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In addition to
getting acquainted and conducting ‘velvet hammer’ diplomacy in person, my guess
is that Sec of State Rice is doing a lot of foreign travel now to areas where
it won’t be advisable later, just in case. Wonder what
the threshold will be, what will determine the point of no return? See related
items below. kwc The Iran War Buildup
by Michael T. Klare, The
Nation, posted online July 21, 2005 There is no evidence that President Bush has already made
the decision to attack Iran if Tehran proceeds with uranium-enrichment
activities viewed in Washington as precursors to the manufacture of nuclear
munitions. Top Administration officials are known to have argued in favor of
military action if Tehran goes ahead with these plans--a step considered more
likely with the recent election of arch-conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as
Iran's president--but Bush, so far as is known, has not yet made up his mind in
the matter. One thing does appear certain, however: Bush has given the
Defense Department approval to develop scenarios for such an attack and to
undertake various preliminary actions. As was the case in 2002 regarding Iraq,
the building blocks for an attack in Iran are beginning to be put into place. We may never know exactly when President Bush made up his
mind to invade Iraq--some analysts say the die was cast as early as November
2001; others claim it was not until October 2002--but whatever the case, it is
beyond dispute that planning for the invasion was well advanced in July 2002,
when British intelligence officials visited Washington and issued what has come
to be known as the Downing Street memo, informing Prime Minister Tony Blair
that war was nearly inevitable. What these officials undoubtedly discovered--as was being
reported in certain newspapers at the time--was that senior officers of the US
Central Command (CENTCOM) in Tampa, Florida, had already been developing
detailed scenarios for an invasion of Iraq and that Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld had been deeply involved in these preparations. On July 5, 2002, for
example, the New York Times
revealed that "an American military planning document calls for air, land,
and sea-based forces to attack Iraq from three directions--the north, south,
and west." Further details of this document and other blueprints for war
appeared in the Washington Post
and the Wall Street Journal. At
the same time, moreover, the Pentagon reportedly stepped up its aerial and
electronic surveillance of military forces in Iraq. This
record is worth revisiting because of the many parallels to the current
situation.
Just as Bush gave ambiguous signals about his intentions regarding Iraq in
2002--denying that a decision had been made to invade but never ruling it out--so, today, he is giving similar signals
with respect to Iran. "This notion that the United States is getting ready
to attack Iran is simply ridiculous," Bush declared in Belgium
on February 22. He then added: "Having
said that, all options are on the table." And, just as Bush's
2002 denials of an intent to invade Iraq were accompanied by intense
preparations for just such an outcome, so, today, one can detect similar
preparations for an attack on Iran. Just what form such an attack might take has probably not
yet been decided. Just as he considered several plans for an invasion of Iraq
before settling on the plan described in the Times,
Rumsfeld is no doubt considering a variety of options for action against Iran.
These could range from a burst of air and missile attacks to a proxy war
involving Iranian opposition militias or a full-scale US invasion. All have
obvious advantages and disadvantages. An air and missile attack would
undoubtedly destroy some key nuclear centers but could leave some hidden
facilities intact; it would also leave the hated clerical regime in place. The
use of proxy forces could also fail in this regard. An invasion might solve
these problems but would place almost intolerable demands on the deeply
over-stretched US Army. It is these considerations, no doubt, that are preoccupying
US military planners today. But while a final decision on these options may be
put off for a time, the Defense Department cannot wait to make preparations for
an assault if it expects to move swiftly once the President gives the go-ahead.
Hence, it is taking steps now to prepare for the implementation of any
conceivable plan. The first step in such a process is to verify the location
of possible targets in Iran and to assess the effectiveness of Iranian
defenses. The identification of likely targets apparently began late last year,
when the Central Intelligence Agency and US Special Operations Forces (SOF)
began flying unmanned "Predator" spy planes over Iran and sending
small reconnaissance teams directly into Iranian territory. These actions,
first revealed by Seymour
Hersh in The New Yorker in January, are supposedly
intended to pinpoint the location of hidden Iranian weapons facilities for
possible attack by US air and ground forces. "The goal," Hersh explained, "is to identify and
isolate three dozen, and perhaps more, such targets that could be destroyed by
precision [air] strikes and short-term commando raids." It is also probable, says military analyst William Arkin, that CENTCOM is probing Iran's air and shore
defenses by sending electronic surveillance planes and submarines into--or just
to the edge of--Iranian coastal areas. "I
would be greatly surprised if they're not doing this," he said
in an interview. "The intent would be
to 'light up' Iranian radars and command/control facilities, so as to pinpoint
their location and gauge their effectiveness." It was precisely
this sort of aggressive probing that led to the collision between a US EP-3E
electronic spy plane and a Chinese fighter over the South China Sea in April
2001. As this information becomes available, it is no doubt being
fed into the various "strategic concepts" and "strike
packages" being developed by US strategists for possible action against
Iran. That such
efforts are indeed under way is confirmed by reports in the international press
that Pentagon officials have met with their Israeli counterparts to discuss the
possible participation of Israeli aircraft in some of these scenarios. Although no public acknowledgment of
such talks has been made, Vice President Dick Cheney declared in January that "the Israelis might well decide to act
first" if
Iran proceeded with the development of nuclear weapons--obviously hinting that
Washington would look with favor upon such a move. There are also indications that the CIA and SOF officials
have met with Iranian opposition forces--in particular, the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK)--to
discuss their possible involvement in commando raids inside Iran or a
full-scale proxy war. In one such report, Newsweek
disclosed in February that the Bush Administration "is seeking to cull
useful MEK members as operatives for use against Tehran." (Although the
MEK is listed on the State Department's roster of terrorist groups, its forces
are "gently treated" by the American troops guarding their compound
in eastern Iraq, Newsweek
revealed.) Given
the immense stress now being placed on US ground forces in Iraq, it is likely
that the Pentagon's favored plan for military action in Iran involves some combination of airstrikes and the use of proxy forces like
the MEK.
But even a small-scale assault of this sort is likely to provoke retaliatory
action by Iran--possibly entailing missile strikes on oil tankers in the
Persian Gulf or covert aid to the insurgency in Iraq. This being the case,
CENTCOM would also have to develop plans for a wide range of escalatory moves. Repeating what was said at the outset, there is no evidence
that President Bush has already made the decision to attack Iran. But there are
many indications that planning for such a move is well under way--and if the record of Iraq (and other wars)
teaches us anything, it is that such planning, once commenced, is very hard to turn around. Hence, we should not wait until after
relations with Iran have reached the crisis point to advise against US military
action. We should begin acting now, before the march to war becomes irreversible.
Michael T. Klare is the defense correspondent of
The Nation and a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire
College. His latest book is 'Blood and Oil: The
Dangers and Consequences of America’s Growing Dependence on Imported Petroleum'. Article found at http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0722-20.htm Source: http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050801&s=klare Related Defense Dept admits rate of attacks by
insurgency will continue unabated for another 6 months: Increasingly violent suicide and roadside attacks are
expected to continue at a rate of 65 day/500 per week. Senior
officers continue to speak out in contrast to Cheney’s “last throes” reassurances. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002397618_iraq23.html Dept of Defense
quietly asks Congress to raise the maximum age for recruits to 42 for all
branches of military service http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-983408.php Now US accuses Iran of complicity
on 9/11 “According to testimony received by the 9/11 commission
- based on information from prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and about 100
electronic intercepts by the National Security Agency - an alliance of
convenience was established between the Shia Muslim Iranian leadership and the
Sunni terrorist organisation, well before September 11, 2001. The report is
expected to confirm the claim by Thomas Kean, its chairman, last month that
"there
were a lot more active [al-Qa'eda] contacts, frankly, with Iran and Pakistan,
than there were with Iraq". Some Bush officials are privately contemplating a possible military
strike against Iran's nuclear facilities before Russian fuel rods are delivered
next year. Teheran said yesterday that it had arrested an unspecified number of
Iranian al-Qa'eda supporters. US ‘bulking up”
missile defense in Asia http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/21/AR2005072102356.html |
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