[A-List] Next target Tehran

[Richard Menec <menecraj@xxxxxxx>]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1990326,00.html

Next target Tehran

All the signs are that Bush is planning for a neocon-inspired military 
assault on Iran

Dan Plesch

Monday January 15, 2007
The Guardian

The evidence is building up that President Bush plans to add war on Iran to 
his triumphs in Iraq and Afghanistan - and there is every sign, to judge by 
his extraordinary warmongering speech in Plymouth on Friday, that Tony Blair 
would be keen to join him if he were still in a position to commit British 
forces to the field.

"There's a strong sense in the upper echelons of the White House that Iran 
is going to surface relatively quickly as a major issue - in the country and 
the world - in a very acute way," said NBC TV's Tim Russert after meeting 
the president. This is borne out by the fact that Bush has sent forces to 
the Gulf that are irrelevant to fighting the Iraqi insurgents. These include 
Patriot anti-missile missiles, an aircraft carrier, and 
cruise-missile-firing ships.

Many military analysts see these deployments as signals of impending war 
with Iran. The Patriot missiles are intended to shoot down Iranian missiles. 
The naval forces, including British ships, train to pre-empt Iranian 
interference with oil shipments through the straits of Hormuz.

Having been given so much advice on what to do in Iraq - most notably by the 
Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group - the president went with the 
recommendations of the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute
(AEI). So much for the idea that the Iraq debacle marginalised the neocons.

The political context as seen from inside the White House and Downing Street 
is that we are in a war as serious as the second world war. John Bolton 
exemplified this outlook when he compared US problems in Iraq with the 
fighting with Japan after Pearl Harbour.

Donald Rumsfeld and the AEI have developed a strategy for regime change in 
Iran that does not involve a ground invasion. Weapons of mass destruction 
will provide the rationale for military action, though it won't be limited 
to attacks on a few weapons factories. It will include limiting Iranian 
retaliatory capability, using bombers to destroy up to 10,000 targets in the 
first day of any war, and special forces flying in to destroy anything 
that's left.

In the aftermath, the US will support regime change, hoping to replace the 
ayatollahs with an Iran of the regions. The US and British governments now 
support a coalition of groups seeking a federal Iran. This may be another 
neocon delusion, but that may not be the point. Making Tehran concentrate on 
internal problems leaves it unable to act elsewhere.

Bush has said he will destroy the Syrian and Iranian networks in Iraq. These 
may include Moqtada al-Sadr's militia, but are also likely to target the 
Iranian-created Badr brigades, now wearing Iraqi police uniforms. In the 
south, the withdrawal of British troops to Basra airport looks more like a 
preparation to avoid a Shia backlash than a handover to the government of 
Iraq.

The US director of national intelligence, John Negroponte, explained that 
the threat to launch Hizbullah against Israel was the main deterrent to a US 
attack on Iran. Although politically Hizbullah scored a major victory in 
holding off the Israeli army last summer, in fact it was badly damaged.

The Iranian regime seems prepared for confrontation, perhaps confident 
Washington is bluffing. Next month Iran celebrates its completion of the 
nuclear-fuel cycle, in defiance of UN sanctions. Expect Bush and Blair to 
ask what the world will do to prevent a new Holocaust against the Jews. In 
his Plymouth speech, Blair told us that we could not pick and choose our 
wars. He may have been telling us more than we realised.
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· Dan Plesch is a research associate at the Centre for International Studies 
and Diplomacy, School of Oriental and African Studies

dan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

================
Richard Ménec
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