Reply #127: Bush's Pax Americana

[Jack Rabbit]

The administration of President George W. Bush is planning a massive bombing campaign against Iran, including use of bunker-buster nuclear bombs to destroy a key Iranian suspected nuclear weapons facility, The New Yorker magazine has reported in its April 17 issue.
-- Agent France Press

This crisis is an entirely logical outcome of the policy and outrageous behavior of Bush and the neoconservatives. Of course Iran is pursing a nuclear weapons program. She would be stupid not to pursue a nuclear weapons program. If the neocons have their a nation in their sites, all they will do is say that nation is a threat, that it has WMDs or is pursuing the construction of nuclear weapons, whether it is true or not. Iran doesn't want to wait to be invaded and have the CIA made the fall for bad intelligence while some US administrator in Tehran unilaterally rewrites the laws on foreign investment. If the neocons are going to claim a nation has nukes as a pretext to invade, that nation is well advised to make sure the neocons are right.

No one should welcome Iran to the nuclear club. It makes the world a more dangerous place. But we know why they are doing it. It isn't the Iranians who have made the world dangerous.

Another reason that this is a logical outcome of the behavior of Bush and the neoconservatives is that, with the US military tied down next door occupying Iraq, there really is no US military force that can strike Iran were that necessary. A nuclear strike becomes an alternative to invasion and occupation. Bush's occupation of Iraq is going badly. Whether Mr. Bush has the capacity to understand it or not, somebody in the White House or the State Department or the Pentagon undoubtedly realizes that an occupation of Iran would be even more difficult. Iran is about three times larger than Iraq geographically and has about two and a half times as many people. While Iran's Islamic Republic is not a true democracy, it resembles one far more than Saddam's Iraq did; there will be even less reason to suppose US forces will be greeted as liberators by the Iranians than there was to suppose Iraqis would. The population of Iran are more homogeneous than that of Iraq; unlike Iraq, resistance to occupation will be unified.

Bush has really made a mess of the Pax Americana. Bush's American imperialism has all the bad effects that an imperial system imposes both on its colonies and its own masses at home, but none of the benefits of sustained political stability or security.

As long as Iran is about five years away from developing a nuclear weapon, there is time to deal with the threat. I would prefer that, like Iraq, Mr. Bush leave this to his successor. Unfortunately, unlike Iraq, Iran may be a real threat that requires a real solution. Yet five years into Mr. Bush's reign of terror and error, we have no reason to have any confidence in him to solve any urgent problem.

Right now, Iran is less of an urgent problem than Bush is. It is no more a danger to international peace or US national security than Bush is. If Iran is such an urgent problem that it needs to be addressed sooner rather than later, or even if Iran is a less urgent problem but for which a constructive policy needs to be developed sooner rather than later, than the US needs competent leadership sooner rather than later. We need to replace this clumsy junta with a competent administration, sooner rather than later.