Dr. J.'s Commentary: One if Iran, Two if by Sea

There is currently a huge amount of speculation, alarums and excursions, mainly on the left-wing Web media, that there will soon be a massive U.S. air/missile attack on Iran on (you name it): Good Friday (April 6), Easter Sunday (April 8), or "sometime in June" (2007). Most recently, these predictions have been fed by a report from official/semi-official/un-official Russian sources that such an attack, rumored for more than two years, is imminent.

On this side of the Atlantic, authorities considered to be reliable and to have reliable sources have provided details of the planned attack and how the military is being organized to carry it out. Scott Ritter, the former Iraq U.S. weapons inspector, has been a strong and vocal critic of the CheneyBush Administration over their War on Iraq and their stated reasons for it. As reported to me by a friend, at a meeting at the District 8 Democratic Club in Arizona on March 31, he said the attack will occur "by the end of June."

Sounds pretty certain, doesn't it? All these "reliable sources." And the not-so-reliable ones, such as the right-wing Jerusalem Post closely associated with leading architect of the War on Iraq, Richard Perle ("U.S. ready to strike Iran on Good Friday", April 1, 2007; do note the date), which would like nothing better than to foment a U.S. attack on Iran. Well, I don't think so. And that's not just wishful thinking. Nor is my thinking based alone on thoughts about what such an attack would do to (you name it): the security position of the United States, the future of any Jewish state within the current confines of the borders of Israel, the future of the American military, the price of oil, the economic status of the Western democracies and Japan, the explosion of anti-Western terrorism around the world, the U.S. national budget, to say nothing of the tens of thousands of Iranian citizens who would be murdered in such an attack. It is based rather on my reading of what is going on in the world of U.S. power politics.

I have written on these pages about the behind-the-scenes battle underway between the ever-shrinking Cheney wing of the U.S. power elite and the ever-growing Baker wing of the same entity. As detailed on these pages on April 2, 2007, the battle to gain control of the Iraqi oil reserves for the Western U.S. oil companies, mainly U.S., the original (apparent) objective of the war, has been won. Nevertheless, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the CheneyBush wing has gone beyond this goal to one of the creation of Permanent War abroad, to support the creation of a "Unitary Executive" (read fascist) state at home. Certainly, a new War on Iran would support achievement of that goal.

However, it is also becoming increasingly obvious that a growing proportion of the U.S. power elite wants nothing to do with either. (See, for example, the "Report of the Iraq Study Group," headed by Baker [one major recommendation of this is being carried out by Speaker Pelosi on her trip to Syria), and the writings/testimony of Zbigniew Brzezinski, e.g., before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 2/1/07.) Why? The U.S. has the oil, may well be able to retain at least some of the Iraqi bases (certainly that enormous very well-fortified U.S. Embassy under construction in Baghdad), and doesn't need any of the tsuris (an untranslatable Yiddish word meaning, roughly, "problems? You don't want to know -- but if I have a chance, I'll tell you") summarized by the list of consequences presented in the above paragraph.

The bulk of the U.S. power elite does very well under the current system of corporate-dominated Constitutional Democracy, thank you very much. Fascism and all of the instability that goes along with it (history shows that fascist states are simply never stable and always end in total destruction) is something they simply do not need. None of this is about appeals to reason, of course. However, when push comes to shove, they have ways and means of imposing their will upon even the CheneyBushes of U.S. politics. They may do it behind-the-scenes (Cheney will have that next "serious medical problem;" Bush will "temporarily" have to go into rehab, each occurrences having to do with a series of evidence-based threats based on private information about what will happen to them personally if they don't comply). They may do it out front, in the political arena (impeachment is already being talked about by certain Republicans). More than likely, they will do both. But they will do it. No. There will be no War on Iran.

Steven Jonas, MD, MPH is a Professor of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University (NY), a weekly contributing author for The Political Junkies, and contributing editor for The Moving Planet Blog.

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