[Peace-discuss] US preparations for Iran attack

[Barbara kessel]

Iran Clock Is Ticking
    By Robert Parry
    Consortium News

    Wednesday 31 January 2007

    While congressional Democrats test how far they should go in
challenging George W. Bush's war powers, the time may be running out
to stop Bush from ordering a major escalation of the Middle East
conflict by attacking Iran.

    Military and intelligence sources continue to tell me that
preparations are advancing for a war with Iran starting possibly as
early as mid-to-late February. The sources offer some differences of
opinion over whether Bush might cite a provocation from Iran or
whether Israel will take the lead in launching air strikes against
Iran's nuclear facilities.

    But there is growing alarm among military and intelligence experts
that Bush already has decided to attack and simply is waiting for a
second aircraft carrier strike force to arrive in the region - and for
a propaganda blitz to stir up some pro-war sentiment at home.

    One well-informed U.S. military source called me in a fury after
consulting with Pentagon associates and discovering how far along the
war preparations are. He said the plans call for extensive aerial
attacks on Iran, including use of powerful bunker-busting ordnance.

    Another source with a pipeline into Israeli thinking said the Iran
war plan has expanded over the past several weeks. Earlier thinking
had been that Israeli warplanes would hit Iranian nuclear targets with
U.S. forces in reserve in case of Iranian retaliation, but now the
strategy anticipates a major U.S. military follow-up to an Israeli
attack, the source said.

    Both sources used the same word "crazy" in describing the plan to
expand the war to Iran. The two sources, like others I have
interviewed, said that attacking Iran could touch off a regional - and
possibly global - conflagration.

    "It will be like the TV show '24'," the American military source
said, citing the likelihood of Islamic retaliation reaching directly
into the United States.

    Though Bush insists that no decision has been made on attacking
Iran, he offered similar assurances of his commitment to peace in the
months before invading Iraq in 2003. Yet leaked documents from London
made clear that he had set a course for war nine months to a year
before the Iraq invasion.

    In other words, Bush's statements that he has no plans to "invade"
Iran and that he's still committed to settle differences with Iran
over its nuclear program diplomatically should be taken with a grain
of salt.

    There is, of course, the possibility that the war preparations are
a game of chicken to pressure Iran to accept outside controls on its
nuclear program and to trim back its regional ambitions. But sometimes
such high-stakes gambles lead to miscalculations or set in motion
dynamics that can't be controlled.

    "You Will Die"

    The rapidly deteriorating situation in Iraq is seen as another
factor pressing on Bush to act quickly against Iran.

    Other sources with first-hand knowledge of conditions in Iraq have
told me that the U.S. position is even more precarious than generally
understood. Westerners can't even move around Baghdad and many other
Iraqi cities except in armed convoys.

    "In some countries, if you want to get out of the car and go to
the market, they'll tell you that it might be dangerous," one
experienced American cameraman told me. "In Iraq, you will be killed.
Not that you might be killed, but you will be killed. The first Iraqi
with a gun will shoot you, and if no one has a gun, they'll stone
you."

    While U.S. war correspondents in most countries travel around in
taxis with "TV" taped to their windows, Western journalists in Iraq
move only in armed convoys to and from specific destinations. They
operate from heavily guarded Baghdad hotels sometimes with single
families responsible for security since outsiders can't be trusted.

    The American cameraman said one European journalist rebelled at
the confinement, took off on her own in a cab - and was never seen
again.

    Depression also is spreading among U.S. intelligence officials who
monitor covert operations in Iraq from listening stations sometimes
thousands of miles away. The results of these Special Forces
operations have been so horrendous that morale in the intelligence
community has suffered.

    The futility of the Iraq War also is contributing to professional
cynicism. Some intelligence support personnel are volunteering for
Iraq duty not because they think they can help win the war but because
the hazard pay is high and life in the protected Green Zone is
relatively safe and easy.

    Once getting past the risks of the Baghdad airport and the
dangerous road into the city, U.S. civilian government personnel
ensconce themselves in the Green Zone, which amounts to a bubble of
U.S. creature comforts - from hamburgers to lounging by the pool -
separate from the world of average Iraqis who are mostly barred.

    Cooks are brought in from other countries out of the unstated
concern that Iraqis might poison the food.

    That American officials have come to view a posting in Iraq as a
pleasant career enhancer - rather than a vital national security
mission for the United States - is another sign that the war is almost
certainly beyond recovery.

    Another experienced observer of conflicts around the world told me
that Bush's new idea of putting small numbers of U.S. troops among
Iraqi government forces inside police stations represents an act of
idiocy that is sure to get Americans killed.

    Conditions in Iraq have so deteriorated - and animosity toward
Americans has so metastasized - that traditional counterinsurgency
strategies are hard to envision, too.

    Normally, winning the hearts and minds of a target population
requires a commitment to move among the people and work on public
action projects, from building roads to improving the judicial system.
But all that requires some measure of political goodwill and personal
trust.

    Given the nearly four years of U.S. occupation and the devastation
that Iraq has suffered, not even the most talented American
counterinsurgency specialists can expect to overcome the hatred
swelling among large segments of Iraqi society.

    Bush's "surge" strategy of conducting more military sweeps through
more Iraqi neighborhoods - knocking down doors, gunning down hostile
Iraqis and dragging off others to detention camps - is not likely to
assuage hard feelings.

    Wider War

    So, facing slim odds in Iraq, Bush is tempted by the allure of
escalation, a chance to blame the Iranians for his Iraq failure and to
punish them with air strikes. He might see that as a way to buy time,
a chance to rally his pro-war supporters and a strategy for enhancing
his presidential legacy.

    But the consequences both internationally and domestically - from
possible disruption of oil supplies to potential retaliation from
Islamic terrorists - could be devastating.

    Yet, there is a sense of futility among many in Washington who
doubt they can do anything to stop Bush. So far, the
Democratic-controlled Congress has lagged behind the curve, debating
how to phrase a non-binding resolution of disapproval about Bush's
"surge" of 21,500 troops in Iraq, while Bush may be opening an
entirely new front in Iran.

    According to intelligence sources, Bush's Iran strategy is
expected to let the Israelis take a lead role in attacking Iran's
nuclear facilities in order to defuse Democratic opposition and let
the U.S. intervention be sold as defensive, a case of a vulnerable
ally protecting itself from a future nuclear threat.

    Once American air and naval forces are committed to a new
conflict, the Democrats will find it politically difficult to
interfere at least in the near future, the thinking goes. A violent
reaction from the Islamic world would further polarize the American
population and let Bush paint war critics as cowardly, disloyal or
pro-terrorist.

    As risky as a wider war might be, Bush's end game would dominate
the final two years of his presidency as he forces both Republican and
Democratic candidates to address issues of war and peace on his terms.

    On Jan. 10, the night of Bush's national address on the Iraq War,
NBC Washington bureau chief Tim Russert made a striking observation
about a pre-speech briefing that Bush and other senior administration
officials gave to news executives.

    "There's a strong sense in the upper echelons of the White House
that Iran is going to surface relatively quickly as a major issue in
the country and the world in a very acute way - and a prediction that
in 2008 candidates of both parties will have as a fundamental campaign
promise or premise a policy to deal with Iran and not let it go
nuclear," Russert said. "That's how significant Iran was today."

    So, Bush and his top advisers not only signaled their expectation
of a "very acute" development with Iran but that the Iranian issue
would come to dominate Campaign 2008 with candidates forced to spell
out plans for containing this enemy state.

    What to Do?

    The immediate question, however, is what, if anything, can
Congress and the American people do to head off Bush's expanded war
strategy.

    Some in Congress have called on Bush to seek prior congressional
approval before entering a war with Iran. Others, such as Sen. Arlen
Specter, R-Pennsylvania, have asked Bush to spell out how expansive he
thinks his war powers are.

    "I would suggest respectfully to the President that he is not the
sole decider," Specter said during a Senate hearing on war powers on
Jan. 30. "The decider is a shared and joint responsibility."

    But Bush and his neoconservative legal advisers have made clear
that they see virtually no limits to Bush's "plenary" powers as
Commander in Chief at a time of war. In their view, Bush is free to
take military actions abroad and to waive legal and constitutional
constraints at home because the United States has been deemed part of
the "battlefield."

    Nothing short of a direct congressional prohibition on war with
Iran and a serious threat of impeachment would seem likely to give
Bush more than a moment's pause. But congressional Republicans would
surely obstruct such measures and Bush might well veto any law that
was passed.

    Still, unless Congress escalates the confrontation with the
President - and does so quickly - it may be too late to stop what
could become a very dangerous escalation.

    ---------

    Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s
for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy &
Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be
ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com,
as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press &
'Project Truth.'

    [For more on this topic, see Consortiumnews.com's "Logic of a
Wider Mideast War."]