US Makes Stuff Up to Grease the Skids for War on Iran
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
19 April 19
Iran's retention of archives related to its past covert nuclear weapons
program (the Amad Plan), as well as its efforts to keep many scientists and
technicians from that former weapons program working together under the
continued leadership of the former head of that program, raise serious
questions regarding whether Iran intended to preserve the option to resume
elements of a nuclear weapons program in the future..
- US Department of State report, "Adherence to and compliance with Arms
Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments,"
April 2019
With absolutely zero good reasons for waging war on Iran, the Trump
administration goes on making stuff up to lie the country into yet another
war. The template looks like the Bush administration's successful effort to
lie the US into the Iraq War, the catastrophic effects of which keep
unfolding.
The State Department report quoted above garnered some anti-Iran media
headlines, but the total fact content is slim. The reports states as facts
that Iran has an archive and that it has kept some of a scientific team
working together. That's it. There are no other alleged facts, damaging or
otherwise.
There is a lot of speculation in service to fearmongering (nothing yet as
egregious as then National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice saying - with no
basis in fact - "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
The Trump people are working on it, but some are apparently dragging their
heels for the sake of some sort of integrity. The State Department first
posted its report online on April 15, then pulled it down, then re-posted it
April 17 (the quote above is from that version), without yet explaining what
was going on.
According to Reuters, the report "provoked a dispute with U.S. intelligence
agencies and some State Department officials concerned that the document
politicizes and slants assessments about Iran, five sources with knowledge
of the matter said." Reuters did not report any details of the supposed
dispute. As a factual matter, the politicized and slanted assessments of
Iran are confirmed by a straightforward reading of the text.
The larger issue in the report is international compliance with the 1968
Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), to which there are
190 parties. Among the non-parties are nuclear-armed states India and
Pakistan, as well as South Sudan. The report does not mention them, but has
some sharp words for North Korea, Syria, and Russia.
The State Department also omitted Israel, another nuclear-armed state that
is not a party to the treaty. Besides being non-compliant, Israel is allied
with the US in obdurate opposition to the NPT's primary purpose of nuclear
disarmament.
And in a bookend hypocrisy, the report omitted Saudi Arabia and the US
suggestion to give them nuclear technology, which would surely be an NPT
violation.
The release of the report follows Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's April 10
appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in support of
State's $40 billion budget request. In his written statement, with no
supporting evidence, Pompeo submitted an article of faith that is at least
partly false:
We know that the Islamic Republic of Iran's authoritarian regime will
continue to use their nation's resources to proliferate conflict in Iraq,
Yemen, Syria, and beyond. It will continue to bankroll terrorist groups like
Hamas and Hezbollah. The United States will therefore work together with our
allies and partners to counter Tehran's aggressive actions to undermine
peace and security in the Middle East and beyond.
Last time anyone checked, it was the US that invaded Iraq in a war of
aggression that violated international law. It was Saudi Arabia, with US
support, that attacked Yemen in a war of aggression that violates
international law. In Syria, the country came apart because of multiple
factors including a record drought, popular resistance to a dictator, and
broad international interference of which Iran was not a major factor. Or,
to put it another way, Pompeo lied, in service to his self-proclaimed
Christo-fascist ideology.
Republican senator Rand Paul of Kentucky challenged Pompeo on the
administration's apparent march to war on Iran. After trying to sidestep the
questioning, Pompeo asserted that the US could attack Iran based on the
Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) passed overwhelmingly in 2001
after the 9/11 attacks. The only member of Congress to vote against this
blank war-making check was Representative Barbara Lee of Oakland.
The AUMF requires some connection to the 9/11 attackers to be invoked. There
has never been any credible evidence connecting Iran even indirectly to
9/11, which was carried out by mostly Saudi nationals. Nevertheless Pompeo
deceitfully asserted: "There is a connection between the Islamic Republic of
Iran and al-Qaeda. Period, full stop."
"You do not have our permission to go to war in Iran," Senator Paul
rejoined, ignoring Pompeo's assertion that the administration didn't need
anyone's permission.
Two days earlier, on April 8, the Trump administration had advanced its
economic war on Iran by designating a part of Iran's government, the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as a foreign terrorist organization. The
deliberate provocation was based on little credible evidence. Pompeo cited
alleged IRGC involvement in an earlier 1996 attack and a foiled plot in
2011, both of which involved Saudi targets. Another State Department
official blamed Iran for American deaths in the Iraq War. The official party
line demonizing Iran was parroted nicely in President Trump's official
announcement:
Today, I am formally announcing my Administration's plan to designate Iran's
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including its Qods Force, as a
Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) under Section 219 of the Immigration
and Nationality Act. This unprecedented step, led by the Department of
State, recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a State Sponsor of
Terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and
promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft. The IRGC is the Iranian
government's primary means of directing and implementing its global
terrorist campaign.
This designation will be the first time that the United States has ever
named a part of another government as a FTO. It underscores the fact that
Iran's actions are fundamentally different from those of other governments..
Actually, Iran's actions are not fundamentally different from those of other
governments, starting with the US, which carries out continuing terrorist
attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, and places we have
yet to learn about. On April 16, Iran responded to the US terrorist
designation by making one of its own against the region's US Central
Command, CENTCOM, whose favored terrorist tactics include death squads and
drone strikes.
It gets worse for the US. According to Francis Boyle, professor of
international law at the University of Illinois College of Law, the
designation of the IRGC is:
. a complete negation and violation of the Third Geneva Convention of 1949
and thus a war crime. It opens us up to reprisals against our own military
forces. Under the laws of war, reprisals against military personnel are
permissible. This is continuing down the path of Bush Jr. determining that
the Taliban and al Qaida are not protected by the Geneva Conventions, which
was rejected by the US Supreme Court in the Hamden decision.. Iran could now
determine that US Special Forces, Seals, Green Berets, Rangers, etc., are
terrorists and thus do not benefit from the Third Geneva Convention.
Apparently, for that reason, the Pentagon was against it. [emphasis added]
CENTCOM's own official description of Iran is free of Trumpish hysteria,
while paying lip service to terrorist activities of more than 20 years ago.
The detached CENTCOM summary concludes on a somewhat optimistic note:
The UN Security Council has passed a number of resolutions calling for Iran
to suspend its uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities and comply
with its IAEA obligations and responsibilities, and in July 2015 Iran and
the five permanent members, plus Germany (P5+1) signed the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) under which Iran agreed to restrictions
on its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
This possibility of re-establishing regional peace and normalization was one
of the first things the Trump administration needed no permission to try to
destroy. The Trump administration violated international law with its
action, since the Iran agreement is part of a UN Security Council resolution
(that the US approved). The other members of the Iran agreement continue to
try to hold it together, since Iran has met all its obligations under the
agreement. The Trump administration falsely claims otherwise. Judged by its
actions to date, the Trump administration will be satisfied with nothing
less than Iranian capitulation, and if that requires genocide, so be it -
all part of God's plan.
Those persuaded that God is on the side of the US may be getting some
perverse satisfaction from the brutal weather visited on Iran (also
Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria) since the last week of March. Record rains
have covered the region. Flooding has killed an estimated 80 Iranians while
threatening and disrupting the lives of ten million. In an inhumanitarian
triumph, US sanctions on Iran have blocked humanitarian aid to the flood
victims. US sanctions are blocking cash support to the Iranian Red Crescent,
the equivalent of the Red Cross. Iranian president Hasan Rouhani has called
on the US to lift sanctions for a year to help Iran cope with its
humanitarian crisis.
This natural disaster of climate change dimensions has been little reported
in American media, a Swedish report in CounterPunch being an exception. In
Iran, serious flooding has hit 28 of the country's 31 provinces. The UN has
been responding to the need, and as of April 13 reported that "Armenia,
Azerbaijan, France, Germany, Japan, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, Russia,
Switzerland, Turkey, Vatican have provided relief items to the Government of
Iran in support of the response." The US response has been limited to
attacks and threats. Most US allies in NATO or the European Union remain
AWOL, perhaps cowed by American threats to enforce US law in their home
countries (that's the way sanctions work). Last fall, the International
Court of Justice (IJC) at the UN ruled that the US had to remove sanctions
that target humanitarian trade, food, medicine, and civil aviation. The
ruling enforced the terms of the 1955 Treaty of Amity between the US and
Iran.
Secretary of State Pompeo promptly responded that the international court
couldn't tell the US what to do and, anyway, the US was quitting that
treaty, "a decision, frankly, that is 39 years overdue." Pompeo accused Iran
of bringing a "meritless case" (that Iran won) and of "attempting to
interfere with the sovereign rights of the United States." The
Christo-fascist sore loser added that "Iran is abusing the IJC for political
and propaganda purposes."
So it's no wonder the North Koreans requested that the US remove Pompeo from
further negotiations on denuclearization. They blame Pompeo's "talking
nonsense" and being "reckless" and "gangster-like" behavior for the failure
of talks in February. The Koreans are looking for someone who is "more
careful and mature in communicating with us."
Surely Iranians would agree with that, and so should Americans.
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William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV,
print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont
judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation
for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination
from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
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