Will Bush attack Iran next?
Uri Avnery

A RESPECTED American paper posted a scoop last week: Vice President Dick Cheney, the King of Hawks, has thought up a Machiavellian scheme for an attack on Iran. Its main point: Israel will start by bombing an Iranian nuclear installation, Iran will respond by launching missiles at Israel, and this will serve as a pretext for an American attack on Iran.
Far-fetched? Not really. It is rather like what happened in 1956. Then France, Israel and Britain secretly planned to attack Egypt in order to topple Gamal Abdul Nasser (“regime change” in today’s lingo.) It was agreed that Israeli paratroops would be dropped near the Suez Canal, and that the resulting conflict would serve as a pretext for the French and British to occupy the canal area in order to “secure” the waterway. This plan was implemented (and failed miserably).
What would happen to us if we agreed to Cheney’s plan? Our pilots would risk their lives to bomb the heavily defended Iranian installations. Then, Iranian missiles would rain down on our cities. Hundreds, perhaps thousands would be killed. All this in order to supply the Americans with a pretext to go to war. Would the pretext have stood up? In other words, is the US obliged to enter a war on our side, even when that war is caused by us? In theory, the answer is yes. The current agreements between the US and Israel say that America has to come to Israel’s aid in any war — whoever started it.
Is there any substance to this leak? Hard to know. But it strengthens the suspicion that an attack on Iran is more imminent than people imagine. Do Bush, Cheney & Co. indeed intend to attack Iran? I don’t know, but my suspicion that they might is getting stronger. Why? Because George W. Bush is nearing the end of his term in office. If it ends the way things look now, he will be remembered as a very bad — if not the worst — president in the annals of the republic. His term started with the Twin Towers catastrophe, which reflected no great credit on the intelligence agencies, and would come to a close with the grievous Iraq fiasco. There is only one year left to do something impressive and save his name in the history books. In such situations, leaders tend to look for military adventures. Taking into account the man’s demonstrated character traits, the war option suddenly seems quite frightening.
True, the American army is pinned down in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even people like Bush and Cheney could not dream, at this time, of invading a country four times larger than Iraq, with three times the population.
But, quite possibly the war-mongers are whispering in Bush’s ear: What are you worrying about? No need for an invasion. Enough to bomb Iran, as we bombed Serbia and Afghanistan. We shall use the smartest bombs and the most sophisticated missiles against the two thousand or so targets, in order to destroy not only the Iranian nuclear sites but also their military installations and government offices. “We shall bomb them back into the stone age,” as an American general once said about Vietnam, or “turn their clock back 20 years,” as the Israeli Air Force Gen. Dan Halutz said about Lebanon.
That’s a tempting idea. The US will only use its mighty air force, missiles of all kinds and the powerful aircraft-carriers, which are already deployed in the Arabian Gulf. All these can be sent into action at any time on short notice. For a failed president approaching the end of his term, the idea of an easy, short war must have an immense attraction. And this president has already shown how hard it is for him to resist temptations of this kind. Would this indeed be such an easy operation, a “piece of cake” in American parlance? I doubt it.
Even “smart” bombs kill people. The Iranians are a proud, resolute and highly motivated people. They point out that for two thousand years they have never attacked another country, but during the eight years of the Iran-Iraq war they have amply proved their determination to defend their own when attacked. Their first reaction to an American attack would be to close the Straits of Hormuz, the entrance to the Gulf. That would choke off a large part of the world’s oil supply and cause an unprecedented worldwide economic crisis. To open the straits (if this is at all possible), the US Army would have to capture and hold large areas of Iranian territory.
The short and easy war would turn into a long and hard war. What does that mean for us in Israel?
There can be little doubt that if attacked, Iran will respond as it has promised: By bombarding us with the rockets it is preparing for this precise purpose. That will not endanger Israel’s existence, but it will not be pleasant either. If the American attack turns into a long war of attrition, and if the American public comes to see it as a disaster (as is happening right now with the Iraqi adventure), some will surely put the blame on Israel. It is no secret that the pro-Israel lobby and its allies — the (mostly Jewish) neo-cons and the Christian Zionists — are pushing America into this war, just as they pushed it into Iraq. For Israeli policy, the hoped-for gains of this war may turn into giant losses — not only for Israel, but also for the American Jewish community.
If President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not exist, the Israeli government would have had to invent him. He has got almost everything one could wish for in an enemy. He has a big mouth. He is a braggart. He enjoys causing scandals. He is a Holocaust denier. He prophesies that Israel will “vanish from the map” (though he did not say, as falsely reported, the he would wipe Israel off the map.) Last week, the pro-Israel lobby organized big demonstrations against his visit to New York. They were a huge success — for Ahmadinejad. He has realized his dream of becoming the center of world attention. He has been given the opportunity to voice his arguments against Israel — some outrageous, some valid — before a worldwide audience.
But Ahmadinejad is not Iran. True, he has won popular elections, but Iran is like the orthodox parties in Israel: It is not their politicians who count, but their rabbis. The Shiite religious leadership makes the decisions and commands the armed forces, and this body is neither boastful nor vociferous not scandal-mongering. It exercises a lot of caution.
If Iran was really so eager to obtain a nuclear bomb, it would have acted in utmost silence and kept as low a profile as possible (as Israel did). The swaggering of Ahmadinejad would hurt this effort more than any enemy of Iran could. It is highly unpleasant to think about a nuclear bomb in Iranian hands (and, indeed, in any hands.) I hope it can be avoided by offering inducements and/or imposing sanctions. But even if this does not succeed, it would not be the end of the world, nor the end of Israel. In this area, more than in any other, Israel’s deterrent power is immense. Even Ahmadinejad will not risk an exchange of queens — the destruction of Iran for the destruction of Israel. Napoleon said that to understand a country’s policy, one has only to look at the map.
If we do this, we shall see that there is no objective reason for war between Israel and Iran. On the contrary, for a long time it was believed in Jerusalem that the two countries were natural allies. David Ben-Gurion advocated an “alliance of the periphery”. He was convinced that the entire Arab world is the natural enemy of Israel, and that, therefore, allies should be sought on the fringes of the Arab world — Turkey, Iran, Ethiopia, Chad etc. (He also looked for allies inside the Arab world — communities that are not Sunni-Arab, such as the Maronites, the Copts, the Kurds, the Shiites and others.) At the time of the Shah, very close relations existed between Iran and Israel, some positive, some negative, some outright sinister. The Shah helped to build a pipeline from Eilat to Askelon, in order to transport Iranian oil to the Mediterranean, bypassing the Suez Canal. The Israel internal secret service (Shabak) trained its notorious Iranian counterpart (Savak). Israelis and Iranians acted together in Iraqi Kurdistan, helping the Kurds against their Sunni-Arab oppressors. The Khomeini revolution did not, in the beginning, put an end to this alliance, it only drove it underground. During the Iran-Iraq war, Israel supplied Iran with arms, on the assumption that anyone fighting Arabs is our friend. At the same time, the Americans supplied arms to Saddam Hussein — one of the rare instances of a clear divergence between Washington and Jerusalem. This was bridged in the Iran-Contra Affair, when the Americans helped Israel to sell arms to the Ayatollahs.
Today, an ideological struggle is raging between the two countries, but it is mainly fought out on the rhetorical and demagogical level. I dare to say that Ahmadinejad doesn’t give a fig for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he only uses it to make friends in the Arab world. If I were a Palestinian, I would not rely on it. Sooner or later, geography will tell and Israeli-Iranian relations will return to what they were — hopefully on a far more positive basis. One thing I am ready to predict with confidence: Whoever pushes for war against Iran will come to regret it.
Some adventures are easy to get into but hard to get out of. The last one to find this out was Saddam Hussein. He thought that it would be a cakewalk — after all, Khomeini had killed off most of the officers, and especially the pilots, of the Shah’s military. He believed that one quick Iraqi blow would be enough to bring about the collapse of Iran. He had eight long years of war to regret it. Both the Americans and we may soon be feeling that the Iraqi mud is like whipped cream compared to the Iranian quagmire.—Arab News

Beijing made easier
Tang Yuankai

I HOPE next year’s Beijing Paralympics will promote Beijing all over the world as a city accessible to the physically challenged,” said Zhao Chunluan, President of the Beijing Disabled Persons’ Federation. China’s capital is fast becoming accessible to the disabled, and the Paralympics have played a large part in that. The Games have provided a catalyst for the city to build facilities and introduce regulations for future construction, which will allow disabled people to more fully participate in Beijing’s social life.
The Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games will be held between September 6 and 17 next year. The elite sports event will include athletes from six different disability categories, including spinal cord injury, amputee, visually impaired, cerebral palsy, les autres, and mentally handicapped. The host cities of the Games are obliged to provide facilities, services and premises accessible to these athletes at the competition stadiums and around the city. It has been estimated that the Paralympics in Beijing will attract over 4,000 athletes, 2,500 coaches and officials and more than 4,000 journalists from over 150 countries. Athletes and their families will also become tourists during the Paralympics, which will put the accessibility of the city’s facilities and its services to the disabled under test.
Accessible environment
Deng Pufang, Chairman of China Disabled Persons’ Federation and Executive President of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic and Paralympic Games, was also the winner of the 2003 United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights. Suffering from paralysis from the waist down, Deng firmly believes in society’s responsibility to empower every citizen, including disabled people. “Physically challenged people need equal opportunities and equal access as well as some aid to eliminate barriers. To create a physically and mentally accessible environment is an important task for the 2008 Beijing Paralympics,” he said. Beijing has already been speedily improving disability access. On May 16, 2004, the National Day for Helping the Disabled, Beijing led all of China in releasing a regional regulation on the construction and management of disability access to public facilities. The regulation stipulates that newly built, expanded and rebuilt public premises, residential premises and roads must include disability access.
In Olympic history, Beijing is the first host city to have only one organizing committee preparing for both the Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games at the same time. There is one Paralympic Games Department under the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) in charge of coordinating the preparations for Paralympics of all other departments of BOCOG. Zhang Qiuping, head of BOCOG’s Paralympic Games Department, said one special challenge for the preparations is that some tailored reconstruction for Paralympic sports within the Olympic venues could only be finished in the 10-day gap between the closing of the Olympic Games and the opening of the Paralympic Games.
Zhang said that the work of compiling a guide of all disability accessible traffic facilities for disabled people coming to Beijing during the Olympics and Paralymics has also been put off. The reason is that Beijing has embarked on a citywide campaign to improve disability access. Since August, the Beijing Municipal Government has designated the 16th day of every month as the Day of Disability Access Promotion. All the five Days of Disability Access Promotion in the second half of 2007 have been respectively given a theme. August was devoted to promoting disability access at hotels and restaurants; September at hospitals; October for traffic facilities; November for tourism spots; and December for shopping malls.
Beijing has set up 18 inspection teams looking at disability access, which include 5,000 inspectors made up of handicapped people, senior citizens and social volunteers. Team members have been through a strict training and appraisal process. Their inspection responsibilities include determining whether disability access symbols in public venues meet international norms, whether disabled access facilities operate normally and whether facilities are repaired when damaged. Once a problem is found, the inspectors can require related organizations to redress it according to municipal regulations on the construction and management of disability access at public facilities.
“We look forward to the day that Beijing can proudly announce itself an accessible city after the Paralympics,” said Tang Xiaoquan, BOCOG Executive Vice President and Secretary General of the China Disabled Persons’ Federation. She recalled when she attended the Athens Paralympics three years ago, organizers proudly told her that one important result of the event was that Athens would become an accessible city for disabled people. “I hope that China’s renowned tourism spots will be fully accessible to the disabled and that one day physically handicapped people can climb the Great Wall,” she said. Massive participation “The most profound achievement in hosting the Paralympics is to inspire people’s massive participation, which is more important than the Paralympics themselves,” said Deng.

(The Daily Mail-Beijing Review Articles Exchange Item)



The choice is simple: Radical or rigour mortise
William Rees-Mogg

THE Americans got right the limitation of terms for their president. After having observed Franklin D Roosevelt win four successive victories in presidential elections, America passed a constitutional amendment to limit all future presidents to two terms.
The voters may soon be called on to make such a choice for the Labour Party. Prime Minister Gordon Brown is now calculating the advantage, and the risk, of holding an early election, which could confirm him in office after only a few months, but would give the Labour Party its fourth parliament in power.
If Labour were to win an early election, Labour would have been in power for 13 or 14 years before voters would have the chance to get rid of them. Is that too long for one party? Would it be good, or even tolerable, for Britain? Naturally this choice has occurred in previous general elections. In the 20th century, the Conservatives were defeated after long periods in office, in 1906, 1929, 1945, 1964 and 1997. In 1992, the Conservatives won the election after they had already been in office for 13 years. It did not do them much good. They were then led by John Major, a reassuring and relatively experienced figure. He defeated Neil Kinnock, then the leader of the Labour Party. If there is now an early election it will be the Conservatives who will fight as the champions of change, and Labour who will rely on trust, experience and a preference for the status quo. This is the ground on which Brown and Tory leader David Cameron have to fight. Brown has already made his opening statement, in his speech to the Labour Party conference. Most people found it serious and respectable, but dull and unoriginal. Brown steered away from live political issues, such as the financial panic or, in foreign affairs, Europe, Iraq or Afghanistan. He made only one semi-joke, in contrast to the humour of Tony Blair’s speeches as leader. He emphasised the importance of familiar social issues, such as reform of the health service or education. Even on these he gave little detail and did not explain, either where he would find the money, or why he had blocked similar reforms when they were proposed by his predecessor. Brown borrowed phrases from speeches made by American politicians of a decade past, which only underlined the lack of originality of his own speech.
To many people he sounded sermon-like, while the New Statesman detected a resort to ‘sinister populism’. His speech certainly showed a further shift of the Labour Party to the right, if by the right one means those who are most opposed to change. This speech certainly emphasised the claims of the Labour Party to be the party of Safety First; that was the slogan used by Stanley Baldwin in the 1929 election, which he lost. Brown’s may have been a risky tactic for him, or at least one that was overplayed. Voters already know the Labour government has greater experience than the Conservatives, just as the Conservatives had more experience than Labour in 1929, 1964 or 1997. A party that is already suspected of having run out of steam cannot remove that impression by repeating all its old promises. There were no new ideas in Brown’s speech, and no surprises in the following day’s newspaper headlines.—Khaleej Times