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What You're Missing in Our Subscriber-only CounterPunch Newsletter JAMES WEBB: IF THE DEMOCRATS WANT A POPULIST, IT'S HIM, FOR BETTER AND FOR WORSE JoAnn Wypijewski on how Webb really talks on his home turf in Virginia and on the two faces of populism, dark and lite. The New Yorker helped sell the war in Iraq. Now see how it shills for the drug companies at home. Fred Gardner finds Malcolm Gladwell, at the bottom of the New Yorker's deep barrel. David Petraeus is the favorite general of Bush and the New York Times. Alexander Cockburn on how the salesman of surge sold himself. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now Get CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year

Today's Stories February 6, 2007 Diana Johnstone Frenzy in France Over Iranian Threat February 5, 2007 Dave Zirin Super Bore: When Hawks Cry Uri Avnery The Fatal Kiss: Wars and Scandals Ron Jacobs The Looming War on Iran: It's Not About Democracy Paul Craig Roberts The Real Failed States Newton Garver Bush and the Old Hands: Decider vs. Negotiator Bruce Anderson The Genocidal Namesake of the Hastings School of Law Saul Landau The Golden Globes After a Mud Bath Ralph Nader The Good Fight of Molly Ivins James T. Phillips Road Outrageous: Tailgating and Iraq Mike Whitney Quarantine USA: Bird Flu Panic and Profiteering Kenneth Rexroth Clowns and Blood-Drinking Perverts: Imperial History According to Tacitus Website of the Day Richard Thompson's Anti-War Song: "'Dad's Gonna Kill Me" February 3 /4, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Who Can Stop the War? Tao Ruspoli CounterViews: a Conversation with Dr. Susan Block on Sex, Censorship and Liberation Jeffrey St. Clair The Thrill is Gone: the Withering of the American Environmental Movement Patrick Cockburn Iraqis on the Run P. Sainath They Take the Early Train Sen. Russell Feingold A Symbol of a Timid Congress Diane Christian Dying Well: Why Killing Saddam Backfired on Bush Brian Cloughley Space Missiles Away!: the Irony of Bush's Indignation Diana Barahona How to Turn a Priest into a Cannibal: US Reporting on the Coup in Haiti Timothy J. Freeman The Iraq War Hits Hawai'i: the Stryker Brigade and the Watada Case Conn Hallinan The Vishnu Strategy John Ross Felipe's First Fifty Days Greg Moses The Government Blinks: Freedom for the Ibrahim Family Missy Beattie No More Rebukes or Non-Binding Resolutions Joshua Frank Unsafe in Any Seas: Cruising with Ralph Nader? Evelyn Pringle "These Drugs are Poison to Some People" Stephen Fleischman Let's Hear It for Chuck Hagel! Muhammad Idrees Ahmad Iraq in Fragments Poets' Basement Holt, Engel, Ford and Saavedra Website of the Day Flamenco Dali February 2, 2007 Chris Kutalik The Meanest Industry R. Gibson / E. W. Ross Cutting the Schools-to-War Pipeline Pam Martens America's "Money Honey" as Corporate Matchmaker: Maria Bartiromo and the Co-Branding of CNBC and Citigroup John Feffer Picturing the President Daryll E. Ray Why the Family Farm is Good for Rural America Ronald Bruce St. John Apartheid By Any Other Name Mitchel Cohen Listen Gore: Some Inconvenient Truths About the Politics of Environmental Crisis Website of the Day The Real Issue is Empire February 1, 2007 Diane Farsetta An Army Thousands More: How PR Firms and Major Media Military Recruiters Marjorie Cohn Bush Targets Iran: Cruise Missile Diplomacy Mark Scaramella Our Founding War Profiteers Ranni Amiri Senator Prejudice: the Day Joe Biden Threatened to Kick My Ass Christopher Ketcham Die, TV! Winston Warfield Art Panic Hits Boston! Corporate Crime Reporter Jailing the Artists, Not the Executives: the Great Boston Art Panic, Turner Broadcasting and the AG Who Won't Pursue Corporate Crime Thomas P. Healy Adios Molly Ivins: Populist Journalism and Never Dull Website of the Dau The Ordeal of Gary Tyler   January 31, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Waco of Iraq?: US "Victory" Cult Leader was a "Massacre" Jean Bricmont What is the Decisive "Clash" of Our Time? Tao Ruspoli CounterViews: a Conversation with Dr. Susan Block on Sex, Politics and Liberation James T. Phillips Flashbacks de Jour: Photographing War William Johnson Worker Reistance at Smithfield Foods Tim Wilkinson A Hawk in Drag: Dershowitz and the Iraq War Evelyn Pringle The Judge, the Reporter and the Secret Zyprexa Documents Joshua Frank What America Really Needs to Hear Ramzy Baroud Shameless in Gaza Mickey Z. Nader Still in the Crosshairs Website of the Day What's Goin' On? January 30, 2007 Werther Slapstick on Jenkins Hill: DC's Botoxed Golems Kathy Kelly Engagement with War Uri Avnery "If Arafat Were Alive" Franklin Spinney Embedded Without Blending: Humvees and Tactical Madness in Iraq William S. Lind The Real Game in Iraq Pariah An Iron Curtain is Descending--and Most Americans Don't Know Mike Whitney The Mother of All Bubbles Rev. William E. Alberts Hiding America's Surging Militarism Behind Children Fran Shor Shadow of a Resistance: Can the Anti-War Mvt. Dismantle the War Machine? Anthony Arnove The Logic of Withdrawal: There's Nothing Precipitous About It Website of the Day Our Boys in Iraq January 29, 2007 Nurit Peled-Elhanan "We Are All Victims of the Occupation" Patrick Cockburn Raid on the Soldiers of Heaven JoAnn Wypijewski The Demo in DC: Chirpy Slogans, Empty City Ron Jacobs Our Fire, Congress's Feet Dave Lindorff The Missing Word at the Anti-War Demo Kevin Zeese A Republican Peace Candidate?: Chuck Hagel's Challenge to America Reza Fiyouzat Iran, Bush and the Banging of the Ironsmiths Pat Williams Turnout and Same-Day Voting: Did It Sink Conrad Burns? Website of the Day Galloway's Indictment of Blair   January 27 / 28, 2007 Diana Johnstone Do We Really Need an International Criminal Court? Eliza Ernshire Exiled from Palestine Patrick Cockburn Slaughter in Baghdad's Bird Market David Rosen Pay-to-Play: the Double Life of Prostitution in America Greg Moses Children Without a Country: Maryam Ibrahim Remains in a Texas Jail Bernard Chazelle Bush the Empire Slayer Tao Ruspoli CounterViews: a Video Interview with Jeffrey St. Clair, Part Two Hermán Uribe Murdering Journalists in Latin America Ralph Nader Democracy in Crisis Paul Craig Roberts Why Can't Americans See What's Coming? Fred Gardner The Suppression of Collective Joy: Barbara Ehrenreich at the Commonwealth Club Brian Cloughley Dying for Lies James Abourezk The High Cost of Congressional Trips to Israel John V. Whitbeck The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine: Ilan Pappe and the Nakba Deniers Seth Sandronsky Peace-In Politics: Localizing the Anti-War Movement Alan Cabal Mayday from the Circus Tent Pam Martens America's Money Honey Does Davos Website of the Weekend Gil Scott-Heron: Winter in America January 26, 2007 Charlotte Laws Are You the Terrorist Next Door?: AETA and the New Green Scare Mike Ely / Linda Flores The Workers at Smithfield Joe DeRaymond Paying for Health Care and Not Getting It Phil Donahue Get Sarah Olson! Zia Mian The Three US Armies in Iraq: Grunts, Contractors and Laborers Jeb Sprague Haiti Struggles to Defend Justice Evelyn Pringle Eli Lilly, the Habitual Offender Missy Beattie Inside the Criminal Mind of George Bush: He Thinks; Therefore, It is So Martha Rosenberg Cloned Food: From Designer Hens to the Transgenic Omega-3 Pig Website of the Day Save Grand Canyon from Glen Canyon Dam! January 25, 2007 Patrick Cockburn What's Really Going on in Baghdad John Ross Mexico Under Calderon: Fake Left, Rule Right Jeremy Scahill Our Mercenaries: Blackwater, Inc and the Privatization of Bush's War Machine Frida Berrigan "Hearts Ruptured with Sadness:" Protesting Gitmo Paul Craig Roberts Bush's State of Deception Jason Yossef Ben-Meir Iraq Reconstruction Failure Christopher Brauchli Why Bush is Arming Fatah: When in Doubt, Start Another Civil War Holger W. Henke Cuba at the Crossroads? Dave Lindorff Falling Dominos and Failing Presidencies Julia Landau From Your Young Cousin Website of the Day The Mighty Edwards Sisters   January 24, 2007 Tao Ruspoli CounterViews: a Filmed Interview with Jeffrey St. Clair Paul Craig Roberts The Empire Turns Its Guns on the Citizenry Lt. Gen. William Odom What Can be Done in Iraq? Sharon Smith Health Care Reform for the Insurance Industry Brian M. Downing Two Americas: the Grunts and the War Profiteers Heather Gray Surviving War Ron Jacobs SOTUS Quo James Brooks Out of Europe, Out of Time Robert Day Translating Snow Website of the Day Defend Sarah Olsen January 23, 2007 Trish Schuh Lebanon on the Brink of Civil War, Again Robert Bryce The Politics of Cheap Oil Stephen Soldz Aliens in an Alien Land John Blair King Coal's Latest Con Job: Clean Coal is Not Clean Gloria La Riva Miami: a Place of Refuge for Anti-Castro Terrorists Joshua Frank Turning Silence into Gold: Hillary and Israel Lobby Patrick Cockburn In Iraq, All Foreigners are Targets Ralph Nader Questions for Bush on Iraq Dave Lindorff Pelosi and Iraq: Blunder or Treason? Uri Avnery Israel and Apartheid Website of the Day Down By the River   January 22, 2007 Manuel Garcia, Jr. China's New Chip in Space War Poker Jen Marlowe Trapped in Darfur: the Ordeal of Suleiman Jamous George McGovern War of the Belligerent Professors: Get Out of Iraq Paul Craig Roberts Only Impeachment Can Save Us from More War Norman Solomon The Pentagon vs. Press Freedom Amira Hass Life Under Prohibition in Palestine Mike Whitney A Fool's Errand in Baghdad Ramzy Baroud The Things We Take for Granted John Walsh Support Jimmy Carter in Boston! Website of the Day The Hagelian Dialectic   January 20/21 2007 Alexander Cockburn First Bomb Carter; Then Nuke Iran! Gail Dines I Was Ambushed by Paula Zahn Newton Garver Evo Morales' First Year Gilad Atzmon 100 Years of Jewish Solitude Seth Sandronksy New Push For Social Security "Reform" Raphaelle Bail Where Nicaraguans Go to Work Jim Goodman Round Up the Usual Experts: Make Them Live on a Dollar a Day Larry Portis Chouraki's Oh Jerusalem Website of the Weekend Press Poodles Play it Safe January 19, 2007 Jonathan Cook Jimmy Carter Doesn't Tell the Half of It Glen Ford Barack Obama: The Mania and the Mirage Dave Lindorff Bush Blinks on Illegal Spying--Don't let him off the hook Larry Portis Zionism in the Cinema: Part Two Website of the Day For Whistleblowers January 18, 2007 William Peace Protest From a Bad Cripple Virginia Tilley The Steady March to War on Iran: What It Would Take to Stop It Michael Donnelly The Real Reason I Can't Stand Obama B.R. Gowani Democracy: Everywhere and Nowhere Larry Portis Zionism in the Cinema: Part One Jason Hribal A Horse is Worth More than Riches Website of the Day Baghdad Clampdown January 17, 2007 Franklin Spinney Why Time is not on Bush's Side John Ross Oaxaca's Rising: Vibrant as the Paint on the Walls Susan George Can World Trade Ever Be Fair? Back to Keynes! Paul Craig Roberts Attacking Iran: What's In It For Bush Joshua Frank Obama and the Middle East David Lindorff Towards Oil at $200 a Barrel January 16, 2007 Col. Sam Gardiner Escalation Against Iran Marjorie Cohn Stimson's Outrageous Threat Saul Landau Gore Vidal in Havana: Part 2 Ron Jacobs Welcome Back to 1965 Susan Block From Snowjob to Blowjob Ken Couesbouck Year of the Pig Website of the Day Amazon's Hit on Jimmy Carter January 15, 2007 Roger Morris Another War the Voters Hoped to End Paul Craig Roberts Bush Must Go Kathy Kelly Umm Heyder's Story William Blum The Anti-Empire Report Ralph Nader The Class War's New Map Saul Landau Gore Vidal In Havana January 12 / 14, 2007 Patrick Cockburn "21,500 More Troops": Will America Ever Leave Iraq? David Rosen Bush's Domestic Sex Policy: the Teen Abstinence-Only Crusade William S. Lind Less Than Zero Laith al-Saud The Ironies of Bush and Iraq Paul Craig Roberts Surge and Mirrors: What Bush Really Said John Ross Celebrating the "Sum of the World" in Chiapas George Ciccariello-Maher The Case of Venezuela's RCTV: Not About Free Speech Christopher Brauchli How to Avoid an IRS Audit: Become a Millionaire! Robert Buzzanco Rogue State, Redux Evelyn Pringle The Secrets in Eli Lilly's Cabinet Peter Rost, MD. Promises, Promises: Playing Politics with Drug Reimportation Mike Whitney Baghdad Crackdown Yifat Susskind Beyond the Surge: Demanding an End to Bush's Wars Saul Cohen Latin America's Real Mr. Danger: Negroponte's Latest Gig Missy Beattie A Day of Action and Questions Stephen Lendman Holiday Hypocrisy Website of the Weekend Bruegel on Bush War Plan   January 11, 2007 Ismael Hossein-Zadeh The Profits of Escalation Paul Craig Roberts Carter's Inconvenient Truths Kathy Kelly Refugee Dreams Dave Lindorff Blood for Face Jeff Leys The War Widens Richard W. Behan Barrels and Bodies Col. Douglas MacGregor Surging Right Into Al-Sadr's Hands Website of the Day An Explanation from Google Speech of the Day Is There Even One Politician Alive Who Could Give This Speech? January 10, 2007 Peter Linebaugh A Walk in Oaxaca Robert Fantina Punishing Deserters: Prosecution or Persecution? Patrick Cockburn Why Troop Escalation Won't Bring Peace to Iraq Paul Craig Roberts Distracting Congress: Troop Escalation and Iran Col. Dan Smith Why U.S. Policy is Failing Ben Tripp The Politics of Bad Karma Evelyn Pringle How the FDA Protects Big Pharma Ron Jacobs Coalition of the Lunatics: Trying to Create the Next World War Mike Ferner If Not Now, When? Dave Zirin Judgment of the Juiced: Why McGwire Wasn't Elected to the Hall of Fame Website of the Day Revolting Students! Bootleg of the Day Bob Dylan: Live at Scotia Bank Place January 9, 2007 R. T. Naylor The Somalian Labyrinth Jonathan Cook Israel's Purging of Palestinian Christians Mike Ely and Linda Flores The Smithfield Strikers: No Longer Hidden, No Longer Hiding Joshua Frank The Democrats and Iran: More Bellicose Than Bush Norman Solomon The Headless Horseman of the Apocalypse Sen. Russell Feingold An Open Letter to President Bush: So Now You Want to Snoop Through Our Mail? Joe Allen Justice for the Omaha Two: Black Power, Racism and COINTELPRO in the Heartland James T. Phillips "Lasciate Ogne Speranza, Voi Ch'Intrate": The Hell That is Iraq Brian Concannon Resolutions for Haiti Leonard Peltier When the Truth Doesn't Matter: 30 Years of FBI Harassment and Misconduct Website of the Day Kick Out the Jams, MFers!: Meet the New RRC   January 8, 2007 Werther Why We Fight Jeff Leys The Occupation Project: a Campaign of Civil Disobedience to End Iraq War Funding Paul Craig Roberts Nuking Iran Shulamit Aloni Israeli Apartheid: Sorry, This Road is For Jews Only Dave Lindorff The Party of Invertebrates Reverts to Form Sunsara Taylor The Democrats' First Day: Same As It Ever Was Seth Sandronsky Syndicated Error: George Will and the Minimum Wage Dr. Susan Block Baghdad Cockfight Ends in Snuff Film Website of the Day Watch CounterPuncher Sunsara Taylor Take on Bill O'Reilly! January 6 / 7, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The War and the NYT Franklin C. Spinney Stalingrad on the Tigris Paul Craig Roberts The Urge to Surge Ralph Nader Democrats in the Spotlight Walden Bello Globalization in Retreat? Marleen Martin The Needle and the Damage Done: Tortured in the Death Chamber Brian Cloughley We Do What We Like: Return Our Rapist or Else ... Uri Avnery The Kiss of Death Saul Landau Fidel Castro in the Fields Ron Jacobs From Cointelpro to the Patriot Act: a Legacy of Torture Joseph Nevins Crimes Against Humanity from Ford to Saddam William S. Lind A State Restored? Somalia and 4GW Gary Leupp Attention John Conyers: Impeach the President! Elisa Salasin Bringing Life to Numbers George Ciccariello-Maher Beyond Chavistas and Anti-Chavistas: Deepening the Bolivarian Revolution Stefan Wray Confronting Recruiters: the Story of the Bush Street Raiders Michael Leonardi Toward an International Moratorium: Italy's Crusade Against the Death Penalty Richard Rhames Reality TV: Triumph of the Thugs Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Barbara LaMorticella Two Poems Website of the Weekend FBI Witch Hunts Song of the Weekend End Times: a Soundtrack January 5, 2007 Jorge Mariscal Growing the Military: Who Will Serve? John Walsh Clash of the Elites: Beltway Insiders vs. Neo-Cons! Christopher Brauchli The Great Relaxer: Bush and Federal Regulations Travis Sharpe No More New Nukes, Please Tom Barry Hawk for Hire: Roger Noriega's New Gig Linda Schade / Kevin Zeese Americans Voted for Peace: Has the New Congress Already Let Them Down? Tiffany Ten Eyck Workers' Centers and Unions: a New Alliance Mahmoud El-Yousseph A Challenge to Pelosi Lucinda Marshall 3003 Funerals: "And They're Still Burying Ford!" Website of the Day Van the Man: Warm Love January 4, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Martyrdom of Saddam Hussein Winslow T. Wheeler A Guide to Earmarks: Will the Democrats' Reforms Do Anything to Curb Pork Barrel Spending? M. Shahid Alam Has Regime Change Boomeranged? Raed Jarrar So This is Plan B? The US Attack on Saleh Al-Mutlaq's Headquarters Bert Sacks Can the US Legally Kill Iraqi Children?: a Challenge to the Supreme Court Kathy Rentenbach Report from Oaxaca Stephen Fleischman The Rain of Riches: Bonuses, Then and Now George Bisharat Carter's Truths Peter Rost, MD Hail the Hangman, Jail the Cameraman! Evelyn Pringle Can Eli Lilly be Held Criminally Liable for Zyprexa? Website of the Day Courage to Resist   January 3, 2007 Kathy Kelly Wrapped Around a Bullet Paul Craig Roberts His Last Hurrah: Bush Cuts and Runs from Reason William Johnson No Worker is Illegal: SEIU Members Push Their Union to Change Its Policy on Immigration Stan Cox Under a Brown Cloud: Money vs. the Monsoon Trita Parsi A Lose-Lose Situation with Iran Declan McKenna Ireland's Slavish Hostility Toward Cuba Joe Bageant Dispatch from the Chinese Landfill Nicola Nasser Somalia: New Hotbed of Anti-Americanism Missy Beattie Dead Wrong Website of the Day Pharmed Out January 2, 2007 Michael Watts Oil Inferno Amina Mire Return of the Warlords: Death and Destruction for Somalis James Brooks Pushing the Wedge in Palestine Alevtina Rea The Tyrant is Dead! Long Live ... ? Al Krebs Global Food Security: a Call to Action Peter Rost Invitation to a Hanging: the Saddam Hussein Execution Video Niranjan Ramakrishnan A Deadly December John Stanton Appetites for Destruction Website of the Day Out Now: Petition   January 1, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Iron Man, Tin God: the Meaning of Saddam Hussein Uri Avnery What Makes Sammy Run? Joshua Frank Eliot Spitzer's Constitutional Hang Up: Architect of New York's Patriot Act         Subscribe Online

February 6, 2007 Pre-Emptive Strike Against Chirac Frenzy in France Over "Iranian Threat" By DIANA JOHNSTONE Paris. Four years ago, French President Jacques Chirac saw the Iraq disaster looming and openly warned against it. It was by far the best thing he ever did in his political life, and he is not to be allowed to do it again. Today another, potentially even greater disaster is looming as Israel and the United States ostentatiously prepare to bomb Iran on the pretext of preventing "a second holocaust". But this time around there is a curious absence of the public opposition and mass protest demonstrations that preceded the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It is as though the enormity of events and the comforts of daily life have caused the Western world to give up thinking about grave matters and to take refuge in officially inspected and approved platitudes. Debate is replaced by an alarm system that sends up cries of scandal at any deviation from the accepted discourse. In France, where people pay a lot of attention to words, the denunciation of verbal heresy even goes so far as enacting laws punishing politically incorrect speech. But the more commonplace type of censorship was illustrated this week by an essentially trivial incident. During a presidential press briefing at the Elysée palace devoted to the Paris conference on climate change, a New York Times journalist changed the subject to ask the French President about the Iranian nuclear threat. Chirac began with the standard official "International Community" line, namely that Tehran's refusal to give up its uranium enrichment program was "very dangerous". But then, Chirac (thinking, he explained later, that he was speaking off the record) gave in to the temptation to speak honestly. For Iran to have a nuclear weapon was not really so dangerous, he said. To make his point, he asked rhetorically what good it would do Iran to have a nuclear bomb, or even two. "Where would it fire that bomb? At Israel? It wouldn't have traveled 200 meters through the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed." The real danger was nuclear proliferation, he added. Chirac even went so far as to suggest that Iran had a motive for its nuclear research, including its fear of being "challenged or threatened by the international community. And the international community, who is that? It's the United States." The alarm bells went off. The "scandal" of Chirac's politically incorrect remarks was the top front page news story in both U.S. and French newspapers. In themselves, Chirac's remarks hardly merited such a fuss. But the reaction was significant. First of all, it showed that the French President, a lame duck in the midst of an election campaign to replace him, is too isolated to be able to oppose war against Iran as he opposed war against Iraq. The media are there to shoot him down before he gets off the ground, first of all the newspapers that continue to enjoy the label "leftist", "left-leaning" or "center-left" -- mainly Libération and Le Monde -- but which in reality have become the guardians of Atlanticist orthodoxy (devotion to a "European unity" closely tied to the United States). Chirac's own political party was snatched away from him by his ambitious enemy Nicolas Sarkozy, who has publicly criticized Chirac's departure from the American fold over the war against Iraq. Sarkozy's demonstrations of devotion to Washington and Tel Aviv have won him the enthusiastic support of the organized Jewish community, increasingly inspired by the U.S. pro-Israel lobby. Deeply distrustful of Gaullism, the French Jewish community has traditionally been close to the Socialists. It was indeed a Socialist government whose secret cooperation with Israel's nuclear program was discovered, and terminated, by de Gaulle when he took office in 1958. But Ségolene Royal was not the Socialist Party candidate favored by major Jewish organizations (they preferred the very pro-Israel Dominique Strauss-Kahn) and will have a hard time competing with Sarkozy for their favors on the Middle East issue, even though she has declared that Iran has "no right" not only to a nuclear bomb, but even to civilian nuclear power plants. The Socialists can find nothing better to do than to crow over Chirac's "blunder". The French left in general has never seen the point of supporting Chirac's action in keeping France out of the Iraq quagmire. From the viewpoint of the sectarian left (and the French left, in its countless splinters, is incurably sectarian), what matters is not to do the right thing but to do whatever one does for the right motives -- and a conservative politician like Chirac is by definition incapable of doing anything for the right motives. Four years ago, there were huge demonstrations against the impending war against Iraq. Today, as Israel and the United States gear up to attack Iran, nothing. Four years ago, the German Chancellor was Social Democrat Gerhard Schroeder who did the right thing, for whatever motives, so that the core of "old Europe" (Germany, France and Belgium) was able to take a united stand against the U.S. war plans. Today, the German Chancellor is Angela Merkel, who is as devoted to Washington as she was to Moscow when she began her political career in East Germany before the wall came down. No debate on Iran Not only is there no audible or visible movement of opposition to war against Iran, there is no real debate or discussion that does not rest on the officially approved assumption that Iran's nuclear program is a "threat". If there were such a discussion, it could include reference to the following elements: 1. Possible Iranian motives for nuclear development other than unleashing a holocaust. These would be similar to those of the late Shah of Iran, an ally of Israel, who was eager to develop nuclear power. Iran might well wish to use its oil revenues to prepare for power needs once the oil boom is over. This is all the more plausible amid recent reports of declining output in the Iranian oil industry. And today, faced with global warming, nuclear power, like it or not, can be defended as ecological. 2. The role of nuclear deterrence. Chirac's remarks were merely a reminder of France's own nuclear defense doctrine: deterrence. The old Cold War doctrine of "mutually assured destruction" (MAD) was never a popular favorite, but it nevertheless worked. Since Israel possesses a considerable nuclear arsenal, if Iran had nuclear weapons too, Israel would lose its advantage, but the result would reasonably be merely another case of mutual deterrence. That is what Chirac was driving at. But this cannot be discussed. 3. The significance of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "threats to Israel". This has two sides, the actual meaning of Ahmadinejad's words, and the way they are exploited by Israel and its champions. (1) The first part has been thoroughly analyzed by the Iranian artist Arash Norouzi, a political opponent of Ahmadinejad, on his web site The Mossadegh Project. The statement and its word for word English translation are as follows: "Imam (Khomeiny) ghoft (said) een (this) rezhim-e (regime) ishghalgar-e (occupying) qods (Jerusalem) bayad (must) az safheh-ye ruzgar (from page of time) mahv shavad (vanish from)." So, Ahmadinejad was quoting a statement made by his mentor Imam Khomeiny, who died in 1989 without ever lifting a finger to destroy Israel. It should be obvious that the statement is an opinion, not a threat, and addresses not the people who live in Israel but the Zionist "regime" which occupies Jerusalem. Coming from a Muslim religious leader, this opinion is doubtless based on objection to Jewish monopoly of a city considered holy by all three of the Abramic monotheisms. Ahmadinejad seems to enjoy verbal provocation, but words, however offensive, are only words. The fact is that Iran has not attacked another country in over 250 years and shows no interest in doing so. As for the United States and Israel... (2) Now to the second part: the receiving end of these "threats". Ahmadinejad is portrayed as the latest "Hitler" determined to wipe poor little Israel off the map in order to kill all the Jews and then, who knows, conquer the world. A little bit more uranium enrichment, and we'll all be dead. It is difficult to believe that anyone takes this seriously, but just about everyone in public life in the West feels obliged to act as if this were real. Why? A cynical answer could be that U.S. and Israeli leaders are looking for another pretext to start another war aimed at renovating the Middle East in ways that ensure eternal control of petroleum resources as well as the regional supremacy of Israel as the only country in the neighborhood still left intact. A dangerous persecution complex This may be a factor, but there is another factor, less material and more psychological, that increasingly invades political life in Europe and the United States: a certain spreading pathology of persecution in what is called "the Jewish community", meaning a part of the Jewish population, and in particular the organizations that claim to represent it. The Jewish population of France, which has played an important role in the country's intellectual, economic and political life for centuries, has been shifting politically from the left to the right, mainly because of its attachment to Israel. Given the community's vitality and influence, this has an impact on the political life of the country as a wholeThis mutation is noticeable at all levels of society. It is a cause for concern among many who do not dare to mention it, for fear of being stigmatized as anti-Semitic. But is it "anti-Semitism" to try to tell Jewish people that they are not hated, that they are appreciated and even loved, and that the notion that non-Jews are just waiting for the next opportunity to exterminate them is both unjust to others and harmful to themselves? The hysteria over Iran, which may lead to a disastrous war that will be lost by everyone, reminiscent of the First World War of 1914-1918, is visibly fed by the dominance within the Jewish community, and indeed beyond it in the West as a whole, of the "duty of memory", meaning, to be precise, a constant, repetitive recollection of the holocaust as the defining moment of the twentieth century, and perhaps even of human history. It is enough to attend a meeting of moderate, middle class Parisian Jews to perceive this transformation. The same sort of educated, well-to-do people who not so long ago were at the forefront of universal social concern, are now centering their political preferences on the question: what is best for Israel? The terrible irony is that the more brutal Israel's policies become, provoking growing hostility to Israel, the more these good people feel not only that they must defend Israel tooth and nail, but that every criticism of Israel is a threat against themselves. This is dividing French society itself. The vast majority of the non-immigrant French population, especially on the left, feel close to Jewish friends, admire the many outstanding Jewish people in all fields, consider Jewish people so much a part of France that they usually neither know nor care who is Jewish and who is not -- and if ever they retain an atavistic trace of ancestral anti-Semitism, this is extinguished by reminders of guilt for the holocaust. Reminders of guilt abound. As a recent example, although the majority of French Jewish children were saved from Nazi deportation, plaques are being placed on schools as a reminder of the number of Jewish children who were deported. In these same schools, the commemorations of the annual holocaust day become increasingly elaborate. What is the effect on the children? This sets Jewish children apart in a way that is likely to give them a sense of insecurity and distrust. As for the children of immigrants from African and Arab countries, this stimulates an unhealthy competition in victimism. The reflection is almost inevitable: so Jews suffered over sixty years ago, but today, Arabs are suffering in Palestine and in Iraq, and who cares? Why are some people eternal victims while others don't count? As the official Jewish community has moved to the right, the right has moved toward the community. On the far right, the "vieille France" candidate Philippe de Villiers attempts to outdo Jean-Marie Le Pen by denouncing "the Islamization of France" and ardently courting the Jewish community, whose right wing also benefits from the flattering attentions of Le Pen's daughter and possible successor Marine. Such positioning stimulates anti-Jewish resentment among immigrant youth in the disinherited banlieues. One form of paranoia leads to another. What is the danger? To get back to the supposed threat to Israel from Iran, a most interesting comment from Israeli Deputy Defense minister Ephraim Sneh was cited by Seymour Hersh in his November 21, 2006 piece in The New Yorker on the possibility of a U.S. attack on Iran. Expressing skepticism about the possibility of influencing Iran by diplomatic means, Sneh said: "The danger isn't as much Ahmadinejad's deciding to launch an attack but Israel's living under a dark cloud of fear from a leader committed to its destruction... Most Israelis would prefer not to live here; most Jews would prefer not to come here with families, and Israelis who live can live abroad will... I am afraid Ahmadinejad will be able to kill the Zionist dream without pushing a button." This is truly an amazing statement that deserves careful attention. The Israeli official is suggesting that a war should be launched against a country, not because of what it may do, but because the fear of what it may do risks "killing the Zionist dream". This suggests that the fear of another holocaust, which has been the main argument for Zionism for half a century, is turning around to destroy Zionism itself. But are we to plunge the world into war to "save the Zionist dream"? Isn't there some other way for Jews to live in the world without fear of genocide? Indeed, hasn't Zionist Israel become the greatest threat to Jews, by attaching them to the fate of a brutal state which is arousing the growing indignation of the world by its treatment of the Palestinians? For a long time, there has been an unwritten law that only Jews (at risk of being called "self-hating") may criticize Zionism. But things have gone too far. This aggressive paranoia of Israel is not just a "Jewish question", it is dragging the whole world into disaster. Those of us who are not Jewish also have to speak up and say to our Jewish friends: "We don't want to kill you, but we don't want to die for your Jewish State either. We are all human beings, and we refuse to plunge the world into war to preserve distinctions of identity that may mean a lot to you, but don't mean much of anything to us." Diana Johnstone lives in Paris. She can be reached at dianajohnstone@compuserve.com

Coming Soon from CounterPunch Books / AK Press The Gang's All Here: Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Jeffrey Goldberg, Rupert Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly...End Times Leaves No Reputation Unstained! Buy End Times Now! "The Case Against Israel" Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz WHAT'S INSIDE Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair     CounterPunch Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org. The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn   Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh The Book on 9/11 the White House Denounced as "ABSOLUTE GARBAGE"