A couple of days ago, Barack Obama published an oped about his plans to “put pressure” on Iran.
From Obama’s website, here’s his rationale for “putting pressure”:
The decision to wage a misguided war in Iraq has substantially strengthened Iran, which now poses the greatest strategic challenge to U.S. interests in the Middle East in a generation. Iran supports violent groups and sectarian politics in Iraq, fuels terror and extremism across the Middle East and continues to make progress on its nuclear program in defiance of the international community. Meanwhile, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has declared that Israel must be “wiped off the map.”
It’s all Neo-Con bullshit.
1) “Iran supports violent groups in Iraq” — yeah, and the NYT reports this morning that the US is funneling money to Sunni tribal forces. Link. The Iranian’s good buddies got elected the GOVERNMENT in Iraq in elections we imposed; not surprising they help them. We’re just mucking around in the Iraqi civil war.
The only suggestion that Iran is arming anyone is coming from the same US military flacks who want us to believe “the surge is working.”
2) State Department reports consistently said Iran had pretty much got out of the terror business — until the Cheney Administration started cooking the facts. Familiar? Even now, the definition of “supporting terrorism” is that they help Shi’a movements in the region. You might too if you were a bunch of Baptists caught in a sea of hostile Roman Catholics. Sorry, just trying to use a little imagination.
Israelis, and U.S. Neo-Cons, think Iranian assistance to Hezbollah is terrorism. Many Lebanese, including many Christians, think Iranian aid to Hezbollah has helped Shi’a, long excluded as “inferiors” from the Lebanese polity, find a voice. Depends where you are sitting.
- Mohamed ElBaradei of the United Nations says Iran is cooperating in showing that its nuclear development is peaceful. Remember ElBaradei? He’s the guy who insisted Iraq didn’t have WMD?
- Ahmadinejad is a bombastic asshole. And what do we have for a President? No way the Iranian president can accomplish the destruction of Israel — and some like Juan Cole have said that’s a mistranslation anyway.
Obama is playing the warmonger; on this point, he’s no better than the Neo-Cons.
Cross posted at Happening Here.