By Patrick J. Buchanan
August 06, 2021"Information
Clearing House" -
A week ago, the MT Mercer Street, a
Japanese-owned tanker managed by a U.K.-based
company owned by Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer,
sailing in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Oman,
was struck by drones.
A British security guard and Romanian crew member
were killed.
Britain and the U.S. immediately blamed Iran, and
the Israelis began to beat the war drums.
Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said
action against Iran should be taken "right now."
Tuesday, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett warned
Israel could "act alone." "They can’t sit calmly in
Tehran while igniting the entire Middle East –
that’s over," said Bennett. "We are working to
enlist the whole world, but when the time comes, we
know how to act alone."
Wednesday, Gantz ratcheted it up, "Now is the
time for deeds – words are not enough. … It is time
for diplomatic, economic and even military deeds.
Otherwise the attacks will continue."
Thursday, Gantz went further: "Israel is ready to
attack Iran, yes. … We are at a point where we need
to take military action against Iran. The world
needs to take action against Iran now."
And what do the Americans say?
"We are confident that Iran conducted this
attack," said Secretary of State Antony Blinken. "We
are working with our partners to consider our next
steps and consulting with governments inside the
region and beyond on an appropriate response, which
will be forthcoming."
Iran, however, has repeatedly denied that it
ordered the attack.
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What makes the attack puzzling is its timing, as
it occurred just days before the inauguration of the
newly elected president of Iran, the
ultraconservative hardliner Ebrahim Raisi.
Query: Would Raisi have ordered a provocative
attack on an Israeli-managed vessel, just days
before taking office, when his highest priority is a
lifting of the "maximum pressure" sanctions imposed
on his country by former President Donald Trump?
Why?
Would Raisi put at risk his principal diplomatic
goal, just to get even with Israel for some earlier
pinprick strike in the tit-for-tat war in which Iran
and Israel have been engaged for years? Again, why?
If not Raisi, would the outgoing president, the
moderate Hassan Rouhani, have ordered such an attack
on his last hours in office and risk igniting a war
with Israel and the US that his country could not
win?
Could the attack have been the work of rogue
elements in the Iranian Republican Guard Corps?
Gantz and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid claim that
Saeed Ara Jani, head of the drones section of the
IRGC, "is the man personally responsible for the
terror attacks in the Gulf of Oman."
Or was this simply a reflexive Iranian reprisal
for Israeli attacks?
For years, Israel and Iran have been in a shadow
war, with Iran backing Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in
Lebanon, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and the Shia
militia in Syria and Iraq.
Israel has both initiated and responded to
attacks with strikes on Iranian-backed militia in
Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, and by sabotaging Iran’s
nuclear program and assassinating its nuclear
scientists.
But whoever was behind the attack in the Gulf of
Oman, and whatever the political motive, the US was
not the target, and the US should not respond
militarily to a drone strike that was not aimed at
us.
No one has deputized us to police the Middle
East, and we have not prospered these last two
decades by having deputized ourselves.
With America leaving Afghanistan and US troops in
Iraq transiting out of any "combat" role, now is not
the time to get us ensnared in a new war with Iran.
Lest we forget. It was in an August, 57 years
ago, that the Tonkin Gulf incident occurred, which
led America to plunge into an eight-year war in
Vietnam.
President Joe Biden’s diplomatic goal with Iran,
since taking office, has been the resurrection of
the 2015 nuclear deal from which former President
Donald Trump walked away. In return for Iran’s
reacceptance of strict conditions on its nuclear
program, the US has offered a lifting of Trump’s
sanctions.
Whoever launched the drone strike sought to
ensure that no new U.S.-Iran deal is consummated,
that US sanctions remain in place, and that a US war
with Iran remain a possibility.
But, again, why would Tehran carry out such a
drone attack and kill crewmen on an Israeli-managed
vessel – then loudly deny it?
Since he took office, Biden has revealed his
intent to extricate the US from the "forever wars"
of the Middle East and to pivot to the Far East and
China. By this month’s end, all US forces are to be
out of Afghanistan, and the 2,500 US troops still in
Iraq are to be repurposed, no longer to be
designated as combat troops.
Those behind this attack on the Israeli-managed
vessel do not want to reduce the possibility of war
between the United States and Iran.
They want to make it a reality. We ought not
accommodate them.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of
Churchill, Hitler, and “The Unnecessary War”: How
Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World.
To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read
features by other Creators writers and cartoonists,
visit the Creators Web page at
www.creators.com.
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