Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Wednesday, February 28, 2007
WASHINGTON — Attacks against coalition forces in Iraq averaged nearly 180 a day in January, the highest level since major combat operations ended and more than double the rate one year ago, according to intelligence officials.
Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday said the attacks matched the previous high, set in October 2006.
Attacks on civilians also reached a new high, with almost 50 per day in January, according to the agency. Attacks on Iraqi Security Forces remained consistent with recent months, at about 30 a day.
Still, Maples and Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell emphasized that the coalition forces are still vital to Iraq’s stability, calling them “the primary counter to a breakdown in central authority.”
Several senators bristled at recent reports of Iraqi troops’ limited involvement in recent Baghdad security sweeps, noting the president’s plan to put more pressure on the Iraqi government to take over security responsibility.
“Why did we start the program before key components were in place, before we put in harm’s way U.S. forces?” said Sen. John Warner, R-Va., ranking minority member on the committee. “… I do not see strong evidence the Iraqi forces are measuring up.”
Maples said two of three brigades promised for Baghdad security have been deployed to the city, and Iraqi commanders on the ground still are organizing how they’ll take the lead in future security efforts. Warner asked the agency to provide additional information about current involvement of those Iraqi forces.
McConnell said intelligence experts are keeping a close eye on assistance coming to insurgents across Iraq’s borders. However, he noted that most of the fighting in Iraq is still mainly sectarian conflicts.
The Defense Intelligence Agency estimates that less than 10 percent of insurgents in Iraq are foreign fighters, and the majority of those are suicide bombers.
The agency reiterated previous administration statements that unless the Iraqi government makes significant political progress in the next 12 to 18 months, “the security situation will continue to deteriorate at rates comparable to late 2006.”
By Leo Shane III
Showing posts with label attack. Show all posts
Showing posts with label attack. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
US, Italian Envoys Hurt in Sri Lanka Attack
U.S., Italian Envoys Hurt in Sri Lanka
By DILIP GANGULYCOLOMBO, Sri Lanka - The U.S. and Italian ambassadors to Sri Lanka were wounded when their helicopters came under fire Tuesday from ethnic Tamil rebels who said they mistook them for a military target.
U.S. Ambassador Robert Blake and his Italian counterpart Pio Mariani had just landed in the eastern city of Batticaloa when several mortars exploded near their aircraft, said Sri Lankan government minister Mahinda Samarasinghe, who was traveling with the diplomats.
He said the ambassadors both "suffered slight injuries" but were "fine" now. Seven Sri Lankan security personnel also were wounded, he said.
The U.S. Embassy issued a statement saying Blake was "alright." Sri Lankan doctors said the Italian ambassador suffered shrapnel wounds to the head.
Samarasinghe's spokesman described a close call, with people screaming and running for their lives.
The rebel Tamil Tigers said they were not aware the helicopters were carrying ambassadors and blamed the military for putting the diplomats in harm's way. They said the ambassadors landed in an area where the army has launched attacks on Tamil Tigers and that rebel fighters had attacked the helicopters fearing further military assaults.
"I express our regret at this unfortunate incident," said Rasiah Ilanthirayan, the Tamil Tiger spokesman.
"We are shocked at how the Sri Lankan state childishly exposed very high-level diplomats," he said.
"Our people were not informed of the diplomatic movement...This is a criminal negligence on the part of the Sri Lankan military," Ilanthirayan said.
"Even this morning they had used the place to launch artillery fire at us," he said.
The two ambassadors, accompanied by their staff and Sri Lankan officials, had traveled to Batticaloa aboard two helicopters to attend a meeting about development of the area, a hotbed of separatist violence.
Samarasinghe's press officer, Lal Sarath Kumara, was in the first helicopter to land. He said the attack started shortly after the aircraft carrying the diplomats and other senior officials touched down in a playground.
"We escaped narrowly," Kumara said, adding that he believed at least six shells hit the area.
"Everyone ran in various directions. There was huge chaos there and all the people were in fear. People were screaming and running."
Lt. Col. Upali Rajapakse, a senior officer in the Defense Ministry's information section, said the diplomats already had gotten out of the helicopters when the mortars were fired.
Italian Ambassador Mariani was treated for a shrapnel injury to the head and discharged less than two hours later, said Dr. K. Muruganandan of Batticaloa government hospital.
The rebels began their insurgency against Sri Lankan security forces in 1983, demanding a separate homeland for the island nation's 3.1 million ethnic Tamil minority. About 68,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
The government says it is willing to give autonomy to areas where Tamils are in the majority, but the rebels insist on sweeping changes that Colombo says would infringe on Sri Lanka's sovereignty.
Despite the cease-fire, military offensives in rebel-held territory in the north and northeast continue, while the rebels have been blamed for near-daily bombings and other attacks against security forces.
The United States and European Union countries consider the Tamil Tigers a terrorist group.
Associated Press Writer Bharatha Mallawarachi contributed to this report.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Expanding the War to Iran: Another “Urban Legend?”
Leon Hadar | January 26, 2007
IRC Right WebRejecting the notion that the United States was planning to attack Iran and Syria, White House Spokesman Tony Snow called it a myth or an “urban legend.” “I want to address [a] kind of a rumor, an urban legend that's going around,” Snow told reporters at a White House briefing two days after President George W. Bush vowed to go after Iranian terrorist networks involved in Iraq violence. “What the president talked about in his speech on Iraq strategy is defending American forces within Iraq,” Snow insisted.
In his January 11 televised speech on U.S. policy in Iraq, Bush had accused Tehran and Damascus of fueling the insurgency in Iraq and expressed disagreement with proposals, including from the Iraq Study Group (ISG), to negotiate with both countries as part of an effort to reach peace and stability in Iraq. He said: “We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We'll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.” Bush also announced that he would dispatch another aircraft carrier battle group and deploy Patriot antimissile batteries in the Persian Gulf.
Generally speaking, an urban legend is a widely circulated, folklorish story—often based on exaggerated or distorted fact—that is believed to be true by many who repeat it.
So, let's see. Many reports circulated in Washington and elsewhere in 2002 and early 2003 that, notwithstanding Bush's stated commitment to deal with Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD) through diplomatic means, the White House was already considering plans to militarily oust Saddam Hussein. It seems that Bush et al. would characterize such “pre-invasion preparation” speculation as urban legend. After all, Bush and his advisers denied the reports—much in the same way they are challenging the current reports on the possibility of U.S. preparations to attack Iran.
I suppose that when it comes to Washington, DC, something that is urban legend-esque ceases to be a legend only after we read one of Bob Woodward's post-mortems in which we end up discovering that those who had been accused of “spreading rumors” were actually telling the truth. We might then learn that the press secretary who had dismissed these facts as nothing more than “rumors” was probably just out of the loop. (“Out of the loop” is what “insiders” call a government official who doesn't have access to information about what the Decider and his Vice are really planning.)
As a journalist who covered Washington in the months leading up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, I recall the many “urban legends” that were circulating at that time. These included rumors about how Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld were pushing for a war with Iraq; about how their aides were pressuring the intelligence agencies to come up with “estimates” to help exaggerate the Iraqi WMD threat and Baghdad's alleged ties to al-Qaida; about how the Americans and the British were secretly drawing up a strategy for a military confrontation with Iraq while pledging to continue to pursue diplomacy; and about how some of the leading Iraqi exiles lobbying for the “liberation” of Iraq, like Ahmed Chalabi, were untrustworthy characters.
I read some of these reports in the press; others reached me through the grapevine. They were all immediately denied by the White House press officer. Yet after the war had been raging, most of these “rumors” proved to be based on fact. In a way, any political analyst familiar with the way Washington works and the way decisions are made here—who could read between the lines of media reports and official statements, and who would deconstruct the modus operandi and body language of Bush and his aides—had no choice but to conclude that war with Iraq was inevitable. In that case, the conventional wisdom got it right.
So it's not surprising that journalists and pundits who continue to follow their professional instincts are experiencing a certain sense of déjà vu all over again as they begin to wonder these days whether Bush and his aides are planning to expand the current war in Iraq to Iran (and Syria). The initial source of this “urban legend” was Bush's infamous “Axis of Evil” speech, in which he lumped Iran together with Iraq and North Korea as deserving U.S. punishment. The speech was followed by various pledges, including public statements, press leaks, and even the commitment of U.S. financial resources to “export” democracy to Iran. And in the aftermath of ousting Saddam from power in Baghdad, there were even a few hints here and there about “regime change” in Tehran. Interestingly, the administration denied press reports about Iranian attempts to negotiate a diplomatic deal with Washington over Iraq, Lebanon, and Israel/Palestine.
Finally, at the center of the U.S. anti-Iran campaign was the effort to end Iranian plans to develop nuclear weapons—allegations based on questionable intelligence estimates from Washington and Jerusalem—either through diplomatic means or, the efforts implied, otherwise.
For a while, the conventional wisdom in Washington was that against the backdrop of the ensuing mess in Iraq, the neocons were losing influence, the “realists” were gaining power, and that the Bush administration was going to move toward some sort of diplomatic “engagement” with the Iranians along the lines proposed by the ISG, other respected foreign policy experts, and leading Democrats.
But after Bush and Cheney politely rejected the ISG recommendations, and after signs that Bush and Cheney were getting ready to “do something” about Iran, the conventional wisdom concluded that the White House has now embraced further military escalation in the Persian Gulf.
The Israelis, led by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, have been playing to the hands of U.S. warriors by suggesting that an Iranian nuclear bomb would pose an “existential” threat akin to the European Holocaust and that if U.S. diplomatic and/or military power failed, Israel would have no choice but to “take care of the problem.” The warnings were buttressed through a series of public statements, including a visit by Olmert to Washington, and leaks to the press, including a recent British newspaper report that Israel could use tactical nuclear weapons to destroy Iran's nuclear military sites.
At the same time, the Saudis have been warning that a nuclear Iran would help transform Tehran into a hegemonic power in the Persian Gulf and provide it with an opportunity to lead an alliance of Shiite Mideast factions, from Iran to Israel/Palestine through Lebanon, in a way that would threaten Saudi Arabia and other pro-U.S. Arab-Sunni regimes. The sense of alarm perpetuated by the Saudis was reinforced through press leaks suggesting that the members of the hawkish wing of the Saudi royal family, led by former Saudi Ambassador to Washington Prince Bandar bin Sultan, were gaining strength, and that the Israelis and the Saudis, backed by Washington, have been conducting secret talks to coordinate the anti-Iran strategy.
Indeed, according to Israeli press reports, Olmert and Prince Sultan have met to discuss Iran and related issues. The meeting and other signs of coordination on Iran between Washington, Jerusalem, and Riyadh have raised the possibility that the Bush administration was trying to draw the outlines of a new strategic consensus involving it, Israel, and the pro-U.S. Arab-Sunni regimes (Saudi Arabia and the other Arab Gulf states, and Egypt and Jordan). These reports recalled a similar “strategic consensus” that evolved in the 1980s during the Reagan administration, when the Americans, Israelis, and Saudis—and, yes, then-U.S. partner, Saddam Hussein's Iraq—were cooperating in dealing with both the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and with the challenge from revolutionary Iran. And anyone who knows how to assess the balance of power in Washington will tell you that when the Americans are joined by the Saudis and the Israelis and their powerful supporters in Washington in a coordinated effort to harm you, run fast for cover. Both the Soviets fighting against Osama bin Laden and his mujahideen allies (assisted by Washington) in Afghanistan and the Iranians attacked by Saddam's Iraqi military (assisted by Washington) learned that lesson in the 1980s.
In addition to the pressure exerted by the Saudis and Israelis on Washington, President Bush in his January 11 speech blamed the Iranians for targeting U.S. troops in Iraq and threatened to use U.S. military power to disrupt such actions. The next day Bush announced that he was sending an aircraft carrier to visit Iran's neighborhood, and the military ordered U.S. troops to raid an Iranian consulate in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Irbil. Such actions could lead even a low -level intelligence analyst to see “signals” coming out of the White House aimed at Iran.
Moreover, the decision by the Bush administration to appoint Adm. William Fallon to oversee U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan has raised many red flags among observers in Washington. Why choose a navy admiral to lead two ground wars in the Middle East and South Asia, unless you regard that as a preparatory step for a strike on Iran's nuclear military sites ? If that happened, Iran would retaliate by attacking oil platforms and tankers, closing the S trait of Hormuz, and perhaps hitting oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia; the U.S. Navy would probably play a key role in protecting the oil flowing from the Persian Gulf.
Many members of Congress have also been reading the signals, and they are worried that the Bush administration may be making the conditions for another war in the Middle East. During testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted that the administration had no plans to cross Iraq's borders into Iran to attack supporters of the Iraqi insurgency and militias. But Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) compared Bush's strategy to former President Richard Nixon's escalation of the Vietnam War. “You cannot sit here today, not because you are dishonest or don't understand—once you get to hot pursuit, no one can say we won't engage across border,” he said. “Some of us remember 1970 and Cambodia, and our government lied to us and said we didn't cross the border. When you set in motion the kind of policy the president is talking about here, it is very, very dangerous.”
Other Democratic and Republican lawmakers expressed similar concerns that the rising tensions with Iran could ignite a full-blown war and demanded that the White House consult Congress before going to war with Iran. But Bush-Cheney and their neocon advisers may have found a way to overcome the threat of congressional and Democratic opposition, and it has to do with the potential Israeli role in a crisis with Iran. If Israel decides to attack Iran's nuclear sites, many of the same lawmakers would probably applaud the move, a reflection of their pro-Israeli disposition. After all, can anyone imagine presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) bashing the Israelis on the eve of the primaries or the general election? But any retaliation from an Israeli attack on Iran would probably necessitate a U.S. response, which Congress would have no choice to support. It is quite likely that if Iran also decided to unleash its Hezbollah allies in Lebanon and encouraged them to attack Israel, the Israelis would respond by invading Syria and forcing out Bashar al Assad—another “regime change” that might benefit the interests of U.S. allies in Lebanon. And of course, the Bush administration would then dismiss the notion that the strike by a client state received a green (or at least a yellow) light from the White House as another “urban legend.” (We'd probably have to wait for Bob Woodward's next volume to learn that while U.S. lawmakers were whining, the green light was flashing as the Americans, Israelis, and Saudis were readying for a war with Iran.)
But it's also possible that such a book would not conclude with a neoconservative-scripted, happy ending in which the Bush administration celebrates the triumph of Pax Americana. Bush, Cheney, and their neoconservative aides have already tried to use Israel's strategic services, when they gave Olmert a green light to attack Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanon in summer 2006, hoping that devastating the partner of Iran and Syria would serve as a blow to Tehran.
But the best-laid plans of mice and neocons often go awry. Hezbollah resisted the Israeli invasion of South Lebanon and emerged with a political victory in the aftermath of war, providing Iran and Syria with a win. Similarly, an Israeli strike against Iran could fail and/or result in thousands of civilian casualties. The Shiite-led government in Iraq could be forced to ally with the Iranians and demand the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country, while anti-U.S. sentiments in the Middle East and the Muslim world would skyrocket. Other possible consequences could include a dramatic increase in energy prices, especially if Venezuela decides to join an oil embargo; demonstrations by outraged citizens in major European (not to mention U.S.) cities; and most importantly, growing pressure from the European Union, Russia, and China on Washington to convene an international conference on the Middle East.
While the United States and Israel could emerge victorious from the military campaign (not unlike the British, French, and Israelis after the 1956 Suez Campaign against Egypt), they could also find themselves totally isolated in the international community, facing enormous diplomatic and economic pressure to reverse their policies. That is what happens when history transforms an urban legend into a tragedy.
Leon Hadar, a Washington-based journalist and contributor to Right Web (rightweb.irc-online.org), is author most recently of Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East (2006). He blogs at globalparadigms.blogspot.com.
Col. Sam Gardiner has a critical update on Iran here
Saturday :: Jan 27, 2007
Outrage: Yet Another Surge
by Sam GardinerThe President said he's not going to attack Iran. If that’s true, I am left wondering why the outrage effort. Why has the White House created an interagency working group whose mission is to build outrage in the world about Iran? The whole effort is so much in the pattern of message preparation for Gulf II that I am left concerned.
In other words, not only does it look as if there are military preparations for striking Iran, it looks as if the White House is doing public opinion preparations for a strike on Iran. Three items stand out this week.
The British Daily Telegraph quotes a senior European defense official: “North Korea had invited a team of Iranian nuclear scientists to study the results of last October’s underground test to assist Tehran’s preparations to conduct its own possibly by the end of this year."
I don’t know a single serious student of the Iranian nuclear program who would give the report any credibility. I talked to a Newsweek reporter about the story. He said the same about the Telegraph guy wrote the article. The story, however, is extremely important.
Using the playbook on strategic communications, when you want to plant a false story, you first find a reporter or a newspaper that will accept what you give them. With just one plant, you can achieve an echo that will support your cause.
It has not been usual for stories to be planted in UK newspapers. There is a great deal of message cooperation between the US and the UK.
In the early part of the fighting in Afghanistan, Cherie Blair and Laura Bush were both telling the press, using exactly the same words to argue why we had initiated the attack. They both said if you wear polish on you nails you could have your nail pulled out. The obvious conclusion was that we should be enraged.
During Gulf II preparations, we saw leaks from officials to UK newspapers with wonderful pieces of information such as the fact that Saddam Hussein was given a passport by France so he could leave Iraq. We read that the reason Saddam Hussein was not found was because the Russian Embassy had allowed him sanctuary. Stay enraged with Iraq, the French and the Russians.
US reporters maintain their integrity by writing that it was “reported in the Telegraph” and don’t have to violate any standards of journalism. With this story, the echo appeared in over 300 outlets over the course of the week. It was immediately reported on Fox News.
There are now many in the world who are outraged that Iran is less than a year from a nuclear weapon.
The other significant item has been some short ads that have appeared on television stations in the Washington area. These ads say things like, “Iran sent thousands of children marching to their deaths to clear minefields, armed with only plastic keys to unlock the gates of heaven.” Obviously, we are to be enraged.
As with the planted story, I can’t prove this is coming from the Media Outreach Working Group, but the pattern makes me very suspicious. Tracing individual and group connections to the ads, the DNA is Republican. During the preparation for Gulf II, we saw the same kind of ads. We also know the RNC has spent money for ads supporting White House policy positions in other cases.
Finally, the Holocaust surfaced in a major way this week. Certainly, the President of Iran whose mouth exceeds his authority in the country created the opening. I fear the strategic communications teams will exaggerate to build outrage.
` To see how this is unfolding, we need to start in Israel. Just as with the UK, the US does message coordination with Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the opposition party there and a friend of Vice President Cheney, is embracing the Holocaust strongly. He says Iran is on its way to doing a second Holocaust. Just like Hitler, Iran wants to kill all the Jews. That’s why Iran needs to be confronted. Newt Gingrich has picked up on the theme.
This week the United States went to the UN to get a resolution condemning those who denied the Holocaust.
The President of Iran crossed the line with his rhetoric. I worry, however, this could be the main theme for generating support in the United States for the eventual attack on Iran. If you are interested in marketing a war, the beauty of this theme is that there are not many Democrats who would be able to object if that case is made. It also appeals to the religious right. It is a wonderful path to outrage.
I’ve written quite a bit on how the messaging was done for Gulf II. You can find the stuff in numerous places on the web. The title is “Truth from These Podia.”
Friday, January 26, 2007
Ex-Pentagon adviser and top neocon Richard Perle suggests Marines to be used in Bush Iran attack
Perle, Ricks face off
Richard Perle seemed to pull back from some of his sharpest comments on Iran here in New York last night, but even that couldn't win him any fans from an audience that came prepared to hate him. The former chairman of the Defense Policy Board was at the 92nd Street Y to participate in a forum with Washington Post journalist Thomas Ricks and PBS producer Martin Smith, moderated by Robert MacNeil, that was part of the promotional effort for a new PBS series, "America at a Crossroads," which will run in April.
Recently, Perle said he believed the president would attack Iran if he thought the country was coming close to acquiring nuclear weapons, but in an excerpt of one of the films in the series, a documentary on Perle himself, he was shown as saying that it would be a mistake to send Marines to Iran, and that it was not being contemplated. This drew boos and laughter from the audience. Later on, Perle remarked that the quote had been filmed several months earlier and that he "can't say [the same] now."
The night was, in general, a rough one for Perle, who faced a hostile audience -- he was booed and hissed several times and at one point a man who screamed that Perle "benefited from 9/11," among other things unintelligible to this reporter, had to be escorted from the room -- as well as two co-panelists who seemed unwilling to listen to the man often credited, rightly or wrongly, with being a driving force behind the war. So when Perle expressed his support for the recently announced troop surge, Ricks and Smith would have none of it. Ricks called Iraq a "Shakespearean tragedy," and said that the nightmare scenario the president and others have warned of if U.S. forces pull out "will occur no matter what." He said that the Baghdad of a year ago, when he last visited, was a "pure Hobbesian state," and that the president's plan meant "going back into Baghdad as the biggest militia in the neighborhood, and the only militia that doesn't understand the situation." Smith concurred, saying it was "a fantasy that as we leave everybody picks up a letter opener and goes after their neighbor," and that American forces were already doing little or nothing to quell violence in some areas of Baghdad.
But perhaps the darkest discussion of the night centered around the "standing up" of the Iraqi police and military. Smith, who is working on a documentary that touches on that subject for the PBS series, said that what the U.S. is currently attempting to do in training an Iraqi army is tantamount to trying to raise a neutral army in Kentucky during America's own Civil War, and Ricks told a story he'd heard about the police station in Ramadi renting arms, for 12-hour periods, to insurgents.
We spoke with Perle after the event and asked him how he dealt with the kind of crowd reaction he faced. He shrugged it off, saying he'd faced worse, including a shoe thrown at him at one event in Portland, Ore., but said he was still disappointed. "I think you have a responsibility to take seriously the views of your fellow Americans," he said. "All [I] can do is try to explain what [I] believe."
Mideast Strategy Increasingly Targets Iran
POLITICS-US:
Analysis by Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Jan 25 (IPS) - Six months after last summer's war between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah, Iran has become the George W. Bush administration's "Public Enemy Number One", against which its Middle East strategy is increasingly focused, according to one of the U.S.'s leading experts on the Gulf.
That strategy, which aims at forging an informal tripartite alliance consisting of the U.S., Sunni-led Arab states and Israel, is already being played out in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. Along with Iraq, the last two have become the main battlegrounds in what so far has been confined to a proxy war designed to challenge and roll back perceived Iranian influence, according to Gary Sick, a Columbia University professor who served as former President Jimmy Carter's chief advisor on Iran.
"The organising principle of the new strategy is confrontation with and containment of Shia influence -- and specifically Iranian influence -- wherever it appears in the region," Sick says.
In a recently circulated memo, Sick argued that Washington's new strategy stems primarily from the dramatic shift in the regional balance of power in Iran's favour following the removal -- by the U.S., no less -- of Tehran's two neighbouring nemeses, the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
That shift -- to the detriment of Washington's traditional Sunni-led allies, especially Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan -- has since been exacerbated both by the administration's pro-democracy policies in the region, which had the paradoxical but predictable result of strengthening anti-western and Islamist forces, and the perception that the vaunted U.S. military has become hopelessly bogged down in the Iraq quagmire.
The new strategy appears to have been galvanised by last summer's Israel-Lebanon war, which, according to Sick, "was perceived by Israel, the United States and the Sunni Arab governments in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan as an Iranian attempt to extend its power into the Levant by challenging both Israel and the Sunni Arab leadership."
In the months that have followed, a division of labour among the three principal components of the anti-Iranian front has emerged based on a series of presumed mutual understandings.
For its part, the Bush administration has essentially dropped its democratisation campaign in the region; beefed up its naval power in the Gulf while providing Patriot missiles to the Arab Gulf states to encourage them to adopt a more confrontational posture toward Iran; stepped up military and other support to the Sunni-led, Saudi-backed Lebanese government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora; and renewed its involvement in promoting a peace process between Israel and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, "recognising that even limited visible progress will provide diplomatic cover to the Arab states if they are to co-operate more with Israel," according to Sick.
In addition, the administration has tried to increase diplomatic pressure on Iran both in the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear programme and in Iraq by charging Tehran with arming sectarian militias and harassing Iranian officials there.
At the same time, Bush has assured the Saudis, in particular, that he will maintain U.S. forces in Iraq to prevent a full-scale civil war that could be catastrophic for the Sunni population and press the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to control the Shia militias or risk replacement by a "more Sunni-friendly" regime.
"Washington may also be trying to organise dissident movements in Iran, primarily among ethnic groups along the periphery and other targets of opportunity, to distract and potentially even destabilise the Tehran government," according to Sick.
For their part, according to Sick, the Sunni-led Arab states, which include all members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Egypt and Jordan, have agreed to provide major funding and political support to the Siniora government in Lebanon; "to woo (or threaten) Syria away from its alliance with Iran..."; provide facilities and funding to support U.S. efforts in the region and against Iran; and to try to bring down the price of oil, both to relieve political pressure on Bush and "make life more difficult for Iran."
Israel's contribution is to provide intelligence support to U.S. and possibly Arab anti-Hezbollah efforts in Lebanon; keep highlighting the alleged "existential" threat Iran's nuclear capability would pose to it; use its long-standing contacts, especially among Iran's Kurds, to foment opposition to Tehran; and "be prepared to make sufficient concessions on the Palestinian issue and the Golan (Heights) to provide at least the perception of significant forward motion toward a comprehensive settlement."
This strategy is attractive to Bush for a variety of reasons, not least that focusing greater attention on Iran may serve to "distract public attention from the Iraqi disaster." Moreover, given the antipathy and distrust in U.S. attitudes toward Iran created by the 1979-81 hostage crisis, it is relatively easy to rally bipartisan opinion against the Islamic Republic, Sick noted.
But perhaps most important, like Washington's global contest with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the new strategy provides a "single, agreed enemy that can serve as the organising point of reference... (which) can be used to explain and rationalise a wide range of policies that otherwise might be quite unpopular," he wrote.
"The Holy Grail of U.S. Middle East policy has always been the hope of persuading both Arab and Israeli allies to agree on a common enemy and thereby relegate their mutual hostilities to a subordinate role," Sick noted.
But while Arab states generally found it hard to accept that Moscow was the greater threat during the Cold War, "Iran as a large, neighbouring, non-Arab, racial Shia state may fulfill that role more convincingly," according to Sick, who noted that the "extravagant rhetoric and populist posturing" of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad add to the strategy's appeal.
While this strategy is not necessarily designed to provoke or lay the foundations for a military conflict -- and may be in fact be aimed more at "containing" Iran and persuading it to change its policies -- Sick also believes that it is "deliberately provocative and risks prompting a belligerent Iranian response... that could quickly escalate into an armed exchange."
Analysis by Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Jan 25 (IPS) - Six months after last summer's war between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah, Iran has become the George W. Bush administration's "Public Enemy Number One", against which its Middle East strategy is increasingly focused, according to one of the U.S.'s leading experts on the Gulf.
That strategy, which aims at forging an informal tripartite alliance consisting of the U.S., Sunni-led Arab states and Israel, is already being played out in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. Along with Iraq, the last two have become the main battlegrounds in what so far has been confined to a proxy war designed to challenge and roll back perceived Iranian influence, according to Gary Sick, a Columbia University professor who served as former President Jimmy Carter's chief advisor on Iran.
"The organising principle of the new strategy is confrontation with and containment of Shia influence -- and specifically Iranian influence -- wherever it appears in the region," Sick says.
In a recently circulated memo, Sick argued that Washington's new strategy stems primarily from the dramatic shift in the regional balance of power in Iran's favour following the removal -- by the U.S., no less -- of Tehran's two neighbouring nemeses, the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
That shift -- to the detriment of Washington's traditional Sunni-led allies, especially Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan -- has since been exacerbated both by the administration's pro-democracy policies in the region, which had the paradoxical but predictable result of strengthening anti-western and Islamist forces, and the perception that the vaunted U.S. military has become hopelessly bogged down in the Iraq quagmire.
The new strategy appears to have been galvanised by last summer's Israel-Lebanon war, which, according to Sick, "was perceived by Israel, the United States and the Sunni Arab governments in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan as an Iranian attempt to extend its power into the Levant by challenging both Israel and the Sunni Arab leadership."
In the months that have followed, a division of labour among the three principal components of the anti-Iranian front has emerged based on a series of presumed mutual understandings.
For its part, the Bush administration has essentially dropped its democratisation campaign in the region; beefed up its naval power in the Gulf while providing Patriot missiles to the Arab Gulf states to encourage them to adopt a more confrontational posture toward Iran; stepped up military and other support to the Sunni-led, Saudi-backed Lebanese government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora; and renewed its involvement in promoting a peace process between Israel and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, "recognising that even limited visible progress will provide diplomatic cover to the Arab states if they are to co-operate more with Israel," according to Sick.
In addition, the administration has tried to increase diplomatic pressure on Iran both in the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear programme and in Iraq by charging Tehran with arming sectarian militias and harassing Iranian officials there.
At the same time, Bush has assured the Saudis, in particular, that he will maintain U.S. forces in Iraq to prevent a full-scale civil war that could be catastrophic for the Sunni population and press the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to control the Shia militias or risk replacement by a "more Sunni-friendly" regime.
"Washington may also be trying to organise dissident movements in Iran, primarily among ethnic groups along the periphery and other targets of opportunity, to distract and potentially even destabilise the Tehran government," according to Sick.
For their part, according to Sick, the Sunni-led Arab states, which include all members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Egypt and Jordan, have agreed to provide major funding and political support to the Siniora government in Lebanon; "to woo (or threaten) Syria away from its alliance with Iran..."; provide facilities and funding to support U.S. efforts in the region and against Iran; and to try to bring down the price of oil, both to relieve political pressure on Bush and "make life more difficult for Iran."
Israel's contribution is to provide intelligence support to U.S. and possibly Arab anti-Hezbollah efforts in Lebanon; keep highlighting the alleged "existential" threat Iran's nuclear capability would pose to it; use its long-standing contacts, especially among Iran's Kurds, to foment opposition to Tehran; and "be prepared to make sufficient concessions on the Palestinian issue and the Golan (Heights) to provide at least the perception of significant forward motion toward a comprehensive settlement."
This strategy is attractive to Bush for a variety of reasons, not least that focusing greater attention on Iran may serve to "distract public attention from the Iraqi disaster." Moreover, given the antipathy and distrust in U.S. attitudes toward Iran created by the 1979-81 hostage crisis, it is relatively easy to rally bipartisan opinion against the Islamic Republic, Sick noted.
But perhaps most important, like Washington's global contest with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the new strategy provides a "single, agreed enemy that can serve as the organising point of reference... (which) can be used to explain and rationalise a wide range of policies that otherwise might be quite unpopular," he wrote.
"The Holy Grail of U.S. Middle East policy has always been the hope of persuading both Arab and Israeli allies to agree on a common enemy and thereby relegate their mutual hostilities to a subordinate role," Sick noted.
But while Arab states generally found it hard to accept that Moscow was the greater threat during the Cold War, "Iran as a large, neighbouring, non-Arab, racial Shia state may fulfill that role more convincingly," according to Sick, who noted that the "extravagant rhetoric and populist posturing" of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad add to the strategy's appeal.
While this strategy is not necessarily designed to provoke or lay the foundations for a military conflict -- and may be in fact be aimed more at "containing" Iran and persuading it to change its policies -- Sick also believes that it is "deliberately provocative and risks prompting a belligerent Iranian response... that could quickly escalate into an armed exchange."
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Behind the Administration's six-year-push towards war with Iran
01/23/2007 @ 4:19 pm
Filed by Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane
The escalation of US military planning on Iran is only the latest chess move in a six-year push within the Bush Administration to attack Iran, a RAW STORY investigation has found.
While Iran was named a part of President George W. Bush’s “axis of evil” in 2002, efforts to ignite a confrontation with Iran date back long before the post-9/11 war on terror. Presently, the Administration is trumpeting claims that Iran is closer to a nuclear weapon than the CIA’s own analysis shows and positing Iranian influence in Iraq’s insurgency, but efforts to destabilize Iran have been conducted covertly for years, often using members of Congress or non-government actors in a way reminiscent of the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal.
The motivations for an Iran strike were laid out as far back as 1992. In classified defense planning guidance – written for then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney by then-Pentagon staffers I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, World Bank Chief Paul Wolfowitz, and ambassador-nominee to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad – Cheney’s aides called for the United States to assume the position of lone superpower and act preemptively to prevent the emergence of even regional competitors. The draft document was leaked to the New York Times and the Washington Post and caused an uproar among Democrats and many in George H. W. Bush’s Administration.
In September 2000, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) issued a report titled “Rebuilding America's Defenses,” which espoused similar positions to the 1992 draft and became the basis for the Bush-Cheney Administration's foreign policy. Libby and Wolfowitz were among the participants in this new report; Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other prominent figures in the Bush administration were PNAC members.
“The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security,” the report read. “While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein. . . . We cannot allow North Korea, Iran, Iraq or similar states to undermine American leadership, intimidate American allies or threaten the American homeland itself.”
This approach became official US military policy during the current Bush Administration. It was starkly on display yesterday when Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns noted a second aircraft carrier strike force headed for the Persian Gulf, saying, "The Middle East isn't a region to be dominated by Iran. The Gulf isn't a body of water to be controlled by Iran. That's why we've seen the United States station two carrier battle groups in the region."
The Structure
Almost immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Iran became a focal point of discussion among senior Administration officials. As early as December 2001, then-Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and the leadership of the Defense Department, including Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, allegedly authorized a series of meetings between Defense Department officials and Iranian agents abroad.
The first of these meetings took place in Rome with Pentagon Iran analyst, Larry Franklin, Middle East expert Harold Rhode, and prominent neoconservative Michael Ledeen. Ledeen, who held no official government position, introduced the US officials to Iran-Contra arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar. According to both Ghorbanifar and Ledeen, the topic on the table was Iran. Ledeen told RAW STORY last year the discussion concerned allegations that Iranian forces were killing US soldiers in Afghanistan, but Ghorbanifar has claimed the conversation focused on regime change.
In January 2002, evidence that Iran was enriching uranium began to appear via credible intelligence and satellite imagery. Despite this revelation – and despite having called Iran part of the Axis of Evil in his State of the Union that year – President Bush continued to focus on Iraq. Perhaps for that reason, throughout 2002 the strongest pressure for regime change flowed through alternative channels.
In early 2002, Ledeen formed the Coalition for Democracy in Iran, along with Morris Amitay, the former executive director of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
In August 2002, Larry Franklin began passing classified information involving United States policy towards Iran to two AIPAC employees and an Israeli diplomat. Franklin pleaded guilty to the charges in October 2005, explaining that he had been hoping to force the US to take a harder line with Iran, but AIPAC and Israel have continued to deny them.
At the same time, another group’s political representatives begin a corollary effort to influence domestic political discourse. In August 2002, the National Council of Resistance of Iran – a front for a militant terrorist organization called Mujahedin-E-Khalq (MEK) – held a press conference in Washington and stated that Iran had a secret nuclear facility at Natanz, due for completion in 2003.
Late that summer , the Pentagon's Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz expanded its Northern Gulf Affairs Office, renamed it the Office of Special Plans (OSP), and placed it under the direction of Abram Shulsky, a contributor to the 2000 PNAC report.
Most know the Office of Special Plans as a rogue Administration faction determined to find intelligence to support the Iraq War. But that wasn’t its only task.
According to an article in The Forward in May 2003, “A budding coalition of conservative hawks, Jewish organizations and Iranian monarchists is pressing the White House to step up American efforts to bring about regime change in Iran. . . . Two sources [say] Iran expert Michael Rubin is now working for the Pentagon's 'special plans' office, a small unit set up to gather intelligence on Iraq, but apparently also working on Iran. Previously a researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East policy, Rubin has vocally advocated regime change in Tehran.”
Dark Actors/Covert Activities
While the Iraq war was publicly founded upon questionable sources, much of the buildup to Iran has been entirely covert, using non-government assets and foreign instruments of influence to conduct disinformation campaigns, plant intelligence and commit acts of violence via proxy groups.
A few weeks prior to the Iraq invasion, in February 2003, Iran acknowledged that it was building a nuclear facility at Natanz, saying that the facility was aimed at providing domestic energy. However, allegations that Iran was developing a nuclear weapons program would become louder in the course of 2003 and continue unabated over the next three years.
That spring, then-Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA) opened a channel on Iran with former Iranian Minister Fereidoun Mahdavi, a secretary for Ghorbanifar. Both Weldon and Ledeen were told a strikingly similar story concerning a cross border plot between Iran and Iraq in which uranium had been removed from Iraq and taken into Iran by Iranian agents. The CIA investigated the allegations but found them spurious. Weldon took his complaints about the matter to Rumsfeld, who pressured the CIA to investigate a second time, with the same result.
In May 2003, with pressure for regime change intensifying within the US, Iran made efforts to negotiate a peaceful resolution with the United States. According to Lawrence Wilkerson, then-Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, these efforts were sabotaged by Vice President Cheney.
"The secret cabal got what it wanted: no negotiations with Tehran," Wilkerson said.
The US was already looking increasingly to rogue methodology, including support for the Iranian terrorist group MEK. Before the US invasion, MEK forces within Iraq had supported Saddam Hussein in exchange for safe harbor. Despite this, when they were captured by the US military, they were disarmed of only their major weapons and are allowed to keep their smaller arms. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld hoped to use them as a special ops team in Iran, while then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and State Department officials argued against it. By 2005, the MEK would begin training with US forces in Iraq and carrying out bombings and assassinations in Iran, although it is unclear if the bombings were in any way approved by the US military.
The Pressure is On: 2004 – 2006
For a variety of reasons – ranging from the explosion of the insurgency in Iraq following the high point of "Mission Accomplished" to Iran's willingness to admit IAEA inspectors – the drumbeat for regime change died down over the summer of 2003. In October 2003, with Iran accepting even tougher inspections, Larry Franklin told his Israeli contact that work on the US policy towards Iran which they had been tracking seemed to have stopped.
Yet by the autumn of 2004, pressure for confrontation with Iran had resumed, with President Bush telling Fox News that the US would never allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. By then, the Pentagon had been directed to have a viable military option for Iran in place by June 2005.
This phase of pressure was marked by increased activity directed at Congress. An "Iran Freedom Support Act" was introduced in the House and Senate in January and February of 2005. Neoconservatives and individuals linked to the defense contracting industry formed an Iran Policy Committee, and in April and May presented briefings in support of MEK before the newly-created Iran Human Rights and Democracy Caucus of the House of Representatives.
In March 2006, administration action became more overt. The State Department created an Office of Iranian Affairs, while the Pentagon created an Iranian Directorate that had much in common with the earlier Office of Special Plans. According to Seymour Hersh, covert US operations within Iran in preparation for a possible air attack also began at this time and included Kurds and other Iranian minority groups.
By setting up the Iranian Directorate within the Pentagon and running covert operations through the military rather than the CIA, the administration was able to avoid both Congressional oversight and interference from then-Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, who has been vocally skeptical about using force against Iran. The White House also successfully stalled the release of a fresh National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, which could reflect the CIA's conclusion that there is no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.
In sum, the Bush Administration seems to have concluded that Iran is guilty until proven innocent and continues to maintain that the Persian Gulf belongs to Americans – not to Persians – setting the stage for a potential military strike.
Countdown to War with Cambodia...ooops... I mean Iran
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Leon HadarOn a serious note. I'll be posting something longer on the topic in the next day or two. But in a way my earlier post on Iran-Israel-U.S. ties, including my Osirak Redux? tie neatly into what Bush is proposing. If you read his comments on Iran and Syria, it's becoming clear that the administration is preparing to escalate the war and expand it to Iran and Syria. The Cambodia analogy was raising by many pundits today, including by Senator Hagel during Condi's testimony on Capitol Hill:
I still think that the U.S. war with Iran will follow an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear sites this year. That would make it easier for Bush to sell a war with Iran to the pro-Israeli Congress. In recent days there have been several reports pointing to Israeli plans to do that. And it's also clear that the Saudis want that to happen (and when the Americans, the Saudis and the Israelis are working together against you, well,you're a (radio-active) toast. I've been predicting a growing confrontationa war with Iranfor quite a while. And more than two years proposed a Realpolitik road to diplomacy with Iran, along the lines suggested by the Iraq Study Group recently. Which reminds me of what I read on a gravestone in the cemetery in Key West: "I told that I was sick."
In any case, I recommend reading the commentary on the SurgeBush Plays Va Banque by The Chronicles' Srdja Trifkovic. and eventually
Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., a twice-wounded Vietnam veteran, called Bush's speech "the most dangerous foreign policy blunder since Vietnam - and I intend to resist it."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, testifying Thursday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the administration had no plans to cross Iraq's borders to attack supporters of the Iraqi insurgency and militias.
But Hagel compared that strategy to former President Richard Nixon's escalation of the Vietnam War to Cambodia.
"You cannot sit here today, not because you are dishonest or don't understand - once you get to hot pursuit, no one can say we won't engage across border," he said. "Some of us remember 1970 and Cambodia, and our government lied to us and said we didn't cross the border. When you set in motion the kind of policy the president is talking about here, it is very, very dangerous."
I still think that the U.S. war with Iran will follow an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear sites this year. That would make it easier for Bush to sell a war with Iran to the pro-Israeli Congress. In recent days there have been several reports pointing to Israeli plans to do that. And it's also clear that the Saudis want that to happen (and when the Americans, the Saudis and the Israelis are working together against you, well,you're a (radio-active) toast. I've been predicting a growing confrontationa war with Iranfor quite a while. And more than two years proposed a Realpolitik road to diplomacy with Iran, along the lines suggested by the Iraq Study Group recently. Which reminds me of what I read on a gravestone in the cemetery in Key West: "I told that I was sick."
In any case, I recommend reading the commentary on the SurgeBush Plays Va Banque by The Chronicles' Srdja Trifkovic. and eventually
Israel raises nuclear stakes with Iran
By Anne Penketh in Tel Aviv
Published: 25 January 2007
The Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, dramatically raised the stakes in the international showdown with Iran last night, with a clear warning that his country was prepared to use military force to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
"The Jewish people, with the scars of the Holocaust fresh on its body, cannot afford to allow itself to face threats of annihilation once again," Mr Olmert said in a speech to a high-level security conference in Herzliya. "No nation has the right even to consider its position. It is the obligation of every country to act against this will all its might." "We can stand up against nuclear threats and even prevent them," he said.
Israeli military officials warned this week that Israel – acting alone or in coordination with the US – could launch preemptive military strikes against Iran before the end of this year.
Israel describes Iran’s nuclear programme as an “existential threat” to the Jewish state which should be stopped before Iranian scientists manage to produce a nuclear bomb. There is particular concern because of statements by the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, threatening to wipe Israel from the map. But Israeli and western experts say that even without the firebrand Mr Ahmadinejad, who is currently in political difficulties, Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, has made it clear that the Iranians will not back down from their confrontation with the West over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
The Israeli officials say that action should be taken to stop Iran before it reaches the “point of no return” in progressing towards the possible production of a nuclear bomb. They are referring to the moment when Iran, which announced last year that it is capable of enriching uranium to the 5% necessary for nuclear energy, is able to overcome technical problems with centrifuges used in the process so that they can run on a sustainable basis. Once that happens, Iran would be theoretically capable of enriching uranium to the 90% required for a nuclear weapon, depending on the number of centrifuges. Iran continues to insist, however, that its intentions are peaceful.
Nuclear researcher Gary Samore, director of studies at the US council on Foreign Relations, told the Herzliya conference that Iran was still years away from being able to manufacture a bomb.
Israel – the only Middle East power with nuclear weapons - has long made it clear that it will not allow Iran to have a nuclear bomb. Reports that Iran is close to the “point of no return” towards building a bomb have caused widespread alarm throughout the Middle East, with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and most recently, Jordan, warning that they could embark on “peaceful” nuclear programmes, triggering fears of a nuclear arms race in the tinderbox region. Israeli officials – who admit there is an internal debate on how to respond to what could be a bluff – expect a triumphant announcement next month or in March that Iran has mastered the centrifuge technology, confirming Tehran as the regional superpower.
In a further significant development, thanks to Iran’s deep engagement in Iraq, there is now an open rift between the majority Sunni branch of Islam and and the Shiites. Israelis now boast that the “moderate” Arab Sunni states, who feel threatened by the newly empowered Iran and its regional reach through its Shia allies, are cooperating with Israel out of a new-found confluence of interests.
A senior British military source said yesterday that the Israelis were serious about the use of military force to stop Iran, and were now engaged in preparing public opinion for such a prospect. “They’re watering the turf. The Iranians are not under enough pressure,” the source said.
One theory is that Israel, which is disappointed at the impact of limited UN economic sanctions and the slow process through the United Nations which is out of step with the accelerated pace of Iran’s nuclear research, aims to heighten pressure on Iran to halt enrichment in line with UN demands, by invoking the military threat. However, the British source said, “the trouble with talking about military action is that you actually end up bombing.”
Israeli officials who spoke to the Independent this week refused to go into details about the possible catastrophic regional fallout from military strikes, although one source said that if they were restricted to Iran’s Natanz facility where its centrifuges are known to be enriching uranium, “there would be headlines in the papers for two days.”
But any military campaign would provoke retaliation by Iran which is expected to reactivate its Hezbollah allies on the border with Israel, who according to officials here have been rearming with missiles since the end of the summer campaign. The 140,000 American troops inside Iraq could be significant targets of the Iranians. Syria could also be drawn into a wider war, although the Israelis believe that both Syria and Russia would remain on the sidelines.
Other questions concern the Bush administration’s appetite for another war, already bogged down in Iraq and facing calls from the Democrat-led Congress for a phased withdrawal.
And the strength of the Israeli armed forces would be further tested after their flawed campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon. “The IDF are not as good as they think they are,” said the British source. “It’s an army of conscripts, commanded by reserve officers. Do you want to send conscripts into a war for the national interest?”
Some analysts say that in any case, miitary strikes would be counter-productive as they would only delay, and not stop, Iran's nuclear programme.
Published: 25 January 2007
The Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, dramatically raised the stakes in the international showdown with Iran last night, with a clear warning that his country was prepared to use military force to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
"The Jewish people, with the scars of the Holocaust fresh on its body, cannot afford to allow itself to face threats of annihilation once again," Mr Olmert said in a speech to a high-level security conference in Herzliya. "No nation has the right even to consider its position. It is the obligation of every country to act against this will all its might." "We can stand up against nuclear threats and even prevent them," he said.
Israeli military officials warned this week that Israel – acting alone or in coordination with the US – could launch preemptive military strikes against Iran before the end of this year.
Israel describes Iran’s nuclear programme as an “existential threat” to the Jewish state which should be stopped before Iranian scientists manage to produce a nuclear bomb. There is particular concern because of statements by the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, threatening to wipe Israel from the map. But Israeli and western experts say that even without the firebrand Mr Ahmadinejad, who is currently in political difficulties, Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, has made it clear that the Iranians will not back down from their confrontation with the West over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
The Israeli officials say that action should be taken to stop Iran before it reaches the “point of no return” in progressing towards the possible production of a nuclear bomb. They are referring to the moment when Iran, which announced last year that it is capable of enriching uranium to the 5% necessary for nuclear energy, is able to overcome technical problems with centrifuges used in the process so that they can run on a sustainable basis. Once that happens, Iran would be theoretically capable of enriching uranium to the 90% required for a nuclear weapon, depending on the number of centrifuges. Iran continues to insist, however, that its intentions are peaceful.
Nuclear researcher Gary Samore, director of studies at the US council on Foreign Relations, told the Herzliya conference that Iran was still years away from being able to manufacture a bomb.
Israel – the only Middle East power with nuclear weapons - has long made it clear that it will not allow Iran to have a nuclear bomb. Reports that Iran is close to the “point of no return” towards building a bomb have caused widespread alarm throughout the Middle East, with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and most recently, Jordan, warning that they could embark on “peaceful” nuclear programmes, triggering fears of a nuclear arms race in the tinderbox region. Israeli officials – who admit there is an internal debate on how to respond to what could be a bluff – expect a triumphant announcement next month or in March that Iran has mastered the centrifuge technology, confirming Tehran as the regional superpower.
In a further significant development, thanks to Iran’s deep engagement in Iraq, there is now an open rift between the majority Sunni branch of Islam and and the Shiites. Israelis now boast that the “moderate” Arab Sunni states, who feel threatened by the newly empowered Iran and its regional reach through its Shia allies, are cooperating with Israel out of a new-found confluence of interests.
A senior British military source said yesterday that the Israelis were serious about the use of military force to stop Iran, and were now engaged in preparing public opinion for such a prospect. “They’re watering the turf. The Iranians are not under enough pressure,” the source said.
One theory is that Israel, which is disappointed at the impact of limited UN economic sanctions and the slow process through the United Nations which is out of step with the accelerated pace of Iran’s nuclear research, aims to heighten pressure on Iran to halt enrichment in line with UN demands, by invoking the military threat. However, the British source said, “the trouble with talking about military action is that you actually end up bombing.”
Israeli officials who spoke to the Independent this week refused to go into details about the possible catastrophic regional fallout from military strikes, although one source said that if they were restricted to Iran’s Natanz facility where its centrifuges are known to be enriching uranium, “there would be headlines in the papers for two days.”
But any military campaign would provoke retaliation by Iran which is expected to reactivate its Hezbollah allies on the border with Israel, who according to officials here have been rearming with missiles since the end of the summer campaign. The 140,000 American troops inside Iraq could be significant targets of the Iranians. Syria could also be drawn into a wider war, although the Israelis believe that both Syria and Russia would remain on the sidelines.
Other questions concern the Bush administration’s appetite for another war, already bogged down in Iraq and facing calls from the Democrat-led Congress for a phased withdrawal.
And the strength of the Israeli armed forces would be further tested after their flawed campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon. “The IDF are not as good as they think they are,” said the British source. “It’s an army of conscripts, commanded by reserve officers. Do you want to send conscripts into a war for the national interest?”
Some analysts say that in any case, miitary strikes would be counter-productive as they would only delay, and not stop, Iran's nuclear programme.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Pakistan lodges protest to US, UK
Crocker, Frankley summoned to Foreign Office
Joint Pak-NATO investigation convened
Islamabad—Pakistan on Tuesday protested with United States and United Kingdom over an attack on a Pakistani post in Shawal area in North Waziristan Agency by US-led coalition forces on Monday in which one FC soldier was killed and two injured.
The US ambassador to Pakistan, Ryan C Crocker and British High Commissioner to Pakistan Robert Frankley were summoned to the Foreign Office and were handed over a complaint.
Pakistan strongly protested the incident with US stating that Pakistan has been a frontline coalition partner in war against terrorism and one of its check posts was attacked in which one paramilitary forces jawan embraced Shahadat and two others were injured. A strong protest was also lodged with British High Commissioner Robert Frankley over the matter. According to Foreign Office, Richard David, commander of Allied Forces in Afghanistan who is commander of ISAF, hails from United Kingdom.
Both US, UK were informed that Pakistan will not tolerate any such incident in the future.
The American and British ambassadors were told “the coalition authorities should investigate the incident and ensure that such incidents do not occur in future,” the ministry said in a statement.
“Both expressed deep regrets and said that the incident was being investigated.”
Afghanistan’s NATO force said the incident happened following an insurgent rocket attack near a NATO base on the border.
“Shortly afterwards a group of insurgents was identified moving east toward the Pakistan border,” NATO said.
A NATO aircraft attacked the insurgents and NATO said it believed “all ordnance fired landed on the target and one insurgent was killed and another injured.”
“ISAF deeply regrets the loss of life and injuries sustained by Pakistani forces, although the cause of these casualties, and who is responsible, is as yet unclear,” the NATO force, known as the International Security Assistance Force, said in a statement.
The foreign forces apparently mistook Pakistani paramilitary troops in their traditional shalwar and kameez tunics for militants and fired on them at Zangota check post in the North Waziristan tribal region on Monday.
A joint NATO-Pakistani investigation had been convened, it said.
Pakistan is a key ally in the US-led war on terrorism but the United States and other western countries have been urging it do more to curb growing cross-border infiltration by militants from its territory.—Agencies
Joint Pak-NATO investigation convened
Islamabad—Pakistan on Tuesday protested with United States and United Kingdom over an attack on a Pakistani post in Shawal area in North Waziristan Agency by US-led coalition forces on Monday in which one FC soldier was killed and two injured.
The US ambassador to Pakistan, Ryan C Crocker and British High Commissioner to Pakistan Robert Frankley were summoned to the Foreign Office and were handed over a complaint.
Pakistan strongly protested the incident with US stating that Pakistan has been a frontline coalition partner in war against terrorism and one of its check posts was attacked in which one paramilitary forces jawan embraced Shahadat and two others were injured. A strong protest was also lodged with British High Commissioner Robert Frankley over the matter. According to Foreign Office, Richard David, commander of Allied Forces in Afghanistan who is commander of ISAF, hails from United Kingdom.
Both US, UK were informed that Pakistan will not tolerate any such incident in the future.
The American and British ambassadors were told “the coalition authorities should investigate the incident and ensure that such incidents do not occur in future,” the ministry said in a statement.
“Both expressed deep regrets and said that the incident was being investigated.”
Afghanistan’s NATO force said the incident happened following an insurgent rocket attack near a NATO base on the border.
“Shortly afterwards a group of insurgents was identified moving east toward the Pakistan border,” NATO said.
A NATO aircraft attacked the insurgents and NATO said it believed “all ordnance fired landed on the target and one insurgent was killed and another injured.”
“ISAF deeply regrets the loss of life and injuries sustained by Pakistani forces, although the cause of these casualties, and who is responsible, is as yet unclear,” the NATO force, known as the International Security Assistance Force, said in a statement.
The foreign forces apparently mistook Pakistani paramilitary troops in their traditional shalwar and kameez tunics for militants and fired on them at Zangota check post in the North Waziristan tribal region on Monday.
A joint NATO-Pakistani investigation had been convened, it said.
Pakistan is a key ally in the US-led war on terrorism but the United States and other western countries have been urging it do more to curb growing cross-border infiltration by militants from its territory.—Agencies
U.S. launches new air strike on Somalia: report
By Sahal Abdulle Wed Jan 24, 5:22 AM ET
A U.S. Air Force AC-130 gunship has launched a second air strike against suspected al Qaeda operatives in southern Somalia, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing unidentified U.S. officials.
No confirmation of Monday's reported attack was immediately available in the region and a Pentagon spokesman declined to comment. The newspaper said there was no information on the results or the specific targets of the strike.
An AC-130 gunship two weeks ago attacked what Washington said were al Qaeda agents fleeing with Islamist forces defeated by Somali government and Ethiopian troops late last month. It was the first overt U.S. action in Somalia since the end of a disastrous peacekeeping mission in 1994.
Somali government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said he was not aware of a second U.S. attack.
Washington believes Somali Islamists harbored al Qaeda members accused of bombing two U.S. embassies and an Israeli-owned hotel in east Africa.
Any prolonged U.S. intervention in Somalia would be sure to inflame political passions there, joining the chorus of Muslims who see the "war on terror" as a crusade against Islam.
A freelance Somali journalist said on Sunday he had seen U.S. troops on the ground in south Somalia working with Ethiopian forces hunting fugitive Islamists. Ethiopia vehemently denied the report.
Rumors have swirled for days that U.S. personnel were inside Somalia since the January 8 strike but there has been no official confirmation of a U.S. ground presence.
Mortars were fired at Mogadishu airport on Wednesday, killing one person and injuring another after a U.N. delegation arrived in the Somali capital, a government source said.
"A U.N. delegation just arrived and as soon as they left the plane, two mortar shells hit the airport," the source said.
"One person was killed while another was injured," the source said, adding the victims were Somalis. The U.N. Development Programme delegation was taken to an agency compound.
A spate of attacks, mainly against Ethiopian troops backing Somalia's interim government, have rocked the capital since they helped oust Islamists from Mogadishu and much of the south they had controlled for six months in a lightning December offensive.
The Islamists and some foreign supporters have vowed to wage guerrilla war against Ethiopian troops in the country, and many Somalis suspect their militants have been behind the attacks.
"THERE WILL BE NO VACUUM"
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said on Wednesday some 200 soldiers had withdrawn from the chaotic nation.
"We have organised that the last phase of withdrawal will coincide with deployment of AU forces," Meles told a news conference in Addis Ababa. "There will be no vacuum."
The African Union (AU) has approved a nearly 8,000-strong peacekeeping force for Somalia, but experts doubt its capacity to muster it, let alone tame a nation in anarchy since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
The Islamists have been pushed into the remote southern tip near Kenya's border and Nairobi has in custody top Islamist leader Sheikh Sharif Ahmed.
A Kenyan government official said on Wednesday Ahmed would not be deported to Somalia because he would be killed and that he has asked for refuge in Yemen.
Yemen's foreign minister was quoted as saying this month that some Islamist leaders had arrived there.
"We won't send him back. He will be killed," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.
"(Prime Minister Ali Mohamed) Gedi is in town and we are trying to persuade him to talk to Sheikh Sharif, but he won't. He (Ahmed) wants to go to Yemen."
Dinari declined to comment on the fate of Islamists returned to Somalia.
Considered a moderate before the war, Ahmed is among those the United States sees as a potential force in reconciliation.
The Kenyan official said Ahmed was under the watch of Kenya's National Security Intelligence Service at a plush hotel in Nairobi's outskirts.
Many diplomats suspect a Kenyan and U.S. hand in bringing Ahmed in.
At least one Western diplomat dismissed as false reports that he turned himself in at the Kenyan border on Sunday: "He's been in the shade in Nairobi for at least a week and they have just been figuring out how to handle it."
A European diplomat said Ahmed had been in the country since at least January 16.
The U.S. embassy in Kenya said Ambassador to Kenya Michael Ranneberger planned to meet Ahmed later this week.
(Additional reporting by Bryson Hull and Marie-Louise Gumuchian in Nairobi and Tsegaye Tadesse in Addis Ababa)
DAVOS - Arab League's Moussa warns U.S. against Iran attack
DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 24 (Reuters) - The threat of a U.S. attack on Iran is very serious and would risk spreading sectarian violence throughout the Middle East, Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said on Wednesday.
"It's a 50/50 proposition, and we hope that it won't happen. Attacking Iran would be counterproductive," Moussa told Reuters at the World Economic Forum.
U.S. President George Bush in his State of the Union address on Tuesday spoke of an "escalating danger" from Shi'ite extremists, many taking direction from Iran. Bush called them just as dangerous to the United States as al Qaeda.
Moussa advocated dialogue rather than military action to resolve both Iraq and U.S.-Iranian tensions.
"If there were to be a war, other genies will get out of the bottle. You cannot imagine the impact on the Gulf countries, on the Mediterranean," Moussa said.
His concern over an looming U.S.-Iran confrontation was shared by business leaders and political commentators at an opening session on the Middle East at the Forum, an annual gathering of the world's rich and powerful.
Some said it would risk sectarian divisions spilling over and ripping at the fabric of other nations, such as Lebanon, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. It would also undermine strong economic growth in many Arab countries in the past three years. This growth is important for stabilising the region, they said.
One panellist said a serious danger would be any crash in the crude oil price, engineered by Saudi Arabia, to squeeze Iran's finances as a way to bring the country to its knees.
As a major crude producer, Iran relies heavily on oil revenues. These have soared since crude prices roughly doubled in the past three years, almost reaching $80 a barrel last summer before retreating to the mid $50s currently.
Moussa also said that Bush's plan to build up troops in Iraq and pursue a military solution will not resolve sectarian clashes that are ripping the country apart, he said.
"Iraq is broken," Moussa said.
He proposed a diplomatic solution, advocating a United Nations' Security Council resolution that Iraq should not be partitioned, an agreement on reconciliation and amendment to its constitution.
"It's a 50/50 proposition, and we hope that it won't happen. Attacking Iran would be counterproductive," Moussa told Reuters at the World Economic Forum.
U.S. President George Bush in his State of the Union address on Tuesday spoke of an "escalating danger" from Shi'ite extremists, many taking direction from Iran. Bush called them just as dangerous to the United States as al Qaeda.
Moussa advocated dialogue rather than military action to resolve both Iraq and U.S.-Iranian tensions.
"If there were to be a war, other genies will get out of the bottle. You cannot imagine the impact on the Gulf countries, on the Mediterranean," Moussa said.
His concern over an looming U.S.-Iran confrontation was shared by business leaders and political commentators at an opening session on the Middle East at the Forum, an annual gathering of the world's rich and powerful.
Some said it would risk sectarian divisions spilling over and ripping at the fabric of other nations, such as Lebanon, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. It would also undermine strong economic growth in many Arab countries in the past three years. This growth is important for stabilising the region, they said.
One panellist said a serious danger would be any crash in the crude oil price, engineered by Saudi Arabia, to squeeze Iran's finances as a way to bring the country to its knees.
As a major crude producer, Iran relies heavily on oil revenues. These have soared since crude prices roughly doubled in the past three years, almost reaching $80 a barrel last summer before retreating to the mid $50s currently.
Moussa also said that Bush's plan to build up troops in Iraq and pursue a military solution will not resolve sectarian clashes that are ripping the country apart, he said.
"Iraq is broken," Moussa said.
He proposed a diplomatic solution, advocating a United Nations' Security Council resolution that Iraq should not be partitioned, an agreement on reconciliation and amendment to its constitution.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Waiting for It
January 21, 2007
The prospect of the seemingly inevitable war against Iran is no less than terrifying. That the war has already started, with Special Forces and CIA operations on-going in that country, twenty-plus thousand more troops on the way to Iraq, the kidnapping of Iranian envoys in Iraq, our funding of opposition groups, and the arrival of second carrier group, is clear. We all know this will be disastrous, but Congress is doomed to offer only rhetorical resistance. The Doubleduh-Cheney Gang will have its way. It listens to nobody and really doesn't care about opposition. It marches to a drum that shuts out any other sound.
Retired USAF Colonel Sam Gardiner in CounterPunch, "The Pieces Are Being Put in Place":
The pieces are moving. They’ll be in place by the end ofThe Center for Nonproliferation Studies published this detailed document, "A Preemptive Attack on Iran's Nuclear Facilities: Possible Consequences", two and a half years ago:
February. The United States will be able to escalate military operations against Iran.
The second carrier strike group leaves the U.S. west coast on January 16. It will be joined by naval mine clearing assets from both the United States and the UK. Patriot missile defense systems have also been ordered to deploy to the Gulf.
Maybe as a guard against North Korea seeing operations focused on Iran as a chance to be aggressive, a squadron of F-117 stealth fighters has just been deployed to Korea.
This has to be called escalation. We have to remind ourselves, just as Iran is supporting groups inside Iraq, the United States is supporting groups inside Iran. Just as Iran has special operations troops operating inside Iraq, we’ve read the United States has special operations troops operating inside Iran.
Just as Iran is supporting Hamas, two weeks ago we found out the United States is supporting arms for Abbas. Just as Iran and Syria are supporting Hezbollah in Lebanon we’re now learning the White House has approved a finding to allow the CIA to support opposition groups inside Lebanon. Just as Iran is supporting Syria, we’ve learned recently that the United States is going to fund Syrian opposition groups . . .
At a time when Iraq and the war on terrorism tend to dominate the debate on international affairs, the possibility of an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities has not been a major topic of discussion in the United States. There are reports, however, that the Bush administration has seriously considered this option but opted to put it on the back burner for the time being.[1] Further, on May 6, 2004, the U.S. House of Representatives passed Resolution 398 in a 376-3 vote, calling on the U.S. government "to use all appropriate means to deter, dissuade, and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons."[2] If a similar resolution passes the Senate, it will give President Bush or any future administration the ability to launch a preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities whenever this is deemed necessary.The piece is excellent and goes on to consider the widespread potential consequences involving the whole of the Middle East. To imagine that we would escape increased attacks within our own borders is just ignorance.
In Israel, planning and rhetoric appear to have progressed quite a bit further[3]; it appears that some in Israel are seriously considering a preemptive attack similar to the June 1981 attack on Osirak that destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor.[4] Meir Dagan, the Chief of Mossad, told parliament members in his inaugural appearance before the Israeli Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Iran was close to the "point of no return" and that the specter of Iranian possession of nuclear weapons was the greatest threat to Israel since its inception.[5] On November 11, 2003, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said that Israel had "no plans to attack nuclear facilities in Iran."[6] Less than two weeks later however, during a visit to the United States, Israel's Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz stated that "under no circumstances would Israel be able to tolerate nuclear weapons in Iranian possession"[7] and just six weeks earlier, Mossad had revealed plans for preemptive attacks by F-16 bombers on Iranian nuclear sites.[8] This report will examine the following: The Iranian nuclear facilities most likely to be targeted and their proliferation risk potential; the likely preemptive scenarios involving Israel or the United States; and the possible consequences of any preemptive action . . .
Contrary to popular belief, it appears that Israel's attack on Osirak in June of 1981 did nothing to hinder Iraq's nuclear aspirations. Although it temporarily set back its capabilities, it served rather to reinforce and increase Saddam's desire for a nuclear arsenal. In fact, Iraqi nuclear scientist Imad Khadduri claims that Israel's preemptive strike against the French-built Tamuz Iraqi nuclear reactor, which was not really suitable for plutonium production anyway, had the exact opposite effect of the one intended: it sent Saddam Hussein's A-bomb program into overdrive and convinced the Iraqi leadership to initiate a full fledged nuclear weapons program immediately afterwards.[28]
Khidir Hamza, another Iraqi nuclear scientist and one of the leading proponents of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, gave a near identical assessment. He told Mike Begala on CNN's Crossfire on February 7, 2003:
Israel -- actually, what Israel [did] is that it got out the immediate danger out of the way. But it created a much larger danger in the longer range. What happened is that Saddam ordered us - we were 400... scientists and technologists running the program. And when they bombed that reactor out, we had also invested $400 million. And the French reactor and the associated plans were from Italy. When they bombed it out we became 7,000 with a $10 billion investment for a secret, much larger underground program to make bomb material by enriching uranium. We dropped the reactor out totally, which was the plutonium for making nuclear weapons, and went directly into enriching uranium.... They [Israel] estimated we'd make 7kg of plutonium a year, which is enough for one bomb. And they get scared and bombed it out. Actually it was much less than this, and it would have taken a much longer time. But the program we built later in secret would make six bombs a year.[29]
Furthermore, in his book Saddam's Bombmaker, Dr. Hamza states that following the destruction of Osirak in June 1981, Saddam Hussein decided not to repeat the mistake of concentrating all of Iraq's nuclear assets in a single declared location. With the help of the Soviets, the Iraqis embarked on a covert nuclear program that simultaneously extended and hid Iraq's uranium enrichment facilities. Many of these facilities were disguised as warehouses or schools; others were hidden behind farmhouses - all of which was aimed at confusing the IAEA inspectors and preventing them from discovering Iraq's true nuclear potential.
It was Saddam's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, compounded by the difficulty of acquiring sufficient fissile material that doomed Iraq's nuclear prospects. Prior to the invasion, Iraq's nuclear program was moving full speed ahead to produce enough fissile material for nuclear bomb assembly, assuming it could obtain enough uranium. But Iraq's invasion of Kuwait changed everything, resulting in UN Security Council Resolution 687, which banned Iraqi possession of any WMD programs.[30] Iraq's defeat in the 1991 Gulf War, in addition to more than a decade of UN sanctions and inspections, virtually stripped Iraq off its nuclear technology gains and bomb-making ability . . .
With regard to Iran, there is no reason to believe that an attack on the facilities in Bushehr, Arak, or Natanz would have any different consequence than the Osirak example. Such an attack would likely embolden and enhance Iran's nuclear prospects in the long term. In the absence of an Iranian nuclear weapon program, which IAEA inspectors have yet to find, a preemptive attack by the United States or Israel would provide Iran with the impetus and justification to pursue a full blown covert nuclear deterrent program, without the inconvenience of IAEA inspections. Such an attack would likely be seen as an act of aggression not only by Iran but most of the international community, and only serve to weaken any diplomatic coalition currently available against Iran.
The most troubling aspect of such a scenario is that, unlike Iraq in 1981, Iran is not dependent on foreign imports for nuclear technology and already has available the raw materials, and most of the designs and techniques, required to pursue a nuclear weapons program. Iran has the necessary know-how and has already produced every stage of the nuclear fuel cycle.[31] Furthermore, Iran has uranium mines in Yazd and is in the process of constructing milling plants to manufacture yellow cake uranium and conversion plants that convert it to UF6 gas.[32] Iran has also begun manufacturing its own gas centrifuges used to enrich uranium. Even if Natanz, Arak, and Bushehr were destroyed in a preemptive strike, Iran probably has duplicate equipment that can be activated and has the know-how to produce more, to pursue a more vigorous and unabated nuclear weapons program in the long term . . .
In the event of an unprovoked preemptive attack on its nuclear facilities, Iran could justifiably argue that it requires nuclear weapons to guard against aggression and protect its sovereignty, effectively announcing its intention to withdraw from the NPT and altering the current international dynamic. Especially given the recent lack of substantiation in the Iraqi WMD case, such a strike would undoubtedly result in U.S. or Israeli diplomatic isolation . . .
The practical diplomatic consequences of a preemptive attack in Iran are worth considering. In the aftermath of such a strike, it is highly unlikely that the United States would be able to convince members of the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran. Without international sanctions, Iran will be able to allocate greater financial and human resources to its nuclear program. If the Iraqi Osirak example is any indication, the size of Iran's nuclear program would probably increase dramatically, as the Iranian government touts an expanded nuclear program as the key to deterring Iran's enemies . . .
As the target of an unprovoked attack, Iran gains by pointing to justifications for escaping the constraints of the NPT, therefore becoming a much greater proliferation threat. Unrestrained, the Iranians will have the means and technology to eventually manufacture gas centrifuges and mine, mill, convert, and enrich uranium. Even under IAEA intrusive inspections, Iran has assembled more than 920 gas centrifuges, 120 of which were assembled in just two and a half months, between November 2003 and mid-January 2004.[33] To enrich enough HEU to make one nuclear bomb requires running 750 gas centrifuges for one year.[34] If Iran seceded from the NPT, and increased the size of its nuclear program, it would be able to manufacture and assemble many more gas centrifuges, and therefore rapidly enrich uranium. Once sufficient fissile material is obtained, designing a basic nuclear warhead can be easily accomplished. In the absence of intrusive inspections or threat of UN Security Council (UNSC) sanctions, the only way to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapons capability would be to occupy Iran, a very unlikely occurrence given the serious challenges already faced by the United States in a smaller, weaker Iraq . . .
Attacking Iranian nuclear facilities also has the potential of igniting a diplomatic crisis between the United States and Russia. The Russian Federation is not only Iran's foremost supplier of nuclear technology and training, it is reported that hundreds of Russian scientists and technicians currently work in Bushehr. A preemptive attack on Bushehr may kill a large number of Iranian and Russian personnel; the ensuing diplomatic crisis could seriously affect not only Russian-U.S. trade but also cooperation on international matters, including the war on terrorism . . .
An attack on Iran's nuclear facilities that are viewed by most Iranians as a symbol of national pride and technological progress would provide the Iranian mullahs the necessary justification to intensify their crackdown on dissidents and moderates, whom the hawks are likely to brand as agents of foreign powers. It is equally plausible that, fearing such a backlash, domestic opposition forces in Iran would band together with Iran's new hawkish majority in parliament and abandon their calls and protests for reform . . .
Open source information suggests that currently Iran possesses more than 500 Shehab ballistic missiles. Most of these missiles are Shehab-1 and -2, with a 300- to 500-kilometer (km) range and a 700- to 985-kilogram (kg) payload.[37] With these missiles, Iran is capable of reaching U.S. bases in Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, and Iraq. Iran is also believed to possess 25 to100 Shehab-3 ballistic missiles, displayed in a military parade marking the anniversary of the Iran-Iraq war on September 22, 2003.[38] The Shehab-3 has a 1,300km range, a 700kg payload, and is capable of reaching Israeli cities and bases (See: Chart 1). Iran could launch dozens of these ballistic missiles in the direction of Israel; and U.S. targets in the region, over a long period, depending on the size of the Iranian arsenal, the desired severity of the counterattack, and the ability of U.S. forces to find and destroy their missile launchers.
On the one hand, the destructive potential of these ballistic missile systems should not be underestimated. Although these Scud variants are relatively inaccurate - they are certainly incapable of the pinpoint accuracy associated with U.S. cruise missiles and guided munitions - they do have much greater accuracy and higher payloads than the Iraqi al-Husseins that turned out a mediocre CEP (circular error probability) of 1 to 3km in 1991.[39] Multiple missiles attacks on U.S. or Israeli targets carrying large warheads can potentially be very deadly, as demonstrated by an Iraqi Scud attack on barracks in Saudi Arabia in early 1991. It turned out to be the deadliest such incident of the entire war for U.S. troops, killing 28 and injuring 98.[40] . . .
Iran is no patsy. Russia and other European nations have a geopolitical stake there. Shi'ites all over the place will attack "American interests". We will not have stabilized Iraq enough to use it as a secure military base. We will take a big hurt.
About a year ago, GlobalSecurity.org reported:
When the media considers how the Iranians could respond, it generally only speculates on the Iranians responding passively and ceasing oil production. According to CNN, the result would be an immediate 5 percent drop in the global supply, which could cause prices to rise in excess of $60 a barrel, creating a minor pain for Americans at the gas pump. This scenario is dangerously optimistic. The hardliners controlling the Iranian government will not react timidly. While the Iranian military lacks the sheer power of the American armed forces, it does not need to match strength for strength.We cannot in America fathom what a disaster this will be. Wait for it.
After American or Israeli forces attack, the Iranians will likely retaliate using ballistic missiles, attacking Israeli cities and American bases around the Persian Gulf. Attacks against Israel should prove ineffective. Iran has a small inventory of missiles that have the necessary 1,300 km range to strike targets within Israel, according to Globalsecurity.org, and since the First Gulf War, Israel has developed an effective anti-ballistic-missile program. The Iranians do have a sizeable arsenal of shorter-range missiles that could be used to strike American targets in Iraq.
Although Patriot Missile batteries proved effective against Iraqi missiles in the second Gulf War, it may be possible to overwhelm individual batteries. Only 54 such batteries were deployed during the second Gulf War, defending staging areas in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. There are likely fewer systems in theater at the moment, and American bases are dispersed throughout Iraq, making them harder to protect. By firing enough missiles into the Green Zone in Baghdad, the Iranians could decapitate the Iraqi government and kill a large number of American military leaders.
They could also attempt to attack the American 5th Fleet in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. The Iranians possess a significant stockpile of anti-ship missiles, consisting of hundreds of older French Exocets, Chinese C-802s, locally developed variants of the C-802 and a small number of highly lethal Russian missiles, according to Globalsecurity.org.
The Russian weapons are of particular concern because the SS-N-22 Moskit and SS-NX-26 Yakhont are designed to defeat the defenses of a carrier battle group. Traveling at more than two times the speed of sound, any vessel targeted by this warhead would optimally have 25 to 30 seconds between detection and impact, giving American warships no time to react defensively. The danger these missiles present becomes clear when the dimensions of the Persian Gulf are considered; at its widest, it is 338 km and narrows to a scant 48 km at the Strait of Hormuz, the only exit from the Persian Gulf. These missiles have a range of 120 km and 300 km respectively, making the Persian Gulf a shooting gallery. At best, the Iranians may manage to sink a few destroyers and frigates. At worst, they could destroy an aircraft carrier, killing thousands of Americans. Those who would dismiss this scenario should recall what the Argentineans managed to do in the Falklands War with only six Exocets.
The Iranians could also use their anti-ship missiles to cut off tanker traffic passing through the Strait of Hormuz. This would deny the world oil production from Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar and part of Saudi Arabia, driving prices far higher than normally postulated and causing severe harm to the global economy.
Their final and most dramatic option would be to launch a ground war against American forces in Iraq. American forces are not prepared for a ground war. They are scattered across the country, conducting peacekeeping operations in what could become hostile territory.
The reason Iraq has not yet turned into Vietnam is because the Shiite clerics who hold sway over the majority of the population have largely refrained from hostility against American forces. Aside from Muqtada Al-Sadr’s aborted insurgency, American forces have spent most of their time fighting Sunni insurgents.
Most of the more powerful clerics have strong connections to Iran. Iran has taken care to support these clerics by providing funds, training and weapons for their militias. In the event of an attack on Iran, various militias could rise against American garrisons. One cleric, Al-Sadr, has already pledged to do so. Alone, they would not be able to defeat American forces in Iraq, but they could lock American forces in place . . .
Categories: Iran, war, consequences
Israelis prepare public for conflict with Iran
Israelis prepare public for conflict with 'genocidal' Iranian regime
By Anne Penketh in Herzliya, Israel
Published: 22 January 2007
Senior Israeli politicians and analysts appear to be preparing the public for military conflict with Iran as the Iranian President again refused to bow to international demands to curb its nuclear ambitions, and Tehran announced fresh military manoeuvres.
Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu told a security forum in Herzliya yesterday that individual states and companies should go beyond the UN economic sanctions. He argued that the first step should be to invoke financial sanctions to "divest genocide" and "delegitimise the regime of Iran through economic and political pressure".
The hawkish Likud leader added: "Either it will stop the nuclear programme without the need for a military operation, or it could prepare for it. When we are talking about rallying public opinion on genocide, who will lead the charge if not us? No one will come defend the Jews if they do not defend themselves. This is the lesson of history."
Talking to journalists, Mr Netanyahu said he doubted that the "genocidal regime" of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was "deterrable". This view was shared by Shmuel Bar, an Islamic specialist at the Herzliya centre, who said that the US and Iran were engaged in "very dangerous brinkmanship". He said that seen from Tehran, "the conspiracy theory goes that the US, with the UK and Israel, will take action to topple the Islamic regime, and that this has nothing to do with the nuclear issue."
Tehran has shown no sign of yielding to UN demands to halt uranium enrichment. "The resolution was born dead and even if they issue 10 more it will not affect Iran's economy and policies," Mr Ahmadinejad said yesterday in a televised speech.
By Anne Penketh in Herzliya, Israel
Published: 22 January 2007
Senior Israeli politicians and analysts appear to be preparing the public for military conflict with Iran as the Iranian President again refused to bow to international demands to curb its nuclear ambitions, and Tehran announced fresh military manoeuvres.
Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu told a security forum in Herzliya yesterday that individual states and companies should go beyond the UN economic sanctions. He argued that the first step should be to invoke financial sanctions to "divest genocide" and "delegitimise the regime of Iran through economic and political pressure".
The hawkish Likud leader added: "Either it will stop the nuclear programme without the need for a military operation, or it could prepare for it. When we are talking about rallying public opinion on genocide, who will lead the charge if not us? No one will come defend the Jews if they do not defend themselves. This is the lesson of history."
Talking to journalists, Mr Netanyahu said he doubted that the "genocidal regime" of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was "deterrable". This view was shared by Shmuel Bar, an Islamic specialist at the Herzliya centre, who said that the US and Iran were engaged in "very dangerous brinkmanship". He said that seen from Tehran, "the conspiracy theory goes that the US, with the UK and Israel, will take action to topple the Islamic regime, and that this has nothing to do with the nuclear issue."
Tehran has shown no sign of yielding to UN demands to halt uranium enrichment. "The resolution was born dead and even if they issue 10 more it will not affect Iran's economy and policies," Mr Ahmadinejad said yesterday in a televised speech.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Return to Arab survival
Over Iraq, Arab states lost their way, putting the survival of the Arab order subservient to external favour, and US-inspired coalitions, writes Azmi Bishara
Will the deception of historical progression -- or the irony of fate -- manifest itself in this region with the collapse of Arab nationalism, not at the hands of pan-Arab or pan-Islamic movements but by force of local kin and sectarian groupings, which had originally inspired the ideology of pan-Arab statehood in the colonialist mandate era? It seems that these forces, with the help of some petit politicians, are incapable of tearing down the edifice on their own. However strong the ambitions of their leaders are to free themselves from the constraints of ideology and to mobilise popular bases behind them, not on the basis of a political calling, but on the basis of blood ties and cries for vengeance without going so far as to exact revenge, not all countries are Somalia.
Elsewhere there are actual states, with governing institutions and national armies. It is in their interest to survive, even, perhaps, if that requires reform, and their survival instinct should have been sharpened by having been first-hand witnesses to the catastrophe that is Iraq. Yet the danger looms that the regimes of these states will ally themselves, individually or in coalitions, with the organic tribal or sectarian groupings inside each separate country, heedless of the exorbitant costs entailed in the attempt to realise their short-term and narrow political ambitions. The price will be no less than the sacrifice of any dream of national unity and all possibility of creating an overarching bond of citizenship because these will have been cast to the winds by the drive to fuel fears and to inflame ethnic and sectarian hatreds, and by the cries for blood that resound from the primitive depths of the earth.
Iraq was smashed to pieces because various Arab powers colluded with American designs and the Arabs that opposed this war were effectively isolated by force of the same collusion. Iran rose to the vanguard of the most vocal opponents to the war as a result of the official Arab stance, particularly that of the Gulf states, which could barely conceal their glee at the fall of the Iraqi regime beneath relentless bombardment and at the subsequent capture of Saddam Hussein. But what a different tune they were singing then in contrast to their recent protests against the execution of Saddam on the first day of the Feast of Sacrifice. What has happened in the interval to cause this remarkable about-face? On the one hand, the Iraqi resistance has proven its efficacy and durability. On the other, the boundaries of regional axes have gelled, and the members of one of these are pounding their chests and protesting the insult to their honour, now that they've realised that Iran was the foremost beneficiary of the dissolution of the Iraqi army and anti-Baath Party law which they had once cheered so rowdily. Not that these Arab officials went so far as to actually denounce Saddam's execution. They were just upset that it had been carried out on the first day of the feast. Which is worse. What this implies is that they actually approved of the execution and hoped for the opportunity to exploit it, themselves, to stir sectarian passions against adversaries who had nothing to do with the fall of the Saddam regime or his execution, such as Hizbullah and the Palestinian resistance.
At various points along the way, most importantly when the constitution came out, certain parties called into question Iraq's Arab identity and scoffed at those who protested the refutation of this identity. Not a single voice from Arab officialdom, which is now wringing its hands over Iran's gains from the decimation of Iraq, was among the protestors. And, today, instead of responding to Iran's (and America's) sectarian tactics with calls for Arab unity, Arab officialdom is busily fuelling Sunni anti-Shia sentiments. Nothing could be further from the spirit and behaviour of the Sunnis who had once rallied and still rally behind the call to Arab nationalism and unity.
In none of the other trouble spots that flared up or that were ignited in the Arab world is there sufficient endemic cause for full-scale internecine conflict. In Lebanon, for example, the internal dynamics of Lebanese politics, the Lebanese political mentality and the Lebanese political rhetoric are, in themselves, insufficient to spark confrontation, let alone civil war. No one in Lebanon, if left to his own devices and left to face his society on his own, would dare suggest that he hopes to or can settle the conflict over power in his favour and to the exclusion of others. No one in Lebanon could look themselves in the mirror and honestly say that they are capable of governing alone. The structure of Lebanese society would not permit it; nor would the structure and history of the state, or the economy of the country, or the demands of national security, which happens to be the most crucial factor in this case.
Nothing bears this out more than the fact that the most crucial formative experience of the contemporary Lebanese national consciousness was the protracted civil war, lasting from the mid-1970s to the Taif Agreement. The civil war was about power-seeking adventurism. It was about the delusion of one side that it could settle the conflict in favour of moving Lebanon into the Soviet camp, and the delusion of the other side, allied with Israel, that it could wrest Lebanese national security out of its cultural, Arab nationalist and historical context because it refused to fathom that Lebanon had expanded from an Ottoman directorate with a Maronite majority and Druze minority into a state with a Muslim majority in the grips of an identity crisis -- or multiple identity crises -- just like all the other by-products of the Sykes-Picot Agreement. The true deterrent against internal strife is not some illusory dreamy dove of peace. Rather it resides in that new open-eyed Lebanese identity that has shed its illusions, an identity forged in the crucible of a civil war that drenched its blood with militias and warlords and their self-serving and destructive slogans.
But just as there exists no internal mechanism propelling the Lebanese to confrontation, there exists no internal mechanism to deter it. They are thus all the more vulnerable to the external dynamic that does propel towards civil strife: the conflict between regional axes. Lebanese society is still holding out against this threat that is encroaching upon it so forcefully. However, it will not be able to continue to do so for long unless it develops some mechanism for promoting and safeguarding national concord and unless the axes in question realise that it is in their mutual interest to talk with one another.
Until a short time ago, neither the Lebanese government as a whole, nor individual Lebanese leaders, had openly come out for disarming the resistance or made moves to effectively seize power with the aim of bringing Lebanon into the American fold. Undoubtedly, some of the leaders harboured this intent. But they would not have believed themselves capable of acting on it until certain tensions mounted in Saudi-Syrian and Saudi- Iranian relations and encouraged them in that direction.
This was before the war against Lebanon. After Israel attacked, the game of bisecting the region into opposing camps played itself out in the form of censuring the resistance for triggering the war and the steadily intensifying campaign to capitalise on this in Lebanon in order to tilt the balance of power towards a single player. The campaign culminated in Security Council Resolution 1701. Because the resistance leadership realised that it would wake up to an entirely different Lebanon within less than a year if it failed to act, it quickly moved to break the blockade. But the aim of its counterattack was not to seize power for itself. What the resistance seeks is a share in power, rather than a monopoly on power, the notion of which it has vehemently protested. But it insists upon real power-sharing, not power-sharing in form with actual decision-making power in the hands of an eternal "democratic minority" that has disproportionate weight in forming a government. It demands an effective say on crucial issues, especially security related ones. The problem is that the other side is pushing for a monopoly on power, not particularly because it is capable of exercising this monopoly or really wants it, but because its most extreme wing, which could be kept in check in the past, is now taking its cues from a regional axis that, for the time being, rejects talks with the other regional axis.
How do people who know they do not possess the leverage to resolve things the way they want justify trying to do that anyway? Perhaps they believe that by securing for themselves key offices and allying themselves with the mightiest military and economic power in the world they can turn the situation to their advantage and push through their plans gradually and without confrontation.
In Palestine, for example, a particular faction might contemplate changing the government in a manner that would guarantee it hold over such key authorities as the ministries of interior, foreign affairs and security. Add these to the presidency, recognised by the government, and access to various sources of money and it becomes possible to strike an agreement with Israel through secret negotiations. It's all a question of time. Afterwards, of course, the agreement can be put to general referendum, and the best way to ensure that this comes out in favour of an unjust settlement is to choke off the people's access to food, release the grip gradually to give them a taste, and then let the people use their imaginations to draw the comparison between times under economic blockade and the times to come after it is lifted.
The only alternative open to the other side, which had formed a government after attaining a parliamentary majority through a fair and transparent electoral process, is to put a stop to these tactics by refusing to cooperate and insisting on the appropriate conditions for national unity. But this is not to the liking of one of the regional axes. With the failure of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon coming on top of the unmitigated disaster in Iraq, the members of this axis, along with Israel, are desperate to revive the Palestinian-Israeli negotiating track. Towards this end they feel it necessary to propel the Palestinians towards an internal confrontation that most of the Palestinians themselves believe unnecessary and unwarranted.
But Israel is not hanging around with Christmas presents, such as Jerusalem and the Palestinian right to return, to hand out to the clever folks who ignite this confrontation. Israel is not suddenly going to turn into Santa Claus. This realisation alone should be sufficient cause for the Palestinians to reject the ploys of the extremists, known as "moderates" abroad, who are propelling the situation towards civil war at home in order to secure a settlement abroad, and to forge ahead with the creation of a national unity government that will challenge the blockade. Haste in reaching a settlement is "the devil's work," as we say, and the work of those who are heaping their destructive divide-and-conquer tactics on certain trouble spots in the region.
States that had never stepped foot in Lebanon before are now gate crashing into the country through the torn off doors and windows of Lebanese domestic politics, because suddenly they discovered that the way to America's heart is to sign up with the anti-Iran axis. Lebanon is the place to be. As for why these same parties hadn't joined the anti-Iran axis in Iraq, by supporting the Iraqi resistance, this is a question that can only be answered by someone who realises that these parties' allegiances have nothing to do with being for or against Shias or Sunnis in Iraq or elsewhere, and everything to do with being with America, in Lebanon, in Iraq and in Palestine. They tuned their attitude on Iraq to America's. They may have contributed to a small extent to altering the American attitude, here, the major determinant of the American shift in attitude was the Iraqi resistance, which they opposed and which opposed them.
The most tragic disasters are those that could have been avoided. After Iraq, the US no longer had the ability to force its confrontationist policies on anyone, and the pro-American Arab axis that coalesced during the build-up to the Iraqi war could have made the US understand that its coalition politics would lead to nothing but the collapse of Iraq and, along with it, the collapse of the regional order that had emerged from the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916. They could have told America that the ensuing chaos would sweep away everything and that, while this might please Israel and some of Israel's supporters in Washington, they would have nothing to do with bringing it on. They could have been so bold but, sadly, they passed up the chance.
The only sound alternative these powers have now is to abandon this coalition politics and pit their forces together, as sovereign governments that have in interest in a stable Iraq, following the American withdrawal. This will require an understanding between Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran, and cooperation with Turkey. Saddam Hussein was pushed into war against Iran and then abandoned and subsequently cold-shouldered by the Gulf and barely tolerated by Iran. Syria managed to sustain good relations with both Iran and with the Gulf countries and, therefore, was able to act as a pacifying mediator between them. But rather than capitalising on this role, the partners to coalition politics are contributing to the isolation of Syria. Iran, for its part, should reassure the Arabs -- by which I mean Arab public opinion -- that it recognises the Arab identity of Iraq. It should further relinquish its vindictive policies and its collusion with vindictive practices in Iraq, the most recent manifestation of which was the disgracefully bloodthirsty execution of the president of an Arab state, beneath the axe of the occupation -- a savage act recorded and broadcast with such disgusting felicity that even Arabs who hated Saddam could not help but to feel insulted and degraded. The only way to restrain Iran is to establish a relationship with it that keeps the channels of communication and understanding over Iraq open. To do so, Arab regimes must reassure Iran that they are not colluding with the US against it, as they colluded with the US during the build-up to the war against Iraq, "on the condition that this war gets rid of Saddam."
Many fingers got burned by confrontationist coalition politics in Iraq. Entire hands will get burned from this type of politics in Lebanon and Palestine. But everything will be consumed by a confrontation with Iran. It is not just the Arab axis that will crumble from igniting sectarian tensions in a confrontation of this nature. So, too, will the entire Arab order, that is, if it has not entirely lost its instinct and will to survive.
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