President Obama’s Signature on Cyberwar: The OK on the Anti-Iran Virus

The New York Times: Since the beginning of his term, Obama has wanted to accelerate the plans launched by Bush, but the attacks got out of U.S. control.

The United States has already declared war on Iran. But they did so with the most secret weapon ever used since the atomic bomb, making a decision that the former CIA director Michael Hayden defined in blunt historical terms: “Somebody crossed the Rubicon.”

Yes, Barack Obama’s Rubicon is called cyberwarfare. And the atomic blast launched at the ayatollahs is a virus that seems to have come straight out of the comic books: Stuxnet, prepared during a concealed operation that goes by the spy novel codename “Olympic Games.” Stuxnet has made it possible to halt uranium enrichment, delaying the Iranians’ Dr. Strangelove-esque atomic program for at least two years, allowing the West to hit the enemy in the gut with sanctions.

The whole truth about America’s first cyberwar is documented in a book by David E. Sanger, a former New York Times journalist. OK, the role of the U.S. — and allied Israel — in the attacks on the Iranian center Natanz was actually revealed months ago. But this is the first time that Obama’s own officials are unveiling the new Obama doctrine: drones, commandos and cyberattacks as modes of combat in the war that from the assassination of Osama bin Laden to stopping Iran has centered on more than one objective. However, the U.S. cannot openly declare this war. How would the US admit that it is they, the Yankees, who are sabotaging the data infrastructure of countries that belong to the U.N.? Department of Defense chief Leon Panetta himself, who has overseen operation Olympic Games since his time as CIA director, told ABC News that “If they attacked our systems, that would constitute an act of war.”* So shouldn’t the same be true the other way around?

The virus’ launch had already begun under George W. Bush. This was the same president who warned his successor to insist on the double road: drones and cyberwarfare. Obama took him at his word and in the first months accelerated actions on both fronts. The Israeli involvement has a twofold purpose: using their network in Iran and, above all else, preventing direct attacks, not virtual ones. Yet in the accounts in The New York Times, there is something in it for them as well.

The whole operation risked collapse when the virus designed to drive Natanz crazy got past the Iranian border and multiplied all over the world — threatening to spiral out of the control of the Americans themselves. And Joe Biden, in typical form, blurted: Blame the Israelis; they have gone too far. Obama, on the other hand, asked: Must we stop everything? And it is precisely at this point that he made the choice to do the polar opposite. The president decided to proceed as virus does its dirty work: destroying 1,000 of 5,000 centrifuges that the Iranians wanted to use for uranium enrichment.

Now what? There are also those who wonder if the U.S. is not already conducting a top secret cyberwar against North Korea and even Syria. The Americans have discovered that a good virus can do a better job than many bombings. And now that the Rubicon has been crossed, who will ever stop Caesar Obama?

*Editor’s note: The original quote was: “… There’s no question that if a cyberattack, you know, crippled our power grid in this country, took down our financial systems, took down our government systems, that that would constitute an act of war.