[THS] Robert Parry: Obama Goes with Neocon Flow on Iran

[The Harder Stuff in news and commentary]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25680.htm


Obama Goes with Neocon Flow on Iran

By Robert Parry

June 10, 2010 "Consortium News" - - Whether wittingly or witlessly, President Barack
Obama is pursuing a neocon-charted path on Iran that parallels the one that George
W. Bush took to war with Iraq ­ ratcheting up sanctions against the “enemy,”
refusing to tolerate more peaceful options, and swaggering along with the
propagandistic tough-guy-ism of the major U.S. news media.

The Obama administration is celebrating its victory in getting the UN Security Council
on Wednesday to approve a fourth round of economic sanctions against Iran. Obama
also is expected to sign on to even more draconian penalties that should soon sail
through Congress.

Obama may be thinking that his UN diplomatic achievement will buy him some
credibility ­ and some time ­ with American neocons and Israel’s Likud government,
which favor a showdown with Iran over its nuclear program.

However, the end result of the new sanctions may well be a greater likelihood that
the debate within the Iranian government will tilt toward a decision to proceed with
ever-higher-level enrichment of uranium and possibly construction of a nuclear bomb
as the only means of self-defense.

That may be the opposite of what Obama seeks, but it is what the neocons and Likud
would cite as justification for another Middle East war.

Just as the neocons and Israel wanted “regime change” in Iraq, they have long
hungered for “regime change” in Iran, too. A favorite neocon joke at the time of the
Iraq War was to speculate on which direction to go next, to Syria or Iran, with the
punch-line, “Real men to go Tehran!”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made clear that he considers the
possibility of an Iranian nuclear weapon an “existential threat” to Israel, one that
would justify a military strike. While Israel’s powerful air force would likely inflict the
first blows, national security analysts believe that the U.S. military would be pulled in
to finish off Iran’s military capabilities.

The neocon/Likud hope would be that these military attacks would embolden Iran’s
internal opposition to rise up and overthrow the Islamic system that has governed
Iran since 1979, in other words, “regime change.” Much like the neocon/Likud
thinking about Iraq, however, these grandiose plans often end up with unpredictable
and bloody outcomes.

Many war-gamers believe the economic, geo-political and military consequences of
an attack on Iran are impossible to gauge, though some in the U.S. military fear that
such a conflict could ignite a regional war and cause serious strategic damage to the
United States. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Bomb-Bomb-Iran Parlor Game.”]

President Onboard?

Whether President Obama comprehends these risks ­ or may invite them ­ is
unclear. What is known is that he staffed his administration with a number of
hardliners on Iran, from Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State to Rahm Emanuel as
White House chief of staff. Voices of moderation, if there are any, have been
noticeably silent.

Some analysts believe that the President is a relative “dove” on Iran, citing his private
letter to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva that encouraged Brazil and
Turkey to work out a deal to get Iran to transfer about half its low-enriched uranium
to Turkey in exchange for more highly enriched uranium that could only be used for
peaceful medical purposes.

However, after Lula da Silva and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan got
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to agree to that deal, the arrangement was
denounced by Secretary of State Clinton and was ridiculed by the major U.S. news
media, including the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Even after Brazil released Obama’s supportive letter, the President would not publicly
defend his position. Instead, his administration pressed ahead with the new round of
sanctions.

What is also clear is that tough-guy-ism is running strong, much like it was in the
months before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

A New York Times editorial on Thursday praised the new round of anti-Iran
sanctions, but complained they “do not go far enough.” Still, the Times took
encouragement from the hope that the United States and European countries might
impose much harsher sanctions on their own.

The Times also took another mocking swipe at Brazil and Turkey, which voted against
the new sanctions from their temporary seats on the Security Council.

“The day’s most disturbing development was the two no votes in the Security Council
from Turkey and Brazil,” the Times wrote. “Both are disappointed that their efforts to
broker a nuclear deal with Iran didn’t go far. Like pretty much everyone else, they
were played by Tehran.”

Though this Times point of view fits with neocon orthodoxy ­ that any reasonable
move toward peace and away from confrontation is a sign of naivete and weakness ­
the fact is that the Iran-Turkey-Brazil deal was torpedoed by the United States, after
Obama had encouraged it. This wasn’t a case of the two countries being “played by
Tehran.”

The Real Agenda

The Times star columnist Thomas L. Friedman has more explicitly laid out the real
goal regarding Iran, not nuclear safeguards, but “regime change.” In a May 26
column, Friedman wrote that the United States should do whatever it can to help
Iran’s internal opposition overthrow President Ahmadinejad and Iran’s Islamic-
directed government.

“In my view, the ‘Green Revolution’ in Iran is the most important, self-generated,
democracy movement to appear in the Middle East in decades,” Friedman wrote.

“It has been suppressed, but it is not going away, and, ultimately, its success — not
any nuclear deal with the Iranian clerics — is the only sustainable source of security
and stability. We have spent far too little time and energy nurturing that democratic
trend and far too much chasing a nuclear deal.”

Friedman’s argument again tracks with the neocon case for war with Iran ­ as he
earlier was onboard for war with Iraq ­ claiming that “regime change” was the only
acceptable outcome.

As an institution, the New York Times also played a key role in making war with Iraq
inevitable, with bogus reporting about Iraq getting aluminum tubes for nuclear
centrifuges. Similarly, in the case of Iran, the Times and other leading U.S. news
outlets have promoted the propaganda line that Iran’s presidential election last June
was “fraudulent” or “rigged.”

However, an analysis by the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy
Attitudes found that there was little evidence to support allegations of fraud or to
conclude that most Iranians viewed Ahmadinejad’s reelection as illegitimate.

Not a single Iranian poll analyzed by PIPA ­ whether before or after the June 12
election, whether conducted inside or outside Iran ­ showed Ahmadinejad with less
than majority support. None showed the much-touted Green Movement’s candidate
Mir Hossein Mousavi ahead or even close.

"These findings do not prove that there were no irregularities in the election
process,” said Steven Kull, director of PIPA. “But they do not support the belief that a
majority rejected Ahmadinejad." [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s
“Ahmadinejad Won, Get Over It!”]

Nevertheless, President Obama has refused to contest Washington’s conventional
wisdom on the Iranian election or to buck the neocon-favored trend toward a
heightened confrontation with Iran.

Having let his administration rebuff the Iran-Turkey-Brazil deal in favor of more UN
sanctions and soon even tougher U.S. sanctions, Obama has let his foreign policy
either drift ­ or be piloted ­ toward a worsening crisis.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated
Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of
George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered
at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the
Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press &
'Project Truth' are also available there. Or go to Amazon.com.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25682.htm


Senior White House Official:
UN Sanctions Alone "Would Not Be Sufficient" to Change Iran's Behavior -- But Much
More to Come

By Jake Tapper

June 10, 20101 "ABC News" June 09, 2010 -- THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, DC
-- Senior White House officials acknowledged Wednesday afternoon that the new
regime of UN Security Council sanctions against Iran “would not be sufficient” in and
of itself to change the behavior of the Iranian government and convince its leaders to
stop its nuclear weapons program.

But, they emphasized, these sanctions are just the beginning – the “1” of a “1,2,3
punch,” as one senior White House official put it.

The next step: on June 17 the European Council will meet and impose even stricter
sanctions on Iran. Then Congress will pass additional tough sanctions, which the
President will sign.

And even after that, officials say, there will be a “rolling” process of countries
throughout the globe imposing sanctions – some against Iran’s banking, some
against Iran’s energy, some against businesses associated with Iran’s Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps, among other items.

The officials were not belittling the importance of today’s move in the UN Security
Council. These sanctions will provide “justification” and an “impetus” for other
actions, they said.

As for votes against the sanctions from Turkey and Brazil, one senior White House
official said the two countries may have gotten “involved in their own diplomatic
efforts,” which ultimately failed, to convince Iran to end its uranium enrichment
program.

Another official said Iran had “counted on Russia and China to be their insurance
policy,” but today’s vote exposed schisms between Iran and those two superpowers.

-Jake Tapper