General Wesley Clark: There Was a Decision to Attack Iran Ten Days After 9/11

In March of 2007 retired four-star General Wesley Clark told Democracy Now's Amy Goodman that he visited the Pentagon ten days after the Sept. 11 attacks, where one general informed him of a memo stating plans to attack Iraq and six other countries, including Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran in a span of five years.

While those hegemonic plans have obviously not come to fruition in the desired timeline, they still exist and could be carried out in the near future since the Obama administration is moving towards attacking Iran rather than improving relations.

Flynt Leverett, a former national security official, and Hillary Mann Leverett, who served as the Director for Iran, Afghanistan and Persian Gulf Affairs at the National Security Council, say that the Obama's administration's engagement with Iran relies on empty rhetoric, and follows the old patterns of U.S. foreign policy. They criticize the Obama administration's use of the carrots and sticks approach which reflects dishonest intentions, and a lack of respect for the Islamic regime.

In their article written today called "Why Should Iran Trust President Obama?" they write:

The recent release of the Wikileaks cables confirms the assessment we have been offering since May 2009: The Obama administration has failed to follow up on President Obama’s early rhetorical overtures to Tehran with bold steps and substantive proposals to demonstrate its seriousness about rapprochement. Strategic engagement — think Nixon and China — is not the same as “carrots and sticks”. In fact, strategic engagement requires a self-conscious effort by the United States to put “sticks” aside in order assure Iran that it is serious about realigning relations. And that is something the Obama administration has never been willing to do. (Obama’s vague letters to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — dispatched as Obama ignored two letters sent by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — were seen in Tehran as just the latest U.S. attempt to “game” Iran’s political system rather than to come to terms with it

General Wesley Clark on Democracy Now on March 2, 2007: