davidflanagan.com > February 2007

War with Iran?

[This long post is for my readers who are fellow U.S. citizens.]

I've been worried about the Bush administration's intentions towards Iran for a long time. But recent reports leave me sleepless at night. I fear that Bush is going to bomb Iran, and that we have little time left to try to prevent it.

The cover story of Newsweek's February 19 issue reveals that one aircraft carrier battle group is in the Persian Gulf, another is on its way, and a third "will likely follow". The article quotes Hillary Mann who was formerly part of the Bush administration as National Security Council director for Iran and Persian Gulf Affairs:

They intend to be as provocative as possible and make the Iranians do something [America] would be forced to retaliate for

Vanity Fair has a long and comprehensive article in its current issue about the possibility of war with Iran. Ominous signs of war include:

• Minesweeping boats have been deployed to the Persian Gulf

• William Fallon, a Navy Admiral, has been appointed to the top post at CentCom. CentCom is the military command that covers the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran. Appointing a naval officer as the head of CentCom while the Army is bogged down in Iraq doesn't make much sense unless a naval war is anticipated.

• The U.S. will have enough naval and air force in place by the end of February to attack.

• Planning for a strike against Iran has been done by StratCom rather than CentCom. StratCom is the U.S. Strategic Command, the branch of the military who have the nukes, and who worry about defending against nukes.

The whole article is worth reading for the big picture, but here is one scary paragraph:

In April, Seymour Hersh reported in The New Yorker that U.S. troops were already on the ground in Iran, negotiating alliances with the Azerbaijanis in the North, the Kurds in the Northeast, and the Baluchis in the Southeast. In September, Time reported that a U.S. campaign to wipe out Iran's nuclear program could entail bombing up to 1,500 targets. More recently, Paul Craig Roberts, a former assistant secretary of the Treasury under Ronald Reagan, asserted in the Baltimore Chronicle that Bush "will attack Iran with tactical nuclear weapons, because it is the only way the neocons believe they can rescue their goal of U.S. (and Israeli) hegemony in the Middle East." Adds former C.I.A. officer Philip Giraldi, "I've heard from sources at the Pentagon that their impression is that the White House has made a decision that war is going to happen."

The Vanity Fair article goes on to say that there may not be anything Congress can do to stop Bush (short of removing him from office, quickly):

Moreover, he [retired DIA colonel W. Patrick Lang] continues, Bush can count on the military to carry out such a mission even without congressional authorization. "If they write a plan like that and the president issues an execute order, the forces will execute it. He's got the power to do that as commander-in-chief. We set that up during the Cold War. It may, after the fact, be considered illegal, or an impeachable offense, but if he orders them to do it, they will do it."

The Seymour Hersh article cited above is also available online and is worth a read. Hersh's article is from April 2006 and focuses on Iran's nuclear ambitions as the rationale for war. In the last month, however, the focus has been on Iranian weapons being used against American troops in Iraq. In his January 10th "Iraq surge" speach, Bush said:

Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We'll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.

Three days ago, U.S. military officials in Iraq gave a powerpoint presentation to the press about Iranian-made bombs in Iraq. Curiously, however, the military was not able to find anyone willing to stand behind the presentation: the briefers refused to give their names and conducted the briefing entirely on background. The New York Times could refer to them only as "senior United States military officials".

There has been no evidence presented that Iranian weapons in Iraq have not simply been sold to Iraqis by black market weapons dealers. And no explanation of why, if Shiite Iran is supplying weapons, most U.S. casualties are predominantly occurring in Sunni areas of the country. Nevertheless, Bush said today:

"I can say with certainty that the Quds force, a part of the Iranian government, has provided these sophisticated IEDs that have harmed our troops".

And Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns directly implicated the Iranian government saying, "If that force is supplying technology for Shiite militants, that government is responsible."

Bush's statement today reminds me of his famous lie two months before the start of the Iraq war: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Administration officials keep saying that they are not planning for war with Iran, and that they don't want to "ratchet up" tensions with that country. But this administration has no credibility, and I'm sincerely worried that they are trying to provoke Iran into some action that can be used as a pretext for war. (And if they can't provoke Iran to start a war, they can always make up a provocation.)

Sometimes I feel I'm being paranoid to think (and write) about war with Iran. But when I start to doubt, I remind myself of the "Cheney Doctrine" (as described in The One Percent Doctrine by Ron Suskind.) Cheney's said that if there is even a one-percent chance that an adversary is acquiring nuclear weapons, then we, the U.S., should respond as if it is a certainty. We can turn this around and apply it to Cheney himself:

If there is even a one-percent chance that Dick Cheney and George Bush intend to go to war with Iran, then we, the people, should respond as if it is a certainty.

This post is the beginning of my response. Next, I'll call my senators and representative. (You can do the same. Contact information here.)

I'm not sure what else to do, but I feel I've got to do something rather than just watch mutely while my country goes to war again. I'm just a tech writer with a blog, but I want to ask you: please do what you can to stop this madness. And if you know anyone influential, ask them to do the same!

Update: comments are now closed. Comment spammers have found this post and are beginning to swarm