Ramping up the Rhetoric

President Bush spoke to veterans of the armed forces yesterday in Reno and in doing so, considerably ramped up the war rhetoric against Iran. Jennifer Loven of Breitbart.Com reported on the speech and quoted Bush as saying:

"Iran is sending arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan to be used to attack American and NATO troops," Bush said. "Iran has arrested visiting American scholars who have committed no crimes and impose no threat to their regime. And Iran's active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust. Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere."

This mirrors almost exactly the kind of language that the Bush Administration used when they were readying the country and the world for a war against Iraq. The only interpretation of this is that Iran has to be stopped militarily through war because Iran will not succumb to sanctions and nor will it toe the line. Saying "Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere," when you are THE nation threatening the security of nations everywhere is mildly ironic. Not that I would expect Bush to be able to wrap his head around that one.

Of course there is concern when any country attempts to acquire nuclear weapons but we don't know that Iran is working towards acquiring a nuclear arsenal and why should Israel, Pakistan and India be "allowed" to do so and not Iran and why should Iran not be allowed to pursue nuclear power to prepare for an age when oil runs out?

Between India, Israel, Pakistan, the United States and Iran, Iran is the only country out of those five that has not invaded another country in the past ten years and is the only country out of those five that has not committed overt acts of political aggression towards another country in the past ten years. They may have sponsored acts of terror although I have yet to see hard evidence of this in the recent past and they may be running covert operations in Iraq and Afghanistan but why shouldn’t they when we are doing the same? In fact in a recent article I read that the CIA were stepping up their covert operations against Iran. Are they expected not to react?

To believe that Iran would acquire nuclear weapons and then start threatening other countries with them is naive. No one wants to be obliterated and they are well aware that that would be their fate. So why believe Iran's acquisition would "threaten the security of nations everywhere," but the acquisition of the same weapons by other countries has not?

Bush is acting as a mouthpiece for Cheney and the oil conglomerates who maybe believe that if they can knock out Iran, they could win in Iraq. Knocking out Iran whilst keeping the country viable for humans to live in, is impossible. So is winning a conventional war against Iran so what are they thinking? The frightening thought is that they may not care if they win or not but they may consider starting a war just to give the Republicans a boost before the 2008 elections. Once Iran’s infrastructure is down, they will declare “mission accomplished” for a second time and yank the troops out of Iraq. Americans are prone to gullibility and they may just believe the rhetoric. They just might.

This Republican Administration is the biggest threat to peace in the world that I've ever experienced and is the most dangerous menace to mankind since the Cuban missile crisis.