GOP Senator: US Needs to 'Neuter' Iran Sends ripples through an international audience in Halifax

Can there be any doubt that the U.S. is a rogue state? Threatening a sovereign state with neutering. This is warmongering, plain and simple. The international community has to bring pressure to bear to get the U.S. to stand down. The U.S. needs to stop destabilizing the world. Peacenik thinks sanctions may be in order. All options should be on the table.

US Senator Lindsey Graham sent ripples through an international audience Saturday saying his country should be prepared to launch a military attack on Iran that would "neuter" the country. (AFP/Mandel Ngan)

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia -- A U.S. lawmaker sent ripples through an international audience Saturday saying his country should be prepared to launch a military attack on Iran that would "neuter" the hard line regime.

But Defense Minister Peter MacKay, who was in attendance, said a military attack on Iran would have negative fallout, and that international sanctions are preferable.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said Saturday his party would support military action against Iran that would destroy its ability to fight back while allowing its people to rise up.

Graham surprised attendees at the Halifax International Security Forum with his hawkish rhetoric, saying an attack could cripple Iran's nuclear program as well as its armed forces.

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It's Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran Time

This article is a very good summary of the anti-Iranian manipulation in the western media. The propaganda would be laughable if it wasn't so dangerous. Because there are some very dangerous neo-cons who really do want to bomb Iran.

And of course Obama continues to kowtow. Will the neocons be satisfied with stricter sanctions? They never are. And sanctions not supported by China, who gets oil from Iran, or by India, who exports gas to Iran, will fail. Peacenik wonders how the neo- cons will back down from their hysterical warmongering. Multilateral talks with Iran start today. Peacenik is hoping for some rational outcome.

by Pepe Escobar

The United States and Western "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" crowd -- hysteria running at fever pitch ahead of Thursday's multilateral nuclear talks in Geneva -- could do worse than have a word with Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva.

Lula actually talked to Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad face-to-face for over an hour on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly last week. He invited Ahmadinejad to visit Brazil in November. About the meeting, he went straight to the point, "What I wish for Iran is what I always wanted for Brazil -- a peaceful, civilian nuclear program."

Lula is an island of common sense in an ocean of hysteria. French President Nicolas Sarkozy publicly gave a December deadline for Iran not to make a "tragic mistake", as in provoking Armageddon. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini reiterated the Group of Eight was giving Iran only three more months.

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Iran Said to Have Covert Nuclear Facility

Peacenik just watched Obama and Brown and Sarkozy get their shirts in a knot over Iran's "secret" nuclear facility. Looking grim they promised sanctions if Iran didn't stop doing whatever they say Iran is doing. By the way, the U.S., France, and U.K. have known about this facility for years.

Peacenik fears that as western leaders lose legitimacy they would like nothing better than heightened tensions with Iran in order to keep the sheeple terrified, and distracted from their own malfeasance. Who knows, they may even convince themselves that another war might be just the ticket. The neo cons in the U.S., highly placed neo cons in government and the media, have been openly advocating attacking Iran for years. If you were Iran, what would you do?

By DAVID E. SANGER and HELENE COOPER
Published: September 25, 2009

Richard Drew/Associated Press (left); Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

PITTSBURGH — President Obama and the leaders of Britain and France will accuse Iran Friday of building a secret underground plant to manufacture nuclear fuel, saying the country hid the covert operation from international weapons inspectors for years, according to senior administration officials.

The revelation, which the three leaders will make before the opening of the Group of 20 economic summit here, appears bound to add urgency to the diplomatic confrontation with Iran over its suspected ambitions to build a nuclear weapons capacity. Mr. Obama, along with Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, will demand that Iran allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to conduct an immediate inspection of the facility, which is said to be 100 miles southwest of Tehran.

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