Opinion > November 1, 2007

By Monica Petrescu | Old Gold & Black columnist

The president of Iran is evil. He is amassing resources and technology to build nuclear weapons. In fact, he probably already has nuclear weapons. He wants to wipe Israel off the map and he is terrorizing his own people. Worst of all, Iran supports terrorism.

Such common conservative discourse sounds a little too familiar. I sometimes wonder if the George W. Bush administration has a standard speech with fill in the blank country names.

Didn’t this already happen four years ago?

Then, much like today, evidence was deemed irrelevant when evaluating danger. Now, International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohammed ElBaradei is stating that there is no evidence of Iran’s alleged nuclear bomb building program, while Iran is arguing that the programs it is developing are for civil purposes only. However, the United States and some allies are placing assumptions before facts. The principal argument is that if Iran did not have nuclear weapons, then they would not be working to limit the UN nuclear watchdog’s inspections inside its borders. This twisted hypothetical logic is of the same brand as the anti-Iraq propaganda from four years ago.

Conservatives have been feigning diplomatic approaches by trying to hold talks with Iran and by using sanctions. However, it was U.S. diplomats who walked out of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahamdinejad’s speech calling for world peace in the UN. Also, the U.S. sanctions are little more than a pretense toward the search non-violent solutions, seeing as the US and Iran have had quite limited economic relationships in the last several decades.

Emotionally, if not logistically, America is not prepared for another war. Yet the same violent attitude seems to prevail in international affairs, particularly within the Middle East. In fact, now the Department of Defense is asking for $88 million to develop a “bunker-buster” bomb that can destroy things buried underground. These bombs would most likely be aimed at attacking Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons. The Pentagon claims that this weapon will be used on the global war on terror, which is the umbrella excuse that prefaces military action based on the administration’s own interests. If Osama bin Laden or any of his chief advisers are buried deep underground, I don’t think we need to worry about blowing them up.

Everyone in Washington appears to be too tied up with defense contractors to make independent logical foreign policy choices. While our health care ranks 37th worldwide, behind that of most of Western Europe and much of the Middle East and our schools don’t have enough money to educate our children, the government is trying to build bombs for unnecessary conflict.

The saddest part is that the American people do not see the government’s flawed logic. Many statements and decisions go unquestioned, because people don’t care enough to learn the facts. The public needs to learn that politicians are not there to tell the truth, but to sell their truth. They will not relinquish their own interests to act for the good of the people unless they are forced to do so through effective democratic processes. Yet, until more Americans become informed and active about our system and the world, what happened in Iraq will happen again and again.

Monica Petrescu is a sophomore history major from Vernon Hills, Ill.