Jorge Hirsch

Madrid, Brussels, London, Berlin, Paris, Rome, and Vienna may well be off-limits to U.S. members of Congress soon. Just as well: they will still be able to enjoy pleasant summer breaks in Crawford, Texas, or Jackson Hole, Wyo., in the best of companies [1], [2]. That’s certainly preferable to ending up in a European jail … Continue reading “Congress’ Liability in a
Nuclear Strike on Iran”

President Bush is invoking his “commander in chief” authority to escalate the war in Iraq, and he will likely also invoke it to launch an aerial attack against Iran. Congress has long ago abdicated and delegated to the president its constitutional responsibility to initiate wars. Yet Congress still has one surefire way to influence events: … Continue reading “Congress Can Stop the Iran Attack, or Be Complicit in War Crimes”

In the aftermath of the Dec. 23 United Nations Security Council unanimous vote imposing sanctions or Iran for failing to suspend uranium enrichment (see text of resolution here), one has to wonder: why did Russia and China go along with it? Iran’s pursuit of uranium enrichment for civilian nuclear purposes is allowed by the Nuclear … Continue reading “The Meaning of the UNSC Iran Vote”

The Bush administration has radically redefined America’s nuclear use policy [1], [2]: U.S. nuclear weapons are no longer regarded as qualitatively different from conventional weapons. Many actions of the administration in recent years strongly suggest that an imminent U.S. nuclear use is being planned for, and this was confirmed by Bush’s explicit refusal to rule … Continue reading “Nuclear Strike on Iran Is Still on the Agenda”

The (for any rational human being) bizarre possibility of a U.S. nuclear strike against Iran first reached public consciousness in early April 2006, when investigative reporter Seymour Hersh wrote in the New Yorker magazine that it was one of six plans being considered by the administration. Now Hersh reports that the plan is off the … Continue reading “Nuking Iran Is Not Off the Table”

Imagine your adult daughter is a recovering alcoholic who has been sober for five years. You notice lately that, when you go out to dinner with her she reads the restaurant’s wine list, when she walks past a liquor store her pace slows and she stares at the window, and you worry. Recently, she started … Continue reading “Nucleoholic, Hypocritical, and Dangerous”

C all me paranoid, but I don’t buy the changed face of the Bush administration. Smiling Condoleezza Rice saying “we understand that it may take a little time for Iran to assess the situation,” Bush saying of Iran’s reaction “sounds like a positive response to me,” unnamed American official saying that eventually “this Iranian regime … Continue reading “Trapping Iran with a Tripwire”

What is Prof. Dr. Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Ward Casscells’ mission in the Middle East? In February 2002, Ambassador Joseph Wilson was sent by the CIA on a mission to Africa. This became publicly known in July 2003, when he published a New York Times OpEd, “What I Didn’t Find in Africa.” Joseph Wilson’s failure to … Continue reading “What I Didn’t Find in the Middle East”

Remember the old cartoons where the character walks off a cliff and continues walking on thin air until he looks down and plunges? America walked off the cliff on April 18, 2006, and has been suspended above the nuclear abyss since, set to plunge down at a moment’s notice. Meanwhile, it is in a catatonic … Continue reading “April 18, 2006: America’s Step Off the Nuclear Edge”

H istory repeats itself, but always with new twists. We are back to the good old days when a Declaration of War preceded the start of a war. Such declaration occurred on March 16th, 2006. Reversing the old order, we are now in the “Sitzkrieg”, to be followed shortly by an aerial “Blitzkrieg” in the … Continue reading “War Against Iran, April 2006”