Yogi Berra had it right -- "It's déjà vu
all over again," for we are now witnessing the same
exaggerations and outright deception about Iran that
the Bush administration fed to the American people
four years ago as the prelude to the disastrous war
on Iraq. His insincere protestations of a resort
to diplomacy, U.N. resolutions and U.N. inspections
were a cover for preparations for an Iraqi invasion.
It began weeks after 9-11 with the pull-out of Special
Forces troops from Afghanistan, leaving bin Laden's
al-Qaida on the loose; California desert warfare
training of tens of thousand of U.S. troops; increasing
naval deployment in the Mediterranean and Persian
Gulf; and acceleration of air-strikes in Iraqi no-fly
zones.
President Bush's playbook hasn't changed. A 2002
State of the Union address branding Iran as an "Axis
of Evil" state put it in the same demonized category
as Iraq -- even though Iran denounced Osama bin Laden's
9-11 attack, participated at U.S. invitation at the
Bonn meeting on Afghanistan's future, and pledged
three times the U.S. amount for Afghan reconstruction.
And despite Iran's cooperation, a secret Iranian
proposal of dialogue without preconditions on all
issues between the U.S. and Iran was rejected by
Bush.
Two years ago, the Bush administration began leaking
disinformation intended to sow suspicion of Iran's
nuclear ambitions. An unsigned drawing taken from
a stolen laptop of an excavation that could have
many uses but was defined as a nuclear test site
soon emerged. ("Curveball's" mobile labs reincarnated.)
The charge that Iran had produced weapons-grade uranium
fell apart after an investigation by U.S. and U.N.
scientists had determined that the minute amount
found on centrifuges in Iran was there when they
were bought from Pakistan -- as Iran had contended.
(The Niger uranium fraud revisited.)
Iran has every right to enrich uranium to provide
fuel for its nearly completed reactor that Russia
is building under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty. Condoleezza Rice's recent statement that "there
is simply no peaceful rationale for the Iranian regime
to resume uranium enrichment" has no basis in fact
or international law. U.S. hypocrisy is evident,
for Saudi Arabia has announced that it and the smaller
Gulf states have begun a uranium program, Pakistan
is building eight plutonium processing plants, and
the U.S. has agreed to provide India with nuclear
reactors (a violation of U.S. law and the NPT).
Saudi Arabia admits that its private citizens have
been supporting Iraq's Sunni insurgents and threatens
to intervene officially if the Shiite death squads
are not brought under control. The Saudi Arabian
border with Iraq is at least as long as that of Iran
or Syria, yet Bush threatens only Syria and Iran.
A report on Bush's charges of "solid evidence" that
Iranian agents support attacks on American soldiers
in Iraq has been postponed twice. Last Friday, National
Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and Defense Secretary
Robert Gates demolished Bush's bluster; the report,
in Hadley's words, was "sent back to be focused on
the facts," and Gates dismissed it with "the information
I've seen is ambiguous and not clear."
Solid evidence is available of a constantly expanding
military buildup for an Iranian invasion. Journalist
Seymour Hersh warned a year ago of Bush's plans,
obtained from U.S. military and intelligence officials.
U.S. aircraft carriers and minesweepers surround
Iran. The U.S. has persuaded Bulgaria and Romania
to allow us to situate enough land-based aircraft
for a massive raid on Iran.
Bush gambled on Iraq with a losing hand. His "doubling
down" with an Iraqi escalation and his "going for
broke" in Iran are indicative of an addiction to
risk that has brought us, as former National Security
Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski testified last Thursday,
to a "historic, strategic and moral calamity."
Americans should quickly add their voices to the
brave and patriotic American military and intelligence
officials, retired and active, who oppose escalation
in Iraq and an invasion of Iran.
Jim Mullins is a senior fellow at the Center
for International Policy in Washington, D.C., and
a resident of Delray Beach.
Copyright © 2007, South
Florida Sun-Sentinel
