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Iran - Bombed if you do, Bombed if you Don't

Politics / Iran Dec 15, 2007 - 07:53 PM GMT

By: Dr_Ron_Paul

Politics The latest National Intelligence Estimate has been greeted by a mixture of relief and alarm. As I have been saying all along, Iran indeed poses no quantifiable imminent nuclear threat to us or her neighbors. It is with much alarm, however, that we see the administration continue to ratchet up the war rhetoric as if nothing has changed.


Indeed nothing has changed from the administration's perspective, as they have had this latest intelligence report for some time. Only this week has it been made known to the public. They want it both ways with Iran. On the one hand, they discredit the report entirely, despite it being one of the most comprehensive intelligence reports on the subject, with over 1,000 source notes in the document. On the other hand, when discrediting it fails, they claim that the timing of the abandonment of the weapons program, just as we were invading Iraq, means our pressure must have worked, so we must keep it up with a new round of even tougher sanctions. Russia and China are not buying this, apparently, and again we are finding ourselves on a lonely tenuous platform on the world stage.

The truth is Iran is being asked to do the logically impossible feat of proving a negative. They are being presumed guilty until proven innocent because there is no evidence with which to indict them. There is still no evidence that Iran, a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has ever violated the treaty's terms – and the terms clearly state that Iran is allowed to pursue nuclear energy for peaceful, civilian energy needs. The United States cannot unilaterally change the terms of the treaty, and it is unfair and unwise diplomatically to impose sanctions for no legitimate reason.

Are we to think that Iran hasn't noticed the duplicitous treatment being received by so-called nuclear threats around the globe? If they have been paying attention, and I think they have, they would see that if countries do have a nuclear weapon, they tend to be left alone, or possibly get a subsidy, but if they do not gain such a weapon then we threaten them. Why wouldn't they want to pursue a nuclear weapon if that is our current foreign policy? The fact remains, there is no evidence they actually have one, or could have one any time soon, even if they immediately resumed a weapons program.

Our badly misguided foreign policy has already driven this country's economy to the brink of bankruptcy with one war based on misinformation. It is unthinkable that despite lack of any evidence of a threat, some are still charging headstrong into yet another war in the Middle East when what we ought to be doing is coming home from Iraq, coming home from Korea, coming home from Germany and defending our own soil. We do not need to be interfering in the internal affairs of other countries and waging war when honest trade, friendship, and diplomacy are the true paths to peace and prosperity.

Dr. Ron Paul
Project Freedom

Congressman Ron Paul of Texas enjoys a national reputation as the premier advocate for liberty in politics today. Dr. Paul is the leading spokesman in Washington for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies based on commodity-backed currency. He is known among both his colleagues in Congress and his constituents for his consistent voting record in the House of Representatives: Dr. Paul never votes for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution. In the words of former Treasury Secretary William Simon, Dr. Paul is the "one exception to the Gang of 535" on Capitol Hill.

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Comments

Elie Elhadj
24 Dec 07, 07:38
The March of Shiism

The March of Shiism

Even without nuclear weapons, Iran has become the hegemonic power over the world’s richest oil region, thanks to the Bush administration’s elimination of the Sunni Wahhabi Talibans in Afghanistan and Saddam’s Sunni regime in Iraq.

On April 9, 2003, the U.S. won the battle against a tattered Iraq. But Iran, without firing a shot won the war for Iraq; a triumph for the Khomeini revolution, one of Shiism’s greatest moments since Saladin removed the Shii Fatimids in Cairo in 1171. The occupation of Iraq transferred control in Mesopotamia to Iraq’s 60% Shii majority, a cataclysmic event that turned Iran into an unstoppable regional powerhouse. The British think tank, Chatham House concluded in August 2006: “The greatest problem facing the U.S. is that Iran has superseded it as the most influential power in Iraq.”

To Sunnis, Shiis are heretics. In extremist Wahhabi Saudi Arabia, Shiis are discriminated against. The founder of the kingdom imposed on Shiis the tax he imposed on non-Muslims. Shii towns and villages today are pathetically poor despite being located at the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil region. In Bahrain, the Sunni ruling minority discriminates against the Shii majority. In Iraq, until the U.S. occupation, the Shii majority was deprived. In Kuwait, Shiis, almost one-third of Kuwaitis, are second-class citizens. In Lebanon, Shiis, a third of the population, are underprivileged. In Syria, until seizing power in 1970, the Alawites, a Shii sect, lived in abject poverty under Sunni rule. In Yemen, the Zaydis, a Shii sect, are a third of Yemen’s twenty million people. Zaidis accuse the Sunni government of genocide.

The Arab Shiis look to Iran for deliverance; leverage in Tehran’s arsenal in dealing with Arab oil Sheikhdoms. Egyptian President Mubarak declared recently that Shiis in Arab states were more loyal to Iran than to their own countries.

As a minority of about 15% of Muslims today, Shiism draws Shiis together. In Southern Iraq, Najaf and Karbala, the burial places of Imams Ali and Hussein, are the holiest of holy Shii cities. Kazimayn, nearby, has the tombs of the Seventh and the Ninth Imams. Samarra has the tombs of the Tenth and the Eleventh Imams plus the revered Mosque of the Occultation, from where the Twelfth Imam allegedly disappeared (this mosque was blown up in the civil war on February 22, 2006 and again on June 13, 2007). In the cemeteries of these holy cities, many illustrious religious personalities from the world of Shiism are buried. In Iran, the Eighth Imam is buried in Mashhad, and in Qumm his sister is buried. Outside Damascus in Syria, Zainab, the Granddaughter of the Prophet and the sister of Hasan and Hussein, is buried. In commemorating the suffering of the Imams, pilgrimages pull millions of Shiis together. In the grand seminaries of Najaf, Karbala, Mashhad, and Qumm the best-known clerics teach. The prominent families of Najaf and Karbala trace their roots to long lines of marriages with the great families of Burjurid, Isfahan, Kirmanshah, Mashhad, and Qumm. Ayatollahs have cross-country followings. From Najaf and Karbala, Iranian clerics often led the Shii world. The so-called “historical ethnic enmity” between Arabs and Persians is an exaggeration. The conflict has always been between the rulers, not the Shii masses.

Washington needs today to deal with Iran as the major power in the world’s biggest oil region. GCC rulers in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and UAE are too feeble to challenge Iran. These men are non-representative dictators pre-occupied in outdoing each other on who owns the more ostentatious palace and who flies the bigger private Airbus or Boeing airplane.

Elie Elhadj; author: The Islamic Shield

http://www.universal-publishers.com/book.php?method=ISBN&book=1599424118

Also:

http://journals.aol.com/eeh100/daring-opinion/


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