Sham US Proposal to Iran Evokes Memories of Past
Similar Ones

by Stephen Lendman

It may be a new month, but it’s the same old Wall
Street Journal trumpeting the latest US gambit
designed to hide its real intentions toward Iran.
Again it was in a front page feature story on June 1
headlined: “In Shift, U.S. Offers to Talk to Iran,
Aiming to Bolster Allies’ Cohesion.”  The WSJ is never
up to explaining the real motive behind the latest
ploy and instead falsely claims it’s “a nod to
European allies’ desire to offer carrots as well as
sticks to steer Iran away from its efforts to produce
weapons-grade uranium.”  So to achieve that supposed
end, the US has now said it will join with the
European-led “negotiations” currently ongoing and
actually talk to the Iranians.  One has to be
impressed with such professed generosity, which, in
fact, is just more barely disguised US audacity with a
heavy dose of mendacity.

Don’t be misled and believe this is a genuine step
forward as surely it’s not.  It’s simply just the
latest ploy and example of US deceit designed to
solidify support among its European allies as well as
try to convince the Chinese and Russians to come
aboard.  It’s unlikely they will as those two
countries would have a lot to lose should they agree
to what the US, in fact, has in mind which has nothing
to do with Iran’s legal right to enrich uranium for
its commercial nuclear program.  The Iranians are a
signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT)
and under its rules are behaving in full compliance
with it and doing so no differently than all other
countries that have signed it and have their own
nuclear reactors for commercial use.

The Real US Intentions Toward Iran Unreported in the
Wall Street Journal and the Rest of the Dominant
Corporate Media

So if the latest diplomatic effort is, in fact,
couched in deceit, what are the real US intentions.
The best way to explain it is to examine the recent
past and show how the US public face and
pronouncements usually hide its real motives and plans
which are quite different and not at all in the spirit
of diplomacy.  They’re also never reported on the
pages of the WSJ or elsewhere in the US corporate
media.

We need only revisit the run-up to the ongoing Iraq
war (the same is true for Afghanistan) to see how the
US used one ploy after another to move closer to its
fixed plan to invade and occupy the country whatever
Saddam was willing to agree to.  So after Saddam bowed
to virtually everything asked of him, it was to no
avail. New demands replaced the old ones complied with
until the bar was raised higher than Saddam could
reach hard as he might try - to be able to prove a
negative: that he had no so-called “weapons of mass
destruction” which we knew at the time he didn’t and
now everyone knows it.  So just as the “now you see
‘em, now you don’t WMDs” were not a casus belli to
attack Iraq, so too US hostility toward Iran has
nothing to do with the country’s supposed “nuclear
threat.”  In both cases, the issue was and is regime
change and the US wanting control of both countries’
immense oil reserves. 

One more example is how the US negotiated with
Slobodon Milosovic in the run-up to the “shock and
awe” assault against Serbia and Kosovo in 1999.  While
Saddam was accused of being a threat he couldn’t
disprove, Milosovic was offered a final proposal he
couldn’t accept - an ironic twist to how a local
“Godfather” will make an offer that can’t be refused.
It was the so-called Rambouillet accords of March,
1999, a take-it-or-leave-it offer that no sane or
responsible leader would ever agree to.  Had he done
it, he’d have surrendered his country’s sovereignty to
a NATO military occupation force that would have had
the right to unimpeded access throughout the FRY
including its airspace and territorial waters and use
any area or facilities therein to support its
operations.  In addition, it would have had the right
to do as it wished with no regard to the country’s
laws and would require the FRY to adhere to NATO’s
full authority.  It was an offer deliberately designed
to be rejected to give the US-led NATO force an excuse
to attack, which it did in full force for 79 days,
decimating the country, its infrastructure, its people
and from which it’s yet to recover seven years later.

The war had nothing to do with Milosevic’s supposed
recalcitrance, and everything to do with US imperial
aims - to breakup the country, remove a leader who
refused to sell out his nation’s sovereignty,
establish a US military presence in the region and
facilitate the transshipment of oil and gas through
pipelines that would pass through the Balkans.  The
WSJ never reported this and neither did the rest of
the corporate media.

To offer closure to the Milosevic chapter, the WSJ
posted a front page four-line statement on June 1 from
the Hague inquiry into his death.  In it, it simply
said he died from a fatal heart attack brought on by
“smoking and self-medication,” not the UN’s refusing
him treatment in Russia.  Even in death, the
NATO-created kangaroo International Criminal Tribunal
for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) wouldn’t let him rest
in peace and instead refused to acknowledge its own
role in causing Milosevic’s death.  It was the court
that created the conditions that worsened his health
and then denied him the right to the medical treatment
he sought and needed.  Milosevic clearly died either
from gross neglect or from something more sinister.

So now we can fast-forward to the present as the US
casts its imperial eye on Iran which is at the head of
its target queue along with Venezuela to be discussed
below. The Wall Street Journal was in full battle mode
on June 1 both on its front and editorial page lashing
out at Iran’s mullahs but not particularly supporting
the administration’s effort.  The editorial page is
especially truculent and painful to read except for
those who love far right ideology with no give at all
to more moderate views.  Today it states that the US
“offer has one big virtue: ending the three-year
pretense that the so-called EU 3 - Britain, France and
Germany - had any chance of ending Iran’s nuclear
ambitions.”  It then goes on to say “Condi’s gambit
could help to expose Iran’s real intentions should it
refuse to negotiate seriously.”  The Journal editorial
writers especially never miss a chance to take a swipe
at the Iranian leadership, and in this editorial
lashed out with a whole array of them.  I’m still
reeling from the impact, but when they calmed down a
bit they added: “We suppose it would serve Mr. Burns
(US Undersecretary of State) right if he has to
negotiate with this zealot (Iranian President
Ahmadinejad), except that the entire State Department
seems almost as zealous in its pursuit of any kind of
deal.” 

There’s even more from a none too happy Journal
editorial writer: “Perhaps the most dispiriting part
of this new diplomacy is the signal it will send to
Iran’s internal opposition.  The regime is widely
unpopular, but it will use this implicit U.S.
recognition to show that it has earned new world
respect.  It will also demand that the U.S. cease its
support for ‘democrats’ inside the country…..We hope
Mr. Bush has vetoed that kind of ‘appeasement.’  We
hope, too, that he’ll continue to put pressure on the
mullahs by interdicting Iranian ‘terror’ financing,
and shipping under the Proliferation Security
Initiative, where warranted.”  They wrap up their
savage invective by accusing Iran (with no evidence,
of course,) of a “relentless drive for a nuclear
weapon” and then taking a final jab at Ms. Rice saying
if her gambit fails “she’ll have succeeded mainly in
giving the mullahs more time to become a terrorist
nuclear power.”  I need to catch my breath.

The WSJ is accusing Iran of seeking to develop nuclear
weapons and by implication an intent to use them.  It
hardly matters to its editorial writer that there is
no evidence whatever Iran is doing anything illegal or
that it ever suggested it intends to use a nuclear
weapon if it ever had one.  As stated above, Iran is
in full compliance with NPT and is entirely within its
legal right to pursue its commercial nuclear program.
It’s uranium enrichment activities are no different
than what all other countries are now doing that have
their own commercial nuclear programs including India,
Pakistan and Israel.  Those countries are close US
allies, they’ve all got illegal nuclear weapon
stockpiles, they’re all in violation of NPT rules and
haven’t signed the treaty, and the US has no fault to
find with them.  Double standards never get in the way
of US foreign policy and are never mentioned on the
pages of the Wall Street Journal.  It’s also never
mentioned that since Persia was renamed Iran in 1934,
the country never initiated a hostile action against a
neighbor or any other country.  It fought a long and
costly war against Iraq in the 1980s after Iraq began
it and did so with strong US urging and support.

The Journal also failed to report today that for years
Iran has sought rapprochement with the US and has made
numerous offers of reconciliation to achieve it.  They
were all rebuffed as the US since the 1980s had a firm
policy of rejecting any normalization of relations
with Iran and never deviated from it.  Throughout that
period and especially under the Bush administration,
the US without compromise wants nothing other than
regime change, the end of an Islamic Iranian state,
and the transformation of the country to one totally
under US control (as it was under the infamous Shah
from 1953 to 1979) along with all other oil producers
in the strategically important Middle East. 

You’ll never learn than on the pages of the Wall
Street Journal, particularly from its far right
hostile to reason editorial page.  Nor will you learn
the Bush administration has already signed off on a
“shock and awe” assault against Iran using so-called
“bunker-buster” mini-nukes I’ve written about before.
I’ve called these industrial strength nuclear bombs
that are anything but mini and that will spread deadly
toxic radiation over a vast area depending only on how
many of them may be used against whatever targets the
US has in mind if it launches an attack.  Based on the
May 31 Rice proposal, the US may first prefer moving
incrementally against Iran by imposing tough economic
sanctions prior to launching an attack at a later
time.  It’s hardly likely the Iranians will accept the
US overture as it demands they give up their legal
right to develop their commercial nuclear program
which they’ve stated many times they have no intention
of doing.  So far the Iranian response has been less
than positive and some in the country have called it
propaganda.  I prefer calling it what it is - another
Washington stunt or head fake designed to make the
administration look conciliatory when, in fact, its
real intentions are unalterably hostile.

In a late development on June 2, the foreign ministers
of the five permanent members of the UN Security
Council plus Germany meeting in Vienna announced they
had reached an agreement on a (so far unrevealed)
“package of incentives” to Iran if it was willing to
give up its (legal) right to enrich uranium for its
commercial nuclear program.  It stated further if Iran
declined to do so (which it no doubt will), the
Security Council will take further (unspecified)
action.

What Else Is the Wall Street Journal Not Reporting

You’ll also never learn about the Pentagon’s “long
war” from the WSJ that Washington believes will
dominate the next 20 or even 30 years.  The Pentagon
calls it a global integrated military, financial and
diplomatic war against al-Qaida and its affiliates
that will affect the next generation as the “cold war”
defined the baby boomers.  It laid all this out in its
latest Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR).  This is to
be part of what the Bush administration calls a
“global war on terror” which, by implication, is a war
on Islam.  It’s also defined as a long war between the
forces of civilization and democracy against the
terrorists.  What it is, in fact, is a 20 or 30 year
grand imperial plan for US global dominance to be
enforced with unchallengeable military power. It’s the
vision first detailed in 1997 by the neoconservative
Project for a New American Century (PNAC) that’s now
become policy. 

The PNAC plan began in Afghanistan and Iraq, is likely
next to include hostile action against Iran, and if
that isn’t enough will also for certain include a
fourth attempt to oust Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez and possibly Bolivian President Evo Morales
with him.  I’ve written in some detail about this
before, and as I follow events in Venezuela and listen
to the belligerent rhetoric from high level officials
in the Bush administration it becomes even clearer
something is brewing and may unfold sooner than one
might think. 

Yesterday classes at the University of the Andes were
suspended again as student disturbances and protests
continued in Merida (in the country’s southwest) for
the fourth straight business day.  The Venezuelan
daily, El Mundo, reported similar actions were taking
place at other universities with a possible student
national demonstration and march across the country to
follow.  Government officials called these actions a
deliberate provocation to destabilize the country and
do it to embarrass and discredit the Chavez government
as it hosts the 141st Extraordinary OPEC Conference in
Caracas from June 1 - 3.  It likely is and with the US
CIA the main instigator using Venezuela proxies to do
its dirty work.  It may also be further softening up
and marshalling of the anti-Chavez forces preparatory
to the US initiating its fourth coup attempt which
this time may include a military assault and attempted
assassination of Hugo Chavez and other close allies.
Events unfolding now bear close watching, and the
Chavez government must stay on high alert lest it let
its guard down and fall prey to the certain coming US
assault against it.  The stakes are very high for the
President and the people of Venezuela.  It’s their
right to preserve their glorious Bolivarian Revolution
now in place and be able to see it grow, spread and be
secure from any hostile action against it.  This
writer makes no pretense in my being in full support
of that hope and dream.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
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site at sjlendman.blogspot.com