[lbo-talk] Weighing the possibility of nuclear strikes on Iran

Jim Devine jdevine03 at gmail.com
Thu May 18 08:10:05 PDT 2006


meanwhile, US National Public Radio reported (as I was driving to work) that the US is now trying to update the pending anti-proliferation treaty to ban (not-currently-nuclear- bomb-armed) countries from producing plutonium or enriching uranium in significant amounts. That is, the US elite is trying to make illegal the "illegal" activity it is accusing Iran from engaging in (that is, if Iran signs the treaty). I am not a nukular expert, so I am perfectly willing to stand (or sit) corrected.

BTW, my car's anti-war bumper stickers seem to be having an effect. As I was getting into my car this morning, a guy in a passing car flipped me the bird. Oh what fun it is living in the 'burbs (Torrance, CA). When we moved here, a friend warned us that it was like jumping into the Wayback Machine to return to the '50s. Yes it is, complete with a lot of houses with permanent flag poles and permanently raised flags. Good news: driving on Pacific Coast Highway, I see significantly fewer "Dubya" and "Bush/Cheney" stickers than I used to.

On 5/18/06, Marvin Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca> wrote:
> The article below by Aijaz Ahmed in Frontline, the leading Indian biweekly,
> is is well worth reading. It draws on Seymour Hersh's New Yorker piece and
> other material, establishing how low-yield nuclear strikes on Iran are a
> real possibiity - in fact, the only credible military option available to
> the US if the decision is made to go to war. Ahmed's conclusion: "Maybe it
> will happen, maybe not. Only Bush, Cheney & company would know for sure."
>
> But probably they don't know for sure at this point; I expect that will
> mostly depend on a) whether Iran yields to the intense US pressure being put
> on them to freeze their nuclear program via the Western Europeans, Russians,
> and Chinese with whom the Iranians have important and developing economic
> relations, and b) whether the Bush administration can fashion a strong
> consensus for such action within the US ruling class, where there are
> powerful voices adamantly opposed to an attack, including many who
> previously warned Iraq would weaken rather than strengthen US global global
> power and who are still smarting from having had to fall in line behind the
> invasion.
>
> The Washington Post, one of the house organs of the US bourgeoisie, has
> lately been running articles warning against military action - including by
> Israel as American proxy -the most recent of which was by Henry Kissinger on
> Tuesday
> (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/15/AR2006051501200.html).
> This faction believes US economic power - exercised through its huge capital
> and consumer markets and the threat to block access to them - is more
> effective than military action in securing compliance from America's allies
> and enemies alike. On the other hand, there's a widespread feeling on the
> left, and even beyond, that the the US economic position is collapsing and
> its ruling class is so desperate, parts of it irrationally so, that it will
> do whatever it takes militarily to pursue it's imperialist agenda,
> especially in the energy-rich regions of the world. I'm not yet convinced,
> but Iran looms as a litmus test of that proposition.
>
> * * *
> The imperial nuclear order
> BY Aijaz Ahmed
> Frontline
> May 6-19 2006
>
> THE possibility of a nuclear strike by the United States against Iran has
> now entered mainstream political discourse in the U.S. This needs to be seen
> in the perspective of:
>
> *U.S. determination to attack Iran but the virtual impossibility of
> achieving all its objectives through non-nuclear means;
>
> *the predominance, at the highest levels of the Bush administration, of men
> who believe that problems of a global war and the consequent overstretch can
> and should be resolved by deploying "mini-nukes" - not retreat, but
> escalation to a higher level;
>
> *the much wider spread of actual nuclear weapons among the key U.S. allies
> than is ever revealed in the mainstream media; and, most crucially,
>
> *the immense nuclear superiority the U.S. has kept gaining since the
> collapse of the Soviet Union and the consequent doctrine of "usable nukes"
> it has developed during the Bush presidency.
>
> The thought of using nuclear weapons becomes thinkable because the U.S. has
> unrivalled capacity to do so, without any fear of retaliation either from
> its victims, Iran for instance, or Russia with its degraded arsenal and
> China with its very rudimentary capacity.
>
> Full: http://www.flonnet.com/fl2309/stories/20060519000905800.htm
>
>
>
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>

-- Jim Devine / "the world still seems stuck in greed-lock, ruled by fossilized fools fueled by fossil fuels." -- Swami Beyondananda



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