Answering Prayers - by Gordon Prather

Is there anything worse than a President launching a War of Aggression to "remove" what he knows to be a non-existent threat to Americans?

Well, how about a President launching a war of aggression to "remove" what he knows to be a non-existent threat to non-Americans?

We all now know that our President did launch a war of aggression against Iraq, allegedly to remove what our President knew to be a non-existent "nuclear threat" to Americans.

What we don’t yet know is whether our President will launch in the near future a war of aggression against Iran, allegedly to remove what our President certainly must know is also a non-existent "nuclear threat" to anyone, Americans or non-Americans.

Why would President Bush (or President McCain-Romney-Clinton-Obama) do such a crazy thing?

Well, perhaps because he or she somehow concludes that to be elected or re-elected President, he or she must somehow see to it that the heart-felt prayers of the neo-crazies are answered.

And what might those prayers be?

Well, this is how Norman Podhorertz – neo-crazy Grand Pooh-Bah and editor-at-large of Commentary magazine – concluded a recent op-ed piece entitled "The Case for Bombing Iran";

"In some of European countries, Holocaust denial is a crime, and the European Union only recently endorsed that position. Yet for all their retrospective remorse over the wholesale slaughter of Jews back then, the Europeans seem no readier to lift a finger to prevent a second Holocaust than they were the first time around.

"Not so George W. Bush, a man who knows evil when he sees it and who has demonstrated an unfailingly courageous willingness to endure vilification and contumely in setting his face against it. It now remains to be seen whether this president, battered more mercilessly and with less justification than any other in living memory, and weakened politically by the enemies of his policy in the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular, will find it possible to take the only action that can stop Iran from following through on its evil intentions both toward us and toward Israel.

"As an American and as a Jew, I pray with all my heart that he will."

Even before George W. Bush became our President, the neo-crazies – here and abroad – had been attempting to implement their long gestating plan to remake the Middle East to their peculiar liking, to effect "regime change" in Iraq, Iran and elsewhere, by force if necessary.

Of course, the Best Congress Money Can Buy had long been perfectly willing to be complicit in the neo-crazy regime change plan, but there was a problem.

You.

Not many of you were willing to spend thousands of American lives and zillions of Yankee dollars on the neo-crazy political remake of the Middle East.

But then, terrorists – most of them Saudis, expressing extreme unhappiness with our continued military presence in Saudi Arabia – succeeded in bringing down the great American icons, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, on live TV, killing thousands of Americans in the process.

Almost immediately Congress gave Bush a "blank check," authorizing the President to "use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorists attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001," in order "to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States."

Wow!

Now, all Bush had to do before launching a pre-emptive attack against any country was to tell us poor sods he had determined that it had somehow aided the 9/11 terrorists, was developing nukes and intended to give them to terrorists for use against the United States.

Well, what about Israel?

Did we give Bush the authority to launch a pre-emptive attack on Iran if he "determined" that Iran was developing – subject to a Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency required of Iran by the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons – the capacity to enrich uranium with the intention of withdrawing from the NPT, throwing out the IAEA inspectors, re-configuring their uranium-enrichment cascades, producing weapons-grade HEU and giving it to terrorists for use against Israel?

No.

It has to be use "against the United States."

Bummer.

What to do?

Well, have John Bolton – first, as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and later, as Acting Ambassador to the United Nations –

(a) refuse to honor our obligations under the NPT and the IAEA Statute to "facilitate" attempts by Iran to "enjoy" the full benefits of the peaceful use of nuclear energy,

(b) falsely accuse Iran of failure to comply with its NPT obligations,

(d) sabotage the negotiations undertaken by Iran with the European Union under the so-called "Paris Accords,"

(e) attempt to re-write the NPT so that Iran could not enjoy any of the benefits the NPT acknowledges to be Iran’s "inalienable rights,"

(f) corrupt the IAEA Board of Governors, forcing the Board to violate the trust placed upon them by the IAEA Statute and finally

(g) corrupt the UN Security Council, forcing the Council to violate the UN Charter, itself.

Bolton’s crowning achievement was UNSC Resolution 1747, declaring Iran’s IAEA safeguarded programs to be a "threat to peace in the region," and imposing sanctions which Bolton hoped would prove to be so onerous that Iran would be provoked into withdrawing from the NPT.

Bolton, the IAEA Board and the Security Council to the contrary, IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei has just submitted report GOV/2007/22 [.pdf], verifying to all NPT signatories that Iran continues to be in complete compliance with its NPT Safeguards Agreement.

As for UNSCR 1747, private citizen Bolton recently made this report on his stewardship to the America Israel Public Affairs Committee –

"I think the Iranian reaction to the sanctions resolution [UNSCR 1747] has been very telling in that respect. Although they've passed a resolution in parliament to re-evaluate their relation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, they have not rejected the sanctions resolution, they have not done anything more dramatic, such as withdrawing from the nonproliferation treaty, or throwing out inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Which I actually hoped they would do. That kind of reaction would produce a counter-reaction that actually would be more beneficial to us."

What kind of counter-reaction?

Well, an answer to Podhoretz’s prayers.