If you’re in DC and interested in averting a war with Iran, you must attend the Atlantic Council’s presentation on Friday of Khosrow Semnani’s groundbreaking study. He’s produced the first scientific projection of the number of casualties from a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. The event will be hosted by Barbara Slavin. The sponsors will be the Council’s Iran Task Force co-chaired by Sen. Chuck Hagel and Stuart Eizenstat. The latter of course is a card-carrying leader of the pro-Israel lobby since his days in the Carter administration. I don’t know what to make of someone like him endorsing Semnani’s study even indirectly in this way. The Woodrow Wilson Center is another co-sponsor. This is definitely a coup for those who organized the study.
My intuitions tell me to beware.
What were the underlying assumptions, and how are the projected numbers to be contextualized and used? I have a hard time believing that any of the three you mention will speak sincerely for those Iranians projected to die; if they cared, they wouldn’t be supporting the sanctions.
The obvious solution is to accept Iran’s legitimate actions within the NPT, and to work towards a nuclear free Middle East; precisely what the US will not do.
I think it is this video link to youtube.com in which “former CIA asset” Susan Lindauer puts the real number of children alone who died because of sanctions against Iraq at one million, rather than the 500,000 which seemed to Madeline Albright to be a reasonable sacrifice.
So what would 85,000 Iranian casualties as per your October 6 post mean to the criminals behind this farce called democracy. Maybe this presentation is a marketing exercise: Look, only 85,000 Iranian casualties! Let’s go!
By the way, the figures on Iraqi children killed by the sanctions included only those up to the age of five (from memory). Ain’t it grand to spread democracy.