The goal of our foreign policy – as advocated by activists across the political spectrum – has long been the substitution of sycophantic regimes for existing “criminal” regimes.
What makes a regime criminal?
Well, for some of the crazies, the regime is criminal if it commits or allows to be committed what they consider to be human and/or religious rights “abuse.” For them there are dozens of regimes – including Iran, North Korea and China – that are “criminal.”
For other crazies, a regime is criminal if it just thinks about acquiring nukes or the makings thereof and acquires ballistic missiles that can reach Israel.
Of course, there’s no problem in getting the Best-Congress-Money-Can-Buy to do the bidding of the crazies – especially when they are in agreement – if it just means dropping tons of bombs on the hapless inhabitants of the country whose regime the crazies want to change.
But getting you soccer-moms to endorse the invasion of Iraq, or Iran or North Korea – thereby incurring significant loss of American life – to effect the regime change the crazies want is another matter.
So, even when Clinton attempted in 1998 to achieve regime change in Iraq by bombing Baghdad, Clinton told you soccer-moms he had to do it because the United Nations inspectors on the ground in Iraq were incompetent (or worse), having failed to find the missiles and “weapons of mass destruction” the CIA had told him Saddam had and intended to use against you soccer-moms.
Nevertheless, to give Clinton “cover,” the BCMCB passed the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, calling for the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime:
“It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.”
So, it shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise, when, a few months after the terrorists had spectacularly destroyed the World Trade Center, Bush effectively blamed in his State of the Union address the regimes in Iraq and Iran and North Korea for that destruction.
“States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States.”
Now, the only real “weapon of mass destruction” is a nuke. Nothing else comes close.
Furthermore, at the time, all “source and special nuclear materials” proscribed by the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (as well as all activities involving the chemical or physical transformation of such materials) in Iraq, Iran and North Korea were subject to the Safeguards regime of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
What’s Bush to do?
First, attempt to discredit – destroy, if necessary – the IAEA Safeguards regime.
Start by charging that the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea has somehow managed to acquire a nuke-oriented uranium-enrichment capability, in violation of the US-IAEA-DPRK Agreed Framework, completely unbeknownst to the IAEA on-the-ground inspectors.
Then get the BCMCB to pass the “Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq.”
Simultaneously, go before the United Nations, tell them you know that Saddam Hussein is attempting to acquire nukes, and if the Security Council won’t authorize you to invade Iraq and disarm Saddam Hussein, you and a “coalition of the willing” will do it anyway.
Well, you know what Bush did to Iraq.
And can guess what he will likely soon do to Iran.
But what about North Korea?
After Bush unilaterally abrogated the US-IAEA-DPRK Agreed Framework, the DPRK withdrew from the NPT, recovered the weapons-grade Plutonium from the spent-fuel that had been “frozen” under the Agreed Framework and began producing more.
Now, the Koreans are “reportedly” in the final stages of fueling a long-range ballistic missile that “some” experts believe is capable of delivering a nuke warhead to parts of the United States.
William Perry, Secretary of Defense in the Clinton Administration, has urged Bush to “strike and destroy” the Taepodong ballistic missile before it can be launched.
Not to worry, says Vice-President Cheney. DPRK “missile capabilities are fairly rudimentary” and “their test flights in the past haven’t been notably successful.”
Of course, if the Iranians got their hands on a few Taepodongs, that might elicit a different reaction from the Cheney Cabal.
