May 24, 2003
US aiming for "regime change" in Iran.
The Guardian reports in
this article that the US is already planning its next invasion, the target this time being Iran.
The Pentagon has proposed a policy of regime change in Iran, after reports that al-Qaida leaders are coordinating terrorist attacks from Iran.
But the plan is opposed by the US state department and the British government, officials in Washington said yesterday.
The Pentagon plan would involve overt means, such as anti-government broadcasts transmitted to Iran, and covert means, possibly including support for the Iraq-based armed opposition movement Mojahedin Khalq (MEK), even though it is designated a terrorist group by the state department.
The US is claiming that Iran is sheltering Al Qaeda soldiers (time to stop calling them terrorists), stating that it is so with the same certainty with which it claimed Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Even more frightening is the suggestion that the Pentagon is making alliances with groups it itself has proclaimed to be "terrorists."
And in an
opinion piece they suggest that the threats against Iran are "a self fulfilling prophecy."
Growing US pressure on Iran takes many forms, much of it questionable and some of it deeply hypocritical. A campaign of public accusation is now in full flood; in the past few days alone, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice has reiterated her view that Iran harbours al-Qaida terrorists, while another official claimed it is stockpiling chemical weapons. Pressure is applied through burgeoning US collaboration with the Iraq-based, Iranian opposition Mujahedeen; and by intimidation of Iranian allies like Syria and Lebanon. The US is pushing Russia to curtail its nuclear technology sales to Tehran; and it is barely less hostile to an EU (and British) policy of critical engagement that contradicts unilateral US trade and investment sanctions.
US pressure has sharp edges, too. Its military encirclement of Iran is all but complete via Afghanistan, the Gulf, Iraq, and Nato's Turkey. George Bush, deeming Iran a part of his infamous "axis of evil", called last summer for what sounded very much like a popular uprising. Turning the screw again last week, Washington demanded that the UN's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, declare Iran in "material breach" (sound familiar?) of its obligations under the non-proliferation treaty (NPT). With Israel, it is convinced that Iran is secretly building nuclear bombs and may attain that goal as early as 2005. In these many ways, the Bush administration seeks to convince the world that Iran, like Saddam's Iraq, constitutes a threat that may one day have to be extinguished by force.
