President Bush told United Nations delegates a year ago that “our greatest fear is that terrorists will find a shortcut to their mad ambitions, when an outlaw regime supplies them with the technologies to kill on a massive scale.”
What “technologies” did Bush have in mind?
Nukes, of course.
What “outlaw regime” did Bush have in mind?
Well, last year, it was Iraq.
Bush claimed Iraq had secretly reconstituted its nuke programs and would soon have enough highly enriched uranium to make a nuke or two. Bush demanded that Iraq grant the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency immediate and unfettered access to all “suspect” sites.
To the consternation of the neo-crazies – who expected Iraq to refuse and thus provide a casus belli – Iraq promptly granted the IAEA such access.
Iraq insisted it had nothing to hide, that it hadn’t even attempted to reconstitute any of its nuke-related programs. The IAEA searched all the “suspect” sites and many more, and reported to the U.N. Security Council in mid-March that the Bush allegations were wrong.
Nevertheless, after declaring that it was the IAEA that was wrong – and incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial to boot – we invaded Iraq.
Guess what? It was the CIA that was wrong. The Iraqis had no “weapons of mass destruction.”
Importantly, what the IAEA reported to the Security Council was the truth. The IAEA is not incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial, after all.
Why is that important? Well, look what just happened this month to another “outlaw regime,” Iran.
Neo-crazies had claimed Iran was secretly producing highly enriched uranium and would soon have enough to make a nuke or two. They loudly demanded that Iran grant the IAEA immediate and unfettered access to all “suspect” sites.
Again, to the consternation of the neo-crazies – who expected Iran to refuse and thus provide a casus belli – Iran promptly granted the IAEA such access. Iran insisted it had nothing to hide and that all activities were consistent with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Furthermore, to the horror of the neo-crazies, representatives of the European Union rushed to Tehran to assure them – and declare to the world – that in the event the IAEA did give Iran a “clean bill of health,” then Iran would not suffer the fate of Iraq.
The EU also promised the Iranians that if they subjected themselves to an additional protocol to their IAEA Safeguards Agreement, Russia and EU members would provide Iran access to a wide range of technologies and products, including conventional weapons.
Curses! Neo-crazies foiled again!
Not only was there to be no Iranian casus belli, but sanctions on Iran – which had been unilaterally levied by the United States more than 25 years earlier – were to be essentially ignored in the future. In particular, construction by Russia of the nuclear power plants at Bushehr would continue.
Worse, the already strong ties between Iran and its neighbor, Russia – both already among the top producers and marketers of oil and natural gas – were strengthened.
Chalk up these perverse results in the war against terrorism – or the establishment of an American hegemony over Persian Gulf oil – to the hijacking of U.S. foreign policy by neo-crazies in the Pentagon. No need for a superpower to practice diplomacy or have diplomats; if you see something you want, just smash and grab.
So, denied a justification for Persian “regime change,” what were the neo-crazies to do with their Persian Gulf legions?
Well, how about Syria, another “outlaw” regime?
Sure. Have the CIA insist that Iraqi WMD had been right where the CIA said they were, right up to the eve of the invasion.
Then, have the inarticulate CIA weenie in charge of spy-satellite photography come forward and claim that recent analysis of photos taken on the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom showed a lot of truck traffic.
“Based on what we saw prior to the onset of hostilities, we certainly felt there were indications of [weapons of mass destruction] activity,” quoth the inarticulate CIA weenie.
Were those trucks hauling the thousands of Iraqi chem-bio weapons that Saddam Hussein had ordered his commanders to use against our troops?
No. These trucks were heading west, toward Syria, away from our forces massed on the eastern border.
Were the neo-crazies right? Did Saddam intend, all along, to produce WMD for terrorists? Is President al-Assad of Syria complicit?
Of course, if we invade Syria, and the neo-crazies are wrong, then we will have compounded our error in invading Iraq.
