Part One:
Behind The Iran Crisis
By Mark Weber
[Institute for Historical Review]
In the months leading up to the March 2003 attack on Iraq, President Bush and other high-ranking US officials repeatedly warned that the Baghdad regime posed a threat to the US and the world – a threat so grave and imminent that the United States had to act quickly to bomb, invade and occupy that country.
On Sept. 28, 2002, for example, Bush said: “The danger to our country is grave and it is growing. The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given... This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year.”
Shortly before the invasion, on March 6, 2003, the President declared: “Saddam Hussein and his weapons are a direct threat to this country, to our people, and to all free people... I believe Saddam Hussein is a threat to the American people. I believe he’s a threat to the neighborhood in which he lives. And I’ve got good evidence to believe that. He has weapons of mass destruction... The American people know that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.”
These claims were untrue. As the world now knows, Iraq had no such arsenal, and posed no threat to the US. Alarmist suggestions that the Baghdad regime was working with the al-Qaeda terror network likewise proved to be without foundation. The claims by President Bush and other high-level American officials to justify the war, and their glib assurances about how “regime change” in Iraq would usher in a new dawn of democracy and freedom throughout the region have proven disastrously wrong.
Now, four years later, something of the scale of the calamity is clear. More than 3,000 American military personnel have lost their lives, along with many tens of thousands of Iraqis. Many more have been horribly wounded and maimed. The war and the occupation have cost hundreds of billions of dollars. In Arab and Muslim countries, it has fueled intense hatred of the US, and has brought many new recruits to the ranks of anti-American terrorists. Around the world, it has generated unmatched distrust and hostility toward the United States.
Skeptics
A few months after the attack, President Bush denounced as “revisionists” and “revisionist historians” the skeptics who questioned his claims that the Baghdad regime had an arsenal of weapons so vast and so dangerous that the US had to act quickly to attack and occupy Iraq. On that occasion, Bush was unintentionally telling the truth. Those who question government claims, particularly wartime claims, are indeed “revisionists” – that is, thinking men and women who question dogma, propaganda and political orthodoxy.
Today, virtually the entire world is “revisionist.” Regardless of what President Bush and his friends may snidely suggest, the revisionists were and are right, and revisionism – that is, thoughtful skepticism of official claims – is an honorable and essential feature of any free society.
In recent years, awareness of the Jewish-Zionist role in the war, of the reality of Jewish-Zionist power, and of its hold on US policy, has grown everywhere – an awareness that, once grasped, is obvious and confirmed anew each day with the unfolding of events.
More prominent individuals have been willing publicly to acknowledge this power. In Britain, a veteran member of the House of Commons bluntly declared in May 2003 that Jews had taken control of America’s foreign policy, and had succeeded in pushing the US into war. Tam Dalyell, a Labour party deputy and the longest-serving House member, said: “A Jewish cabal have taken over the government in the United States and formed an unholy alliance with fundamentalist Christians… There is far too much Jewish influence in the United States.”
In Malaysia, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed declared in October 2003: “The Europeans killed six million Jews out of twelve million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them.”
Zionist
Here in the United States, John Mearsheimer, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Walt, a professor of international affairs at Harvard, issued in March of last year a carefully written, judiciously worded and copiously referenced paper, “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy,” which has generated wide interest and spirited discussion.
Quickly, and predictably, the paper and its authors came under fierce attack from Zionist leaders and organizations – a response that underscored one of the paper’s main points. But the critics have been outnumbered by those who have welcomed this work as a landmark event and as an important breakthrough.
In their paper, professors Walt and Mearsheimer wrote: “For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centerpiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread ‘democracy’ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardized not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history…
“The Israeli government and pro-Israel groups in the United States have worked together to shape the administration’s policy towards Iraq, Syria and Iran, as well as its grand scheme for reordering the Middle East. Pressure from Israel and the Lobby was not the only factor behind the decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was critical. Some Americans believe that this was a war for oil, but there is hardly any direct evidence to support this claim. Instead, the war was motivated in good part by a desire to make Israel more secure.”
Almost nothing in the Walt-Mearsheimer paper is new or original. Its main point about the dangerous role of what they call “The Lobby” is understood around the world by informed men and women who closely follow political affairs and history. The paper is significant because it was written by two scholars of eminence and stature.
Oppression
Another important contribution to the growing public awareness of the power and impact of the pro-Israel lobby has been the new book by former president Jimmy Carter. In this book, entitled Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, and in statements made in connection with the book’s appearance, Carter has spoken pointedly and critically about the pro-Israel lobby and its role in shaping US policy to support Israeli oppression and war.
Immediately following the book’s publication, the former president was predictably assailed with the usual smears, and by the usual crowd. Jewish writer David Horowitz, for one, wrote a widely-circulated essay entitled “Jimmy Carter: Jew-Hater, Genocide-Enabler, Liar,” a vicious item that reflects his outlook and the attitude of many other pro-Israel activists.
As it happens, I had a run-in myself with David Horowitz in December [2006], when I appeared with him as a fellow “guest,” if that’s the right word, on the nationally-broadcast radio show of Sean Hannity. I won’t go into details of that raucous appearance, except to mention that both Horowitz and Hannity were as ignorant and as bigoted as they were rude.
In recent months the most pressing international issue has been the question of a new war in the Middle East . The world is anxiously following the so-called crisis over Iran, or as Israel-firsters prefer to call it “The Iranian Threat.”
This crisis is artificial. It is every bit as phony as the one manufactured to provide a pretext for war against Iraq.
Propaganda
Once again our leaders prepare Americans for a new war. Once again we are told that another country that Israel regards as an adversary is a grave threat to peace.
Once again our politicians and a compliant media present a barrage of sensational and frightening propaganda claims – claims remarkably similar to those we heard in 2002 and 2003, and from the same Israel-friendly crowd.
For more than a year now, Washington has been pressuring Iran with economic sanctions and repeated threats of military attack to back its demand that the Tehran government give up its nuclear development program.
The announcement last year that Iran had enriched a minute amount of uranium unleashed urgent calls for a preventive US military strike against that country. Officials in Washington ominously declare that “all options” are “on the table.” Vice President Cheney has said that Iran is “right at the top” of the world’s so-called dangerous countries, and he expressed the view that Israel “might well decide to act first” to destroy Iran’s nuclear program.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared: “The pursuit by the Iranian regime of nuclear weapons represents a direct threat to the entire international community, including to the United States and to the Persian Gulf region.” - To be continued in Part Two.
[An address by Mark Weber, director of the Institute for Historical Review, delivered at an IHR meeting in Irvine, Califronia, on March 24, 2007]
Behind The Iran Crisis
By Mark Weber
[Institute for Historical Review]
In the months leading up to the March 2003 attack on Iraq, President Bush and other high-ranking US officials repeatedly warned that the Baghdad regime posed a threat to the US and the world – a threat so grave and imminent that the United States had to act quickly to bomb, invade and occupy that country.
On Sept. 28, 2002, for example, Bush said: “The danger to our country is grave and it is growing. The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given... This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year.”
Shortly before the invasion, on March 6, 2003, the President declared: “Saddam Hussein and his weapons are a direct threat to this country, to our people, and to all free people... I believe Saddam Hussein is a threat to the American people. I believe he’s a threat to the neighborhood in which he lives. And I’ve got good evidence to believe that. He has weapons of mass destruction... The American people know that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.”
These claims were untrue. As the world now knows, Iraq had no such arsenal, and posed no threat to the US. Alarmist suggestions that the Baghdad regime was working with the al-Qaeda terror network likewise proved to be without foundation. The claims by President Bush and other high-level American officials to justify the war, and their glib assurances about how “regime change” in Iraq would usher in a new dawn of democracy and freedom throughout the region have proven disastrously wrong.
Now, four years later, something of the scale of the calamity is clear. More than 3,000 American military personnel have lost their lives, along with many tens of thousands of Iraqis. Many more have been horribly wounded and maimed. The war and the occupation have cost hundreds of billions of dollars. In Arab and Muslim countries, it has fueled intense hatred of the US, and has brought many new recruits to the ranks of anti-American terrorists. Around the world, it has generated unmatched distrust and hostility toward the United States.
Skeptics
A few months after the attack, President Bush denounced as “revisionists” and “revisionist historians” the skeptics who questioned his claims that the Baghdad regime had an arsenal of weapons so vast and so dangerous that the US had to act quickly to attack and occupy Iraq. On that occasion, Bush was unintentionally telling the truth. Those who question government claims, particularly wartime claims, are indeed “revisionists” – that is, thinking men and women who question dogma, propaganda and political orthodoxy.
Today, virtually the entire world is “revisionist.” Regardless of what President Bush and his friends may snidely suggest, the revisionists were and are right, and revisionism – that is, thoughtful skepticism of official claims – is an honorable and essential feature of any free society.
In recent years, awareness of the Jewish-Zionist role in the war, of the reality of Jewish-Zionist power, and of its hold on US policy, has grown everywhere – an awareness that, once grasped, is obvious and confirmed anew each day with the unfolding of events.
More prominent individuals have been willing publicly to acknowledge this power. In Britain, a veteran member of the House of Commons bluntly declared in May 2003 that Jews had taken control of America’s foreign policy, and had succeeded in pushing the US into war. Tam Dalyell, a Labour party deputy and the longest-serving House member, said: “A Jewish cabal have taken over the government in the United States and formed an unholy alliance with fundamentalist Christians… There is far too much Jewish influence in the United States.”
In Malaysia, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed declared in October 2003: “The Europeans killed six million Jews out of twelve million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them.”
Zionist
Here in the United States, John Mearsheimer, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Walt, a professor of international affairs at Harvard, issued in March of last year a carefully written, judiciously worded and copiously referenced paper, “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy,” which has generated wide interest and spirited discussion.
Quickly, and predictably, the paper and its authors came under fierce attack from Zionist leaders and organizations – a response that underscored one of the paper’s main points. But the critics have been outnumbered by those who have welcomed this work as a landmark event and as an important breakthrough.
In their paper, professors Walt and Mearsheimer wrote: “For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centerpiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread ‘democracy’ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardized not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history…
“The Israeli government and pro-Israel groups in the United States have worked together to shape the administration’s policy towards Iraq, Syria and Iran, as well as its grand scheme for reordering the Middle East. Pressure from Israel and the Lobby was not the only factor behind the decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was critical. Some Americans believe that this was a war for oil, but there is hardly any direct evidence to support this claim. Instead, the war was motivated in good part by a desire to make Israel more secure.”
Almost nothing in the Walt-Mearsheimer paper is new or original. Its main point about the dangerous role of what they call “The Lobby” is understood around the world by informed men and women who closely follow political affairs and history. The paper is significant because it was written by two scholars of eminence and stature.
Oppression
Another important contribution to the growing public awareness of the power and impact of the pro-Israel lobby has been the new book by former president Jimmy Carter. In this book, entitled Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, and in statements made in connection with the book’s appearance, Carter has spoken pointedly and critically about the pro-Israel lobby and its role in shaping US policy to support Israeli oppression and war.
Immediately following the book’s publication, the former president was predictably assailed with the usual smears, and by the usual crowd. Jewish writer David Horowitz, for one, wrote a widely-circulated essay entitled “Jimmy Carter: Jew-Hater, Genocide-Enabler, Liar,” a vicious item that reflects his outlook and the attitude of many other pro-Israel activists.
As it happens, I had a run-in myself with David Horowitz in December [2006], when I appeared with him as a fellow “guest,” if that’s the right word, on the nationally-broadcast radio show of Sean Hannity. I won’t go into details of that raucous appearance, except to mention that both Horowitz and Hannity were as ignorant and as bigoted as they were rude.
In recent months the most pressing international issue has been the question of a new war in the Middle East . The world is anxiously following the so-called crisis over Iran, or as Israel-firsters prefer to call it “The Iranian Threat.”
This crisis is artificial. It is every bit as phony as the one manufactured to provide a pretext for war against Iraq.
Propaganda
Once again our leaders prepare Americans for a new war. Once again we are told that another country that Israel regards as an adversary is a grave threat to peace.
Once again our politicians and a compliant media present a barrage of sensational and frightening propaganda claims – claims remarkably similar to those we heard in 2002 and 2003, and from the same Israel-friendly crowd.
For more than a year now, Washington has been pressuring Iran with economic sanctions and repeated threats of military attack to back its demand that the Tehran government give up its nuclear development program.
The announcement last year that Iran had enriched a minute amount of uranium unleashed urgent calls for a preventive US military strike against that country. Officials in Washington ominously declare that “all options” are “on the table.” Vice President Cheney has said that Iran is “right at the top” of the world’s so-called dangerous countries, and he expressed the view that Israel “might well decide to act first” to destroy Iran’s nuclear program.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared: “The pursuit by the Iranian regime of nuclear weapons represents a direct threat to the entire international community, including to the United States and to the Persian Gulf region.” - To be continued in Part Two.
[An address by Mark Weber, director of the Institute for Historical Review, delivered at an IHR meeting in Irvine, Califronia, on March 24, 2007]
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=6389http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=6389
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