IRAN: Former German official says war imminent

An opinion piece by the former German foreign minister published today in a leading Middle East paper says that Israel is planning to attack Iran over its nuclear program.

Joschka Fischer, German's top diplomat from 1998 to 2005, is a visiting scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

[UPDATE, June 2, 3 p.m. PST: Fischer was actually a fellow at Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, not at WWICS]

He wrote a piece that appeared in today's Daily Star, an English-language  Lebanese newspaper, arguing that President Bush's recent visit to the Middle East was a precursor to a war on Iran's nuclear program:

The Middle East is drifting toward a new great confrontation in 2008. Iran must understand that without a diplomatic solution in the coming months, a dangerous military conflict is very likely to erupt. It is high time for serious negotiations to begin.

Fischer said Bush's speech during his address to the Israeli Knesset, or parliament, this month indicated a coming Israeli-U.S. attack on Iran's nuclear program:

He seemed to be planning, together with Israel, to end the Iranian nuclear program -- and to do so by military, rather than by diplomatic, means.... Although it is acknowledged in Israel that an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would involve grave and hard-to-assess risks, the choice between acceptance of an Iranian bomb and an attempt at its military destruction, with all the attendant consequences, is clear. Israel won't stand by and wait for matters to take their course.

Fischer, former leader of Germany's Green Party, was one of the key diplomats involved in assessing Iran's nuclear facilities and pressuring Tehran for a temporary halt of its uranium enrichment program from 2003 to 2005, when he left office.

His piece was the talk of the town in Beirut. It stunned some abroad, as well. Conservative blogger Don Surber writes:

I had hoped that reasonable minds would by now have resolved this situation amicably and without violence. When a lefty like Fischer doubts that can happen, I worry.

—Borzou Daragahi in Beirut

Photo: Joschka Fischer. Credit: Andrzej Barabasz / Wikimedia Commons

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Comments

[Think]

An attack on Iran would most certainly spell the end of Israel. Israel would be subject to such severe attacks in retaliation that there's little chance it would survive. I think this is the Bush plan -- rid the region of Israel and that, in turn, will bring on peace. It's not a plan I agree with, but in the end it will have peaceful effects, so I support it.

[robertsgt40]

This is not a shocker. Research PNAC (Project for a New American Century) published in he 90's. Bush had plans on his desk from day one. 911 was the trigger(new Pearl Harbor) Israel is directing our foreign policy. Israel will stage a false flag attack or whatever other means are nessesary to begin the conflict (see Lavon Affair or USS Liberty). We've been caught in so many lies, we can't pull it off. We will keep fighting Israel's wars until we throw off the yoke.

[William]

Israel is the wellspring of Bigotry and Racialism, it's Zenophobic Tribalism and playing of Both sides of international disputes only aggravates tensions. Where is the International inspections of Dimona? Then along comes the ANTI-Christ Bush, sowing CHAOS out of order. Grown from exploding frogs as a child, to exploding People as a pathological adult. May God have mercy on our souls.

[Chuck]

If you are under 13 years of age you may read this message board, but you may not participate.

Really.

Seems like most of the people posting comments arent even that old.

Of course we are going to bomb iran.

Not for oil, Not for god, Not for Nukes but for money.

If ANY oil producing country stops accepting the dollar as pauyment for oil their government must be destroyed.

Otherwise we have less than a year of oil reserves before our way of life ends.

[Proud Primate]

c-t-m: (May 30, 2008 at 10:37 PM)
"Your entire diatribes discount the blatant, racist, extremist tauntings AND actions of Iran. The president of a nation came to power after co-leading a kidnapping - yes, Ahmadinejad was a kidnapper and thief who held those American hostages for 444 days back in 1980. The fact that the rest of the world was too cowardly to actually hold Iranians to ethical actions did nothing but embolden them...."

Oh, my achin' back!

Ever heard of Mohammed Mossadegh? How ethical was it to overthrow his government, kill all his cabinet, and put him in house arrest for life, and install Fahedi and the SAVAK, all because Mossadegh had the temerity to nationalize their — **THEIR** oil, after BP, then called Anglo-Iranian, refused to raise the highway-robbery concession from 5% to 30%, to alleviate the abject poverty of his people, IE., THE OWNERS OF THE LAND AND ALL THAT LIES THEREIN?

As to Ahmedinejad, he (the hard-liner) came to power because the moderate, Khatami, was humiliated by Bush (the Hard-liner's hard-liner). Peace is the last thing Bush wants, and moderates spoil perfectly "splendid little wars". After all, he said, "I'm a wartime president". Earlier he had said to Mickey Herskowitz, "My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade, if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency."

Invasion = success.

Clinton had $25/bbl oil. Houston sad, sad — big tears in Houston :o(

Bush shuts off the tap in Kirkuk & Mosul. Oil is $130/bbl. Houston happy!! :o)

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!!!!

[Mr B]

The Iran Nuclear weapons is a smoke screen.

Iran dropped the Dollar this year in selling Oil, So they only sell oil in Euro and Yen. You can't buy oil in Dollars in Iran anymore.

That would probably really annoy the Bush Admin to attack Iran

[Nelson Rothschild]

The choice is clear. We must attack, and the sooner the better. A full scale show of force in the form of a nuclear blitzkrieg will diffuse the threat and serve as a warning to other nations that they must fall in line or be completely anhilated. Another benefit will be that the Iranian oil wil be there to slant drill and solve the current energy crunch. For the glory of America, WE MUST ATTACK !

[ray hope]

it seems to me that someone want to attack iron so bad, that they are welling to do anything to get this war going.
ask your self what have iron done to anyone (with prof) not just hearsay) to be so hated by our mainstream coprate media,and our blood sucking banking-government
land lords.
the truth is if you want to live free, then we must take this bloody government down, and form a government by the people and for the people, what we have in washington dc is nothing morethan a BLOOD SUCKING SLAVE MASTERS.
and to c-t-m poster: you are so full of sh*t, you want this war so bad that you lie out of your a*s, you must be a zionist war loving dog, next time you say something give us facts to back it up.
just take a look people at who is doing what in the middle east, who is the victum and who is the killer, the victum is arab civilians (christians & muslims) that are being killed daily, the killer is israel with the most deadly WMD that american tax dollar can buy, as the american people are loosing homes and jobs , we are sick of paying for everything , and get nothing not even health care for the AMERICAN PEOPLE.

[Shantanu Chatterjee]

DO YOU HAVE ANY idea what a war with Iran will cost the world right now oil at $250/barrel that's what and the iranians know it.This is a very very dicey situation but still iran must not be allowed to go nuclear.One way would be to get saudi arabia to increase the oil production spare capacity from 1.5 mn to around 3mn then bomb iran but this is still a 1 year time window.BUt just remember if iran goes nuclear so will egypt,turkey,saudi arabia with a broke cash strapped pakistan ever willing to pawn its nukes for cash.If ever there was a war worth fighting its this a middle east which is a nuclear minefield is in nobody's interest starting with the middle easterners.

[Carol Bayard]

The comment by rmg about the people who should be at the front if they favor war rings so true. If those cowards Bush, Cheney and their ilk ever had to don a uniform and actually fight as they have forced our young soldiers to do, you can bet the war would be over in a NY minute.
My favorite quote about war is by WC Fields. His suggestion was to give the leaders of the opposing countries socks filled with dung and put them in a boxing ring. I'd pay to see that.

[Tom]

Hey isn't this all about Bombing the crap out of the Iran Neucler Installations , ???? I doubt anyone has any interest in hurting the Iranian people .............its their weaponry that seems to be getting up everyone's nose (I wont mention oil) and the nonesence talked by the leader there ?
Never too soon to get rid of the weaponry

[Danny R.]

If any of you morons think that Iran, a country of 80 million, is a broken backed country like Iraq and Afghanistan was when they got raped by us, think again. They will not sit and watch us bomb them into bits and pieces, they have advanced rocket tech, anti helicopter missiles, anti surface to sea missiles, submarines. Pentagon drills have shown that US casualties well might be over 50 000 in such a conflict..

For those israelis or right wing evangelical americans commenting and making a fool out of themselves here, here is a reminder.. If you think that your position regarding Hezbollah, Hamas and the resistance in Iraq is bad now.. wait until you bomb Iran and give Teheran a green card to flood these groups with their ADVANCED weapons, not "copper plates", caveman clubs, katyusha blueprints and rusty AK47's.

All Iran has to do is to give 1000 of its Misagh anti helicopter rockes to JAM, or The Mahdi Army, Hamas and Hezbolla and the occupation of Iraq and the dominance of Israel will be over. Iran has actually shown great constraint when it comes to giving away advanced weaponry to these groups (exept when they allowed Hezbolla to fire a C-802 surface to sea missile on an Israeli warship in Lebanon and their anti tank missiles that butchered Israeli Merkava tanks..)

Just like the Stingers finished off the Soviets in Afghanistan..

So for the sake of the US and my Brother serving in Baghdad.. Shut up because you have no idea what you are talking about and have no insight on the military realities on the ground there.

[John Wayne]

Joschka Fischer is an American puppet like the rest of German & European politicians who are blowing the war trumpet and pushing Israel towards a useless and baseless war with Iran.
Iran is not a threat to Israel, or for that matter to any other countries. This is all fabricated by the western news in order to poison the thoughts of the naive populace.
Israel is too smart to fall into this trap by the Americans & Europeans to attack Iran. First of all it does not have the resources to undertake such an attack, and secondly Israel knows that if that happens, the Mullahs will strike back fast and furious, and the forces who support building a nuclear device will gain momentum in Iran, and Iran will test its nuclear device within days or months of the attack. This is exactly what the mullahs are waiting for, and Israel knows that.

[markiv]

There will be no war on Iran, unless another 9/11 happens, and it is incredibly immaterial who carries out the new one, just like it was with the first one.

[dingding]

hey!i have a great idea! let the EU keep"negotiating* endlessly while iran builds its nukes!then when they have it,and one or two go off somewhere ,killing tens of thousands...we can blame bush for not "connecting the dots"!!!!! think of it...endless orgasmic bush bashing to supply us for the rest of our lives!

[Jim]

You hit the nail on the head, Christoph messner.

There are a few things I would like to point out about the former German "foreign minister" joschka fischer. First off, he`s jewish and one of the leading 100% pro israel warmongers in that traitorous, ziojew controlled German government (if the German government were any worse it would be just like the american government). Secondly, it would not be a stretch to say that he spends alot of time in that cancerous terrorist rathole called israel and is nothing more than one of their criminal agents. And absolute shill, to be sure. And a pathetic mouthpiece of israel.

And if the american/jew etc. terrorists do stage another war crime (this time on Iran) it would certainly spell the end of those two international terrorist #1 and pariah states. Amen!

[Heinz Waescher]

Just 4 info...this "phantastic" former Sec. of State is a Politican all his life. The ONLY Time he realy worked was when was driving Taxis, in his sparetime he threw stones against riot police and also beat several officers up (picture evidence is online).

He also wanted to eliminate NATO in the 80s until 1998 when he came into office and was happy to start the first combat mission german military has done since WW II.

Just to keep some perspectives...

[Christoph messner]

What is it good for, to reach the removal of Iranian Police State by bombs, so that they will swear revenge for eternity and tighten herewith the police state in the US?
Why should Iran without any nuclear bombs be a bigger threat than Israel with at least 150 nuclear bombs?
Who tells, that the American Way of Life where money and interest rates rule everything should be a better culture than what we have in the Islamic Nations, where interest rates are forbidden?
Why is it useful for the US to occupy the East, when it provokes the destruction of the US by Russian and Chinese nuclear bombs?

[W. Smith]

Cheap propaganda, and even cheaper threats.

I defy anyone to start the war!

Let us have the Armageddon and be over and done with.

Considering the monumental defeats in Iraq, and in Afghanistan, evidently the shills are out to convince the world otherwise, the mission is still accomplished, just when the US is no longer welcome in Iraq, as per the UN mandate running out, and no "security agreement" reached in Iraq.

Give me break, want to start the world war, just go ahead, and fire the first shot, but remember this time around there will be no bolt holes safe enough, and far enough, from the fire works.

A bankrupt US, morally, financially and militarily, and even a more bankrupt isreal, along with the rest of the sock puppets in charge of the Arab "friendly" nations, evidently those lunatic enough believe a "limited" war is probable.

The same bunch of crazies assured us all that Iraqis will be greeting the invading troops with; songs, sweets, and flowers.

The pitiful efforts in coercion of the world is simply comical if it were not so disastrously real.

PS. Even Rupert Murdoch has given up, apparently the directive has not reached the lower echelons yet! Therefore the isreali shills ought to note, they will not be getting paid for this job lot of drivel posted.

[rmg]

To read all these comments about waging war against Iran is truly frightening. I therefore would suggest that anybody wanting to invade Iran should sign up for a front line position - not to watch but to fight according to their convictions. It would be interesting to see how many of all these people who can't wait to invade Iran would be at the front lines. And after the fighting is over they should have to rebuild the country with their bare hands and live there - with their families - with all the toxic waste left.