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.� [There�s
Only One Way to Stop Iran, December 23, 2009]
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, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, 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 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.
This should tell the macho super-power American tough guys
who really runs �their� country.
Paul
Craig Roberts [email
him] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President
Reagan�s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has
held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair,
Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University,
and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was
awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Mitterrand. He is the
author of Supply-Side
Revolution : An Insider�s Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation
and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown:
Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M.
Stratton of The
Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the
Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for
Peter Brimelow�s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent
epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.