By Tony Karon
Ballistic missiles are paraded past a podium from which Major General Hassan Firoozabadi and other military commanders observe a parade commemorating the 31st anniversary of Iran-Iraq war on September 22, 2011 in Tehran, Iran. (Photo: Kaveh Kazemi / Getty Images
Yes,
you heard right: Britain is preparing to
bomb Iran. Well, that's if the latest reported leaks from the British
government are to be believed. The Guardian -- not known, like some of its British
rivals are, for frequent breathless front-page claims of imminent military
strikes on Iran -- reported Wednesday that Britain's Defense Ministry has
stepped up plans for military action against Iran. Not that the Brits would
kick things off, of course; their contingency planning is ostensibly geared
towards playing a largely symbolic support role (think "Coalition of the
Willing") should the Obama
Administration "decide to fast-forward plans for targeted missile strikes
at some key Iranian facilities."
Beneath
the attention-grabbing headline, the story is a familiar one: British officials believe that while
President Barack Obama "has no wish to embark on a new and provocative
military venture before next November's U.S. election ... the calculus could
change because of mounting anxiety over intelligence gathered by Western
agencies, and the more belligerent posture that Iran appears to have been
taking."
The
Guardian's sources create the impression of dramatic new developments and a
ticking clock, although the consensus among the
world's intelligence agencies that Iran remains some years away from
having nuclear weapons, and has not yet
decided to actually build them even though it is assembling the means to do so.
But the alarmist messaging certainly jibes with an Israeli diplomatic campaign
launched to persuade reluctant governments to impose tough new sanctions on
Iran if they hope to avoid a potentially catastrophic war. Israel underscored
the point, Wednesday, announcing it had successfully tested a missile capable
of reaching Iran -- at the same time as Israeli papers were filled with stories
claiming that Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu is seeking cabinet approval for bombing Iran.
That,
too, is an old story warmed over, and former Israeli intelligence chiefs have
publicly denounced the idea of a military strike on Iran as misguided and
potentially disastrous for Israel -- it could at best only succeed in delaying
Iran's program (and ensure that it pursues a nuclear deterrent) but it would unleash
a protracted regional war that Israel couldn't win, warned former Mossad chief
Meir Dagan earlier this year. But regardless of its real intentions, dangling a
threat to bomb Iran has been a central part of Israel's strategy in recent
years.
President
Obama's point man on Iran, Dennis Ross, had written before joining the
Administration that if governments reluctant to impose harsh measures on Iran
believed the alternative was Israel starting a war, they would be more inclined
to back new sanctions. And there's certain a new sanctions push in the works,
right now. The "intelligence" being cited by the Guardian's sources
to suggest a new urgency is hardly new -- it's material collected some time ago
by Western agencies that purports to show that Iran has been doing theoretical
work on designs for a nuclear warhead. What's new is the fact that the U.S. has
been pressing the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to include those
allegations in its latest report on Iran, scheduled for release later this month.
The IAEA has questioned Iran's intent and
raised questions about many of is activities, but it has not until now
accused Iran of running an active nuclear weapons program. A Western official
told the Guardian that revelations about bomb-design work will be a
"game-changer" that forces Russia and China to get on board with U.S.
sanctions efforts.
It's
not clear, though, whether those charges will
make it into the IAEA report -- China and Russia are lobbying against
what they see as an attempt to enlist the nuclear watchdog in the service of a
U.S. agenda -- but even if they're in
the report, Moscow and Beijing are unlikely to join the sanctions push. It
wouldn't be the first time the U.S. had assumed
that some new 'gotcha' piece of
intelligence would change the game, only to be disappointed.
Indeed,
former Bush Administration national security staffer Michael Singh argued in
Foreign Policy this week that the only way to change China's position on
sanctions would be to prepare for a military attack, which, if it went ahead,
would disrupt China's energy supplies. A familiar argument, that one.
As
to the claim by the Guardian's sources
that Iran had lately adopted a more belligerent posture, the evidence
offered was the bizarre Saudi embassy
bombing plot, which much of the international community remains to be convinced
was actually an official Iranian effort.
For
the rest, there's not much new: Iran is restoring its uranium enrichment
capability damaged by the Stuxnet computer worm and protecting it in hardened
facilities. But none of that provides anything close to a casus belli that
might be deemed credible by most of the international community. The chances of
getting legal authorization for a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities
from the U.N. Security Council right now are slender, at best.
The
Guardian piece, in fact, deflates its own alarmist premise when a government
source notes that there has been "no acceleration toward military action
by the U.S. but that could change." Well, yes, although it's hard to
imagine why a government source would require anonymity for sharing a truism.
There's no obvious reason for the urgency of the timetables suggested by the
officials briefing the Guardian -- they suggested Obama would have to make a
fateful decision next spring -- other than the fact that the Iranians haven't
changed tack, despite four rounds of
U.N. sanctions plus a raft of additional measures adopted unilaterally by
Western powers, and considerable saber rattling by the Israelis. The urgency
would need to be politically generated, however, because of the assumption that Iran wins the long game
absent some dramatic game-changing action on the part of its adversaries. And
then there's the fact that the U.S. is entering an election year.
In
a companion piece to its UK preparations for military action story, the
Guardian notes that despite Obama's reluctance to drag the U.S. into another
Middle East war with potentially disastrous consequences, he enters his
reelection year under pressure from Israel over Iran. Prime Minister Netanyahu
could even force Obama's hand by initiating an attack on Iran that the U.S.
might feel compelled to join in order to ensure its success. (The Israeli
leader has certainly shown a willingness to defy Obama on issues where he
believes he has the support of Capitol Hill, and attacking Iran would certainly
be one of those.) Obama is no closer to persuading or pressuring Iran into
backing down on its nuclear program than when he ran for office four years ago,
promising the engagement he said had been missing from the Bush approach.
Washington hawks say engagement was tried and failed, and it's time to ratchet
up the pressure. Doves argue that engagement wasn't given a serious go or was
disrupted by Iran's internal power struggle, and should be resumed.
Electoral
calculations, however, would more likely prompt Obama to toughen up his stance.
The problem, of course, is that a harder line appears no more likely to
persuade Iran to back down than a softer one, but more bellicose rhetoric from
Obama could have the unintended effect of narrowing his options. A U.S.
military strike on Iran would not mark the first time in history that a country
had found itself marching to war without having really intended to do so.
-This commentary was published in Time on 02/11/2011
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