The War on Terror and the Approaching War with Iran

             Politicians, pundits, and the press have now begun warning of the Bush administration's preparation for war with Iran. The President's emphasis on destroying Iranian networks and aggressively pursuing American interests throughout the region are clear signals that another Tonkin Gulf/WMD type incident that could be used to expand the war in Iraq into Iran may well be in the offing.  It is almost certain that US efforts have been underway to destabilize the Iranian regime from without, and quite likely that undercover operations are underway inside the country for the same purpose.

            But what has not been understood or publicly commented upon is the powerful link between the War on Terror and the impetus toward war with Iran.  When I wrote the conclusion to Trapped in the War on Terror I included two paragraphs warning that the logic of the War on Terror, that would require large scale terrorist attacks on the U.S. homeland to preserve itself, would push any administration committed to it to provoke enemies, such as Iran capable of delivering those attacks.  At the time I wrote those paragraphs I wondered if readers would find my reasoning and predictions too difficult to imagine or accept.  I'm glad now that I did indeed not shrink from reporting the predictions of building pressures toward war with Iran I thought the logic of my argument had produced.  Here's a brief excerpt from the final chapter of Trapped in the War on Terror (minus the footnotes).

        "In the spring of . 2006 ..Iranian radicals, led by their fanatical President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Their bravado about Iranian uranium enrichment appears designed to polarize Iranian relations with the west to their faction’s internal political advantage. As if on cue, War on Terror pundits in Washington, including members of the cabal that orchestrated the American-led invasion of Iraq, have begun promoting the idea of the preventive bombing of Iran, followed up if necessary by an invasion.  According to information leaked by officials within the Pentagon opposed to such ideas, even the preemptive use of nuclear weapons against Iran is under consideration.

            Many observers have wondered what role President Bush’s plummeting approval ratings and the desperation of a Republican Party seemingly headed for defeat in the fall 2006 elections might play in authorizing such an attack. In line with the analysis presented here such calculations, along with supercharged policy arguments regarding Iranian nuclear capacities, reflect nothing so much as the frightening capacity the mechanisms of the War on Terror may have to produce the enemies the war needs to sustain itself. Indeed, as even the advocates of such a policy acknowledge, the regime in Tehran and its Hezbollah allies based in Lebanon would respond to American attacks with a worldwide campaign of terrorism against U.S. targets. These attacks would dwarf anything al-Qaeda has been or could be capable of mounting, thereby contributing a list of 9/11-type outrages long enough to help sustain the War on Terror for many years to come."

        Ultimately we will not end the Iraq War, or be safe from the Iran War, unless we also expose and bring an end to the deeper pathology that still resists explicit public scrutiny--the War on Terror.