Re: SC47

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6453

Iran feels the chill in US cold war tactics

.................The cold-war virtual reality

Compared with the "systemic" conflict of the Cold War between two militarily symmetrical techno-powers along bifurcated Marxism-versus-capitalism ideological fault lines, US-Iran competition today lacks the key ingredients of the superpower rivalry between the US and the Soviet Union.

Assigning Iran the functional role of filling the vacuum of the Soviet enemy may serve some defense subcontractors lobbying Washington and Riyadh, yet it hardly makes for sound foreign-policy making on Washington's part.

For one thing, as Jane's Defence Weekly aptly put it recently, US arms sales to the Saudis "open the way for a further shift in the balance of power and technology in the region". In 2006, the Saudis bought 72 European Typhoon aircraft at a cost of US$18 billion and now they are purchasing sophisticated F-15E US bombers that can deliver 12-tonne bombs some 1,600 kilometers away, ie, the Iranian capital city Tehran.

This, together with other GCC states' purchases of state-of-the-art weapons, including jet fighters from the US and Europe, is extremely disconcerting to Tehran, which already sees itself encircled by US power. This could turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy as the more the US continues down this path, of harvesting the rewards of its self-declared cold war with Iran, the more it pushes Iran toward a nuclear survival strategy, given the growing conventional-arms imbalance.

At present, the Iranians have no nuclear dimension in their defense strategy, despite what the US government and media might say to the contrary. This might change if the US persists on pushing the Iranians into a corner and exacerbating their national-security concerns.

The crux is that today Iran feels strategically threatened by the US and its allies and, as we know, threat perception has historically been the real engine of nuclear proliferation. A non-threatening US Iran policy is needed, otherwise Tehran will be forced to maximize the few leverages it has. These include Iraq, where the US-Iran dialogue on Iraq's security is taking place in the vacuum of the larger context of US-Iran and Iran-GCC rivalry. These issues are not separate, and the US cannot realistically expect Iran to commit security suicide by helping it stabilize Iraq just as the US is doing everything possible to isolate and destabilize Iran.

That is unrealistic, and Iran has a "forward" defense strategy that extends into Iraq and it will not forfeit this, irrespective of the security dialogue in Baghdad. The insecurity of US forces in Iraq and their current quagmire serves Iran's security interests and a fully secure Iraq with US forward bases near the Iranian borders are inimical to Iran's national-security interests.

Thus structural limits or distortions handicap the US-Iran dialogue on Iraq, which must be expanded to tackle the larger "strategic issues" between the intrusive superpower and the assertive regional power, otherwise any hopes of a major breakthrough in those talks are misplaced.............

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman, the US administration's Oily Pals in the Middle East, are being armed to the teeth, to protect themselves against Iran and its certain military reprisal, if it is attacked by the US, which looks like the direction things are going. There has been literally NO evidence that Iran is developing its nuclear facilities, to make Nuclear Weapons, but given the threatening actions of Bush and his policies in the region, which have the true purpose in the end, of surrounding Iran, why would the Iranians not be finally pushed to resort to the only thing ( Nuclear Weapons ) they could really have as an effective deterrent against and US empire under Dictator Bush, that wishes to control and plunder the Middle East and the world, by any means he wishs. If Iran was surrounding and threatening our nation in the same manner, we as a people, of course would feel threatened, and would seek to protect ourselves. But then, we already have thousands of nukes, enough to destroy the planet and its inhabitants, over and over again, so what do we have to worry about. There is no proof that Iran, has even ONE nuclear weapon, and has NEVER in its history threatened to attack the US. Bush however wants you to be very, very scared of Iran, so you won't mind too much, when he nukes thier country into submission, which will in truth have the ultimate intention, not of stopping thier " supposed " Nuclear Ambitions, but to destabalize, and disrupt the countries infrastructure, just as has been the mission in Iraq, so this country will be brought to heel to the demands and interest of the US empire. If Iran didn't have the number 4 oil reserves in the world, and if Iran held no strategic interest, like being in a position to threaten oil shipments ( if attacked by the US ) through the gulf of Oman to the Oil Addicted economies of the west, then there would be no reason for the impending military mayhem, that seems poised to descend on thier country.