IRAN: Messages of war and bombings escalate

If the medium is the message, as the Canadian scholar Marshall McLuhan put it, the Iranians couldn't possibly mistake the recent communications by the United States. 

On Tuesday, President Bush told reporters that the Israeli bombing of an alleged North Korean-designed nuclear facility in Syria was not just directed against Pyongyang and Damascus, but was also a not-so-subtle telegram to Tehran.

Answering a question about the sudden resurfacing of the Sept. 16 attack on the Syrian facility, Bush strongly suggested that the United States and Israel had Iran in mind when Syria was bombed:

We have an interest in sending a message to, to Iran, and the world, for that matter, about just how destabilizing a nuclear proliferation would be in the Middle East, and that it's essential that we work together to enforce U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed at getting Iran to stop their enrichment programs. In other words, one of the things that this example shows is that, you know, these programs can exist and people don't know about them and — as the Syrians simply didn't declare the program. They had a hidden program.

Syria has denied that the site was a nuclear reactor. Arms experts say a country doesn't have to declare a nuclear reactor unless it is about to fire it up. Iran insists its sprawling and expanding network of nuclear facilities are meant for peaceful purposes only. It has opened them to international inspectors.

Meanwhile, in another possible message to Iran, the United States dispatched a second aircraft carrier group to the Persian Gulf.

It's not that big of a deal. The number of U.S. warships in the Gulf supporting the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan typically fluctuates. Defense Secretary Robert Gates downplayed the significance of the move. He told reporters in Mexico that the United States was not laying the groundwork for a strike against Tehran, which he has accused of supplying weapons and training to militants fighting U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

But he added that the warships could be seen as a "reminder" to Iran, presumably of America's ability to bomb the country.

U.S. officials hope they can cajole Iran into halting alleged support for Iraqi militants and curtailing its nuclear program by waving the big stick of military intervention.

But some Iran experts say the strategy won't work and might even have the opposite effect, emboldening the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Here's a note from Karim Sadjadpour, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace:

The Bush administration thinks that invoking the military option scares the Iranians. I think it is music for Ahmadinejad's ears. Bombing Iran is the one thing that would really rehabilitate his presidency and perhaps even improve the Iranian economy as oil prices would skyrocket. In the last seven years I don't recall any examples of Iranian behavior improving as a result of U.S. military threats or name calling. It may feel good, but it doesn't work.

—Raed Rafei and Borzou Daragahi in Beirut

Photo: President Bush speaks at a news conference in the White House's Rose Garden on Tuesday. Credit: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Comments

[Contrarian]

@ Marvenette
You wrote:
"Both US and Israel are the most hated countries in the world and a threat to world peace. Bush has no shame and is the worse President the US has ever had."

The US and Israel happen to both be democracies where people are allowed to speak their minds. What repression does happen in those countries is incredibly soft compared with what China does, for example, to its own people and to the Tibetans; let alone the barbaric repressions and public executions you impose on women and homosexuals and non-Muslims in the rest of the Middle East.

Which is where you're from. "I love the USA, my country, and would not hesitate to give my life defending it if attacked," you write. Yet you aren't from the US. Your difficulty with forming plural nouns in English proves that. So please, if you're going to pretend to be from someone else's country for the sake of writing propaganda about how hated and dangerous that country is, try to get the language right.

How'd you like it if I said:

انا مسلم ، ولكنني لن نعترف بأن الاسلام هو اكبر تهديد للسلم العالمي. كما أن الجميع يعرف أن محمد كان المغتصب من الفتيات الصغيرات.

Do you think that will sway public opinion in your country?

[Kiumars]

Pete | April 30, 2008 at 03:58 PM; You must be amongst the minority 30% that support Bush! Are you Israeli? LOL …

[Kiumars]

We have an old saying in Farsi/Persian; it says “the dogs that bark do not bite”. So, let them bark. Barking is a sign of weakness not power. Let them bark.

[Pete]

Thank God for President Bush. If the net and the Libs were around in 1939 we would be under the Nazi flag. They do not understnad evil and history. Stop I ran now Please take them out in 30 days. You must take out evil and stop making the USA evil.

Thank you pres Bush!

[Liberty4ever]

We Americans can do something to stop this madness. The United States needs to fix this warmongering that is deeply creating all this uncertainty that is impacting the U.S Dollar, the economy, price of oil, and work to gain the respect of the world by setting an example of peace makers . Don't let the neoconservatives keep ruining our country
Write to your congressman to stop this war with Iran.

[marvenette]

Both US and Israel are the most hated countries in the world and a threat to world peace. Bush has no shame and is the worse President the US has ever had. Bush showed himself to be incompetent and a coward by having Israel violate the border boundaries of Syria and bomb Syria's property to send Iran a message. This was a dangerous act that surely could have resorted in war and destabilized the Middle East, which is already violatile because of the illigal US occupation in Iraq, and Israel's illegal occupation and land stealing in Gaza and the West Bank.

I love the USA, my country, and would not hesitate to give my life defending it if attacked. But I do not.support the US threats and double standards used against Iran because of its nuclear program. Iran has every right to nuclear energy or bombs, which both the US and Israel possess. Iran, unlike the US and Israel, has never attacked or bomb any country, enslaved a people, or engaged in genocide on a people for their land.

I hope the US does not attack Iran because it will be another unjust and unprovoked act by the US, same as Iraq. I also hope that Iran will not allow any country or situation to stop it from getting nuclear bombs to protect its sovereignty and people. I do not want to see Iran become another Iraq or Gaza.

If the US and Israel do not want countries to have nuclear bombs, they should set good examples and treat countries justly, rather than unjustly.

[Marc G]

We Americans can do something to stop this madness. The United States needs to fix this warmongering that is deeply creating all this uncertainty that is impacting the U.S Dollar, the economy, price of oil, and work to gain the respect of the world by setting an example of peace makers . Don't let the neoconservatives keep ruining our country
Write to your congressman to stop this war with Iran.

[Ali Rahmani]

Ahmadinejad is in India right now sealing a deal on a PEACE PIPELINE between India and Pakistan, two historical rivals:

http://irannegah.com/Video.aspx?id=673

Iran brokered Peace with Moqtada Al Sadr and Iraqi government.

Iran helped US get rid of Taliban

yetttttttttt, US keeps saying Iran is cause of instability. US keeps threatening Iran. Does it make any sense?

If Iran is so bad? why does Iraqi government greet them so warmly as seen here:

http://irannegah.com/Video.aspx?id=506

my all time favorite is when David Igantius of Wash Post tried to blast him, but Ahmadinejad in return punked him and said why are you guys allowed to have nukes and use them, it is YOU (america) that we should be afraid of, not you afraid of us!

http://irannegah.com/Video.aspx?id=590

SERIOSULY PEOPLE. WAKE UP. STOP THE PROPOGANDA!

[Josef Sandanon]

Bush is increasingly a threat to the world but also to the US economy and democracy by his constant warmongering. Pentagon's disinformation office and corporate media are working at high gear to create the false fear that is necessary in order to start another war.

[Josef Sandanon]

Bush is increasingly a threat to the world but also to the US economy and democracy by his constant warmongering. Pentagon's disinformation office and corporate media are working at high gear to create the false fear that is necessary in order to start another war.

[Cheney's Brain]

The chances of elections occurring are slim, I must admit, but make no mistake if Bush manages to leave office without starting a war with Iran, John McCain will be the next president of the United States and will be all to happy to pick up where Bush left off. The thing these gentlemen fail to comprehend is if there is a war against Iran that either the US or Israel starts, make o mistake Russia, North Korea & China will become involved as allies of Iran. They will seek to protect their financial interests in Iran and ensure the US does not control the majority interest of oil in that part of the world.... WWIII here we come!!!

[Mark]

The collective memory of Americans doesn't seem to include important facts about the "conflict" with Iran. We seem to have conveniently forgotten about overthrowing their democratically elected government, supporting Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war, giving them their first nuclear reactor, training their nuclear scientists at MIT and many many other thigns:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB28/

[gårcho]

i really hope we actually have elections this fall. when bush part two was elected the first time i immediately thought, "oh no, that's it. no more america." after enron, sept 11th and then iraq i realized that maybe i wasn't so far off. now he'll declare war on iran and then 'postpone' the election because it will be war time. then he'll continue to postpone the election until he finds someone suitable to replace him and next thing you know we're living in cuba or zimbabwe. make sure and look down the street today; appreciate that there are no tanks. everything is going to change.

[Robert]

How Else Can a Republican Win Presidency?
Just like Bush1 and Casey "October Surprise" against President Carter in 1988 - Iran U.S. Embassy hostages secret agreement, with Ayatolla Houmeni?