From The American Left History Blog Archives (2007) - On American Political Discourse  

Markin comment:

In the period 2006-2008 I, in vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious, in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies, the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on.

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The Slippery Slope to War-Iran

The recent swirl around Iran makes me nervous. Every since Seymour Hersh’s article on White House Iranian war preparations in the April 2006 New Yorker I have been taking sideway glances at developments around that issue closely. I do not like what I see right now.  Let me just summarize the litany here.

Over the past several weeks General Fallon, the head of U. S. Central Command (that means the  Middle East), has been knocking over or kicking downs doors all over the capitals of most Middle Eastern countries giving the word on American intentions toward Iran. Fallon, like all top American generals, is not known for ‘blowing smoke’ when war is in the air. He is also not known, when the deal goes down, for being slow on the trigger.

The French Foreign Minister has ‘accidentally’ mentioned that the military option was not off the table in order to resolve the Iranian situation. His boss immediately reigned him in on this but the ‘cat is out of the bag’ now.   

The United States Senate, the same people who couldn’t muster up the energy to pass the placid Webb amendment on ‘troop rest’ has this past week gone out of its way to vote to label the nefarious Iranian Revolutionary Guard that sprung forth from the United States Embassy takeover in 1979 a “terrorist” organization. That means something unlike the non-binding tripartite partition of Iraq resolution. I note that leading Democratic presidential contender Senator Hillary Clinton voted for the designation. Thus bi-partisan support for any future actions against Iran has a running start. This time it would be nice if Senator Clinton and the others at least read the documentation before they vote for war. Vain hope.  

 

• The periodic talk, recently louder, about the Iranian role, and the need to call them to account for it, in providing powerful IED’s that are claimed to be the number one of death to American troops to both Shiite and Sunni factions in Iraq.

 

• Reports that Iran is shelling in northern Iraq in an effort to break one of its internal oppositional guerilla groups based in that area.

 

• The ongoing international pressure to increase various sanctions against Iran in order to halt its nuclear development program. Many of these types of embargos and boycotts are ‘acts of war’ under international law.

 

• The recent visit of the cunningly bizarre Iranian president to New York where he was cheered and jeered, mainly jeered with a frenzy that matched some of the buildup against Saddam Hussein (remember him) before the occupation of Iraq. Whether the president is anything more than a front man for the mullahs on the Supreme Council he is still the ‘face ' of Iran to the international public.

 

• Finally, the key to the whole situation, one George W. Bush and his coterie. Bush, already in a neck and neck race with Millard Fillmore for the title of least popular president, has nothing to lose. He is probably thinking why shouldn’t he go out in a blaze of glory. And if he is not up to it, his puppet master Karl Rove, oops, fellow draft dodger Vice President Dick Cheney certainly has the appetite for it.

 

There are some impediments in the way like a depleted American army in Iraq but where there is a will there is a way. In some ways there is a hell of a lot more going on concerning Iran than before the run up to the Iraq war. Yes, I am definitely nervous. A three front war strategy is in the air. We better have a three front anti-war strategy. Better dust off the old slogan-Hands Off Iran!

 

 Lest anyone think that I wish to ‘coddle’ the Iranian lead ship I have posted a commentary around the time of the Hersh’s article from my blog. Hersh’s intelligence report probably needs some updating but the thrust of his article and my comments still retain there validity.