Fool Us Twice? From Iraq to Iran By Marjorie Cohn

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=2007021
3&articleId=4774

Fool Us Twice? From Iraq to Iran
By Marjorie Cohn
February 13, 2007

It's déja vu. This time the Bush gang wants war with Iran . Following
a carefully orchestrated strategy, they have ratcheted up the "threat"
from Iran , designed to mislead us into a new war four years after
they misled us into Iraq .

Like its insistence that Iraq had WMD, the Bush administration has
been hyping claims that Iran seeks nuclear weapons. The International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), however, has found no evidence that Iran
is building nuclear weapons. IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei says there
is plenty of time for negotiation with Iran .

Bush has sent two battle carrier groups, replete with nukes, to the
Persian Gulf and a third is reportedly preparing to follow. In support
of Bush's case that Iran poses a danger to the U.S. , three unnamed
American officials ceremoniously trotted out metal parts found in Iraq
and claimed Iran supplied them to kill our soldiers in Iraq .

This "evidence" - or "packaging," as the Associated Press calls it -
doesn't pass the straight face test with most reputable observers.
"The officials offered no evidence to substantiate allegations that
the 'highest levels' of the Iranian government had sanctioned support
for attacks against U.S. troops," according to Monday's Washington
Post.

Saturday's New York Times cited information gleaned from
"interrogation reports" from Iranians and Iraqis captured in the
recent U.S. raid on the Iranian embassy in northern Iraq . They
allegedly indicated money and weapons components are brought into Iraq
over the Iranian border at night. If those people indeed provided such
information, query what kind of pressure, i.e. torture, might have
been applied to encourage their cooperation. Recall the centerpiece of
Colin Powell's 2003 lies to the Security Council about ties between
Iraq and al Qaeda came from false information tortured out of Ibn
al-Shaykh al-Libi.

Any Iranian weapons in Iraq may belong to the Supreme Council for
Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a Shiite resistance group the U.S.
used to support. There could be old Iranian munitions lying around
which are left over from the Iran-Iraq war during the 1980s. A former
high level U.S. military officer told me it was not uncommon to find
large caches of weapons around Iraq . He cited the 2004 discovery of
37,000 American Colt 45 handguns in a warehouse near the Iranian
border on the Iraq side, likely procured "when Saddam was our friend."
The United States armed both sides in the Iran-Iraq conflict.

The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq , released last week,
concluded that Iranian or Syrian involvement is "not likely to be a
major driver of violence" in Iraq .

Paul Krugman wrote that even if Iran were providing aid to some
factions in Iraq , "you can say the same about Saudi Arabia , which is
believed to be a major source of financial support for Sunni
insurgents - and Sunnis, not Iranian-backed Shiites, are still
responsible for most American combat deaths." Indeed, 15 of the 19
hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis. But as Krugman mentions, the Bush
administration's "close personal and financial ties to the Saudis"
have caused it to downplay "Saudi connections to America 's enemies."

American troops are still fighting in Afghanistan . Yet the Bush
administration hasn't complained about the Taliban attacks on
Afghanistan that originate in Pakistan , a country with documented
nuclear weapons. Of course the Bush administration is cozy with the
Pakistani regime.

The government of Israel , which also has nukes, is fueling the call
for an invasion of Iran . On February 7, the Los Angeles Times cited
Israeli politicians and generals warning of a "second Holocaust" if no
one fails to prevent Tehran from acquiring nukes.

Israel would like to start a war with Iran and supports this desire by
citing a quote from Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Israel
should be wiped off the map. But this is an erroneous translation of
what he said. According to University of Michigan professor Juan Cole
and Farsi language analysts, Ahmadinejad was quoting Ayatollah
Khomeini, who said the "regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from
the page of time." Cole said this "does not imply military action or
killing anyone at all." Journalist Diana Johnstone points out the
quote is not aimed at the Israeli people, but at the Zionist "regime"
occupying Jerusalem . "Coming from a Muslim religious leader,"
Johnstone wrote, "this opinion is doubtless based on objection to
Jewish monopoly of a city considered holy by all three of the Abramic
monotheisms." Iran has not threatened to invade Israel .

Indeed, only 36 percent of the Jews in Israel told pollsters last
month they thought a nuclear attack by Iran posed the "biggest threat"
to Israel . Americans concur. Seventy-five percent want negotiations
in lieu of war with Iran .

Yet Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards, all beholden to
the Israel lobby, have bought into Bush's dangerous rhetoric about
Iran .

It would be sheer lunacy to make war on Iran . Three former
high-ranking U.S. military officers and a coalition of 13 British
think-tanks and faith groups have warned that an attack on Iran would
have disastrous consequences.

Bush probably won't ask Congress to bless his Iran war. He will
provoke a confrontation and then claim we have to fight back. Last
year, the New York Times documented a January 2003 meeting with Prime
Minister Tony Blair, where Bush "talked about several ways to provoke
a confrontation [with Iraq], including a proposal to paint a United
States surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes
of drawing fire."

A nuclear attack on Iran would violate U.S. obligations under the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Any attack would violate the U.N.
Charter. All treaties we ratify become part of U.S. law under the
Constitution's Supremacy Clause. Twelve European, international, and
U.S. legal and human rights groups issued an open letter warning of
the illegality of any offensive military action by the U.S. against
Iran. ([2]http://www.nlg.org/news/statements/Military_Iran_2007.htm ).

Congress has tied itself in knots over a non-binding resolution on
Iraq . If our elected representatives responded to their
constituencies instead of the Bush gang's fear mongering, they would
stand up to him and pass a modern day Boland Amendment forbidding
military action against Iran .

Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law,
president of the National Lawyers Guild, and the U.S. representative
to the executive committee of the American Association Jurists. Her
new book, Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law,
will be published in June.