Iran, which certainly has no nuclear weapons programme and has started no war in modern times, has submitted to indignity after indignity in her perfectly legal, and indeed praiseworthy, pursuit of civil nuclear power.
But nothing will ever be good enough. She should refuse to play any more of the games dictated by a heavily militarised, nuclear-armed state and by several others that are not exactly noted for holding elections, for reserving parliamentary seats for Christians and Jews, or for having more women than men at university.
Iran could then sit back and watch as nothing happened. It matters not one jot who is the President of the United States. War against Iran is financially, strategically and logistically impossible. Even Dick Cheney manifestly understood that.
As of this week, there are only two extant threats of nuclear action by any state against any other. Until then, there was only one. In both cases, the victim is the same state, itself non-nuclear and with no desire to change that status, indeed with an explicit policy against any such change. How much longer are we going to treat the victim as the aggressor?
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Actually, Cheney constantly tried to provoke war with Iran and continues to lobby for it.
ReplyDeleteHe never managed to wage one when he was in a position to do so.
ReplyDeleteThis is largely because the military brass stopped him. Then, after the 2006 elections, the Gates team came in and the neocons were out.
ReplyDeleteBut he seriously did try. By one media account (Seymour Hersh), he even floated the idea of fabricating an incident at sea as a pretext for war.
Oh, well, at least he never managed it.
ReplyDeleteI think he realised in the end that it couldn't be done; he was quite, quite crazy enough to have launched it otherwise.
Calling out Obama for not doing it is easy, and the last thing he would want would be for Obama to go ahead. What would he say then?
Mercifully, we will never find out.