Israeli paranoia will cause unnecessary war with Iran

February 05, 2007

COUNT-DOWN TO WAR WITH IRAN?

Eric Margolis

In spite of being hopelessly bogged down in $700 billion wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan, the Bush/Cheney administration appears set on a
collision course with Tehran. In recent weeks, the White House's war of
words against Iran has sharply intensified, and grown increasingly
bellicose.

What is the White House up to? Either trying to bluff Tehran into
abandoning its entirely legal but worrisome civilian nuclear power
program, which would allow the administration to claim a major victory
after so many reverses.

Or, the lame duck Bush/Cheney Administration is attempting to divert
attention from the worsening debacle in Iraq and intends to provoke an
air and naval war against Iran as a last desperate,
ideologically-driven
assault against its foes in the Muslim World. One is reminded of the
suicidal banzai charges of cornered Japanese troops during World War
II.

Time is running out for the pro-war neocons: Bush has less than two
years left in office and is facing a revolt in Congress. Britain's
Prime
Minister Tony Blair is expected to leave office by the end of April -
or
earlier if he is engulfed by a raging scandal over selling titles. The
arrest of Lord Levy, Blair's principal fund raiser and pro-war mentor
on
the Mideast, has seriously undermined the faltering Blair government.

Evidence continues to accumulate that the Bush/Cheney Administration is
planning an air and naval war against Iran in spite of a rising chorus
of protests by serving and retired senior US military officers and
diplomats.

The heaviest concentration of US naval strike forces since the 2003 war
against Iraq is concentrating off Iran. In a disturbing replay of that
conflict, CIA drones and US Air Force recon aircraft, along with US and
British Special Forces are overflying Iran and probing its nuclear and
military installations.

CIA and Britain's MI6 are stirring unrest among Iran's Kurds and
Azerbaijanis, and arming Iranian Marxist and royalist exiles.

In a clear provocation, President George Bush ordered US forces in Iraq
to `kill' Iranians officials or diplomats who appear `threatening.' US
troops in northern Iraq broke into an Iranian liaison office and
arrested its military staff. Bush warned Iran not to `meddle' in
neighboring Iraq.

Pentagon sources accused Iran of smuggling weapons and explosive to
`Iraqi insurgents' - though the `insurgents' are in fact Shia
militiamen
allied to the US-installed Baghdad regime. Accusations that Iran is
behind attacks on US forces are clearly designed to lay the groundwork
for a `causus belli' - justifying war.

Half the 21,000 additional US troops headed to Iraq may be positioned
to
block an Iranian threat to the vulnerable main US Kuwait-Baghdad supply
line in the event of war with Iran. US anti-aircraft and anti-missile
batteries are being airlifted to Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman.

New contingents of US Air Force personnel and warplanes are arriving at
key forward air bases in Bulgaria and Romania that link the US to the
Mideast and Central Asia. US bases in Britain, Germany, Diego Garcia,
the Gulf, Central Asia, and Pakistan are reported on heightened alert.
Turkey is being pressed to allow US and Israeli strike aircraft to use
its air space to attack northern Iran.

The Pentagon's latest strike plan against Iran includes over 2,300
`high
value' targets such as its dispersed nuclear infrastructure and,
worryingly, operating reactors, air and naval bases, ports,
telecommunications, air defenses, military factories, energy networks,
and government buildings. Iran's water and sewage systems, bridges,
food
storage, and bomb shelters could also be targeted, as were Iraq's in
2001.

A swift `surgical strike' is not likely. Given the large number of
potential targets in Iran, and its efforts to defend and disperse some
of the high value ones; it is very probable the US would have to launch
multiple air and missile strikes against many of them to assure
destruction. Iranian ground forces moving toward Iraq and Kuwait would
also come under repeated attack, along with their long-ranged artillery
and mobile tactical missiles.

The US Treasury has mounted a highly effective campaign to strangle
Iran
financially, seriously hurting its foreign banking connections,
retarding industrial growth and energy production, and scaring off
foreign investment.

The Bush Administration and close ally Israel have sharply intensified
their war of words against Iran, claiming, implausibly, it poses a
nuclear threat to the entire world, though Tehran has no nuclear
weapons
or long-range delivery systems. Nor do Washington's fear-mongering
neoconservatives explain why on earth Iran would want to threaten the
rest of the world - even if it could.

The real neocon objective, of course, is not to rid the world of a
potential threat, but to get America into attacking and seriously
damaging the nation now regarded as Israel's primary foe, Iran. With
Egypt sidelined and under tight US control, Iraq demolished and
occupied, Syria isolated and petrified, only Iran remains a threat to
Israel and seriously challenges its continued occupation of Jerusalem
and the West Bank.

Politicians in Israel are in dangerous emotional overdrive and make
open
threats to attack Iran - even with nuclear weapons. Israeli rightists
and their American supporters absurdly claim Iran is a new Nazi Germany
and Israel faces a second Holocaust.

The fact that Israel possesses a powerful triad of air, land and
sea-based nuclear forces that can survive any surprise attack is never
mentioned. At any given time, Israel has at least one Dolphin-class
submarine on station in the northern Arabian Sea that can hit Iran with
nuclear-armed cruise missiles.

Though UN inspectors find no evidence Iran is producing nuclear
weapons,
Tehran, like Saddam's Iraq, is being told to prove an impossible
negative -that it has no nuclear weapons or secret programs hidden
away.
Ironically, there are persistent reports that Iran's nuclear program is
moving at a snail's pace and has encountered serious technical
problems.

With disturbing déjà vu, the US Congress and American media are
swallowing the administration's torrent of unproven accusations against
Iran precisely the way they lapped up grotesque White House lies about
Iraq.

Amid growing war fever in North America, last week France's President
Jacques Chirac sensibly observed, in an off the record interview, that
even if Iran had a few nuclear weapons, they would be only for
self-defense, and `not very dangerous.'

Iran would be obliterated by US and Israeli nuclear counter-strikes if
it ever used its nukes against Israel, noted Chirac with Cartesian
logic, and are unlikely to commit national suicide.

After his candid comments became public, Chirac retracted them after a
storm of protests from Washington, Israel and even members of his own
government who toe the US party line that Iran is a grave threat to
world security. Chirac, who is a lame duck, was simply telling a truth
that few cared to hear.