Iviews.com, President Bush recently visited Europe in a five-day fence-mending journey. Everywhere he went, if there was a persistent theme it was that 'Iran should not have a nuclear weapon.' In that he reached agreement with leaders of the EU countries.[1] On the final leg of his tour, he even tried to persuade his post-9/11 on-again and off-again 'buddy' Vladimir Putin in the Slovak capital of Bratislava into not selling nuclear fuel to Iran. Putin reminded Bush that he had no proof that Iran wanted to acquire the nuclear technology for anything but peaceful means.
Bush also tried to sell his version of 'freedom' and 'democracy' to the Russian leader. There again he miserably failed to induce Putin, who in his turn did not fail to mention that Russia would follow its own version of the both, and did not need any lecturing on the subject of democracy from someone who would not have graced presidency if were it not for those appointed judges in the Supreme Court that decided the case (four years ago), in spite of trailing Gore in popular vote counting.[2]
Since Bush first came to power, he and his neocon advisers (most of whom are Zionists) set up an agenda that has been doggedly anti-Iran, alleging the latter to belong to an 'axis of evil.' Iraq is now under the U.S. occupation, in spite of not possessing the WMDs, and North Korea has declared that it has nuclear bombs. This declaration does not seem to alarm the Bushies as much as the perceived threat from a 'nuclear' Iran. But why, one ponders, when North Korea (and not Iran) is closer to the USA?
It is ludicrous to think that America, with the largest stockpile of nuclear arsenals and a yearly military budget of more than $500 billion (almost equal to the military budget of the rest of the world), is afraid of Iran (whose military expenditure is less than a percent of America's military budget), even if the latter were to develop nuclear weapons.[3]
The reason for America's agitation is obvious: Israel. Everything the neocons and the 'Amen Corner' in the Capitol Hill can think or dream about vis-a-vis the Middle East involves Israel.[4] They are not serious about a nuclear-free Middle East but about a nuclear-free and emasculated Arab and Muslim world that could never challenge the Zionist state. Obviously, no one in Washington ever dares to question why the rogue state has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which Iran is a signatory; or about an inspection of Israel's main installations at Dimona that house a large arsenal of around 200 nuclear missiles, as most independent analysts believe.[5] That is the level of evil, two-facedness with which Washington has sealed its image!
Thus, when Iran says that it wants to acquire the nuclear technology to provide the much-needed cheap power (and clean-air) to its people, the friends of Israel in Washington are troubled. They know that Iran's becoming a nuclear power would alter the imbalance of power in the Middle East, curbing the tactical advantage of Israel.[6] It would be a stabilizing force in a much-troubled area. Therefore, they complain: would not Iran's becoming a nuclear power threaten our ally (and rampart) in the Middle East? They hypocritically argue: “Why should Iran go for nuclear power, when it sits on a sea of oil?”[7] Interestingly, when asked about the rationale behind America's (which also sits on a large sea of oil) own relentless obsession with nuclear technology, they don't have any satisfactory answer.[8] If it was the threat from nations on the other side of the Pacific and the Atlantic, should not Iran have at least the same right to protect itself, now that it is surrounded on all sides by hostile, pro-American satellite states (let alone Israel, with a history of aggression against Muslim states)?
After all, whether we like it or not, nuclear power has acted as a deterrent in many places. For example, since possessing the bomb, India and China have not fought a single war. Nor has there been a major conflict with Pakistan after the latter also acquired the bomb. For France, the nuclear deterrent symbolized the country's independence from Washington and, at one stage, from the European Community. Truly, there has not been a single world war since America dropped bombs in Japan.
Ayatullah Ali Khamenie, Iranian supreme leader, declared on November 5, 2004 during a Friday Khutbah that 'developing, producing or stockpiling nuclear weapons” is haram under Islam. While such a profound statement should have been sufficient to stop the controversy, the fact that Washington has not relented from its accusations show the level of enmity she holds against Iran, since the hostage crisis.
For several months, the policy planners inside the Pentagon have been studying three major tactical options: full-scale of invasion of Iran, surgical strikes of Iranian nuclear and missile installations, and surrogate strike by Israel
