Revolution #59, September 3, 2006
Negotiations For War
Along with lies about Iran’s WMDs, the Bush Regime has pulled out the Iraq playbook, as well, to orchestrate a process of sanctions to isolate and provoke Iran. Part of this is to align the European powers so that they will pursue their own independent interests in exploiting the people and resources of the Middle East by signing on to a U.S. attack.
Three years ago, Britain, France, and Germany were pursuing their own negotiations with Iran. Part of the deal was that the Iran wanted, and the European powers were for, an agreement where the U.S would promise to respect Iran’s national security—a position the U.S. would not tolerate. Gareth Porter, author of Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, writes that the U.S. presented all parties in these talks with a done deal:
“Even before Iran gave its formal counter-offer to ambassadors of the P5+1 countries (the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China) Tuesday, the George W. Bush administration had already begun the process of organizing sanctions against Iran.”
And Porter writes:
“Bush's objective was to free the administration of the constraint of multilateral diplomacy. The administration evidently reckoned that, once the Iranians had rejected the formal offer from the P5+1, it would be free to take whatever actions it might choose, including a military strike against Iran. Thus the Jun. 5 proposal, with its implicit contempt for Iran's security interests, reflected the degree to which the administration has anchored its policy toward Iran in its option to use force.
“…As Washington now seeks to the clear the way for the next phase of its confrontation with Iran, Bush is framing the issue as one of Iranian defiance of the Security Council rather than U.S. refusal to deal seriously with a central issue in the negotiations. ‘There must consequences if people thumb their noses at the United Nations Security Council,’ Bush said Monday.” (See “Bush Ensured Iran Offer Would Be Rejected,” by Gareth Porter, Inter Press Service, August, 22, 2006.)
We’ve seen this movie before, and it was a horror show. We cannot sit back and watch a remake.
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