Did Bibi Box Obama In?
On Sept. 20, 2002, as the War Party was beating the drum for preventive war on Iraq, lest we wake up to "a mushroom cloud over an American city," The Wall Street Journal introduced an eminent voice to confirm that, yes, Saddam was driving straight for an atomic bomb.
"This is a dictator who is ... feverishly trying to acquire nuclear weapons," wrote Bibi Netanyahu, former prime minister of Israel.
"Saddam's nuclear program has changed. He no longer needs one large reactor to produce the deadly material necessary for atomic bombs. He can produce it in centrifuges the size of washing machines that can be hidden throughout the country—and Iraq is a very big country. Even free and unfettered inspections will not uncover these portable manufacturing sites of mass death. ...
"(I)f action is not taken now, we will all be threatened by a much greater peril ... (for) no gas mask and no vaccine can protect against nuclear weapons."
This was horse manure of a high grade, as high as that which Richard Perle deposited on the podium of the Foreign Policy Research Institute a year earlier, when he informed a stunned audience that Saddam "is busily at work on a nuclear weapon."
Perle had it straight from Saddam's "Bomb Maker," "a man named Kadir Hamza." Hamza, said Perle, told him that after the Osirak reactor was destroyed by Israel in 1981, Saddam "began to build uranium enrichment facilities, many facilities, and we built 400 of them, and they're all over the country. Some of them look like farmhouses, some of them look like classrooms, some of them look like warehouses. You'll never find them. They don't turn out much, but every day they turn out a little bit of nuclear materials."
"So," Perle warned his riveted audience, "it's simply a matter of time before he acquires nuclear weapons."
Washing-machine centrifuges in uranium enrichment facilities disguised as barns and chicken coops! And Americans believed it. And so we were stampeded into war against a nation that did not threaten or attack us, to strip it of weapons it did not even have.
That war has cost 4,500 American dead and 35,000 wounded. It has brought death to perhaps a hundred thousand Iraqis. Four million people have been driven from their homes, 2 million, including half the Christians, into exile. Hundreds of thousands of fatherless Iraqi children are being raised by women widowed by that war.
Undaunted, the War Party has a new war planned for us.
Target: Tehran. And Obama may just have boxed himself in.
In return for Bibi's willingness to talk to the Palestinians, Obama agreed to a December deadline for progress in talks with Iran. If the talks are not fruitful by then, America will step on the escalator.
"I've been very clear that I don't take any options off the table with respect to Iran," said the president.
Bibi got what he came for.
By setting a six-month deadline, Obama has given an incentive to Israel, AIPAC, the neocons and even al-Qaida, which wants Shia Iran bombed back to the stone age, to provoke collisions with Iran, until December, then demand that Obama keep his word, suspend talks, impose severe sanctions and start us on the escalator to war.
And, already, the incidents are multiplying.
Iran's supreme leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei, has charged the United States with complicity in cross-border attacks from Kurdistan. Israel threatens Iran almost daily and practices bombing runs to Greece and Gibraltar. Iran says it can destroy Israel and tests a missile that can hit that nation.
Israel claims Iran is trucking weapons into Gaza via Sudan. But how the trucks get through Egypt, cross the Red Sea and Sinai, then pass through Israeli and Egyptian checkpoints is unexplained.
Hillary Clinton yesterday called an Iranian nuclear capability an "extraordinary threat" and said the U.S. goal is "to persuade the Iranian regime that they will actually be less secure if they proceed with their nuclear weapons program."
Query: What nuclear weapons program?
According to the National Intelligence Estimate of 2007, Iran halted its weapons program in 2003. Nor are there any reports of the diversion of Iran's industrial-grade uranium from Natanz or evidence of any secret centrifuge cascade to enrich it to weapons grade.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the EastWest Institute of Russian and U.S. scientists says Tehran is "at least six years away from building a deliverable nuclear weapon," and a Rand Corp. study says that Iran's "ability to wreak havoc in the Middle East through surrogates is exaggerated."
Iran represents no threat to the United States to justify a war.
And as Korea finished Harry Truman, Vietnam finished LBJ, and Iraq finished the Bush Republicans, war with Iran would make Barack—with the situations in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq all deteriorating—a one-term president.
Barack had best understand. The crowd manipulating him into war with Iran has in mind, first, obliterating Iran; second, getting rid of him.
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
Entries(RSS)
Maybe I’m too optimistic, but I think the option of war against Iran has been taken off the table and Bibi firmly told that in private. Bush and the neo-cons were prevented from attacking Iran by the inner establishment, the military/industrial/security complex which runs the US and wants global empire, but not at the price of nuclear war in the Middle East, perhaps including war with Russia. Obama may not be able to force Bibi’s hand with the Palestinians, but neither he nor the establishment want to have to deal with the results of an Israeli attack on Iran.
Kirk,
I think it is important to remember in these matters what experienced minds are telling us --what exactly it is that they understand that the average citizen does not. There is no substitute for what Pat has experienced in his lifetime of involvement with American politics and his testimony should be taken for what it says. When Mike Ditka of Chicago football coaching fame was asked about Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson feuding over control of the Dallas Cowboys, Ditka said that it was not a matter of one side or the other telling lies. No, he said, his experience in the business had taught him that they were both telling lies. This is, I believe, what Pat is pointing out in this article. And I believe his testimony.
#3 - I'm not overly impressed with Pat's experience; most of his political career has been spent in being a partisan apologist for the Republicans. His several failed attempts as a Republican presidential candidate were exceeded only by his spectacular failure as a Reform Party candidate when he chose an affirmative action running mate - a black, female, semi-Communist. Obama is a lot of things, nearly all of them bad, but he will be much less inclined than Bush to go along with the Israelis in an attack on Iran. In this Obama is much more in line with establishment thinking.
I'm inclined to agree with PJB on this. I'd go farther and argue that the MauMau Messiah is merely a front man, just like his predecessor. He will do as he's told. If Lt. Rahm and his bankster bosses with their non-existent-lobby-that-cannot-be-named decide Iran is to be attacked, the order will be given. As we already saw from Curious Jorge's Misunderestimated Mesopotamiam Misadventures, Congress (who is supposed to declare war) is an utter farce and a joke.
"I’m not overly impressed with Pat’s experience;...His several failed attempts as a Republican presidential candidate were exceeded only by his spectacular failure as a Reform Party candidate when he chose an affirmative action running mate - a black, female, semi-Communist."
I wish you great success Mr. Higdon. You evidently have the mind for it and what it would look like in our times. Failure is a funny thing for many, as it should be, as most of us who post at Chronicles know very well, the GOP has been a joke for a very long time. But not all failures are funny as a quick glance from the plains of Troy to the "place of the skulls" would confirm. There is more to Pat than your eyes see, but even if there wasn't, his politics would have little to do with his observations about Iraq and Iran that have been spot on, even in their spectacular failure to convince readers such as yourself.
I recommend you PJB believers go to intrade.com right now and place your bets. $11.20 gets you $100.00 if either Israel, the US, or both combined make even one overt air strike on Iran by the end of this year.
Why bet on serous stuff? Iran might turn to be a real trouble. Too close to Russia, not flat enough, "partners" might get upset.....
When restless and in doubt, policy making geniuses can always remember clean and harmless solution: bomb Serbia. Most of key personnel from last crime are very much in position at the moment.
Mr. Higdon,
I'll remind you again of something you should already know: Pat Buchanan is an outstanding columnist and analyst, who has been right on all the major issues facing this country since the end of the Cold War. He also came far closer than you suppose to securing the GOP nomination in '96: Bob Dole was planning on dropping out of the race if he lost one more of the early primaries to Buchanan, and the only reason Buchanan did not win in Arizona was because of the large number of absentee ballots that had already been cast before he finished second in the Iowa caucuses and first in the New Hampshire primary. And, yes, his running mate in 2000 was a black woman, but she was a member of the John Birch Society, not a "semi-Communist."
Disagreeing with Buchanan's analysis is one thing, but your ill-concealed disdain for the man is another.
My mistake on PJB's running mate and my apologies to Ezola Foster for confusing her with Leonora Fulani, who was briefly co-chair of PJB's campaign and endorsed him but later withdrew the endorsement. I don't think PJB was ever close to winning the Republican nomination; Dole or no Dole, the Republican establishment which Buchanan has so faithfully served would never have let him have it. And I don't agree that he has been right on every major post-Cold War issue. And, as I've state above, for those who believe that the US and/or Israel are heading for open war with Iran, intrade.com awaits your wager.
From another angle: In a May 23rd CNBC interview, Gerald Celente, director of Trends Research Institute, sees the worsening economic situation as a prelude to war. He said, "As the Federal Reserve throws more and more money at the economic crisis and holds interest rates down at historic lows, it could be inflating a devastating ‘bailout bubble,’....We’re looking at a bailout bubble that’s way bigger than the dotcom bubble before it and the real-estate bubble that we’re now getting out of, or attempting to,” He added that this is unprecedented and that the economic system is being restructured. He warned that when the bail-out bubble bursts there will be no bouncing back, because the Federal Government "now has a vast equity position in financial institutions." Thus, there won't be any funds available as there were after the real-estate bubble burst. If the bail-out bubble bursts it will be, therefore, a government failure, but he said, "governments become emboldened by their failures." Emboldened to such a degree that war could follow. Is it possible that the six month deadline on Iran by the U.S. and Israel is both a wait/see monitoring of the economy and a time of war preparation in case of a catastrophic economic collapse? I agree with Mr. Higdon that war won't come in December. However, if we fall into a really great depression, watch out Iran in January.
Mr. Higdon,
You also owe an apology to Pat Buchanan, a friend of this magazine and of many of us who write for it, for falsely stating that he chose a "semi-Communist" as his running mate.
As for putting my money down, I did that, in '92, '96, and 2000, when I donated time any money to each of Pat Buchanan's campaigns. I'm glad I did so, and only wish that more conservatives had not sat on their hands during those campaigns.
My apologies also to PJB for my Foster/Fulani mix-up. I must defend myself, however, from the charge of having "ill-concealed disdain" for Mr. Buchanan. I've read all of his books and purchased two of them. I was gently reprimanded by none other than Dr. Fleming for my apparently excessive praise of his most recent book on the origins of WWII. But apparently I've run into some sort of PJB cult here. Not only (per Mr. Piatak) has he been right about every major post-Cold War issue (does anyone have a record that good?) but I should not (per Robert) criticize him because his experienced mind understands more than the average citizen. If I were to take that seriously, it would prevent me from criticizing or disagreeing with any establishment insider.
Mr. Higdon,
Thanks for the clarification, and I apologize for misreading your comments. I don't take kindly to criticism of Buchanan because I know him and consider him to be a friend. I didn't say he was right about every issue, but about every major issue--on the wisdom of going to war in the Mideast and over Kosovo and of maintaining the Cold War system of alliances, on the wisdom of dismantling our industrial base through free trade, on the wisdom of radically transforming our country through mass immigration, on whether we should be concerned about stagnating wages and growing inequality that are the result of free trade and mass immigration, and on the existence of a culture war being waged by the left to destroy traditional morality in our country. On each of these Buchanan bucked elite opinion on both the left and the right, and on each of these (except perhaps the last) he has enjoyed little support except from oases of good sense like Chronicles.
#13. Mr. Piatak,
I also supported Pat in all his campaigns, even briefly joining the Reform Party in 2000 to back him in the primary. Yet I've always disagreed with him on the need for "protecting" American industry.
For one thing, the real and large decline in middle-class incomes the past 35 years mainly was caused by Nixon taking us off the gold standard in 1971. That caused 1000% inflation that pushed the middle class into upper-income tax brackets. Reagan indexed income tax rates, but didn't make them retroactive, so the middle-class stayed in upper-income tax brackets.
Protectionism also backfired in the early 2000s, when steel tariffs jacked up prices to the auto companies, who lobbied to get them repealed, which eventually happened. Did those tariffs contribute to the demise of the auto industry a few years later? I don't know. The auto industry has made so many mistakes, and been oppressed by so many regulatory burdens (as a recent Chronicles article detailed), that it's hard to break out what were the fatal wounds the government inflicted on the industry, and what was just flesh wounds. But it's worth looking into.
In defense of Pat, he always coupled tariff increases (which, if memory serves, he wanted to be around 15% across-the-board) with his excellent flat-tax proposal, of about a 13% income tax rate (again, if I remember correctly). This actually was a good proposal, even to a free-trader like me, and if it could have been enacted and stuck to would have been an improvement on the current system.
But there were two problems. First, even if such a program were enacted, it would be easy for Congress to come back and impose even higher income tax rates -- so we'd get high income tax and tariff rates, the worst of all worlds.
Second, tariffs always end up with so many exemptions that they end up looking like Swiss cheese. First would come the armaments industry, claiming, "Without tariffs, our products will be cheaper, so we can send more of them to our brave troops and help save their lives." Then declining industries would insist on exemptions for their raw materials. And so on.
Finally, whatever the causes may have been, I'm sure you'll agree that it's shocking that GM, formerly the world's mightiest industrial company, has effectively been destroyed, turned by Bush and Obama into a green Yugo. I suspect that, a few years down the road, it'll end up being sold to the Chinese, who like Buicks.
Mr. Higdon,
WHen you wrote that "I’m not overly impressed with Pat’s experience;…His several failed attempts as a Republican presidential candidate were exceeded only by his spectacular failure as a Reform Party candidate when he chose an affirmative action running mate - a black, female, semi-Communist.”
I thought you were wrong to exclude his service to three Presidents, that you were wrong to mention his running mate as a semi-communists, and wrong to spend too much energy bashing Pat when there were so many others in the target rich environemnt of D.C. establsihment circles. What I was trying to imply was that you are not really qualified to make the reckless criticisms of Pat that you were making. As far as your right to do so I have no interest in, it was the stupidity and ignorance that I was attempting to address.
Mr. Seiler,
Yes, GM's decline has been sad to watch, and government regulation has played a major role. And Buchanan wisely coupled his call for tariffs with corresponding reductions in the income tax. But it is useful to recall that the income tax was pushed by free traders as an alternate revenue source to tariffs in the early twentieth century, and a federal government funded by tariffs (as it used to be) was a small federal government. I agree that we have gone so far down the road to global free trade that it will be hard to extricate ourselves, but if we don't we will ultimately lose most of the rest of our industrial base.
#16. Mr. Piatak,
Those are all good points. Although I think the best way to restore the industrial base is to eliminate the policies eroding it: inflation, wildly excessive regulation, and high taxation. Russia now has a top income tax rate of 13%. In California, our top state tax rate alone is 10.55%, for millionaire incomes. But the next highest rate, 9.55%, begins at just $45,000 of income.
(In California, you're considered "rich" if you make $45,000, but can't even think about buying a 50-year-old shotgun shack on a slab on a tiny lot until you make at least twice that.)
On top of that is the 35% federal top income tax rate, soon to go up under Obama. If you're in the middle class, the 15.3% Socialist Security/Medicare tax (combined personal and company levies) digs in on top of a federal income tax rate of about 25%. When my late father was starting his family in the late 1950s, the Soc Sec tax (combined) was 6%, and there was no Medicare tax.
I don't see how tariffs would improve any of that dismal situation.
Now, the Democrats are outright socialists, and the Republicans only care about war and torture. The Bush Depression is going to last years and radically change the country. Medicare will collapse and lead to widespread euthanasia because 1/3 of costs are in the last 6 months of life. Socialist Security will be shored up by even more tax increases and increasing the retirement age to 72. The Feds will raid pension funds and 401(k) plans "for the good of retirees.")
America's economy will recede into 4th or 5th place, a big Italy with great designers (Apple interfaces) whose products are made in China (Apple hardware today).
Because unchecked numbers of immigrants replaced aborted natives, Balkanization will proceed apace, perhaps followed by secession.
We warned them, didn't we?
Mr. Seiler:
Your points are well taken, and yes, we did warn them.
I'm not quite sure what would be so bad about the US being in 4th or 5th place economically. Americans have badly misused their wealth and might well be more virtuous with less of it. Or do we all believe in the vulgar bumper sticker slogan of a few years ago, "He who dies with the most toys, wins"? And what is so bad about secession that it should be warned against? I thought a lot of us were in favor of at least a right to secession which should be prudentially exercised on occasion.
Mr Higdon, I don't think it was secession that Mr Seiler was referring to having warned people against but rather the collapse of the economy and balkanisation.
Despite the pain that will follow a decline in American economic power, it may have its benefits. It is only when one system fails that people will genuinely consider another.
I also admire Mr. Buchanan (and put my money where my mouth was - ouch!) but I recognize his limitations. He has never been able to sever his emotional ties to the Republican Party and his political/tactical judgment is questionable. His articulate opposition to the reigning free-trade and interventionist ideologies is the glory of his career and for that he ought to receive a plenary indulgence from us.
Here I am smoking an imported cigar (very delicious) knowing that the best cigars come from Cuba. However, there is a U.S. imposed boycott upon "Communist" Cuba; therefore, we are not allowed to import their cigars. Nevertheless, we can trade with Communist China (who has us by the short and curlies, financially speaking) and many of our manufacturing giants have gone there for reasons of profit. Yet, does any product of China match the cigars from Havanna? Our foreign policy is full of contradictions and not based on real princples. Do I care if Iran develops an atom bomb? Do I care if N. Korea fires missiles into the Pacific? Why should I when one of the most blood-thirsty regimes in the history of the world, China, is allowed preferential trading agreements. I think Mr. Buchanan, and most of the governing elite in America, is bamboozling us (with all respect to Mr. Piatak's apologia Buchananensis).