While the CIA, America's espionage and subversion agency, had just announced the week before that, based on the status of their information, it is rather unlikely that Iran is working on a nuclear weapon, President Obama used Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's visit to make an overt threat of war, which he garnished with a promise: “I don't bluff!”
The war scenario against the Islamic Republic that is thereby further built up and upgraded is defined by two protagonists: the USA and Israel. Its legitimation as a preventive nuclear disarmament of Iran is not disputed in principle by the general public, even though one of the protagonists, the USA, wields nuclear weapons as an integral part of its arsenal and not only doesn't exclude using them, but has twice before tried them out with resounding success and very lasting consequences. The other protagonist, Israel, possesses the bomb without being rebuked by its protecting power or its allies. In contrast to Iran, Israel could never be proven in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty – for one reason: it hasn't joined it.
America and Israel, two powers so notoriously peace-loving and averse to using violence as a means of politics, reserve for themselves a declaration of war in the form of a veto against Iran's enrichment of uranium, and the financial and trade boycott of Iran is supported not only by the members of NATO, but almost the entire relevant community of states, with the exception of Russia and China. The reason for this has nothing to do with a rejection of this terrible weapon, nor does it depend on whether Tehran really intends to get one.
Rather, it is this: the Islamic Republic of Iran was born in a unauthorized overthrow of the Shah; it sees itself as a state dedicated to higher values, namely to Islamic law, and it musters a militant alternative to the world order claims and the canon of values of democratic imperialism. It thus takes itself with its avowedly anti-Western and Islamic constitution as actually such a thing as an opposing system, courting partners and offering itself as a partner to states wanting to oppose US domination. Iran denies the US hegemony in a region where it pursues “vital interests”: from the energy supply to the unsettled balance of power in the wake of the Arabellion to the unfolding overthrow of the Assad government in Syria, not to mention the toxic legacy of the Iraq campaign and the unassailability of its security partner Israel, which has still far from completed its state foundation process at the expense of the Palestinians. Iran is also dangerous in the US view in that it has the means to assert its anti-American machinations. Until now its oil revenues could give it the economic and military power to not only escape American directives, but rebel against it. For the US-led world of beautiful free democratic imperialism, Iran is thus a dangerous troublemaker and is treated accordingly. That means: the US and its allies demand and promote regime change.
This is the connection between Iran's nuclear program and the hostility of the US and co. towards it. For them it is not only intolerable if Iran develops a nuclear bomb, it is unacceptable from the start, because already in the construction of nuclear technology, in the nature of the thing there is always the possibility of producing nuclear weapons along with the operation of nuclear power plants. This opposition of course does not apply to the allies and partners of the US. Germany, like the Ayatollahs, has officially and for all foreseeable circumstances renounced nuclear weapons, but has long maintained something that Iran is still working on: weapons-grade nuclear technology at its finest. Japan and Canada, despite all their competition for the world market, never had problems with the supervisory authorities of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. On the contrary: America as the self-proclaimed highest guardian of this contract has given them license to develop the full spectrum of nuclear technology. With Iran, however, the central issue of other possible uses of enriched uranium is taken as an occasion to deny approval for the civilian use of nuclear energy which is permitted by the treaty. Instead, the treaty's inspection team comes in as a bullying control regime, mainly as an officially sanctioned interstate espionage program to stop it. The basis of the process, openly expressed by the inspectors, is that Tehran could assuage the distrust in its nuclear technology ambitions only by shelving them.
Hindering Iran from using its thus far promoted nuclear energy, that would give it the capability to build nuclear weapons, is a much more ambitious goal than merely preventing a really taking place nuclear arms buildup. In line with this, the destruction achieved by a military strike must also be dimensioned either by the Israeli air force on its own and /or with mere logistical and weapons-technical NATO support or as a joint venture with the USA. No wonder that reservations even from as high as the General Staff of the Israeli army are raised against it.
So for Obama the repertoire of a world power for eliminating the loss of Iran has still not been exhausted and his threat of military action as a last resort should hold the Israeli ally back from rushing ahead with consequences that are hard to predict. Unlike, for example, when Gaddafi was ditched, the US in the case of Iran explicitly reserves the leadership role for itself. The titles with which the US authorizes itself to take all measures against Iran and therefore the “international community” has to join in struggle, are manufactured in such a way that many an attentive observer asks whether anyone is reminded of the “clumsiness” and “implausibility” of Colin Powell's unforgettable presentation in the Security Council of the “irrefutable evidence” of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. An assassination plot allegedly planned by Iran against the Saudi ambassador to the USA fulfills the American version of facts for a case that a terrorist attack is planned on American soil, and thereby close to 9/11: The government of Iran is a “terrorist regime” that does not respect the sovereignty of other states and wants to attack the US on its own soil. The Obama administration derives from this its authorization to strike Iran even without international participation or a UN mandate. It starts with the US creating far-reaching facts, in particular the unilateral sanctions which amount to acts of war under international law, and therefore poses to Russia and China the decision as to whether they want to acquiesce. The EU lines up without friction in the anti-Iran front, participating in the “paralysis” of Iran with its own sanctions.
The offensive aims at ruining Iran: all the resources over which the state disposes are made contentious. It is worked on by the force of a superpower and the way is prepared to finally force Iran to its knees. The USA does not at all pretend that the economic sanctions now coming into effect should merely block Iran's nuclear program. They should disrupt Iran's oil and gas sales-based domestic economy and cut it off from international money transactions, thus depriving it of all sources of money that can help it get in the way of the US. In this way, Iran is to be internationally hamstrung.
The Obama administration has used the “Patriot Act” to classify any business dealings with Iranian banks as an act of money laundering and a threat to Homeland Security. Any business venture by a third country – transactions by Americans have long been banned – that makes trade agreements with Iran and at the same time maintains an account with an American bank, risks being charged with a serious offense with no advance warning and excluded from doing business with the US.
The states in the general region of the Middle East which during the Bush years still hesitated to line up in the front against Iran because they did not want – more – war in the region, are dragged into it by the preparation of a “warlike situation.” The sanctions hurt not only Iran but also its neighbors' economies; they participate in the boycott against Iran, becoming the frontline states against it. For this. the Gulf states are armed by the US with all the necessary military means. As a staging area essential for the United States, Bahrain may crush the uprising of its population with the help of Saudi intervention troops, and even the friendly reminder of the “democracy deficit” in Saudi Arabia ceases, since confrontation with Iran is set on the agenda. The civil war in Syria and the anti-government fighters there may be sure of the goodwill of the United States, since Syria is an ally of Iran and Iran's main supporter in the Middle East is decisively weakened.
Rather seen-it-all-before and critical only in the technical details, the democratic public sphere notes the transition from “war on terror” to terrorist guerrilla war: Apparently, the CIA and Mossad are busy doing preventive executions of leading Iranian scientists, and, as cumulatively occurring “accidents” as well as disabling computer viruses at defense installations, direct sabotage.
If both the government in Tehran and the opposition to Ahmadinedschad and the mullahs, which is otherwise very respected by us as the “democratic alternative,” are in agreement that these are all-out acts of war, this is certainly right. However, this only encourages the USA and its accomplices in their hope that they are on the right track, because the enemy has obviously been hit when it acts like it's been hit.
Translation of a radio broadcast by GegenStandpunkt, March 5, 2012