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The American and Israeli governments have gotten no lack of warnings
about the risks of attacking Iran, but it seems that powerful circles
in both countries are continuing to contemplate such an action.
Recently, tensions have escalated.
After the U.S. government launched its adventure in Iraq, it is hard to
predict what further adventures it might undertake. Likewise, after the
Israeli regime’s ruthless (and failed) assault on Lebanon two years
ago, it also can be suspected of an inclination toward adventurism to
escape the threats facing it from Iranian-backed forces in Lebanon and
Palestine.
The immediate threat that Israel faces is not in fact from the
hypothetical Iranian nuclear capacity but from the Iranian reinforcement
of Hizbullah and Hamas, which remain on a constant war footing with the
Zionist state. Indeed, it was Saddam Hussein's support for the
Palestinian resistance that was apparently one of the major factors
motivating the U.S. to launch its war against Iraq when it did.
According to a long article by Seymour M. Hersh, the leading
journalistic observer of this question in the U.S., in the July 7 New
Yorker, the responsible American military commanders are opposed to an
attack on Iran, while aggressive right-wing elements in the Bush
administration—in particular, Vice President Cheney—continue to favor
it.
According to Hersh, even Bush's current
Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, at least until fairly recently,
opposed a military confrontation with Iran. Hersh said in his article:
"A Democratic senator told me that, late
last year, in an off-the-record lunch meeting, Secretary of Defense
Gates met with the Democratic caucus in the Senate. (Such meetings are
held regularly.) Gates warned of the consequences if the Bush
Administration staged a preemptive strike on Iran, saying, as the
senator recalled, ‘We'll create generations of jihadists, and our
grandchildren will be battling our enemies here in America.’"
On July 3, the top U.S. military officer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff Michael Mullen said, as reported by the Los Angeles Times:
"‘Opening up a third front right now would be extremely stressful
for us,’ he said, referring to the prospect of a direct clash with Iran
while fighting continues in Iraq and Afghanistan. 'This is a very
unstable part of the world, and I don't need it to be more
unstable.’"
Mullin's remarks were in response to a question prompted by a recent
large-scale Israeli air force war game that had appeared to be a practice
run for a bombing of Iran. The military operation aroused fears both in
Israel and the United States.
On July 1, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported: "Senior defense
officials in Washington believe that Israel may attack Iran's nuclear
facilities before the end of the year, ABC News reported on Tuesday. A
top Pentagon official was quoted in the report as saying there is an
‘increasing likelihood’ that Israel will carry out an attack, leaving
Washington concerned that Iran would strike both the United States and
Israel in retaliation.
"According to the official, two ‘red lines’ would prompt an
Israeli strike. The first trigger would be once enough highly enriched
uranium is produced at Iran's Natanz nuclear facility to create a
nuclear bomb, which U.S. and Israeli assessments predict to occur will
the end of this year or next.
"'The red line is not when they get to that point, but before they
get to that point,' the official was quoted as saying. 'We are in the
window of vulnerability.'
The second trigger, according to the official, would be linked to
Iran's acquisition of the SA-20 air defense system it is purchasing
from Russia. The official said Israel may be likely to attack Iran
before the system is put into place and Tehran's deterrence bolstered."
Iranian officials have warned repeatedly that Iran will respond to a
bombing attack by declaring all-out war on Israel and by closing the
Straits of Hormuz through which about 40 percent of the world's oil is
transported. The Los Angeles Times reported July 3: "The head of
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard had warned last week that his
government would impose controls on shipping through the Strait of
Hormuz if the country was attacked. But U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Kevin J.
Cosgriff said at a conference of regional naval leaders Wednesday in
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, that the U.S. would not allow Iran to
block the key waterway."
Some advocates of war with Iran have even advocated hitting Iranian oil
exports. The June 29 British Guardian noted: "Right-wing
think-tanks ... such as the American Enterprise Institute and the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy, have been vocal in their
advocation of confronting Iran. Indeed, the institute recently produced
a report on a theoretical military attack on Iran authored by Patrick
Clawson and Michael Eisenstadt, entitled 'The Last Resort: Consequences
of Preventive Military Action Against Iran'.
“The study fell short of recommending such an
attack but it did provide an exhaustive argument on why and how such an
attack would work. That led critics to dub it a blueprint for war with
Iran. It suggested that the possible best line of attack would in fact
not be against Tehran's nuclear programme but against its oil industry,
thus cutting off the source of Iran's current wealth. ‘The political
shock of losing the oil income would cause Iran to rethink its stance,’
the report suggested."
The Guardian also pointed out: "It [this report] comes at a time
when a resolution has been put forward in Congress calling for a naval
blockade of Iran led by US warships. The proposal calls for the United
States to lead an international effort to cut off the country by sea,
something that would almost certainly by seen as an act of war by
Iran."
The authors of this article in the Guardian also noted what appeared to
be a propaganda buildup for war in Israel. "... it is clear that
Israel has launched an aggressive information campaign apparently
designed to soften up public opinion for the case for war, reminiscent
of the run-up to the war against Iraq. Indeed, some of the same cast
are back on stage, not least the former US ambassador to the UN, John
Bolton, who has loudly been making the case for an Israeli
strike."
One of the reasons for the increasing fears of war with Iran is the
decision of the Bush administration at the end of 2007 to increase
funding to groups involved in terrorist campaigns against the Iran
government, as well as reports that U.S. "special operations"
teams are operating within Iran allegedly to strike at Iranians aiding
insurgent groups in Iraq.
This already amounts to skirmishing with the Iranian government,
although all of these groups put together are no threat to the
stability of the regime. Most of them are based on peripheral national
minorities and some of them are even close to al-Qaida.
The contrast between the warlike noises coming from some U.S. and
Israeli ruling circles and the expressed fears of military experts in
both countries about the dangers of a confrontation with Iran have
fueled suppositions that the war talk may really be just a game of
political pressure. In fact, one of the best informed and influential
of the organs of the British ruling class, The Economist, headlined its
story on the increased tensions as "Dangerous Games."
If these are "games," they are certainly dangerous ones. The
basic problem is that the U.S. government is getting more and more
entangled in maneuvers in a minefield. And there is always the
possibility that it may at some point make a fatal turn.
For that reason, it becomes more and more urgent to build a mass
movement in the United States to force those who rule the country to
withdraw from Iraq, to cease sponsoring Zionist oppression of the
Palestinians—and to halt the war threats against Iran. Five years of
the war and occupation in Iraq have shown that the American people pay
the price of such gambles, not the big capitalist interests like
Halliburton that have reaped huge profits from them.
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