[Peace-discuss] No attack on Iran??

[Brussel Morton K.]

It's all about oil…   He's more or less convincing, if you believe  
that rationality can reign in D.C.  --mkb

Reality Bites Back: Why the US Won't Attack Iran

Wednesday 09 July 2008

by: Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch.com


     It's been on the minds of antiwar activists and war critics  
since 2003. And little wonder. If you don't remember the pre-invasion  
of Iraq neocon quip, "Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want  
to go to Tehran..." -- then take notice. Even before American troops  
entered Iraq, knocking off Iran was already "Regime Change: The  
Sequel." It was always on the Bush agenda and, for a faction of the  
administration led by Vice President Cheney, it evidently still is.

     Add to that a series of provocative statements by President  
Bush, the Vice President, and other top U.S. officials and former  
officials. Take Cheney's daughter Elizabeth, who recently sent this  
verbal message to the Iranians: "[D]espite what you may be hearing  
from Congress, despite what you may be hearing from others in the  
administration who might be saying force isn't on the table... we're  
serious." Asked about an Israeli strike on Iran, she said: "I  
certainly don't think that we should do anything but support them."  
Similarly, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton suggested that the Bush  
administration might launch an Iranian air assault in its last, post- 
election weeks in office.

     Consider as well the evident relish with which the President and  
other top administration officials regularly refuse to take "all  
options" off that proverbial "table" (at which no one bothers to sit  
down to talk). Throw into the mix semi-official threats, warnings,  
and hair-raising leaks from Israeli officials and intelligence types  
about Iran's progress in producing a nuclear weapon and what Israel  
might do about it. Then there were those recent reports on a "major"  
Israeli "military exercise" in the Mediterranean that seemed to  
prefigure a future air assault on Iran. ("Several American officials  
said the Israeli exercise appeared to be an effort to develop the  
military's capacity to carry out long-range strikes and to  
demonstrate the seriousness with which Israel views Iran's nuclear  
program.")

     From the other side of the American political aisle comes a  
language hardly less hair-raising, including Hillary Clinton's  
infamous comment about how the U.S. could "totally obliterate" Iran  
(in response to a hypothetical Iranian nuclear attack on Israel).  
Congressman Ron Paul recently reported that fellow representatives  
"have openly voiced support for a pre-emptive nuclear strike" on  
Iran, while the resolution soon to come before the House (H.J. Res.  
362), supported by Democrats as well as Republicans, urges the  
imposition of the kind of sanctions and a naval blockade on Iran that  
would be tantamount to a declaration of war.

     Stir in a string of new military bases the U.S. has been  
building within miles of the Iranian border, the repeated crescendos  
of U.S. military charges about Iranian-supplied weapons killing  
American soldiers in Iraq, and the revelation by Seymour Hersh, our  
premier investigative reporter, that, late last year, the Bush  
administration launched -- with the support of the Democratic  
leadership in Congress -- a $400 million covert program "designed to  
destabilize [Iran's] religious leadership," including cross-border  
activities by U.S. Special Operations Forces and a low-level war of  
terror through surrogates in regions where Baluchi and Ahwazi Arab  
minorities are strongest. (Precedents for this terror campaign  
include previous CIA-run campaigns in Afghanistan in the 1980s, using  
car bombs and even camel bombs against the Russians, and in Iraq in  
the 1990s, using car bombs and other explosives in an attempt to  
destabilize Saddam Hussein's regime.)

     Add to this combustible mix the unwillingness of the Iranians to  
suspend their nuclear enrichment activities, even for a matter of  
weeks, while negotiating with the Europeans over their nuclear  
program. Throw in as well various threats from Iranian officials in  
response to the possibility of a U.S. or Israeli attack on their  
nuclear facilities, and any number of other alarums, semi-official  
predictions ("A senior defense official told ABC News there is an  
'increasing likelihood' that Israel will carry out such an  
attack..."), reports, rumors, and warnings -- and it's hardly  
surprising that the political Internet has been filled with alarming  
(as well as alarmist) pieces claiming that an assault on Iran may be  
imminent.

     Seymour Hersh, who certainly has his ear to the ground in  
Washington, has publicly suggested that an Obama victory might be the  
signal for the Bush administration to launch an air campaign against  
that country. As Jim Lobe of Inter Press Service has pointed out,  
there have been a number of "public warnings by U.S. hawks close to  
Cheney's office that either the Israelis or the U.S. would attack  
Iran between the November elections and the inaugural of a new  
president in January 2009."

     Given the Bush administration's "preventive war" doctrine which  
has opened the way for the launching of wars without significant  
notice or obvious provocation, and the penchant of its officials to  
ignore reality, all of this should frighten anyone. In fact, it's not  
only war critics who are increasingly edgy. In recent months, jumpy  
(and greedy) commodity traders, betting on a future war, have boosted  
these fears. (Every bit of potential bad news relating to Iran only  
seems to push the price of a barrel of oil further into the  
stratosphere.) And mainstream pundits and journalists are  
increasingly joining them.

     No wonder. It's a remarkably frightening scenario, and, if  
there's one lesson this administration has taught us these last  
years, it's that nothing's "off the table," not for officials who,  
only a few years ago, believed themselves capable of creating their  
own reality and imposing it on the planet. An "unnamed Administration  
official" -- generally assumed to be Karl Rove -- famously put it  
this way to journalist Ron Suskind back in October 2004:

     "[He] said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality- 
based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that  
solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I  
nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and  
empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works  
anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we  
create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality --  
judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new  
realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort  
out. We're history's actors.... and you, all of you, will be left to  
just study what we do.'"

     A Future Global Oil Shock

     Nonetheless, sometimes -- as in Iraq -- reality has a way of  
biting back, no matter how mad or how powerful the imperial dreamer.  
So, let's consider reality for a moment. When it comes to Iran,  
reality means oil and natural gas. These days, any twitch of trouble,  
or potential trouble, affecting the petroleum market, no matter how  
minor -- from Mexico to Nigeria -- forces the price of oil another  
bump higher.

     Possessing the world's second largest reserves of oil and  
natural gas, Iran is no speed bump on the energy map. The National  
Security Network, a group of national security experts, estimates  
that the Bush administration's policy of bluster, threat, and  
intermittent low-level actions against Iran has already added a  
premium of $30-$40 to every $140 barrel of oil. Then there was the  
one-day $11 spike after Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz  
suggested that an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities was  
"unavoidable."

     Given that, let's imagine, for a moment, what almost any version  
of an air assault -- Israeli, American, or a combination of the two  
-- would be likely to do to the price of oil. When asked recently by  
Brian Williams on NBC Nightly News about the effects of an Israeli  
attack on Iran, correspondent Richard Engel responded: "I asked an  
oil analyst that very question. He said, 'The price of a barrel of  
oil? Name your price: $300, $400 a barrel.'" Former CIA official  
Robert Baer suggested in Time Magazine that such an attack would  
translate into $12 gas at the pump. ("One oil speculator told me that  
oil would hit $200 a barrel within minutes.") Those kinds of price  
leaps could take place in the panic that preceded any Iranian  
response. But, of course, the Iranians, no matter how badly hit,  
would be certain to respond -- by themselves and through proxies in  
the region in a myriad of possible ways. Iranian officials have  
regularly been threatening all sorts of hell should they be attacked,  
including "blitzkrieg tactics" in the region. Oil Minister Gholam  
Hossein Nozari typically swore that his country would "react  
fiercely, and nobody can imagine what would be the reaction of Iran."  
The head of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Mohammed Jafari, said:  
"Iran's response to any military action will make the invaders regret  
their decision and action." ("Mr. Jafari had already warned that if  
attacked, Iran would launch a barrage of missiles at Israel and close  
the Strait of Hormuz, the outlet for oil tankers leaving the Persian  
Gulf.") Ali Shirazi, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's  
representative to the Revolutionary Guards, offered the following:  
"The first bullet fired by America at Iran will be followed by Iran  
burning down its vital interests around the globe."

     Let's take a moment to imagine just what some of the responses  
to any air assault might be. The list of possibilities is nearly  
endless and many of them would be hard even for the planet's  
preeminent military power to prevent. They might include, as a start,  
the mining of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a significant  
portion of the world's oil passes, as well as other disruptions of  
shipping in the region. (Don't even think about what would happen to  
insurance rates for oil tankers!)

     In addition, American troops on their mega-bases in Iraq, rather  
than being a powerful force in any attack -- Iraqi Prime Minister  
Nouri al-Maliki has already cautioned President Bush that Iraqi  
territory cannot be used to attack Iran -- would instantly become so  
many hostages to Iranian actions, including the possible targeting of  
those bases by missiles. Similarly, U.S. supply lines for those  
troops, running from Kuwait past the southern oil port of Basra might  
well become hostages of a different sort, given the outrage that, in  
Shiite regions of Iraq, would surely follow an attack. Those lines  
would assumedly not be impossible to disrupt.

     Imagine, as well, what possible disruptions of the modest Iraqi  
oil supply might mean in the chaos of the moment, with Iranian oil  
already off the market. Then consider what the targeting of even  
small numbers of Iranian missiles on the Saudi and Kuwaiti oil fields  
could do to global oil markets. (It might not even matter whether  
they actually hit anything.) And that, of course, just scratches the  
surface of the range of retaliatory possibilities available to  
Iranian leaders.

     Looked at another way, Iran is a weak regional power (which  
hasn't invaded another country in living memory) that nonetheless  
retains a remarkable capacity to inflict grievous harm locally,  
regionally, and globally.

     Such a scenario would result in a global oil shock of almost  
inconceivable proportions. For any American who believes that he or  
she is experiencing "pain at the pump" right now, just wait until you  
experience what a true global oil shock would involve.

     And that's without even taking into consideration what spreading  
chaos in the oil heartlands of the planet might mean, or what might  
happen if Hezbollah or Hamas took action of any sort against Israel,  
and Israel responded. Mohamed ElBaradei, the sober-minded head of the  
International Atomic Energy Agency, considering the situation, said  
the following: "A military strike, in my opinion, would be worse than  
anything possible. It would turn the region into a fireball..." This,  
then, is the baseline for any discussion of an attack on Iran. This  
is reality, and it has to be daunting for an administration that  
already finds itself militarily stretched to the limit, unable even  
to find the reinforcements it wants to send into Afghanistan.

     Can Israel Attack Iran?

     Let's leave to the experts the question of whether Israel could  
actually launch an effective air strike against Iranian nuclear  
facilities on its own -- about which there are grave doubts. And  
let's instead try to imagine what it would mean for Israel to launch  
such an assault (egged on by the Vice President's faction in the U.S.  
government) in the last months, or even weeks, of the second term of  
an especially lame lame-duck President and an historically unpopular  
administration.

     From Iran's foreign minister, we already know that the Iranians  
would treat an Israeli attack as if it were an American one, whether  
or not American planes were involved -- and little wonder. For one  
thing, Israeli planes heading for Iran would undoubtedly have to  
cross Iraqi air space, at present controlled by the United States,  
not the nearly air-force-less Maliki government. (In fact, in Status  
of Forces Agreement negotiations with the Iraqis, the Bush  
administration has demanded that the U.S. retain control of that air  
space, up to 29,000 feet, after December 31, 2008, when the U.N.  
mandate runs out.)

     In other words, on the eve of the arrival of a new American  
administration, Israel, a small, vulnerable Middle Eastern state  
deeply reliant on its American alliance, would find itself  
responsible for starting an American war (associated with a Vice  
President of unparalleled unpopularity) and for a global oil shock of  
staggering proportions, if not a global great depression. It would  
also be the proximate cause for a regional "fireball." (Oil-poor  
Israel would undoubtedly also be economically wounded by its own  
strike.)

     In addition, the latest American National Intelligence Estimate  
on Iran concluded that the Iranians stopped weaponizing parts of  
their nuclear program back in 2003, and American intelligence  
reputedly doubts recent Israeli warnings that Iran is on the verge of  
a bomb. Of course, Israel itself has an estimated -- though  
unannounced -- nuclear force of about 200 such weapons.

     Simply put, it is next to inconceivable that the present riven  
Israeli government would be politically capable of launching such an  
attack on Iran on its own, or even in combination with only a  
faction, no matter how important, in the U.S. government. And such a  
point is more or less taken for granted by many Israelis (and  
Iranians). Without a full-scale "green light" from the Bush  
administration, launching such an attack could be tantamount to long- 
term political suicide.

     Only in conjunction with an American attack would an Israeli  
attack (rash to the point of madness even then) be likely. So let's  
turn to the Bush administration and consider what might be called the  
Hersh scenario.

     Will the Bush administration Attack Iran If Obama Is Elected?

     The first problem is a simple one. Oil, which was at $146 a  
barrel last week, dropped to $136 (in part because of a statement by  
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissing "the possibility  
that war with the United States and Israel was imminent"), and, on  
Wednesday rose a dollar to $137 in reaction to Iranian missile tests.  
But, whatever its immediate zigs and zags, the overall pattern of the  
price of oil seems clear enough. Some suggest that, by the time of  
any Obama victory, a barrel of crude oil will be at $170. The  
chairman of the giant Russian oil monopoly Gazprom recently predicted  
that it would hit $250 within 18 months -- and that's without an  
attack on Iran.

     For those eager to launch a reasonably no-pain campaign against  
Iran, the moment is already long gone. Every leap in the price of oil  
only emphasizes the pain to come. In turn, that means, with every  
passing day, it's madder -- and harder -- to launch such an attack.  
There is already significant opposition within the administration;  
the American people, feeling pain, are unprepared for and, as polls  
indicate, massively unwilling to sanction such an attack. There can  
be no question that the Bush legacy, such as it is, would be secured  
in infamy forever and a day.

     Now, consider recent administration actions on North Korea.  
Facing a "reality" that first-term Bush officials would have abjured,  
the President and his advisors not only negotiated with that  
nuclearized Axis of Evil nation, but are now removing it from the  
Trading with the Enemy Act list and the State Sponsor of Terrorism  
list. No matter what steps Kim Jong Il's regime has taken, including  
blowing up the cooling tower at the Yongbyon reactor, this is nothing  
short of a stunning reversal for this administration. An angry John  
Bolton, standing in for the Cheney faction, compared what happened to  
a "police truce with the Mafia." And Vice President Cheney's anger  
over the decision -- and the policy -- was visible and widely reported.

     It's possible, of course, that Cheney and associates are simply  
holding their fire for what they care most about, but here's another  
question that needs to be considered: Does George W. Bush actually  
support his imperial Vice President in the manner he once did?  
There's no way to know, but Bush has always been a more important  
figure in the administration than many critics like to imagine. The  
North Korean decision indicates that Cheney may not have a free hand  
from the President on Iran policy either.

     The Adults in the Room

     And what about the opposition? I'm not talking about those of us  
out here who would oppose such a strike. I mean within the world of  
Bush's Washington. Forget the Democrats. They hardly count and, as  
Hersh has pointed out, their leadership already signed off on that  
$400 million covert destabilization campaign.

     I mean the adults in the room, who have been in short supply  
indeed these last years in the Bush administration, specifically  
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of  
Staff Mike Mullen. (Condoleezza Rice evidently falls into this camp  
as well, although she's proven herself something of a President- 
enabling nonentity over the years.)

     With former Carter National Security Advisor Zbigniew  
Brzezinski, Gates tellingly co-chaired a task force sponsored by the  
Council on Foreign Relations back in 2004 which called for  
negotiations with Iran. He arrived at the Pentagon early in 2007 as  
an envoy from the world of George H.W. Bush and as a man on a  
mission. He was there to staunch the madness and begin the clean up  
in the imperial Augean stables. In his Congressional confirmation  
hearings, he was absolutely clear: any attack on Iran would be a  
"very last resort." Sometimes, in the bureaucratic world of  
Washington, a single "very" can tell you what you need to know. Until  
then, administration officials had been referring to an attack on  
Iran simply as a "last resort." He also offered a bloodcurdling  
scenario for what the aftermath of such an American attack might be  
like:

     "It's always awkward to talk about hypotheticals in this case.  
But I think that while Iran cannot attack us directly militarily, I  
think that their capacity to potentially close off the Persian Gulf  
to all exports of oil, their potential to unleash a significant wave  
of terror both in the -- well, in the Middle East and in Europe and  
even here in this country is very real ... Their ability to get  
Hezbollah to further destabilize Lebanon I think is very real. So I  
think that while their ability to retaliate against us in a  
conventional military way is quite limited, they have the capacity to  
do all of the things, and perhaps more, that I just described."

     And perhaps more... That puts it in a nutshell.

     Hersh, in his most recent piece on the administration's covert  
program in Iran, reports the following:

     "A Democratic senator told me that, late last year, in an off- 
the-record lunch meeting, Secretary of Defense Gates met with the  
Democratic caucus in the Senate. (Such meetings are held regularly.)  
Gates warned of the consequences if the Bush Administration staged a  
preemptive strike on Iran, saying, as the senator recalled, 'We'll  
create generations of jihadists, and our grandchildren will be  
battling our enemies here in America.' Gates's comments stunned the  
Democrats at the lunch."

     In other words, back in 2007, early and late, our new secretary  
of defense managed to sound remarkably like one of those Iranian  
officials issuing warnings. Gates, who has a long history as a  
skilled Washington in-fighter, has once again proven that skill. So  
far, he seems to have outmaneuvered the Cheney faction.

     The March "resignation" of CENTCOM commander Admiral William J.  
Fallon, outspokenly against an administration strike on Iran, sent  
both a shiver of fear through war critics and a new set of attack  
scenarios coursing through the political Internet, as well as into  
the world of the mainstream media. As reporter Jim Lobe points out at  
his invaluable Lobelog blog, however, Admiral Mike Mullen, the  
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and Gates's man in the Pentagon, has  
proven nothing short of adamant when it comes to the inadvisabilty of  
attacking Iran.

     His recent public statements have actually been stronger than  
Fallon's (and the position he fills is obviously more crucial than  
CENTCOM commander). Lobe comments that, at a July 2nd press  
conference at the Pentagon, Mullen "repeatedly made clear that he  
opposes an attack on Iran -- whether by Israel or his own forces --  
and, moreover, favors dialogue with Tehran, without the normal White  
House nuclear preconditions."

     Mullen, being an adult, has noticed the obvious. As columnist  
Jay Bookman of the Atlanta Constitution put the matter recently: "A  
U.S. attack on Iran's nuclear installations would create trouble that  
we aren't equipped to handle easily, not with ongoing wars in Iraq  
and Afghanistan. Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs  
of Staff, drove that point home in a press conference last week at  
the Pentagon."

     The Weight of Reality

     Here's the point: Yes, there is a powerful faction in this  
administration, headed by the Vice President, which has, it seems,  
saved its last rounds of ammunition for a strike against Iran. The  
question, of course, is: Are they still capable of creating "their  
own reality" and imposing it, however briefly, on the planet? Every  
tick upwards in the price of oil says no. Every day that passes makes  
an attack on Iran harder to pull off.

     On this subject, panic may be everywhere in the world of the  
political Internet, and even in the mainstream, but it's important  
not to make the mistake of overestimating these political actors or  
underestimating the forces arrayed against them. It's a reasonable  
proposition today -- as it wasn't perhaps a year ago -- that,  
whatever their desires, they will not, in the end, be able to launch  
an attack on Iran; that, even where there's a will, there may not be  
a way.

     They would have to act, after all, against the unfettered  
opposition of the American people; against leading military  
commanders who, even if obliged to follow a direct order from the  
President, have other ways to make their wills known; against key  
figures in the administration; and, above all, against reality which  
bears down on them with a weight that is already staggering -- and  
still growing.

     And yet, of course, for the maddest gamblers and dystopian  
dreamers in our history, never say never.

     --------

     Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs  
the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. The World According to  
TomDispatch: America in the New Age of Empire (Verso, 2008), a  
collection of some of the best pieces from his site, has just been  
published. Focusing on what the mainstream media hasn't covered, it  
is an alternative history of the mad Bush years. A brief video in  
which Engelhardt discusses American mega-bases in Iraq can be viewed  
by clicking here.

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