| Topic: |
Science > Prophecies-Of-Nostradamus |
| User: |
"=?UTF-8?Q?The_Last_1800_Days_=E2=98=BB_HOOROO_!?=" |
| Date: |
10 Dec 2007 08:00:14 PM |
| Object: |
Dumbo laughs in face of new report, marches toward war |
http://badgerherald.com/oped/2007/12/10/bush_laughs_in_face_.php
Bush laughs in face of new report, marches toward war
by Ben White
Monday, December 10, 2007
I don't know about the rest of you out there, but, personally, I'm
scared.
With only 13 months remaining in President Bush's tenure, nothing can
stop him now. There are no more congressional elections, no
possibility of a third term and no possibility to salvage his legacy.
There is no chance for success and with the imminent completion of his
failure on the near horizon, he is willing to go out with a bang. And
then, six weeks ago, the vision of that explosion came forcefully from
his mouth when he uttered to the American people that we are on a
crash course with Iran, one that could lead us to "World War III."
Mr. Bush and his administration have, since October 2001, been accused
of fear-mongering of the highest extent. However, Mr. Bush's warning
of a seemingly inevitable military conflict with Iran had me nervous
for the first time. If Mr. Bush was able to deceitfully gain approval
for war with Iraq, what would stop him from doing the same with Iran?
Moreover, if our president has already started one war in which he
lacked the necessary background information to succeed, why wouldn't
he do so again, even if on a much more dangerous scale?
Well, last week, with the release of an updated National Intelligence
Estimate, the American people and I breathed a sigh of relief. Mr.
Bush, we assumed, would be forced to tone down his rhetoric in the
face of a new report saying Iran ended their nuclear weapons program
in 2003 and has not started it up again since.
But, as is the procedural norm, Mr. Bush did not use the new
information to accept any possibility of peace through diplomacy; he
in fact spun it into what he termed "a warning signal." Rejecting the
obvious benefits of an Iran with less of a nuclear capability than had
been previously conceived, he asked, "What's to say they couldn't
start another covert nuclear weapons program?" It is this sort of
blind assessment in contrast to facts that may lead our country into
something as disastrous as we have ever seen.
First, Mr. Bush needs to understand that by increasing threats to
Iran, he is isolating a group of people who are not as anti-American
and anti-democratic as others are in the region. The Iranian people,
for the most part, don't align with the sentiments and grandiose
judgments of their president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A man without a
significant amount of power, Mr. Ahmadinejad is not the voice of his
people. But by allowing them to believe they are under the threat of
attack from the most powerful military in the world, Iranians might be
led right into the arms of the man who is prepared for the challenge.
Second, and perhaps the most important notion that Mr. Bush seems to
dismiss, is the regional upheaval that anti-Iranian rhetoric may
invite. Iran has close ties with both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas
in Palestine. While geography might have been one of those classes
that Mr. Bush didn't do so well in at school, any of his experts can
tell him that those two terrorist groups reside extremely close to
Israel, our most powerful, and most hated, ally in the Middle East.
Mr. Bush, in attempting to isolate the Iranians as a state that "needs
to be taken seriously as a threat to peace," is serving only to push
their citizens into the hands of one of the most anti-Western
politicians in the Middle East, Mr. Ahmadinejad, while also
infuriating violent groups of people hell-bent on the elimination of
our invaluable Middle Eastern ally.
However, the negatives of any type of Iranian conflict do not stop
there. Mr. Bush's rhetoric is causing most European investors to pull
their assets out of Iran. While this may seem like a positive
punishment toward a nation that is doing wrong (although the new NIE
says they aren't), it is simply leading Iranian industry to look
elsewhere for investors. Here, elsewhere means to their easterly
neighbors, China -- a nation with a booming economy that represents the
unquestioned future challenger to American hegemony in the 21st
century.
It must then also be understood that any military conflict with Iran
would be extremely difficult. Our American forces are stretched so
thin in Afghanistan and the quagmire that is post-Saddam Iraq that we
simply lack the manpower to take on a nation as large as Iran. With
more than 70 million people and an advanced -- although split --
military, an Iranian invasion would not resemble the walk in the park
that was the overthrow of Saddam's government.
So as I said, yes, I am fearful of the future. It seems like there is
nothing to stop Mr. Bush from his mission to do whatever he pleases.
America must have come a long way from times when we were told that
there is "nothing to fear but fear itself." I guess we are now at the
time when we have everything to fear. All we have now to do is wait,
and hope 13 months isn't long enough for our president to ratchet up
the beginning of World War III.
Ben White (bwhite2wisc.edu) is a junior majoring in sociology and
political science.
=====================
HOOROO
UNCLE WALLY
---00---
.
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
