Scoop: Collins: Clinton's Threat to "Obliterate" Iran

 

Clinton hypothesized a genocidal attack on Israel by Iran. Her solution is a genocidal attack on Iran by the United States (i.e., "we will totally obliterate them"). Clinton failed to note that Iran lacks nuclear weapons. She also failed to mention that to launch an attack, the future Iranian leaders must be willing die and issue a death sentence to all of their citizens, given Israel's ability to respond (another point she didn't mention).

Clinton failed to consider that the Iranians would be destroying the very people they seek to protect, the Palestinians, who live both within and next door to Israel. And even if the Iranians could avoid retaliation from Israel and the United States (impossible to conceive); they would risk death, disease and hardship as a result of radioactive fallout.

Clinton's statement makes no sense whatsoever in terms of the situation discussed or the public dialog on the use nuclear weapons.

Intended and Unintended Consequences

If Clinton's goal was to appear "tough enough" to be president, then there might be some logic in making such a statement. I'll see your 'protect an ally' and raise you one 'obliteration.'

Why does she need to be tough? Just before Clinton responded to the question about Iran, "Good Morning America" reporter Brian Cuomo asked, "Is winning enough for you." Clinton responded, "I have to win, I believe that's my task and I'm going to do everything I can to win." It's clear that fulfilling her "task" means that there are no limits on what she will say and do to get elected.

In the short term, Clinton may have given President Bush some cover for the long anticipated preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

An imminent attack on Iran has been covered by a variety of sources. It came into clear focus during Zbigniew Brzezinski's Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing in February 2007. Recently, the concern has heightened with the resignation of Admiral William Fallon, head of the joint chief, who opposed an Iranian adventure

Scoop: Collins: Clinton's Threat to "Obliterate" Iran

Hillary Strangelove - The Boston Globe

 

AMERICANS have learned to take with a grain of salt much of the rhetoric in a campaign like the current Democratic donnybrook between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Still, there are some red lines that should never be crossed. Clinton did so Tuesday morning, the day of the Pennsylvania primary, when she told ABC's "Good Morning America" that, if she were president, she would "totally obliterate" Iran if Iran attacked Israel.

This foolish and dangerous threat was muted in domestic media coverage. But it reverberated in headlines around the world.

Responding with understatement to a question in the British House of Lords, the foreign minister responsible for Asia, Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, said of Clinton's implication of a mushroom cloud over Iran: "While it is reasonable to warn Iran of the consequences of it continuing to develop nuclear weapons and what those real consequences bring to its security, it is probably not prudent in today's world to threaten to obliterate any other country and in many cases civilians resident in such a country."

A less restrained reaction came from an editorial in the Saudi-based paper Arab News. Being neighbors of Iran, the Saudis and the other Gulf Arabs have the most to fear from Iran's nuclear program and its drive to become the dominant power in the Gulf.

But precisely because they are most at risk from Iran's regional ambitions, the Saudis want a carefully considered American approach to Iran, one that balances firmness and diplomatic engagement.

The Saudi paper called Clinton's nuclear threat "the foreign politics of the madhouse," saying, "it demonstrates the same doltish ignorance that has distinguished Bush's foreign relations."

The Saudis are not always sound advisers on American foreign policy. But they understand that Rambo rhetoric like Clinton's only plays into the hands of Iranian hard-liners who want to plow ahead with efforts to attain a nuclear weapons capability. They argue that Iran must have that capability in order to deter the United States from doing what Clinton threatened to do.

While Clinton has hammered Obama for supporting military strikes in Pakistan, her comments on Iran are much more far-reaching. She seems not to realize that she undermined Iranian reformists and pragmatists. The Iranian people have been more favorable to America than any other in the Gulf region or the Middle East.

A presidential candidate who lightly commits to obliterating Iran - and, presumably, all the children, parents, and grandparents in Iran - should not be answering the White House phone at any time of day or night.

Hillary Strangelove - The Boston Globe

`US wants to deal with India as its subordinate ally`

 

The temerity of US imperialism's advice to India on how it should deal with the visit of Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to New Delhi on April 29 reconfirms, if such reconfirmation was ever necessary, that the US seeks to deal with India as its "subordinate ally". The remarks of the spokesman of the US Department of State have not come as friendly unsolicited advice but smack of imperialist arrogance of a self-appointed world policeman. His remarks amount to calling upon India to convey to the Iranian president to comply with what the US wishes. This is tantamount to gross interference in how India should conduct its relations with other countries. This is simply unacceptable. Such blatant interference in India's internal affairs and foreign policy positions must be outrightly rejected as an insult to our sovereignty.

India has rightly rebuffed these remarks stating that both India and Iran are ancient civilizations whose relations span centuries. Both, therefore, are perfectly capable of managing all aspects of their ties without, as the MEA spokesperson said, "any guidance on the future conduct of bilateral relations as both countries believe that engagement and dialogue alone lead to peace".

Such attempts by the US to influence or even pressurise India into taking positions that dovetail US strategic concerns, resoundingly vindicate the apprehensions voiced by the Left in connection with the Indo-US nuclear deal anchored, as it is, in the US Hyde Act. Readers will recall that the Hyde Act explicitly states that India must take foreign policy positions that are "congruent" with US positions. It also stipulates greater enmeshing of India with USA's military and intelligence activities globally and in South Asia.

In this context, it is necessary that India must go beyond the official response of rejection of unilateral US interference on this count. This visit by the Iranian president must be utilised to further the Indo-Iranian gas pipeline project. It is widely recognised that this pipeline is not only a cheap energy source but will also go a long way in augmenting the energy capacities so urgently needed for India. In fact, if the argument of the protagonists of the Indo-US nuclear deal was based on this question of energy augmentation, then the gas pipeline is the cheapest and the best option for India as it comes without any conditionalities. This will immensely help us in meeting our expanding energy requirements. The UPA government must proceed ahead with this pipeline deal without any further delays.

As regards the US asking India to take up the issue of Iran's nuclear programme with the president, it must be noted that Iran is a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Iran is, therefore, bound by the rights and the obligations conferred by this treaty. It has the right to pursue a civilian nuclear programme while being obliged to abjure from undertaking any nuclear weaponisation programme. It is for the international watchdog to ensure Iran's compliance on this score. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has already stated that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons programme or capability.

The IAEA had made similar observations regarding Iraq in the past. That, however, did not prevent or deter US imperialism from proceeding to launch a war against Iraq and continue with its military occupation based on an intricate web of fabrications. Every single excuse the US forwarded to the world as the legitimate reason for its attack on Iraq has been proved to be untrue. If it is making a similar case with Iran today and seeks to tread on a similar path as it did with Iraq, then India can never be a party to this. Given this, it is necessary that India moves beyond its official rebuff of these US comments by summoning the US ambassador to India and conveying in no uncertain terms that India cannot tolerate such gross interference in its internal affairs.

`US wants to deal with India as its subordinate ally`

The Associated Press: India rejects US advice to pressure Iran

 

NEW DELHI (AP) — India tartly dismissed American advice that it press Iran to give up its nuclear program, saying it does not need "any guidance" on foreign relations.

Negotiations over a proposed $7 billion gas pipeline with Iran are expected to top discussions when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes his first visit to energy-starved India next week.

The United States strongly opposes the pipeline and accuses Tehran of running a clandestine nuclear weapons program and arming Iraqi militants. Iran says its nuclear program is only for peaceful energy purposes.

A day after a U.S. State Department spokesman said New Delhi should press Ahmadinejad to end Iran's nuclear program and stop supporting militant groups, India made clear that it would make its own decisions.

"India and Iran are ancient civilizations whose relations span centuries," the Foreign Ministry said in statement Tuesday. "Neither country needs any guidance on the future conduct of bilateral relations."

New Delhi and Washington are trying to finalize a nuclear energy cooperation deal that has faced opposition from India's communist political parties, which argue the pact would give the United States too much influence over Indian foreign policy.

The critics often cite a nonbinding U.S. law that would require the American president to determine if New Delhi was cooperating with efforts to shut down Iran's atomic program.

While India-U.S. nuclear cooperation would continue no matter what the president determined, the critics say the law is an attempt to dictate New Delhi's foreign policy.

The Associated Press: India rejects US advice to pressure Iran

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs

 

Israel changes tune on Iran
By Peter Hirschberg
JERUSALEM - In the clearest indication yet that Israel now believes Iran's nuclear aspirations will be curbed, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said that efforts being undertaken by the international community will ensure that Tehran does not acquire nuclear capability.
In a series of interviews on the eve of the Passover holiday, Olmert sounded the same message: Iran will not get the bomb. "I want to tell the citizens of Israel: Iran will not have nuclear capability," he told the daily Ha'aretz newspaper.
"The international community is making an enormous effort - in which we have a part, but which is being led by the international community - so that Iran will not attain non-conventional

capability. And I believe, and also know, that the bottom line of these efforts is that Iran will not be nuclear."
Until now, Israeli leaders have been far more equivocal when quizzed about Iran's nuclear program. A common reply has been that "all options" are on the table - a reference to the possibility that Israel might employ military means in trying to thwart Iran's nuclear drive.
Tehran insists its nuclear program is civilian in nature and is meant to generate power. But Israel believes Iran is bent on developing nuclear weapons. Threats by Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad to "wipe Israel off the map" have further heightened fears in the Jewish state.
In the past, some US leaders have suggested that Israel might launch a strike against Iran in a bid to destroy or severely damage its nuclear facilities. "Given the fact that Iran has a stated policy that their objective is the destruction of Israel, the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards," US Vice President Dick Cheney once cautioned.
Twenty-seven years ago, Israel did just that when its fighter jets bombed a nuclear reactor Saddam Hussein had built, wiping out the Iraqi leader's nuclear ambitions with a single pin-point strike. A repeat performance in Iran would be much more complicated. The Iranians have learned from the Iraqi experience and have spread their nuclear plants around the country. They have also built them deep underground and behind thick shields of reinforced concrete.
With the George W Bush administration, chastised by its experience in Iraq, having seemingly lost its appetite for another military escapade in the Middle East, efforts by the US and Europe to deter Tehran from going nuclear are focused largely in the diplomatic realm.
Talks in China last week looked not just at sanctions against Iran, but also "incentives" aimed at persuading Tehran to curb its nuclear pursuit. US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that officials from the US, Russia, Britain, France, Germany, China and the European Union were looking "at the incentive side of the equation".
If Olmert now believes that the efforts of the international community will bear fruit, then his comments seem to reflect an Israeli conviction that diplomatic means will be central in stopping Iran from going nuclear.
In the Passover interviews, he also counseled behind-the-scenes actions over the type of public breast-beating one of his ministers recently engaged in. If Iran attacked Israel, Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said, Israel would respond with such force that it would result in "the destruction of the Iranian nation".
"The less we talk, the better," Olmert told the daily Ma'ariv. "We mustn't issue threats, like the things I heard recently."
The prime minister also hammered home another message: Iran does not pose a threat to Israel alone. Ahmadinejad's threats against Israel and "his suggestions that we move to Alaska or Germany, constitute a direct threat", the prime minister said. "But this is not just a threat to us, but to all of Western civilization. To its values, its culture, its freedom."
The official Iranian news agency IRNA reported earlier this month that Iran had begun operating several hundred new uranium-enriching centrifuges at its main nuclear plant in Natanz. Ahmadinejad said Iran was working to install 6,000 more centrifuges in the plant, but did not say how many of them were operational.
Iran has already installed around 3,300 centrifuges at the Natanz plant, according to Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. But ElBaradei also said that Iran's progress in uranium enrichment "has not been very fast".
Asked about the reports that Iran had begun operating new centrifuges, Olmert said he didn't want to "get into reports or argue over details".
"I say again, that on the basis of everything I know and read, Iran will not be nuclear," the prime minister emphasized. "We are doing everything possible, along with the international community, at a level of intensity and scope that are beyond all imagination, to prevent the Iranian threat."

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs

 

Iran's 'bomb' and dud intelligence
By Richard M Bennett
Apart from terrorism, hard information on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) has for many years undoubtedly been at the very top of the "want lists" of the intelligence agencies of the leading Western powers.
Yet repeatedly, the major players in the field, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Britain's MI6 among them, have failed to deliver the required intelligence when most needed.
To add to the problems, in many cases the information that has been acquired has either been wrongly analyzed, of doubtful quality or has been simply ignored by their host government as an inconvenient irrelevance.
However, what is without question the most alarming aspect of

this continuing intelligence failure has been the number of times the CIA in particular has been deliberately misled by "trusted" sources, or through a surprising level of naivety has fallen victim to disinformation ploys either by its opponents or by those seeking political or financial gain.
Put simply, Western intelligence gets conned far too often.
Were these intelligence failings due to just a lack of experienced analysts or was it because the senior management of the most important national intelligence agencies cravenly gave in to pressure to simply report what their political masters wanted to hear?
Whatever the answer, to many a well-informed observer, this can be taken to be nothing less than a grave dereliction of duty by the intelligence services and indeed a gross breach of the trust placed in them by the peoples of both the US and Britain.
Little that has happened since September 11, 2001, would suggest that simply throwing huge sums of money at the problem, employing thousands of extra spooks and investing in highly expensive technological wizardry will provide any form of viable short-term solution.
The problem is further exacerbated by the willingness of governments in both Washington and London to appoint political cronies to positions of importance within the intelligence community. Porter Goss at the CIA and to some extent former British premier Tony Blair's pal John Scarlett at MI6 have been obvious examples.
It fits rather too closely to the growing suspicion that an immature Western political leadership appears to constantly reject intelligence, even when it has a high level of provenance that conflicts with preconceived policies and instead prefers to rely on often manipulated "facts" or even downright disinformation if it can be used to prop up some cherished political aims or further personal political ambitions.
The track record is not good, and while it cannot be denied that intelligence services have always suffered from the "successes stay secret, while failures become public" syndrome, it is still apparent that significant mistakes occur with what appears to be alarming regularity.
The most significant occasions in recent years include the complete misreading of the flow of information about Iraqi WMD before the invasion of 2003.
There was a stack of evidence that strongly suggested that Iraq retained no significant CBW (chemical and biological weapons) ability after the first Gulf war in 1991. No WMD or the means to deliver them. There was no hard evidence provided before 2003 and none of any importance discovered since, despite five years of searching to prove otherwise.
Yet the CIA chose to accept the poisonous whisperings and uncorroborated information provided by "Curveball" and other equally dubious sources.
Britain's much-vaunted MI6, in tandem with the Joint Intelligence Committee, far from providing a council of caution, instead blundered into the fray by producing the ludicrously amateurish report on Iraqi WMDs as decisive confirmation of the threat, even adding the absurd "45-minute" element much trumpeted in the House of Commons and elsewhere.
Discredited NIE report
In 2007, yet another confusing picture was presented to the world. The US intelligence community had appeared to be wholeheartedly, both in public and in many private off-the-record media briefings, behind the George W Bush administration's contention that Iran had a dedicated nuclear weapon research program up and running.
However, in late 2007, the flawed and now largely discredited NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) report, "Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities", was published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) in Washington and simply discarded years of supposedly hard intelligence.
Tehran, it seemed, had placed its WMD research and development on hold around late 2003, though no one, not agents in Iran, nor the vast resources of the CIA, the DNI, the signals intelligence of the National Security Agency or the spy satellites of the National Reconnaissance Office had noticed this.
It is reported that concrete proof of Iran's sophisticated disinformation came in mid-December 2006, when the CIA intercepted a conversation between two unidentified officials at the Defense Ministry in Tehran, reporting differences between the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) and the Ministry of Defense.
One of the Iranian officials reportedly said, "Currently, as for the CTBTO [Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization], I think that the Ministry of Defense must have the last word, because they [the leaders of the AEOI] know that ultimately we intend to conduct tests."
Yet this damning evidence of deliberate Iranian deception was also discounted in the NIE findings.
So are the spooks value for money? On such evidence as this, one must think not.
Worse was still to come, for by this year the US intelligence community had already given the appearance of changing its stance once again.
The NIE report it seems was no longer to be taken as the "holy grail"; the facts were now in urgent need of reinterpretation and the US administration has now seemingly largely rejected the findings of the NIE report.
The United Nations Security Council had also largely ignored the NIE report and recently passed a third set of sanctions designed to force Iran to halt its uranium enrichment program.
It seems that few experts outside the rather credulous US intelligence community believed the so-called evidence of a hiatus in Iran's nuclear development and most chose to dismiss it as bogus.
Interestingly, Francois Heisbourg, the internationally renowned French defense expert and director of the Fondation pour la Recherche Strategique (Foundation for Strategic Research), after analyzing the findings of the NIE in December 2007, is quoted in the Swiss newspaper Le Temps as saying that this report's conclusion could be the result of revenge by some in US intelligence against a president who put them in a tough spot during the Iraqi crisis. He added, "Compared to the NIE report on Iran, even Mohamed ElBaradei looks like a hawk." ElBaradei is the head of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
It is important at this point to remember that despite being rarely reported, a number of IAEA documents also apparently point to the existence of an Iranian military nuclear research program.
On February 25, 2008, Olli Heinonen, the Finnish deputy director general of the IAEA, reportedly presented further evidence that strongly supports this contention.
The leading French newspaper Le Monde reported in March 2008 that newly discovered documents strongly suggested that Tehran still pursued a military nuclear program after 2003, contrary to what the NIE had stated.
These documents reportedly included a letter written in 2004 by Mahdi Khaniki, an official deeply involved with the IAEA and a former Iranian ambassador to Syria, to Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, the vice president of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.
Le Monde claimed that Khaniki pointed out that the IAEA inspectors demanded to see the contracts for the purchase of spare parts used in the development of Iran's centrifuges and added that at a meeting held on January 31, 2004, in the presence of Dr Hassan Rohani, the chief negotiator of the Iranian nuclear program until the end of 2005, it was decided that these contracts should be prepared in accordance to the AEOI's wishes, so they would be ready to be delivered to the IAEA. Le Monde claimed that portions of these contracts were then crossed out with black lines and that the quantities did not appear.
Le Monde went on to cite sources close to an intelligence service, affirming that this letter also referred to "Project 13" (also known as "project for the disappearance of threats"), allegedly aimed at deceiving IAEA inspectors. To many expert observers, this letter represents clear evidence of the military character of this program and to continuing Iranian efforts to conceal it.
Controversially, China was also reported to have recently embarrassed Iran by providing the UN with intelligence on its close ally's efforts to acquire nuclear technology.
Concern over Tehran's secretive research program had been increasing over the past few months after officials at the IAEA discovered that Iran had indeed obtained the "know-how" to manufacture nuclear-armed weapons.
Beijing is only believed to have decided to assist the inspectors after documents seized from Iranian officials were found to include details of a program for the procurement of dual-use technology; blueprints for "shaping" uranium into warheads and the testing of high explosives used to detonate radioactive material.
Chinese designs for centrifuges that refine uranium into a "weaponized" state had been found previously in Iran, but these had been thought to have come exclusively through a network controlled by disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
Much of this new material was then presented to the governors of the Vienna-based IAEA in February. That meeting is thought to have finally triggered China's change of heart, though this has since been vigorously denied in some circles

US intelligence back tracks - again

Faced with this barrage of criticism and contradictory intelligence, the US intelligence community simply had little choice left but to once again accept what any experienced observer already knew, that Iran most likely did still have an operational nuclear weapons program.
In fact, some suggest Tehran has actually accelerated research with the overt help of North Korea and China, and the covert assistance of others.
Perhaps the blinkered analysts stalking the dimly lit corridors of CIA headquarters at Langley may have become confused when it was reportedly discovered that Iran had closed down a number of home-grown nuclear research projects, but as it turned out, probably only because they were no longer needed.
The fractured and underachieving US intelligence community is still apparently reeling from the pressures of rebuilding its old clandestine muscle, shedding years of risk avoidance management, facing up to the demands for more positive action from the media and trying to duck continuing political interference from the administration.
So have North Korea and others simply provided nuclear weapons knowledge to Tehran for payment in oil? This would seem the most likely explanation, in the absence of any contradictory hard evidence.
The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz recently disclosed that Israel is deeply concerned that North Korea has indeed transferred technology and nuclear materials to Iran to aid a secret nuclear weapons program. According to information reportedly obtained by both Mossad and apparently the CIA, this is exactly what North Korea has been doing for some years.
This leads many to believe that Iran remains a "clear and present danger" and a threat to much of the Middle East - something experienced US intelligence analysts have privately never seriously doubted.
Certainly, Israel has quietly expressed concerns and made rather more public preparations - its recent massive military exercises involved "preparing for heavy casualties" from Iranian retaliation should an attack be deemed necessary on Tehran's nuclear infrastructure.
Indeed, while Israel was conducting these home defense exercises, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, the minister for national infrastructure, was quoted as saying. "An Iranian attack will prompt a severe reaction from Israel, which will destroy the Iranian nation." He added ominously that in a future war, "Hundreds of missiles will rain on Israel."
So just what does Tehran have hidden away in dozens of secret underground military bases scattered across its vast mountainous hinterland?
President Mahmud Ahmadinejad announced on April 8, Iran's National Day of Nuclear Technology, that Iran had begun installing 6,000 new centrifuges at its uranium-enrichment plant in Natanz. These are a crucial addition to the 3,000 centrifuges already operational at this highly secure facility.
It was widely seen as a show of open defiance to international demands to halt its nuclear program, which Tehran has always claimed is for peaceful purposes.
Expert observers suspect Iran is replacing its original P-1 centrifuges with the IR-2, a modified P-2 second-generation system which operates three to four times faster. Much of the technology for these new centrifuges was obtained from Pakistan or covertly via the Western nuclear "black market".
It has emerged that Pakistan and Iran agreed in about 1987 to a deal whereby a Pakistani centrifuge design (P-1) was provided as a stop-gap replacement for Iran's previous unsuccessful attempts to master uranium-enrichment technology. The transfer of Pakistani nuclear technology largely sponsored by rogue scientist Khan began in 1989 and probably continued until at least 1996.
While a total of 9,000 centrifuges still falls far short of the 30,000 many experts claim to be a minimum for even a low-level weapons program, it can be considered further supporting evidence for the view taken by a non-proliferation expert from the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, Mark Fitzpatrick, who stated in 2007 that "Iran has no intention of honoring the UN mandate that it suspend all enrichment-related activity".
However, Tehran has always claimed its right under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to develop a nuclear program.
Significantly, Ahmadinejad paid a little reported visit in April 2006 to the research complex at Neyshabour in Khorassan. This top-secret and heavily protected facility ringed by the most advanced Russian air defense missiles is designed to eventually operate as many as 155,000 centrifuges.
While this does not mean than Iran will have a genuine nuclear weapons capability any time soon - or that it wants to - it still provides yet another startling counter argument to the complacency of the NIE report.
Not surprisingly, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps appears to play a leading role in the nuclear research program and to be in direct control of the most sensitive facilities through a section known as the "Pasdaran Construction Jihad".
These facilities reportedly include the main nuclear power plant at Bushehr; the vast advanced Nuclear Technology Center at Esfahan/Isfahan believed to have a staff of some 3,000 scientists, and the uranium-enrichment facilities at Natanz and Neyshabour.
Many analysts believe that what is probably the most positive evidence of a hidden weapons program is provided by the heavy water plant at Arak. Apparently Iran does not have the type of commercial reactor that needs heavy water to moderate the nuclear fission chain reaction. It could be used in the production of plutonium for a nuclear bomb.
Western intelligence failures over the exact nature of Iraq's WMD capability undoubtedly played a most significant part in the leadup to the invasion of 2003 and which has resulted in a bloody insurgency that shows no signs of ending five years later.
It can only be hoped that the continued intelligence failures and confusion over Ahmadinejad's nuclear program do not blindly lead the US and its allies into a far more dangerous war with Iran with untold possible consequences for both the Middle East and the Western powers.
Richard M Bennett, intelligence consultant, AFI Research.
AFI Research provides expert information on the world's intelligence services, armed forces and conflicts. Contact rbmedia@supanet.com

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs

Netanyahu: 'We won't be able to deter nuclear Iran' | Jerusalem Post

 

"Iran will be the first nuclear state in history against which deterrence won't work, even if the deterrent is nuclear," Likud chairman Binyamin Netanyahu said Wednesday at an international conference titled "Russia, the Middle East and the Challenge of Radical Islam."

Binyamin Netanyahu speaking in the "Russia, the Middle East and the Challenge of Radical Islam" international conference in Jerusalem, Wednesday.
Photo: Courtesy IDC Herzliya / Shalem Center

The conference was held at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem under the auspices of the center's Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies and the Eurasian Institute of the Inter-Disciplinary Center, Herzliya.

"Nothing will stop the Iranians - not the use of force and not a fear of being hit in retaliation," he said, adding that "every Israeli withdrawal from territories it controls leaves room for Iranian terror to enter."

Netanyahu added that "if in the past, Hizbullah was a state within the state of Lebanon, it seems today that the government of Lebanon is a state within a Hizbullah stronghold." "In the last 30 years, we have been living in a world where Sunni extremists succeed in attacking targets in the Western world, while on the other hand, Shi'ite Iran is rapidly advancing to the point of no return in its nuclear aspirations," the Likud leader said.

Regarding the conflict with the Palestinians, Netanyahu said there was "no chance that moderate factors in the Palestinian Authority will succeed in halting terror or replacing Israeli forces in securing the territory. Israel should ensure its safety on its own and provide Palestinians with the financial growth they aspire to, in order to create real peace partners."

Netanyahu: 'We won't be able to deter nuclear Iran' | Jerusalem Post

RON PAUL SILENCES General PETRAEUS about BOMBING IRAN CSPAN

Message

 

Prince Hassan bin Talal, younger brother of the late King Hussein of Jordan and uncle to the current King Abdallah II, has long spoken his mind. He continued and extended this tradition today in an interview with Stephen Sackur on the BBC program HardTalk when he stated that Arab regimes friendly to Washington (e.g., those in Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia) are lying when they claim that Tehran is working through Hamas. These Arab governments, he argued, are pushing this story to advance their own interests. Sackur pressed him on this point and Hassan replied (at 12:10 into the interview):

we come from a Byzantine civilization, from centuries of dissimulation. I mean, we [Middle Easterners] are professional liars.

Comment: This is the sort of cynical, self-critical talk that Middle Eastern political types constantly engage in among themselves but usually take care not to express in public. That Hassan allowed himself to say such a thing on the BBC suggests he is fed up with the hypocrisy.

I shall post other interesting examples of this genre as they come to my attention. (April 1, 2008)

Message

Foreign Policy In Focus | Dealing with Iran's Hardliners

 

Dealing with Iran's Hardliners

Patrick Disney and Danny Hosein | April 4, 2008

Editor: John Feffer

Foreign Policy In Focus

www.fpif.org

Last month in Iran, supporters of a long-shot parliamentary candidate stuck campaign materials to a handful of chickens and set them loose in the village in what a local official called “a new way to campaign.” Though the chickens were an innovative way to remind voters that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad failed to deliver on his campaign promise to put a chicken in every pot, this candidate and others were forced to find obscure ways to reach voters because they were prohibited from putting their faces on campaign materials. Because of this and other arbitrary election rules, the large margins of victory by conservative hardliners in the March 14 election came as no surprise.

After the recent elections to the Iranian parliament, known as the Majles, the regime’s power became more solidly entrenched than in recent memory. The newfound confidence of the hardline regime complicates the effects of the December 2007 release of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran’s nuclear program. The report emboldened U.S. policymakers and presidential candidates who disagree with President George W. Bush’s aggressive approach to Iran. But because the report signaled to Iranian hardliners that a U.S. attack is unlikely in the future, they became more resolute than ever to continue Iran’s nuclear research. The outcome of the election guarantees that hardliners will continue to defy the international community on the nuclear issue.

Members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the most fervent supporters of Iran’s nuclear defiance, gained a noteworthy number of seats in the election. Typically, the IRGC eschews elected office, but the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has rejected his predecessor Ayatollah Khomeini’s precedent by actively promoting their political engagement. The increasing involvement of the Iranian military in politics has been called a creeping coup in which Guard members are slowly crowding out established clerics. The military’s ascendancy strengthens the Supreme Leader because members of the IRGC owe their positions entirely to him. As the military continues to gain power, the Islamic Republic will become both more uncompromising regarding Iran’s nuclear program and more interventionist in its regional foreign policy. A more consolidated regime means a more confident one, which further empowers the entrenched elements of Iran’s hardline clerical regime. This should make US policymakers wary.

The outcome of the Majles election is clear. The real winner is the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. But the best way to deal with Iran’s nuclear program – and a cluster of other issues including Iraq – remains the same: negotiations.

Iran in Iraq

It didn't take long for the outcome of the election to become manifest in Iran's policy regarding Iraq. The recent offensive by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government against forces loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr boosted Iran's political influence in Iraq while also setting back U.S. objectives.

The Iraqi government-led offensive singled out Sadrists in hopes of undermining their influence in upcoming regional elections. Sadr's followers pose the greatest political threat to Maliki because they stand on the side of public opinion on such issues as a strong central government and government control of Iraq's oil supply. Maliki's U.S.-supported positions – a weaker federal structure and privatization of oil – are largely unpopular. The offensive failed to subdue the Sadrists, which set back U.S. plans to draw down forces to pre-surge levels. With the goal of eliminating Sadr's movement as a political rival unmet, Maliki's governing coalition accepted an Iranian-brokered ceasefire deal.

The implications of this week-long event in Iraq could prove to be very significant for both the United States and Iran. By organizing the negotiations between both Shiite factions, Iran gains the favor of both the Maliki government and Sadr's movement. Because of the zero-sum perspective of the Bush administration, any Iranian political gains in Iraq are losses for the United States as it attempts to maintain absolute influence in the country. Maliki's failure to eliminate Sadr spells trouble for the U.S.-supported government; the trouble is amplified by the fact that the survival of the Sadrists led both sides to approach Iran to organize the ceasefire agreement. To make matters worse for the United States, the leader of the Iranian Quds Force, which was recently declared a terrorist organization by the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, spearheaded the negotiations.

Had the results of the election been different, Iran’s negotiation of the ceasefire would not be serious cause for U.S. concern because it could be seen as something of an isolated case of Iranian intervention. But with the victory of the hardliners, the United States should interpret the ceasefire deal as foreshadowing a more aggressively interventionist Iran.

Unconditional Negotiations

Rapid changes brought about as a result of the Majles election and Iran's growing position in Iraq will continue to accelerate as Iraqis gear up for October 2008 provincial elections, the United States elects a new president in November 2008, and Iranians prepare to elect a new president in summer 2009. These changes will significantly affect U.S. policy regarding Iran no matter which candidate is elected president. The new U.S. president will have to maneuver carefully to resolve outstanding issues with Iran, including Iran's nuclear program, the stabilization of Iraq, combating terrorism, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and others.

The only way for the United States to accomplish those goals is through unconditional negotiations. The United States faces the choice of continuing the foreign policy of brinkmanship or choosing a policy of peace. For three decades, the United States has chosen policies of isolation and sanctions rather than cooperation. As a result, Iran has demonstrated the ways it can hurt the United States in Iraq and maintain military confrontation. Without at least the offer to negotiate, the United States will continue to navigate the impasse with Iran with a severely limited set of tools – all of which lead further down the path to war. The risk of fruitless negotiations is far outweighed by the benefits of even marginal progress.

Take the example of North Korea. The United States participated in lengthy and often frustrating six-party talks with North Korea on its nuclear program. The odds of successfully negotiating a deal with the new nuclear power were long, but the gesture of organizing good faith talks to satisfy the mutual interests of all parties, including North Korea, changed the game. The result was a deal to disable and dismantle North Korea's nuclear facilities. The deal is fragile and hard work remains ahead, but it would have been impossible without negotiations.

The same principle applies with Iran. Despite the gains by hardliners in the Majles, Iran is, at its core, a rational actor. Hardliners do not want war with the United States. Economic woes and a split between Iran's government and its people over relations with the West make fertile ground for negotiations; hardliners in Iran recognize this opportunity. If the United States begins the difficult task of seeking common ground with Iran, there are no guarantees, only the possibility that skilled U.S. negotiators could emerge with a solution that benefits both Iran and the United States. Maintaining the status quo, however, guarantees nothing but further brinkmanship and the potential for war.

Any talks should preferably involve the Supreme Leader because the president holds relatively little power in the Iranian government. Ayatollah Khamenei is truly “the decider” in the Islamic Republic, and negotiations involving him will avoid the frustrations of Iran’s notoriously two-faced bureaucracy. Once the two sides sit down together, U.S. negotiators can employ a carrot-and- stick approach to induce Iranian cooperation. This approach should combine significant economic incentives for Iran, such as possible WTO membership, ending trade sanctions, foreign direct investment in Iran’s petroleum industry, much-needed civilian aircraft parts, and possibly a security guarantee, to usher Iran back into the international community.

In return, the United States can expect a radical shift toward Iranian compliance with the IAEA, a renewed spirit of cooperation to stabilize Iraq, and even a pledge of non-interference in the ailing Israeli-Palestinian peace process. If done effectively, negotiations could at once satisfy the needs of a United States desperate for effective solutions in the region while also guaranteeing vital political and economic benefits for the Islamic Republic.

Though negotiations are not guaranteed to end the 30-year-old dispute with Iran, they offer the best hope for resolving the current impasse and beginning the difficult process of reconciliation. With luck, United States cooperation with Iran may be the key to resolving many of the major challenges facing the Middle East today.

Patrick Disney and Danny Hosein are contributors to Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org). Disney is a recent graduate of Trinity University, where he focused on U.S.-Iran relations. He currently teaches U.S. government at Nolan Catholic High School in Fort Worth, TX. Danny Hosein is the Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellow at the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), a nonpartisan, nonprofit Quaker public interest lobby in Washington.

Foreign Policy In Focus | Dealing with Iran's Hardliners

American Jews Hedge Their Bets on Military Response to Iran | The Jewish Exponent

 

American Jews Hedge Their Bets on Military Response to Iran

April 03, 2008

Douglas Bloomfield

Iranian leaders have been demanding international condemnation -- and even sanctions -- against Israel for taking seriously their threats to wipe it off the map with the nuclear weapons it may be developing.

When Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that he wouldn't tolerate any Iranian nuclear threat and all options for stopping it are on the table, Iran filed a formal protest with the U.N. Security Council accusing Israel of violating international law and the U.N. Charter by threatening the use of force against another member state, and insisted it be ordered to "cease and desist."

Iran maintains its nuclear program is purely peaceful, so Israel shouldn't complain when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says that "the countdown button for the destruction of the Zionist regime has been pushed," and the commander of the Revolutionary Guards declares that "the cancerous bacterium called Israel" would soon be eradicated by "radiation."

Maybe that's because they recall what Israel did in 1981 to Iraq's nuclear ambitions, and more recently, they heard Vice President Dick Cheney in the Middle East declare, "Iran should not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons." In the past, Cheney has suggested that Israel might have to take out Iran's nuclear facilities.

When they met last month Iran -- and not the Palestinians -- was at the top of the agenda for Olmert and Cheney, who repeated America's "commitment to Israel's right to defend itself against ... forces dedicated to Israel's destruction."

Cheney's tough talk was echoed by Sen. John McCain, who told Israelis that the Iranians "are obviously pursuing nuclear weapons." The presumptive Republican presidential nominee was warmly welcomed by Israeli leaders, who insist that Iran's nuclear ambitions and threats are a global problem, not just theirs.

McCain was on a tour to burnish his foreign-policy credentials, accompanied by Sen. Joseph Lieberman. Their hawkish attitude toward Iran struck a resonant chord in Israel, but it's a view that polls indicate is not shared by most American Jews.

American Jewish voters are not as militant nor as anxious to see U.S. military action against Iran, and they're overwhelmingly supporting Democratic contenders, Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who advocate keeping up the current economic and political pressure but also want to see more robust diplomacy.

And the Bush administration has repeatedly said that it will not directly negotiate with Tehran until it first ceases all uranium enrichment.

The most recent American Jewish Committee survey of Jewish public opinion, conducted late last year, showed that Jewish respondents opposed U.S. "military action against Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons" by a 57-31 percent margin.

But, according to Cheney, public opinion is meaningless. When told recently by ABC News's Martha Radditz that "two-thirds of Americans" say the Iraq war is "not worth fighting," Cheney responded with a "So?" She retorted, "So -- you don't care what the American people think?" Cheney replied, "No."

President Bush said that Iran "want(s) to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people -- and that's unacceptable."

He and Cheney are as certain today that Iran is pursuing nukes as they were with Saddam Hussein before they decided to invade five years and 4,000 American deaths ago. They may be right this time, but their track record undermines their credibility and undercuts international support for the anti-Iran effort.

The Iranians have cause to worry. They can't just make threats with impunity.

A State Department report issued in March called anti-Zionism a form of anti-Semitism and accused Arab states, some European countries and the United Nations of allowing it to fester and grow. The Iranians do more than talk about it. They're building long-range missiles to carry nonconventional warheads to any target in Israel, and are funding anti-Israel and anti-Jewish terror globally, often through allies like Hezbollah and Hamas, and are investing a billion dollars in upgrading Syrian armaments.

Military action may be the only option left that will neutralize that threat, but it's hard to see how the Bush administration -- alone in a world that distrusts it and no longer believes its "Axis of Evil" claims, and with a bloody record of military mismanagement -- can achieve it.

McCain may talk tough on the campaign trail, but if elected, he'll face military and diplomatic realities that will make tough for him to use force in Iran, including the consequences of an Iraq misadventure that he vigorously supports.

If Israel is waiting for the Bush administration or the Republican who wants to continue its policies to do the job, it should think twice about that.

Douglas M. Bloomfield is a Washington, D.C.-based columnist.

American Jews Hedge Their Bets on Military Response to Iran | The Jewish Exponent