I think this article by Chomsky strikes the right note. I have been struggling against writers like Scott Ritter, Seymour Hersh, and lately Ray mcGovern -- all respectable, in my book -- who claim an attack on Iran is imminent. At the same time, I dont trust the counter argument that Iran would retaliate in a major way, leading to regional conflict and/or global economic crisis.
Chomsky makes me remember that "cold" war is in many ways preferable to hot war for the elite, since it lasts longer, becomes more ideologically entrenched, and enables the state of permanent mobilization and military spending so useful to the elite.
Bobw --- Marvin Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca> wrote:
> Commentary on this subject from my favourite
> anarchist sympathizer: "Despite
> the saber-rattling, it is, I suspect, unlikely that
> the Bush administration
> will attack Iran."
>
> * * *
>
> Chomsky: There Will Be a Cold War Between Iran and
> the U.S.
> By Noam Chomsky, City Lights
> Posted on July 30, 2007, Printed on July 31, 2007
> http://www.alternet.org/story/58243/
>
> The following is an excerpt from Noam Chomsky's new
> book Interventions
> published by City Lights Books. The excerpt first
> appeared in Z Magazine.
>
> In the energy-rich Middle East, only two countries
> have failed to
> subordinate themselves to Washington's basic
> demands: Iran and Syria.
> Accordingly both are enemies, Iran by far the more
> important.
>
> As was the norm during the Cold War, resort to
> violence is regularly
> justified as a reaction to the malign influence of
> the main enemy, often on
> the flimsiest of pretexts. Unsurprisingly, as Bush
> send s more troops to
> Iraq, tales surface of Iranian interference in the
> internal affairs of
> Iraq -- a country otherwise free from any foreign
> interference, on the tacit
> assumption that Washington rules the world.
>
> In the Cold War-like mentality that prevails in
> Washington, Tehran is
> portrayed as the pinnacle in the so-called Shiite
> Crescent that stretches
> from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon, through Shiite
> southern Iraq and Syria.
> And again unsurprisingly, the "surge" in Iraq and
> escalation of threats and
> accusations against Iran is accompanied by grudging
> willingness to attend a
> conference of regional powers, with the agenda
> limited to Iraq-more
> narrowly, to attaining U.S. goals in Iraq.
>
> Presumably this minimal gesture toward diplomacy is
> intended to allay the
> growing fears and anger elicited by Washington's
> heightened aggressiveness,
> with forces deployed in position to attack Iran and
> regular provocations and
> threats.
>
> For the United States, the primary issue in the
> Middle East has been and
> remains effective control of its unparalleled energy
> resources. Access is a
> secondary matter. Once the oil is on the seas it
> goes anywhere. Control is
> understood to be an instrument of global dominance.
>
> Iranian influence in the "crescent" challenges U.S.
> control. By an accident
> of geography, the world's major oil resources are in
> largely Shiite areas of
> the Middle East: southern Iraq, adjacent regions of
> Saudi Arabia and Iran,
> with some of the major reserves of natural gas as
> well. Washington's worst
> nightmare would be a loose Shiite alliance
> controlling most of the world's
> oil and independent of the United States.
>
> Such a bloc, if it emerges, might even join the
> Asian Energy Security Grid
> and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), based
> in China. Iran, which
> already had observer status, is to be admitted as a
> member of the SCO. The
> Hong Kong South China Morning Post reported in June
> 2006 that "Iranian
> President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole the limelight at
> the annual meeting of
> the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) by
> calling on the group to
> unite against other countries as his nation faces
> criticism over its nuclear
> programme." The non-aligned movement meanwhile
> affirmed Iran's "inalienable
> right" to pursue these programs, and the SCO (which
> includes the states of
> Central Asia) "called on the United States to set a
> deadline for the
> withdrawal of military installations from all member
> states.
>
> If the Bush planners bring that about, they will
> have seriously undermined
> the U.S. position of power in the world.
>
> To Washington, Tehran's principal offense has been
> its defiance, going back
> to the overthrow of the Shah in 1979 and the hostage
> crisis at the U.S.
> embassy. The grim U.S. role in Iran in earlier years
> is excised from
> history. In retribution for Iranian defiance,
> Washington quickly turned to
> support for Saddam Hussein's aggression against
> Iran, which left hundreds of
> thousands dead and the country in ruins. Then came
> murderous sanctions, and
> under Bush, rejection of Iranian diplomatic efforts
> in favor of increasing
> threats of direct attack.
>
> Last July (2006), Israel invaded Lebanon, the fifth
> invasion since 1978. As
> before, U.S. support for the aggression was a
> critical factor, the pretexts
> quickly collapse on inspection, and the consequences
> for the people of
> Lebanon are severe. Among the reasons for the
> U.S.-Israel invasion is that
> Hezbollah's rockets could be a deterrent to a
> potential U.S.-Israeli attack
> on Iran.
>
> Despite the saber-rattling, it is, I suspect,
> unlikely that the Bush
> administration will attack Iran. The world is
> strongly opposed. Seventy-five
> percent of Americans favor diplomacy over military
> threats against Iran, and
> as noted earlier, Americans and Iranians largely
> agree on nuclear issues.
> Polls by Terror Free Tomorrow reveal that "Despite a
> deep historical enmity
> between Iran's Persian Shiite population and the
> predominantly Sunni
> population of its ethnically diverse Arab, Turkish
> and Pakistani neighbors,
> the largest percentage of people in these countries
> favor accepting a
> nuclear-armed Iran over any American military
> action." It appears that the
> U.S. military and intelligence community is also
> opposed to an attack.
>
> Iran cannot defend itself against U.S. attack, but
> it can respond in other
> ways, among them by inciting even more havoc in
> Iraq. Some issue warnings
> that are far more grave, among them by the respected
> British military
> historian Corelli Barnett, who writes that "an
> attack on Iran would
> effectively launch World War III."
>
> The Bush administration has left disasters almost
> everywhere it has turned,
> from post-Katrina New Orleans to Iraq. In
> desperation to salvage something,
> the administration might undertake the risk of even
> greater disasters.
>
> Meanwhile Washington may be seeking to destabilize
> Iran from within. The
> ethnic mix in Iran is complex; much of the
> population isn't Persian. There
> are secessionist tendencies and it is likely that
> Washington is trying to
> stir them up-in Khuzestan on the Gulf, for example,
> where Iran's oil is
> concentrated, a region that is largely Arab, not
> Persian.
>
> Threat escalation also serves to pressure others to
> join U.S. efforts to
> strangle Iran economically, with predictable success
> in Europe. Another
> predictable consequence, presumably intended, is to
> induce the Iranian
> leadership to be as harsh and repressive as
> possible, fomenting disorder and
> perhaps resistance while undermining efforts of
> courageous Iranian
> reformers, who are bitterly protesting Washington's
> tactics. It is also
> necessary to demonize the leadership. In the West,
> any wild statement of
> Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, immediately
> gets circulated in
> headlines, dubiously translated. But as is well
> known,
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