Leon Panetta confirms U.S. will ‘take action’ if Israel strikes Iran

Madison Ruppert, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

 With senior Pentagon officials confirming that they have already been drawing up plans to attack Iran as well as Syria, the continued (and accelerating) buildup of military assets in the region, and now United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta confirming that the United States would backup Israel in an attack on Iran, the unfortunate prospect of an attack looks even more likely.

While he did indeed confirm that the United States would take a role if Israel moved to strike Iranian nuclear facilities – which are not producing nuclear weapons – he would not explicitly explain the extent to which the United States would be involved.

Similarly, in the past Obama has made statements about “having Israel’s back,” but both Obama and Panetta have not been forthcoming when it comes to details or specifics.

“Obviously Israel is an independent country, and they’ll make whatever decisions they make on their own based on what they think is in their national interests,” Panetta said to Arabic news outlet al Hurra.

“If they should make that decision, then obviously the United States will – would take action to protect our facilities in this area and protect our interests in this area,” Panetta stated.

I find Panetta’s correction from “will” to “would” a bit interesting. It might be an innocent slip, but it also might be an indication that an attack on Iran by both the United States and Israel is set in stone at this point.

However, Panetta was sure to echo the rhetoric of President of the United States Barack Obama who insists that diplomacy is the preferred route, even as the military continues to roll out military hardware into the Persian Gulf which indicates that diplomacy is not their true goal.

“We think we have the room and the space to try to conduct diplomacy,” Panetta said. “Military action should always be a last resort.”

That being said, it is clear that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not really want a peaceful, diplomatic resolution to this conflict.

This is evidenced by his irrational insistence that Iran must dismantle all uranium enrichment facilities and ship every single bit of nuclear fuel out of their country.

Netanyahu’s position is essentially that Iran has no right to conduct peaceful nuclear research for either medical or power generation purposes, which is ludicrously hypocritical given Israel’s nuclear situation.

When questioned directly about military action concerning Iran, Panetta became increasingly evasive and opaque, which is not a positive indicator for me.

“We have common cause here and a concern that Iran should not develop a nuclear weapon,” he said, once again calling for more diplomacy instead of even bothering to address the possibility of a military assault on Iran.

“This is not the time to take military action. This is the time to allow diplomacy and these sanctions to take effect and to hopefully change the behavior of Iran,” Panetta said, although it is unclear what exactly the behavior is that has the West so irate.

Seeing as Iran is not developing nuclear weapons according to Panetta himself, and unlike Israel, they are not attacking their neighbors and murdering civilians, nor threatening to, I do not see any behavior that should propel the international community into acting against Iran.

Indeed, if any nations are displaying negative behavior it is those who are attempting to assume the moral authority in the situation, which in this case is mostly the United States and Israel.

Seeing as the United States is currently engaging in undeclared wars across the globe, stripping our most essential rights and engaging in a global militarization effort while Israel continues to attack their neighbors, break international law and threaten even more atrocities, all while having a massive uncontrolled stockpile of nuclear weapons, I think the international community should be rallying against the West, not Iran.

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This article first appeared at End the Lie