I personally do not share Scott Ritter's idea of what is good for the
world or the US. But he knows a lot about the Middle East and the
workings of the US government, and seems pretty honest and forthright.
I think we ought to give him a good hearing.
Richard
Metro Times, Detroit
Bombs away?
Arms expert Scott Ritter says the U.S. plans to attack Iran. MT asks
why he's so sure.
by Curt Guyette and W. Kim Heron
11/28/2007
It seems that with each passing week there are more stories raising
the specter of George Bush turning Iraq and Afghanistan into a bloody
trifecta by attacking Iran.
In mainstream daily papers we see pieces like one by Gannett's John
Yaukey, who wrote in early November that "confrontation could be near"
because "Iran continues to taunt the United States with its aggressive
posturing in Iraq and Lebanon while pushing ahead with its nuclear
research ..."
We are also witnessing what appears to be a chilling rerun of the Iraq
debacle. Confronted with evidence that calls into question the status
of Iran's nuclear program, the Bush administration is shifting its
rhetoric.
"The Bush administration has charged that Iran is funding
anti-American fighters in Iraq and sending in sophisticated explosives
to bleed the U.S. mission, although some of the administration's
charges are disputed by Iraqis as well as the Iranians," the Los
Angeles Times reported in October. "Still, ... diplomatic and military
officials say they fear that the overreaching of a confident Iran,
combined with growing U.S. frustrations, could set off a dangerous
collision."
Look beyond daily papers — from Seymour Hersh's reporting in The New
Yorker to articles in The Nation — and the picture emerges of an
administration that is determined to attack Iran.
John H. Richardson's "The Secret History of the Impending War With
Iran That the White House Doesn't Want You to Know" in the November
issue of Esquire magazine is particularly eye-opening. Richardson,
using two former high-ranking Middle East experts who worked for the
White House as his primary sources, warns that the Bush administration
is "headed straight for war with Iran" and that "it had been set on
this course for years."
"It was just like Iraq, when the White House was so eager for war it
couldn't wait for the UN inspectors to leave," writes Richardson, who
details the Bush administration's success at scuttling diplomatic
efforts — notably involving then-Secretary of State Colin Powell — to
reach a peaceful accord with Iran. "The steps have been many and
steady and all in the same direction. And now things are getting much
worse. We are getting closer and closer to the tripline. ..."
With all this in mind, we decided to talk with the man who literally
wrote the book on Bush's intentions. Nearly a year ago, Scott Ritter's
Target Iran was published, and he's been sounding the claxon of
impending war ever since.
A former Marine Corps intelligence officer, Ritter served as chief
United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998 when he
left as a pointed critic of the Clinton administration's commitment to
weapons inspection and its Iraq policy. Before the United States' 2003
invasion, Ritter loudly disputed the Bush administration's claims
regarding weapons of mass destruction under Saddam's control and
predicted that, instead of the quick and easy war being promised, Iraq
would turn into a quagmire, though not necessarily of the type he
envisioned. His analyses have been embraced by both the right and the
left at various points. He portrays himself as the straight-shooting
analyst unconcerned by who supports him or whom he offends.
To learn what he thinks the future holds for Iran, and the
consequences of a U.S. invasion, we recently sat down for a 90-minute
phone interview with Ritter. What follows is a condensed version of
that conversation.
Metro Times: A year ago, when your book Target Iran came out, you were
sounding the alarm about war being imminent. Why do you think that
attack hasn't occurred?
Scott Ritter: Let's remember that this is an elective war, not a war
of necessity. A war of necessity would be fought at the point and time
a conflict is required, if somebody is threatening to invade you, to
attack, etc. But an elective war is one where we choose to go to war.
It will be conducted on a timescale that's beneficial to those who are
planning the conflict.
As far as why it hasn't happened, there's any number of reasons. One,
the Bush administration has not been able to stabilize Iraq to the
level they would like to see prior to expanding military operations in
the region. Two, the international community has not rallied around
the cause of Iran's nuclear program representing a casus belli to the
extent that the Bush administration would like. They were hopeful that
there would be more action from the [United Nations] Security Council.
It took a long time to get the issue shifted from the International
Atomic Energy Agency's headquarters to the Security Council. And even
when it got shifted to the Security Council, the Council took very
timid steps, not decisive steps. The Bush administration sort of tied
its hands at that point in time. I think you are seeing increasing
frustration today at the slow pace.
Also, the need to redefine the Iranian threat away from exclusively
being focused on nuclear activity, because now you have the difficulty
of both the IAEA saying there is no nuclear weapons program and the
CIA saying pretty much the same thing. So the Bush administration
needs to redefine the Iranian threat, which they have been doing
successfully, casting Iran as the largest state sponsor of terror,
getting the Senate resolution calling the Iranian Revolutionary Guard
Command a terrorist organization, and creating a perception amongst
the American people, courtesy of a compliant media, that talks about
the reason why things are going bad in Iraq is primarily because of
Iranian intervention.
They have been working very hard to get back on track. I still believe
that we are seeing convergence here. The Bush administration is moving
very aggressively toward military action with Iran.
MT: Is your conclusion that an attack is imminent based on the
administration's statements and actions, like labeling Iran's
Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group, or do you also have sources
within the intelligence community and the military and the
administration telling you what's going on?
Ritter: I don't have any current sources of the sort you just spoke
of. I was plugged in back in 2006 to good quality current information.
But I haven't been plugged in recently, so I have to use some sort of
analytical methodology as opposed to saying, "Aha, I got it from the
horse's mouth." But there's nothing that has occurred that leads me to
believe the Bush administration has changed its policy direction. In
fact there has been much that's occurred that reinforces the earlier
conclusions that were based on good sources of information. We take a
look at items in the defense budget, the rapid conversion of heavy
bombers to carry bunker-busting bombs on a specific time frame, the
massive purchasing of oil to fill up the strategic oil reserve by
April 2008. Everything points to April 2008 to being a month of some
criticality. It also matches my analysis that the Bush administration
will want to carry this out prior to the crazy political season of the
summer of 2008.
MT: Last year you expressed hope that if Democrats took control of
Congress it might pass legislation that could block the march toward
war. Do you see them stepping up?
Ritter: No. They just passed a resolution declaring the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard Command as a terrorist organization. Unless there
is a radical reawakening in Congress, I don't see them passing any
sort of pre-emptive legislation of that nature.
MT: But it is now clearer than ever that our invasion of Iraq has been
a disaster. How do you explain the lack of opposition?
Ritter: It's difficult to explain. First of all you have to note, from
the public side, that very few Americans actually function as citizens
anymore. What I mean by that are people who invest themselves in this
country, people who care, who give a damn. Americans are primarily
consumers today, and so long as they continue to wrap themselves in
the cocoon of comfort, and the system keeps them walking down a road
to the perceived path of prosperity, they don't want to rock the boat.
If it doesn't have a direct impact on their day-to-day existence, they
simply don't care.
There's a minority of people who do, but the majority of Americans
don't. And if the people don't care — and remember, the people are the
constituents — if the constituents don't care, then those they elect
to higher office won't feel the pressure to change.
The Democrats, one would hope, would live up to their rhetoric, that
is, challenging the Bush administration's imperial aspirations. Once
it became clear Iraq was an unmitigated disaster, one would have
thought that when the Democrats took control of Congress they would
have sought to reimpose a system of checks and balances, as the
Constitution mandates. But instead the Democrats have put their focus
solely on recapturing the White House, and, in doing so, will not do
anything that creates a political window of opportunity for their
Republican opponents.
The Democrats don't want to be explaining to an apathetic
constituency, an ignorant constituency whose ignorance is prone to be
exploited because it produces fear, fear of the unknown, and the
global war on terror is the ultimate fear button. The Democrats,
rather than challenging the Bush administration's position on the
global war on terror, challenging the notion of these imminent
threats, continues to play them up because that is the safest route
toward the White House. At least that is their perception.
The last thing they are gong to do is pass a piece of legislation that
opens the door for the Republicans to say, "Look how weak these guys
are on terror. They're actually defending the Iranians. They're
defending this Ahmadinejad guy. They're defending the Holocaust
denier. They're defending the guy who wants to wipe Israel off the
face of the earth." The Democrats don't want to go up against that.
They don't have the courage of conviction to enter into that debate
and stare at whoever makes that statement and say they're a bald-faced
liar. They're not going to go that route.
MT: Do you think there is anything that can happen at this point that
will stop this attack?
Ritter: You have to take a look at external influences, not internal
ones. I don't think there is anything happening inside the United
States that's going to stop that attack. I do believe that, for
instance, if Pakistan continues to melt down, that could be something
that creates such a significant diversion the Bush administration will
not be able to make its move on Iran.
To attack Iran, they're going to need a nice lull period. That's what
they're pushing with this whole surge right now. They're creating the
perception that things are quieting. I don't know how many people
picked up on it, but one day we're told that 2007's been the bloodiest
year for U.S. forces in Iraq, the next day we're told that attacks
against American troops are dropping at a dramatic pace. So, what's
the media focus on? The concept of attacks dropping at a dramatic
pace. No one's talking about the fact, wait a minute, we've just lost
more guys than we've ever lost before.
They are pushing the perception that Iraq is now stable. If you have a
situation in Pakistan that explodes out of control, where you suddenly
have nuclear weapons at risk of falling into the hands of Islamic
fundamentalists, that could stop it. If Turkey attacks Kurdistan and
that conflict spins out of control, that could put a halt to it. These
are things that could overshadow even Dick Cheney's desire to bomb
Iran.
And there could be some other unforeseen meltdown globally that's not
on the radar at this time, that, unfortunately, we have to be hoping
for to stop an attack on Iran. And that says a lot, that we have to
hope for disaster to prevent unmitigated disaster.
MT: What's the motivation?
Ritter: The ideologues who are in there believe the United States in
the post-Cold War environment needed to fill the gap created by the
demise of the Soviet Union so that no nation or group of nations would
ever again confront us as equals. And in order to do this, they
basically divided the world into spheres of strategic interest and
said we will impose our will. And the Middle East is one such area.
There's a whole host of reasons to do this.
It's not just supporting Israel. It's not just taking down Saddam.
It's about geopolitics. It's about looking down the road toward China
and India, the world's two largest developing economies, especially
the Chinese, and the absolute fear that this resurgent Chinese economy
brings in the hearts of American industrialists and the need to
dictate the pace of Chinese economic development by controlling their
access to energy. And controlling central Asian and Middle East energy
areas is key in the strategic thinking of the Bush administration.
So, there's a lot of complexity at play here. But you say why do they
want to do this? It's about as Condoleezza Rice continuously says
before the U.S. Congress: It's about regional transformation,
inclusive of regime change. It turns the Middle East into a sphere of
interest that we have tremendous control over. That's what's behind
all this.
MT: And when Bush talks about being an instrument of God, do you think
he really believes that or is that just political posturing, playing
to the religious base?
Ritter: That's a question that can only be asked of George Bush. But I
find it disturbing that an American politician who is supposed to be
the head of a secular nation where religion is protected but there is
no state religion, and who has control over the world's largest
nuclear arsenal, not only openly talks about how God is his final
adviser, which pretty much negates the role of Congress or any other
system of governmental oversight, checks and balances of the
executive, but also embraces a kind of evangelicalism that gives
legitimacy to the notion of the rapture, Armageddon, the apocalypse as
a good thing.
Here's a man who speaks of World War III and the apocalypse and he has
his hand on the button and he talks to God. I don't know, if it's a
show, its a dangerous show, if its real, we should all be scared to
death.
MT: Even going back to before the start of the Iraq war, the national
mainstream media just seemed to be beating the drum for it. Why do you
think that is?
Ritter: Again, only they can really answer that question, but I think
it is clear the mainstream media, while not outright fabricators, are
not there to tell the truth, they're there to win over ratings. They
will package their programming in ways that sells well to an audience.
And we are dealing with a complacent American audience, where in-depth
reality stories are trumped by reality TV. I don't see the programming
director saying, "Look, we're going to spend an hour explaining to the
American people why Ahmadinejad's speech wasn't that big of a deal."
Or they can say, "Hell, no; in three minutes we can lead with a story
saying he's a Holocaust denier and win everybody's attention."
MT: Do you think the resolutions in 2001 and 2002 authorizing Bush to
use military force against Iraq give Bush the authority to attack Iran
without first obtaining congressional approval?
Ritter: I'd like to believe it didn't, but unfortunately when you take
a look at it, and I've had constitutional scholars take a look at it,
the feeling is that, yeah, because of the terrorist threat, if you
take a look at the fine print on both of those resolutions, it gives
the president authorization to use military force to take out groups,
organizations, individuals, etc. who are linked to the events of 9/11.
And the president has continued to make the case that Iran is linked
to the attacks.
MT: Do you think an attack on Iran would be an illegal war of
aggression and a war crime under international law?
Ritter: It depends on what triggers it. If Iran engages in an action
that legitimizes a military response, the answer is no.
There are two conditions that we are legally allowed to engage in
military operations. Militaries are bound by the charter of the United
Nations' Article 51, legitimate self-defense, and a Chapter 7
resolution passed by the Security Council authorizing military force
to be used. If we attack Iran void of any of these, especially when it
can be shown that we have hyped up a threat in defense of pre-emption
— I think the Nuremberg Tribunals from 1946 have set a clear precedent
with Judge Jackson condemning German generals to death for invading
Denmark and Norway in the same premise of pre-emption. It is quite
clear this is illegal. Unfortunately the Nuremburg Tribunals don't
have any weight when it comes to prosecution of the law.
The international community has not agreed upon a definition of what
pre-emptive aggression is, and what the consequences of such are.
Let's keep in mind if we attack Iran we're guilty of no more than what
we're already guilty of in attacking Iraq. Hyping up a threat where
one doesn't exist, going to war void of any legitimacy, violating
everything we claim to stand for. Yet we don't see any war crimes
tribunals being convened for the Bush administration over Iraq.
MT: One of the scenarios that's been raised has Israel launching the
first strike, prompting a response from Iran that would then pull us
in.
Ritter: I think Israel is capable of doing a one-time limited shot
into Iran. One has to take a look at the distances involved and the
complexity of military operations ... the lack of friendly airspace
between corridors into and out of Iran. It's nice to talk about an
Israeli attack, but the reality is far different. Israel had trouble
dominating Hezbollah right on its own border with air power.
I think Israel could actually go into Iran and get their butts kicked.
It may not go off as well as they think it's going to go off. It is
too long of a distance, too much warning for the Iranians. The
Iranians are too locked-in; they're too well prepared. It doesn't make
any sense. Israel doesn't have the ability to sustain a strike. Like I
said, they might be able to pull off a limited one-time shot. But I
think the fallout from that would be devastating for the United
States. As much as we've worked to get an Arab alliance against Iran,
that would just fall apart overnight with an Israeli attack. No Muslim
state will stand by and defend Israel after it initiated a strike
against Iran. It just will not happen. And the United States knows
this. I just think it's ludicrous to talk about an Israeli attack.
I think what we're looking at is an American attack. It's the only
viable option both in terms of initiation and sustainment of the
strike. Israel might be drawn in after that. There's no doubt in my
mind the Iranians will launch missiles against Israeli targets, either
directly or through proxies, and that Israel will suffer. This is
something I try to warn all my Israeli friends about. If you think
Saddam Hussein firing 41 missiles was inconvenient, wait until the
Iranians fire a thousand of them. It goes well beyond an
inconvenience; it becomes a national tragedy. And then the escalation
that can occur from there.
I think right now what the Bush administration is conceiving is a
limited strike against Iran to take out certain Revolutionary Guard
sites and perhaps identified nuclear infrastructure. Not a massive,
sustained bombardment, but a limited strike. But we were always told
in the Marine Corps that the enemy has a vote and no plan survives
initial contact with the enemy. So we may seek to have a limited
strike, but if the Iranians do a massive response, things could spin
out of control quickly.
MT: What do you foresee as some of the possible consequences? No one
is talking about putting troops on the ground in Iran are they?
Ritter: A while back there was talk about having forces move in on
Tehran via Azerbaijan. But I think those plans have gone to the
wayside. If Iran is successful in shutting down the Straits of Hormuz,
it will force our hand and we'll have to put the Marines in to secure
the Straits. If the conflict drags on and air power is not sufficient
to break the will of the Iranian resistance, the Army may have to
activate its option to put a reinforced corps into Azerbaijan and
punch down the Caspian Sea coast. But these are definitely not the
leading options at this point in time.
MT: When you say a "limited strike," what might that look like in more detail?
Ritter: Iran is a big country. There are a number of target sites we
have to look at. To give an example, to take out a number of air
defense sites during the Gulf War, a sortie required over 100
aircraft. It's not just one airplane coming in, firing a missile and
going out. You have to secure a corridor, you have to put a combat air
patrol over it, you have to have air-to-air refueling, you have to
have aircraft protecting the refuelers, and then you have to have the
strike aircraft themselves. You have to have pre- and
post-reconnaissance. When you replicate this, let's say, over 20
targets, we don't have enough airplanes to do it all at once. So, it's
something that will occur in phases. What you look at is maybe a
three- to five-day bombardment where we take out sites, radar sites
and air defense sites the first day, the second we pound the nuclear
sites, the third day we take the Revolutionary Guard Command sites,
the fourth and fifth days we do follow-up strikes to make sure all
targets are destroyed, then we're done. That's probably what we're
looking at.
MT: How much damage could be done to the Iranian nuclear program?
Ritter: No damage would be done to it. Remember, the problem the
Iranians face isn't the manufacture of this equipment. They've already
mastered that. And if you think for a second machine tools that are
used to manufacture enrichment equipment are going to be stored out in
the open where we can bomb them, you're wrong. They've been dispersed.
The Iraqis were masters of this. We spent a lot of money blowing up
concrete, but we never got the machine tools, because they were always
hidden. They were always evacuated the day before — they'd take it to
palm groves or warehouses that we didn't know about, or hidden in
narrow streets. And we never detected that, and we never got them. The
Iranians are even better. They've been mastering the technology of
deep-earth tunneling, so they can hide things underground that we
can't reach with our conventional weapons. So I just think it is
absurd to talk about bombing these sites, because all we'll do is blow
up buildings that can be rebuilt.
A couple of sites are more sensitive; I think the uranium conversion
facility at Isfahan, that'll be a major blow. It's a site that can be
rebuilt however. It was a facility put in by the Chinese, but the
Iranians have the blueprints. It'll take time, but they can rebuild
it. At the best we are talking about retarding an Iranian program. But
what's worse is if we bomb them, we may retard it, but we might also
make it a militant program. Meaning that if their objective is only
nuclear energy and suddenly they're being attacked and the world is
doing nothing, we may push the Iranians into weaponization even though
that is something they don't want to do. That's not in the cards right
now. But our attack will have little or no impact on anything. That's
for certain.
MT: So what do you think the United States should be doing to keep
Iran from getting nuclear weapons?
Ritter: I think that is the wrong question. That presumes Iran is
seeking nuclear weapons. There's no evidence of that whatsoever. So
rather than pose a question that legitimizes a certain point, I think
the question should be, "What should the United States be doing in
regards to Iran?" I think we should be seeking to normalize relations
with Iran. We should be seeking stability in the region. This concept
that the United States gets to dictate to sovereign people the makeup
of their government is absurd. First of all, the theocracy in Iran,
while not a model, for instance ... it's an Iranian problem, not an
American problem. The day of the exportation of the Islamic revolution
is long gone. The Iranians are not seeking to convert by the sword
anybody. It's a nation that has serious internal problems. Economic.
Huge unemployment. It's a nation that recognizes these problems. And
they are in desperate need of not only political stability but also
the economic benefits that come with this stability.
The Iranians want a normalization of relations with the United States
that would be inclusive of peaceful coexistence with Israel. They've
said this over and over and over again.
So what the United States should be doing is exploiting the olive
branch that is being held out by the Iranians. We should be engaging
them diplomatically. We should be terminating economic sanctions and
seeking to exploit the leverage that comes with having American
businesses working inside Iran to try and change them from within. We
should be doing everything to get Iran to be a positive player in the
region, especially considering the debacle that's unfolding in Iraq.
Having the Iranians working with us to engender stability as opposed
to being at cross-purposes.
The same can be said in Afghanistan and the entire central Asian
region. We keep putting our hopes on allies like Saudi Arabia and
Pakistan. Saudi Arabia, which produced 14 of the hijackers who
slaughtered Americans on 9/11. Pakistan, which was the political
sponsor of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and continues to
have ties to radical Islamic terror organizations. These are our
allies? And we call Iran the enemy? We've got it backward. The
Iranians are actually the ones we should be working with to oppose
dictatorships like Pakistan and irresponsible governments like Saudi
Arabia's.
MT: Even under Iran's current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? It seems
like before him, just after 2001, there was a window where the
Iranians were seeking rapprochement and doing things perhaps quietly
and not well-known to Americans to stabilize things.
Ritter: You have to remember that Ahmadinejad doesn't make any policy.
He is more than a figurehead, but constitutionally he's hampered by
the reality that the power resides with the theocrats. It's the
theocrats we need to be engaging, not Ahmadinejad. You engage the
people who make the decisions. In the end we should be sending people
to talk to the National Security Council, the Guardian Council, the
representatives of the supreme leader. That's where the power is,
that's where the decisions are made. Ahmadinejad is in reality just a
minor inconvenience. The bottom line is, not only doesn't he account
for much, his words haven't created a problem at all. Half the things
we claim he said, he never said at all. And the other half we put out
of context and exaggerate.
I'm not here to defend what the guy says. But the notion that just
because a man dared question a 100 percent interpretation of the
history of the Holocaust as put forward by Israel — and again, I'm not
saying he's right to do that — I'm just saying that because he dared
do that, he's suddenly evil incarnate and we need to go to war against
this guy? No. At worst he's a joke. He's a guy whose words mean
nothing, have no power, have no relevance. It's the supreme leader
that matters. And, yes, today the supreme leader continues to want to
seek to normalize relations with the United States.
MT: You are getting ready to go to Iran at the start of December.
What's the purpose of that trip?
Ritter: I've been trying to get there for some time now to talk with
Iranian government officials trying to ascertain firsthand what's
going on in Iran. We get a lot of rhetoric here at home, we get the
media saying a lot of things that are derived not so much from
on-the-ground truth in Iran but rather from talking points put out by
the White House. I think it is imperative that if we are going to have
a national debate, discussion and dialogue about Iran, that we get all
sides of the story.
Hopefully, I'll have an opportunity to meet with Iranian government
officials, and have a chance to speak with some religious officials,
and maybe even have a chance to talk about hypotheticals, not only
what the current situation is, but how the Iranians would like to see
this thing resolved and what mechanisms might need to be employed and
maybe come back with some ideas that people in Congress might be
interested in.
MT: You've been to Iran before, haven't you?
Ritter: Yes. And having been to Iran, I can tell you that it is the
last nation in the world we should be saying these are people we have
to fight. When you visit Iran and you see the Iranian people and you
get the chance to talk to them, you realize that these are peaceful
people. These are highly educated people. They are more like us than
we can possibly imagine. They are very Western in their approach,
although they reject the term Western because they say think those in
the West are Neanderthals compared to the Persian culture. But they
are very modern in their approach. They are a very modern people.
I always say the best way to stop a war with Iran would be to issue
every American a passport and roundtrip ticket and money for a
two-week stay and let them go there and when they came back they'd say
there's no way we should bomb this place. Once you've been to Iran you
realize just how utterly useless the concept of militaristic
confrontation is.
MT: I think it is fair to say you are perceived as a champion of the
left at this point. But 10 years ago, when you were criticizing the
Clinton administration for undermining efforts to root out Saddam's
weapons, you were being heralded by the right. Saddam accused you of
being an American spy. And you were criticized for being too close
with the Israelis and sharing information with them. But when you go
to Iraq prior to the war there, people on the right are calling you a
traitor. The FBI put you under surveillance. What do you make of all
that?
Ritter: What I make of it is my consistency and the inconsistency of
those who seek to gain political advantage by manipulating the truth.
When the right embraced what I was saying, they didn't embrace the
totality of what I was saying. They only embraced that aspect that was
convenient for their political purposes. I would say today that the
left is guilty of the same thing. I'm only convenient to the left when
that which I espouse mirrors what they are pursuing. It will be
interesting to see, if Hillary Clinton wins the White House, how
popular I will be in certain circles, because I can guarantee I will
go after her with all the vengeance I go after the Bush
administration.
It's not about being Republican, it's not about being Democrat, it's
about being American. It's about doing the right thing. And in the
1990s the right thing was to implement the [United Nations] Security
Council resolutions calling for the disarmament of Iraq. That was the
law. That was what I was tasked with doing, and the Clinton
administration was not permitting the task to be accomplished.
By holding them to account, if that suddenly made me popular with the
right, then so be it. It's not something that I sought; it wasn't the
purpose of what I was doing. But when the complexity of my stance
became inconvenient to the right, when they found out it wasn't just
about taking down the Clinton administration, but rather criticizing
an American political position that put unilateral policy objectives
and regime change higher up in the chain of priorities than
disarmament, suddenly it wasn't convenient anymore to be saying, "Hey,
we like this guy."
One cannot be held accountable for the words and actions of those who
seek to selectively embrace what you say.
MT: When Bush talks about World War III, how likely is the scenario
that an attack by us would escalate into that?
Ritter: I don't know about likely, but what I say is that I can sit
here and spin scenarios that have it going in that direction. And
these aren't fantastic scenarios.
MT: Would that be having Russia or China coming in?
Ritter: No, no, no. It would be something more like the
destabilization of Pakistan to the point where a nuclear device gets
in the hands of Islamic fundamentalists who are aligned with al-Qaeda
and there's some sort of nuclear activity on the soil of the United
States of America. That's more what I'm looking at. I don't think the
Russians or the Chinese would become involved. They don't need to. All
they have to do is sit back and wait and pick up the pieces — because
it is the end of the United States as a global superpower. That's one
thing I try to tell everybody. The danger of going after Iran is that
it is just not worth it. What we can lose is everything, and what we
gain is nothing. So why do it?
