Iran? No, the Next Dictatorship to Topple is...

If you believe the pundits, soon the United States will be invading Iran, or, minimally, conducting air strikes aimed at destroying alleged nuclear facilities.

Would another Middle East war be advisable? I think not.

First, the United States military is already spread thin in the world. Despite the vast amount of money poured into the Pentagon, soldiers are often fighting with less than adequate equipment as it is. The larger view is that an entire generation of young people is being devastated by these several wars; if they’re not coming home dead, they’re coming home with not just physical injuries but serious emotional disturbances as well. And yet medical support for the injuries is being cut by a Congress bent on relieving anything that resembles social responsibility on the part of its ultra-rich friends. And yet there is virtually nothing by way of psychological support for emotionally disturbed veterans, and few seem even aware of the growing rate of veteran suicides.

Second, if history is any teacher, then invading Iran will solve nothing – indeed, it’s far more likely to create problems down the road. Any credibility the United States once had as a force of integrity standing in defense of goodness is shot. Its European allies have largely abandoned it. In the Middle East it is hated. In much of the world it is despised as a bastion of hypocrisy. If the United States invades Iran, it is likely to learn that the allegations of nuclear capacity were at best exaggerated by intelligence experts, or utterly unfounded (as with Iraq and its nonexistent “weapons of mass destruction” that were the pretext for invading). Further, the United States will be bound to suffer greater damage to what little credibility it has left in the world.

If history is any teacher, the lies will soon be unmasked. Too many recent U.S.-led wars have pretended to be in defense of “liberty and justice”, but are too clearly about economics and political power (especially oil), and very likely a large dose of anti-Muslim bigotry. Certainly, if history is any teacher, the United States government pays no attention to the lessons of history and is doomed, as the wise man said, to repeat them. Having ignored the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’ devastating experience in Afghanistan, the United States is now deeply bemired in that muck. A war in Iran would be another such mistake.

Third, the United States military is already a hugely bloated part of the federal budget. The lunatics in Congress are massively shifting taxes off the pampered shoulders of the ultra-rich and their corporations and ever more heavily onto the backs of the middle and lower classes. Further military expenses will drag the latter even more deeply into economic slavery and economic devastation. What is ironic is that the colossal Pentagon budget does not benefit the ordinary men and women in uniform – who come from those same ravaged middle and lower classes; you never see a rich man’s kid doing military service on the front lines – but rather the fat cat top brass and their ultra-rich buddies. Private contractors make a great deal of money from war; Halliburton, which is blithely escaping its responsibility for torturing and killing civilians in the Middle East and providing tainted water to soldiers, has made handsome profits for its principals, like former Vice President Dick Cheney. A war in Iraq would exacerbate this issue, with an inevitable further round of cuts in social services, education, and infrastructure, continuing to destroy those middle and lower classes.

Fourth, I am an absolute pacifist. I don’t believe war is ever a wise option, except possibly extremely rarely as a very last resort, as an emergency measure. I believe instead in earnest negotiation. However here is the United States hinting at war with Iran when there has never been any serious negotiation with Iran on the part of the United States. Until such negotiation is sincerely undertaken, war should not be a serious option.

Fifth, I believe in consistency. If the United States declares it has the right to force its opinions, its culture, its mercantile economics, its religious views, its political views down the throats of another sovereign country – then other sovereign countries have the same right to do the same to the United States. The government of the United States is sorely misguided if it thinks that it is “special” somehow. Might does not make right; being the strongest military power in the world does not provide the inevitable result that whatever is done with that power is a good thing.

Moreover, violence begets violence. As Jesus put it, “Those who take up the sword die by the sword.” I abhor war, but, if the United States continues to invade other sovereign countries, then it is only creating a world in which sovereignty means nothing – and any country with a mind to do so will invade any other country, including the United States.

Consistency is ignored in another way. The United States has often claimed it must invade this or that country in order to topple a malevolent dictator. But, if dictator-toppling is the goal, then citing this pretext leaves the United States bound to topple every dictator in the world. Yet there is no talk of the United States invading (for instance) North Korea or China. Likewise, the United States has often claimed that it must attack this or that country that is in the process of forcefully annexing a smaller neighbor; for instance, Iraq invading Kuwait or Argentina invading the Falkland Islands. But, again, if protecting smaller neighbors is the goal, then the law of consistency requires the United States to protect every such compromised little country in the world: yet there is no talk of the United States taking on Russia for its brutalities in Chechnya, or China for its devastating genocidal activities in Tibet.

Oh, but no, say the experts, we cannot possibly take on Russia or China! They’re our friends! They’re our economic partners! They have “Most Favored Nation” status with us! – So the truth is that the United States only attacks the little bullies and plays nice with the big bullies? In my view, that makes the United States itself a big bully! The truth is that the ultra-wealthy plutocrats who are the real powers in the United States hope to reap ever bigger profits in the economic orchard of China and Russia. And those plutocrats fear China, which could destroy the U.S. economy overnight if ever China cashed in all at once on its vast holdings of U.S. capital and government-issued bonds.

Besides, if it is truly the responsibility of the United States to invade the bully countries, the countries that invade other countries, the countries that have strong malevolent leaders – then the United States should invade itself! It is the preëminent example of a bully country invading other countries, while crushing its own people under a powerful plutocracy that has turned the country’s government into a sham, into a marionette show dancing on strings controlled by the ultra-wealthy plutocrats.

Hence the Occupy movement. Born in Tunisia and Egypt, it has spread across the United States and much of the world. The people realize the truth of what I am saying: that they are no longer governed by a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but malevolent oligarchs unseen behind the puppets in Washington.

And military veterans realize the truth, that they were sent into war on false pretexts and made to kill innocent civilians, all for the sake of the plutocrats’ mad desire for more profit - that's why veterans, in increasing numbers especially after two of their brothers were extremely seriously injured by police brutality in Oakland, California, are joining the Occupy movement. They are sworn to serve and protect the people, not the ultra-wealthy plutocrats. They don't want to invade Iran; they widely recognize the insanity of such a notion.

So let the taking down of evil dictators continue – but not in Iran. In the United States.