DESPITE NO EVIDENCE AND NO PLANS FOR NUCLEAR WEAPONS THE US INCREASES ITS THREAT RHETORIC AGAINST IRAN.

The warmongering rhetoric against Iran by the US government, the Israeli government and the Israeli lobby in the US is continuing unabated. Condoleeza Rice has been quoted as saying: “I think they're [Iran] playing games. But obviously, if they're not playing games, they should come clean. They should stop the enrichment, suspend the enrichment.”[1] The Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, has “…denounced Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a “psychopath” and said the West would never permit Iran to obtain a nuclear bomb.”[2] And over at the Israeli lobby’s predominant mouthpiece, The Weekly Standard, William Kristol is urging the Bush administration that ‘this is no time for Washington to be scary’ as Bush tries to con the Europeans into believing that ‘diplomacy’ will be tried first.[3]

The next step is for the IAEA to bring Iran up before the UN Security Council where the US will ask for sanctions to be applied against Iran knowing full well that this will not happen because Russia and most likely China will use their veto power to prevent it.[4] The US will then mumble indignantly stuff about UN ‘credibility’, as, indeed, they already are,[5] just as they did in the lead up to the invasion, occupation and plundering of Iraq.[6]

Iran, of course, will not budge[7] from its stated goal of enriching Uranium sufficient for reactor fuel for its energy program. However, thus far there has been no evidence whatsoever to say that Iran wishes to enrich Uranium to the level required for nuclear weapons[8] and has, indeed, stated that is not what it wishes to do.[9]

This warmongering will only end in disaster, as it does every time the US threatens another nation, and serves only to fatten the profits of the big oil companies at the expense of the peoples of the world.


ENDNOTES
[1] Libby Quaid, ‘Rice: Iran is ‘Playing Games’ with offer’, AP via Yahoo! news, 30 April 2006. Available online: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060430/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iran Accessed 1 May 2006.
[2] Abraham Rabinovich, ‘Olmert likens Iran leader to Hitler’, The Australian, 1 May 2006. Available online: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18983255-401,00.html Accessed 1 May 2006.
[3] William Kristol, ‘Iran is not Iraq’, The Weekly Standard, 8 May 2006, Vol. 011, Is. 32. Available online: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/148vqpff.asp Accessed 1 May 2006.
[4] Vicki Allen, ‘Rice says US could pressure Iran outside UN’, Reuters, 2 May 2006. Available online: http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-05-01T055655Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-247178-1.xml&archived=False Accessed 1 May 2006.
[5] David E. Sanger and Nazila Fathi, ‘Iran Is Described as Defiant on 2nd Nuclear Program’, The New York Times, 25 April 2006. Available online: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/25/world/middleeast/25iran.html Accessed 1 May 2006.
[6] William Safire, ‘And now: Op-Ed Diplomacy’, The New York Times, 3 February 2003. Available online: http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F30814FA385C0C708CDDAB0894DB404482 Accessed 28 April 2006.
[7] ‘Defiant Iran warns against UN sanctions’, Associate Press via Chinadaily.com, 1 May 2006. Available online: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2006-05/01/content_581717.htm Accessed 1 May 2006.
[8] Atul Anega, ‘IAEA says no evidence of Iranian Nuclear Weapons plan’, Globalresearch.ca, 2 March 2006. Available online: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=ANE20060302&articleId=2055 Accessed 1 May 2006.
[9] Javad Zarif, ‘Iran has No Nuclear Weapons Program, Statement by Iran’s Ambassador to the UN’, Globalresearch.ca, 10 April 2006. Available online: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=ZAR20060410&articleId=2227 Accessed 1 May 2006.