Don't bomb Iran, author says

PEORIA -- “An American attack on Iran would be a devastating blow to American security,“ dashing any hope for stability in the Middle East, journalist and author Stephen Kinzer told a Peoria audience on Feb. 16.

“Think $500-a-barrel oil,” he said. “Pakistan would be splintered. A Taliban regime with nuclear weapons“ could emerge.

Kinzer, on a national book tour, spoke to almost 100 people at the Gateway Building about Iran’s history and the possibilities for war and peace.

Kinzer is the author of All The Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror and Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq. The former New York Times journalist was bureau chief in Turkey and other nations.

“If you’re afraid that Iran’s 6,000 nuclear scientists (will) share their knowledge with everyone, just bomb them and kill their families,” he said.

Instead, he said, “the US should enter into direct and unconditional negotiations with Iran. We might find we have many interests in common.”

Ironically, he said, Nixon’s approach to China in 1972 provides a model for a way to open talks with Iran.

In 2003 Iran offered to negotiate all issues including nuclear weapons and support for terrorists, but the US never responded to the request, he said.

Iran is different from other Middle Eastern nations, which are mainly the product of British map-making, he said.

Persia is 25 centuries old with a strong sense of history and culture. It was once a superpower, and its residents are proud of this heritage, he said.

He outlined Iran’s efforts to free itself from British rule after World War II and control its own oil industry. “It was (being) looted, ripped apart by vultures,” with oil profits sent to London, he said. “Iran‘s oil industry fueled British prosperity while Iran lived in poverty.”

When Iran‘s prime minister nationalized the oil industry, the British convinced the US to use the CIA to intervene and topple the government to install the Shah, a puppet tyrant with secret police. “It ended democracy in Iran.”

Anti-American clerics finally overthrew the Shah, taking the US hostages, released after Reagan‘s election. “This regime would never have come to power (with a nuclear threat) if we had not intervened. There might have been a democracy there. When you internally intervene in the political affairs of another country you have no idea where it will end up,” he said.

“I worry about Bush, that we will wake up one morning to the news that cruise missiles are raining down on Iran,“ he said.

He urged the audience to keep up pressure on elected officials, and to sign postcards which will be delivered to them from throughout the US, as he continues his book tour.

-- Elaine Hopkins