The Folly of a Lunatic State

For what seems like the ten-thousandth time, the sovereign nation of Israel has threatened the Islamic Republic of Iran with military action. Israel over the past few years has made repeated threats of attack against Iran for reasons it states as Iran's covert program to construct an arsenal of nuclear warheads. The llatest round of sabre-rattling has stirred up new fears of a widespread conflict that could engulf the Middle East. Israel as recently as last month conducted major war games in the Mediterranean to seemingly send a strong signal to Iran about any rash moves.

Firstly, the thought of an Iran-Israel war at this current moment in time for the region is unthinkable. The consequences would be nothing short of catastrophic, with the very real possibility of nuclear action, United States or Russian involvement and thousands of civilian casualties all not out of the realm of possibility.

From an examination of the current news cycle, the weight and culpability of such a doomsday scenario is almost entirely on Iran. Iran's president, the ever-prominent Mahmoud Ahmadinjead, has had his quotes and opinions on Israel repeated and analyzed ad nauseum. Flickering pictures of marching, emotionless Iranian troops have been blasted relentlessly at unsuspecting television and internet users for years now.

But in the finest traditions of polemics, let's take a look at the situation in a different way.

How many wars, invasions, attacks on foreign and occupied territories, border skirmishes, political assassinations and condemnations from the UN has Israel initiated over the last twenty years? Quite a few. Iran? Including the nuclear issue of the past few years, comparatively little. Which nation deserves the reputation as the lunatic state?

Since the ugly mess of the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, which cost the lives of over a million people, Iran has been at peace with its neighbours. Israel meanwhile, for reasons far too labyrinthine, convoluted and numerous to list, has been virtually at a state of war with, at the least, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian Territories. This does not count the attack on Iraq's nuclear facilities in 1981, its strike against alleged Syrian nuclear facilities last year, nor its constant threats against Iran. Israel continues to insist on a capital city that is not recognized by the United Nations. It continues to occupy foreign territory claimed in wars fought decades ago such as the Shebaa Farms and the Golaan Heights.

And somehow, thanks to our media conglomerates and their first-rate news services, the debate over this latest round of tensions has been framed in precisely the opposite fashion of what the facts state. Iran, not Israel, is the upstart, the rogue state, the barely predictable firebrand nation with its finger on the trigger. Iran is the defiant, isolated nation thirsty for blood and contemptuous for the West. And if there is war, it will have been Iran forcing Israel's hand to attack it.

Everything being hurled at the public from the top-down media has been based on this fundamentally false premise. Iran and its president have stated numerous times that they have no intention of building offensive or defense nuclear weapons. They have allowed International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors to visit their nuclear sites many times. And frankly, nothing in Iran's history gives any reason to not take them at their word.

On the other hand, Israel has never allowed an inspector at its nuclear sites at Dimona. It has never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It has never confirmed nor denied it has nuclear weapons, though most everyone in the intelligence community and in positions of strategic influence throughout the world acts on the running premise that it does. And finally, unlike every nation that does possess a nuclear arsenal, it has never come right out and stated that its nukes are for defensive purposes only, precisely because they refuse to even admit they have these weapons. This is a thought that should make us all shudder.

The unused word throughout this article has been 'double standard.'

I won't mince words any further. What we have here is a Jewish state with historic ties to the world's only superpower and one of the world's best-funded, best-organized lobbyist operations portrayed as an ally under threat while an Islamic nation with no record of initiating war, two decades of peace with its neighbors and strong bilateral and multilateral ties is made out to be the enemy. One is our ally and one is our enemy and an effort is being made to portray the aggressor as victim. They say, black is white, up is down.

The real tragedy is that Iran finds itself in the unfortunate role of being the latest great evil to threaten the constantly at threat West. Terrorists. Muslims. Immigrants. Communists. Soviets. Fascism. Suffragettes. Blacks. Aboriginal heathens. The list goes on.

When oh when I ask, will this chain of false threats be broken? Does it take a black President with Kenyan and Muslim heritage to ensure that our media and political leaders will stop vilifying 'the other,' regardless of their choice of faith, political beliefs or spiritual beliefs?

=//Turnquest