Time's Arrow: The Coming Nuclear Epiphany in Persia

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Thu, 20 Apr 2006 22:55:23 +0200

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Time's Arrow: The Coming Nuclear Epiphany in Persia

 

 

http://www.chris-floyd.com/

 

 

Time's Arrow: The Coming Nuclear Epiphany in Persia

 

 

Thursday, 20 April 2006

 

Twelve hours. One circuit of the sun from horizon to horizon, one

course of the moon from dusk to dawn. What was once a natural

measurement for the daily round of human life is now a doom-laden

interval between the voicing of an autocrat's brutal whim and the

infliction of mass annihilation halfway around the world.

 

Twelve hours is the maximum time necessary for American bombers to

gear up and launch an unprovoked sneak attack – a Pearl Harbor in

reverse – against Iran, the Washington Post reports. The plan for this

" global strike, " which includes a very viable " nuclear option, " was

approved months ago, and is now in operation. The planes are already

on continuous alert, making " nuclear delivery " practice runs along the

Iranian border, as Sy Hersh reports in the New Yorker, and waiting

only for the signal from President George W. Bush to drop their

payloads of conventional and nuclear weapons on some 400 targets

spread throughout the condemned land.

 

And when this attack comes – either as a stand-alone " knock-out blow "

or else as the precusor to a full-scale, regime-changing invasion,

like the earlier aggression in Iraq – there will be no warning, no

declaration of war, no hearings, no public debate. The already issued

orders governing the operation put the decision solely in the hands of

the president: he picks up the phone, he says, " Go " – and in twelve

hours' time, up to a million Iranians will be dead.

 

This potential death toll is not pacificist hyperbole; it comes from a

National Academy of Sciences study sponsored by the Pentagon itself,

as The Progressive reports. (Although Bush's military brass like to

peddle the public lie that " we don't do body counts " of the enemy, in

reality, like all good businessmen they keep precise accounts of their

production outputs: i.e., corpses.) The Pentagon's NAS study

calibrated the kill-rate from " bunker-busting " tactical nukes used to

take out underground facilities – such as those which house much of

Iran's nuclear power program.

 

Another simulation by scientists, using Pentagon-devised software, was

even more specific, measuring the aftermath of a " limited " nuclear

attack on the main Iranian underground site in Esfahan, the magazine

reports. This small expansion of the Pentagon franchise would result

in stellar production figures: three million people killed by

radiation in just two weeks, and 35 million people exposed to

dangerous levels of cancer-causing radiation in Afghanistan, Pakistan

and India. Bush has about 50 nuclear " earth-penetrating weapons " at

his disposal, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

 

Nor is the idea of a nuclear strike on Iran mere " liberal paranoia. "

Bush himself pointedly refused to take the nuclear option " off the

table " this week. But what's more, Bush has made the use of nuclear

weapons a centerpiece of his " National Security Strategy of the United

States, " issued last month, The Progressive notes. While reaffirming

the criminal principle of " pre-emptive " attacks on perceived enemies

which may or may not be threatening America with weapons they may or

may not possess, Bush declared that " safe, credible and reliable

nuclear forces continue to play a critical role " in the " offensive

strike systems " that are now a key part of America's " deterrence. "

 

In the depraved jargon of atomic warmongering, a " credible " nuclear

force is one that can and will be used in the course of ordinary

military operations. It is no longer to be regarded as a sacred taboo.

This has long been the dream of the Pentagon's " nuclear priesthood "

and its acolytes, going back to the days of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

For decades, a strong faction within the American power structure has

been afflicted with a perverted craving to unleash these weapons once

more. An almost sexual frustration can be discerned in their laments

as time and again, in crisis after crisis, their counsels for " going

nuclear " were rejected – often at the very last moment. To justify

their abberant desire, they have relentlessly demonized an

ever-changing array of " enemies, " painting each one as an imminent,

overwhelming threat, led by " madmen " in thrall to pure evil,

impervious to reason, fit only for destruction. Evidence for the

" threat " is invariably exaggerated, manipulated, even manufactured;

this ritual cycle has been enacted over and over, leading to many wars

– but never to that ultimate, orgasmic release.

 

Now this paranoid sect has at last seized the commanding heights of

American power. Two of its most venerable and faithful adherents are

the central players in the court of the Crawford Caligula: Vice

President Dick Cheney and Pentagon warlord Donald Rumsfeld. And they

have found a most eager disciple in the peevish dullard strutting in

the Oval Office. Under their sinister tutelage, Bush has eviscerated

40 years' worth of arms control treaties; officially " normalized " the

use of nuclear weapons, even against non-nuclear states; rewarded

outlaw proliferators like India, Israel and Pakistan; and is now

destroying the last and most effective restraint on the spread of

nuclear weapons: the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

 

The treaty guarantees its signatories – such as Iran – the right to

establish nuclear power programs in exchange for rigorous

international inspections. But Bush has arbitrarily decided that Iran

– whose nuclear program undergone perhaps the most extensive

inspection process in history – must end its lawful activities. Why?

Because the country is led by " madmen " in thrall to pure evil,

impervious to reason, who one day may or may not threaten America with

weapons they may or may not have.

 

So the NPT is dead. As with the Geneva Conventions and the U.S.

Constitution, it now means only what Bush says it means. Force of

arms, not rule of law, is the new world order. The attack on Iran is

coming. And Bush is insisting that the nuclear option remain in the

warplans, despite resistance from top military officers, as Hersh

reports. The obvious, murderous insanity of such a move in no way

precludes its implementation by this gang – as their invasion of Iraq

clearly shows.

 

The nuclear sectarians have waited decades for this moment. Such a

chance may never come again. Will they let it pass, when with just a

word, in just twelve hours, they can see their god rising in a pillar

of fire over Persia?

 

Chris Floyd/This is an expanded version of a column appearing in the

April 21 edition of The Moscow Times.