More
Warnings Of A US War On Iran
By Peter Symonds
29 October, 2007
WSWS.org
The Bush administration’s
unprecedented decision last week to brand the Iranian Revolutionary
Guard Corps (IRGC) as a weapons proliferator and its Quds Force as a
“supporter of terrorism” has heightened tensions with Tehran
and undermined European efforts at negotiations, setting the stage for
a US attack on Iran.
While the White House still
claims to be seeking a diplomatic solution to the current confrontation,
a series of media articles have noted Washington’s increasingly
bellicose rhetoric and warned that the US appears to have decided on
military action against Iran.
In a comment last Thursday,
the British-based Financial Times declared that “the White House
once again seems hell-bent on being outwitted in the court of global
opinion; and, maybe, on making a strategic miscalculation that could
make the war in Iraq look like a sideshow”.
FT columnist Philip Stephens
noted: “If Mr Bush does intend to act he has to do so soon. The
window of opportunity for an attack, the conventional wisdom has it,
will close next summer. Even this president cannot take the nation into
another war of choice once the 2008 election campaign is under way.
This ticking clock coincides with a hardening view in Washington, and
in one or two European capitals, that coercive diplomacy has done nothing
to shake Iran’s resolve to acquire the means to make the bomb.”
Washington’s repeated
claims that Iran has a nuclear weapons program were undercut by International
Atomic Energy Commission (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei in comments
to CNN on Sunday. Asked if he had any evidence that Iran was seeking
to build a nuclear weapon, ElBaradei declared: “I have not received
any information that there is a concrete, active nuclear weapons program
going on right now.” After noting that the IAEA was seeking to
clarify outstanding questions, he again emphasised: “Have we seen
Iran having the nuclear material that can be readily used into a weapon?
No. Have we seen an active weaponisation program? No.”
Obviously fearful that the
Bush administration is intent on manufacturing a pretext for war, ElBaradei
added: “I very much have concern about confrontation, building
confrontation, because that would lead absolutely to a disaster. I see
no military solution. The only durable solution is through negotiations
and inspections... My fear is that if we continue to escalate from both
sides that we would end up in a precipice, we would end up in an abyss.”
Speaking on Australia’s
ABC radio this morning, he added: “I would hope that we should
continue to stop spinning and hyping the Iranian issue” because
it could lead to a “major conflagration... not only regionally,
but globally”.
One clear indication that
the Bush administration has no interest in a peaceful resolution to
the standoff with Iran was its hostility to an agreement reached in
August between the IAEA and Tehran to systematically answer outstanding
questions about Iran’s nuclear programs. On the one hand, the
White House insists Iran must shut down its uranium enrichment facilities
prior to any negotiation because of unresolved issues about its past
nuclear activities. On the other hand, the US reprimanded ElBaradei
for exceeding his powers when a process was established to address the
questions.
An article in the British-based
Sunday Times entitled, “Will Bush really bomb Iran?” noted
that the US air force had made a request for Congressional funding for
an “urgent operational need from theatre commanders” for
$88 million to equip B2 stealth bombers with a 13,600 lb bomb known
as a massive ordinance penetrator. The MOP is an advanced “bunker
buster” bomb designed to destroy targets deep underground. There
are no sites in Iraq or Afghanistan that would justify an “urgent”
order of such weapons—the obvious targets are Iran’s nuclear
facilities, especially the Natanz enrichment plant, which is housed
in a huge underground cavern.
The Sunday Times reiterated
Bush’s comments of a week ago warning of the dangers of World
War III if Iran gained the “knowledge to make a nuclear weapon”.
As the article observed: “Iran-watchers noted with interest the
use of the word ‘knowledge’. Bush it appeared, was determined
to act well before the mullahs got anywhere close to an actual bomb...
A senior Pentagon source, who remembers the drumbeat of war before the
invasion of Iraq, believes Bush is preparing for military action before
he leaves office in January 2009. ‘This is for real now. I think
he is signalling that he is going to do it,’ he said.”
The article dismissed the
argument that the US was simply engaged in empty threats designed to
extract concessions from Iran, concluding: “The most convincing
explanation for the sabre-rattling is that Bush has embarked on a course
of action that may lead to war, but there are many stages, including
the imposition of tougher sanctions, before he concludes a military
strike on Iran is worth the risk... If muscular diplomacy can stop the
mullahs, so much the better. If it cannot, Bush may decide to launch
an attack as one of the final acts of his presidency.”
Long-standing war plans
One of the most chilling
indications of the Bush administration’s advanced preparations
for war against Iran came from two former high-level insiders—Flynt
Leverett and Hillary Mann who worked as Middle East experts on the National
Security Council. In a lengthy interview published last week in Esquire
magazine, Leverett and Mann not only underscored the immediate dangers
of an attack, but pointed out that the Bush administration had never
been willing to seriously negotiate with Tehran. Given that both Leverett
and Mann are politically conservative and accept the Bush administration’s
unsubstantiated claims about Iran’s nuclear weapons programs and
support for anti-US militia inside Iraq, their comments are telling.
Esquire explained: “When
they left the White House, they left with a growing sense of alarm—not
only was the Bush administration headed straight for war with Iran,
it had been set on this course for years. That was what people didn’t
realise. It was just like Iraq, when the White House was so eager for
war it couldn’t wait for the UN inspectors to leave. The steps
have been many and steady and all in the same direction. And now things
are getting much worse. We are getting closer and closer to the tripline,
they say.”
Leverett told the magazine:
“The hardliners are upping the pressure on the State Department.
They’re basically saying, ‘You’ve been trying to engage
Iran for more than a year now and what do you have to show for it? They
keep building more centrifuges [to enrich uranium], they’re sending
this IED stuff [roadside bombs] over into Iraq that’s killing
American soldiers, the human rights internal political situation has
gotten more repressive—what the hell do you have to show for this
engagement strategy?’”
According to Leverett and
Mann, failure to obtain new UN sanctions combined with continuing Iranian
enrichment and “meddling” in Iraq, would trigger a military
response from the White House. “If you get all those elements
coming together, say in the first half of ’08, what is this president
going to do? I think there is a serious risk he would decide to order
an attack on the Iranian nuclear installations and probably a wider
target zone,” Leverett said.
“As disastrous as Iraq
has been, an attack on Iran could engulf America in a war with the entire
Muslim world,” Mann added. As a senior National Security Council
official, she was involved in secret talks with Iranian diplomats following
the September 11 attacks on the US. While the negotiations have been
reported previously, Mann is the first official to confirm that regular
discussions took place between 2001 and 2003, opening up the prospect
of easing tensions between the US and the Iranian regime then headed
by “moderate” President Mohammad Khatami.
Mann was part of a team of
US officials who met in Geneva with Iranian diplomats in 2001 to hammer
out the basis for Tehran’s cooperation in the US intervention
in Afghanistan. Iran agreed to provide assistance to any American shot
down over its territory, to allow the US to send food through its border
and to restrain anti-US Afghans in Iran, such as militia leader Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar. During the US bombing campaign, an Iranian intelligence official
provided targets for US warplanes. After the toppling of the Taliban
regime, Iran helped the US to install its puppet government headed by
President Hamid Karzai.
Far from offering any easing
of tensions in return, the Bush administration blocked any negotiations
with Iran or its ally Syria. Stephen Hadley, then deputy national security
adviser, drew up a brief memo in late 2001 to cover any contacts. It
became known as Hadley’s Rules. As described in the Esquire article,
these were: “If a state like Syria or Iran offers specific assistance,
we will take it without offering anything in return. We will accept
it without strings or promises. We won’t try to build on it.”
Bush’s response to
Iran’s assistance was to brand it along with Iraq and North Korea
in his 2002 State of the Union address as “an axis of evil”.
As Mann explained, the speech profoundly shocked Tehran, which nevertheless
continued monthly discussions for another year. While not reported in
the Esquire article, the Iranian regime provided assistance to the US
military in the course of its criminal 2003 invasion of Iraq.
A month after the Iraq war
began, Tehran sent an offer via the Swiss ambassador to the US offering
negotiations for a comprehensive settlement of all outstanding issues
between the two countries. A faxed memo included proposals on all of
the items that are routinely cited by the White House as reasons for
treating Iran as a pariah state: offers of “decisive action”
against all terrorists in Iran, an end to support for the Palestinian
organisations Hamas and Islamic Jihad, cessation of its nuclear programs
and an agreement to recognise Israel.
The Bush administration,
however, immediately dismissed the Iranian offer. A memo drafted by
Mann calling for the US to send a swift and positive response was blocked.
Condoleezza Rice, who was White House National Security Adviser at the
time, has subsequently denied even seeing the Iranian fax. Then US Secretary
of State Colin Powell privately praised Mann for her memo, but told
her: “I couldn’t sell it at the White House.” After
quitting their jobs, attempts by Leverett and Mann to publicise the
offer have been met with censorship and threats.
The Bush administration’s
flat refusal to countenance negotiations with Iran certainly reinforces
the warnings of Leverett and Mann about the dangers of a new US war
on Iran. But while they clearly regard such an attack as madness, the
two former Bush officials cannot explain why the White House is intent
on pursuing this course of action. As with the occupations of Iraq and
Afghanistan, the US is seeking to establish its untrammelled domination
over the energy-rich regions of the Middle East and Central Asia. Strategically
placed Iran, with its own huge reserves of oil and gas, is an obvious
next target in these reckless plans.
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