The May 8 letter from U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., chair of the House Judiciary Committee, to George W. Bush received virtually no media coverage, in spite of the fact that it warned the president that an attack on ایران without Congressional approval would be grounds for impeachment. Rumor has it several senators have been briefed about the possibility of war with ایران.
Something is afoot.
Just what is not clear, but over the past several months, several moves by the White House strongly suggest that the Bush administration will attack ایران sometime in the near future. According to the ایشیا ټایمز, "a former assistant secretary of state still active in the foreign affairs community" said an air attack will target the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force garrisons. Not even the White House is bonkers enough to put troops on the ground amid 65 million Iranians.
There is a certain disconnect to all this, particularly given December’s National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) concluding that ایران had abandoned its program to build a nuclear weapon. The NIE is the consensus view of all 16 د امریکا د intelligence services. At the time, the report seemed to shelve any possibility of war with ایران.
However, shortly after the intelligence estimate on ایران was released, the old "into عراق gang" went to work undermining it.
په وینا د نيوزويک, during his د منځني ختیځ tour in January, Bush "all but disowned the document" to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. A "senior administration official" told the magazine, "He [Bush] told the Israelis that he can’t control what the intelligence community says but that [the NIE’s] conclusions don’t reflect his own views."
Neither do they reflect the views of Vice President Dick Cheney or Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
In an interview with ABC during his recent 10-day visit to the region, Cheney downplayed the NIE: "We don’t know whether or not they’ve [the Iranians have] restarted." Cheney also said ایران was seeking to build missiles capable of reaching the متحده ایالات sometime in the next decade.
On April 21, Gates said that ایران was "hell-bent" on acquiring nuclear weapons, and that, while he was not advocating war with ایران, the military option should be kept on the table.
A month before Gates’ comment, the White House quietly extended an executive order stating that ایران represented an "ongoing threat" to د امریکا د national security. The Bush administration claims that the 2002 resolution that led to the war in عراق gives it the right to strike at "terrorists" wherever they are. Last September, the Kyl-Lieberman Sense of the Senate resolution designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a "terrorist organization."
The administration has sharply increased its rhetorical attacks on ایران in a way that is disquietingly similar to the campaign that led to the 2003 invasion of عراق. Take the current charge that the Quds Force is arming anti-American groups in عراق and providing them with high-tech roadside bombs and sophisticated rockets.
Gen. David Petraeus, the new head of U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Committee on Armed Services that "special groups" are "funded, trained, armed and directed by ایران‘s Quds Force. … It was these groups that launched Iranian rockets and mortar rounds at عراق‘s seat of government" in the Green Zone.
Patraeus replaced Adm. William "Fox" Fallon, who had openly opposed a military confrontation with ایران.
مګر متحده ایالات has never presented any evidence to back up those charges. د امریکا د officials say the rockets pounding the Green Zone have Iranian markings on them, but they have yet to show any evidence to that effect. And, as for the special roadside bombs, or the explosively formed penetrators (EFP), the evidence is entirely deductive.
د متحده ایالات argues that the copper cores used in these bombs requires using a heavy machine press and that عراق has no such presses. But before the invasion, عراق was the most industrialized Arab country, with a sophisticated machine tool industry, and a study by وخت magazine says the cities of بصره, کربلا and Najaf "may indeed have such presses."
د وخت article, "Doubting the Evidence Against Iran," concludes, "No concrete evidence has emerged in public that ایران was behind the weapons [EFPs]. د امریکا د officials have revealed no captured shipments of such devices and offered no other proof."
The lack of evidence has hardly cooled down the rhetoric. Bush said in a speech at the White House that "two of the greatest threats to امریکا" were ایران and al-Qaeda.
د امریکا د preparations for war, however, have been more than rhetorical.
According to the Israeli website DEBKAfile, Cheney’s trip to the د منځني ختیځ in March was seen in the region as a possible harbinger of war. "The vice president’s choice of capitals for his tour is a pointer to the fact that the military option, off since December, may be on again," DEBKA concluded. "امریکا will need the cooperation of all four [countries he visited] — عمان, سعودي عربستان, اسراییل او ترکیه."
There has also been a steady buildup of naval and air power in the region. A new aircraft carrier battle group has been assigned to the area, Patriot anti-missile missiles have been deployed, and U.S. Naval forces in the ختیځ مدیرانیا have been beefed up.
What would likely happen if the متحده ایالات did elect to attack?
Militarily, there is little تهران could do in response.
ایران‘s army is smaller than it was during the Iran-Iraq war, and in a recent "show of force," its air force mustered a total of 140 out-of-date fighters. It navy is mostly small craft, and while it has anti-ship missiles, تهران would probably think twice about trying to shut down the Gulf. The current regime depends on the sale of oil and gas to shore up its fragile economy.
While the White House portrays the militias in عراق and Hezbollah as تهران‘s cat’s-paw, that is nonsense. The militias in both countries will act on the basis of what is in their own interests, not ایراند.
داسې خبرې شته ایران might target اسراییل, but the Israelis have made it clear that any such attack would be met with a massive retaliation, probably nuclear. "An Iranian attack will prompt a severe reaction from اسراییل," National Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer warned, "which would destroy the Iranian nation."
In any case, it is far more likely that اسراییل برید وکړي ایران than vice versa.
هره د امریکا د attack would further isolate the متحده ایالات په د منځني ختیځ. Ethan Chorin, of the conservative Center for Strategic and International Studies, says د امریکا د threats against ایران are running cross-current to efforts by other nations in the Gulf region to establish a détente with تهران. "د د امریکا د seeks to defend the Arabs from ایران, but they are increasingly trying to defend themselves from the د امریکا د efforts to defend them against ایران," he wrote in a recent commentary in the د فاينانشيل ټايمز.
All the war talk, says Chorin, "is translating into increasing open sympathy on the part of many Gulf Arabs for ایران and increasing skepticism about د امریکا د efforts to isolate the country."
A د امریکا د war would deeply divide Europe as well, and might lead to a German withdrawal from افغانستان. څه روسیهد چیناو هند‘s responses would be is not clear. چین او هند are major clients for Iranian natural gas.
Domestically, the Bush administration may see this as its only opportunity to hold on to the White House. The Republicans know they are going to lose seats in the House and the Senate, but at this point the race for the presidency is still tight. Might a new war against the demonized Iranians make voters stick with "war hero" John McCain? It’s a long shot, but this administration has always had a major streak of riverboat gambler about it.
All this talk of war, of course, could be sound and fury signifying nothing. But it might also be the run-up to a limited conflict, maybe one set off by a manufactured incident.
Once unleashed, however, no one controls the dogs of war. As hard as it is to imagine, war with ایران might top the Iraq War as a foreign policy disaster.
Conn Hallinan is a columnist for بهرنۍ پالیسي په فاکس کې.
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