W.M.D. in Iran? Q.E.D. - New York Times

 

TIM RUSSERT: Mr. Vice President, welcome to “Meet the Press.”

VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: Good morning, Tim.

RUSSERT: How close are we to war with Iran?

CHENEY: Well, I think we are in the final stages of diplomacy, obviously. We have done virtually everything we can with respect to carrots, if you will. It’s time for squash. Not to mention mushrooms, clouds of them.

RUSSERT: But you squashed Iraq and that didn’t work out so well.

CHENEY: Iraq will be fine, Tim. It just needs a firmer hand. We learned that lesson. We’re not going to get hung up on democracy this time. (Expletive) purple thumbs.

RUSSERT: Isn’t Secretary Rice still pushing carrots for Iran?

W.M.D. in Iran? Q.E.D. - New York Times

Fearing Fear Itself

Beyond that, the claim that Iran is on the path to global domination is beyond ludicrous. Yes, the Iranian regime is a nasty piece of work in many ways, and it would be a bad thing if that regime acquired nuclear weapons. But let’s have some perspective, please: we’re talking about a country with roughly the G.D.P. of Connecticut, and a government whose military budget is roughly the same as Sweden’s.
Meanwhile, the idea that bombing will bring the Iranian regime to its knees — and bombing is the only option, since we’ve run out of troops — is pure wishful thinking. Last year Israel tried to cripple Hezbollah with an air campaign, and ended up strengthening it instead. There’s every reason to believe that an attack on Iran would produce the same result, with the added effects of endangering U.S. forces in Iraq and driving oil prices well into triple digits.

Leak Reveals Cheney's Plan for Iran Attack - Prensa Latina

 

Berlin, Oct 26 (Prensa Latina) An official close to US Vice President Richard Cheney leaked plans for an attack on Iran which have been made public Friday by the prestigious German media, Der Spiegel.

In the scenario concocted by Cheney s strategists, Washington s first step would be to convince Israel to fire missiles at Iran s uranium enrichment plant in Natanz. Tehran would retaliate with its own strike, providing the US with an excuse to attack military targets and nuclear facilities in Iran.

Democrats and Republicans alike have wondered what to make of the still mysterious Israeli bombing run in Syria on Sept. 6. Was it part of an existing war plan? A test run, perhaps? For days after the attack, one question dominated conversation at Washington receptions: How great is the risk of war, really?, says Der Spiegel.

Leak Reveals Cheney's Plan for Iran Attack - Prensa Latina

Real News Debate: Why is the US threatening Iran?

Massive Ordnance Penetrator

As part of a multi-billion-dollar request for more military spending earlier this week, the Pentagon asked for $88m to develop the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, a huge bunker-busting bomb, for its Stealth bombers. The Bush administration said the bomb was needed "in response to an urgent operational need for theatre commanders".

Democratic members of Congress questioned whether the weapon was intended for use against Iran, where nuclear facilities are largely hidden underground.

Jim Moran, a Democratic member of the House of Representatives' defence spending committee, said: "My assumption is that it is Iran, because you wouldn't use them in Iraq, and I don't know where you would use them in Afghanistan. It doesn't have any weapons facilities underground that we know of."

The immediate impact of the sanctions announcement will be felt in the boardrooms of banks and companies in Britain and elsewhere in Europe. Any business continuing to trade with Iran risks US reprisals.

Libertarians for Ron Paul

Libertarians for Ron Paul: "Iran Sanctions Endanger National Security The Libertarian Party has criticized the Bush administration’s new sanctions on Iran, saying the sanctions only worsen an already delicate situation. Libertarian Party Executive Director Shane Cory says “the United States should pursue more dialogue and less saber-rattling when dealing with Iran.” “The recent sanctions of the Bush administration on Iran indicate the United States is preparing for a war with a country it knows very little about,” Cory continues. “The talk of a potential ‘World War III’ and other harsh threats President Bush has used against Iran are extremely similar to the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. The last thing the United States needs is another war. Nothing has been worse for the national security of America than Bush’s aggressive foreign policy in the Middle East.” Full release from the Libertarian Party http://www.lp.org/media/article_530.shtml "

Bush warns of Iran attack threat

 

President Bush has said that a US-led missile defence system in Europe is urgently needed to counter the emerging threat of attack by Iran.

He said intelligence estimates showed Iran could have the capability to strike the United States and many European allies by 2015.

"If (Iran) chooses to do so, and the international community does not take steps to prevent it, it is possible Iran could have this capability," he said. "And we need to take it seriously now."

Mr Bush's latest warning about Iran's nuclear ambitions came in a broad defence of his security policies at the National Defence University.

"The need for missile defence in Europe is real, and I believe it's urgent," he said.

His warning was contradicted by Russian Foreign Minster Sergey Lavrov who said US-led missile defence initiatives in Europe and Asia were based on a mistaken assessment of the threat posed by Iran.

"North Korea poses a fundamental threat, but Iran does not,"he said.

Mr Bush sought to allay Russia's concerns and draw Moscow in, portraying the proposed system as a "co-operative effort" against "an emerging threat that affects us all."

He spoke positively of President Vladimir Putin's offer of facilities in Azerbaijan and southern Russia. The idea would be to replace the US plans for missiles based in Poland and a radar facility in the Czech Republic.

Mr Bush said the project was "part of a broader effort to move beyond the Cold War" and "could lead to an unprecedented level of strategic cooperation between" Russia and the US

FACT BOX KEY Iranian Nuclear Issues

Reuters) - Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani resigned on Saturday.

In August, Iran agreed with the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency to provide transparency about the scope of its nuclear programme.

The West suspects Iran is violating the Non-Proliferation Treaty by using a declared civilian nuclear energy programme as a cover for mastering the means to make atom bombs. Iran says it is seeking only an alternative source of energy.

An Iranian government spokesman said there would be no change in nuclear policy following Larijani's resignation.

Below are key issues the IAEA has about Iran's work which Western diplomats will want to see addressed by the agreement with Tehran:

* ADVANCED CENTRIFUGES

Inspectors have no access to sites where Iran has said it is trying to build P-2 centrifuges, which can refine uranium 2-3 times as fast as the antiquated, brittle P-1 model it is using for its initial enrichment programme.

* MILITARY LINKS

There has been intelligence, denied by Iran, about illicit efforts to "weaponize" nuclear materials, namely a "Green Salt Project" linking work on processing uranium ore, tests on high explosives and a missile warhead design.

* BLACK-MARKET IMPORTS

The IAEA says Iran has given inconsistent answers about when and why it appeared to obtain blueprints and parts for centrifuge enrichment machines from the former nuclear black market network of Pakistan's A.Q. Khan. Iran has also declined to turn over a document on machining uranium metal into hemisphere shapes suitable for the core of bombs.

* TRACES OF BOMB-GRADE URANIUM

Inspectors have sought satisfactory explanations on the origin of some particles of highly-enriched uranium found on some equipment used at atomic research sites.

* ACCESS TO SITES, OFFICIALS IN QUESTION

Iran has stonewalled IAEA requests to examine certain nuclear or related sites and interview officials deemed key to a full understanding of Iranian nuclear activity.

* UNDECLARED SITES

The IAEA cannot rule out Iran may have a military nuclear programme in covert locations. Tehran's cancellation last year of inspections at sites not declared to be nuclear, a move in retaliation for U.N. sanctions' steps, makes it much harder for inspectors to detect possible clandestine activity.

* DESIGN INFORMATION ON PLANNED NUCLEAR SITES

In April, Iran stopped giving the IAEA advance design data on planned nuclear sites. This raised concern about Iranian goals for its planned Arak heavy-water reactor, which Western leaders say could be used to make bomb-quality plutonium. Iran permitted a one-off return of inspectors to Arak in July.

* EFFECTIVE MONITORING OF ENRICHMENT PLANT

The IAEA has sought assured access, with camera surveillance as needed, inside the underground Natanz enrichment hall as the level of centrifuge activity has risen sharply this year. The IAEA has a regular presence only outside the hall.

* PLUTONIUM EXPERIMENTS

Iran has resolved the IAEA's question about tests with plutonium, a major fissile element in atom bombs.

Resign, Retire, Renounce
What should generals do if Bush orders a foolish attack on Iran?
From the Joint Chiefs of Staff to U.S. Central Command, most of America's military leaders have expressed wariness about, if not outright opposition to, the idea of bombing Iran.

So, if President George W. Bush starts to prepare—or actually issues the order—for an attack, what should the generals do? Disobey? Rally resistance from within? Resign in protest? Retire quietly? Or salute and execute the mission?

The appropriateness of military dissent is a hot topic among senior officers these days in conferences, internal papers, and backroom discussions, all of which set off emotional arguments and genuine soul-searching.

Target Iran: where's Harper?

The hawks have changed tack in the past few weeks because their first gambit — trying to scare Americans with images of Iranian nuclear weapons — wasn't working. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that it is the U.S. and Israel who pose a nuclear threat to Iran, not the other way round.

The new tack is to crank up American anger by tying the Iranian government directly to the deaths of American soldiers by claiming that the war's most deadly IEDs are being supplied by official Iran.

The problem with this theme is that it is on equally shaky ground. Iran has no strategic interest in seeking to destabilize Iraq. In fact, the Iranian government supports the same two powerful Shia institutions currently backed by the U.S. government: the Supreme Islamic Council of Iran and the Dawa Party of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Iran has excellent diplomatic relations with the al-Maliki government. This may explain why the U.S. has had such difficulty in coming up with even a shred of hard evidence for its claims. There is none.

Pentagon ‘three-day blitz’ plan for Iran

"One Washington source said the “temperature was rising” inside the administration"

THE Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians’ military capability in three days, according to a national security expert.
Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, said last week that US military planners were not preparing for “pinprick strikes” against Iran’s nuclear facilities. “They’re about taking out the entire Iranian military,” he said.
Debat was speaking at a meeting organised by The National Interest, a conservative foreign policy journal. He told The Sunday Times that the US military had concluded: “Whether you go for pinprick strikes or all-out military action, the reaction from the Iranians will be the same.” It was, he added, a “very legitimate strategic calculus”.
President George Bush intensified the rhetoric against Iran last week, accusing Tehran of putting the Middle East “under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust”. He warned that the US and its allies would confront Iran “before it is too late”.
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Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton: “Because life is about choices, I think we have to consider the use of military force. I think we have to look at a limited strike against their nuclear facilities. If we were to strike Iran it should be accompanied by an effort at regime change … The US once had the capability to engineer the clandestine overthrow of governments. I wish we could get it back.”

The escape route

The recent agreement between Iran and the IAEA has already gone a long way to confirming the peaceful nature of significant parts of Iran's nuclear program. On plutonium experiments - one of the key US concerns - the agreement stresses: "...earlier statements made by Iran are consistent with the Agency's findings, and thus this matter is resolved."

And on enrichment activities: "The Agency has been able to verify the non-diversion of the declared nuclear materials at the enrichment facilities in Iran and has therefore concluded that it remains in peaceful use".

Such revelations come after two sets of American-initiated United Nations Security Council sanctions against Iran which demand a complete halt to Iran's enrichment activities. Iran has rejected the sanctions resolutions as illegitimate and unjust, as they contradict Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which grants all member states the inalienable right "to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination". This includes enrichment at low grades used as fuel in nuclear reactors which is what Iran currently produces at Natanz and Isfahan under the supervision of the IAEA.

Bomb, Bomb Iran
If you know the dingbat vice president is agitating for a conflict with Iran, if you know that Condi is chasing after Cheney with a butterfly net on Iran and Syria, if you know you can’t believe anything this administration says, why vote to give them more backing on their dysfunctional Middle East policy?

The schism in the administration is deepening in a way that should alarm Hillary. Mark Mazzetti and Helene Cooper report in today’s Times that Cheney and his hawks are arguing that the Israeli intelligence about Syria’s nascent nuclear capabilities that led to last month’s Israeli strike on Syria was credible and should dictate a harsher policy toward Syria and North Korea, while Condi, Bob Gates and calmer heads “did not believe the intelligence presented so far merits any change in the American diplomatic approach.”

Burnin' for you, Iran

Well it seems that the US government and our military is still itching for a war with Iran. Now General Patraeus is reminding us (no doubt at the prompting of idiots in the administration) that Iran is still "fueling" war against the U.S. in Iraq.

Here is a momentary reality check --- OF COURSE they are fueling a war against us in Iraq. Duh. Let's see... we illegally invaded and occupied their neighbor... we have branded Iran as a part of an "Axis of Evil"... we have taken it upon ourselves to dictate whether or not Iran may possess nuclear technology despite our utter silence on this issue as it relates to Israel, Pakistan, and India. .. we have declared a portion of their military as a terrorist organization, thus leading to the next concern... we have threatened military action against Iran and in all likelihood appear willing to strike them whenever it is deemed politically expedient to do so.

Now let me ask you, what would you do if you were in Iran's position?

The United States has engaged in this type of warfare for decades, yet we wish to call others out for utilizing the same tactics. Anyone remember Iran-Contra? The hypocrisy of our government is absolutely staggering, and our endless ability to tell others how to conduct their affairs while we not-so-secretly fail to walk our own talk is hypocrisy at its height.

Thanks to Bush

"It means that the mission of the Revolutionary Guard is to interfere more than before in the country's internal affairs and get involved in the repression against political, social, and cultural activists, and to intervene more in everything," he says.

The fallout from an attack on Iran would be devastating


The administration is increasingly convinced that it will be far easier to convince the American public of the case for war on Iran if it's seen as being about the protection of US troops rather than nuclear scaremongering from the people who brought you Saddam Hussein's WMD. So the focus of the military plans has changed accordingly: from a wide-ranging bombing assault on Iran's known and suspected nuclear sites to "surgical" strikes on the Revolutionary Guards, who the US claims are backing armed attacks on its occupation forces.

"If they have evidence," Abedin says of the U.S. military, "they've certainly not made it public."
Not everyone is convinced Iran's role in Iraq is as direct as U.S. officials suggest. Mahan Abedin, director of research for the London-based Center for the Study of Terrorism, told RFE/RL that allegations of a direct link between the Quds Force and dead American soldiers are "essentially political." "If they have evidence," Abedin says of the U.S. military, "they've certainly not made it public." Gen. Bergner, speaking with reporters in September 2007 to announce the capture of suspected weapons smuggler Mahmudi Farhadi, declined to discuss evidence.

Others question what sanctions against the Revolutionary Guards or its foreign counterparts would accomplish. The U.S. State Department has included Iran on its list of state sponsors of terrorism since 1984. But efforts to slap sanctions on the country's military forces could prove problematic, some analysts predict. Writing in the Financial Times, CFR's Takeyh says proposed sanctions illustrate the Bush administration's misunderstanding of Iranian politics. "At a time when the administration professes a desire for a negotiated settlement with Tehran," Takeyh concludes, "coercing a pillar of the theocratic regime erodes the possibility of a diplomatic resolution." Reidel is equally skeptical. "We're not going to put them out of business." Yet others say the move is long overdue. Because the unit's financial holdings bleed so far into the Iranian economy, Sazegara predicts sanctions on the Revolutionary Guards "would be fairly effective on Iran as well."

What a War on Iran Might Look Like [photo essay]



The Lebanon War of 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah lasted 34 days, and according to veteran war correspondent Scott Anderson, author of Double Blind, was noteworthy for its "sheer senselessness." AlterNet is pleased to host the above slideshow of images from Double Blind by photographer Paolo Pellegrin and an interview with author Scott Anderson, conducted by AlterNet's Nina Berman.

Bush's Agenda in Iran

By Reese Erlich, AlterNet. Posted October 3, 2007.



For years Iran has given political, economic and military support to Shia and Kurdish militias, but the administration has never proven that Iran is intentionally targeting U.S. soldiers.

Iran does not plan, nor does it have the capability of "wiping Israel off the map." If Iran is such an immediate threat to Israel, why hasn't it already launched a conventional missile attack? Such aggression would invite immediate destruction of Iran by both Israel and the United States. So if Iran hasn't started a conventional attack in 28 years, why would it possibly launch an atomic attack, even assuming it could develop a few such weapons years from now? The Iranian leaders are angry; they are not crazy.

Iran does support Hizbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine, but such support does not constitute a threat of Jewish annihilation. The U.S. and Israeli governments consciously distort and exaggerate Iran's threat in order to justify immediate military action.

For two years the United States has helped splinter groups among Iran's ethnic minorities to blow up buildings, assassinate Revolutionary Guards and kill civilians in an effort to destabilize the Tehran regime. In short, the United States does to Iran what it accuses Iran of doing in Iraq.

Iran's Islamic republic buried under the ash.


By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, September 21, 2007; Page A19

On Sept. 6, something important happened in northern Syria. Problem is, no one knows exactly what. Except for those few who were involved, and they're not saying.

We do know that Israel carried out an airstrike. How do we know it was important? Because in Israel, where leaking is an art form, even the best-informed don't have a clue. They tell me they have never seen a better-kept secret.
Which suggests that whatever happened near Dayr az Zawr was no accidental intrusion into Syrian airspace, no dry run for an attack on Iran, no strike on some conventional target such as an Iranian Revolutionary Guard base or a weapons shipment on its way to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Circumstantial evidence points to this being an attack on some nuclear facility provided by North Korea.

Three days earlier, a freighter flying the North Korean flag docked in the Syrian port city of Tartus with a shipment of "cement." Long way to go for cement. Within days, a top State Department official warned that "there may have been contact between Syria and some secret suppliers for nuclear equipment." Three days later, the six-party meeting on dismantling North Korea's nuclear facilities scheduled for Sept. 19 was suddenly postponed, officially by China, almost certainly at the behest of North Korea.

Apart from the usual suspects -- Syria, Iran, Libya and Russia -- only two countries registered strong protests to the Israeli strike: Turkey and North Korea. Turkey we can understand. Its military may have permitted Israel an overflight corridor without ever having told the Islamist civilian government. But North Korea? What business is this of North Korea's? Unless it was a North Korean facility being hit.


Which raises alarms for many reasons. First, it would undermine the whole North Korean disarmament process. Pyongyang might be selling its stuff to other rogue states or perhaps just temporarily hiding it abroad while permitting ostentatious inspections back home.

Second, there are ominous implications for the Middle East. Syria has long had chemical weapons -- on Monday, Jane's Defence Weekly reported on an accident that killed dozens of Syrians and Iranians loading a nerve-gas warhead onto a Syrian missile -- but Israel will not tolerate a nuclear Syria.

Tensions are already extremely high because of Iran's headlong rush to go nuclear. In fending off sanctions and possible military action, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has chosen a radically aggressive campaign to assemble, deploy, flaunt and partially activate Iran's proxies in the Arab Middle East:

(1) Hamas launching rockets into Israeli towns and villages across the border from the Gaza Strip. Its intention is to invite an Israeli reaction, preferably a bloody and telegenic ground assault.

(2) Hezbollah heavily rearmed with Iranian rockets transshipped through Syria and preparing for the next round of fighting with Israel. The third Lebanon war, now inevitable, awaits only Tehran's order.

(3) Syria, Iran's only Arab client state, building up forces across the Golan Heights frontier with Israel. And on Wednesday, yet another anti-Syrian member of Lebanon's parliament was killed in a massive car bombing.

(4) The al-Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard training and equipping Shiite extremist militias in the use of the deadliest IEDs and rocketry against American and Iraqi troops. Iran is similarly helping the Taliban attack NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Why is Iran doing this? Because it has its eye on a single prize: the bomb. It needs a bit more time, knowing that once it goes nuclear, it becomes the regional superpower and Persian Gulf hegemon.

Iran's assets in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq are poised and ready. Ahmadinejad's message is this: If anyone dares attack our nuclear facilities, we will fully activate our proxies, unleashing unrestrained destruction on Israel, moderate Arabs, Iraq and U.S. interests -- in addition to the usual, such as mining the Strait of Hormuz and causing an acute oil crisis and worldwide recession.

This is an extremely high-stakes game. The time window is narrow. In probably less than two years, Ahmadinejad will have the bomb.

The world is not quite ready to acquiesce. The new president of France has declared a nuclear Iran " unacceptable." The French foreign minister warned that "it is necessary to prepare for the worst" -- and "the worst, it's war, sir."

Which makes it all the more urgent that powerful sanctions be slapped on the Iranian regime. Sanctions will not stop Ahmadinejad. But there are others in the Iranian elite who might stop him and the nuclear program before the volcano explodes. These rival elites may be radical, but they are not suicidal. And they believe, with reason, that whatever damage Ahmadinejad's apocalyptic folly may inflict upon the region and the world, on Crusader and Jew, on infidel and believer, the one certain result of such an eruption is Iran's Islamic republic buried under the ash.

Shifting Targets

He recalled seeing stockpiles of explosively formed penetrators, as well as charges that had been recovered from unexploded American cluster bombs. Arms had also been supplied years ago by the Iranians to their Shiite allies in southern Iraq who had been persecuted by the Baath Party.

Ron Paul, Republican Debate: Iranian Threat

The Day After We Bomb Iran
Chris Weigant

"They're moving everybody to the Iran desk," one recently retired C.I.A. official said. "They're dragging in a lot of analysts and ramping up everything. It's just like the fall of 2002" -- the months before the invasion of Iraq, when the Iraqi Operations Group became the most important in the agency. He added, "The guys now running the Iranian program have limited direct experience with Iran. In the event of an attack, how will the Iranians react? They will react, and the Administration has not thought it all the way through."

That theme was echoed by Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former national-security adviser, who said that he had heard discussions of the White House's more limited bombing plans for Iran. Brzezinski said that Iran would likely react to an American attack "by intensifying the conflict in Iraq and also in Afghanistan, their neighbors, and that could draw in Pakistan. We will be stuck in a regional war for twenty years."

. . .

A senior European diplomat, who works closely with American intelligence, told me that there is evidence that Iran has been making extensive preparation for an American bombing attack. "We know that the Iranians are strengthening their air-defense capabilities," he said, "and we believe they will react asymmetrically -- hitting targets in Europe and in Latin America." There is also specific intelligence suggesting that Iran will be aided in these attacks by Hezbollah. "Hezbollah is capable, and they can do it," the diplomat said.

The article does quote one unnamed "senior European official" (most likely British) who has drunk deep of the neo-con Kool-Aid:

The European official continued, "A major air strike against Iran could well lead to a rallying around the flag there, but a very careful targeting of terrorist training camps might not." His view, he said, was that "once the Iranians get a bloody nose they rethink things." For example, Ali Akbar Rafsanjani and Ali Larijani, two of Iran's most influential political figures, "might go to the Supreme Leader and say, 'The hard-line policies have got us into this mess. We must change our approach for the sake of the regime.' "

This is rebutted with a quote from an unnamed "former [American] senior intelligence official":

"Do you think those crazies in Tehran are going to say, 'Uncle Sam is here! We'd better stand down'? " the former senior intelligence official said. "The reality is an attack will make things ten times warmer."

I hate all Iranians, US aide tells MPsBritsh MPs visiting the Pentagon to discuss America's stance on Iran and Iraq were shocked to be told by one of President Bush's senior women officials: "I hate all Iranians."


And she also accused Britain of "dismantling" the Anglo-US-led coalition in Iraq by pulling troops out of Basra too soon.

The all-party group of MPs say Debra Cagan, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Coalition Affairs to Defence Secretary Robert Gates, made the comments this month.


Hard line: Debra Cagan stunned the MPs with her comments


The six MPs were taken aback by the hardline approach of the Pentagon and in particular Ms Cagan, one of Mr Bush's foreign policy advisers.

She made it clear that although the US had no plans to attack Iran, it did not rule out doing so if the Iranians ignored warnings not to develop a nuclear bomb.

It was her tone when they met her on September 11 that shocked them most.

The MPs say that at one point she said: "In any case, I hate all Iranians."

Although it was an aside, it was not out of keeping with her general demeanour.

"She seemed more keen on saying she didn't like Iranians than that the US had no plans to attack Iran," said one MP. "She did say there were no plans for an attack but the tone did not fit the words."

Another MP said: "I formed the impression that some in America are looking for an excuse to attack Iran. It was very alarming."

Tory Stuart Graham, who was on the ten-day trip, would not discuss Ms Cagan but said: "It was very sobering to hear from the horse's mouth how the US sees the situation."

Ms Cagan, whose job involves keeping the coalition in Iraq together, also criticised Britain for pulling out troops.

"She said if we leave the south of Iraq, the Iranians will take it over," said one MP.

Another said: "She is very forceful and some of my colleagues were intimidated by her muscular style."

The MPs also saw Henry Worcester, Deputy Director of the Office of Iranian Affairs, who said he favoured talks with Iran.

The Pentagon denied Ms Cagan said she "hated" Iranians.

"She doesn't speak that way," said an official.

But when The Mail on Sunday spoke to four of the six MPs, three confirmed privately that she made the remark and one declined to comment. The other two could not be contacted.

Shifting TargetsThe Administration’s plan for Iran.
by Seymour M. Hersh
In a series of public statements in recent months, President Bush and members of his Administration have redefined the war in Iraq, to an increasing degree, as a strategic battle between the United States and Iran. “Shia extremists, backed by Iran, are training Iraqis to carry out attacks on our forces and the Iraqi people,” Bush told the national convention of the American Legion in August. “The attacks on our bases and our troops by Iranian-supplied munitions have increased. . . . The Iranian regime must halt these actions. And, until it does, I will take actions necessary to protect our troops.” He then concluded, to applause, “I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran’s murderous activities.”

The President’s position, and its corollary—that, if many of America’s problems in Iraq are the responsibility of Tehran, then the solution to them is to confront the Iranians—have taken firm hold in the Administration. This summer, the White House, pushed by the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney, requested that the Joint Chiefs of Staff redraw long-standing plans for a possible attack on Iran, according to former officials and government consultants. The focus of the plans had been a broad bombing attack, with targets including Iran’s known and suspected nuclear facilities and other military and infrastructure sites. Now the emphasis is on “surgical” strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere, which, the Administration claims, have been the source of attacks on Americans in Iraq. What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as counterterrorism.

The shift in targeting reflects three developments. First, the President and his senior advisers have concluded that their campaign to convince the American public that Iran poses an imminent nuclear threat has failed (unlike a similar campaign before the Iraq war), and that as a result there is not enough popular support for a major bombing campaign. The second development is that the White House has come to terms, in private, with the general consensus of the American intelligence community that Iran is at least five years away from obtaining a bomb. And, finally, there has been a growing recognition in Washington and throughout the Middle East that Iran is emerging as the geopolitical winner of the war in Iraq.

During a secure videoconference that took place early this summer, the President told Ryan Crocker, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, that he was thinking of hitting Iranian targets across the border and that the British “were on board.” At that point, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice interjected that there was a need to proceed carefully, because of the ongoing diplomatic track. Bush ended by instructing Crocker to tell Iran to stop interfering in Iraq or it would face American retribution.

At a White House meeting with Cheney this summer, according to a former senior intelligence official, it was agreed that, if limited strikes on Iran were carried out, the Administration could fend off criticism by arguing that they were a defensive action to save soldiers in Iraq. If Democrats objected, the Administration could say, “Bill Clinton did the same thing; he conducted limited strikes in Afghanistan, the Sudan, and in Baghdad to protect American lives.” The former intelligence official added, “There is a desperate effort by Cheney et al. to bring military action to Iran as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the politicians are saying, ‘You can’t do it, because every Republican is going to be defeated, and we’re only one fact from going over the cliff in Iraq.’ But Cheney doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the Republican worries, and neither does the President.”


from the issuecartoon banke-mail thisBryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said, “The President has made it clear that the United States government remains committed to a diplomatic solution with respect to Iran. The State Department is working diligently along with the international community to address our broad range of concerns.” (The White House declined to comment.)

I was repeatedly cautioned, in interviews, that the President has yet to issue the “execute order” that would be required for a military operation inside Iran, and such an order may never be issued. But there has been a significant increase in the tempo of attack planning. In mid-August, senior officials told reporters that the Administration intended to declare Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization. And two former senior officials of the C.I.A. told me that, by late summer, the agency had increased the size and the authority of the Iranian Operations Group. (A spokesman for the agency said, “The C.I.A. does not, as a rule, publicly discuss the relative size of its operational components.”)

“They’re moving everybody to the Iran desk,” one recently retired C.I.A. official said. “They’re dragging in a lot of analysts and ramping up everything. It’s just like the fall of 2002”—the months before the invasion of Iraq, when the Iraqi Operations Group became the most important in the agency. He added, “The guys now running the Iranian program have limited direct experience with Iran. In the event of an attack, how will the Iranians react? They will react, and the Administration has not thought it all the way through.”

That theme was echoed by Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former national-security adviser, who said that he had heard discussions of the White House’s more limited bombing plans for Iran. Brzezinski said that Iran would likely react to an American attack “by intensifying the conflict in Iraq and also in Afghanistan, their neighbors, and that could draw in Pakistan. We will be stuck in a regional war for twenty years.”

Painting Iranian Prez as mad man
Anyone who was in New York City last week must have thought the place had gone to the devil.

I refer to the ugly commotion that surrounded the visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was here attending the General Assembly of the United Nations.

The revolting treatment of him showed just how successful the Bush administration has been at selling its perverse and unproductive brand of foreign policy, which is that you don't talk to people who disagree with you. Instead, you vilify them, paint them as buffoons, portray them as the sole source of your problems, and make them out to be evil.



When Ahmadinejad asked if he could visit Ground Zero during his visit, all hell broke loose. No way, said Mayor Bloomberg and his police commissioner, while presidential hopefuls Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Rodham Clinton nodded vigorously in the background. Sure, Ahmadinejad's request was partly an act of political showmanship. But as far as I know, the Iranians played no role in 9/11. And if he wanted to make a token gesture of solidarity with Americans who suffered a terrible loss on that day, how harmful is that?

Then came the circus at Columbia University. After making a huge deal about the academy's commitment to free speech and open debate, Columbia president Lee Bollinger publicly insulted the Iranian president as if he were a naughty child.

If you invite someone to your house, you treat them with courtesy and a modicum of respect. Ask hard questions, for sure. But when you insult them so viciously before they can even get a word out, you have shut down any real opportunity for dialogue. Bollinger was showboating for the benefit of those who criticized him for allowing Ahmadinejad on campus in the first place.

His actions were also counterproductive. At a time when the United States is trying to find a way to co-exist peacefully in a world with millions of Muslims, belittling the elected leader of 75 million Iranians will be read as a calculated insult to all Muslims. And this will be true whether they share Ahmadinejad's beliefs or agree with Bollinger's.

The media once more embarrassed itself by engaging in childish and unrestrained behavior. Headlines and articles described the Iranian president as "evil," "loony" and a "grinning madman." Whenever this kind of litany of epithets starts up about some foreign leader, invariably spun out of Washington and passed along by the press, my inner alarm goes off. I know the person has thwarted our government's designs in some way, and that they're itching to take him out. "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad," Euripides said. Isn't that how the Bush administration revved up a war against Saddam Hussein, who was supposedly cooking up a nasty brew of weapons to use on you and me? As Dr. Phil would say, "How's that working for ya?"

Some journalists asked what could we possibly learn by giving a forum to the evil Ahmadinejad. Well, quite a bit, according to 140 church leaders who held a more civil meeting with the Iranian leader two days after the smackdown at Columbia. Two of them described him as a former professor of engineering, a former mayor of Tehran, something of an Islamic scholar, a deeply religious man, and someone whose political views are far more nuanced than they've been described in the press.

While he may share a deep resentment over Israel's control over much of the Palestinian territories that is felt by many Palestinians, he has said he does not support a military solution to the conflict, said Chris Ferguson, the World Council of Churches representative to the United Nations. And while his statements about the Holocaust have, at times, been disingenuous, his real complaint is that it focuses solely on the Jewish victims and has been used against the Palestinians. Ahmadinejad's remark at Columbia about there being no homosexuals in Iran showed a certain lack of touch with reality. But think of all the goofy things George W. Bush has said. I don't know if Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons, either. But I know we've been deceived by similar claims this administration has made about weapons of mass destruction.

"Many of the ideas about his being evil are based on things he didn't say," Ferguson told me. "You may find what he actually says to be unacceptable. But we should try to hold him to dialogue around what he's actually saying."

Last week, the argument flying around was that anybody who chose to communicate with Ahmadinejad was naive or foolish. But that was just good old American arrogance talking. And history has proved that arrogance is a most destructive form of foreign policy.

Sheryl McCarthy

can be reached at mccart731@

aol.com

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