Ray McGovern: Do We Have The Courage To Stop War With Iran?

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Ray McGovern

Why do I feel like the proverbial skunk at a Labor Day picnic? Sorry; but I thought you might want to know that this time next year, there will probably be more skunks than we can handle. I fear our country is likely to be at war with Iran -- and with the thousands of real terrorists Iran can field around the globe.

It is going to happen, folks, unless we put our lawn chairs away on Tuesday, take part in some serious grass-roots organizing, and take action to prevent a wider war -- while we still can.

President George W. Bush's speech Tuesday lays out the Bush/Cheney plan to attack Iran and how the intelligence is being "fixed around the policy," as was the case before the attack on Iraq.

It's not about putative Iranian "weapons of mass destruction" -- not even ostensibly. It is about the requirement for a scapegoat for U.S. reverses in Iraq, and the White House's felt need to create a casus belli by provoking Iran in such a way as to "justify" armed retaliation -- eventually including air strikes on its nuclear-related facilities.

The entire article is here. TM note: Ray is a fellow member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity and a tireless campaigner against Bush's war in Iraq. I responded directly to him on the piece above with the e-mail shown below:

Ray:

I agree that the Busheviks are preparing an attack on Iran, but I disagree about the reason...it's only marginally about scapegoats.

The real reason is to protect Israel. That's the Neocons whole schtick, dating back to Wolfie's 1992 memo (available on the Web); the Neocons' 1996 memo to Netanyayhoo; the even broader Neocon letter to Clinton in 1998, and so on.

Wolfie even mentions attacking Iraq, Iran, Syria, & Lebanon. He gave four reasons for taking on Saddam: to complete the unfinished business from the Gulf War; establish U.S. bases in the Mideast; ensure access to oil; and, protect Israel. Two of those are straw men. Even Wolfowitz cannot have believed in 1992 -- 50 years after the colonial era was over, that the U.S. could have permenently colonized Iraq and stolen its oil. The real reason was to protect Israel.

He was supported by the Perle/Kristol/Cheney/Libby/Wolfowitz/Podhoretz/Feith crowd that Colin Powell used to refer to as the JINSA bunch (Cheney, Perle and Feith were all on the board of directors of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.) Right-wing Christians like Hagee, Falwell and Robertson were/are part of the support network; they want to accelerate the 'final days,' where all the believers go to heaven and all the Jews are converted or killed.

The principal reason the Neocons pushed the attack on Iraq was because they were afraid that Saddam had put his nuclear program underground and the Israelies couldn't take it out as they did with the '81 airstrike on the Osirak reactor.

Iran went to school on that attack, of course, and put everything underground except the public facilities at Bushehr. Israel can't get those facilities with airstrikes, both because of the distance and the presumed hardening of the sites. That's one reason you hear occasional nuke rattling and talk of bunker busters.

It is also why Norman Podhoretz -- a national security advisor to Giuliani -- said in writing that he "hopes and prays" that the U.S. will attack Iran. He is part of the original Israel First crowd, along with AIPAC and the wingnut Christians, who think no sacrifice is too great to help Israel, even if it compromises U.S. security.

The complaints about Iran 'meddling' in Iraq are likely true, I think, but they are not the reason the insurgency exists. (If what Iran is doing is called 'meddling,' how do you label what the U.S. is doing? Iraq is on Iran's borders; it is 6,000 miles from the U.S.) The real reason for the complaints is to set the stage for an attack.