Fool me twice...

The Bush administration is at it again, returning to the same tactic that worked so well to justify the war in Iraq, this time to justify war on Iran.

I've already written about Iran's barely-existent nuclear research program before. According to the evidence, Iran is something like fifteen thousand centrifuges short of being able to produce weapons-grade uranium. Now Hans Blix, the former UN weapons inspector, has spoken up, stating that Iran's nuclear research program is much more primitive than Iraq's was in 1991.

Even if Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons -- and that's a seriously big IF -- they're no threat at all.

Blix also points out that the Bush administration's "negotiating" tactic with Iran is counter-productive and doomed to failure. As Juan Cole reports:

He points out that Washington's insistence that Iran capitulate to all Bush's demands before negotiations even begin is "humiliating."

You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Insisting on total capitulation before negotiations even begin (and then what's left to negotiate?) might make Bush and Cheney feel like big manly men, but that's no way to run a picnic, let alone international relations with a country that can make your day miserable.

Cole also reminds us that:

[the Iranian] Supreme Jurisprudent has given a fatwa against having or using nuclear weapons as illicit in Islamic law. You can't acknowledge that Iran is a dictatorial theocracy and then turn around and say that his fatwa is irrelevant.

Naturally, the Bush administration isn't silly enough to re-use the same mushroom cloud story again. So they have a backup story: Iran, so the story goes, is behind the sudden rash of successful attacks on American tanks in Iraq.

Several weeks ago in Iraq, the Americans gave a military briefing claiming that the highest levels of the Iranian government had ordered the manufacture and supply of powerful explosive devices to Iraqi insurgents.

But the problem with this claim is that the greatest number of successful attacks has been coming from Sunni areas of Iraq, not Shi'ite. Not just blowing up tanks: also shooting down helicopters. Iran, being Shi'ite, is hardly likely to be arming the same Sunni who want the Shi'ites dead. To put it into perspective, imagine Iraq was Northern Ireland during The Troubles, and the British claimed that Catholic Italy was arming the Protestant Ulster Defence Association.

Professor Cole has published a long letter from a reader detailing this issue.

Why is Iran so unconcerned?

Billmon has a few things to say about the possible (likely?) invasion of Iran.

He quotes Colonel Sam Gardiner about "the filter":

When I discuss the possibility of an American military strike on Iran with my European friends, they invariably point out that an armed confrontation does not make sense -- that it would be unlikely to yield any of the results that American policymakers do want, and that it would be highly likely to yield results that they do not. I tell them they cannot understand U.S. policy if they insist on passing options through that filter. The "making sense" filter was not applied over the past four years for Iraq, and it is unlikely to be applied in evaluating whether to attack Iran.

He also asks the very important question, with the USA banging the drums of war and looking to pick a fight, why is Iran acting so unconcerned?

It finally occurred to me that I may have been looking at this the wrong way. I’ve been thinking about an American air strike as the Cheney Administration's way of kicking over the table and ending the chess match. But the Iranians may see it as simply another move on the board -- a disastrously bad move they could then exploit to improve their position.

It’s not so much that the Iranians want the Americans to attack their country, but they may be fully prepared to deal with it and use it to their own Machiavellian advantage -- not just politically and diplomatically, but also to advance their alleged nuclear ambitions. They may even be counting on it. If this is correct, their initial reaction to a U.S. air strike may be surprisingly restrained.

I have to say, I've been wondering the same thing. Given Iran's ambition to be a major power, and given that the USA has made it abundantly clear that they can and will attack non-nuclear powered nations, why isn't Iran going full tilt to produce nuclear weapons? By all non-partisan accounts, Iran has no nuclear weapons program -- and yet it seems logically that they should.

Could it be that Iran was serious when they rejected the use of nuclear weapons as immoral and against the teachings of Islam? Maybe -- but surely that only holds for using nuclear weapons against civilians. That shouldn't prevent them using The Bomb against enemy combatants in self-defence, say by using a 20 KT bomb to destroy an American aircraft carrier or two.

Possibly even in pre-emptive self-defence, now that President Bush has made hitting back first acceptable behaviour.

Could it be that they know that they can't build nuclear weapons, not in the current political climate, and so are trying to turn their technical failure into a moral advantage? Maybe, but I doubt that Iran is less technically capable than Pakistan and India, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there were elements in China that thought that a nuclear armed Iran would be a good thing.

Billmon's post makes a lot of sense to me. It is his idea that Iran is playing a high risk, but high gain, game here: they are steeling themselves to take a bloody nose now, for a free rein in two or three years:

Having launched a massive, unprovoked attack on another country and suffered the inevitable blowback (skyrocketing oil prices, recession, disaster in Iraq, global condemnation) would the United States have the political will to do it again in one or two or three years time?

It is a long post, but one worth reading.

All the options

William Edmundson, writing for the Leiter Report, discusses the "Madman strategy" of Richard Nixon, and how it relates to the current ugliness in the Middle East, where Republican shrills for the neo-cons clamour for war.

Edmundson quotes the NY Times, which reported a US official complaining about the intelligence community's insistence that there is no evidence Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons:

"When they say there is 'no evidence,' you have to ask them what they mean, what is the meaning of the term 'evidence'?"

And this from the same political party which criticised President Clinton for his duplicity about "sexual relations", and campaigns on Moral Values. (Yeah -- evil, wicked morals. But still morals.) Which is worse, lying about a bit of hanky-panky between consenting adults, or starting an unnecessary war and killing thousands?

Obviously it is the hanky-panky.

Edmundson continues:

In the same story, Newt Gingrich is reported to explain what "evidence" means:

"When the intelligence community says Iran is 5 to 10 years away from a nuclear weapon, I ask: 'If North Korea were to ship them a nuke tomorrow, how close would they be then?'"

And if peaches were tomatoes, then peach jam would taste just like napoli sauce.

Of course, if Gingrich really believed that, he would have to consider what if North Korea (or Pakistan, or China, or Russia) has shipped Iran hundreds of nukes, and they're planted all over the USA right now. Obviously the answer is, the US has no choice but to surrender unconditionally to Iran.

Of course, if Iran made such a claim, you can bet that Gingrich, like the US official, will suddenly remember just what evidence means, and start declaring that there is no evidence that Iran has nukes.

It shows you just what we've come to, when we find ourselves hoping against hope that the US president is only pretending to have the morals of a stoat.

US Congress report on Iran

Juan Cole analyses the recent Republican Congressional report on Iran's supposed nuclear weapons program, and finds a repeat of the distortions and lies of Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" propoganda.

Somebody should tell President Bush the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf.

Cole's blog has more details, but a number of points stand out:

• The Republicans have a lot of gall for complaining about the lack of intelligence about Iran's nuclear programme: it was Republican mastermind Karl Rove who leaked the information that Valerie Plame was working as an undercover CIA operative in Iran, attempting to find out more about their nuclear programme. This leak not only destroyed her usefulness, but lead directly to the deaths or arrests of Iranians who had been giving her information. Needless to say, Rove and his gang, who put short-term political revenge ahead of national security, have not been punished in the slightest.


• The report selectively quotes from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) only when they are critical of Iran, and ignores them when they point out that Iran has cooperated with them and given them access to sensitive facilities when asked. Iran is acting like it has nothing to hide.


• And then there is the misreprepresentation of Iran's programme as being able to enrich uranium to "weapons grade". That is untrue: Iran has publicly admitted to having a cascade of 180 centrifuges, and can enrich uranium to 3.5%, far short of the 80% or more needed even for an inefficient bomb. With existing technology, it takes a cascade of about 16 thousand centrifuges to get to 80% enriched uranium. Iran, according to all the evidence, is short by 15,820.

Cole has more detail -- it makes sobering reading to realise that, having successfully fooled some of the people over Iraq, the neo-cons are trying it again over Iran.

The difference this time is that Iran, unlike Iraq, actually has an army capable of fighting back against anything short of nuclear weapons, and a highly successful, battle-hardened ally in Lebanon. If the Bush armchair warriors decide that, having got one leg caught in the Iraq quagmire, that this is a good time to tackle Iran as well, there will be a lot of dead Americans and Israelis.

Why the US won't invade Iran

Juan Cole quotes Al-Hayat on why the U.S. won't invade Iran:

Another [Iranian official] joked that there was not need for the US to invade Iran. He said that the US had invaded Afghanistan and established an Islamic republic there. Then it had done the same thing in Iraq. Since Iran has had an Islamic republic for 27 years, he said, there really isn't a point in a US invasion.

It is a joke, but one with a large kernel of truth to it.

The Northern Alliance that the U.S. installed in Afghanistan is a coalition of the Sunni Jami'at-i Islami and the Hazara Shiite Hizb-i Vahdat. Those with long memories will remember that the Taliban were originally welcomed by the people of Afghanistan after they over-threw the Northern Alliance (around and around we go...) because they were more moderate.

In Iraq, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Da'wa Party, and the Sunni Iraqi Accord Front are the leading parties, and the new constitution forbids legislation contradicting Islamic law.

The biggest joke is that U.S. soldiers have died to put Osama bin Laden's spiritual brothers in power.

Thanks George!