Back in March 2003, when the US began bombing the people of Iraq, the Bush administration justified the war by a campaign of lies. The population of the US and the world were told over and over again that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to the US, that his regime had weapons of mass destruction and was seeking to build nuclear weapons. All of this was one big lie to gain support for the US military to invade and permanently remain inside Iraq. And now, after nearly ten years of war, over one million Iraqis killed, Iraq has been ripped apart on the basis of these lies.
And today, the Obama administration thinks it can get away with this same tactic towards Iran. Just like the Bush administration, the Obama administration has been carrying out a campaign of lies leading up to a possible war on the people of Iran. Last week Obama said in a speech about Iran that “all options are on the table.” All options, he said, “includes all elements of American power… an economic effort that imposes crippling sanctions and, yes, a military effort to be prepared for any contingency.” This was a clear indication that the US is prepared to wage war on Iran.
During the lead up to war with Iraq, when US intelligence analysts did not produce any evidence of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, the Bush administration just kept repeating the lie anyway, hoping the US population would believe it. Likewise, there have been several investigations into Iran’s nuclear energy program, along with reports from UN weapons inspectors on the ground in Iran – and not a single report shows that Iran is producing nuclear weapons. There have been two recent National Intelligence Estimates, reflecting the unanimous opinion of over 16 intelligence agencies in the US – both of them report that there is no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. And just last month, top US intelligence chiefs reported to a Senate Intelligence Committee that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program.
But every discussion coming from the media, from the Obama administration and from most of the Democratic and Republican Party politicians speaks about Iran as if it is a known fact that they are constructing nuclear weapons. But this is clearly nothing more than a way to lie to the US population in order to instill fear towards Iran, and try to build up support for a possible assault on the country. We should not fall into their trap of lies.
Even though there is no evidence of the Iranian regime attempting to construct nuclear weapons, that doesn’t mean the US has the right to attack Iran even if it did have nuclear weapons. The US has the world’s largest supply of nuclear weapons, more than enough to destroy most species on the planet, including humans, several times over. And the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons on another country is the United States. The US is in no position to criticize any country’s weapons program, let alone threaten war against them.
The reality is if the US does wage war on Iran it will not be because Iran has nuclear weapons but because Iran sits atop one of the world’s largest supplies of oil and natural gas reserves, which the US wants to control. And the US has made it absolutely clear, that its largest obstacle to these energy resources is the current Iranian regime. This is why the US wants to wage war – because they think war would oust the Iranian regime and pave the way for US control over Iran’s energy resources. All this talk of Iran posing a threat to the US is just an attempt by the Obama administration to gain support for a war.
We cannot let that support gather momentum. There is nothing to support about a potential destruction of another country and the people who live there. The Bush administration got away with carrying out a war of domination against Iraq. We must not let this administration think they can get away with carrying out another brutal war against Iran.
