Are we heading for a preemptive war in Iran?

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In September 2000 the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) published Rebuilding America’s Defenses, a document which referred to the United States as the “world’s sole superpower and the final guarantee of security, democratic freedoms

and individual political rights.” The document insisted that military power is the only way to achieve such global leadership and must be prepared to move militarily into hot spots that threaten our superiority or American values.

Many of the principle advisors in the first Bush administration were founders of the PNAC including Vice President Dick Cheney and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The PNAC is the basis for the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war.

In 2002 President Bush told us that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was ready to use them against us. Bush told us Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United States and must be taken out. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Mohamed ElBaradei reported that Iraq had no WMD.

Cheney told the world recently that we will not allow Iran to have weapons of mass destruction and they must stop their effort at making them.

Does anyone see a similarity?

Prior to 2003 President George Bush said that Hussein aided Al Quaida and was therefore partly responsible for the attack on the United States.

This same administration is now saying that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran are aidig the insurgents and terrorists in Iraq thus impeding the efforts of the United States to stabilize Iraq.

Does anyone see a smilarity?

As late as January 2003 The President claimed that Iraq was securing uranium from Niger and had proof of that even though special Envoy Joseph C. Wilson IV gave a report to the White House that any connection between Iraq and Niger was suspect at best and should be ignored in any decision regarding Iraq.

President Bush is insisting that Iran is producing enriched uranium for purposes of developing nuclear weapons. ElBaradei confirmed to the United Nations on August 30 2007 that Iran was producing enriched uranium but it was in low quality and in much lower quantities than expected, and that Iran was cooperating with the Agency. He also reported that Iran is making changes in production requested by the IAEA. On October 29 the Agency said that Iran is continuing to cooperate and that unilateral US sanctions could harm further cooperation.

Does anyone see a similarity?

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), told George Stephanopolis that the President must get Congressional approval before taking any military action against Iran. Sounds like a lone voice trying to be heard in the midst of saber rattling. Why did congress give up its right to declare war in 2003? Is Congress about to do that again?

How long are we going to sit back and not be outraged at the foolisheness of this administration? The world was supportive in our efforts to track down Osama bin Laden when the US went to war in Afghanistan, but lost it all to divert our attention to Iraq. In 2006 the administration gave up its search for bin Laden, the known perpetrator of the attack on 9/11/01.

President George W. Bush duped us once in going to war in Iraq. Will he get away with using the same old arguments to initiate an immoral and indefensible preemptive war in Iran as well?

There are hopeful signs that the Bush Doctrine will not prevail in Iran. Time reported that The Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that the US is pursuing diplomacy and sanctions to improve the situation. The military is not speaking of war plans and have turned over to Iran seven people the US thought were Iranians helping Iraqi insurgents. We have seen the disastrous results of the Bush Doctrine for the last four-plus years. We need real global leadership based on diplomacy and peacemaking, not military power. The presidential election of 2008 cannot get here soon enough. Or is it time to pursue impeachment more seriously?

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