This high-octane rocket-rattling against Tehran is unlikely to succeed

[0007]

Link Here

Ringed by nuclear states, Iran's atomic programme is scarcely unreasonable. So why has Washington manufactured this crisis?

Till now, what has prevented the crisis in Iraq from becoming a total debacle for the United States has been the open collaboration of the Iranian clerics. Iranian foreign policy - fragmentary and opportunist - has always been determined by the needs and interests of the clerical state rather than any principled anti-imperialist strategy. In the past, this has led to a de facto collaboration with Washington in Afghanistan and Iraq. During the Iran-Iraq war, the clerics had no hesitation in buying arms from the Israeli regime to fight Iraq, then backed by Britain and the US. In the wake of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq - hoping, no doubt, that clearing the path for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and Mullah Omar might have won them a respite - the regime took a tougher stance on the nuclear question.

The Bush administration appears to be psyching itself up for a safe strike against Iran either by itself or via the Israelis, whose new leaders have referred to the Iranian president as a psychopath and a new Hitler. Why has Washington manufactured this crisis? The hypocrisy of Bush, Blair, Chirac or Olmert - their own states armed with thousands of nuclear weapons - making a casus belli of what are, by all accounts, primitive gropings on Iran's part towards the technology necessary for the lowest grade of nuclear self-defence, hardly needs to be spelled out. So long as these powers are allowed to enlarge their nuclear armouries unimpeded, why should Tehran not?

[European Socialist]

1. Because only crazy Westerners need apply to the "nuclear club".

[tocqueville]

2. link not working and assertion basically flawed...

there are plenty of States surrounded by nuclear states that don't go nuclear for that. The comparison doesn't hold water. According to the author most Asian and Arab states should go (militarily) nuclear and why not some South American as well. One thing is sure : If Iran goes nuclear, Saudi Arabia and Egypt will, because they dread Iran as much as they fear Israel. But that doesn't bother Tariq Ali.

All that doesn't mean that the Iranian problem could'nt be resolved with peaceful means...