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Edited on Wed Jun-22-05 11:09 AM by Skinner
Subject: Bush and Hawks Try Pre-Emptive Strike Vs. Iran Vote Message: www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=29133
Bush and Hawks Try Pre-Emptive Strike Vs. Iran Vote
Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Jun 18 (IPS) - A familiar clutch of hardline U.S. hawks who led the march to war against Iraq have tried to carry out yet another pre-emptive strike. But this time it wasn't military.
As millions of Iranians prepared to vote for the successor to Pres. Mohammed Khatami Friday, the group, helped along by a strong denunciation by Bush himself, mounted what could only be described as an orchestrated public-relations campaign to discredit the elections even before they took place.
”Today Iran is ruled by men who suppress liberty at home and spread terror across the world,” Bush declared in a statement issued by the White House Thursday afternoon. ”Power is in the hands of an unelected few who have retained power through an electoral process that ignores the basic requirements of democracy.”
Bush's statements, which were echoed by National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, and to a somewhat less categorical extent by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, offered some reassurance to the hawks, particularly some prominent neo-conservatives outside the administration who have pressed their own longstanding campaign for ”regime change” in Teheran with growing intensity.
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