Sleepwalking
To Disaster In Iran
By Scott Ritter
30 March, 2005
Aljazeera
Late
last year, in the aftermath of the 2004 Presidential election, I was
contacted by someone close to the Bush administration about the situation
in Iraq.
There was a growing
concern inside the Bush administration, this source said, about the
direction the occupation was going.
The Bush administration
was keen on achieving some semblance of stability in Iraq before June
2005, I was told.
When I asked why
that date, the source dropped the bombshell: because that was when the
Pentagon was told to be prepared to launch a massive aerial attack against
Iran, Iraq's neighbour to the east, in order to destroy the Iranian
nuclear programme.
Why June 2005?,
I asked. 'The Israelis are concerned that if the Iranians get their
nuclear enrichment programme up and running, then there will be no way
to stop the Iranians from getting a nuclear weapon. June 2005 is seen
as the decisive date.'
To be clear, the
source did not say that President Bush had approved plans to bomb Iran
in June 2005, as has been widely reported.
The President had
reviewed plans being prepared by the Pentagon to have the military capability
in place by June 2005 for such an attack, if the President ordered.
But when Secretary
of State Condi Rice told America's European allies in February 2005,
in response to press reports about a pending June 2005 American attack
against Iran, she said that 'the question [of a military strike] is
simply not on the agenda at this point -- we have diplomatic means to
do this.'
President Bush himself
followed up on Rice's statement by stating that 'This notion that the
United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous.'
He quickly added, 'Having said that, all options are on the table.'
In short, both the President and the Secretary of State were being honest,
and disingenuous, at the same time.
Truth to be told,
there is no American military strike on the agenda; that is, until June
2005.
It was curious that
no one in the American media took it upon themselves to confront the
President or his Secretary of State about the June 2005 date, or for
that matter the October 2004 review by the President of military plans
to attack Iran in June 2005.
The American media
today is sleepwalking towards an American war with Iran with all of
the incompetence and lack of integrity that it displayed during a similar
path trodden during the buildup to our current war with Iraq.
On the surface,
there is nothing extraordinary about the news that the President of
the United States would order the Pentagon to be prepared to launch
military strikes on Iran in June 2005 .
That Iran has been
a target of the Bush administration's ideologues is no secret: the President
himself placed Iran in the 'axis of evil' back in 2002, and has said
that the world would be a better place with the current Iranian government
relegated to the trash bin of history.
The Bush administration
has also expressed its concern about Iran's nuclear programmes - concerns
shared by Israel and the European Union, although to different degrees.
In September 2004,
Iran rejected the International Atomic Energy Agency's call for closing
down its nuclear fuel production programme (which many in the United
States and Israel believe to be linked to a covert nuclear weapons programme).
Iran then test fired
a ballistic missile with sufficient range to hit targets in Israel as
well as US military installations in Iraq and throughout the Middle
East.
The Iranian response
triggered a serious re-examination of policy by both Israel and the
United States.
The Israeli policy
review was driven in part by the Iranian actions, and in part by Israel's
own intelligence assessment regarding the Iranian nuclear programme,
made in August 2004 .
This assessment
held that Iran was 'less than a year' away from completing its uranium
enrichment programme. If Iran was allowed to reach this benchmark, the
assessment
went on to say, then it had reached the 'point of no return' for a nuclear
weapons programme. The date set for this 'point of no return' was June
2005.
Israel's Defense
Minister, Shaul Mofaz, declared that 'under no circumstances would Israel
be able to tolerate nuclear weapons in Iranian possession'.
Since October 2003
Israel had a plan in place for a pre-emptive strike against Iran's major
nuclear facilities, including the nuclear reactor facility in Busher
(scheduled to become active in 2005).
These plans were
constantly being updated, something that did not escape the attention
of the Bush White House.
The Israeli policy
toward Iran, when it comes to stopping the Iranian nuclear programme,
has always been for the US to lead the way.
'The way to stop
Iran', a senior Israeli official has said, 'is by the leadership of
the US, supported by European countries and taking this issue to the
UN, and using the diplomatic channel with sanctions as a tool and a
very deep inspection regime and full transparency.'
It seems that Tel
Aviv and Washington, DC aren't too far removed on their Iranian policy
objectives, except that there is always the unspoken 'twist': what if
the United States does not fully support European diplomatic initiatives,
has no interest in letting IAEA inspections work, and envisions UN sanctions
as a permanent means of containment until regime change is accomplished
in Tehran, as opposed to a tool designed to compel Iran to cooperate
on eliminating its nuclear programme?
Because the fact
is, despite recent warm remarks by President Bush and Condi Rice, the
US does not fully embrace the EU's Iran diplomacy, viewing it as a programme
'doomed to fail'.
The IAEA has come
out with an official report, after extensive inspections of declared
Iranian nuclear facilities in November 2004, that says there is no evidence
of an Iranian nuclear weapons programme; the Bush administration responded
by trying to oust the IAEA's lead inspector, Mohammed al-Baradei.
And the Bush administration's
push for UN sanctions shows every intention of making such sanctions
deep, painful and long-lasting.
Curiously, the date
for the Bush administration's move to call for UN sanctions against
Iran is June 2005.
According to a US
position paper circulated in Vienna at the end of last month, the US
will give the EU-Iran discussions until June 2005 to resolve the Iranian
standoff.
'Ultimately only
the full cessation and dismantling of Iran's fissile material production
efforts can give us any confidence that Iran has abandoned its nuclear
weapons ambitions,' the US draft position paper said.
Iran has called
such thinking 'hallucinations' on the part of the Bush administration.
Economic sanctions
and military attacks are not one and the same. Unless, of course, the
architect of America's Iran policy never intends to give sanctions a
chance.
Enter John Bolton,
who, as the former US undersecretary of state for arms control and international
security for the Bush administration, is responsible for drafting the
current US policy towards Iran.
In February 2004,
Bolton threw down the gauntlet by stating that Iran had a 'secret nuclear
weapons programme' that was unknown to the IAEA. 'There is no doubt
that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons production programme', Bolton
said, without providing any source to back up his assertions.
This is the same
John Bolton who had in the past accused Cuba of having an offensive
biological weapons programme, a claim even Bush administration hardliners
had to distance themselves from.
John Bolton is the
Bush official who declared the European Union's engagement with Iran
'doomed to fail'. He is the Bush administration official who led the
charge to remove Muhammad al-Baradai from the IAEA.
And he is the one
who, in drafting the US strategy to get the UN Security Council to impose
economic sanctions against Iran, asked the Pentagon to be prepared to
launch 'robust' military attacks against Iran should the UN fail to
agree on sanctions.
Bolton understands
better than most the slim chances any US-brokered sanctions regime against
Iran has in getting through the Security Council.
The main obstacle
is Russia, a permanent member of the Security Council who not only possesses
a veto, but also is Iran's main supporter (and supplier) when it comes
to its nuclear power programme.
John Bolton has
made a career out of alienating the Russians. Bolton was one of the
key figures who helped negotiate a May 2002 arms reduction treaty signed
by Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
This treaty was
designed to reduce the nuclear arsenals of both America and Russia by
two thirds over a 10 year period.
But that treaty
- to Russia's immense displeasure - now appears to have been made mute
thanks to a Bolton-inspired legal loophole that the Bush administration
had built into the treaty language.
John Bolton knows
Russia will not go along with UN sanctions against Iran, which makes
the military planning being conducted by the Pentagon all the more relevant.
John Bolton's nomination
as the next US Ambassador to the United Nations is as curious as it
is worrying. This is the man who, before a panel discussion sponsored
by the World Federalist Association in 1994, said 'There is no such
thing as the United Nations.'
For the United States
to submit to the will of the Security Council, Bolton wrote in a 1999
Weekly Standard article, would mean that 'its discretion in using force
to advance its national interests is likely to be inhibited in the
future.'
But John Bolton
doesn't let treaty obligations, such as those incurred by the United
States when it signed and ratified the UN Charter, get in the way. 'Treaties
are law only for US domestic purposes', he wrote in a 17 November 1997
Wall Street Journal Op Ed. 'In their international operation, treaties
are simply political obligations.'
John Bolton believes
that Iran should be isolated by United Nations sanctions and, if Iran
will not back down from its nuclear programme, confronted with the threat
of military action.
And as the Bush
administration has noted in the past, particularly in the case of Iraq,
such threat must be real and meaningful, and backed by the will and
determination to use it.
John Bolton and others in the Bush administration contend that, despite
the lack of proof, Iran's nuclear intentions are obvious.
In response, the
IAEA's Muhammad al-Baradai has pointed out the lack of a 'smoking gun'
which would prove Iran's involvement in a nuclear weapons programme.
'We are not God', he said. 'We cannot read intentions.'
But, based upon
history, precedent, and personalities, the intent of the United States
regarding Iran is crystal clear: the Bush administration intends to
bomb Iran.
Whether this attack
takes place in June 2005, when the Pentagon has been instructed to be
ready, or at a later date, once all other preparations have been made,
is really the only question that remains to be answered.
That, and whether
the journalists who populate the mainstream American media will continue
to sleepwalk on their way to facilitating yet another disaster in the
Middle East.
Scott Ritter
former UN Chief Weapons inspector in Iraq, 1991-1998 author of 'Iraq
Confidential: The Untold Story of America's Intelligence Conspiracy',
published by I.B.