Commentary
Echoes of war
By Ghali Hassan
Online Journal Contributing Writer


Jan 21, 2006, 20:08

If one compares the engineering of the crisis which led to the war of aggression against Iraq with the current engineering of crisis to justify aggression against Iran, one is not likely to identify differences. The lies and the language are the same. The path to peaceful resolution is deliberately replaced by the path to war of aggression. The motive is to manipulate public opinion and justify a war of aggression against another Muslim nation.

To initiate a war of aggression -- as it has been in all U.S.-Britain wars -- a crisis has to be engineered and sold to the public. Lies have to be fabricated, language has to be twisted in order to deceive and provide justification for war; the leaders of the target nation have to be demonised, and the people of that nation have to be portrayed as helpless “victims” in need of ‘white men's’ help.

The lack of negotiations is called the “breakdown of talks.” Peaceful scientific research is replaced by “manufacturing of nuclear bombs” and the democratically elected national government is replaced by “dictatorial regime." The minor difference is the war propaganda rants. Colin Powell and Hans Blix are replaced by even louder rants of Condoleezza Rice and Mohammed El-Baredei.

Iran was the target of U.S. bullying before the current U.S.-engineered crisis. Together with Iraq, Iran has been targeted by the Bush administration since 2001. George W. Bush's inclusion of North Korea in his “Axis of Evil” accusation was just a diversion in order to fool the world that his “war on terror” is not a messianic war against Muslims. According to Bush’s messianic war, the U.S. is above the law. Even thinking of peaceful research and technology, Muslim nations should pause twice before they will invite the wrath of U.S. violence.

The alleged pretext for the current U.S.-engineered crisis is that Iran is embarking on “manufacturing nuclear materials” which might be used for the production of nuclear weapons. Of course, there is no evidence. Like Iraq, Iran is doing nothing illegal and the charge is nothing more and nothing less than a pretext for a war of aggression.

The motives for any U.S. aggression against Iran are not dissimilar from those motives for the war against Iraq: the removal of the independent national government of Iran, U.S. control over Iran’s oil resource, and enhancing Israel’s Zionist domination and expansionist policy. In addition, Iran is used as a pretext to normalise the unthinkable: the use of nuclear weapons and future nuclear wars against developing and non-Western nations.

Having failed to win its criminal war against Iraq, and faced with fierce resistance by the Iraqi people, the U.S. is using its European allies as tools to engineer another crisis and sell another war wrapped in the European colour. The behind the scenes allies (France and Germany) during the Iraq war are quickly resurrected to lead the charge in the next war, and president Jacques Chirac starts talking of attacking France “enemies” with nuclear weapons.

Iran on the other hand is doing nothing illegal. Iran is a signatory to the Non-Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The current Iranian nuclear program was christened by the US administration in 1957 after the U.S.-sponsored coup d’etat against the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. Indeed, Roland Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz supported Iran in its bid to become a military nuclear power during the Ford’s administration, where the three chicken hawks held high positions.

Today’s conflict with Iran over the nuclear “threat,” is nothing more and nothing less than the usual threat the U.S. and its allies use to bully and intimidate nations with independent governments. There is absolutely no evidence to prove that Iran has a secret weapons production program. Like any other peace-abiding nation, Iran has the right to pursue peaceful technological research -- in medicine and in energy -- within the framework of the NPT. In addition, Iran is not a threat to world peace and is not engaged in colonial occupation and aggression.

By contrast, Israel is armed to the teeth with massive stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. In addition, Israel did not sign the NPT. Israel is a colonial power and has threatened Iran and Syria in the past. The Jewish state is illegally engaged in the dispossession of the Palestinian people from their land, and continues the illegal occupation of Syrian and Lebanese territories.

Despite Israel's increasing threat to the people of the region and to world peace, Israel is deliberately removed from this charade and depicted as a nation “trying to defend itself." To the contrary, Israel “represents an enormous threat to world peace," and the danger must be taken seriously.

The U.S.-Europe position amounts to a double standard -- one rule for Israel, and another for the rest of the world. Indeed, Israel may be permitted to use U.S.-made bunker-busting (nuclear) missiles to attack Iran’s research facilities. It is insane to deny Iran the right to pursue peaceful research and technology while continuing to provide arms to a monster armed to the teeth.

Westerners should recognise the danger of Israel’s terror against the indigenous peoples of the region, which is conducted with tacit support of the U.S. government and its European allies. They are not only providing the political and financial support to Israel, they are also prepared to act as Israel’s surrogates and facilitate Israel’s terror. Israel’s intelligence agents (the Mossad) are active around the world. They are provided with western nations’ passports -- American, Canadian, German and Swiss -- to disguise their real identity in order to conduct spying and terrorist activities around the world, particularly in the Muslim World.

It has been hard for the Western imagination to recognize that people of colour (Afghanis, Palestinians, Iraqis or Iranians), enduring the horrors of the Western and Israeli wars, are fully human. This deep-seated Western-Zionist racism, which still lingers from colonialism, was promoted rather than challenged by the mainstream media and Western pundits every time they prepare for war. Indeed, Western ignorance of the mass murder of Iraqi men, women and children by U.S.-British forces was tainted by ideas of Iraqis and Muslims inferiority. A war of aggression against Iran would serve to confirm such ignorance and deep-seated racism.

To remain silent in the face of another war of aggression is to be an accomplice. The only peaceful and easy resolution to the violence is the full end to colonial occupation in the region, and the establishment of nuclear-free zone that includes Israel.