November 04, 2004


Carol Giacomo of Reuters writes:

Armed with a clearer mandate than the disputed 2000 election, President Bush may well use a second term to advance the robust conservative foreign policy "revolution" he launched four years ago—a move some say would be a huge mistake.

Most Americans do not understand the dynamics of the Bush administration. It is ruled by a camarilla of lunatic warmongers, Straussian neocons who believe America’s military power should be used to "reshape" the Middle East in the name of Greater Israel. Bush’s Straussian advisors are fixated on killing Arabs and Muslims, the same way Israel’s Sharon is fixated on killing Palestinians. Bush’s evil genius mastermind is Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, "now widely known as 'Wolfowitz of Arabia’ for his obsession with ousting Iraq’s Saddam Hussein as the first step in transforming the entire Arab Middle East," writes Jim Lobe, one of a few journalists who speaks the truth about the Straussian neocons. "Wolfowitz is also seen as the chief architect of Washington’s post-9/11 global strategy, including its controversial pre-emption policy." In addition to Wolfowitz, Lobe mentions two "other very influential Straussians [including] Weekly Standard Chief Editor William Kristol and Gary Schmitt, founder, chairman, and director of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a six-year-old neoconservative group whose alumni include Vice President Dick Cheney and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, as well as a number of other senior foreign policy officials."

As Schmitt told Giacomo, Bush "has made it clear over the past year that he’s not changing the overall direction of his policy. … [Bush] may well change personnel (in his government) and tactical decisions, but his overall vision is going to remain the same." In other words, the White House will remain an appendage of PNAC and the Straussian neocons.

Giacomo writes:

This includes doggedly pushing plans to try to transform Iraq into a democracy and making good on a pledge that Iran should never be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. Schmitt said the Iran pledge may ultimately require using force. For the moment, Bush is geared toward a Nov. 25 deadline for persuading the U.N. nuclear agency to send the issue to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.

Of course, the Bushcons don’t care about transforming "Iraq into a democracy," in fact democracy is antithetical to all things Straussian. As Lobe writes elsewhere ( http://www.alternet.org/story/15935 ), quoting Shadia Drury, who teaches politics at the University of Calgary and is an expert on the philosophy of Leo Strauss, the Bushcons "really have no use for liberalism and democracy, but they’re conquering the world in the name of liberalism and democracy."

Strauss had a "huge contempt" for secular democracy. Nazism, he believed, was a nihilistic reaction to the irreligious and liberal nature of the Weimar Republic. Among other neoconservatives, Irving Kristol has long argued for a much greater role for religion in the public sphere, even suggesting that the Founding Fathers of the American Republic made a major mistake by insisting on the separation of church and state. And why? Because Strauss viewed religion as absolutely essential in order to impose moral law on the masses who otherwise would be out of control. … While professing deep respect for American democracy, Strauss believed that societies should be hierarchical—divided between elite who should lead, and the masses who should follow.

On November 2, 59,054,087 Americans (if we can believe the election results) gave Bush and his Straussian managers, Strauss’ platoian elite, a mandate to lead, while the rest of us will be expected to follow. "I think it’s still possible Bush will hew to the neo-conservative line … If that happens, I predict disaster," Patrick Cronin of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told Reuters.

Not a disaster for the Straussian neocons, who will retreat to the sanctuary of their think tanks and foundations, but a disaster for the American people. And that disaster will be Iran. "Of course, you do know that now the Bush administration and the neocons are setting America up for a war with Iran," writes Mike Rogers for Lew Rockwell, quoting a Persian friend, Faramarz ( http://www.lewrockwell.com/rogers/rogers74.html ).

With George W. Bush as your next president, go ahead, America, attack Iran. But, as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, you will be forced to pay the piper. And it will, most certainly, be a catastrophically heavy price. … Did you know that Iran has more than three times the population of Iraq, and 63% of that population is under 31 years old? Did you also know that, geographically speaking, Iran is four times larger than Iraq? … Did you also know that, although no one is sure of the total casualties during the Iran-Iraq war of 1979 to 1988, estimates range from 800,000 to 1 million dead, at least 2 million wounded, and more than 80,000 taken prisoner? That there were approximately 2.5 million who became refugees and whose cities were destroyed? That the financial cost is estimated at a minimum of $200 billion? And even though, according to some estimates, Iran lost about one million soldiers, it was still not defeated?

"The United States says that we have endangered their interests," Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told a crowd of thousands on a visit to the city of Hamedan in western Iran in July of this year. "If anyone invades our nation, we will jeopardize their interests around the world," the Associated Press quotes Khamenei as warning. In other words, if the Straussian warmongers manage to get the United States to invade, Iran will attack the United States not simply in the Gulf, but around the world. This is an ominous warning, to say the least.

As Mark Gaffney writes ( http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7147.htm ), Russia has developed an advanced anti-ship cruise missile, known as the Moskit or "Sunburn," and this fearsome missile (for which the United States military has no defense) is "a growth industry generating much-needed cash for Russia, with many billions in combined sales to India, China, Viet Nam, Cuba, and also Iran." Gaffney explains what Iran’s possession of this missile means:

The US Navy has never faced anything in combat as formidable as the Sunburn missile. But this will surely change if the US and Israel decide to wage a so-called preventive war against Iran to destroy its nuclear infrastructure. Storm clouds have been darkening over the Gulf for many months. In recent years Israel upgraded its air force with a new fleet of long-range F-15 fighter-bombers, and even more recently took delivery of 5,000 bunker-buster bombs from the US—weapons that many observers think are intended for use against Iran.

The arming for war has been matched by threats. Israeli officials have declared repeatedly that they will not allow the Mullahs to develop nuclear power, not even reactors to generate electricity for peaceful use. Their threats are particularly worrisome, because Israel has a long history of pre-emptive war.

(…)

The US Navy will come under fire even if the US does not participate in the first so-called surgical raids on Iran’s nuclear sites, that is, even if Israel goes it alone. Israel’s brand-new fleet of 25 F-15s (paid for by American taxpayers) has sufficient range to target Iran, but the Israelis cannot mount an attack without crossing US-occupied Iraqi air space. It will hardly matter if Washington gives the green light, or is dragged into the conflict by a recalcitrant Israel. Either way, the result will be the same. The Iranians will interpret US acquiescence as complicity, and, in any event, they will understand that the real fight is with the Americans. The Iranians will be entirely within their rights to counter-attack in self-defense. Most of the world will see it this way, and will support them, not America. The US and Israel will be viewed as the aggressors, even as the unfortunate US sailors in harm’s way become cannon fodder [attacked with Russian Sunburn missiles by Iran]. In the Gulf’s shallow and confined waters evasive maneuvers will be difficult, at best, and escape impossible. Even if US planes control of the skies over the battlefield, the sailors caught in the net below will be hard-pressed to survive. The Gulf will run red with American blood…

Idle speculation? Maybe. Even so, Iran believes the threat from Israel is so great it distributed "antiradiation pills to civilians in townships surrounding" its nuclear reactors, according Martin van Creveld, reporting for IHT in August. "In a country that has always sought to keep its nuclear activities out of the spotlight, that is a highly unusual step." Iran knows more about Israel and the United States’ intentions than do most of the 59,054,087 "values-based" Americans who gave the Straussian neocons a green light on November 2 to invade Iran (and Syria, Lebanon, maybe even Saudi Arabia, North Korea, and Cuba—the list remains open for addition).

Of course, such ambitions will require plenty of bullet-stoppers—and the Great Unwashed (and ill-educated) masses will be told by the Straussian elite to pony up the lives of their kids, or their own lives, not only in the name of Greater Israel, but also in the name of mindless nationalism at home, a powerful force for societal control. Leo Strauss believed aggressive nationalism and war are the glue that binds society. "Strauss thinks that a political order can be stable only if it is united by an external threat," Drury writes. "Following Machiavelli, he maintained that if no external threat exists then one has to be manufactured [emphases added]." Is it possible 9/11 was that manufactured threat, the "new Pearl Harbor" that is so prominent in Straussian neocon thinking, an excuse to initiate wars against Muslim nations (for many Straussians are unabashed Zionists), beginning with Afghanistan and Iraq and soon moving on to Iran, Syria, and elsewhere?

Obviously, invading large countries such as Iran will require thousands, if not millions, of soldiers, so conscription (slavery) will be on the front burner next year. Unfortunately, large numbers of Americans are so ignorant of the Straussian philosophy and agenda, preferring to see Bush as one of them—in other words, "values-based" Christian evangelical simpletons—they will not catch on until it is far too late, that is if they catch on at all.

59,054,087 Americans have decided America’s fate—and it is a fate of total war, not excluding nuclear confrontation (a distinct possibility if Mark Gaffney’s scenario comes to pass), and ultimately fascism because, as history instructs, fascism and totalitarianism (with attendant authoritarian control of society) is the ultimate result of total war and the militarization of society, a process well under way and now encouraged by stupid Americans who can’t find Iran on a map.

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