After Iraq, Does the U.S. Want to Attack Iran?

War is often the result of an error in calculation. Saddam Hussein did not believe that the United States would dare to invade. Is the scenario in the process of repeating itself right in front of our eyes in Iran? Washington resounded with the sounds of boots, less a metaphor than fact, at the moment when Bush departed to meet Nicolas Sarkozy.

In the corridors of the Capital, among the “think-tanks” and diplomatic agencies, one has been hearing the rumors of strikes against sites where Iran continues to enrich uranium, the function of which, according to most experts (which comprise the IAEA, the international atomic energy agency) is the fabrication of nuclear weapons.

These strikes would be made by American forces, or by Israeli air forces as was the case with the recent destruction of something which was identified as a nuclear installation. Either way, the attack would amount to the same thing, as the Israelis could not manage an attack of this kind in Iraq without the approval of the United States. It is certain that the Pentagon has established plans of attack, that the debate has never ceased to be at the center of the Bush administration, and that talk has intensified over the course of the past weeks with the continued publication of the IAEA’s last report.

Vice-President Dick Cheney and the “hawks” of the republican right favor the plans. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are less so. The Democratic Senator from Virginia, Jim Webb, affirms to whoever wants to hear that “The Bush Administration envisions attacks” against Iran. “The idea is debated, and some members of government push it.” The New York Times has become anxious enough to publish an editorial denouncing the use of force. The Ex-Assistant Secretary of State and US ambassador to the UN John Bolton, head of the hawks, himself confirmed the possibility of an attack on Iran, even as he states that “the option is not very attractive, and even the right only contemplates it as a last resort.”

Bush “wont be able to touch a square centimeter of Iran” (Ahmadinejad)

The Problem, he goes on to add, is that “Iran has already won five years” in the race to nuclear weapons. And that, this year, the quantity of Uranium already enriched (600 to 700kg) has become sufficient to fabricate at least a nuclear machine, affirms David Albright, of the Institute for Science and International Security, a center based in Washington (who doesn’t want to say that the Iranians will be able to build a nuclear missile). No one believes Tehran’s declarations that the program is a “civil” and “pacifist” program. The only debate, explains a diplomat, is whether Iran will be content to become a “State on the Threshold” of being a nuclear power (Like Japan, Brasil, or South Africa), capable of equipping a nuclear weapon in several months. Or if the Ayatollahs want to enter Iran into the nuclear club, like Pakistan and North Korea (and Israel), to reinforce their pretensions of great regional power.

The diplomatic approach carried out by the “group of six” (Germany, France, Great Britain, Russia, China and the United States) was an obvious failure. The regime in Tehran is no longer even pretending to allow their will to negotiate to come before the program. Javier Solana, who represents the group of six, arrived in Tehran on Saturday, carried propositions for aid in exchange for the abandonment of the nuclear program, propositions which Iran has already rejected multiple times in the past. If the Iranians turn up their noses once more the partisans in Washington will be reinforced.

It’s here that an error in appreciation on the part of the Iranian leaders could lead to catastrophe. These last few days, the Iranian President Mahmoud Amadinejad has taken comfort in affirming that “the Bush era is coming to an end,” and that he “will not be able to touch a square centimeter of the sacred ground of Iran”. His Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, has declared to Paris that his government “doesn’t believe in the risk of a military attack”. They might only be boasting. But it might also be a result of blindness, nourished by the pride of having given the international community the run-around for five years and by the certainty that an unpopular president at the end of his term would not dare to give the order to attack.

What is the good of backing down, or even to slow the nuclear program, the Iranians seem to think, since by next year there will be a new President in the Oval Office. And since if Barack Obama wins, which is probable, the pressure to prevent Iran’s nuclear push will relent. Did not the Democratic Candidate make meetings “without preamble” with his counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on of his electoral promises?

“Iran will be issue number one of the next American President”

The error is double. Behind the rhetoric of the Obama campaign, presented to a electorate scalded by war in Iraq, most of which (59%) favors negotiations with Iran, is a vision of Iran hardly different than that of Bush (or of the Republican John McCain) : “The Iranian regime supports extremism and violence to defy us everywhere in the Middle East. They are attempting to equip themselves with nuclear weapons which could start a dangerous arms race, and could bring about the transfer of these weapons to terrorists. Their President does not believe in the Holocaust and threatens to erase Israel from the Map. The danger that Iran represents is serious, real, and my objective is to remove this menace”, he declared on June fourth in Washington in front of a meeting of the pro Israeli lobby AIPAC.

John McCain has never hidden from being ready to “bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran” (from a Beach Boys song) if it is the price that must be payed to break the Iranian will to equip themselves with nuclear arms. He takes care to explain: “it’s not because I’m worried about Iran’s influence that I am ready to declare war”, but no one doubts that he will not hesitate to do so. This is a consensus in Washington. Bush explained this Wednesday after his meeting with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. A diplomatic solution to bring Iran to freeze its nuclear program is his “first choice”. But there are other options, he repeated several times, and “all of the options remain on the table”. “No one has the intention to let Iran block for too long”, Condoleezza Rice added in her visit to Paris.

There is no proof, nor any concrete indication that an operation is in preparation. But the tone has changed, for anyone who has been paying attention. One doesn’t have to believe the Jerusalem Post which affirms that Bush has the intention of launching an attack before the end of the year. One can attribute to Israeli pressure the assertion of the Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz, according to which military action against Tehran is “inevitable”. And judge that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has only been attempting to divert attention from his personal problems when he made similar remarks at the time of his visit to the White House at the beginning of June. One can see only the routine in the visit at the same time of the Director of the American intelligence community Mitch McConnell to Israel.

The truth is that “an attack is in the domain of the possible”, in the eyes of Bill Kristol, director of the neo-conservative monthly Weekly Standard (which, in January 2006 made its first issue with the title “the turn of Iran”). He met George W. Bush in a meeting on the 9th of April, and says he remains convinced that “people over-estimate the impotence of the president”, and that this president is determined to “leave the best possible situation to his successor”, and that he is animated by the conviction that “Iran will be the number one issue on the desk of the next president and the first that will be treated”.

The Iranian Ayatollahs are perhaps seriously under-estimating the threat which weighs on their turbans. George W. Bush has shown that he can also make errors in calculation, and that he often over-estimates the effectiveness of armed forces in resolving problems. He might try, at the point where he is in the polls, to “do the housework” for his successor, or to at least give a serious warning to the Iranians. Without counting that a crisis of national security in the last days of his presidency (the mythical “October Surprise”) would play inevitably against the republican candidate, the Iranian issue is much more credible than the revival of an economy which has gone from bad to worse. This double blindness is the recipe for an explosive cocktail with unpredictable effects.