Sabre rattling against
Phyllis Bennis analyses the situation in the wider
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/iran-in-the-crosshairs-again/
Here we go again with the
to think this time will be just like previous periods
of sabre rattling against
significant new dangers. The Arab Spring,
position, changes in the regional and global balance of
forces, and national election campaigns, all point to
this round of anti-Iranian hysteria posing potentially
graver risks than five or six years ago.
We have seen all this before. The
rhetoric,
escalating sanctions bite harder on the Iranian people,
the same time, top US military and intelligence
officials actually admit
weapon, is not building a nuclear weapon, and has not
decided whether to even begin a building process.
In 2004
international community for not doing enough to stop
Israeli military was reported to 'be ready by the end
of March for possible strikes on secret uranium
enrichment sites in
Services Committee issued a report drafted by one
congressional staffer (an aide to hard-line pro-war
John Bolton, then
that
cent. That same year a different Israeli prime minister
publicly threatened a military strike against
2008, George W Bush visited
that 'all options' remained on the table.
The earlier crisis saw a very similar gap between the
demonisation, sanctions, threats of military strikes
against
recognition by US, Israeli, United Nations and other
military and intelligence officials that
did not possess nuclear weapons, a nuclear weapons
programme, or even a decision to try to develop nuclear weapons.
The 2005
determined that even if
a nuclear weapon, it was unlikely before five to ten
years, and that producing enough fissile material would
be impossible even in five years unless
'more rapid and successful progress' than it had so
far. By 2007, a new NIE had pulled back even further,
asserting 'with high confidence that in fall 2003
had not started its nuclear weapons programme as of
mid-2007'. The NIE even admitted 'we do not know
whether it currently intends to develop nuclear
weapons'. That made the dire threats against
pretty lame. So maybe it wasn't surprising that
Newsweek magazine described how, 'in private
conversations with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
last week, the president all but disowned the document'.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA - the UN's
nuclear watchdog) issued report after report indicating
it could find no evidence that
enriched uranium to a weapons programme. The UN
inspection agency harshly rejected the House committee
report, calling some of its claims about
nuclear weapons activities incorrect, and others
'outrageous and dishonest'. And outside of the Bush
White House, which was spearheading much of the
hysteria, members of Congress, the neo-con think tanks,
hysterical talk show hosts, and much of the mainstream
media went ballistic.
Then and now
All of that sounds very familiar right now. Military
and intelligence leaders in
again admit that
course does, but no one talks about that.) Secretary of
Defense Leon Panetta asked and answered his own
question: 'Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon?
No.' Director of National Intelligence James R.
Clapper, Jr. admitted the
The latest 2011 NIE makes clear there is no new
evidence to challenge the 2007 conclusions;
does not have a nuclear weapons programme in operation.
According to the Independent, 'almost the entire senior
hierarchy of
establishment is worried about a premature attack on
repercussions.' Former head of the Israel Defense
Forces (IDF) said 'it is quite clear that much if not
all of the IDF leadership do not support military
action at this point.'
But despite all the military and intelligence experts,
the threat of war still looms. Republican candidates
pound the lecterns promising that 'when I'm
president...'
- as if the IAEA had not maintained an inspection team
inside
rumours of Iranian clerics promising nuclear weapons to
their people - as if
issued fatwas against nuclear weapons, something that
would be very difficult to reverse.
Some strategic issues are indeed at stake, but the
current anti-Iran mobilisation is primarily political.
It doesn't reflect actual US or Israeli military or
intelligence threat assessments, but rather political
conditions pushing politicians, here and in
escalate the fear factor about Iranian weapons (however
non-existent) and the urgency for attacking
(however illegal). And the danger, of course, is that
this kind of rhetoric can box leaders in, making them
believe they cannot back down from their belligerent words.
One of the main differences from the propaganda run-up
to the
and its supporters, particularly AIPAC in the
this push for war against
aboard the attack-Iraq bandwagon when it was clear that
war was indeed inevitable, but US strategic concerns
regarding oil and the expansion of
were first and primary. Even back then,
recognised
now, Israelis using that alleged threat to pressure US
policymakers and shape
During this campaign cycle, Obama is under the greatest
pressure he has ever faced, and likely ever will face,
to defend the Israeli position unequivocally, and to
pledge
however illegal, dangerous, and threatening to US interests.
presidential adviser Bruce Reidel makes clear, 'an
existential threat' to
future nuclear-armed
trajectory, would not be a threat to the existence of
nuclear monopoly in the
threat motivating
Further, as long as top US political officials, from
the White House to Congress, are competing to see who
can be more supportive of
on
and human rights regarding its occupation and apartheid
policies towards Palestinians.
The US-backed neighbouring dictatorships
counted on as allies are being challenged by the
uprisings of the Arab Spring.
overthrown, the king of
at home, and the threats to
border - something Bashar al-Assad and his father
largely staved off since
The calamity underway in
to the
of the other. First was
uprising against a brutal government, inspired by and
organically tied to the other risings of the Arab
Spring, and like them calling first for massive reform
and soon for the overthrow of the regime.
relatively wealthy and diverse country, in which a
large middle class, especially in
had prospered under the regime, despite its political
repression. As a result, unlike some other regional
uprisings,
which still held some public support and legitimacy.
The regime's drastic military assault on largely
non-violent protests led some sectors of the opposition
to take up arms, in tandem with growing numbers of
military defectors, which of course meant waging their
democratic struggle in the terrain in which the regime
remains strongest: military force. The government's
security forces killed thousands, injuring and
arresting thousands more, and in recent weeks even the
longstanding support for Assad in
began to waver. Simultaneously, attacks against
government forces increased, and the internal struggle
has taken on more and more the character of a civil war.
The further complication in
and global struggle.
partner in the
support
against
its closest ally. Perhaps because the Assad regimes
have kept the occupied
Israeli-Syrian border relatively quiet,
has not been the major public face in the
regionalisation of the Syrian crisis. But clearly Saudi
Arabia is fighting with
the region. The Arab League, whose
decision-making remains dominated by the Saudis and
their allied Gulf petro-states (such as
UAE), is using the
rising influence in Arab countries from
powers have jumped on the very real human rights crisis
in
the interest again of undermining
more than out of concern for the Syrian people.
Diminishing
Facing economic crisis, military failures in
states in the Arab world, the
influential in the
of oil markets and
regional goals for the
power remains central. The nature of that military
engagement is changing - away from large-scale
deployments of ground troops in favour of rapidly
expanding fleets of armed drones, special forces, and
growing reliance on naval forces, navy bases and
sea-based weapons.
Thus the
insure the US Fifth Fleet maintains its Bahraini base;
leverage in control of oil markets; the Iranian
rhetorical threat to close the
in desperation since it would prevent
exporting its own oil) is used to justify expansion of
the
possibility of losing
purchaser and regional ally, concerns about those US
strategic moves played a large part of
the UN resolution on
In
really starting to bite, with much greater impact felt
by the Iranian population, rather than the regime in
particularly the most recent murder of a young
scientist which was greeted by Israeli officials with
undisguised glee and barely-disguised triumph, are more
likely aimed at provoking an Iranian response than
actually undermining
its threat of a military strike - despite the virtually
unanimous opposition of its own military and
intelligence leadership - there is little reason to
imagine that
and
leaders face looming contests;
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and its president face huge
political challenges as well.
The consequences of a strike against
grave - from attacks on Israeli and/or US military
targets, to going after US forces in
Pentagon's Fifth Fleet in
of Hormuz ... and beyond. An attack by the
nuclear weapons state, on a non-nuclear weapons state
such as
Non-Proliferation Treaty.
nuclear inspectors. The hardest of
leaders would almost certainly consolidate ever greater
power - both at home and in the Arab countries, and the
calls to move towards greater nuclearisation, perhaps
even to build a nuclear weapon, would rise inside
Indeed, the Arab Spring's secular, citizenship-based
mobilisations would likely lose further influence to
closer to an 'Islamic Spring'.
Nuclear weapons-free zone
At the end of the day the crisis can only be solved
through negotiations, not threats and force.
Immediately, that means demanding that the White House
engage in serious, not deliberately time-constrained
negotiations to end the current crisis - perhaps based
on the successful Turkish-Brazilian initiative that the
US scuttled last year. That means that Congress must
reverse its current position to allow the White House
to use diplomacy - rather than continuing to pass laws
that strip the executive branch of its ability to put
the carrot of ending sanctions on the table in any
negotiations. And it means an
real conclusions of
officials, that
a nuclear weapon, rather than relying on lies about
non-existent nuclear weapons, like the WMD lies that
drove the
In the medium and longer term, we must put the urgent
need for a nuclear weapons-free zone in the
back on the table and on top of our agenda. Such a
multi-country move would insure
a nuclear weapon, that
existing 200 to 300 high-density nuclear bombs and the
submarine-based nuclear weapons in its arsenal, and
that the
seas. Otherwise, we face the possibility of the current
predicament repeating itself in an endless loop of
Groundhog Day-style nuclear crises, each one more
threatening than the last. Phyllis Bennis is a fellow
of the Institute for Policy Studies and of the
Transnational Institute in
Before & After: US Foreign Policy and the War on Terrorism
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