-Caveat Lector-
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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: February 12, 2007 1:17:41 PM PST
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Counting Down to US Strike on Iran
Will They Nuke Iran?
Intelligence Briefings to NYT Notch Up Tension
By Alexander Cockburn
Counterpunch (UK), February 11, 2007
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17032.htm
President Nixon, a very good poker player, once defined the art of
brinkmanship as persuading your opponent that you are insane and,
unless appeased by pledges of surrender, quite capable of blowing
up the planet.
By these robust standards George Bush is doing a moderately
competent job in suggesting that if balked by Iran on the matter of
arming the Shi'a in Iraq or pursuing its nuclear program he'll dump
high explosive, maybe even a couple of nukes, on that country's
relevant research sites, or tell Israel to do the job for him.
In Washington there are plenty of rational people in Congress,
think tanks and the Pentagon who think he's capable of ordering an
attack,-- albeit not a nuclear one -- with bombers carrying
conventional explosive and with missiles from US ships in the
Persian Gulf.
Colonel Sam Gardner, who's taught at the National War College
recently sketched out on this site the plan as it could unfold:
already the second naval carrier group has been deployed to the
Gulf area, joined by naval mine clearing ships.
"As one of the last steps before a strike, we'll see USAF tankers
moved to unusual places, like Bulgaria. These will be used to
refuel the US-based B-2 bombers on their strike missions into Iran.
When that happens, we'll only be days away from a strike."
Gardiner cautioned that "It is possible the White House strategy is
just implementing a strategy to put pressure on Iran on a number of
fronts, and this will never amount to anything. On the other hand,
if the White House is on a path to strike Iran, we'll see a few
more steps unfold.
"First, we know there is a National Security Council staff-led
group whose mission is to create outrage in the world against Iran.
Just like before Gulf II, this media group will begin to release
stories to sell a strike against Iran. Watch for the outrage stuff."
As regards "the outrage stuff", here on cue comes the New York
Times' Michael Gordon with a front page story today, February 10,
headlined "Deadliest Bomb in Iraq is Made by Iran, US Says" and
beginning "The most lethal weapon directed against American troops
in Iraq is an explosive-packed cylinder that United States
intelligence asserts is being supplied by Iran."
It's no doubt true that Iran has been arming the Shi'a. What Gordon
fails to mention is that over 90 per sent of the IEDs used against
US troops in Iraq have been detonated by the Sunni insurgents, who
of course are not supplied by Iran.
More generally, the prime point of interest of the intelligence
briefings given to Gordon and other journalists is the timing. At
any point in the past couple of years the US could have gone public
with roughly the same accusations.
Shades of the Ho Chi Minh trail! Year after year first Johnson then
Nixon would claim that the resistance in south Vietnam was not
indigenous but created and armed by North Vietnam, backed by the
Soviet Union and China--which these days has flourishing economic
ties with Iran, particularly in the field of energy.
Another tripwire for escalation would be the UN Security Council
Feb 21 deadline for Iran to suspend "all enrichment-related and
reprocessing activities, including research and development, to be
verified by the IAEA," the International Atomic Energy Agency.
There's certainly disquiet in Congress, particularly after Bush's
State of the Union address January 17 where he reprised his
notorious "Axis of Evil" address of January 2002, identifying Iran
as the number one troublemaker and fomenter of terror in the region.
"Is it the position of this administration that it possesses the
authority to take unilateral action against Iran, in the absence of
a direct threat, without Congressional approval?" the Virginia
Democrat, Senator James Webb recently asked Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice. Rice said she'd get back to him.
The Bush administration is capable of almost any folly, but is it
likely that it would bomb Iran's nuclear research labs? Would it
really prod Israel into taking on the job?
Israel of course has been making plenty of quite predictable hay
out of President Ahmadinejad's crack about how "the regime
occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the pages of time." Of course
the let's-stay-calm types say it was just a stale old one-liner
from the Ayatollah Khomeini and please to note he used the word
"regime", not "Israel". Plant that one in the graveyard of wimpy
rationalizations. Along with the recent "holocaust conference",
it's probably the biggest leg-up for Israeli bond drives since the
Yom Kippur war. Prime minister Olmert quotes it on an almost daily
basis, echoed by his rival, Netanyahu.
Aside from the rhetorical haymaking, the notion of Israel nuking
Iran's N-plants is very far-fetched. Indeed, the military wisdom
here is that as a practical enterprise, it can't, since among many
technical limitations Israel's bombers would require refueling over
hostile territory.
Aside from this, Israel still won't officially admit to having a
nuclear arsenal. It would a stupefying jump, from that disingenuous
posture to being the first power in the region to explode a nuclear
device. The point of having a nuclear deterrent is to deter, not to
use. Iran is well aware that in 1999 and 2004 Israelis bought
Dolphin submarines from Germany reportedly capable of carrying
nuclear-armed cruise missiles. As President Chirac asked in his
recent press conference, what good it would do Iran to have a
nuclear bomb, or even two. "Where would it fire that bomb? At
Israel? It wouldn't have traveled 200 meters through the atmosphere
before Tehran would be razed."
(Reservations among Irael's elites about attacks on Iran are the
topic of an excellent piece by Gabriel Kolko on this site today.)
So the job of attacking would fall to the US Air force and US Navy
and there are certainly generals, particularly in the Air Force,
telling Bush it would be a snap, just as Curt LeMay, at that time
head of the Strategic Air Command, told President Kennedy during
the Cuban Missile Crisis that SAC could "reduce the Soviet Union to
a smouldering irradiated ruin in three hours".
But Air Force credibility is low at the moment. LeMay's heirs told
Bush that "shock and awe" bombing in 2003 would prompt Saddam to
run up the white flag. It didn't. US ground forces carried the day
-- at least at the outset. But there aren't any US ground forces
available to invade a country many times bigger than Iraq, filled
with a large population mostly loyal to the regime. After sorties
against Iran with bombs and missiles what would the US do?
The problem is that brinkmanship suits everyone's book.
Ahmadinejad, facing serious political problems, can posture about
standing up to the Great Satan. Olmert can say Ahmadinejad wants to
finish off Israel and kill all the Jews. Bush sees Iran as a
terrific way of changing the subject from the mess in Iraq and
putting the Democrats on the spot.
The Democrats take the lead of their presidential hopefuls, who
have no intention of being corralled by the Republicans as symps of
holocaust deniers who want to destroy Israel. These days, to be a
player, any candidate for the US presidency has to raise about $100
million, of which a large tranche will come from American Jews.
Barack Obama and John Edwards call for swift withdrawal of US
forces from Iraq. When it comes to Iran they roar in unison with
Hillary Clinton that no option can be left off the table. In other
words, if it comes to it, nuke 'em .
Is there room for sanity here? The best hope will be for Iran to
finish its testing cycle, declare mission accomplished and figure
out some sort of face-saving halt in its program by February 21.
Can we hope for prudence from the White House? Who knows? Bush is a
nutty guy. It was his insistence on democratic elections in Iraq
that put the Shi'a in control. Now he's blaming Iran for trying to
capitalize on the consequences.
This is not a regime that thinks things through very sensibly.
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