They Wouldn't Really Attack Iran, Would They? [View All]

http://www.arabamericannews.com/newsarticle.php?articleid=9498

They wouldn't really attack Iran, would they?
By: Paul Street
2007-08-11

Remember the old neoconservative half-joke that "sacking Baghdad is fine but real men go to Tehran?" We are moving into the time when many Washington watchers have thought it possible and even likely that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney would order an attack on Iran .

They wouldn't really do it, would they?

God knows there are a large number of reasons for a rational White House NOT to attack. United States and global public opinion is opposed to a U.S. assault on Iran. So are European and other leading and allied governments, the U.S. intelligence community and much of the nation's military leadership. According to a February 25th "London Times" report, "most senior commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a strike against Iran."

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United States troops are overstretched and have been badly bloodied in Iraq. The American Empire's strung-out, battered and mostly working-class soldiers are increasingly skeptical about Bush's military adventurism (3).

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While "Iran cannot (militarily) defend itself against U.S. attack," Noam Chomsky recently noted, "it can respond in other ways, among them by inciting ever more havoc in Iraq. "Some issue warnings that are more grave," Chomsky adds, noting British military historian Corelli Barnett's judgment that "an attack on Iran would effectively launch World War Tthree" (5).

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A military strike against Iran would be thoroughly illegal under international law and the U.S. Constitution. It would evoke horror and condemnation across the world, further tarnishing the United States' fading "moral credentials" (Bzrezinski), especially if it employs (as it likely would) "low yield" nuclear missiles that would (as a senior U.S. intelligence official told Seymour Hersh) produce "mushroom clouds, radiation, mass casualties and contamination over years"(7).

MUCH MORE, VERY GOOD ARTICLE, AT LINK

Veteran radical historian, journalist, and speaker Paul Street s a Left political commentator in Iowa City, IA.