- The Israeli lobby and the neoconservatives
are beating the drums for war with Iran. I hope the president is not that
dangerously stupid. The betting on whether he is that stupid is about even.
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- The neocons who, being self-centered,
seemingly have no concept of human nature are advancing the premise
that a military attack on Iran will cause the people to lose faith in their
government and result in regime change.
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- A military attack on Iran will have
the opposite effect. The people will rally to their government, and any
hope of regime change will be dead. That people will rally around their
existing leaders in the face of an attack by a foreign power is as certain
as sunrise. Neither Israel nor the U.S. could do a greater favor for the
ruling mullahs and Iran's president than to launch an attack. It would
cement their hold on power.
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- The neocons' fallacious premise has
already been disproved. In the first Gulf War, the first Bush administration
confidently incited the Shi'ites and the Kurds to rebel after Saddam Hussein's
forces were expelled from Kuwait. The administration thought that Saddam,
embarrassed by a crushing military defeat, would fall from power in Iraq
easily. Instead, he rallied his forces and crushed both the Shi'ites in
the south and the Kurds in the north. Oops.
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- In the first place, it is not embarrassing
for a Third World country with obsolete equipment to be defeated by the
world's No. 1 military superpower. In the second place, the Sunnis, however
much they might have disliked Saddam, disliked even more the thought of
being ruled by Kurds or Shi'ites. In the third place, by President George
H.W. Bush's decision to not go to Baghdad, Saddam could say he duked it
out with the world's superpower and was still standing after the fight.
That, in most eyes, could be counted as a victory.
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- Some months ago, an Iranian human-rights
advocate pleaded with the current Bush administration to cease its rhetorical
attacks on the Iranian government. She said, quite accurately, that such
attacks make life impossible for Iranian reformers. Needless to say, the
blockheads in Washington ignored her.
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- What did we do when the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon were attacked? We rallied behind George W. Bush
Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives. That's the
natural reaction of normal human beings, and the Iranians are normal human
beings. Attack their country and they will rally round the flag.
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- The Iranians still insist they are not
seeking nuclear weapons, and there's not a scrap of evidence to contradict
that claim. They still adhere to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
They have often called for a nuclear-free Middle East.
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- Once again, the dead roach in America's
salad is Israel. The U.S. hypocritically opposes a nuclear-free Middle
East because Israel has nuclear weapons. We hypocritically claim the Iranians
are in violation of international law when, in fact, it is Israel that
refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and refuses international
inspections. Given our craven obedience to Israel, we have exactly zero
credibility in the Arab and Muslim world.
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- As I have said before, I don't care
if the Iranians do develop nuclear weapons. My whole adult life was lived
with 30,000 Soviet nuclear weapons aimed at me. I can certainly live with
the six or seven Iran might be able to scrape together in the next five
to 10 years. In the meantime, the U.S. government should kick the Israeli
lobby out of the country and support Iran and the Arab League in pushing
for a nuclear-free Middle East.
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- The Israeli lobby pushing America to
fight yet another war for Israel reminds me of what the French ambassador
to Great Britain said at a party: "Why does the world allow this (expletive
deleted) little country to cause so much trouble?"
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- Why indeed? You should ask your politicians
that question.
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