Et tu, Antiwar.com?

Today over at Antiwar.com, John Glaser–a commentator who I read daily and greatly admire–posted a piece that is truly remarkable–remarkably naive, which is not a trait I’ve come to expect from Antiwar.com (Ron Paul worship aside). The article, “IAEA Visit to Iran May Quash ‘Hysterical War Talk’,” opens with the following statement:

Officials in the International Atomic Energy Agency are meeting in Iran this week for the second round of talks in a month on the status of Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, a meeting that could potentially stymie efforts in the West to preemptively strike Iran.

The expectation that the West would somehow be forced to back off from its hawkish rhetoric and bellicose stance toward Iran because of any actions on the part of the IAEA is strikingly absurd. Glaser’s stance seems all the more bewildering when a few paragraphs later he points out:

Iran is not developing nuclear weapons and has not demonstrated any intention of doing so, according to the U.S. military and intelligence community. The latest IAEA report, while exaggerated in the media, confirmed Iran’s nuclear material was not being diverted to a weapons program.

Still, hawks in both Israel and the United States insist on believing Iran is determined to develop nuclear weapons. The government of Israel, currently led by the right-wing administration of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been decidedly for a preemptive military attack on Iran, while the Obama administration has pushed back, preferring instead to cripple the Iranian economy through harsh economic sanctions and support proxy terrorism against Iranian civilians.

In other words, the IAEA already came out and said, “Uh, hey guys, Iran sucks but they aren’t building nukes,” and the West heard, “Uh, hey guys, Iran sucks ___ they _____ building nukes,” and roared back, “WHAT? THOSE FILTHY MUSLIMS! THEY WILL PAY!”

That’s because, as Arthur Silber has perceptively pointed out, the facts don’t matter. Not at all. He writes, “To state the argument very briefly: “intelligence” is always irrelevant to major decisions of policy. If you’re arguing about the intelligence and what it allegedly shows, you’re going to lose.”

It doesn’t matter if the Iranian government cooperates with the IAEA inspections, and it doesn’t matter if the inspectors discover no evidence that Iran is producing weapons. The “hysterical war talk” will persist in the U.S. and Israel until the hawks get their war with Iran. And let’s not kid ourselves, here: one way or another, they’ll get their war. They always do.

Sanctions are to war what foreplay is to intercourse

Lately I feel like I just keep posting the same thing over and over again about Iran, but then again, I also feel like I keep reading the same thing over and over again about Iran:

As U.S. National Security Adviser Tom Donilon arrived in Saturday night to discuss the Iranian nuclear issue with top Israeli officials, a U.S. official has told Haaretz that all the messages from Israel in recent months pointed to the likelihood of an Israeli strike on Iran.

…

Speaking to Haaretz on condition of anonymity, a senior U.S. official said that in the past six months the messages reaching Washington from Jerusalem have increasingly pointed to the likelihood of an Israeli strike, more so than in the previous two years. “We think that Israel still has not decided whether to attack or not, but it is clear to us that it is being considered seriously,” he said.

The U.S. administration wants Israel to wait a few months in order to give the international sanctions against Iran a chance before deciding on an attack. A few days ago, officials in Tehran expressed a readiness to resume negotiations with the six main powers.

The U.S. administration wants to wait a few months and give the sanctions a chance to do…what, exactly? Stop Iran from building the nuclear weapons that U.S. and Israeli officials say they aren’t building? Or maybe convince leaders in Tehran to give western corporations access to their oil?

Let’s compromise and say that American and Israeli officials actually do believe that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons, or at least nuclear weapons capabilities (the latter of which is quite likely–I’d sure as hell want nukes if the most powerful military empire in the history of the world had me surrounded with military bases and troops and daily threatened to wipe me off the  map), and that they are deeply concerned about this state of affairs. Why are the U.S. and Israel concerned about Iranian nukes? Could it be because Israel wants to be the only player in the Middle East with nuclear weapons at their disposal? Could it be that Iranian nukes would act as an effective means of deterrence against western imperialism and military aggression in the region? Could it be that they would stymie our pursuit of total global hegemony and control of the world’s oil resources? No, no, it must be that those crazy bloodthirsty Muslims want to commit national suicide by lobbing a couple bombs at Israel, thus ensuring their complete obliteration from the face of the earth. That seems like a more reasonable explanation.

The article had several other knee-slappers as well as those quoted above, like

In other news affecting the region, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta warned on Friday of the dangers facing the United States in the Middle East. Speaking at a “town hall meeting” with officers and soldiers at a U.S. Air Force base in Barksdale, Louisiana, Panetta recited a long list of challenges facing the United States military establishment in an era of deep government cutbacks.

“We face the whole issue of rising turmoil in the Middle East,” Panetta said. “I mean, God, any one of those countries in the Middle East could blow on us – from Syria, which is already in turmoil, to Egypt, to Yemen, to a number of others.”

and

Panetta’s warning came just days after the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, failed, in a visit to Egypt, to dissuade Cairo from going ahead with criminal proceedings against 19 Americans affiliated with prodemocracy organizations in the country.

Oh yes, “prodemocracy organizations.”

More political speech on Iran–sanctions aren’t working

From The Guardian yesterday:

Officials in key parts of the Obama administration are increasingly convinced that sanctions will not deter Tehran from pursuing its nuclear programme, and believe that the US will be left with no option but to launch an attack on Iran or watch Israel do so.

Note the phrase “are increasingly convinced,” which sounds much better than “never thought in the first place.” I don’t believe for a second that Washington truly believed that imposing sanctions would “deter Tehran from pursuing its nuclear energy program,” and sanctions certainly weren’t going to accomplish U.S. policymakers’ ultimate goal in Iran: regime change–to kick out those currently in power and replace them with more compliant leaders who will make nice with Israel, withhold support from Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and, most importantly, acquiesce obediently when Uncle Sam reaches out to wrap his bloated fist around China’s oil spigot. As Chris Floyd wrote on the subject of sanctions:

That is a scenario often touted by our high and mighty mongerers: squeeze an enemy regime until the people rise up and get rid of a ruler you don’t like. Of course, as we saw in Iraq, a people driven to their knees by murderous sanctions rarely have the strength or capability to overturn a regime. In fact, the leaders of sanctioned regimes are almost always strengthened (and enriched) by sanctions.

But unlike some bitter cynics, I happen to have great faith in the abiding intelligence of our betters. I believe they know perfectly well that sanctions will not drive the Iranian regime from power. Instead, I think the current strategy here is two-fold.

First, while long-running sanctions do not in themselves overturn a regime, they do make the entire country much weaker. Infrastructure falls apart, society crumbles, communities wither, families fray, the people themselves become physically weaker — indeed, they can die in droves, in multitudes, as in Iraq. All of this makes for a much softer target when you finally decide to pull the trigger on military action.

Second — and I think much more relevant to this case — there is the hope that ever-tightening sanctions will provoke a violent response from the victim, thereby “justifying” a war of “self-defense” against the “unprovoked” attack. The series of escalating provocations being carried out by Washington and its allies, chiefly Israel — including an increasingly open program of assassinations — is clearly designed to goad the Iranians into a casus belli retaliation.

So when I read that U.S. officials are now publicly expressing doubt about the efficacy of sanctions and are instead–always warily and with the appearance of considerable thought and eventual resignation–starting to claim that we or Israel will need to attack Iran after all to prevent them from developing the nuclear weapons that we don’t actually think they’re building, it  makes me just a little bit skeptical of the whole damn foot-dragging enterprise. Now they can inform the citizenry that indeed they’ve exhausted all other options–options that were not really options to begin with–and can generate more sympathy when they say, “Hey, we tried, but it didn’t work, and you don’t want all those crazy Muslims in Iran to get nukes, now do you?”

I appreciate the thoughtful, well-informed analyses of those who say that war is unlikely and that sections of the American intelligence and military communities are sincerely advocating against war with Iran. But regardless–and I hope more than anything that I am wrong here–it feels like the writing is on the wall and that by the end of this year, one way or another the United States will be marching into Tehran–or trying to topple it with bombs.

Too obvious to see

The Democratic oligarchy whips its more hesitant followers into a frenzy of slavish devotion by pointing to the Republicans and saying, “Hey, vote for us or they’ll steal all your hard-earned money and use it to fill the troughs at which those fat cats on Wall Street gorge themselves!” This is bullshit, of course. I’ve seen a few of the more astute political commentators out there point out the obvious, that it will be a Democrat who finally succeeds in killing Medicare and privatizing education (etc.) because there mere fact of a Dem in the White House is enough to pacify the dissent that would erupt into an explosion of indignation were a Republican to pursue the exact same agenda. We’ve seen this time and time again–or at least, some of us have seen it. Whenever I visit pwogwessive websites and read the comments, I continue to observe the same saddening refrain from misguided liberals: “We can’t abandon the Democratic Party and let a Republican retake the White House! Do you remember what is was like under Bush?” (How can one forget? He’s been in office for going on twelve years now.)

Today at his blog Rob Payne articulates this point explicitly:

Obama with help from congress is doing what a republican could never get away with. Cutting through the crap we can call it an out and out attack on Social Security. Congress has completed their part of the task which continues the cut in the taxes that pay for Social Security calling it “a very good deal for Americans.” As originally conceived Social Security paid for itself and was solvent for at least the next 25 years if not a good deal longer. Now money to pay for Social Security must come from elsewhere.

Go read the whole thing–it’s not long. I love reading Payne because he doesn’t mince words, and he accurately characterizes Obama as a criminal who is trying to steal your money. Keep that in mind the next time you bump into a Democratic acquaintance: he or she is deliberately going to vote in the upcoming election for a criminal who wants to steal your money and give it away to his friends on Wal-Street.

If you feel so inclined, maybe sock that Democrat in the jaw and hope it knocks a little sense into ‘em.

Obama trying to avoid war?

Trying to analyze the true thoughts and feelings of politicians is an immensely trying task, one made difficult by the simple fact that you can’t take a single goddamn word that comes out of their mouths at face value. Attorney General John Mitchell best articulated this reality when, at the start of President Nixon’s criminal regime, he informed a gathering of reporters to ”Watch what we do, not what we say,” a precept that is fundamental to understanding American politics and predicting political outcomes. The point is that political speech is invariably based on strategic calculations, and that politicians’ public pronouncements are often employed to obfuscate or conceal rather than acknowledge support for the reprehensible policies they pursue.

This was on my mind today as I read an article by historian and investigative journalist Gareth Porter entitled “Can Obama avert war with Iran?” In the essay, Porter argues that the president–walking a precarious diplomatic tightrope and trying to avoid awakening the wrath of the Israel Lobby in the United States–is actively trying to dissuade the Israeli government from unilaterally launching an attack on Iran:

President Barack Obama has finally begun in recent months to signal to Israel that the United States would not get involved in a war started by Binyamin Netanyahu without US approval. If it is pursued firmly and consistently through 2012, the approach stands a very good chance of averting war altogether. If Obama falters, however, the temptation for Netanyahu to launch an attack on Iran, indulging in what one close Israeli observer calls his “messianism” toward the issue of Iran.

Does the United States dictate Israeli policy or vice-versa? Does the tail wag the dog? Is the dog trying to reclaim control over its own appendages? Gareth Porter suggests that Israel is attempting to manipulate the United States into pursuing military action which President Obama–yes, that President Obama, the one who dramatically expanded the war in Afghanistan, dropped bombs on Libya, and lobbied the Iraqi government to allow troops to remain past the withdrawal deadline–opposes and is trying to resist. Binyamin Netanyahu thus emerges as the individual responsible for exerting control over the situation, while the president of the United States is relegated to the status of an intercessor working from the sidelines trying to alter the course of events.

Porter writes that Netanyahu intends to “manipulate right-wing Israeli influence on American politics to make it impossible for Obama to stay out of an Israeli war on Iran.” This line of argument has a certain logic to it, but what Porter really means to write is that Netanyahu is trying to make it “politically inexpedient” for Obama to avoid war. One is left to wonder exactly how committed the president could be said to be if the fear of losing an election would be motivation enough to send troops into Tehran. His point is taken, though.

Porter goes on to point out that U.S. officials such as Leon Panetta and General Martin Dempsey have either intimated or else directly informed Israeli officials that the United States will not come to Israel’s aid should the country strike Iran without Washington’s permission. However, Porter argues, “Netanyahu had already put into effect his own counter-strategy, which is to use the influence of the Israeli lobby in Congress help the Republicans against Obama in the presidential election and to maximise the pressure on Obama to support an Israeli attack on Iran.” Of course, what I think Gareth Porter is failing to realize here is that the corollary is true, that if Obama sees his poll numbers faltering and seriously thinks he will lose the election to Romney, he might turn over his trump card and order an attack on Iran in the hopes that it will inspire Americans to patriotically rally ’round his presidency.

Though some of his officials have expressed apparent–though inevitably muted–frustration with Israel over the looming threat of an airstrike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, President Obama has also publicly restated his commitment to remaining militarily “in lockstep” with Israel were Iran to retaliate. This is where the issue of political speech comes in. Obama takes a bellicose stand while members of his administration urge restraint. Is Obama simply trying to appear tough to counter Republican assertions that he’s been weak on terror? (You’d think right-wingers would be pleased by the number of Middle Eastern children Obama has wantonly slaughtered with drones.) Porter opines that the divided voice of the administration represents shrewd diplomatic manuevering–instructing Israel to hold back out of one side of the mouth, and out of the other telling Iran that the crazy Israeli bastards will do it and we’ll be forced to intervene if they don’t play ball.

Gareth Porter constructs a solid case, but I remain skeptical about Obama’s intentions. I will concede, though, that it seems plausible that the president might really fear getting bogged down in Iran considering the negative repercussions it could have for his historical legacy (historians are known for ignoring the mild atrocities, but nobody can avoid tying Johnson to Vietnam). However, if it is indeed true that Obama would prefer not to get his hands dirty in Tehran, it’s important to remember that this is a decision based entirely on political and strategic calculations–on questions of self-preservation and self-aggrandizement–and is in no way influenced by even a semblance of concern for human rights or dignity.

Serious, objective fearmongering

I saw this headline on Yahoo News when I went to check my e-mail:

Iran trumpets nuclear advances, deepening standoff

Try to keep in mind that Iran is legally entitled to pursue a nuclear energy program, that the American and Israeli intelligence community have repeatedly affirmed that Iran is not working on a nuclear weapon, and that it is the nuclear-armed West which is demonstrating hostility and belligerence when you read paragraphs such as these:

Iran proclaimed advances in nuclear know-how on Wednesday, including new centrifuges able to enrich uranium much faster, a move that may hasten a drift towards confrontation with the West over suspicions it is seeking the means to make atomic bombs.

Tehran was driving home its resolve to pursue a nuclear program its hardline Islamic clerical leaders see as a pillar of power, protection and prestige despite Western sanctions that are inflicting increasing damage on its oil-based economy.

…

The United States and Israel have not ruled out military action against Iran if diplomacy and sanctions are ultimately judged futile in reining in its nuclear activity.

…

If Iran eventually succeeded in introducing modern centrifuges for production, it could significantly shorten the time needed to stockpile enriched uranium, which can generate electricity or, if refined much more, nuclear explosions.

…

France said Tehran’s latest moves again demonstrated that it would rather ignore international obligations than cooperate. “These statements are an extra concern for the international community,” said deputy foreign ministry spokesman Romain Nadal.

“The Iranian military nuclear program constitutes one of the most serious threats to peace not only in the world but in the region. We are convinced that Iran continues to develop this program. (Today’s) announcements reinforce that conviction.”

Special Valentine’s Day update

For those of you who are unaware, today is Valentine’s Day, that much-derided holiday created by the candy and greeting card companies for the sole purpose of making the chronically single among us feel bad about ourselves so that we’ll go out and purchase overpriced chocolate made from cocoa beans harvested by exploited plantation workers in Ivory Coast in order to alleviate our depression. This video clip from Lucio Fulci’s classic horror film City of the Living Dead perfectly captures my feelings about Valentine’s Day and all the happy couples out there who will probably get laid tonight:

In case I’m being too subtle, the implication is that Valentine’s Day makes me physically ill.

Don’t you people have better things to read?

I just checked my site stats, and today is officially the busiest day in the history of my humble little blog–I’ve received more site hits than on any other day. I don’t know who you all are or why you’re here, but let me just say–the joke’s on you, suckers!

Hey, wait–where are you going? Come back!

Truth is beauty, beauty truth…

In an ideal world–one in which which justice truly exists, the truth is valued instead of reviled, and stopping the murder of innocent human beings is every voter’s primary issue–Arthur Silber would be a highly paid journalist–excuse me, truth vigilante whose columns would be regarded as necessary reading by every person of any intellectual integrity. I consider his blog–Chris Floyd‘s, too–to be invaluable sources for ugly, brutal, unflinching honesty. But we don’t live in a culture that values truth. We live in a culture that demonizes truth-tellers and instead elevates the purveyors of mindless platitudes and sugar-coated reassurances to the status of prophets and wisemen. I was thinking about this fact and making myself quite depressed this morning as I perused Silber’s most recent blog post and came across this paragraph:

I realize that all of us, including me, spend a lot of time analyzing and commenting on the “news.” Of course we do: for the most part, what else do we have to go on? But do you honestly believe — honestly, mind you — that anything you read in the NYT or similar publications, or hear on radio or television, is what is actually going on right now? I haven’t for decades. I don’t consider this to be engaging in “conspiracy” theories to any degree whatsoever. I view it as the unvarnished, awful truth of where we are, and where we’ve been for a long time. To be sure, stories like this one bear some kind of very rough approximation to something that’s going on — but do they constitute a complete and accurate version of those events? Absolutely not.

Indeed, how many Americans–not just the dissidents and the radically minded–realize that The New York Times and The Washington Post feed them nothing more than distortions and half-truths? How many realize that the nation’s vaunted papers of record and the cable news stations that are crowding out their share of the market function not in opposition to power but rather in full complicity? It’s not just the news media. It’s also the majority of American academics and intellectuals who publish moderate, “objective” articles in scholarly journals that few will ever read or the policy wonks at think tanks who endlessly churn out charts and graphs that assure us economic conditions are improving.

Americans hate the truth and prefer comforting illusions. And right in front of the glassy-eyed screens that most Americans call their eyes millions of people are being slaughtered by our own government for reasons of profit and imperialism and geopolitical one-upmanship. Let’s see THAT get reported in The New York Times.

I have no idea where I’m going with this.

Nihilism is the answer–but what’s the question?

I know this is old news by now, but I finally got around to reading Chris Hedges’ recent column condemning the Black Bloc anarchists, which I, being a non-participant in the so-called activist community, had never heard of before. Hedges writes that the Black Bloc anarchists are “a gift from heaven to the security and surveillance state.” He seems to argue that the presence of violent elements within Occupy Wall Street will give those in power the justification to bring the full force of our militarized riot police down on the heads of protesters and crush the movement like a billy club bashing in a hippie’s skull. And yet, he writes

The Occupy encampments in various cities were shut down precisely because they were nonviolent. They were shut down because the state realized the potential of their broad appeal even to those within the systems of power. They were shut down because they articulated a truth about our economic and political system that cut across political and cultural lines. And they were shut down because they were places mothers and fathers with strollers felt safe.

If the crackdowns will come whether the protests are peaceful or violent, why not bust up a few windows or swing back at a cop who’s harassing you? Furthermore, what can one truly say about the revolutionary potentials of a movement that exists only because the government allows it to exist and that would be swiftly defeated were it to become too much of a nuisance to the ruling class?

I harbored some vague illusions about OWS in the beginning (chalk it up to youthful naivety), but I’ve come to see it as yet another manifestation of the impotency of the American left. Personally, I dig what the Black Blocs are doing. I don’t really know or care what their motives are. All I know is that you have to admire somebody who’ll hit the ground swinging instead of passively with a knee in the back.