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>From the World Policy Institute's Arms Trade Resource Center (http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms): IRAN: REGIME CHANGE OR RESURGENT DIPLOMACY? Apparently, at least some members of the Bush administration never learn. Despite the debacle in Iraq, where a preventive war justified on the basis of nonexistent weapons of mass destruction has morphed into an accelerating spiral of violence and chaos, a number of top administration officials have strongly implied that regime change and military strikes may be the best way to deal with Iran's nascent nuclear enrichment program. First we had Vice President Cheney breathing fire on March 7th at the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee: "The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on the present course the international community is prepared to impose meaningful consequences. For our part, the United States is keeping all options on the table in addressing the irresponsible conduct of the regime* We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon." The following week, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton -- the anti-diplomat -- ratcheted up the rhetoric when he told an interviewer from ABC News that if Iran were to obtain a nuclear weapon it would be "Just like September 11th, only with nuclear weapons this time, that's the threat* I think it's just facing reality and if you don't deal with it, it will become even more unpleasant." ("Bolton Compares Iran Threat to 9/11," Reuters, March 16, 2006). No one in the administration has yet said "we cannot wait for the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud," as Condoleezza Rice and President Bush did in the run-up to the war in Iraq, but that could be because the administration doesn't want to remind people how far off the mark they were in their scare-mongering over Iraq's alleged nuclear program. In the mean time, the Bush administration has released its new national security strategy, which vows that the United States will strike first "even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack." The document further notes that "[w]hen the consequences of an attack with weapons of mass destruction are so devastating, we cannot afford to stand idly by as grave dangers materialize* The place of preemption in our national security strategy remains the same." (Deb Reichman, Associated Press/Washington Post, March 16, 2006). This approach, which the administration refers to as "preemption," is in fact a doctrine of preventive war. The difference is that preemption is exercised against an adversary that is about to strike, while preventive war may be launched well in advance of proof that the potential enemy plans to attack the United States. The administration's strategy document identifies Iran as the greatest threat to the United States. But Bush National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley has denied that "the preservation of the doctrine of preemption is to preserve it with Iran as the principle case* our preference in terms of preemptive action is always to use diplomacy* but we retain obviously the right to use force as necessary." (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, "U.S.: New Security Strategy Names 'Tyrannies,' Singles Out Iran," March 16, 2006). The main obstacle carrying out the agenda of administration hawks is reality. Even Vice President Cheney and his acolytes know that with the bulk of the U.S. Army tied down in Iraq, a "boots on the ground" version of regime change in Iran is out of the question, especially since it is so much larger than Iraq, both geographically and in terms of population. Air strikes would come up against the practical problem that the Iranian nuclear program is widely dispersed, and it would be unlikely that there would be adequate intelligence or accuracy to eliminate all elements of the program. Despite recent mythology to the contrary, the U.S. Air Force is far from flawless. As Human Rights Watch has noted, in the early days of the intervention in Iraq a bombing campaign was conducted against fifty targets that were believed to be most likely to contain Saddam Hussein and his top leadership. The air strikes went 0 for 50, missing every single target. The potential political backlash from bombing Iran would be severe, ranging from Iranian efforts to hit U.S. troops in Iraq, to upgraded support for terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, to the generation of further anti-U.S. sentiments in the Islamic world. A military action with so little prospect of success and so many negative consequences is likely to generate considerable opposition, even within the Bush camp. Henry Sokolsky an official in the administration of George Herbert Walker Bush, put the case against bombing Iran as follows: "Targeting Iran's nuclear facilities risks leaving other covert facilities and Iran's cadre of nuclear technicians untouched. More important, any overt military attack would give Tehran a casus belli either to withdraw from the NPT [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty] or rally Islamic Jihadists to wage war against the U.S. and its allies more directly." (Henry Sokolski, "Defusing Iran's Bomb," Policy Review, June/July 2005, published by the Hoover Institution). David Isenberg of the British American Security Information Council has also cited a 2005 study by the U.S. Army War College study that reinforces this point: "As for eliminating Iran's nuclear capabilities militarily, the United States and Israel lack sufficient targeting intelligence to do this* Compounding these difficulties is what Iran might do in response to an attack." After being struck Tehran could declare that it must acquire nuclear weapons as a matter of self-defense, withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and accelerate its nuclear endeavors. This would increase pressure on Israel* to acknowledge its ownership of nuclear weapons publicly, and thus set off a chain of possible nuclear policy reactions in Cairo, Damascus, Riyadh, Algiers, and Ankara." (Cited in David Isenberg, "Overstating Iran's Threat: Fears of Pending Nuclear Attack Miss Target," Defense News, February 20, 2006). All of the above suggests that a diplomatic option is the only viable approach to persuading Iran to foreswear the development of nuclear weapons. Luckily, there is time to "give diplomacy a chance." Iran's current uranium enrichment effort is a small, pilot program that would need to be radically expanded before it would be capable of manufacturing enough uranium to build a bomb. In January the Institute for Science and Security released an issue brief indicating that Iran's current facilities are inadequate for producing bomb-grade uranium, and that in a worst case scenario it would take Iran at least three years to make a crude nuclear weapon (see citation and link below). Other analysts put the timeline on an Iranian bomb at five to 10 years. As for the content of a diplomatic approach, there is considerable disagreement about the best course. The Bush administration is currently pushing for UN sanctions, while Security Council members Russia and China would prefer to leave the matter up to monitors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Some non-governmental experts have suggested allowing Iran to have a modest uranium enrichment capability under strict IAEA surveillance. Others have suggested a regional approach that would include a freeze on Israel's military nuclear activities, a reversal of the nuclear deal with India (which rewards a nuclear-armed country that has never joined the NPT) and a strengthening of IAEA safeguards, including steps to make inspections mandatory instead of voluntary. As former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has suggested, one thing is clear:" the Bush administration should disavow any plan for regime change in Iran* In today's warped political environment, nothing strengthens a radical government more than Washington's overt antagonism. It is also common sense to presume that Iran will be less willing to cooperate in Iraq and to compromise on nuclear issues if it is being threatened with destruction." (Madeleine Albright, "Good Versus Evil Isn't a Strategy," Los Angeles Times, March 24, 2006). RESOURCES ON IRAN "Iran's Next Steps: Final Tests and the Construction of a Uranium Enrichment Plant," ISIS Issue Brief, David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, January 12, 2006. http://www.isis-online.org/publications/iran/irancascade.pdf "Iran: Is There a Way Out of the Nuclear Impasse?" International Crisis Group, February 23, 2006 http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=3976&l=1 The Arms Trade Resource Center was established in 1993 to engage in public education and policy advocacy aimed at promoting restraint in the international arms trade. _____________________________ Note: This message comes from the peace-justice-news e-mail mailing list of articles and commentaries about peace and social justice issues, activism, etc. If you do not regularly receive mailings from this list or have received this message as a forward from someone else and would like to be added to the list, send a blank e-mail with the subject "subscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or you can visit: http://lists.enabled.com/mailman/listinfo/peace-justice-news Go to that same web address to view the list's archives or to unsubscribe. E-mail accounts that become full, inactive or out of order for more than a few days will become disabled or deleted from this list. 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