Nuclear-Armed Iran Risks World War, Bush Says

Before the illegal war on Iraq, Bush spoke of the possibility of "mushroom clouds" if the world did not intervene. The world did not share his sense of imminent doom and refused to pass the second resolution which would have made the Iraq war legal. Bush went ahead anyway and invaded and was found to be flat wrong in his every prediction.

Iraq, despite his dramatic claims - claims which Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei were unable to verify - did not have the WMD which Bush and others in his administration has claimed that Saddam possessed.

Now Bush is, once again, making lavish claims regarding another Middle Eastern country and their weapons programmes, claims which, once again, Mohamed ElBaradei is unable to verify.

And Bush has lost none of the heightened rhetoric which brought us the threat of "mushroom clouds" if we failed to confront Saddam; indeed, he's taken matters into a whole new stratosphere. Now, if we don't see things his way we run the risk of World War Three...

President Bush issued a stark warning on Iran on Wednesday, suggesting that if the country obtained nuclear arms, it could lead to “World War III.”

“We got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel,” Mr. Bush said at a White House news conference, referring to a remark by the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that Israel “will disappear soon.”

This kind of lying is what leads people like myself to think that Bush wants to invade Iran.

Ahmadinejad never said that he wants to destroy Israel and I find it almost impossible to believe that anyone could put forward the argument that he did without having an ulterior motive for doing so. Bush and other right wingers have chosen to believe that Ahmadinejad said this because it suits their purposes and advances their wish to portray him as the latest "world threat du jour".

Indeed, the US have no proof whatsoever that Iran are pursuing a nuclear weapons programme and are using a false translation, their own distrust of Iran's intentions, and the exact same heightened rhetoric that they used prior to the invasion of Iraq in an attempt to build public opinion for another attack, this time on the Iranians.

There is overwhelming proof that the American public are not buying this.

This desire for diplomacy is particularly apparent in public attitudes on the spread of nuclear weapons. As far as the vast majority of Americans are concerned, military force is "off the table" in dealing with Iran's nuclear program and its possible meddling in Iraq. There's also been a sharp drop in public confidence in military force as a tool for dealing with other countries developing weapons of mass destruction—even though controlling the spread of nuclear weapons is the public's top policy priority and one of its major fears.

So, having failed to win over Americans with his completely unproven claims that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon, Bush has now decided to do exactly what he did before his invasion of Iraq - in pursuit of weapons that they did not possess - and tell the world that it faces ultimate disaster if it does not follow his gut feelings on this matter.

Mr. Bush said he had “told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”

Please note how he's moving the goal posts here. He's no longer depending on any proof that Iran might be preparing a nuclear weapons programme, he's arguing that they must never have "the knowledge necessary" for such a programme.

So we should attack them, not because they are attempting to build a nuclear weapon, we should attack them because they might "know" how to make a nuclear weapon.

And, in a similar vein to the build up to the Iraq war, Bush tells us that he is really only seeking regime change, something which he obviously feels he has every right to do.

Mr. Bush sought in the news conference to make clear that his pressure tactics, including economic sanctions, were aimed at persuading the Iranian people to find new leadership.

“The whole strategy is that, you know, at some point in time leaders or responsible folks inside of Iran may get tired of isolation and say, ‘This isn’t worth it,’ and to me it’s worth the effort to keep the pressure on this government,” Mr. Bush said.

He added, “My intent is to continue to rally the world, to send a focused signal to the Iranian government that we will continue to work to isolate you in the hopes that at some point somebody else shows up and says it’s not worth the isolation.”

I have no idea how isolated Ahmadinejad feels after the recent visit from Putin, when the Russian leader stated that he had seen "no evidence" that Iran was trying to acquire nuclear weapons, which didn't make Ahmadinejad look very isolated at all. I thought it all looked rather cosy.

But, Bush thinks that Putin - a man who has famously had his soul examined by Bush and it was found to be a good one - and he are eye to eye on this one.

“We don’t agree on a lot of issues,” Mr. Bush said. “We do agree on some: Iran is one; nuclear proliferation is another.”

In one respect Bush is right in what he says. It is not in Russia's interest for Iran to possess a nuclear weapon and Putin has made that clear. However, Putin has also made it clear that there is no proof for Bush's more outlandish claims about Ahmadinejad's nuclear intentions.

Once again, it is actually Bush who is isolated, it is Bush who is making claims which the rest of the world do not believe. And it is Bush who has been reduced to making grandiose threats of World War Three if people don't see things his way.

He's beginning to come across as a sad little crackpot.

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Tags: Bush, Putin, Ahmadinejad, Iran, nuclear weapons, World War Three