What can we do - events and ideas

Resource 2 - The pretexts, and the real reasons

The path to war

Blow by blow statements and actions and ideological interventions of those who wish to bring this catastrophe closer.

We cannot attack Iran

It seems we're being prepared for another pre-emptive war in America's Long War, this time on Iran (resource 1 - the drums of war)

Another illegal invasion of a sovereign country as if over 1 million dead in Iraq were not enough. 

Just like with Iraq, the reasons given are shams, hollow pretexts (resource 2 - the pretexts)

It's being said Iran must be invaded because it is developing a nuclear energy programme - which it has every right to do under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty - so at some point in the future it could undergo the 10 year process to developing a nuclear weapon. 

However: 

• The IAEA has however pronounced itself satisfied with Iran's compliance with the current framework of ongoing inspections. 
  
• Nuclear weapons are outlawed by fatwa by the highest authority in Iran
  
• Iran could not develop nuclear weapons while permitting inspections, which it does. 
  

Another reason given is that Iran is said to be supporting attacks by insurgents inside Iraq on US troops. 

But: 

There's no evidence. 

How can this be used as an excuse when US belligerence takes it halfway across the world to put its troops in the firing line? 

Iran has every right to exert influence in its neighbouring country in these circumstances; there could be a whole series of direct impacts on Iran depending on which ways the situation goes; the war with Iraq in the 1980s, during which the US supported Saddam Hussein, cost a million Iranian lives. 

Ahmedinejad did not call for the destruction of Israel

Another reason - or a notion used to bolster animosity towards Iran and prepare the way for the attack - is that Ahmedinejad, the Iranian President (but not the real authority - that's Ayatollah Khamenei), is said to have vowed the destruction of Israel. That's not true - he actually said, quoting Ayatollah Khomeini, he wished for the day the Zionist regime - a specific political arrangement - would vanish from the pages of time. People may disagree with his sentiment but to read into it a threat of an attack on Israel is wilfully to misinterpret him. 

Iran is home to 25,000 Jews, nearly all of whom scornfully rejected the recent publicity stunt in which they were offered money to relocate to 'safety' in Israel. 

The effects of a war on Iran would be disastrous, for that country, for its region, and for the West (resource 3 - the likely effects)

Iran is a strong regional power, whose ability to inflict damage on US troops and allies is enormous. More broadly an attack would signal to people in the region and the wider world that the US has absolutely no interest in peace, and will strike innocent peoples it decides stand in the way of its geopolitical destiny. 

A war on Iran would be such a belligerent act against a non-aggressive Muslim country, that it would confirm the Clash of Civilisations thesis which otherwise never existed, and would confirm to Muslims that indeed the Western powers are hell-bent on waging war against them; and this could lead to entirely different calculi as to loyalties and interests among hitherto moderate Muslims; what does being moderate mean if the imperial power shows no restraint whatsoever?

What's the real reason for the drive to war? (resource 4 - the real reasons and actors)

While analysts struggle to ascertain the precise reasons for the war on Iraq and projected war on Iran, a complex of reasons relating to geopolitical issues and control over resources is the most likely. 

In this tremendously strategically important region, Iran is the only power that has seen its hand strengthened by the US war. 

Another factor is that Iran, like Russia, like Venezuala, is a strong regional power, which doesn't play by American rules - it isn't a liberal capitalist democracy open for investment and financial speculation. It presents an alternative model for organising society (albeit with many of its own problems in its current incarnation) and is anti-American in ideology and rhetoric. A new regime might open Iranian resources and markets up for American companies to benefit. If the costs, calculated in the lives of innocent Iranians and those of a small number of American servicemen, which Cheney and co will figure American public opinion can tolerate, are low enough, then these benefits are rewards indeed. 

Who's pushing for war? 

Who wants this war? Americans? Nope. The whole US government? Nope. Just a section of it, led by Dick Cheney. The evidence so far is that Bush has not given the decree for an invasion. We are at the stage of just before July 2002, the Downing Street Memos, at which point the decision for war had not been made. 

What can we do? (resource 5 - campaigning events)

The battle for public opinion, most especially in the US, is paramount. The brief set of points above, backed by an abundance of evidence, is enough to show that the case for war simply does not stand up. If enough Americans were aware of the ruinous danger a small sector of US power wants to drag them and their country into, and the terrible cost in terms of innocent Iranian lives and the prospects for world stability (let alone peace), public opinion might prevent what seems otherwise inevitable, an executive order to strike. 

What can I do? 

Pass this around far and wide, especially to or among people living in the US

Email it to your address book

Post it as a Facebook note

Attend and help with demonstrations and events

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