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Are we going to war with Iran?
Dan Plesch evaluates the evidence pointing towards a new
conflict in the Middle East
By Dan Plesch
10/18/05 "The
Guardian" -- -- The Sunday Telegraph warned last
weekend that the UN had a last chance to avert war with Iran
and, at a meeting in London last week, the US ambassador to the
UN, John Bolton, expressed his regret that any failure by the UN
security council to deal with Iran would damage the security
council's relevance, implying that the US would solve the
problem on its own.
Only days before, the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, had
dismissed military action as "inconceivable" while both the
American president and his secretary of state had insisted war
talk was not on the agenda. The UN's International Atomic Energy
Agency inspectors have found that Iran has not, so far, broken
its commitments under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty,
although it has concealed activities before.
It appears that the UK and US have decided to raise the stakes
in the confrontation with Iran. The two countries persuaded the
IAEA board - including India - to overrule its inspectors,
declare Iran in breach of the non-proliferation treaty (NPT) and
say that Iran's activities could be examined by the UN security
council. Critics of this political process point to the fact
that India itself has developed nuclear weapons and refused to
join the NPT, but has still voted that Iran is acting
illegitimately. On the Iranian side there is also much
belligerent talk and pop music now proudly speaks of the nuclear
contribution to Iranian security.
The timing of the recent allegations about Iranian intervention
in Iraq also appears to be significant. Ever since the US
refused to control Iraq's borders in April 2003, Iranian backed
militia have dominated the south and, with under 10,000 soldiers
amongst a population of millions, the British army had little
option but to go along. No fuss was made until now. As for the
bombings of British soldiers, some sources familiar with the US
army engineers report that these supposedly sophisticated
devices have been manufactured inside Iraq for many months and
do not need to be imported.
But is the war talk for real or is it just sabre rattling? The
conventional wisdom is that for both military and political
reasons it would be impossible for Israel and the UK/US to
attack and that, in any event, after the politically damaging
Iraq war, neither Tony Blair nor George Bush would be able to
gather political support for another attack.
But in Washington, Tel Aviv and Downing Street, if not the
Foreign Office, Iran is regarded as a critical threat. The
regime in Tehran continues to demand the destruction of the
state of Israel and to support anti-Israeli forces. In what
appeared to be coordinated releases of intelligence assessments,
Israeli and US intelligence briefed earlier this year that,
while Iran was years from a nuclear weapons capability, the
technological point of no return was now imminent.
Shortly after the US elections, the vice-president, Dick Cheney,
warned that Israel might attack Iran. Israel has the capability
to attack Iranian targets with aircraft and long-range cruise
missiles launched from submarines, while Iranian air defences
are still mostly based on 25-year-old equipment purchased in the
time of the Shah. A US attack might be portrayed as a more
reasonable option than a renewed Israeli-Islamic confrontation.
The US army and marines are heavily committed in Iraq, but
soldiers could be found if the Bush administration were intent
on invasion. Donald Rumsfeld has been reorganising the army to
increase front-line forces by a third. More importantly, naval
and air force firepower has barely been used in Iraq. Just 120
B52 and stealth bombers could target 5,000 points in Iran with
satellite-guided bombs in just one mission. It is for this
reason that John Pike of globalsecurity.org thinks that a US
attack could come with no warning at all. US action is often
portrayed as impossible, not only because of the alleged lack of
firepower, but because Iranian facilities are too hard to
target. In a strategic logic not lost on Washington, the
conclusion then is that if you cannot guarantee to destroy all
the alleged weapons, then it must be necessary to remove the
regime that wants them, and regime change has been the official
policy in Washington for many years.
For political-military planners, precision strikes on a few
facilities have drawbacks beyond leaving the regime intact. They
allow the regime too many retaliatory options. Certainly, Iran's
neighbours in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf who are worried about
the growth of Iranian Shia influence in Iraq would want any
attack to be decisive. From this logic grows the idea of
destroying the political-military infrastructure of the clerical
regime and perhaps encouraging separatist Kurdish and Azeri
risings in the north-west. Some Washington planners have hopes
of the Sunnis of oil-rich Khuzestan breaking away too.
A new war may not be as politically disastrous in Washington as
many believe. Scott Ritter, the whistleblowing former UN weapons
inspector, points out that few in the Democratic party will
stand in the way of the destruction of those who conducted the
infamous Tehran embassy siege that ended Jimmy Carter's
presidency. Mr Ritter is one of the US analysts, along with
Seymour Hersh, who have led the allegations that Washington is
going to war with Iran.
For an embattled President Bush, combating the mullahs of Tehran
may be a useful means of diverting attention from Iraq and
reestablishing control of the Republican party prior to next
year's congressional elections. From this perspective, even an
escalating conflict would rally the nation behind a war
president. As for the succession to President Bush, Bob Woodward
has named Mr Cheney as a likely candidate, a step that would be
easier in a wartime atmosphere. Mr Cheney would doubtless point
out that US military spending, while huge compared to other
nations, is at a far lower percentage of gross domestic product
than during the Reagan years. With regard to Mr Blair's
position, it would be helpful to know whether he has committed
Britain to preventing an Iranian bomb "come what may" as he did
with Iraq.
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
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