Yesterday: Iraq. Tomorrow: Iran?

TIME

It was 10 years ago this week that George Bush launched his ill-fated war of choice in Iraq. The anniversary comes as politicians in Washington and Israel continue to discuss the option of military action against Iran.

The parallels with a decade ago are striking.

Once again, we hear claims of a grave threat from weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East and the possibility of military action. Vice President Joe Biden recently told the convention of the American Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC) that “all options, including military force, are on the table.”

Then as now we are warned of the need to take action before it’s too late. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu sent a video message to the AIPAC convention claiming that Iran will soon cross a nuclear “red line.”

We’ve heard this story before.

Who can forget Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s infamous line “we can’t wait for the smoking gun to be a nuclear mushroom cloud”? Or Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s ludicrous attempt to explain the whereabouts of Iraq’s WMD: “They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.”

Some of us reported at the time that no evidence existed of Iraqi WMD, and that UN inspections during the 1990s had dismantled Saddam Hussein’s nuclear, ballistic missile and chemical weapons threat, but our voices were ignored in the march to war. Official investigations during the occupation confirmed the complete absence of any WMD threat.

Some politicians apparently never learn.

Today, prominent Democratic and Republican senators are lining up behind Senate Resolution 65, which declares that “if the Government of Israel is compelled to take military action in self-defense, the United States Government should stand with Israel and provide diplomatic, military, and economic support.” The resolution is in effect a backdoor authorization for war. It sets the stage for the United States being dragged into a future Israeli attack on Iran.

One of the authors of the resolution is Democratic New York Senator Charles Schumer. The senator was sharply critical of George Bush’s handling of the Iraq war, but now he is resorting to Bush-style misrepresentation to justify a potential attack on Iran. According to Jamal Abdi of the National Iranian American Council, Schumer is telling constituents that Iran “continues to enrich uranium into weapons-grade nuclear materials” and that the resulting fuel is “sufficient to arm a nuclear warhead.”

Not true.

The International Atomic Energy Agency reports regularly on Iran and has no evidence of uranium enrichment to weapons-grade level. This past week the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper was on Capitol Hill to repeat what U.S. intelligence agencies have reported consistently for years: Iran is not enriching uranium to weapons grade and has not made a decision to build a bomb. Of course, real concerns exist about Tehran’s nuclear program, but there is no imminent nuclear threat from Iran or justification for threatening military attack.

Sanctions-based diplomacy offers a formula for resolving the nuclear stand-off with Iran, just as sanctions and UN inspections were a viable alternative to war 10 years ago. Back then my colleague George Lopez and I reported that targeted sanctions and renewed inspections were working effectively to prevent Iraq from acquiring nuclear materials and rebuilding its war machine. Today U.S. and European sanctions are squeezing Iran’s economy and reducing its oil exports, providing significant leverage that could be used to negotiate a diplomatic settlement.

The 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq is a good occasion for trying to learn from the mistakes of the past…and to make sure we are not misled into war again.

David Cortright is the Director of Policy Studies at Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. He blogs at www.davidcortright.net