Obama is dodging a clear stance on Iran in the media; however, the Bush administration’s plans for Iran carried over and even intensified when Obama took office. Iran being the “Greatest Threat on Earth” seems a bit out of the ballpark. The United States’ sordid affair with Iraq and Iran in the past only confuses the issue of whether or not we should even be involved in the Middle East. Blaming the Iranian threat on the “unintended consequence” of killing Saddam Hussein is like saying the unintended consequence of installing a door is that it opens to the other side. The “gates to the Arab world were opened” long before Saddam was a factor.
Obama is no fool; the same weapons being used by the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq are readily available to us should Iran become a serious threat.
“They are gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran," according to Dan Plesch, director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the University of London. "US bombers and long range missiles are ready today to destroy 10,000 targets in Iran in a few hours," he said. "The firepower of US forces has quadrupled since 2003," accelerating under Obama (Chomsky).
Does Goodwin want Obama to come out and be completely transparent? Clearly, the current sanctions and trigger fingers trembling to blow the holy hell out of Iran are in place; don’t fret Goodwin, we got this.
Is Iran our greatest threat? A quick Google search has no mention of Ahmadinejad or Iran being the pinnacle of evil. In fact, a search for “the greatest threat on earth” describes everything from global warming and asteroids to the actions of the entire human race. Maybe I’m being susceptible to mainstream media, but my understanding is Iran is a threat only because of direct U.S. influence in the past. Maybe we should just leave them alone. Sometimes it’s hard for the U.S. to look in the mirror and recognize the evil that lies within.
The United States has been treating Iran and Iraq like marionettes long before Hussein was ever around. In 1953 the CIA staged a coup d’état in Iran to place a pro-American Shah in power under the guise of stopping communism involvement, but it was mostly to gain more access to Iran’s oil resources. The U.S. continued to support the new Shah until all hell broke loose because of human rights violations and a very angry anti-American public. The people revolted, and guess who decided to sell weapons of mass destruction to Iraq in order to keep Iran in a destabilized state while they tried to get a better grasp on the situation? You guessed it… good old America. Better yet, we pissed off both countries by selling weapons to both sides. So we backed Iran, we backed Iraq, we backed Iran, we backed Iraq, we backed and sold weapons to the Taliban when Afghanistan was at war with the Russians...sigh. It’s exhausting how many red-headed stepchildren the U.S. has produced, supported, and subsequently had to squash within a couple decades. It’s starting to sound like that Brady Bunch episode when Bobbie didn’t want to play on the soccer team. Carol Brady approves while Mike Brady does not. Alice (we’ll call her the U.N.) balanced it all out.
The consequences involved with Hussein were pretty evident; an angry sibling of a not-so “Reaganesque” H.W. Bush had a horrible rapport with Iraq. Sure, Reagan ended the cold war, but he still sold weapons to Iran when it should have been a no-no, poor Oliver North, he’s Lee Harvey Oswald all over again. Jump-the-gun Bush Jr. decided the root of all evil and 9/11 was all Saddam Hussein’s fault. Bush, being an oil and lumber man, decided Iraq’s resources were worth fighting for. “Iraq has weapons of mass destruction” (duh, we sold them to him) unfortunately, he had used them all up on his own people by the time we got there. The only terrorism in Iraq was the fact that they weren’t giving us all of their oil and Hussein had the audacity to wear “tighty-whiteys” in captivity. No. Hussein had nothing to do with Iran’s threat, aside from Saddam being our sadistic little puppet for a decade. Hussein was our man, we created him, we supported his fight with Iran, these things don’t just happen out of the blue.
Does Iran need nuclear weapons? Does a 4 year old boy need a firecracker? Does an imperialist entity need to police the earth? Is the United States in a constant juggle to keep its past mistakes in check? Don’t get me wrong, the U.S. is the greatest place on earth (aside from Disneyworld), but should we continue to misinform the populace as to why we’re cleaning up messes that are half a century old? Does the public even know why Israel exists? Are the “Arabs” all that scary? Where does propaganda play a role? You think Iran is scary? Turn the camera around and see our mistakes, our atrocities. Is Iran really a threat, or are we the biggest threat?
Chomsky, Noam. "The Iranian Threat." chomsky.info : The Noam Chomsky Website. Noam Chomsky, 2 July 2010. Web. 1 Dec. 2011.
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