http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3910
Iran: Thinking the Unthinkable
Conn Hallinan | January 15, 2007
Editor: John Feffer, IRC
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Is Israel, supported by the Bush Administration, preparing to launch an
atomic war against Iran? On January 7, the London
<http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,242249,00.html> Sunday Times claimed
that the Israeli government is planning to attack Iran's uranium enrichment
facilities with tactical nuclear weapons. While the Israeli government
denies the story, recent statements by top Israeli officials and military
figures -- along with recent White House threats against Iran and Syria and
a shuffling of American commanders in the Middle East -- suggest that the
possibility is real.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert calls Iran an "existential threat," and
Deputy Minister of Defense Ephraim Sneh recently said, "The time is
approaching when Israel and the international community will have to decide
whether to take military action against Iran." An Israeli Defense Force
(IDF) official told
<http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFul
l&cid=1159193427838> the Jerusalem Post that "only a military strike by the
U.S. and it allies will stop Iran obtaining nuclear weapons."
Brigadier General Oded Tira, former commander of the IDF's artillery units,
not only urges <http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3346275,00.html>
an attack on Iran, but because "President Bush lacks the political power to
attack Iran," Israel and its supporters "must lobby the Democratic Party and
U.S. newspaper editors" to lay the groundwork for such an attack. Tira says
that if the Americans don't act, "we'll do it ourselves."
According to the Times, the attack will use a combination of conventional
laser-guided bombs and one kiloton tactical nuclear "bunker busters." The
targets would be the centrifuges at Natanz, a uranium conversion plant near
Isfahan, and the heavy water reactor at Arak.
One source told the Times, "As soon as the green light is given, it will be
one mission, one strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished."
Bluster or Bunker Buster?
Bombast to scare the Iranians? Maybe, but a number of pieces have fallen
into place over the past month that suggest that the Bush administration is
also seeking to widen the Middle East conflict, and that time may be running
out for Iran.
In his January 10 speech announcing an escalation in Iraq, the president
singled out Iran and Syria as aiding "terrorists," and warned, "We will seek
out and destroy the networks" that are training and arming "our enemies in
Iraq." According to
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/12/world/middleeast/12raid.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1
168578000&en=584bde7a750714ff&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin> The New
York Times, the president ordered several raids against diplomats and
advisors in Iraq, accusing them of supplying advanced improvised explosive
devices to Iraqi insurgents.
While the last election was a repudiation of the neo-conservative's policies
of aggressive militarism, many of those neo-conservatives are steering the
current escalation in Iraq. President's Bush's "new way forward" is lifted
directly from a policy paper
<http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.25396/pub_detail.asp> by
Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the
neoconservative think tank that pushed so hard for the initial invasion of
Iraq. Kagan -- along with William Kristol, editor of the neoconservative
Weekly Standard -- designed the plan that will send more than 20,000 troops
to Iraq.
But is the escalation just about Iraq? According
<http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/010807.html> to Robert Parry, author of
Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, and
former Associated Press and Newsweek reporter, "one source familiar with
high-level thinking in Washington and Tel Aviv said an unstated reason for
the Bush troop 'surge' is to bolster the defenses of Baghdad's Green Zone if
a possible Israeli attack on Iran prompts an uprising among Iraqi Shiites."
The neoconservatives may well have engineered the ouster of John Negroponte,
National Security Director, because he said that Iran could not produce a
nuclear weapon until sometime in the next decade. The statement outraged
neoconservatives and directly contradicted alarmist Israeli intelligence
assessments that Tehran could have a warhead in less than two years.
If the United States does intend to hit Iran, or to support such an attack
by Israel, then it just appointed the right man for the job. The new head of
Central Command (CENTCOM) that oversees the Middle East, Admiral William
Fallon, is the former head of U.S. Pacific Command and an expert on air war.
Fallon commanded an A-6 tactical bomber wing in Vietnam, a carrier wing, and
an aircraft carrier. As retired U.S. navy commander Jeff Huber writes
<http://zenhuber.blogspot.com/2007/01/navy-admiral-goes-to-centcom-be-very.h
tml> in Pen and Sword, "If anybody knows how to run a maritime and air
operation against Iran, it's 'Fox' Fallon."
Fallon is also close with the neoconservatives and attended the 2001 awards
ceremony of the Jewish <http://www.irc-online.org/rightweb/profile/1508>
Institute for National Security (JINSA), a think tank that strongly pushed
for the war in Iraq and currently lobbies for attacking Iran. Vice President
Dick Cheney and ex-UN Ambassador John Bolton are both former members of
JINSA. The organization sponsored a 2003 conference entitled: "Time to Focus
on Iran -- The Mother of Modern Terrorism."
The White House has also secretly formed a policy unit called the Iran Syria
Policy and Operations Group (ISOG) to influence U.S. media, funnel covert
aid to Iranian dissidents, and collect information and intelligence. One
former U.S. official told
<http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2007/01/02/us_unit_works_quietly_
to_counter_irans_sway/> the Boston Globe that group's goal in Iran was
"regime change." ISOG is headed up by two neoconservative hawks, James F.
Jeffrey and Elliott Abrams.
Abrams formally worked for rightwing Israeli ex-Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu and helped write the policy paper, "A Clean Break," which
advocated attacking Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah and unilaterally imposing a
"settlement" on the Palestinians. According the Inter-Press Service, during
last summer's war in Lebanon, Abrams carried a message from the Bush
Administration encouraging the Olmert government to attack Syria.
Israel's Role
Parry suggests that one explanation for recent meetings between Bush,
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Olmert is joint planning on how to
widen the war in the Middle East to embrace Iran, and possibly Syria.
Olmert's government is deeply unpopular, Blair is leaving office this
spring, and Bush can't get much lower in the polls without hitting negative
numbers. In a sense, Parry suggests, there is nothing to lose if all three
"double-down" their gamble on the Iraq War.
If the Israelis do decide to go through with the attack, initially there
would be little Iran could do about it. Given Israel's hundreds of nuclear
warheads, any direct retaliation by Tehran would be suicidal.
A similar attack on two U.S. carrier groups currently deployed in the Gulf
of Iran would be equally self-destructive, as would any serious attempt to
close off the Straits of Hormuz through which about 20% of the world's oil
moves. The White House just added a third carrier battle group.
But the long-term impact of a nuclear strike on Iran is likely to be
catastrophic and not only because it would enrage Shiites in Iraq. Parry
suggests that local U.S.-backed dictators might find themselves facing
unrest as well. If Hezbollah rocketed Israel, Tel Aviv might decide to
invade Syria, igniting a full-scale regional war. It is even possible that
Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf might fall, says Parry, "conceivably giving
Islamic terrorists control of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal." In that event,
India would almost certainly intervene, which could spark a nuclear war in
South Asia. India and Pakistan came perilously close to such an exchange in
1999.
"For some U.S. foreign policy experts," writes Parry, "this potential
disaster for a U.S.-backed Israeli air strike on Iran is so terrifying that
they ultimately don't believe Bush and Olmert would dare implement such a
plan."
They may be right, but many Democrats are willing to join the Republicans in
attacking Iran. New House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told
<http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?StoryID=20070107-0514
36-1117r> the Jerusalem Post that a nuclear-armed Iran was unacceptable, and
when asked if he would support a military strike, replied, "I have not ruled
that out." Add heavy lobbying by the AEI, JINSA, and the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee, coupled with "cooked" intelligence that claims the
Iranians are on the verge of producing a nuclear weapon, and they might
indeed dare.
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