Anti Iran War? Hug A Capitalist Today

Kevin Drum has an excellent post today. A simple "Must Read". He details the ways in which the Iranian government tried to open negotiations over a "grand bargain" with the USA back in 2003 after the invasion of Iraq and also the ways that Bush's regime threw those offers to negotiate back in the faces of the messengers as well as the Iranians. Then he has a suggestion:

quit letting Cheney's crackpots run foreign policy and talk to Iran. After all, the administration's ideologues killed an opportunity to ratchet down tensions three years ago, and since then things have only gotten worse: Iran has elected a wingnut president, they've made progress on nuclear enrichment, gained considerable influence in Iraq, and increased their global economic leverage as oil supplies have gotten tighter. So why blow another chance? If the talks fail, then they fail. But what possible reason can there be to refuse to even discuss things with Iran — unless you're trying to leave no alternative to war?

That may well be the Bush administration's strategy, but ordinary horse sense suggests it shouldn't be anyone else's.

The "may well be" in that last sentence is definitely redundant. There's no doubt whatsoever that Bush and the variuous neocon xenophobes all have hard-ons for nuking the ragheads. However on the fact that no-one else should be backing their insanity Drum is dead on.

And there are signs that even their usual corporate backers are getting a bad case of the quibbles. Scott Ritter, former Chief UN Weapons Inspector in Iraq, points out that there is no sign at all that Iran is developing nukes.

It takes an extraordinary stretch of the imagination to have Iran fabricating a nuclear weapon right under the nose of IAEA inspectors who today manage an inspection process that is not only technologically advanced, but seasoned after years of sleuthing after nuclear weapons programs in Iraq, North Korea, South Africa and Iran. To liken these professionals, as is the habit of many in the Bush administration today, to "keystone cops" is like comparing the US Marine Corps to the Boy Scouts. The IAEA inspectors are the best in the world at what they do. The fact that they have not found a "smoking gun" to back up what has been to date nothing more than irresponsible speculation concerning the existence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program should ease the fears of those politicians and pundits prone to panic. Unfortunately, this has not been the case, and as a result the world finds itself inching ever closer to a tragically unnecessary war between the United States and Iran.

and he then goes on to remark that conservatives like Senator Richard Lugar, Richard Haas and Richard Armitage have all come out recently in favor of "broad diplomatic and economic engagement with Iran, versus the extreme confrontational approach of the Bush White House".

These conservatives are loathe to take the lead on such a volatile issue on their own initiative. Instead, their posturing away from confrontation with Iran is more likely a manifestation of the reality that the conservative capitalist circles they operate in are becoming increasingly nervous about the damage such confrontation could bring to the economic system that currently sustains them.

Ritter goes on to advocate that the Left's anti-war movement, even if rarely able to find common cause with such figures elsewhere, should be trying to outreach to conservative businessmen on the Iran issue - for there, as perhaps nowhere else, the Left and the sane Right have reasons to co-operate.

It's worth trying, folks. The alternative is very much worse and perhaps unstoppable without such a reach across the divide Bush has done so much to widen.