Dems' Me-Too Iran Talk
Gareth Porter
February 26, 2007
Gareth Porter is a historian and national security policy analyst. His latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published in June 2005.As the Bush administration ratchets up its military threat to Iran, the leadership of the Democratic party is providing a free pass to continue on that potentially disastrous course. Congressional leaders have tacitly or explicitly accepted the necessity of keeping the “military option”—meaning a massive, unprovoked air attack on Iran—“on the table,” as have all three of the leading candidates for the party’s presidential nomination.
The Democratic leadership in Congress has defined the Iran issue only in terms of c ongressional prerogatives to declare war; none have seen fit to say that threatening Iran with an unprovoked attack is an unacceptable option.
Leading Democrats refuse to reject the option of aggressive war against Iran because they have bought into one of the central myths of the U.S. national security elite: that the U.S. must use its unchallenged military dominance to coerce Iran on uranium enrichment.
The three leading candidates in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination have all stated their support for continuing to consider the option of military attack. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., told the AIPAC annual convention at the end of January, “In dealing with this threat ... no option can be taken off the table.” Former senator John Edwards was even more vehement in a speech on Iran last month at the Herzliya Conference in Israel. “To ensure that Iran never gets nuclear weapons, we need to keep all options on the table,” he said, and then repeated the point for emphasis. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., appearing on “60 Minutes” recently, declared, “I think we should keep all options on the table.”
These Democrats act as though their support for keeping the military option alive—as opposed to supporting an actual attack on Iran—carries no risk, but that notion represents a profound misunderstanding of what it means to threaten aggressive war against Iran. In fact, keeping that threat “on the table” carries three very serious risks.
A war with Iran could be triggered by accidental or deliberate U.S. military provocation. To make the threat to Iran credible, the administration is deploying carrier task forces to the Persian Gulf, which inherently increases the likelihood that some U.S. naval commander will fire unnecessarily on an Iranian ship or plane. That is exactly what happened in 1988 when the cruiser USS Vincennes—apparently thanks to the aggressive tactics of its commander—shot down Iran Air Flight 655. That danger is especially acute given the provocative nature of the Bush administration's policy toward Iran. ....(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/02/26/dems_metoo_iran_talk.php 
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