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Like many people, I find it extremely
difficult to believe that President Bush could actually do anything
so crazy as to launch a military attack against Iran, and that
even if he wanted to, the Congress, the Pentagon, and the American
public would ever countenance such action. But I remember in
the spring of 2002 writing a "Dear Friends" memo just
like this one predicting that the apparent intentions of the
Bush Administration to invade Iraq would certainly turn out to
be nothing but a bluff, and supporting that assertion by listing
all the reasons why actually doing so would lead to utter disaster.
Many of my friends told me at the time that I was missing the
point --- regime change was DEFINITELY going to happen, and I
was exaggerating the downside consequences. The problem is that
today the downside risks of attacking Iran seem even more horrendous
---- and yet? (As George Will said last Sunday to George Stephanopoulos
-- "When was the last time this president ever worried about
getting approval in advance from the Congress or the public?")
It makes me nervous when my president truly believes he is carrying
out the will of God.
So this is why I reluctantly
believe today that Bush will indeed launch an attack on Iran
before the expiration of his term of office:
1. As expected, Iran has offered
to enter negotiations, but has rejected the precondition that
they discontinue uranium enrichment. Iran will continue to stall
indefinitely in the expectation that the U.S. cannot summon the
international political and economic clout to damage Iran to
any critical degree in the near future. Meanwhile, Iran remains
totally and sincerely convinced (with ample justification) that
the U.S. is committed to overthrowing the Teheran regime on the
tactical level, and waging a broader war against Islam on the
strategic level. Rightly or wrongly, Iranian leaders interpret
Israeli-US joint collaboration in Lebanon as the final proof
of both suspicions. Nothing will shake that conviction.
We can huff and puff, but the reality is that we will not succeed
in either persuading or intimidating the Iranian leadership into
doing what we want them to do. This is the nub of the problem
in Washington: none of the principal decision-makers --- Bush,
Cheney, Rumsfeld or Rice --- (even Rice!) --- understands and
accepts this simple reality, and so all the expectations and
calculations that go into the formation of U.S. policy start
from a faulty premise.
2. The U.S. will fail to get
the UNSC to establish (and then enforce) a regimen of sanctions
that Washington considers tough enough --- despite the unanimous
concern of the larger powers, including China and Russia, that
a nuclear Iran would be undesirable. The Bush Administration
will fulminate about weakness of resolve and false friendship
of its "allies", but this will only exacerbate the
divisions and further expose the enfeebled state of American
political and moral leadership and the deterioration of its international
credibility. Iran will watch this soap opera, smiling like a
Cheshire cat.
3. Whatever sanctions are eventually
applied will have zero chance of persuading Iran to abandon its
nuclear ambitions; most certain is the fact that Iran will continue
its development program without any slowdown until it has passed
the US-Israel "red line" of possessing the necessary
raw material to produce a nuclear bomb whenever it chooses to
do so. (As we all know, possession of an operational bomb may
be as much as a decade or more in the future, but the "red
line" of achieving all the necessary technology, equipment
and ingredients could be crossed MUCH sooner than that --- and
almost certainly before Bush leaves office in January 2009.)
4. So this is the calculus
facing Bush:
a. He has vowed that he will
not leave office without first ensuring that Iran cannot become
a nuclear power. He has probably given the leaders of Israel
a similar promise --- privately and perhaps explicitly. That
means that he is effectively committed to attack Iran militarily
before January 2009 if all other means of accomplishing the objective
fail --- which they will. He believes deeply that Iran poses
an existential threat to our ally Israel and an extremely dangerous
threat to the American people, as well. Bush also believes that
Iran is determined to sabotage American hopes of establishing
a "new Middle East" ---- by covert support of anti-American
terrorist elements such as Hizballah and Hamas --- backed up
by the added power implicit in its eventual possession of nuclear
weapons. Given Bush's overarching dedication to "winning
the Global War on Terrorism", the neutralization of Iran
has become a sine qua non, equal if not higher on his list of
priorities than "victory" in Iraq --- another impossibility
that he is stubbornly unwilling to recognize, even privately
--- much less acknowledge publicly.
b. Bush presently intends (with
little faith or sincerity) to exhaust all opportunities to achieve
his objectives by diplomatic means or through economic sanctions.
Failing those, he will attempt to achieve his purposes by intimidation
--- by raising the threat of military attack. This will only
stimulate more internal support for the regime inside Iran and
more international opposition to U.S. policies, especially in
the Muslim world. Without question, moreover, an escalating danger
of US-Iranian military confrontation will greatly intensify internal
and regional opposition to US objectives in Iraq. (Note: A mystifying
disconnect in logic persists on this point in Bush's mind.)
c. The best hope for avoidance
of war with Iran (the catastrophic consequences of which are
too numerous and wide-ranging even to catalog) will be opposition
to the idea from the U.S. military and from American politicians
of both parties who have an appreciation of the weakened state
of U.S. defense forces. I am told, on the other hand, that Bush
has been persuaded by some military advisers that STRATCOM (Strategic
Air Command) has a workable plan for a comprehensive attack to
be launched almost simultaneously against 1500 targets in Iran
that will effectively prevent any Iranian retaliation, and will
obviate the need for a major ground operation or post-conflict
occupation. (The logic of this strategy apparently depends on
the hope that destruction of Iran's nuclear potential and its
conventional military capabilities in a spectacular display of
shock and awe will trigger an internal revolt against the present
government, with moderate pro-western elements standing ready
to seize power in the name of freedom and democracy. This must
be another fantasy dreamed up in the twisted minds of people
like Michael Ledeen and other neocon illusionists.)
5. I believe that Iran wants
very much to be accepted as a respected member of the community
of prosperous and influential modern states. And an Iran that
was indeed a trustworthy member of that community would be an
enormous benefit to America and to the world. That should be
the objective of American policy, therefore --- accommodating
and eventually modifying the legitimate national aspirations
of a self-interested and pragmatic Iran --- not launching a potentially
catastrophic preemptive war against a potentially powerful and
influential Muslim nation of seventy million people. Coaxing
Iran down a path leading toward successful achievement of international
respectability and acceptance is the single most important "carrot"
that we have to offer the Iranian leadership today. The potential
value of that positive incentive has been completely squandered,
however, by the pointless hostility and belligerence of American
"diplomatic" language --- starting with the "axis
of evil" and proceeding downhill from there to the most
recent offer of patently unacceptable ultimatums. This has greatly
diminished our own bargaining power while making the job of arriving
at a reasonable accommodation with Iran infinitely more difficult
in every way.
6. In order of importance,
however, the attraction from Iran's perspective of moving toward
desired international acceptance and respectability is completely
overshadowed by two other dominant factors at this time: the
need to reinforce and preserve Iran's national pride (recently
enhanced by the apparent success of its Hizballah surrogate in
Lebanon) , and its conviction that the United States is an implacable
enemy whose aggressive bullying must be resisted at all costs.
7. Adding up all those factors,
it seems clear to me that Bush has laid out the following course
for American policy, adding up to a Catch-22 from which I see
no escape:
a. Continuing futile efforts
to achieve Iranian capitulation through weak and ineffective
economic sanctions, to the accompaniment of counterproductive
vituperation and bombast;
b. Quickly followed by a period
of rapidly escalating threats of military action, during which
international and domestic opposition to American policy will
increase dramatically, making Bush's choices increasingly more
painful and difficult in every respect;
c. A judgment by Bush that
the immediate risks and costs of preemptive military action against
Iran are, in the final analysis, less formidable than the risks
and costs of tolerating Iranian nuclear possession --- and the
personal and national humiliation that would result from passive
acceptance of that outcome.
d. Sometime before the end
of his term, a massive air military attack on a wide range of
carefully selected targets in Iran, in partnership with Israel,
and against the advice of many of his advisers --- justified
by the conviction that a nuclear Iran would pose an intolerable
threat to American national security, firm in his faith that
God agrees with him on that point, and certain that history will
eventually recognize and properly appreciate his courageous and
visionary leadership.
Ray Close was a top CIA analyst in the Near
East Division. He is now a member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals
for Sanity. He can be reached at close@counterpunch.org
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