Why Is Iran The Next Target?

BY ALI BULAC
ZAMAN- Columnist Ali Bulac comments on US plans for Iran in particular and the Middle East in general. A summary of his column is as follows:
Though completely lacking any legal or moral justifications, the Bush administration’s pointing the finger at Tehran has certain understandable (but in no way acceptable) reasons. With the new US definitions of ‘terrorism’ and ‘justified preemptive strikes’ just pulled out of thin air following the 9/11 attacks, Washington no longer has even the slightest concern for respecting international rules or trying to find at least ostensibly legitimate explanations for its fraudulent acts. The Spinozistic axiom ‘might makes right’ is the motto of the new US global doctrine.
As a part of its global plans, the US seems convinced that it can, and in fact must, make Iran to fall on its knees either this way or that after completing its two ‘very successful’ operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. With the influential US media and other effective tools at Washington’s disposal, a campaign is now underway to brand the Tehran administration as ‘ugly, authoritarian, oppressive, and unlivable.’ Most of all, Iran is a country which must be ‘saved’ and ‘liberated’ immediately.
Iran is a big country, and it is quite different from both Afghanistan and Iraq. Since the 1979 religious revolution, this ‘uncontrolled power’ has effectively resisted integration with the US-led global order, an action which has no doubt made it a perceived threat to Washington’s designs.
Israel cannot be neglected within this anti-Iran campaign. Everyone would agree that the Israeli factor is now far more influential on US foreign policy than ever before. There are even those who claim that the US administration as a whole has been ‘hijacked’ by Jewish lobbies. Saddam’s regime used to be a ‘grave threat’ against Israel, and so ‘is’ Iran now.
The Iranian reins must be grabbed should the US want to control the three rich energy basins in Eurasia and access routes to these resources, because Iran is a part of these basins and is now the biggest obstacle to a new imperialist age beginning throughout the Middle East. Unless this obstacle is overcome, the US designs in the region are doomed to failure.

SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION