Middle East Focus: Iran Newspeak: Smart Sanctions are Dumb, Many Congressmen are Dumb, Dumb Sanctions are Smart, Dumb Wars………

Arabia Deserta

Iran Newspeak: Smart Sanctions are Dumb, Many Congressmen are Dumb, Dumb Sanctions are Smart, Dumb Wars………

“Last Wednesday afternoon, members of the House and Senate gathered for a conference committee meeting to discuss the bills passed by each house to impose sanctions on Iran. As I sat down at my desk to write this, I pulled out my Roget's Thesaurus to see how many synonyms for "crippling," 'crushing," "overwhelming," "suffocating," and so on there are. There are a lot. And many of them, including those just mentioned, were used by members of Congress competing to see how strongly each one could condemn Iran. It wasn't pretty. Apoplexy was the order of the day. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida got the ball rolling, by demanding "crippling, mandatory sanctions" on Iran. Which caused everyone who followed to try to outbid her. The United States can't be satisfied with "semi-sanctions," said Senator Joe Lieberman, but must instead "marshal the economic, political, and if necessary [its] military power" against the "fanatical regime." Representative Gary Ackerman declared that crippling sanctions weren't strong enough, insisting that the world must impose "suffocating" sanctions on Iran – and even then, he said, "success in this effort is unlikely" and that Iran would "have a nuclear weapon in less than two years." Representative Dan Burton of Indiana upped the ante, nearly foaming at the mouth while saying that the military people he talks to say that Iran could have The Bomb within one year, adding ominously: "We have to do whatever is necessary to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons." Representative Brad Sherman of California denounced those who want to impose mere targeted sanctions on Iranian wrongdoers, declaring: "Smart sanctions are dumb." We need, he said, "absolutely crippling sanctions." …………..”

Damn if it doesn’t sound like the prelude to the war on Iraq, with much the very same players in the US Congress and in the frightened media. But no Hans Blix this time to try and keep the wolves at bay. Probably no Scott Ritter (remember him?) or Dixie Chicks or Sean Penn either. These legislators are working themselves up, terrified eyes fixed on next November.

I say: let them have their fuckingbomb IF they want one (and I am not sure that they do). If Pakistan, that stronghold of al-Qaeda and Taliban, that source of most recent terrorist bombings, the home of A Q Khan’s nukes-for-sale, can have the bomb, why not Iran? If the French were allowed until recently to destroy a wide swath of the Pacific, safely far away from France, for their nuclear experiments. Any Iranian bomb, IF there is one, will not even be tested, anymore than the Israeli bombs were. Come to think of it: the Israeli nuclear bombs, and any possible maybe could be likely unlikely Iranian bombs would be the 'cleanest' nukes around.
I prefer that they have no bomb. In fact I prefer no bomb anywhere in the world. Ban the cluster bombs that keep on killing people long after the wars are over.
Cheers
mhg

Mon Email