Behind the Plan to Bomb Iran

Ismael Hossein-zadeh

It is no longer a secret that the Bush administration has been methodically paving the way toward a bombing strike against Iran. The administration’s plans of an aerial military attack against that country have recently been exposed by a number of reliable sources. [1]

There is strong evidence that the administration’s recent public statements that it is now willing to negotiate with Iran are highly disingenuous: they are designed not to reach a diplomatic solution to the so-called “Iran crisis,” but to remove diplomatic hurdles toward a military “solution.” The administration’s public gestures of a willingness to negotiate with Iran are rendered utterly meaningless because such alleged negotiations are premised on the condition that Iran suspends its uranium enrichment program. Considering the fact that suspension of uranium enrichment, which is altogether within Iran’s legitimate rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), is supposed to be the main point of negotiations, Iran is asked, in effect, “to concede the main point of the negotiations before they started.” [2]

The administration’s case against Iran is eerily reminiscent of its case against Iraq in the run up to the invasion of that country. Accordingly, the case against Iran is based not on any hard evidence provided by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but on dubious allegations that are based on even more dubious sources of intelligence. Iran is asked, in effect, to prove a negative, which is of course mission impossible-hence grounds for “noncompliance” and rationale for “punishment.”

The administration’s case against Iran is so weak, its objectives of a military strike against that country are so fuzzy, and the odds against achieving any kind of meaningful victory are so strong, that even professional military experts are speaking up against the plans of a bombing campaign against Iran. [3] Furthermore, predominant expert views of such a bombing campaign maintain that it would more likely hurt than help the geopolitical and economic interests of the United States.

So, if the administration’s “national interests” argument as grounds for a military strike against Iran is suspect, why then is it so adamantly pushing for such a potentially calamitous confrontation? What are the driving forces behind a military confrontation with Iran?

Critics would almost unanimously point to neoconservative militarists in and around the Bush administration. While this is obviously not false, as it is the neoconservative forces that are beating the drums of War with Iran, it falls short of showing the whole picture. In a real sense, it begs the question: who are the neoconservatives to begin with? And what or who do they represent?

The neoconservative ideologues often claim that their aggressive foreign policy is inspired primarily by democratic ideals and a desire to spread democracy and freedom worldwide-a claim that is far too readily accepted as genuine by corporate Media and many foreign-policy circles. This is obviously little more than a masquerade designed to hide some real powerful special interests that lie behind the fa�ade of neoconservative figures and their ideological rhetoric.

The driving force behind the neoconservatives’ War juggernaut must be sought not in the alleged defense of democracy or of national interests but in the nefarious special interests that are carefully camouflaged behind the front of national interests. These special interests derive lucrative business gains and high dividends from War and militarism. They include both economic interests (famously known as the military-industrial complex) and geopolitical interests (associated largely with Zionist proponents of “greater Israel” in the Middle East, or the Israeli lobby).
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