Everyday we read of the escalating tensions between the United States, Britain and Iran. From Russia comes the headline that American forces in the region will be ready to implement an attack on Iran’s air defense systems, command and control centers, and nuclear facilities by April 6th:
Russian military intelligence services are reporting a flurry of activity by U.S. Armed Forces near Iran’s borders, a high-ranking security source said Tuesday.
“The latest military intelligence data point to heightened U.S. military preparations for both an air and ground operation against Iran,” the official said, adding that the Pentagon has probably not yet made a final decision as to when an attack will be launched.
The proposed military action against Iran even has an official operation name assigned to it, according to a report posted at Al-Arabiyya on Thursday:
Al-Arabiyya reported on its Web site on Thursday that the Bush administration is preparing to launch a military operation, dubbed “The Sting,” to strike 20 Iranian nuclear plants, disabling Iran’s atomic program for at least five to seven years.
So what the hell is going on? Are we just a few weeks away from the war with Iran that people have been warning us about since at least 2004?
(cont.)
Who Benefits from the British Hostage Crisis?
Diplomatic positions are hardening between the US, the UK and Iran regarding the 15 British sailors and marines taken hostage by Iranian forces last week in the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway. Not surprisingly it’s the US which is talking the toughest, and trying to conflate the hostage crisis with the conflict over Iran’s nuclear program:
A week after 15 British sailors were arrested by Iranian authorities on the Iran-Iraq border, the United States has ruled out a deal to exchange five Iranian officials captured in Iraq for the British hostages.
US State department spokesman Sean McCormack said that reports the US would consider a swap were erroneous.
“The international community is not going to stand for the Iranian government trying to use this issue to distract the rest of the world from the situation in which Iran finds itself vis-a-vis its nuclear program,” McCormack said. […]
Meanwhile, Iran’s ambassador to Moscow was quoted as telling a Russian television station that the 15 British sailors and marines may face trial and legal moves have already been launched.
“It is possible that the British soldiers who entered into Iranian waters will go on trial for taking this illegal action,” Ambassador Gholamreza Ansari told Russian television channel Vesti-24, according to Iran’s IRNA news agency.
Sounds like hardliners in the US and Iran want this crisis to continue, but if I had to point the finger at one side, I’d pick the US Government. Clearly our diplomats are trying to fan the flames of the conflict, even as the British attempt to resolve this matter peacefully. But then, it suits the Bush administration’s purposes to paint Iran as the Mother of All Evil in the Middle East.
The Phony Nuclear Crisis
First off, it’s important to remember that the Iranian “nuclear crisis” has been substantially hyped by the Bush administration and various media sources with right wing ties which have conflated Iran’s actions into an imminent threat of nuclear war with Iran allegedly to be unleashed by Iran against Israel and/or the United states. There is no imminent threat of an Iranian atomic bomb anytime in the near future, whatever Iran’s intentions may be regarding its uranium enrichment program. As highlighted by many reports such as this one (from a story that originally appeared in The Washington Post in September 2006), Iran has been experiencing setbacks and technical difficulties with its enrichment program for the last year or so, and is years away from enriching enough bomb grade uranium to produce even one primitive nuclear device:
Western analysts had expected that the Iranians would move quickly to expand the enrichment effort to meet their near-term goal of having six cascades of 164 centrifuges each, or a total of nearly 1,000 centrifuges. The danger here was technological mastery rather than raw output of uranium. Even with 3,000 centrifuges operating, intelligence analysts estimate that it would take two to three years to produce enough highly enriched uranium for one bomb. Iran’s eventual goal is a massive array of more than 50,000 centrifuges at Natanz.
But problems surfaced this summer. The Aug. 31 IAEA report, marked “Restricted Distribution,” noted that since June, Iran had been feeding uranium into a small 20-centrifuge test cascade “for short periods of time,” and that it had conducted various tests in June, July and August of the initial 164-centrifuge cascade. “The installation of a second 164-machine cascade is proceeding,” the report noted, but it added that Iran planned to test the second cascade in September without injecting uranium.
What happened to slow the expected pace? IAEA analysts have told U.S. and European officials that it appears the centrifuges are overheating when uranium gas is injected. “The Iranians are unable to control higher temperatures, and after a short period they must stop because of higher temperatures. So far they haven’t been able to solve this,” says one Western intelligence official who has been briefed on the IAEA findings. In addition, this official said, some centrifuges “are simply crashing — 10 or so have broken down and must be replaced.”
Even now, despite the new UN sanctions approved by the Security Council, the IAEA continues to monitor Iran’s nuclear facilities, and Iranian officials have promised continue their cooperation with the IAEA’s inspection regime:
TEHRAN, March 31 (Xinhua) — A top Iranian nuclear official said on Saturday that his country would not keep the disputed nuclear activities secret but continue to allow the UN atomic agency to monitor its program, the state radio reported.
“Inspection and cooperation (with the International Atomic Energy Agency) will continue and there’s no change or suspension,”Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Tehran’s representative to the IAEA, was quoted as saying.
“There’s no problem, IAEA inspectors have supervised all Iranian nuclear activities, including enrichment work,” he added.
So, the idea that Iran’s nuclear ambitions are an imminent danger that requires immediate military action on the part of the United States is simply a fabrication promoted by the Bush administration, and certain elements within the media who support regime change in Iran by any means necessary. The Iranians may not have been entirely forthcoming about their intentions regarding their nuclear program, but the idea that they will shortly possess the capability produce nuclear weapons is a myth fostered by those who want to involve the US military in another, much more dangerous military conflict in the Middle East.
Who’s provoking Whom?
The Blair government (with respect to the current hostage crisis) and the United States over the past few months have accused Iran of provoking the current tensionbs in the region. The American government has particularly pushged this line, with its allegations (mostly unproved and undocumented) of alleged Iranian skullduggery in the supplying of arms to “terrorists” in Iraq which are being used to kill American troops. Ignoring the fact that most US military deaths are the result of attacks by the Sunni insurgency, of which our reputed ally, Saudi Arabia is the primary financier, President Bush and various administration and Pentagon sources have pushed the claim that Iran is the primary bad actor in Iraq, responsible for much of the violence that is occurring there.<p.
It is almost certainly true that Iran has been supplying arms and supporting various Shi'a militias in Iraq, However, the primary beneficiary of Iranian largesse is reputed to be SCIRI, the Shi’ite militia which is Prime Minister Maliki’s principal supporter. It’s unlikely SCIRI is going out of its way to attack Americans when their man is in charge of US supported regime in Iraq.
Indeed, a case can easily be made that the United States is much more the provocateur than the victim of Iran’s actions, as this article in the Guardian documents:
The extent of covert US operations against Iran is unquantifiable. There is no evidence that Britain is involved, although some knowledge must be assumed given the key role of British forces along the Iraq border. But the impact of Washington’s and its proxies’ activities is increasingly measurable.
Iran’s complex ethnic makeup renders it especially vulnerable to external disruption. The population is 50% Persian, 24% Azari, 8% Kurd. Iranian officials maintain Sunni Arab, oil-rich Khuzistan, abutting the Shatt al-Arab, is a high-value target for CIA and British subversion using agents linked to exiled resistance groups.
Terrorist bomb attacks and other ostensibly separatist violence are a regular occurrence. There were unconfirmed reports in January last year of an attempt to assassinate President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Ahvaz. The unrest has produced harsh reprisals, including executions. It is perhaps Iran’s most sensitive border area – as the British captives have discovered.
But Iran also accuses Pakistan’s pro-western government and others of complicity in recent attacks on security personnel in mostly Sunni, south-eastern Sistan-Baluchistan province.
Apart from strengthening internal opposition, the supposed American aim is to block a gas pipeline that would cross Baluchistan en route to India. The US has been pressing Delhi to scrap the project, as it is urging Turkey, European countries and oil companies to cut Iranian energy ties. […]
Iranian officials place the row over the British captives in the context of escalating, multi-dimensional pressure on Tehran orchestrated by the US.
Acknowledged, as opposed to covert, American policy avenues include bilateral and UN sanctions relating to the nuclear issue; ongoing attempts to choke development of Iran’s oil and other industries by curtailing access to the international banking system, foreign investment and (mostly European) export credits; and this week’s unsubtle demonstration of US naval and aerial power on Iran’s doorstep in the Gulf.
The US exercises went ahead despite the delicate position of the British captives, underscoring fears that Washington may try to exploit the situation even as London tries to defuse it.
For Iranian officials, all this, coupled with US squeezing of Iranian interests in Iraq and Washington’s attempts to build anti-Tehran Arab alliances, looks like undeclared warfare. Whether it was pre-planned or not, their handling of the Shatt al-Arab incident may be their way of saying: enough.
It’s understood that are media in America will not report the true nature or extent of the Bush administration’s actions to provoke the Iranian regime, but to observers in Britain and around the world those activities are well known, and not well regarded. It’s why Russia continues to issue official government statements warning the United States not to attack Iran, and which are probably behind the recent disclosures in Russia’s government controlled press of American military readiness and plans for an April strike by US forces. Its why Russia has also been busy selling air defense missiles to Iran, as well.
So what will happen? Is it War?
I’ve thought long and hard over this question the past several weeks. Would the Bush administration really take such a precipitous step in the face of ever decreasing domestic support for its policies in Iraq? Would they really order military strikes now despite the ever widening domestic political scandals that threaten to ensnare senior White House officials, including the President and Vice president? Will they ignore the warnings of Russia and China not to use military force to resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis? Would Bush really unleash yet another war despite the reports that several senior Generals and Admirals will resign in protest if or when he issues the attack order?
Sadly, I have to conclude Bush would, and without a moment’s hesitation. For the time being, I believe he is merely ratcheting up the pressure on Iran and is not yet ready to pull the trigger on this insane and foolish plan to pull Iran into his ever more delusional “War on Terror.” At least that’s what I sincerely hope is true.
But based on his past practice of lying this country into the quagmire that is Iraq, his increasing political isolation, and his messianic belief in his appointment by God Almighty to remake the Middle East in America’s image (i.e., Exxon’s and Halliburton’s image) I certainly have no confidence in that belief. At some point, unless events conspire against him in some way I can’t yet foresee, I remain convinced that he will issue that order. God help us all when that day comes.
