So do you want to know how US Foreign Policy works?
No one got it better than George Orwell; a very smart man who understood things about politics and governments that very few ever have before or since.
Quotes:
“The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over other nations, but to keep the very structure of society intact.”
And here’s more…
“War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.”
Bottom line folks: It is all about POWER – explicitly summarized in George Orwell’s most compelling paragraph of all and as per below:
“Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power”
End of Quotes:
So while we are at it…. dealing with our most dangerous enemy of all – Iran.
It is certain that having control of nuclear weapons would consolidate Iran’s already considerable power. But history shows us that all other regimes who have obtained the option of nuking their enemies, have chosen not to use it, as it would obviously be suicidal…. Would Iran be any different?
The problem with fanatics is that no one knows what they will do. I believe that the majority of the people agree that the people of Iran are sane and normal, but the people that decide to push the button or not are not the people of Iran. It is their government; and here we have 50 real “bad asses” whom you can never predict.
And if you look at regimes with a similar ideology, such as Bashar Assad’s, you’ll see they do and will keep doing whatever it takes to stay in power.
So what to make of all that “war debate analysis” we are fed in every day?
Well it is believed saber-rattling is a crucial tool of foreign policy. It’s a threat: war costs us, but we’re willing to do it to force you to conform to our will.
In that, the ill-thought-out war in Iraq had a bizarre kind of silver lining: Our enemies know that we are at least potentially crazy enough to engage in a war. If they believe you, it’s win-win for you: you didn’t have to go to war, and you got what they wanted.
Would we actually do it against Iran? You will know if you need to… Now you don’t.
Certainly, we’re not going to remove that tool of foreign policy as an option. It’s a trading point. Maybe we’ll promise to stop saber-rattling if they’ll let a certain number of inspectors in.
That would be pointless, of course. We’d return to saber-rattling, and they’d forbid inspectors from going any place important. But that kind of pointless “advance” is also a tool of foreign policy, used to send messages to observers, including the home audience.
So “talking up a war with Iran” is very different from “going to war with Iran”. There are, without doubt, plans being drawn up, so that we have them in our pocket. And depending on what Iran does, we might even take them out of our pocket. The goal of the talking is to keep it to just talking, but it only works if you and they and everybody else believe that it isn’t.
Welcome to the real world of US foreign policy….Maybe it is time to wake up and start using those grey cells of yours by sharing your priceless thoughts.
Ziad K. Abdelnour is Founder & President of the US Committee for a Free Lebanon – America’s Pro- Lebanon lobby – and co-Author of Ending Syria’s Occupation of Lebanon.
