If Israel blunders into attacking Iran

Zafar Bangash

Shawwal 14, 1433 2012-09-01

Editorials

by Zafar Bangash (Editorials, Crescent International Vol. 41, No. 7, Shawwal, 1433)

Will Israel make the mistake of attacking Iran? Should it become victim of its own hubris, the consequences would be devastating for the Zionist war-criminals.

The world is full of megalomaniacs, especially in the US and the Zionist state of Israel. American-Zionist threats to launch a war against the Islamic Republic of Iran have become shrill in recent weeks. That such threats — much less launching an actual war — are against international law seems to have escaped, or are deliberately being ignored by these fascists and warmongers. The imperialists and their Zionist masters have never been constrained by legality or the niceties of international law. These concepts apply to other, lesser beings, as far as the imperialists and Zionists are concerned. So let us dispense with them altogether and address the real issues.

While commentary on the pro- and anti-war options has taken much newspaper space and occupied endless hours on the airwaves, let us briefly consider them before moving on to the question of an Israeli attack on Iran. The pro-war hawks insist that Iran must not be allowed to build the bomb. Iran has said all along that it is not building the bomb and it has no intention of doing so but when people are hell-bent on starting a war, facts are no bar to their evil plans. The US Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, for instance, has given the Zionists carte blanche. He said if Israel were to attack Iran, he would simply call Benjamin Netanyahu and ask how the US could help. So much for US independence; Romney has confirmed that the US is a Zionist lackey.

Barack Obama is little better; he has proved to be a perfect Uncle Tom. Obama’s position is that the punitive sanctions imposed illegally on Iran should be given time to work. He, too, has pledged to his Zionist masters that he would not allow Iran to build the bomb. Debate in the US is distorted because of presidential elections later this year and those with the loudest voice and most hawkish positions — the Zionists are master manipulators of public opinion — will carry the day no matter what harm it causes to US interests. Some observers fear that the rightwing neocon lobby may push Obama into disastrous action to prove his macho credentials for fear of being projected as a wimp by his republican rival. How surreal US politics can get!

The Zionist regime does not have the wherewithal to launch an attack on Iran. Even if it did, Iran’s nuclear facilities cannot be destroyed because leaders of the Islamic Republic have wisely learnt appropriate lessons from what happened to Iraq in 1982 and to Syria in 2007, when the Zionists launched strikes against their nuclear installations. The Zionist regime has 200–400 nuclear weapons. Even the US is not capable of destroying the entire nuclear infrastructure of Iran unless it uses nuclear weapons. Imagine using nuclear weapons to prevent another country from acquiring nuclear know-how to master this technology, a country that has repeatedly said it does not want to make the bomb! The world is truly full of mad people.

Let us examine the likely consequences of a US-Israeli attack on Iran. While it would no doubt cause immense damage to Iran, the Islamic Republic has the capability to retaliate and do so with great effectiveness. Iran’s military commanders have said that should an attack occur, they would unleash 1,000 missiles at Israel’s Dimona nuclear facilities. Other critical sites will also be targeted: Israeli chemical and biological factories, for instance. Without Iran using chemical or biological weapons, Israel’s stockpiles will turn into their own worst nightmare.

While Iran is capable to sustaining a large number of casualties — Muslims are not afraid to die for a genuine cause, and Iran proved it in the eight-year imposed war against Iraq — the Americans and Zionists live for this dunya and cannot sustain mass casualties. The Zionists have talked about a 30-day war in which it will suffer 500 casualties. How can they determine the duration of a war they unleash, and how can they be certain that there will be only 500 casualties regardless of the gasmasks being distributed among their frightened population? Once started, wars assume a life of their own. That is why Israeli military and intelligence officials have warned against any rash action by hawkish politicians like Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak. How many missiles can Israel withstand on Tel Aviv and what if 100,000 or more Israelis are killed in the war they unleash?

Let us consider some other scenarios. Iran has said it will block the Strait of Hormuz to all oil traffic if it is attacked. This will push oil prices into the stratosphere. With the US and European economies already teetering on the brink, both continents will go into deep depression with hundreds of millions of people out of work. Riots will break out when food cannot be transported from one end of the US to the other or across Europe. Will the US use its National Guard to attack rioters? What if the National Guard refuses to attack its own people? Will the army be called out? Will it comply with orders to shoot people? Can the US afford a civil war with real prospects of breaking up the not so “United” States?

There could also be attacks on Saudi oil fields. In fact, it is more than likely that people in the Arabian Peninsula will rise up en masse against the illegitimate regime and finally bury it in the sand. This will be the beginning of the liberation of the Muslim world from the clutches of imperialism and Zionism. American interests will not remain immune from attacks elsewhere either. Afghanistan and Pakistan are two areas where Americans will find it very uncomfortable. The situation in Afghanistan is already spinning out of control and the Americans are trying desperately hard to find an escape route from there. Which of its interests will the US sacrifice for the sake of the Zionist entity?

Neither Iran nor the broader Muslim world wants a war. Muslims want to live in peace and have the right, like any other people, to be left alone to develop their societies based on their own values and principles. But if a war is imposed on them, they know how to defend themselves, their lives and their honor. Once the shooting stops, it is more than likely that there may not be a Zionist state left in the world.