By Kourosh Ziabari | 29 August 2010
| Aesop’s fable of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf too often” is being heard from the mouthpieces of Israel and the United States these days. |
The mainstream media around the world are enthusiastically adding flavor to the spicy food of “attacking Iran” which they’ve cooked for us. War threats are being renewed against Iran once more and overconfident politicians are trying their chance to see if they can release some believable predictions this time.
When Scott Ritter, the former chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq, courageously forecasted that the United States would attack Iran in 2005, everybody believed that undeniably, there would be an all-out battle between two of the most powerful countries in the world; however, no
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battle took place and Mr. Ritter fundamentally lost his credibility. He told the media on February 19, 2005 that the United States was seriously planning to attack Iran, “President George W. Bush has received and signed off on orders for an aerial attack on Iran planned for June 2005. Its purported goal is the destruction of Iran’s alleged program to develop nuclear weapons.” But June 2005 transpired to be one of the most stable and tranquil months of the year 2005 for Iran!
Three years later, a more entertaining show was staged by a man who seemed to be fervently interested in becoming the 21st century’s Nostradamus. John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations who is internationally popular for his dexterity in blending satire with the politics prophesized that Israel would imminently attack Iran to destruct its nuclear facilities. The UK’s Daily Telegraph victoriously featured this foretelling with the shining title: “Israel ‘will attack Iran’ before new US president sworn in, John Bolton predicts.”
The new US president swore in and Israel didn’t attack Iran. Mr. Bolton’s destiny was similar to that of Scott Ritter; however, he didn’t give up prophesying international events. He remained self-possessed and continued to entertain the global public opinion.
As Iran started to fuel its first nuclear power plant in Bushehr a few days ago, tittle-tattles about a preemptive attack by the US or Israel began to circulate over the global media. Predictions, analyses, statements and warnings are floating in the air deafeningly. Hawkish politicians and journalists are making attempts to lay the groundwork for a new adventurism in the Middle East. Bolton has once again made a bombastic suggestion, telling the US TV channel Fox News that “Israel has until August 21 to stop Bushehr power plant.” August 21 passed and Bolton’s prediction proved to be false again.
The proliferation of falsehood and fabrication is not exclusive to Bolton though. With his propagandistic cover story published in the September issue of the “Atlantic”, the Israeli-American journalist Jeffrey Goldberg brought to minds the seditious journalism of the New York Times’ Judith Miller that played into the hands of White House to invade Iraq in 2003. Many American journalists protested Goldberg for the provocative, advertorial language of his article titled “The Point of No Return”.
In this story, Goldberg claims that he has talked to a number of high-ranking Israeli officials and they’ve told him that Israel will attack Iran in near future.
His article begins with the fallacious, deceptive preface that Iran is after atomic weapons. From his erroneous presupposition, he then concludes that Iran will give up its “nuclear weapons” program due to the substantiality of financial sanctions, “At some point in the next 12 months, the imposition of devastating economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran will persuade its leaders to cease their pursuit of nuclear weapons.”
Goldberg, however, honestly admits that the United States, Israel and Great Britain are furtively carrying out intelligence operations to hinder Iran’s nuclear progress. He admits that kidnapping Iran’s nuclear scientists is on the agenda of the treacherous alliance of Western superpowers plus Israel, “It is possible … that ‘foiling operations’ conducted by the intelligence agencies of Israel, the United States, Great Britain, and other Western powers — programs designed to subvert the Iranian nuclear effort through sabotage and, on occasion, the carefully engineered disappearances of nuclear scientists — will have hindered Iran’s progress in some significant way.”
Goldberg subsequently talks of the plausibility of an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities and mentions the past successful experiences of Tel Aviv in bombarding the Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981 and a Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007. He says that an assault on Iran’s nuclear facilities will ease the tensions in the Middle East and rescue Israel from the threats it’s exposed to.
The Israeli-American journalist then argues that up to the moment of writing his article, he has interviewed more than 40 Israeli politicians and decision-makers who entirely agree that there’s a 50 percent chance of Tel Aviv attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities in the near future.
Goldberg, who is very close to the Zionist officials in the US government, cites the White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel as telling him personally, “The expression ‘All options are on the table’ means that all options are on the table.”
So, what will happen finally? Will the United States and its allies succeed in hampering Iran’s path toward nationalizing nuclear power? Can Israel escape from its definitive destiny by attacking Iran? Will the financial sanctions obstruct Iran’s nuclear advancement? Will Bolton’s predictions come true some day?
The answer to all of these questions is clear. Any attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, either by the United States or Israel, will lead to the political demolition of Tel Aviv and capsize the equations of the Middle East entirely. Having in mind the military might of Iran, it’s also possible that Israel’s life comes to an end militarily. Moreover, Iran has already warned that it will close the Strait of Hormoz should it be attacked. This will lead to the immediate plummet of oil prices and create a financial disturbance for the United States and its European allies. In the event of any adventurous action, the chances of a crushing retaliation by Iran would be very high.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had once expressed “if any hand in the world raises to pull the trigger against Iran, the Iranian nation will cut that hand from the arm.” This is the reality of Iran and the Iranian people. Religious, political, racial and lingual diversity cannot divide the Iranian nation. Iranians will stand by their country, as they’ve demonstrated throughout the history and particularly during the past 30 years since the victory of the Islamic Revolution.
Any attack against the nuclear facilities of Iran will result in the formation of a 70-million-strong army whose ultimate goal would be to blow a lethal defeat to the enemy. Iran is the land of peace and friendship; however, the fate of every mischievous enemy of this land would be total obliteration.
| The views expressed in this article are those of the author.
Kourosh Ziabari, born in 1990, an Iranian freelance journalist and cultural researcher, a member of Stony Brook University Publications’ editorial team, a guest writer for BBC world service website, a contributor to PBS Media Shift, columnist of the Netherlands-based PoliGazette and the author of book “7+1”. A number of his articles have been translated in German, Italian, Spanish, Malayan and Arabic.
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