By editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
President Obama has the uncanny ability to achieve Bush-like ends by much smoother means. He announces a compromise on missile defense systems in Eastern Europe, then moves the weapons elsewhere on the continent. He initially tones down the rhetoric on Iran, then escalates the pressure on that country. “A smooth, intelligent president can be more dangerous than a blustering, boorish one.”
“Where Bush would be vilified, Obama will be lionized for committing the same acts of aggression.”
Citizens of the Islamic Republic of Iran have the right to live without fear of sanctions, military attack, and destruction at the hands of the United States. The Iranian government has the right to enrich uranium, launch satellites, build missiles or even to develop nuclear weapons. It has these rights of self-determination freely exercised by other nations, regardless of American, European or Israeli opinion.
The United States does not have the right to wage or even to threaten war against Iran, or to tell bald-faced lies about nonexistent threats. These lies are particularly egregious given the United States’ long history of invading, destabilizing or occupying many foreign countries, including Iran, all over the world.
This week president Obama announced changes to the Bush era missile defense plan for Europe. Media reports gave the impression that missile defense plans were being scrapped, when instead the number of proposed missile sites will actually expand from central Europe to include southern and northern Europe as well. In typically Obamaesque fashion, the president spoke as though a great positive change was taking place when the threat posed by the American military industrial complex has only increased.
“The premise of an Iranian threat is made up out of whole cloth.”
Obama, sounding like a Bush administration appointee instead of a Democratic president, claimed that Europe was in grave danger from Iranian missiles. He even quoted George W. Bush for good measure.
“As I said during the campaign, President Bush was right that Iran’s ballistic missile program poses a significant threat. And that’s why I’m committed to deploying strong missile defense systems which are adaptable to the threats of the 21st century.”