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By Kenneth J. Theisen  July 2, 2008

In a poll released by Public Agenda on June 5, 2008, 47% of Americans surveyed said that the U.S. should use diplomacy with Iran, as opposed to military options. Five percent favored threatening military action and 7% supported taking military action against Iran.  This confirms other polls taken in past years.  A May 2007 Opinion Research Corporation poll done for CNN indicated that 63 per cent of respondents would oppose the U.S. government if it decides to take military action against Iran. A 2006 World Public Opinion poll reported that 75% of respondents preferred trying "to build better relations" with Iran, rather than "pressuring it with implied threats that the U.S. may use military force against it."  You may think that given the opposition to war with Iran that the Bush regime would not even be thinking about launching a military attack against that nation.

But the Bush regime has made it eminently clear that it does not make decisions based on public opinion.  In March, Dick Cheney was confronted with the fact that two-thirds of Americans did not think the war in Iraq was worth fighting and his response was - "So?"

The Bush administration does not determine policy in the interest of the majority of people in the U.S. or of the world, but rather in the interest of the imperialists that run this country.  It is they who have determined that the U.S. must control the Middle East, both for its energy resources and for its strategic location, in order to maintain hegemony over the world.  Saddam Hussein's regime was determined by the U.S. to be an obstacle to this control, and that is why the 2003 invasion was launched by the Bush regime.  So too, the Bush administration has determined that the reactionary Iranian regime is an obstacle that must be removed. Iranian regime change is official U.S. policy, just as Iraqi regime change was American official policy.  And Bush and all his henchmen and women have made it clear that all options, including the military option, are on the table to achieve this end.

Toward the end of removing the Iranian regime, the Bush administration has utilized all weapons at its disposal, including diplomacy, sanctions, threats, propaganda, and military preparations.  These should not be seen in isolation from each other, but rather as part of an arsenal of tools used by U.S. imperialism.

A Propaganda War Preparing for a Shooting War

As part of the propaganda war, Iran has been "linked" by the Bush administration with al Qaeda and other groups it labels terrorists, including the Taliban, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Iraqi "special groups."  If you listen to Bush regime spokesmen, the lack of peace in the Middle East is all Tehran's fault.  The argument is that in Palestine the Iranians use Hamas to keep an Israeli/Palestinian "peace" from happening.  In Lebanon, they utilize Hezbollah and Syrians to keep that country from achieving a peaceful settlement.  In Iraq, Iranian armed and trained "special groups" are destabilizing the country by killing U.S. and coalition forces.  In Afghanistan, the fundamentalist Shi'a Iranians are allegedly supporting the fundamentalist Sunni Taliban.  We are supposed to believe that If only the Bush regime could remove those meddling Iranians, peace would break out all over the Middle East and the surrounding area. 

Of course Bush's propaganda team sees no "meddling" by the U.S. - which has actually invaded both Iraq and Afghanistan and continues to occupy both of these countries.  But then the Bush regime has brought eternal peace to over one million Iraqis and Afghans by hastening their deaths.

Through the use of the diplomatic weapon, the U.S. has been increasingly isolating Iran.  This so-called diplomacy has included increasing economic sanctions against the Iranian people. The U.S. has used its political clout to get European nations and the European Union (EU) to follow its lead by implementing crippling trade, financial, and other economic sanctions against the Iranian nation.  Readers should be clear that sanctions kill.  Between the two Gulf Wars the U.S. used sanctions to kill over one million Iraqis, including hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children. The sanctions allegedly are meant to deter Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, despite the fact that there is no proof that the Iranian regime has a nuclear weapons program of any kind.  In fact the Bush regime's own National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) reported in December 2007 that the Iranians do not have such a program.  I have written about this before on this site. But in the word of Cheney - "so?"

In addition, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has published numerous reports that indicate there is no evidence Iran has or is pursuing a nuclear weapons program. IAEA Chief Mohammed El Baradei recently stated, "I don't believe that what I see in Iran today is a current, grave and urgent danger. If a military strike is carried out against Iran at this time " it would make me unable to continue my work. A military strike, in my opinion, would be worse than anything possible. It would turn the region into a fireball."

An Assist from Congress

But despite the NIE and IAEA reports, the U.S. Democrat-led Congress has taken up the Bush Regime program.  Resolution 362 has 170 Democratic and Republican co-sponsors in the House. (The Senate has a similar resolution pending.)  The resolution virtually parrots all the Bush regime charges against Iran, but it was introduced by Democratic Congressman Gary Ackerman. It is meant to give the Bush regime political cover for its military machinations against Iran. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office says the resolution will pass "like a hot knife through butter."  Since Nancy and her party have so often assisted the Bush regime, she should know.   

The resolution "demands that the president initiate an international effort to immediately and dramatically increase the economic, political, and diplomatic pressure on Iran to verifiably suspend its nuclear enrichment activities by, inter alia, prohibiting the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products; imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran; and prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials not involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran's nuclear program."  In effect, it is calling for launching an economic war against Iran.  It increases the chance of a war breaking out by demanding that Bush impose a blockade (an act of war).  This could only be imposed by armed force. It is unlikely that the Iranians would meekly submit to this. 

But it is likely that armed force is what the Bush regime will use to remove the Iranian regime if it can not remove it any other way.  Earlier this month, on June 4^th Bush stood with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and called Iran a "threat to peace."  And after meeting with Bush, Olmert said the following, "We reached agreement on the need to take care of the Iranian threat. I left with a lot less question marks [than] I had entered with regarding the means, the timetable restrictions, and American resoluteness to deal with the problem. George Bush understands the severity of the Iranian threat and the need to vanquish it, and intends to act on that matter before the end of his term in the White House." Just two days before this meeting, Israel using over 100 U.S. supplied jets, conducted massive military air maneuvers in the Middle East. Little effort was made to keep this "military secret." The media referred to this as a "dress rehearsal" for an attack on Iran's nuclear facility.

Beside its loyal ally, Israel, the U.S. has vast military resources, including nuclear carrier task forces presently stationed in the Persian Gulf area. Bombers stationed on the island of Diego Garcia and even in the U.S. are capable of reaching over 1000 Iranian targets. These targets have been pre-selected by U.S. planners.  Both Bush and Cheney have made recent trips to U.S. allies in the region and have made no secret that dealing with Iran was one of the primary reasons for the visits to these nations. U.S. military attack plans have been drawn up and refined over the last year. Covert operations and targeted assassinations have been authorized by the Bush regime to remove the Iranian regime. 

While diplomacy, sanctions, blockades, etc. can be used to avoid war, this is not the object for the Bush regime or apparently any other so-called national leaders.  Similar tactics were used to prepare for war against Iraq.  Congress with its resolutions is urging on the Bush regime, as are the two leading presidential hopefuls. John McCain has stated the only thing worse than a war with Iran would be a nuclear-armed Iran, and Barack Obama recently declared that he would keep the military option against Iran on the table, adding that "sometimes there is no alternative to confrontation." He also made it clear in a recent speech that he would do "everything" to keep nukes out of the hands of the Iranians. 

But keeping nukes out of the hands of the Iranian regime is just the cover for any attack on Iran, just as the so-called weapons of mass destruction were the cover used to invade Iran.  No matter what the excuse used to justify an attack against Iran, the war is unjust, against the interests of the people of Iran, the U.S., and in fact the entire world, and must be opposed.  Such a war could well be even more destructive of human life and social resources than the Iraq war.  Millions could die in Iran and the surrounding region.  The war could even lead to a nuclear holocaust.  Can you live with yourself if you do not do everything possible to prevent this? 

In 2003, millions were suckered into believing the Bush administration when it lied about the Iraqi invasion.  But this time there is no excuse for anyone to believe the lies of the regime.  Before the Iraq war, millions of us throughout the world took to the streets to oppose the coming war.  In order to prevent the possible coming war with Iran, tens of millions must mobilize to oppose the Bush regime and it cronies in Congress. We can not wait until others act, we must begin to act now.  You know the truth. Now is the time to act on it.

Ken Theisen is a veteran activist of movements opposing U.S. imperialism, its wars and domination of countries throughout the world, and an advocate against domestic violence in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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