Are Neocon Plans to Invade Iran Inevitable?

[Drooperdoo]

Just an informal poll of Dodona posters: Are Neocon Plans to Expand the War In Iraq to Iran and Syria Inevitable?

I'm hearing a lot of saber-rattling against Iran with almost identical claims about "weapons of mass destruction," "human rights violations," blah-blah-blah. It sounds like the same rhetoric that was used to appeal to the gullible just before Iraq was invaded and its national wealth ceded to US oil corporations.

What's more disturbing is that Iran was on the agenda since before the Iraq invasion. Iran and Syria were the real targets--Iraq was just the staging-ground. In Wolfowitz's decades-old proposal [entitled "A Clean Break"] he wrote, "The road to Damascus [Syria] leads through Iraq."
So it's clearly been their position since the start that Iraq was just a beginning, a starting-point.
I wonder, though, if setbacks in Iraq can forestall the Neocon agenda. Furthermore, domestic support for the ongoing war seems to be deteriorating at home.
With the public still wondering where Iraq's alleged weapons went to, will the Administration be less willing to mount a similar propaganda campaign [knowing it will be less effective a second time around?]
Disturbingly, some insiders at the highest levels of power are just as alarmed as the rest of us--and they've been trying to warn us, trying to leak stories about a second staged "September 11th-like attack" that will bypass the need for rhetoric.
Recently, even Pat Buchanan's magazine The American Conservative has revealed that Vice-President Cheney has ordered a nuclear attack strategy against Iran in the event of another September 11th-like attack.
Either Mr. Cheney is a psychic, or he knows all about an imminent attack--because he's planning it himself.

[Springa]

Whatever they do over there, it's gonna backfire, it's not gonna work as planned and will make Americans look bad in the end. Not that I care anything about the current governments over there. But the history of American foreign policy in the region is the history of failure. In Iran, they supported a corrupt government and the result was an Islamic revolution. In Afghanistan they pretty much sponsored the foundations of Al Qaeda and showed the Taleban their way into power. In Iraq they supported Sadam, then didn't anymore and now radical Islam is growing like weeds over there, fueled by popular resentments towards americans bombing them for years. And so on...

Anyway, it's all bad for Americans as a whole, although it may be good for a handfull of American millionaires. I wonder what will it take for people to find out how their government is screwing them internationally.

[Curious6]

There's little doubt that if Iran continues to refuse co-operation of any sort with Western powers and maintains its current position another war could result. Iran is definitely a corrupt, radical nation; an intolerant theocracy, capable of the worst if left uncontrolled. Understandably it has been listed as one of Bush's 'axis of evil'. They have some of the world's largest oil resources, but insist on developing a 'civilian' nuclear programme. This makes most Western observers wary. Why? Because they have previosuly been very careful in hiding their nuclear programme to inspectors until a group of dissidents in 2002 informed the wider public about it.

People should see the reality of the issue, and not hide behind this 'oh poor people, evil Westerns just invade them to grab their oil resources and leave them even worse than they were before' attitude. With their defiant position and remarks such as 'we didn't have the Revolution [1979] to have democracy', one can only wonder what their true intentions are.

By the way Drooperdoo, could you post some links so that we can read how the Iraqi oil was ceded to US oil corporations?

[Drooperdoo]

Curious6,
As to the looting of Iraq's wealth by foreign nations,
here's what one critic observed, "According to The Hague and Geneva conventions, and the International Bill of Human Rights, the occupier gains no sovereign rights and is prohibited from manipulating the nation's future, plundering its resources, and repressing its people.

"AS Naomi Klein has written, 'bombing something does not give you the right to sell it'. Yet this is precisely what the Bush Administration is doing. The US military invasion of Iraq has put US companies (multinational corporations) such as Bechtel and Halliburton in positions to completely own all of Iraq's industries and businesses. The destruction of Iraq is played as "reconstruction" in Western media and by Western elites. It's only $366 million of the $18.6 billion Congress "allocated for reconstruction" of Iraq has been spent, according to the Washington Post."

But it's not just multi-national corporations looting Iraq like vultures over a carcass. Read this article about how foreign nations are getting into the act:
observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,940054,00.html

[For some reason, you can't click the link from this page. It omits the last numbers that will yield the article. But you can cut and paste the URL link and insert it into another window, and the article will open.]

P.S.--Here's a link to an article by Mike Whitney called "Iraq For Sale". 44thdems.org/DemGazette/Oct2003/MikeWhitney.html#X2

[omegaspan]

Islam is anti western alright, but think about it:

Even in the worst case scenario, what would be Islams worst possible attitude towards the West, Europe, America, etc?

In no case do i believe Islam would be engaged in aggressive wars to expand its territory, when it got to the point it could afford to. That is, before America's bullying, intervention and aggression in the area....of the whole f*cking planet actually!

So it was actually the West and predominantly America, the new Empress that started what could have been a strictly ideological "warfare" between different social structures and religious systems. But with the intervention of the quick-gunpulling "cowboy" things took the worst turn possible, leading to open wars and the most brutal of bombings.

Islam sure is aiming to expand, but mostly to influence western societies and nations, before the open jihad all over the world we are experiencing now. America's role in this very serious issue, is at the least obscene because forcing someones hand to kill is maybe worse than simply attacking him.

I dont have to note that as always, different cultures struggle with each other on this planet to gain something over others. What is this something?
But, its influence of course, mainly economical. And if things go smoothly, the interactions between cultures make something good out of the whole situation. But taking the wrong road, the interactions between cultures unfortunately take the road to wishing the extermination of the other culture.

America as the prime aggressor, the arrogant "cowboy" is pussing things towards that direction, and Europe is to blame too, for not stoping this and not trying to discover other ways of interactions with the rest of the worlds cultures, having the experience of its colonial history..

No, despite the propaganda you hear, a war of civilisations is not necessary. The Book of History is written in blood only when those who write it have blood on their hands...

[catwoman]

drooperdoo said:

Recently, even Pat Buchanan's magazine The American Conservative has revealed that Vice-President Cheney has ordered a nuclear attack strategy against Iran in the event of another September 11th-like attack.
Either Mr. Cheney is a psychic, or he knows all about an imminent attack--because he's planning it himself.

I don't consider Pat Buchanan a reputable source of information. He broke with the Republican party several years ago and was prompty repudiated by many prominent GOP members. He then joined the Reform party. So when he lashes out against Bush's policies, it's only because he stands far to the right of them. It's not like he's critiquing his "own" there.

[Drooperdoo]

Catwoman,
Because Buchanan is a conservative first and a politician second, he's in a more objective position. Yes, he left the Republican party (after it took its massive swing leftward)--which is why I trust him more to speak about this administration's policies. He's not a Democrat, nor a neocon propagandist or Karl Rove-hireling engaged to sell Bush's proposals to the public.
You act like: If someone's not a Republican, they'e suspect. Maybe this is just me: But I trust outsiders to scrutinize the actions of insiders, independent organizations to monitor people in power.
Would we trust the police to conduct investigations on themselves? --Of course not. That's why there are independent organzations set up to monitor the police.
Likewise with Democrats and Republicans: I don't trust a Republican to speak about other Republicans. 9 times out of 10, you'll get pre-written White House talking-points and propaganda.
I like Buchanan, because he was an insider--a staffer in the Nixon administration. Politics has been his life's blood for more decades than most of us have been alive. So he knows what really happens on the inside; and, since he's broken with the party, he has the objectivity of an outsider.
A perfect combination.

P.S.--And unless you try to paint him as a Democrat hitman, please remember that he attacks the Democrats far more than he attacks the Republicans. He even said [on MSNBC] that he was voting for Bush last election. He defended him against Kerry more times than anyone cares to remember. So, no, he's not a one-sided critic.
He hates both sides. But, if forced to choose, the conservative icon still [sadly] votes Republican.

[Yankel]

That's a slippery slope. For starters, Iran is a radical theocracy (as Curious6 pointed out). Israel is a secular democracy. Iran actively funds terrorism in the Middle East and abroad and - if presented with the opportunity - there is little doubt the Iranians wouldn't hesitate to supply terrorists with the tools necessary to build a dirty bomb. Israel needs nuclear arms to defend itself. Iran is an NPT signatory and subject to UN inspection. Israel is under no conventional obligation to sign the NPT.

But Israel isn't about maintaining the supremacy of one religion over others . . . er . . . uh . . . well, unless you count all those statements from the Israelis about "maintaining the Jewish character of the nation," and discouraging Islam or Arab immigration.

That must be why they annexed the Golan Heights and granted the Arab majority Israeli citizenship.

Don't insult his intelligence. 'Jewish' is being used is an ethnic sense in those statements. Most Israeli-Jews are secular. The demographic threat Israel faces has nothing to do with religion.

One neocon on C-Span said, "Iran is horrible, too, with human rights . . . how it oppresses its Kurdish minority."
Wow!
I'll bet Israel doesn't have a non-Jewish minority group that it famously oppresses.

Israeli-Arabs have every right Israeli-Jews do. Period.

[Drooperdoo]

Flowin Prose,
I erased the comments you're reacting to (before I read your own reply). I did so, because it was low of me to bait people by pointing out that Iran is called a "theocracy" by its critics while Israel itself was founded on the idea of creating a nation for a single religion.
That being said, I don't personally believe for a second that Israel's government--as heinous as it is to both Jews and Palestinians--is as hardline as Iran.
So, in the interests of fairness, I took down the comments where I compared the two.

P.S.--It is interesting to me that you think Israel's possession of nuclear weapons [which it denied as recently as the mid-80s] is solely for "protection," while you say that Iran's possession wouldn't be for protection. I don't see a difference: Israel fears its Arab neighbors and Iran fears historical US and British attacks.
Perhaps you forget that in 1953, British Petroleum's profits fell when Iran's democratically-elected President called for the nation's wealth to be spent on its own people. Bill Moyers on PBS did a great documentary on the subject--how the corporation used its connections inside the US government to stage a CIA-backed coup that would install a puppet more friendly to their business interests (and less loyal to his own people). So, after a bloody struggle, they installed the corrupt Shah of Iran, after which his death-squads killed tens of thousands.
Americans don't remember these facts. But Iranians haven't forgotten them. The US--short of advocating "democracy"--actually deposed a democratically-elected leader, installed a dictator and kept the oil flowing to British Petroleum by means of repression and murder.
The mullahs were a reaction to America's installation of the Shah. They were the only ones who could put an end to his reign of terror.
That's why Iranians took US hostages in 1979. It was a protest designed to declare their disgust of US-backed death-squads.
[Please remember the hostages were returned home, unharmed. Not so of the tens of thousands murdered by the US-backed puppet government of the Shah. So--in the big picture--who comes out looking more evil?]
And even after they kicked the Shah out, the US then got Iraq to attack its neighbor--a proxy for the US which was given weapons of mass destruction specifically to punish Iran. Over a million people died.
But I guess none of that matters to most young Americans who have no idea about the history of the region.

P.P.S.--As for "ties to terror," Israel, too, has "ties" to terrorist organizations. The Kurds have been setting off bombs and killing people to advance their political objectives since the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Israel has funded them. (A recent article in the London Observer was about how Israelis were caught secretly arming and training Kurdish militants in Iraq.)
The US itself has funded them, too, and was also caught funding the Contras in Central America--a death-squad that was carrying out violence to affect political change. That's the very definition of "terrorism".
It's no secret, too, that the US is arming and funding groups within Iran's borders with the set intention of de-stabilizing the nation and staging a coup. By every international standard, that's "terrorism".
You don't affect social change by arming people and encouraging them to murder to achieve their goals. But that is exactly what the US has historically done. And that's terrorism.
So does Iran fund militant groups that fight against Israel? --Probably.
Do the US and Israel fund groups inside Iran, Central America and throughout the Middle East who are paid to de-stabilize the nations they're in? --The answer is resoundingly: Yes. And they do so far, far more than Iran does.
So if you're going to hold nations to a standard, apply the same standard to all. None of this double-standard crap.

[catwoman]

drooperdoo said:

I don't trust a Republican to speak about other Republicans.

And I don't trust Pat Buchanan to speak about anything.

[Yankel]

Israel was not founded on the idea of creating a single nation for a single religion, but for a single people. Zionism was a secular movement. The gov't of Israel is secular. All of this is easily verifiable, which is probably why you deleted your post.

P.S.--It is interesting to me that you think Israel's possession of nuclear weapons [which it denied as recently as the mid-80s] is solely for "protection," while you say that Iran's possession wouldn't be for protection. I don't see a difference: Israel fears its Arab neighbors and Iran fears historical US and British attacks.

Israel has nuclear weapons for defense purposes. They are there mainly as a deterrent; not because the Israelis fear the Muslim world, but to make the Muslim world think twice about attacking Israel.

Unlike Iran, Israel does not have a history of state sponsored terrorism. To this day, Iran actively funds the Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and has threatened to "wipe Israel off the map" more than once, and relatively recently.

Also, get your facts straight. It was rumored several months ago that the US was planning to take out Iran's nuclear facilities through a series of air strikes. A full scale invasion is unlikely, though Bush has stated he refuses to take that option off the table.

[Drooperdoo]

Facts straight?
Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha.
Flowin Prose, as to "facts"---
You said that Israel wasn't united by a single religion, but by a "single people". That's funny: The only common denominator of Israelis I see is religion. Far from being a single people, they are a mix from every race of mankind--blacks from Ethiopia, Eastern Europeans from Russia and Poland, olive-skinned Sephardim from the Mediterranean and Arab-looking Mizrahim from Iraq, Iran and Yemen.
None of these groups are a single "people"--they are all different races, speak different languages and have different cultures. They even have radically different versions of Judaism. This is not a "single coherent people," as you claim.
They're linked by one thing: Religion. That's it.
So Israel's unifying factor is religion, not ethnicity or culture.
As to "facts" about Iran--- How could Bush "take out Iran's nuclear test-sites" with missiles from airplanes when it's claimed [by Israel] that the sites are underground?
This has been widely reported on in the press.
Other than Israel's claims, no one has actually seen these sites. They're about as well-documented as Saddam's incredible disappearing Weapons of Mass Destruction.

On a lighter note, I was watching--of all things--Spongebob Squarepants [you can tell the pitch of my intellectual watermark by this] and a funny scene took place that, perhaps, bears retelling. Spongebob had a friend who was annoying the whole town. The townsfolk started to degenerate into a mob. A voice rose up in the chaos, "He stiffed me in the restaurant," whereupon a second voice hollered, "He made me wait all day!" Then a third voice said, "He poisoned our wells and burnt all our crops." A dismayed hush overtook the mob. "He did that?" asked a timid voice. Whereupon the man who made the claim rejoined with, "No! But are we gonna wait around till he does???"
Then the whole mob attacks the man.

It seems that Bush's whole foreign policy is increasingly like that: "[Targeted country] did that?" "Er . . .uh . . . no. But are we gonna wait around till they do???"
Thus the United States attacks nations that haven't actually killed any Americans, nations whose intentions are magically interpreted by psychics among the neocons who claim to know exactly what's going on . . . until the world looks and: Oops! No weapons of mass destruction.
Great schemes . . . only flawed by one thing: Reality.
If the same people are telling us of Iran's invisible underground nuclear test sites as were telling us of Saddam's invisible WMD's, it's time to take stock and consider the source.

[Yankel]

Who said anything about missiles? Ever heard of a bunker buster? Besides, I said facilities, not test sites.

[CooCooCachoo]

It's no secret what the agenda of the United States is. ...They wish to institute Democracy in the region. The pervasive belief is that longterm, it is only free secular Democracies that will not be a threat to their neighbors, the region, and beyond.

Whether the U.S. chooses to take this on now, or rather focus on successfully created one in Iraq first remains to be seen. ...It may be determined that one can't be created in Iraq due to outside interference. If this is determined, Iran could indeed be invaded. Things that Iran does, like striking names from the ballet, and developing Nuclear weapons only encourage this.

Yes, the desire to invade Iran, and institute a Democratic government exists.

[Drooperdoo]

Man,
Human gullibility never fails to amaze me. That grown adults think that wars are waged, and billions spent, to spread democracy astonishes me. Remember World War One--that "war to make the world safe for democracy?"
Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha
I guess they keep recycling this rhetoric because it works so well on the collective psyche of well-meaning (and naive) Americans. It resonates, even though it has no basis in reality. Pundit Christopher Hitchens--who is actually pro-war in the Middle East and Mr. Bush's stoutest supporter--has said that he hopes that this time things will be different. In the past (he observed) Kissinger-style diplomacy consisted of supporting brutal dictators if they could make the trains run on time and were friendly to business interests. No one cared if they slaughtered their own people, or attacked neighbors.
This is an interesting admission, because Kissinger was Secretary of State as recently as the 1970s--yet America had been using the rhetoric of "waging war to spread democracy" since 1917.
So if America wasn't "spreading democracy" for all those years--but still using the rhetoric--there's a serious disconnect going on between the propaganda and reality as perceived by the American people.
As I said: Even so-called neocons admit that previous US policy was dictator-friendly. The CIA murdered Allende in Chile and installed Pinochet and his death-squads; likewise, the installation of the Shah of Iran and his crimes against his own citizens.
So I hate to disagree with the above-poster who said "It's well-known that the US supports democracy," when the world knows exactly the opposite is true: We have historically assassinated democratically-elected leaders and installed dictators. And the world knows it--even if Fox News-watchers don't.

P.S.--On C-Span yesterday, a man from the think tank called The Heritage Foundation, who was a recent Bush appointee and advocate of attacking Iran, received a phonecall from a viewer. The viewer reminded him of US actions in 1953, when they murdered the democratically-elected president of Iran and installed the corrupt Shah, who killed tens of thousands of his own people. The neocon--like Christopher Hitchens--was refreshingly honest. He didn't deny US actions, but said "That was decades and decades ago. We shouldn't be judged by unfortunate things we did so long ago." --Yet, wholly unconscious of the double-standard, these same people brought up war crimes committed by Saddam Hussein decades ago with the gassing of the Kurds. He hadn't done anything for literally decades--so they had to trot out alleged crimes from 1981.
It's just funny watching the disconnect: "It's not fair to judge the US on its previous actions. That's ancient history." --Yet when it's time to smeer future targets, it's nothing but "Remember the atrocities from . . . er . . . uh . . . decades and decades ago!"
Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha