Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported in the April 17 New Yorker that the Bush administration has intensified\ war plans and clandestine operations against Iran's uranium enrichment program.
Iran is a legitimate cause for alarm given the extremism of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Ayatollah Khamenei and the notorious Revolutionary Guards. It would be surprising if the White House did not have detailed war plans.
Curiously, in the midst of low-intensity war in Iraq and the possibility of higher-intensity war in Iran, student life here on campus seems to keep an even keel. This, too, should not be surprising. The American people, unlike our leaders, have never much supported the machinations of great power politics.
Iran's behavior is certainly ominous. In October 2005, Ahmadinejad told the World Without Zionism conference in Tehran that ""Israel must be wiped off the map."" Moreover, some policy analysts believe Ahmadinejad has ties to terrorist fronts like Hezbollah and would, if given the chance, ""outsource"" a nuclear attack on Israel by giving a bomb to terrorists.
Last Sunday, the AP reported that Iran believes the United States and the U.N. will fail to stop uranium enrichment.
Hamid Reza Asefi, a spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry, said diplomacy and threatened strikes are a ""psychological war launched by Americans because they feel angry and desperate regarding Iran's nuclear dossier."" Iran's right to develop nuclear power is ""our red line,"" Asefi added. ""We are ready to deal with any possible scenario.""
The Bush administration is preparing for an air war and special ops scenario against hundreds of Iranian targets. And if Hersh is right, U.S. forces might use tactical nuclear bombs in efforts to destroy Iranian steel and concrete bunkers buried deep underground.
However, the current crisis does not inevitably mean war. For instance, International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors arrived in Isfahan Monday to check out uranium conversion facilities located there. And Tuesday, IAEA Director-General Mohammed ElBaradei arrived to negotiate.
If Iran is, in fact, pursuing a secret nuclear weapons program in conjunction with the uranium-enrichment program, it might be doing so because it believes having the bomb will protect the country from the Bush doctrine of preemptive war.
In short, it may be possible to convince the Iranians that developing a bomb would be a self-fulfilling prophecy that would make them the target of preemptive attack. Upcoming U.S./Iran talks on how to avert Iraqi civil war could provide an opportunity to begin making that clear.
Yet because our national security and prosperity (read: access to oil) depends upon a static, preferably weak, Middle East, the White House might be willing, as Hersh predicts, to further indebt our country and kill more Muslims.
This fits with former UW-Madison professor William Appleman Williams' analysis of U.S. history: We always think that our salvation lies not in fixing our problems here at home (racism, poverty, gulag-like prisons, dying rural towns), but rather in fixing problems abroad.
Hence the situation (or lack of one) on campus and in the nation. There is no call to arms. Regarding Iraq, conservative students who support the war seem no more inclined to enlist than do peaceniks. Army ROTC cadets on campus are few.
On March 28, someone shattered a window with a brick at the Army Recruiting Station in University Square. In a more ominous sign of dissatisfaction, The New York Times reported Monday that U.S. Army captains, the young officers crucial to an effective military, are leaving the service in droves.
Arguably, there is no outpouring of war sentiment among young people because the U.S. campaign in the Middle East, of which the efforts to build democracy in Iraq and stop Iran's nuclear ambition are but single pieces, is great power politics. Americans have never had a stomach for such stuff.
Widespread domestic opposition has met nearly every U.S. war. Indeed, the only true exception is World War II. U.S. citizens, even disinterested colleges students, know that President Ahmadinejad, though vile, is not equivalent to Hitler.
If it is believable that the Bush administration would try to take our country to war in Iran, as Hersh asserts, it is also believable that Americans would not stand for it.
Our nation's elites—moneyed interests and their servants in D.C.—have often demonstrated the stomach for imperial adventure. Our nation's people have rarely cheered them on let alone joined in except under threat of coercion.
Teddy O'Reilly is a senior majoring in international studies. His column runs every Wednesday in the The Daily Cardinal. Send responses to opinion@dailycardinal.com.\
