By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

"Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that . . . I want to tell you something very clear: Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it."

Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, October 3, 2001, to Shimon Peres, as reported on Kol Yisrael radio.

When I took my oath of citizenship, choking with emotion, I repeated with thousands of other new citizens: “ I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.”  I am duty-bound to fight for my country and free it from influence.  I hope that 300 million other Americans join me to free the United States of America.

In his celebrated farewell address to the American people in 1796, George Washington urged Americans to avoid taking sides in foreign quarrels.  Not only have we failed to heed his warning, but we have yielded our will to foreign influence.  Our destiny is being shaped by Israel and her lobby groups in the United States at the detriment of America and the wishes of the American people.

In November the American people spoke up.  They put Democrats in Congress so that they would put an end to the war in Iraq and bring home the troops.  They demanded peace.  Instead, it would seem that Ms. Pelosi and the Democratic Party are taking orders from AIPAC.  As Mr. Olmert ordered the US to stay in Iraq[i] Ms. Pelosi revised her Bill allowing Mr. Bush to attack Iran without any justification.   The official reason given for stripping from a major military spending bill a requirement for Bush to gain approval from Congress before attacking Iran is said to be concerns about the possible impact on Israel.  AIPAC would like to take credit for pressuring Ms. Pelosi and the Democrats,[ii]  and if one recalls Olmert’s speech delivered to Congress on May 24, 2006, AIPAC’s bragging is not out of place.     

“ Iran, the world's leading sponsor of terror and a notorious violator of fundamental human rights, stands on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons. With these weapons, the security of the entire world is put in jeopardy. We deeply appreciate America's leadership on this issue and the strong bipartisan conviction that a nuclear-armed Iran is an intolerable threat to the peace and security of the world. It cannot be permitted to materialize.”

“ Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, our moment is now. History will judge our generation by the actions we take now, by our willingness to stand up for peace and security and freedom, and by our courage to do what is right. The international community will be measured not by its intentions but by its results. The international community will be judged by its ability to convince nations and peoples to turn their backs on hatred and zealotry. If we don't take Iran's bellicose rhetoric seriously now, we will be forced to take its nuclear aggression seriously later. [iii]”

Having dragged the United States into one war through the influential lobby group AIPAC, the AEI and high level decision makers, Israel is not only sacrificing American lives in Iraq to advance its own interest, but it is widening the conflict to include a military attack on Iran.  An attack based on false allegations that Iran is developing nuclear weapons; whereas innumerable intrusive inspections by the IAEA have not produced any evidence of Iran diversifying its civilian nuclear program to bomb making. 

While Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful and within the guidelines of the NPT, even as Prime Minister Olmert revealed his country’s open secret of having nuclear bombs, and met with protests by the Persian Gulf States which according to Haaretz demanded that Israel be sanctioned “for the world must regard Olmert's statement as a global threat to peace and security”[iv], it was rewarded.  For it would seem that America regards the Arabs with the same contempt as Sir Flinders Petrie, the renowned archeologist, who had this to say about them:

“[T]he Arab has a vast balance of romance put to his credit very needlessly.  He is as disgustingly incapable as most other savages, and not more worth romancing about than Red Indians or Maoris.”[v]

Instead of sanctions, further arms deals were negotiated for delivery. On January 29, 2007, the Jerusalem Post reported that the Israeli Air Force plans to buy military equipment from the United States that helps transform regular missiles into precision, satellite-guided weapons.  The deal would cost $100 million – no doubt part of the billions of dollars in aid from the American tax payers that goes to Israel each year.[vi]

Our own government is not faring any better.  “Stephen G. Rademaker — who left his job as Assistant Secretary for Non-proliferation and International Security at the U.S. State Department last December - said, referring to India’s changing attitude towards non-proliferation, "[t]he best illustration of this is the two votes India cast against Iran at the IAEA. I am the first person to admit that the votes were coerced."[vii]  While denying Iran, a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty technological assistance is itself a violation of Article IV, the US has violated Article III by providing India, a non-signatory to the NPT, with nuclear technology.

A far more serious offense is that in spite of Article VI of the NPT, the Bush Administration has launched on building the most inhuman weapon known to man –  the thermonuclear bomb.[viii]   The hydrogen bomb (clean bomb) would produce blast effects and a hail of lethal neutrons but almost no radioactive fallout which would cause minimal physical damage to buildings and equipment but kill most living things.  The tens of billions of dollars that are being invested in this weapon of mass destruction are depriving our citizenry of quality of life; and the lives of those we are about to terminate en masse.

In the meanwhile, ordinary Americans have been bombarded with advertisements about the clean air that will be ours soon with nuclear power plants; the power plants that will make us independent of foreign oil, but not of foreign uranium; for Iran is one of the stake owners in the world's biggest open-pit uranium mine in the African state of Namibia, and the US is a customer of the said mine[ix].  Sanctions don’t seem to apply to America’s drive for its needs.  It is noteworthy that uranium is a commodity that has increased considerably in value on the stock market.

It is also noteworthy that while fellow Americans should benefit from nuclear power generated ‘clean air’, since 1980, carbon emissions in Iran have risen by 240%, and worsening.  The pollution in Tehran and all other major cities of Iran that has reached catastrophic levels  causing 17,000 deaths every year in Tehran alone, as well as causing severe problems for people with asthma, heart, and skin conditions. The cost of medical care for such illnesses is reaching astronomical levels.  Polluted air also severely damages soil and groundwater resources by contaminating the rain water. At the same time, Iran's industrial base, using oil and gas for energy, generates wastes that contaminate a large number of rivers and coastal waters and threaten drinking water supplies.[x]

While Israel with its 300-400 nuclear warheads is coaxing America into another war, this Administration is building weapons of mass destruction, our veterans are lying in mold, and I ask myself: “Am I not duty-bound to protect my country?  Which is the greater enemy, Iran after years of sanctions struggling for self-determination, or AIPAC at the behest of Israel bent on pushing my country to war and endangering more lives?” Are we on the brink of another war?

“That depends on who does it and how quickly it happens. We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force. Let me quote Gen. Moshe Dayan: “Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.” I consider it all hopeless at this point. We shall have to try to prevent things from coming to that, if at all possible. Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.”

                                                                                    Martin van Creveld[xi]

                        -Professor of military history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem