Is a U.S. war against Iran on the agenda? Some mainstream commentators lament that because U.S. forces are too stretched fighting the bad war in Iraq, there aren't enough of them left to fight "good" wars in Afghanistan and Iran.

But before progressives breathe a sigh of relief and assume that war against Iran is not a strong possibility, we'd do well to remember our history. By 1970 the United States had lost the war in Vietnam, and its armed forces battered and stretched thin, but that year President Nixon launched his infamous invasion of Cambodia. It was his "hail Mary pass" attempt to salvage the situation in the region -- victory by escalation.

With the stakes for the U.S. in the Middle East today far higher than they were in Southeast Asia, the temptation to attack and make do with what resources are available may be irresistible.

WMDS, THE SEQUEL

This time the main pretext for war is Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program. It is absurd that the United States, the country in the world with the longest record of invading others, can now presume to dictate the armaments of other countries.

The United States' hypocrisy on nuclear weapons is longstanding. Besides being the only country that has ever used them on others, the U.S. has repeatedly turned a blind eye when its own allies have violated the same international accords it so piously cites against Iran:

* Apartheid South Africa launched a nuclear program, getting aid from close U.S. ally Israel, without the U.S. ever threatening war against that country.

* It's widely acknowledged that Israel itself already has built many nukes and refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. This year makes four decades of Israeli military occupation and illegal settlements in Gaza and the West Bank, it has invaded Lebanon repeatedly, and yet for more than two decades it has been the largest recipient of U.S. military arms.

* When the oppressive, Hindu chauvinist government of India exploded its own nuclear bomb in 1998, there were a few pro forma "tsk-tsks" from the Bush administration, but then it was back to business as usual, with the U.S. cutting a nuclear power deal with the country last March.

* While successive U.S. administrations have claimed to support democracy in the region, they've had no problem supporting violent military coups in Pakistan on Iran's southeastern border. When that country's current military dictatorship not only exploded a nuclear bomb but was exposed as having shared nuclear weapons technology with several other countries, the U.S. continued to back the Pakistani dictator with weapons sales.

"DEFENDING OUR TROOPS" IN IRAQ –- BY BOMBING IRAN

The latest excuse for attacking Iran is that the clerical regime is meddling in the internal affairs of Iraq. The Texas-sized arrogance of this excuse, coming as it does from the same Bush regime that told a bevy of lies to justify its own invasion of Iraq, is truly outrageous. Supposedly the new rules of international diplomacy dictate that the U.S. alone has the right to flood sovereign nations with thousands of troops and arms, but other countries that might carry out similar policies on a far more modest scale risk having their capitals bombed.

For anyone with a basic understanding of the internal dynamics of the Iraqi civil war, the charge of massive Iranian arms to Iraq is stupid on the face of it. The overwhelming majority of the attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq is coming from Sunni rebels in Sunni dominated areas of the country. The previous Sunni-led government of Saddam Hussein led an 8-years-long war against Shia-led Iran, which hardly has an interest in reinstalling yet another Sunni-led government. The Shia-led government in Iran may be aiding Shia forces in Iraq, but on a scale that pales by comparison to the U.S. occupation.

Finally, administration claims that arms being used by Iraqi insurgents against American troops are unquestionably supplied by Iran have been challenged by independent armaments experts. Given the track record of previous American "intelligence" to justify war, from the Gulf of Tonkin, to Grenada, to Colin Powell's dossier delivered before the United Nations, any U.S. claims of definitive intelligence to justify war should be considered the opposite of the truth.

THE "HUMANITARIAN" EXCUSES FOR BOMBING IRAN

We've heard the argument before: The [Afghani] [Iraqi] Iranian "regime" brutally oppresses its own people – women, gays, racial minorities, and/or religious groups. Therefore the U.S. must free them. But has the Bible-thumping Bush regime shown any sympathy to the plight of these groups here in the United States, let alone half way around the globe? Are Bush’s "smart bombs" so smart they’ll only kill religious bigots while sparing the alleged beneficiaries of a U.S. attack? The relatives of 650,000 Iraqi dead* might beg to differ.

While the government of Iran is repressive towards women and many of its minorities, U.S. threats of war only make the situation worse, as the clerical regime is better able to cast its internal opponents as tools of a foreign power. As Iranian scholar Hamid Dabashi put it,

"In the tense post-9/11 environment, and while the United States was still in the middle of its military invasion of Afghanistan (on one side of Iran), and about to attack Iraq (on its other side), the designation of the Islamic Republic as a member of the 'Axis of Evil' amounted to an open declaration of war against Iran – and whatever success, or hope and aspiration for change, the reform movement had managed to secure or institutionalize went up in smoke. Once again the regime and the country were braced for a fight for survival, and all reformist bets were off.... One can argue that after the coup of 1953, the 'Axis of Evil' speech was the second most damaging thing the United States has done against the cause of democracy in Iran."

Iranian fears of Western domination and oppression have legitimate and long-standing roots:

* Britain, France, Germany and Russia all tried to dominate the country in late 19th and early 20th centuries, and Britain and Russia actually signed two treaties carving the country up into what they euphemistically called "spheres of influence."

* When oil was discovered in 1908, Britain used its domination to extract a wildly unequal deal to seize the country's oil wealth while giving next to nothing in return.

* When Iranians attempted to democratize their country by limiting the power of their inept king in the Constitutional Revolution of 1906-11, Britain and Russia sided with the corrupt Iranian monarchy.

* When Iranians established their first democratically elected government in 1951, the United States and Britain opposed it at every turn, eventually overthrowing the Iranian President in a CIA-sponsored coup in 1953. In his place they reinstalled the hated Shah, who set up a pervasive police state, torturing and killing tens of thousands during his ensuing two-and-a-half decade dictatorship.

* Under the Shah, Iran became a proxy for U.S. power in the region, building up a huge military apparatus as one of the top importers of U.S. military hardware in the world. While the vast majority of Iranians remained mired in poverty, the U.S.-installed despot stole much of the country's new-found oil wealth.

* In 1980, Iraq's Saddam Hussein saw the continuing turmoil following the 1978-79 Iranian revolution as an opportunity to invade the country to steal some of the oil wealth concentrated near their common border. The Reagan administration, wanting to exact revenge for the overthrow of their puppet regime in Iran, gave Hussein the green light to invade.

* When the bloody Iran-Iraq War began going badly for its ally Saddam Hussein, the U.S. allowed arms shipments to Iraq and provided satellite intelligence data to Iraq to shift the war in its favor. U.S. special envoy Donald Rumsfeld, later Bush's Secretary of Defense, infamously met with the Iraqi dictator in December 1983 and promised even more arms.

* In 1985, the U.S. also began selling arms to Iran in exchange for money and the release of hostages taken in Lebanon. The money was used to circumvent U.S. law and illegally fund the terrorist Nicaraguan contras. Speaking about supplying both Iran and Iraq in a war that killed hundreds of thousands, the ever-brutal Henry Kissinger said, "I hope they kill each other. Too bad they can't both lose."

WHY THE U.S. GOVERNMENT WANTS WAR

With world oil reserves set to peak sometime in the next few decades and consumption rising despite fears of global warming, the competition over what remains will likely determine which country dominates the world in the latter half of this century. While the term is sometimes casually bandied about, thus robbing it of its meaning, this economic competition among the most powerful countries increasingly growing over into overt military competition and attempts at conquest, is the definition of "imperialism."

In its bid to control the oil used by an increasingly united Europe and a rapidly growing China, the United States seized control of Iraq, the country with the world's second largest oil reserves. In addition to its own large oil reserves, Iran is the one country that has the military and economic might to stymie unilateral U.S. control of the weak states that dot the oil rich Gulf region.

While a nuclear armed Iran could never meaningfully threaten the United States itself -- the U.S. possessing far more nuclear weapons than anyone else, not to mention delivery systems to launch them half way around the world -- an Iran equipped with nuclear weapons would be better equipped to stand up to U.S. or Israeli intimidation and aggression in the region.

The United States threats against Iran are part of a wider campaign to ensure American domination of the world into the foreseeable future. On this, both Democratic and Republican leaders are united. For Iran, "We must keep all options on the table," including bombing, chortled born again peacenik John Edwards. The current darling of many Democratic liberals, Barack Obama, advocated bombing Iran as early as 2004, and since then has continued to support this new preemptive war as a viable foreign policy option. He's loyally voted for every single war appropriation since he joined the Senate.

With American troops stationed in over 130 nations and a military budget equal to that of the rest of the world's countries combined, U.S. moves towards war are literally about preserving an American empire -– the rest of the world's peoples be damned. With war spending crowding out well paid jobs in the productive economy, not to mention social spending, preservation of U.S. empire is not in the interests of most U.S. residents either.

Opposing yet another U.S. war in the Middle East is not just an act of solidarity with the long-suffering peoples there, but a matter of working class self-preservation here at home.

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The program for Tuesday, March 20th's protest on the 4th anniversary of the Iraq invasion will not only address the continuing war there, but also the threat of war on Iran. The event will begin with a 6 PM rally at 24 W. Walton Street (a few blocks north of Chicago Avenue, just west of State Street), followed by a 7:30 PM march down Michigan Avenue to another rally at Daley Plaza.

For more information on the protest, go to www.M20coalition.net

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* A John Hopkins University / Al Mustansiriya University (Baghdad) study published last year in The Lancet, a highly respected British medical journal, is source of this figure.