paul Wolfowitz and his deputy Lewis "Scooter"
Libby. Clark recounted Wolfowitz's berating of then-President George
H.W. Bush, for failing to conclude Operation Desert Storm with the
overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Wolfowitz told Clark that, within "the
next 5-10 years," the United States must overthrow a string of "former
Soviet client-states," including Syria, Iraq, and Iran. Wolfowitz told
the flabbergasted general that the United States would have that
window of opportunity to "use military force with impunity" before a
new, as-yet unknown "superpower" emerged to challenge American global
military hegemony.
General Clark recounted that when then-Secretary of Defense Dick
Cheney, along with Wolfowitz and Libby, took their "Roman Empire"
scheme to National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft and President
Bush, they were forcefully rebuked. After 9/11, Clark charged, Cheney
and Wolfowitz resurrected the scheme, but never informed the American
people or the Congress, because "they would have been laughed off the
stage," and denounced for "flights of fantasy." Nevertheless, Clark
reported, a written plan was circulated in the Rumsfeld Pentagon right
after 9/11, listing seven regimes to be overthrown in the next five
years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Libya, Sudan, and Somalia. Now,
Clark concluded, "we are living with the consequences," including the
$800 billion spent to date on Iraq and Afghanistan. "The U.S. is
weaker, our adversaries are stronger."
In response to a question from EIR, Clark urged diplomacy with both
Iran and Syria. "Find common interests, avert war, and help our
friends in the region," he demanded, asking, "Aren't we big enough to
do this?" The alternative, he warned, is a two- to three-week bombing
campaign, that will render Iran "a failed state," but with the most
dire consequences for the United States and the world.
Putin Leads War-Avoidance
The message delivered by General Clark resonated throughout the two-
day conference. It paralleled an escalation of war-avoidance
initiatives by leading international players, including President
Putin. The Russian leader has engaged in a whirlwind of diplomacy,
beginning with his two-day summit in Moscow earlier this month with
French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Sarkozy came in to the Moscow
meeting, having joined the Cheney chorus, threatening that Iran's
alleged pursuit of a nuclear weapon could lead to World War III. But
in the meeting with Putin, Sarkozy, according to informed U.S.
intelligence sources, tilted into the war-avoidance camp, under the
weight of simultaneous pressure from the Russians and from circles
within his own French military/intelligence institutions.
Putin next hosted U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice for several days of talks with their Russian
counterparts. Putin invited the Pentagon chief to address a Russian
military academy, and privately signalled that the American proposal
for settling the dispute over the planned deployment of U.S. anti-
ballistic-missile systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, was a
positive, albeit insufficient step. According to Washington sources,
Gates proposed that Russian military observers could be stationed at
the Eastern European missile defense sites, as well as at U.S. command
installations.
Gates, in turn, told reporters during a stopover in Europe for a NATO-
Russian conference, that the United States could possibly delay
activation of the ABM sites, pending firm evidence that Iran possessed
missiles capable of striking Europe. As Gates was delivering these
hopeful remarks, Bush was issuing the message that the U.S. was hell-
bent on deploying the ABM system on Russia's border.
During Putin's historic trip to Tehran, to attend a Caspian Sea heads-
of-state meeting, he clearly signalled that Russia would strongly
oppose any U.S. military action against Iran, while, at the same time,
pressing the Iranian government to avoid any provocation that could
give Cheney the pretext to attack. Reportedly, in his private meeting
with Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, Putin minced no words, in warning that the Bush-Cheney
Administration would launch a devastating bombing campaign against
Iran, if given the pretext. Russia clearly does not want another
American war on its border.
According to U.S. intelligence sources, a huge political brawl is
taking place behind the scenes in Tehran, over how to respond to the
U.S. provocations and the Putin intervention. The latest Cheney
provocation was announced on Oct. 25 by Rice and Treasury Secretary
Henry Paulson: Economic sanctions against the Revolutionary Guards.
World War III Rhetoric
In response to the wildly provocative speech by Vice President Cheney
at the annual conference of the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy (WINEP) on Oct. 21, pushing for military strikes against Iran,
Putin delivered a tough retort, drawing a parallel to the U.S.-planned
deployment of ABM systems in Eastern Europe, to the 1962 Cuban Missile
Crisis.
In his WINEP speech, Cheney had warned Iran of "serious consequences"
if it did not abandon its nuclear enrichment program, and its
intervention into Iraq. Practically daring Iran to respond, Cheney
ranted, "Given the nature of Iran's rulers, the declarations of the
Iranian President, and the trouble the regime is causing throughout
the region-including the direct involvement in the killing of
Americans-our country and the entire international community cannot
stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its most aggressive
ambitions. The Iranian regime needs to know," Cheney concluded, "that
if it stays on its present course, the international community is
prepared to impose serious consequences."
In a clear warning to the Bush-Cheney Administration, Putin told
reporters in Lisbon, Portugal, during a European-Russian annual
summit, that the U.S. ABM deployment was "technologically similar" to
the Cuban Missile Crisis of the 1960s. "Let me recall how relations
shaped up in a similar situation in the mid-1960s," Putin told
reporters. "Similar actions by the Soviet Union, when it deployed
missiles in Cuba, provoked the Caribbean crisis. For us,
technologically, the situation is very similar." However, Putin
concluded that there was no danger of the situation escalating out of
control, because Russia and the United States are "not enemies
anymore," and President Bush is his "personal friend."
Just days earlier, Bush had babbled to reporters that Iran's pursuit
of the "knowledge" of how to build a nuclear bomb could trigger World
War III. "I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World
War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing Iran
from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon," the
President threatened.
Putin's Israel Play
Days after his Tehran excursion, Putin hosted Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert in Moscow, for talks also aimed at cooling down the
rhetoric for World War III. Immediately after their talks, Putin
dispatched a high-level Russian delegation for a week of talks in
Israel. The delegation, led by Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander
Saltanov and special Middle East peace envoy Sergei Yakovlev, assured
the Israelis that Russia is equally adamant about preventing Iran from
obtaining a nuclear bomb, but cautioned, according to Ha'aretz, "The
difference between us and you, is that you're basing yourselves on
estimates, whereas we're basing ourselves on precise information. When
we see that the situation is sufficiently dangerous, we'll know how to
stop the Iranians, and if we want to, we can do this without
difficulty."
At no point in recent history, has there been so much high-level
diplomacy aimed at averting world war. But by the same token, the 9/11
"poltical coup d'état" at the White House, led by Cheney's team of
berserkers, has not been defeated, and therefore, the danger of global
conflagration cannot be underestimated for a moment.