Crisis Is Upon Us

by Paul Craig Roberts

"It is difficult to take exception to this expert analysis. Nevertheless, the Bush administration continues to send war signals. Credible news organizations have reported that U.S. naval attack groups have been given "prepare to deploy orders" that would put them on station off Iran by Oct. 21.

Perhaps the answer is that what appears as irrationality to experts is rationality to neoconservatives. Neocons seek maximum chaos and instability in the Middle East in order to justify long-term U.S. occupation of the region. Following this line of thought, neocons would regard the loss of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf as a way to solidify public support for the war. American anger at the Iranians could even result in support for a military draft in order to win "the war on terror."

Polls show that Bush administration propaganda has convinced a majority of inattentive Americans that Iran is making nuclear weapons. Polls show that a majority support an attack on Iran under this circumstance. The neoconservatives and their media allies have succeeded in causing the public to confuse Iran's legal nuclear energy program with a weapons program.

Rumsfeld's neocon Pentagon has rewritten U.S. war doctrine to permit preemptive nuclear attack on non-nuclear countries. As the U.S. paid a huge public relations cost in terms of world opinion and distrust of the U.S. by endorsing the first use of nuclear weapons, the revision of U.S. war doctrine must have a purpose.

Neocons claim that tactical nuclear weapons are necessary to destroy Iran's underground facilities. However, the real reason for using nukes against Iran is to intimidate Iran from retaliating and to threaten the entire Muslim world with genocide unless Muslims bend to the neocons' will and accept U.S. hegemony over their part of the world."