shifting targets

[Lanya]

Annals of National Security
Shifting Targets
The Administration?s plan for Iran.
by Seymour M. Hersh October 8, 2007


In a series of public statements in recent months, President Bush and members of his Administration have redefined the war in Iraq, to an increasing degree, as a strategic battle between the United States and Iran. ?Shia extremists, backed by Iran, are training Iraqis to carry out attacks on our forces and the Iraqi people,? Bush told the national convention of the American Legion in August. ?The attacks on our bases and our troops by Iranian-supplied munitions have increased. . . . The Iranian regime must halt these actions. And, until it does, I will take actions necessary to protect our troops.? He then concluded, to applause, ?I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran?s murderous activities.?

The President?s position, and its corollary?that, if many of America?s problems in Iraq are the responsibility of Tehran, then the solution to them is to confront the Iranians?have taken firm hold in the Administration. This summer, the White House, pushed by the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney, requested that the Joint Chiefs of Staff redraw long-standing plans for a possible attack on Iran, according to former officials and government consultants. The focus of the plans had been a broad bombing attack, with targets including Iran?s known and suspected nuclear facilities and other military and infrastructure sites. Now the emphasis is on ?surgical? strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere, which, the Administration claims, have been the source of attacks on Americans in Iraq. What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as counterterrorism.

The shift in targeting reflects three developments. First, the President and his senior advisers have concluded that their campaign to convince the American public that Iran poses an imminent nuclear threat has failed (unlike a similar campaign before the Iraq war), and that as a result there is not enough popular support for a major bombing campaign. The second development is that the White House has come to terms, in private, with the general consensus of the American intelligence community that Iran is at least five years away from obtaining a bomb. And, finally, there has been a growing recognition in Washington and throughout the Middle East that Iran is emerging as the geopolitical winner of the war in Iraq.

During a secure videoconference that took place early this summer, the President told Ryan Crocker, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, that he was thinking of hitting Iranian targets across the border and that the British ?were on board.? At that point, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice interjected that there was a need to proceed carefully, because of the ongoing diplomatic track. Bush ended by instructing Crocker to tell Iran to stop interfering in Iraq or it would face American retribution.

At a White House meeting with Cheney this summer, according to a former senior intelligence official, it was agreed that, if limited strikes on Iran were carried out, the Administration could fend off criticism by arguing that they were a defensive action to save soldiers in Iraq. If Democrats objected, the Administration could say, ?Bill Clinton did the same thing; he conducted limited strikes in Afghanistan, the Sudan, and in Baghdad to protect American lives.? The former intelligence official added, ?There is a desperate effort by Cheney et al. to bring military action to Iran as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the politicians are saying, ?You can?t do it, because every Republican is going to be defeated, and we?re only one fact from going over the cliff in Iraq.? But Cheney doesn?t give a rat?s ass about the Republican worries, and neither does the President.?

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said, ?The President has made it clear that the United States government remains committed to a diplomatic solution with respect to Iran. The State Department is working diligently along with the international community to address our broad range of concerns.? (The White House declined to comment.)

I was repeatedly cautioned, in interviews, that the President has yet to issue the ?execute order? that would be required for a military operation inside Iran, and such an order may never be issued. But there has been a significant increase in the tempo of attack planning. In mid-August, senior officials told reporters that the Administration intended to declare Iran?s Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization. And two former senior officials of the C.I.A. told me that, by late summer, the agency had increased the size and the authority of the Iranian Operations Group. (A spokesman for the agency said, ?The C.I.A. does not, as a rule, publicly discuss the relative size of its operational components.?)

?They?re moving everybody to the Iran desk,? one recently retired C.I.A. official said. ?They?re dragging in a lot of analysts and ramping up everything. It?s just like the fall of 2002??the months before the invasion of Iraq, when the Iraqi Operations Group became the most important in the agency. He added, ?The guys now running the Iranian program have limited direct experience with Iran. In the event of an attack, how will the Iranians react? They will react, and the Administration has not thought it all the way through.?

That theme was echoed by Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former national-security adviser, who said that he had heard discussions of the White House?s more limited bombing plans for Iran. Brzezinski said that Iran would likely react to an American attack ?by intensifying the conflict in Iraq and also in Afghanistan, their neighbors, and that could draw in Pakistan. We will be stuck in a regional war for twenty years.?

?Shifting Targets? continues
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http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/10/08/071008fa_fact_hersh

[Michael Tee]

Very interesting.  It's becoming clear that the U.S. and Israel do have a broad strategic plan for the Middle East, and it involves America either directly or through regime change and puppet government taking control of at least the oil fields of both Iraq and Iran, which would leave it with greater oil clout than Saudi Arabia, which would then become even more than it is today a totally dependent client of the U.S., like Kuwait.  Of course, this is also Iran's ambition, to control both its own oil fields and those of Iraq, at least those of the south if not Kirkuk.

A strike at Iran in any form would obviously lead to a heavy counterstrike by the Iranians, which plays right into the hands of Bush and Cheney, or rather their sponsors.  If the military is stretched to the limit, a draft is the only answer, the armed forces can be expanded almost without limit because obviously great numbers of cannon fodder will be required for this venture.  France's interest in the venture is good and bad - - good for the U.S. to have another sucker along for the ride, contributing to the costs, but bad in terms of sharing out the rewards.  For one thing, there might not be enough to piece off the Russians, if the Russians don't want in on the project but demand something for staying neutral.  But why would they want an American-occupied puppet state right on the border of Turkmenistan, with which they just signed an agreement in May for a natural-gas pipeline to exploit T-stan natural gas?  Not only will there not be enough oil profit to share out amongst British, French and Americans, but the Russians would be in a far better position were they to assist Iran in a successful defence against American aggression.  Whatever openings later presented themselves for foreign exploitation of the Iranian fields, the Russians would be first in line.

I think the world is rapidly getting fed up with U.S. aggression, especially so as there appears to be no reliable indicator of who will be the next target.  I believe an attack on Iran would meet with some very fierce resistance and retaliation of a very unpredictable kind, as well as some unlikely allies for Iran's defence.  Could be that the U.S. is going to meet its comeuppance much sooner than I ever expected.

There are also the secondary ramifications, probably not even thought through by the morons in the White House.  As the U.S. becomes increasingly bogged down in the Middle East, what is happening in North Korea, Libya, etc.?  Countries that the U.S. had threatened into some kind of compliance or partial compliance.  What happens in the Taiwan Strait?  What is happening in the foreign exchange markets?  What is the price of oil doing?  Well this is all very interesting.  Bush reminds me of a monkey, a lot of really ignorant and destructive activity with no real foresight or understanding but plenty of energy.  You just know whatever's gonna happen, it ain't gonna be good for anyone.