This ad by the National Iranian American Council appeared in the Washington Post on Monday, March 5, 2012.
Retired U.S. military and intelligence leaders are leading the charge for peace, diplomacy, and dialogue between America and Iran.
On Monday, March 5, 2012, the National Iranian American Council sponsored a full-page ad in the Washington Post, signed by retired military and intelligence officials, that cautioned President Obama against a reckless war with Iran.
The ad features quotes on the futility of an Iranian strike to stop Iran's nuclear program by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Former CENTCOM Commander General Antony Zinni (ret.), and Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen (ret.).
None of the major cable networks and news networks mentioned the ad, nor the significance that the most intelligent and experienced leaders in the U.S. military and intelligence agencies are against a war with Iran.
Lt. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (ret.), one of the signers of the Washington Post ad, appeared on Russia Today on Monday to discuss the ad, the consequences of a military attack on Iran, and alternatives to the problem. "We need to consider this very, very deeply. It's a profound problem, we can deal with it other than through military force," said Lt. Col. Wilkerson. He also said that a military attack will unify the Iranian people, strengthen the regime, and create the opposite effect that the war hawks are aiming for.
On the same day, Alex Jones interviewed Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer about the rising tensions between the United States and Iran. Lt. Col. Shaffer said that Ron Paul's policy on Iran "are the most realistic," and that a better solution is sowing discord and division in the ranks of the elite, and driving the Iranian people against the regime. But even this solution will not work because it is based on the false premise that the Islamic Republic of Iran is a threat to the security of the Middle East and the world.
The best solution, as Ron Paul as said, is restoring economic and diplomatic ties with Iran. On March 6, Dr. Paul told CNN that the biggest threat facing America is not a nuclear Iran, but a financial crisis, saying:
"There is no evidence whatsoever that the Iranians have or are on the verge of getting a nuclear weapon, according to our own military people, our own CIA, according to the UN. So, I think it is blown way out of proportion, it's very reckless, and very dangerous. And the last thing this country needs, and our military agrees, is another war.Fear-mongering rhetoric about Iran is not based on reasonable and strategic calculations of the Iranian threat to U.S. national security interests. It is based on paranoia, political ambitions, and misplaced passion. Israel's dream of unchallenged regional supremacy is unrealizable, and counter-productive.
Yes, we can beat anybody militarily, but the military operations around the world is bankrupting this country so the greatest threat to us is a financial crisis, and this will enhance the chances of this financial crisis. Just look at what's happening to gasoline and oil prices right now. And that's going to get much worse once the bombs start dropping on Iran, whether it's Israel or the United States.
Believe me, this world is going to be in much chaotic shape, so they're worrying about something that they need not have such worries about. I don't want them to have a weapon, but I also lived through the 1960s, being in the military, being in the air force. The Soviets, a ruthless, terrible nation, we dealt with them. They had 30,000 nuclear weapons. So I think the war drums are beating much louder than they need to be. We need to defend our country, but we don't need to be the aggressor nation."
The consensus among many military and intelligence officials in the United States and Israel is that a U.S.-Israeli war with Iran will be a disaster not just for the Middle East, but for the whole world.
Retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner told Democracy Now in April 2006 that a U.S. attack on Iran's nuclear facilities is not a good solution, and that "it is a path towards probably making things in the Middle East much worse. It’s not a solution to either stopping the Iranians or spreading democracy in the Middle East or getting us out of Iraq. It’s a path that leads to disaster in many dimensions."
Paul R Pillar, a 28-year veteran of the CIA, and one of the signers of the Washington Post ad, wrote an article called, "We Can Live with a Nuclear Iran," for The Washington Monthly that is a knockout blow to any case for war with Iran. Below are two key passages from his article:
"Throughout history, it has always been worrisome when a revolutionary regime with ruthless and lethal internal practices moves to acquire a nuclear weapon. But it is worth remembering that we have contended with far more troubling examples of this phenomenon than Iran. Millions died from forced famine and purges in Stalin’s Soviet Union, and tens of millions perished during the Great Leap Forward in Mao Tse-tung’s China. China’s development of a nuclear weapon (it tested its first one in 1964) seemed all the more alarming at the time because of Mao’s openly professed belief that his country could lose half its population in a nuclear war and still come out victorious over capitalism. But deterrence with China has endured for half a century, even during the chaos and fanaticism of Mao’s Cultural Revolution. A few years after China got the bomb, Richard Nixon built his global strategy around engagement with Beijing.A U.S.-Iranian war will prove disastrous for both sides. It will progress into a state of nuclear Armageddon.
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No one knows what the full ramifications of such a war with Iran would be, and that is the main problem with any proposal to use military force against the Iranian nuclear program. But the negative consequences for U.S. interests are likely to be severe. In December, Secretary Panetta identified some of those consequences when he warned of the dangers of war: increased domestic support for the Iranian regime; violent Iranian retaliation against U.S. ships and military bases; “severe” economic consequences; and, perhaps, escalation that “could consume the Middle East in a confrontation and a conflict that we would regret.”
So why is the U.S. so aggressive and hostile towards Iran when it gains nothing from it? The reality is that U.S. interests are not given consideration in the centers of U.S. decision making and the White House. The U.S. is a dead nation according to the occult new world order elite in Washington and London who hijacked America, and cemented their totalitarian grip over the American people with the false flag attacks on September 11, 2001.
In the last three and a half decades, they have been secretly manufacturing a clash of civilizations involving America, Israel, and Iran in order to destroy all three countries, and bury them alongside every other sovereign country inside the political grave of a global corporate dictatorship.
They regard a Western and Zionist war against Iran and Islam as necessary for their pursuit of global depopulation goals, and the establishment of an authoritarian world government.
The angels of death in Washington couldn't care less what happens to American soldiers, the collapsing American economy, and the American people in the aftermath of a joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran. They want a global, post-industrial, technocratic, totalitarian police state, not a rejuvenated, resurrected, and restored American constitutional republic.
So it doesn't matter what retired U.S. military and intelligence officials say to a robotic puppet in the White House who can't make a speech without a teleprompter. The time for writing letters to our politicians in our countries ended on September 11, 2001, when they abandoned the Western public by siding with the state terrorists who engineered the events. From then on, it's been a fight for survival.
The battle lines are there for all to see. It is a war between the forces of freedom and the forces of totalitarian fascism. All of the governments of the world, especially the United States, England, and Israel, are on the side of totalitarian fascism.
The world must bring to justice the criminal fascist banks who destroyed the world economy after the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, along with the satanic war criminals who were behind the 9/11 attacks, or else these demons from hell will occupy the planet in the name of saving it from annihilation.
