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March madness
By Gordon Prather
02/18/06 "WND"
-- -- Gholamali Haddadadel, "speaker" of Iran's
Parliament – in Cuba last week –dismissed the possibility of a
U.S. pre-emptive attack against Iran, finding it "impossible" to
'believe" that the U.S. would want "to repeat the experience of
Iraq."
"We hope the United States is not so stupid," he said.
Presumably, Haddadadel meant to say, "We hope that President
Bush, his vice president, his secretary of state and his
ambassador to the United Nations are not so stupid."
Now, some or all of the above may be
stupid. But their stupidity is not what Haddadadel and the rest of
the world need to concern themselves with.
It's their sanity.
As well as the sanity of a majority
of members of Congress.
Up until the eve of Bush's
pre-emptive invasion of oil-rich Iran's Islamic neighbor – oil-rich
Iraq – Bush et al. repeatedly stressed that "we" wanted to settle –
through "diplomatic means, if at all possible" – the international
"crisis" triggered by revelations by "Slam-Dunk" Tenet that Iraq had
reconstructed its nuclear weapons program.
But, by March 2003, on-the-ground
inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency knew – and so
reported to the U.N. Security Council – that there was no
"indication" whatsoever of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq.
Moreover, polls show that the
majority of Americans now know what Tony Blair knew four
years ago. Bush was determined to depose Saddam Hussein no matter
what the IAEA inspectors found or didn't find.
Why?
Well, most Americans are still
puzzled about "why."
But, most Americans now
realize that Bush lied to them – that he didn't pre-emptively
attack Iraq because he believed Saddam had nukes he planned to give
to terrorists.
Of course, congressional leaders
knew that all along.
And most members of Congress should
have at least suspected when they voted overwhelmingly for the
Authorization to Use Military Force Against Iraq that the
presumption was false that:
Iraq both poses a continuing
threat to the national security of the United States and
international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and
remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international
obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and
develop a significant chemical and biological weapons
capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and
supporting and harboring terrorist organizations.
So, how to explain the adoption this
week – by a vote of 404-4 – of
House Concurrent Resolution 341 "condemning the government of
Iran for violating its international nuclear nonproliferation
obligations and expressing support for efforts to report Iran to the
United Nations Security Council."
In particular, what "violations" are
they talking about?
Whereas Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated, "It is
obvious that if Iran cannot be brought to live up to its
international obligations, in fact, the IAEA Statute would
indicate that Iran would have to be referred to the U.N.
Security Council."
OK, what "international obligations" is
Condi talking about?
Well, it's not clear. But, Condi does refer to the IAEA Statute.
So, the House assumes she must be referring to the safeguards
agreement that Iran concluded with the IAEA way back in 1973.
Whereas on Feb. 4, 2006, the IAEA Board of Governors reported
Iran's noncompliance with its IAEA safeguards obligations to the
Security Council …
But, the House is mistaken. The IAEA Board didn't report any such
thing. In fact, the Board didn't "report" anything.
Rather, the
IAEA Board "requested" that Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei
"report" to the Security Council the absolutely outrageous and
discriminatory demands that the Board had made on several occasions,
calling on Iran to – among other things – implement "transparency
measures" which "extend beyond the formal requirements of the
Safeguards Agreement and Additional Protocol, and include such
access to individuals, documentation relating to procurement,
dual-use equipment, certain military-owned workshops, and research
and development as the Agency may request in support of its ongoing
investigations."
As of this writing,
ElBaradei has made no such report and is unlikely to do
so before late March. By then, of course, Bush will
probably have already launched a pre-emptive attack
against Iran.
What will be his
authority?
[Congress] calls on all
members of the United Nations Security Council … to
expeditiously consider and take action in response
to any report of Iran's noncompliance in fulfillment
of the mandate of the Security Council to respond to
and deal with situations bearing on the maintenance
of international peace and security.
What Security Council
mandate is Congress talking about?
Apparently the same one
Bush didn't have when he 'took action' against
Iraq.
March madness.
Physicist James Gordon Prather has
served as a policy implementing official for national
security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy
Agency, the Energy Research and Development
Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of
the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army.
Dr. Prather also served as legislative assistant for
national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla.
-- ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and
member of the Senate Energy Committee and Appropriations
Committee. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear
weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory
in New Mexico.
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