Biden Greenlights Attack on Iran: “Any Sovereign Nation” Allowed to Bomb?
Posted by John Steele on July 8, 2009
Beginning in 2006, the United States under the Bush administration began issuing increasingly bellicose statements and threats concerning Iran’s nuclear program. During the same time Israel’s threats on Iran were much more explicit, and a topic of frequent discussion was whether Israel might act as a proxy for the US in attacking Iranian nuclear sites. Is this also an active option for the Obama administration?
The following orinally appeared in CounterPunch.
Biden, Israel, and Iran
by Gary Leupp
Vice President Joe Biden, apparently speaking on behalf of the Obama administration, has just given Israel the green light to bomb Iran.
“Israel can determine for itself — it’s a sovereign nation — what’s in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else,” he told ABC’s “This Week” in an interview broadcast Sunday. “Whether we agree or not, they’re entitled to do that. Any sovereign nation is entitled to do that. But there is no pressure from any nation that’s going to alter our behavior as to how to proceed. If the Netanyahu government decides to take a course of action different than the one being pursued now, that is their sovereign right to do that. That is not our choice,” he declared.
The statement is presented in logically abstract terms. Any sovereign nation is entitled to do what’s in its interest regardless of what “we” think, surely. How very reasonable—magnanimous, even, coming from the mouth of the vice-president of the superpower that’s in the last eight years brutally imposed its will on two sizable Southwest Asian countries.
But to test Biden’s universalist logic imagine yourself in 1939, substitute Germany for Israel and Poland for Iran and ask whether “any sovereign nation is” really “entitled to do that.”
Of course Israel doesn’t have any “sovereign right” to attack Iran! And Biden’s implied distaste for the attack (“That is not our choice”), which may presage a calculated distancing from an action in the future, doesn’t undo the fact that he explicitly validates such action here.
They’re entitled to do it, says Joe. Just as presumably they’re entitled to remain outside the nuclear nonproliferation treaty regime, and produce and stockpile the only nuclear weapons in the Middle East, while claiming that the Iranian nuclear program (begun under U.S. encouragement under the Shah) can only have military intentions and can only be designed to produced a “nuclear Holocaust” to destroy the Jews.
Just as presumably they’re entitled to deploy vast resources to pressure the U.S. government to bomb Iran for them. (But no worry about the impact on U.S. foreign policy. “There is no pressure,” says Joe, “from any nation that’s going to alter our behavior as to how to proceed.” What he really means is: There’s actually a whole shitload of pressure from Israel on us to bomb Iran. But we might not do that. Because Obama thinks that the Israeli-demanded attack on Iran, like the assault on Iraq, might be a “strategic blunder.”)
One could argue, of course, that in positing Netanyahu’s “sovereign right” to bomb Iran, a nation which has not attacked another in modern times, Biden is just shooting off his famous mouth again. But there are at least two reasons his comments should be taken very seriously.
First of all, there is obviously much conflict within the U.S. power structure over the wisdom of a U.S. attack on Iran. The Israel Lobby demanding one may have suffered a defeat at the hands of the Pentagon, which sees such an attack as complicating the imbroglios it faces in Iraq and Afghanistan (and down the road in Pakistan?), and the intelligence community which knows that Iran does not possess a nuclear weapons program threatening the world.
Secondly, the state of Israel continues to depict the Islamic Republic of Iran as an “existential” threat to itself, while threatening to attack it with missiles if the U.S. does not do so. The Bush administration always endorsed Israel’s vilification campaign and conceded the possibility that it might act “on its own” (as though it could really do so without a green light from Washington). Dick Cheney told Don Imus on MSNBC in January 2005 that “Given the fact that Iran has a stated policy that their objective is the destruction of Israel [sic (disinformation)], the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards.” He implied that if the U.S. didn’t take action, the Israelis would be justified in doing so.
This remains the U.S. position under the Obama administration. And having decided for geopolitical reasons to adopt a tougher line on Israel’s illegal settlements on the West Bank, Washington is perhaps particularly disinclined to deter Israel should it opt to create the mess of which Cheney spoke. “That was not our choice,” it will say.
hass said
Iran is a sovereign nation too — so it can bomb Israel, right?
hass said
IranAffairs.com has collected the claims of election fraud in Iran, and the counter-claims. None of the claims stands scrutiny. There’s no actual evidence of election fraud in Iran. See IranAffairs.com
Green Red said
Thanks to Prof Gary Leupp and Ka Steele for bringing the matter up.
Nevertheless, at best it is only a light political statement to even up the US call to finalize Saudi orchestrated plan’s apparent harshness to current right administration of Israel and, in no way i personally take it seriously since, such an act would give much more advantage to the Islamic Iran crooks to have more leveraged status in the middle east and could practically have Pandora effect.
Stanley W. Rogouski said
It appears to me that Biden is promising Israel a US veto in the UN Security Council should the Israelis go ahead and bomb and I don’t buy the idea that Biden was just freelancing or putting his foot in his mouth.
It also strikes me as a sign of Obama’s inexperience on foreign policy. You NEVER commit yourself like this, ever. You give the greenlight in private and you shovel the kind of bullshit Biden is shoveling here after the fact.
This is a lose/lose situation for Obama. On one hand, if the Israelis don’t attack, then Obama’s already penned himself in. He’s committed himself to supporting an attack and drastically restricting his ability to maneuver in negotiating with Iran. On the other hand, if the Israelis DO attack, then he’s making it look as if the attack is really coming from the USA and not Israel. He’s committed the American people without a vote and without a debate to supporting an attack we may not all support.
Biden is playing Kruschev during the Cuban missile crisis to Netanyahu’s Castro, ONLY with one important difference. During the Cuban missile crisis, Kennedy said “we’ll look at anything that comes from Cuba as an attack by Russia”. Biden is basically saying “well, any attack from Israel, just look at it as an attack from America”.
Since neither Biden nor Obama is stupid, I’d imagine this is just pandering to the Israel lobby here at home. This is Bushworthy.
Stanley W. Rogouski said
Another thing, I went to Wikipedia to look up the precise meaning of “preemptive war” and realized Wikipedia probably ISN’T a credible source.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preemptive_war
Here’s the definition.
Preemptive war (or a preemptive strike) is waged in an attempt to repel or defeat a perceived inevitable offensive or invasion, or to gain a strategic advantage in an impending (allegedly unavoidable) war before that threat materializes. Preemptive war is often confused with the term preventive war. While the latter is generally considered to violate international law, and to fall short of the requirements of a just war, preemptive wars are more often argued to be justified or justifiable (although international law categorically rejects Preemptive war).[
Here’s an example they give.
The United States attack and invasion of Iraq is a recent example of Preemptive War.
bzzzzzt wrong
It was preventative war since Iraq was in no position to attack the USA.
The attack on Iran by Israel would also be preventative and not preemptive war since Iran doesn’t have nukes (according to the US’s own National Intelligence Estimate).
Spencer said
Stanley, I just edited the wikipedia page on Preemptive War. Wikipedia is open. It’s usually easy to change things if their wrong.
I just clicked on the “edit page” tab, changed it, and explained what I did in the “discussion” page.
Green Red said
Brother Stanley W Rogouski hi, now see;
As i said sometimes ago, Biden’s words were just political flirting with bloody Israelite Zionist regime and with all Nukes of the world in their sleeve that little country has no nuts to make the whole Middle East become crazy fans of Iran’s Shiite theocracy.
Putin puppet Medvedev whose name rings other Medvedev’s book on Stalin’s trial in history has said:
—————————————- ———————————————
Medvedev: Israel not planning to strike Iran
By JIM HEINTZ, Associated Press Writer Jim Heintz, Associated Press Writer – 40 mins ago
MOSCOW – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says Israeli officials have assured him that they are not planning a military strike on Iran. In an interview with CNN television broadcast Sunday, Medvedev also confirmed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a secret visit to Moscow this month that included a meeting with the Russian president.
In a transcript of the interview released by the Kremlin, Medvedev hedges on the question of whether Russia would support Iran if it were attacked by Israel.
Although Russia has no defense agreement with Iran “this does not mean we would like to be or will be indifferent to such an occurrence. This is the worst thing that can be imagined,” Medvedev said of a potential Israeli strike.
“What would happen after that? Humanitarian disaster, a vast number of refugees, Iran’s wish to take revenge — and not only upon Israel, to be honest, but upon other countries as well.”
“But my Israeli colleagues told me they were not planning to act in this way, and I trust them,” Medvedev said.
It was not clear whether those referred to included Netanyahu. Israeli President Shimon Peres also reportedly told Medvedev in a meeting this month that Israel wasn’t planning an attack on Iran. But Medvedev gave the first confirmation from the Russian side that a meeting with Netanyahu had taken place.
Netanyahu vanished from public view in Israel for most of the day on Sept. 7. His office said he had visited a secret security facility, but there was widespread speculation that he had gone to Russia — either to pressure Moscow not to deliver S-300 air-defense missiles to Iran or to inform the Kremlin of attack plans.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu came to Moscow. He did this under a closed regime, this was his decision. I don’t understand what this was connected with, but sometimes our partners decide it this way,” Medvedev said. He did not give details of the meeting.
Russia signed a contract two years ago to sell S-300s to Iran, a move that disturbs Israel because the missiles would substantially boost Iran’s defenses. However, no deliveries have been made public.
In the interview, Medvedev acknowledged Israel’s concerns but said that “any supplies of any weapons, especially defensive weapons, cannot increase tension; on the contrary, they should ease it.”
Russia has cultivated close cooperation with Iran, including building the Bushehr nuclear power plant that critics say is a key element of Iranian attempts to develop nuclear weapons. But Russia has shown irritation with Iran’s failure to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency as it seeks to determine if Iran is pursuing nuclear arms.
Although Russia — which has veto power in the United Nations Security Council — so far has resisted additional sanctions on Iran, Medvedev admonished Tehran in the interview.
“Iran must cooperate with the IAEA, this is absolutely obvious, if it wishes to develop its nuclear dimension, its nuclear energy program. This is a duty and not a matter of choice,” he said.
—————————————- ———————————————
It was Iranian pro soviet Tudeh Party (and its infiltration in People’s Fedaees of Iran) that prevented any nationalist, left or pro western militaries to rise up to overthrow the bloody Islamic republic of Iran.
Today these pseudo communists are talking about Putin’s regime as sweetly as they did yesterday about Soviet Union. And regardless of bits of positive elements of Russia helping a few decent countries in the world to give warning light to the US, still if there was anything terrible about them before, still Russia is as important and their congratulating president Ahmadinejad of Islamic fanatic freaks who think 2nd world war never existed, as it was yesterday when its nukes had made the strength for that long cold war.
But back in Iran, the wide spectrum of angry Iranian protesters, both from radical left up to pro western right, they did participate against regime’s warning not to, in Ghods Day (Jerusalem must be free from Israel day of Iran) and while Ahmadinejad called holocaust a lie … and Baseej Islamics and hundreds of thousands of people brought over from the smaller cities and the country side villages were chanting Death to Israel, the brave protesters were once again saying Death to Russia, something they have taken up ever since Russia was one of the first Ahmadinejad supporters <How sad that when Israel was founded again the Soviet of then was the first one congratulating Israel's foundation too!)
The point is, Biden, Bush, Obama or you mama trying to make it possible for Israel to bomb Iran is unlikely since, that would be a disastrous world war three rather than another Saddam's Iraq that had attacked Kuwait or, post 9/11/01 incident.
And the US knows well, and Israel too, that attacking Iran would not gain support from Arabic countries however they might not like Iranian Shiite regime since, all their dignity would be wiped out. Iran is much stronger than yesterday's Iraq and the day before's Egypt regime, unfortunately.
Also let's not forget that when the US in Persian Gulf was making Arabic countries united against Iran due to its possible making Nukes still, the US rep was questioned but sir, does in the middle east another country – Israel have nuclear bomb?
However messed up also a regime can be, like North Korea or … Pakistan… the USA and Israel with their red hand full of from nuclear bomb up to dangerous bombs used in Lebanon for example have no rights to say anything.
It only can be and should be the people of Iran themselves who must (and are preparing to) overthrow the Islamic regime and, INSIDE of Iran from some serious relatively positive looking radicals in support of the working class up to Kurds, etc. are slowly beginning to do their own stand.
Down with the Islamic Republic of Iran and its dependant (to west and the east) bourgeoisie!
Down with Israel, Saudi Arabia and all rotten regimes there
Socialism in the US too someday!