The Bush Administration continues to warn the world of the "threat" posed by Iran’s nuclear program. As Condoleeza Rice explains, if the Iranians were to develop atomic weapons, not only might they use the weapons against the U.S., but they might provide the technology to HezBollah or to some other "terrorist" group for use against America. The Democrats fully concur.
But WHY would Iran want to harm the U.S.? And why would Iran want to arm others against the U.S.? Wouldn’t that make them EVIL and a rational target for preemptive warfare by the U.S.?
I just came across an interesting book at the local public library, written and extremely well-documented by an investigative journalist. The book is called " Spider’s Web: The Secret History of how the White House illegally armed Iraq", by Alan Friedman, published in 1993 by Bantam Books.
This book reveals in amazing detail the machinations of the U.S. Government under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush to arm Iraq for its war against Iran. The best succinct way to explain the occurrence was that laws were broken, lies were told, and lives were lost in both Iran and Iraq by the hundreds of thousands. The U.S. armed Iraq using agricultural credits and other devices, using third parties to physically handle the transactions and the hardware, including building of Iraq’s chemical and nuclear weapons programs. There is no doubt whatsoever that Reagan, William Casey, George H.W. Bush, James Baker, Robert Gates, and many other high ranking individuals in the U.S. government were fully aware of these patently illegal activities and indeed, caused these activities to take place.
In short, the U.S. was supplying weapons to both sides of a conflict between Muslim States in order to destabilize both and prevent the regional dominance of either. This support for Iraq against Iran included provisioning of technology for weapons of mass destruction for use in warfare. The U.S. stood by as weapons of mass destruction were used in that war.
But why would Iran want to arm itself now? Why would Iran ever want to arm any other entities? After all, doesn’t Iran know that the U.S. is currently against the spread of weapons of mass destruction? Doesn’t Iran know that the U.S. is opposed to Iranian nuclear capability? Shouldn’t the rest of the world just sit back and acquiesce to U.S. policies of self-interest and ignore U.S. history and U.S. actions of the recent past?
One of the interesting aspects of the book " Spider Web" is the description of how, after arming Iraq with billions of dollars of weaponry and weapons production facilities, including a factory to produce cluster bombs for use against Iran, the U.S. declared war against Iraq and began blowing up and destroying all the billions and billions of dollars of materiel that had just been provided to Iraq at U.S. taxpayer expense. Very good for the armaments industry!
If Iran and Iraq and other nations of the world listen to Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld and even John Kerry, the message is: "Do as we say, not as we do, and if you are lucky, we’ll be good to you!"
