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US Prepares for War On Iran Comment by Larry Ross, May 25, 2007
A Google search of "US War On Iran" or "US nuclear war on Iran" lists 78 million articles on this subject. The following one by Professor Paul Rogers is very good. However it does not mention the nuclear option that Bush constantly refers to when he says about Iran : "all options are on the table". My own analysis reflects what many other articles on our website say. That is that the US will likely attack Iran using the new (legal in the US) nuclear doctrine of allowing the President to wage a pre-emptive nuclear war against a nation that the President names as an enemy. These new US nuclear-permissive doctrines are the greatest threat to human existence ever conceived. Yet they are packaged and sold to the public by an ever-willing media, as a perfectly normal development. Once nuclear weapons are used, escalation can quickly follow as more nuclear weapon nations become involved. A sudden, unexpected 'out-of-the-blue' nuclear weapon strike is one of the characteristics of a pre-emptive nuclear war. The theory behind it is to catch the target nation off-guard and destroy it's weapons before it can retaliate. Because the US can utterly destroy Iran in a few hours, killing many millions, a pre-emptive nuclear war may be chosen before any domestic or foreign opposition can be organised. Then a sequence of uncontrollable disasters may follow which result in a global nuclear holocaust. What needs to be thoroughly understood about this strategy is that once it begins there is no stopping or reversing the destructive process. It follows, that people opposed to this possibility, must act on the present evidence to prevent it. The idea that one will act if it begins, which has happened with other wars, will probably prove to be false with a pre-emptive nuclear war. That is because the nuclear genocide will likely have taken place in the first few hours. People will be helpless to stop the sequence of potential catastrophes that would follow, or reverse the catastrophic damage that has been done. The Bush Administration should be prevented from starting this world-destroying process, by impeachment or other constitutional means. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Fire Next Time by Paul Rogers, May 24, 2007
The extent of the United States predicament across the Middle East, and the policies being introduced to meet it, is increasing the risk of a crisis with Iran. The nature of the predicament is reflected in the decision to send additional military personnel to Afghanistan as well as Iraq, and in new priorities for equipment geared to counterinsurgency. After the current additional deployment of troops, US forces in Afghanistan will exceed 25,500, at least 7,000 more than in 2005. Many of these form part of the 34,000-strong International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) force under Nato control, but others operate independently, meaning that total foreign forces in the country now exceed 40,000 (see "Troops Keep Comin' to Afghanistan" , AFP, 10 May 2007 ). In Iraq, too, it is now clear that the "surge" of the past three months is set to last for up to a year, rather than the six months originally anticipated (see "Iraq's cloudy horizon", 10 May 2007 ). Current plans are likely to result in combat-troop numbers rising to 98,000 by the end of 2007. Adding in the support troops, the overall total is expected to rise from the 162,000 now in Iraq to over 200,000 by January 2008 (see Stewart M Powell, "U.S. quietly, dramatically increasing Iraq troop levels" Seattle-Post Intelligencer , 22 May 2007 ). The result will be by far the largest US troop deployment in Iraq since the start of the war in 2003, and comes at a time when National Public Radio is reporting Pentagon plans to maintain up to 40,000 troops in Iraq for many years - possibly several decades. A Baghdad fortress Paul Rogers is professor of peace studies at Bradford University, northern England. He has been writing a weekly column on global security on openDemocracy since 26 September 2001
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