Bipartisan support for another catastrophe

The answer to the question, Is Iran being set up?...

... is still yes. In fact, the concept has quite strong bipartisan support.

In Democracy, Terrorism, and Nuclear Weapons, Stephen Zunes, writing in antiwar.com, has an extremely thorough refutation of all the half-truths currently circulating about Iran.

The wide-ranging stupidity (or disingenousness) in this country about the Islamic Republic simply staggers belief, especially in the wake of a still-ongoing disaster that was based on half-truths.

What bothers me most is the bipartisan aspect of this. I mentioned in a previous post my Democratic congressman's ominous mutterings about Iran. Zunes expands on Democrat complicity in what seems to be yet another buildup to a tragic and ridiculous war. What hope do we have if there is no alternative to the War Party?

Despite accusations from U.S. officials that "there is no doubt that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons production program," no one has been able to cite any evidence supporting such a charge. As with the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, however, Democratic congressional leaders have contributed to the Bush administration's alarmist rhetoric about a supposed nuclear threat from Iran and have defended White House double standards that focus on the alleged nuclear weapons program of an adversary while ignoring the obvious and proven nuclear weapons arsenals of U.S. allies like Israel, Pakistan, and India. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, widely seen as the front-runner for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, declared that the prospect of Iran also developing nuclear weapons "must be unacceptable to the entire world," since it would "shake the foundation of global security to its very core." Similarly, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called for the establishment of "an international coalition against proliferation" modeled on the multilateral effort to combat terrorism. She suggested that instead of organizing against nuclear proliferation in general, such a coalition should focus on Iran, despite the Islamic Republic's apparent current cooperation with its NPT obligations. As with the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, congressional Democratic leaders appear willing to blindly support the Bush administration in its exaggerated and highly selective accusations of an imminent threat from a distant country that just happens to sit on a lot of oil.

Read the whole article...