News Headline: Iran, Nuclear, Threat
March 31st, 2010 § 4 Comments
If I was a talented political cartoonist like Khalil Bendib, I would draw a timeline depicting the rapidly increasing rate at which Iran is being manufactured into a “threat” (insert “nuclear”) to the world, while the allegedly threatened countries prepare to attack it. Not so long ago the Islamic Republic was endangering nuclear-armed Israel’s existence with words (they didn’t need sticks and stones) and now all of Europe is in danger, even resistant Russia! Before we know it, Iran might set its sights on Antarctica. Even the moon is a potential unguarded target — how many billions of dollars would it cost to build a “defense” shield for the moon? In my political cartoon, the Iranian leadership would be drinking cardamom tea while discussing how they could go about obtaining nuclear weapons as a mode of deterrence, while steadfast Israeli planes head in their direction.
Never mind the fact that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has publicly declared on multiple occasions that the Iranians don’t possess nuclear weapons, and if they are working towards building them, they are still years away from the being able to use them. A slew of recent articles referencing a recent IAEA report is also being used by the mainstream media (MSM) to paint new developments that confirm their previous alarmist claims, but the story remains almost the same as before. According to a March 26 interview with the new IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano, there is still no evidence of Iran having nuclear weapons, but the Iranians aren’t making it easy enough to find evidence proving the contrary either – a Catch-22 scenario:
In the case of Iran, the IAEA continues to verify the non-diversion of declared material, but we have for some time been unable to confirm that all nuclear material in that country is in peaceful activities because Iran has not provided the Agency with the necessary cooperation.
Pay no attention to the fact that unlike nuclear Israel and the US, Iran has not attacked another country for thousands of years (the war with Iraq was a defensive one). It is probably only a coincidence that the Islamic Republic remains fiercely independent in a region dominated by purchased and/or pro-Western governments. The country is not as docile as Belgium, but considering the never-ending hostility the leadership has been forced to endure ever since the Iranian people brought down the US puppet Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, haven’t they been quite restrained? Iran is surrounded on both sides by two countries that have been invaded and occupied by the most powerful and violent country in the world. The big red target that the Israel lobby has put on Iran, coupled with consistent efforts by the US to present a closed but nevertheless extended hand to the pro-Western elements of the Iranian population, also gives the Iranian leadership every reason to fear for their existence. But this “radical” government still has yet to attack another country, even if the government’s words are considered by the MSM to be as powerful as bullets. The Iranian government behaves in an authoritarian manner towards its own population, but on the international stage, they have been rational and clever.
Israel on the other hand continues to stun much of the world with its blatant violations of human rights and international law. In addition to launching brief, murderous attacks that wipe out 1,400 people in less than one month, they also continue to build colonial settlements on Palestinian territory, while exterminating those Palestinians that get in the way – the most recent case involving a 16 year old boy. And when a Jewish judge reports that Israel committed war crimes in Gaza (he also accuses Hamas of the same), that judge is written off as a “traitor to the Jewish people.”
With regard to Iran, Israel has been at the forefront of the “military option” movement, something which Juan Cole notes has resulted in poor current relations with the US. The renewed prospect of the US going to war with Iran has even prompted members of the US military to express warnings against it. But the prospect of attacking Iran has been reaching new heights, most recently emphasized during the recent American Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference in Washington D.C. last week.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu also recently declared that:
A radical Iranian regime armed with nuclear weapons could bring an end to the era of nuclear peace the world has enjoyed for the last 65 years
And:
we will always reserve the right to defend ourselves.
While the threat of being attacked looms menacingly over Iran’s future, Western imposed sanctions continue to “cripple” the Iranian economy, even if the leadership claims otherwise. Iran’s declining economy is often referenced as a justifying factor by advocates of regime change, but the main reason regime change would improve the economy is if it was accompanied with the removal of the sanctions. Finally, just today the world’s “leading industrial nations” united in calling for a fourth round of sanctions against the Islamic Republic with only China, Brazil and Turkey so far teetering off course.
All this while Iran continues to be referenced in the MSM as a “threat” to the world.
In Franz Kafka’s unfinished novel The Trial, the protagonist ”K” (who is prosecuted by an unchallengable authority without ever being informed of the charge against him) is told that:
It is not necessary to accept everything as true, one must only accept it as necessary.
These words echo through my mind every time I come across another absurd piece of news “analysis” on Iran.
Awesome article
Remarkable Article.
“We all say it. It must be true!”
–from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
While Iran has not directly attacked another country, in its role as self-proclaimed leader of Shi’a Islam it has financed and armed Shi’ite proxies from Cairo to Baghdad.
These groups have not been so benign. They in fact have shown such fanaticism and intolerance of any doctrine but their own that even hated Israel is embraced, secretly, in common cause against them.
Thank you Jasmin.
This narrative is superb.
Many people are thinking the same way; only most of us are unable to communicate it in such an articulate and predominate manner.