CASMII UK Press Release
29 August 2007
Brown Must Now Publicly Oppose Bush’s War Drive On Iran
“I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran’s murderous activities”
George Bush’s address to war veterans in Nevada on 28th August was a carefully choreographed and unambiguous declaration of war on Iran.
Bush accused the Iranian government of being behind the insurgency in Iraq as well as assisting the Taliban in Afghanistan. He said “We must confront these dangers before it’s too late … We will fight them over there so we do not have to face them in the United States of America.”
In the past year and especially with the failure of the so-called surge strategy, Iran has been blamed for the United States’ failure in Iraq and Afghanistan, and has been demonised as the source of all ills in the Middle East, including Palestine and Lebanon. The US military briefing of 2nd July and 5th August accuse Iran of cooperation with AlQaeda and supporting the insurgency and the killing of American servicemen in Iraq. These accusations have not been backed by evidence and are in direct contradiction with earlier statements by Gen. David Petraus made as early as April 07.
Notable are also the recent statements by Afghan President, Karzai, and Iraqi PM, Al-Maliki who separately praised the positive contributions of Iran to the limited stability in their countries. Karzai called Iran a “helper and a solution”. These remarks were sharply rebuked by the US.
The passage by the US Congress of an amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill accusing Iran of “intolerable acts of hostility towards the US” and demanding the US government to take “Immediate action”, and the unprecedented move by the American government to designate Iran’s Revolution Guards as a “terrorist organization”, provide the White House lawyers with a legal pretext for a direct US military attack on Iran without seeking further authorization from the Congress.
British Foreign Minister, David Miliband has admitted in an interview with the Financial Times on 8th July that there was no evidence of Iranian involvement in the violence and instability in Iraq.
Bush’s repeated labelling of Iran as the “biggest sponsor of terrorism” and his demonisation of Iran’s nuclear programme as casting “a shadow of holocaust” over the Middle East is reminiscent of Rice’s infamous warning of the danger of Iraqi WMD and the threat of a “mushroom cloud over New York”.
Following an IAEA’s visit to Tehran on August 7 in which agreement on the modalities and timetable were reached to address all outstanding ambiguities regarding Iran’s nuclear energy programme, it was announced on 27th August that “earlier statements made by Iran [about Plutonium experiments] are consistent with the Agency’s findings, and thus this matter is resolved.”
The agreement further states:
“The Agency has been able to verify the non-diversion of the declared nuclear materials at the enrichment facilities in Iran and has therefore concluded that it remains in peaceful use.”
Bush and his Neoconservative backers disgraced and wounded at home and caught in the bloody quagmire of Iraq and Afghanistan are unlikely to be willing to leave office in 2008 with the legacy of failure and the perception of having made Iran the dominant power in the region. The end of Bush’s presidency could also be an end to the NeoCons’ dream of controlling the vast energy resources of Iran and the larger Middle East. In throes of defeat, war can be resorted to as the only option.
It was the opposition and outrage with Tony Blair’s slavish pursuit of the US foreign policy and his taking Britain into the US imperial wars that led to his final ousting and replacement by Gordon Brown.
Gordon Brown must now honour his office by distancing Britain from the US’s war plans for Iran and openly denouncing the military option. Anything but a clear denunciation of military attack on Iran will make him complicit in George W Bush’s wars, the bearer of the legacy of the tragic bloodbath in Iraq as well as unleashing catastrophe in Iran and beyond.
For more information or to contact CASMII please visit http://www.campaigniran.org