This past Friday the White House announced a new policy towards Iranian “agents” in Iraq. The Turkish Daily News reports
“U.S. President George W. Bush has authorized the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian agents active inside Iraq…”
“The move, approved last fall, is aimed at weakening Iran’s influence in the region and forcing Tehran to abandon its nuclear program that the West believes is for nuclear weapons and not energy, the newspaper (The Washington Post) said, citing the unidentified officials.
For more than a year, U.S. forces have held dozens of Iranians for a few days, taking DNA samples from some as well as photographs and fingerprints from all those captured, the Post wrote.
Several Iranian officials have been detained in three U.S. raids over the last month. Outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad said on Wednesday that details of accusations against them would be made public in the coming days, reported Reuters.”
Perhaps, but don’t hold your breath for any substantiation of these accusations. Count on the mainstream American news media to recite these “detailed accusations” as though they were foregone conclusions, as there doesn’t seem to be anything the bush admin can do to shake their credibility with the MSM.
ArabicNews.com reports that “…Iran’s non-oil products exported to Iraq during the first nine months of the current Iranian year (March-October 2006) reached dlrs 900 million…”Quoting Hossein Esfandiari, Managing Director of Export Affairs Department in Mines and Industries Ministry of Iran.
A Washington Post article this past Friday which opened with a description of Iraqi medical tourism to Iran says this about Iran-Iraq trade:
“Iran exports electricity and refined oil products to Iraq, and Iraqi vendors sell Iranian-made cars, air coolers, plastics and the black flags, decorated with colorful script, that Shiites are flying this week to celebrate the religious holiday of Ashura.”
“Each day, Iran provides 1,000 tons of cooking gas, about 20 percent of the Iraqi demand, and 2 million liters of kerosene. Iran exports electricity through Iraq’s Diyala province and plans to quadruple the amount with new projects, Iraqi officials say.”
‘”The economic power between the two countries, it’s enormous,” said Hassan Kazemi Qomi, Iran’s ambassador to Iraq. “We can help them in technical issues and engineering. We have a lot of experience in building roads and airports.”‘
Of course, this variety and volume of economic interaction between the two neighboring countries necessitates the presence of Iranian business people and workers in Iraq.
How long will it be before we hear a report of an Iranian private citizen or citizens with varifiable legitimate purpose in Iraq being killed by U.S. military forces?
While one can only speculate as to whether these deaths will be characterized as of a nature of an “accident” or a “misunderstanding”; or perhaps a result of “faulty intelligence”, or based on “confedential information” which cannot be elaborated upon, from “intelligence sources” which of course cannot be identified.
If the former, we may even hear prefunctory expressions of regret, even apologies. No matter; the chilling, intimidating desired effect will have been achieved.
The Iran Freedom and Support Act makes subtle but significant changes to the IRAN AND LIBYA SANCTIONS ACT OF 1996
These changes serve both to narrow the focus of the sanctions the President may impose to the “Development of Petroleum Resources of Iran” and to loosen the criteria he must use.
Petroleum, of course, is Iran’s main export. Clearly, this Act is an effort to isolate Iran economically. But it may be a losing battle.
China, for example, has told Washington to not meddle In it’s oil industry relations with Iran.
And negotiations continue amoungst Iran, Pakistan and India over an international pipeline to transport natural gas from Iran to India. India asserting that there is no connection to it’s nuclear energy dealings with the U.S.
Frederic Bastiat said “When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will.”
U.S. military expenditures have hovered in the mid- to lower forties, as a percentage of total world expenditures for decades.
Only the United States maintains substantial military forces on foreign soil in the region.
Meanwhile, new U.S. “Defense” Secretary Robert Gates will seek to expand the armed forces by 92,000.
“The emphasis will be on increasing combat capability,” Gates said.
Gates only speaks in concurrence with his boss, georgew, the “Decider-in-Chief”
This, along with the rather loud but conveniently empty objections to his escalation of the current conflict in Iraq on the part of the Democrats serves to identify the Republicans in the general perception, as the party of war. this leaves the Democrats as the party of peace, purely by default, Joe Lieberman notwithstanding.
But closer examination reveals the true colors of the Democrats.
“We have some defense issues in that part of the world. They are Iran. They were Afghanistan and still are. And they’re in North Korea. The president has left the two most serious problems, after Afghanistan, for either his successor or who knows what?”
“The greatest threat to Israel’s right to exist, with the prospect of devastating violence, now comes from Iran. For too long, leaders of both political parties in the United States have not done nearly enough to confront the Russians and the Chinese, who have supplied Iran as it has plowed ahead with its nuclear and missile technology.”
And recently, John Edwards
“Let me be clear: Under no circumstances can Iran be allowed to have nuclear weapons…For years, the US hasn’t done enough to deal with what I have seen as a threat from Iran. As my country stayed on the sidelines, these problems got worse.”
“The permanent increase of 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 Marines would cost more than $10 billion annually and take five years to achieve, underscoring the Pentagon’s conviction that today’s wars and anti-terrorism operations will endure for many years. “We call those ‘long war’ forces,” a senior military official said.” According to a Washington Post story.
So in addition to the already extraordinary current expenditures and deployments of the U.S. military, an additional 92,000 individuals will be added to the combat roster.
That’s an additional 92,000 individuals who’s time and energy will be taken away from the production of products and services that can serve to expand the wealth and enhance the quality of life of their fellow citizens. Instead, and at taxpayer’s expense, they will be employed in the process of Washington’s number one product—military imperialism.
From this broader perspective, we can see the real reason for Washington’s actions in Iraq, and the belligerence towards Iran.
It’s simply what’s good for business. And it is this turn of focus, from the economics of creativity and productivity to the economics of oppression and looting, that leads inevitably to the collapse of empire.
The former, as it serves to expand wealth, strengthens, while the latter, dependent on the acquisition by force of the productivity of others, must lose viability over time.
—The Bikemessenger