December 4, 2010

Wikileaks Cables Fallout: There is No International Consensus on an Attack Against Iran

U.S. diplomatic cables from China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia released by WikiLeaks last week contradict the mainstream media's narrative that there is a broad consensus in the international community on how to deal with Iran as a regional power in the Middle East.

Government officials in Beijing, Moscow, and Riyadh advise American diplomats to begin real talks with the Iranian regime, and nurture relations rather than imposing aggressive sanctions or taking steps to attack the country's nuclear facilities, which they believe would only drive the people towards radical hardliners within the regime and worsen chances for a future peace. They insist that the hostilities in the region stem from political problems that can be solved if both parties approach each other with respect and clear goals in mind.

In a meeting in October 2009 with U.S. officials, Ni Ruchi, deputy director of the Iran division at the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, cautioned against the use of force against Iran. "Ni stressed the need at present to find ways to increase Iran's trust in the intentions of the P5-plus-1," the cable reads. "He urged the United States to de-emphasize the push for additional sanctions and to seek positive, even if symbolic, benefits to give Iran in response to progress in the talks. He expressed concern that increased pressure from the international community would strengthen the consensus of hard-liners in the Iranian regime."

Another Chinese representative, Li Guofu, from the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS), a Foreign Ministry's think tank, urged U.S. officials in March of 2009 to start an open and honest dialogue based on respect and understanding of each others' doubts and concerns. He also said that China was not absolutely certain that Iran was acquiring the nuclear bomb, but added that if U.S. officials were correct in their assessment that Iran's nuclear programme was aggressive in nature, they should still pursue a political solution because the problem is political in nature. Excerpts from the cable:
"CIIS's Li Guofu echoed this approach, saying that while China followed the Iranian nuclear program closely, China was not 100-percent convinced that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. He indicated that observers who believe there is a "point of no return" in Iran's technical development of nuclear weapons were incorrect, because the problem was fundamentally a political one and not technical. He said that Iran was moving ahead with its nuclear program without a clear internal position on whether it would want to weaponize the technology, but added that Iran hoped to bring the technology to the point where it could produce a nuclear weapon in a short period of time. He stressed, however, that in his view, a complicated series of steps remained between the current level of technology and the point of weaponization, including the necessity for a nuclear test."

"Li stressed that the U.S. side would need to be prepared to make concessions in any engagement, and would need to offer "something real." Li sugested starting with demonstrating a position of "mutual respect."
Russian officials took the same line as their Chinese counterparts, saying that attacking Iran is unnecessary, and would solve nothing. Sergey Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, and a former ambassador to the United Nations, told U.S. officials in October 2009 that "Iran's cooperation with the world community as a member of the NPT with non-nuclear status could prove the peaceful nature of its nuclear program." Further along in the cable it states: "Ariel Cohen, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said Putin and Lavrov told him in early September that they are opposed to tougher sanctions and the use of force against Iran." Also, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov "stressed Russia's position was to do everything possible to find a "diplomatic, political solution to the Iranian nuclear problem."

The U.S. media has not concentrated on the warnings against going to war with Iran by Chinese and Russian officials. Rather, they have published reports about how Arab dictators want the United States to take out Iran, which fits in with the Israeli and U.S. narrative that Iran is an unstoppable menace that must be put down. But these dictators lack popular support so their word means nothing. The fact that American officials are relying on weak kings to push Washington's Middle Eastern policy shows how bankrupt Washington has become.

Media reports, besides the The Guardian, avoid airing the advice that was given by a Saudi Foreign Ministry official
Mojahid Ali Alwahbi to U.S. officials back in July of 2008. Alwahbi "strongly advised against taking military action to neutralize Iran's program. Rather, establishing a US-Iranian dialogue was the best course of action, asserting that the USG opening an Interest Section or re-opening our Embassy in Tehran would be positive step." You won't read that in the New York Times, because it shows that not all officials in Arab states want Washington and Tel Aviv to attack Iran.

The New York Times is interested in pushing the narrative out of Washington and Tel Aviv that Iran is 1) led by irrational and suicidal men, 2) it is in possession of nuclear weapons, and 3) it wants to blow up Israel. Of course, not any of this is true. The leaders of America and Israel are far more mentally unstable, and dangerous. That doesn't mean that Iran's leaders are not corrupt and dubious. I don't support the authoritarian Islamic regime in any way, but, it has not attacked any country, or showed any sign of attacking a country, unlike Israel and the United States.

The New York Crimes doesn't care if it the information it publishes is wrong, and could lead to mass death. It twists the truth because it is not a news agency. It is a whorehouse. The journalists there are government-whipped. On November 28, 2010 it ran the deceptive headline "Around the World, Distress Over Iran." In stark contrast to statements made by Chinese, Russian, and Saudi Arabian government officials in the cables that are shown above, the Times journalists defend the U.S. government's lie that Iran is the sole source of hostility and dread in the region. They point to the frustration of Arab dictators over the Islamic regime's growing influence in Iraq and across the Middle East as proof that Iran is a menace not just to Israel but to the entire region.

Investigate journalist Gareth Porter revealed a key emission from the Times's article:
"A diplomatic cable from last February released by Wikileaks provides a detailed account of how Russian specialists on the Iranian ballistic missile program refuted the U.S. suggestion that Iran has missiles that could target European capitals or intends to develop such a capability.

In fact, the Russians challenged the very existence of the mystery missile the U.S. claims Iran acquired from North Korea.

But readers of the two leading U.S. newspapers never learned those key facts about the document.

The New York Times and Washington Post reported only that the United States believed Iran had acquired such missiles - supposedly called the BM-25 - from North Korea. Neither newspaper reported the detailed Russian refutation of the U.S. view on the issue or the lack of hard evidence for the BM-25 from the U.S. side."
Clearly, the same thing that was done to Iraq will be done to Iran if we do not stop the state terrorists in Washington and Tel Aviv. The American people and the international community cannot put faith in President Obama to make humane and noble decisions during this crisis because he is a dangerous puppet, not a real leader like Kennedy and Lincoln were, both of whom mastered their environment with an independent mind during other periods of crises in America.

If Obama was the pragmatist that he claims to be his administration would pursue pragmatic and political solutions to ease the tensions between Israel/US and Iran, instead of enforcing war-minded sanctions, and threatening Iran with war.

Reza Marashi, who previously worked in the State Department and currently serves as the research director at the National Iranian American Council, said in a recent article for the Huffington Post that the Obama administration has not approached Iran with honest and peaceful intentions. He wrote:
“It should now be clear that U.S. policy has never been a true engagement policy. By definition, engagement entails a long-term approach that abandons ‘sticks’ and reassures both sides that their respective fears are unfounded. We [U.S. officials working on Iran policy] realized early on that the [Obama] administration was unlikely to adopt this approach. Instead, we pursued a ‘carrot and stick’ strategy similar to the Bush administration, utilizing positive and negative inducements to convince Iran that changing its behavior would be its most rewarding and least harmful decision."
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 President Obama is responsible for not changing U.S. course in the Middle East, and taking steps to improve relations with the Iranian regime. They said:
"The case for going to war with Iraq was built on lies—lies perpetrated by Iraqi expatriates with their own political agendas, and taken into the policymaking process by ideologically-driven U.S. officials who set aside concern for both the truth and U.S. interests. President Obama is responsible for allowing a reprise of the same, despicable pattern, this time with regard to Iran."
Another war is the last thing the world needs. A U.S./Israeli attack on Iran would reignite tensions in Iraq, and elsewhere in the Middle East, officially marking the beginning of world war three. Russian President Medvedev said back in April of this year that striking Iran would lead to a nuclear showdown. “It would be the worst possible scenario if a conflict of that kind happens, and a strike is performed, then you can expect anything, including use of nuclear weapons. And nuclear strikes in the Middle East, this means a global catastrophe. Many deaths."

The state terrorists in Washington and Tel Aviv showed no concern for human life when Iraq was bombed, and destroyed, so it appears that nothing will hold them back from attacking Iran, not their conscience, and not the wrath of global public opinion.

It is a great error to judge the historical situation blindly. We should not pretend that we are led by the best among us in the West. We are led by the least among us. The insane, evil, and arrogant sickos behind the American empire and Israel want to crush Iran and take control of the Middle East, regardless of the human costs on both sides. One sicko, Meghan L. O'Sullivan, who was Paul Bremer's assistant in the Coalition Provisional Authority in post-invasion Iraq, and was one of the chief cheerleaders for the surge strategy in 2007, said in an interview for the Council on Foreign Relations in July 2010 that "if this sanctions-based strategy doesn't compel Iran to the negotiating table in a meaningful way, the United States and its allies will need to look at the other options, which include military force, containment, and fostering political change in Iran."

The propaganda against Iran in America began after the Iraq war, but retired four-star General Wesley Clark revealed to Democracy Now's Amy Goodman in March of 2007 that the decision to attack Iran was already made less than two weeks after the 9/11 attacks. Clark said 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 clearly exist and could be carried out in the very near future since the Obama administration wants a war with Iran rather than start honest negotiations, and improve relations.

Just like in 2002, the media's false sirens are hypnotizing the American people and making them unnecessarily fear a foreign country. Iran is being depicted on the pages of mainstream publications and on television screens as a Nazi-like threat against America, Israel, and the world when the exact opposite is the case. The United States government, NATO, the Israeli government, and the American mainstream media represent the real threat against world peace, and human civilization. They lied to the world about the September 11 attacks, and weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; and now they're lying to the world about the military intentions and nuclear capabilities of Iran.

We live in truly dangerous times. Only a new foreign policy in Washington can save the American Republic from a dictatorship and the Middle East from destruction. There needs to be new thinking, and new actors in Washington.

I sincerely believe that there are good men and women in the American government and military who are against another war in the Middle East. We must strongly support them, and encourage them to do the right thing.

In the new year we must protest our governments' policies, and pressure them towards supporting honest and truthful peace talks in the Middle East, beginning with the admission that 9/11 was committed by high-level officials in the United States and Israel, not by Al-Qaeda. I hope to do my part during this crisis so that the Middle East, and Mankind will know peace in our time.