Possible major air attack on Iran

Seymour Hersh pulls back the covers


Grave and gathering threat to the security of Iran

Let me be very clear that I'm as troubled as anyone about proliferation and acquisition of nuclear capability by Iran. But my God! Let's turn around the Bush Doctrine of preventive war. According to Hersh, the US already has troops preparing for war inside Iran. Good Lord! Wouldn't that give Iran an Article 51 case for self defense against American aggression? Hersh says,

... the American combat troops now operating in Iran would be in position to mark the critical targets with laser beams, to insure bombing accuracy and to minimize civilian casualties. As of early winter, I was told by the government consultant with close ties to civilians in the Pentagon, the units were also working with minority groups in Iran, including the Azeris, in the north, the Baluchis, in the southeast, and the Kurds, in the northeast. The troops ``are studying the terrain, and giving away walking-around money to ethnic tribes, and recruiting scouts from local tribes and shepherds" ...

Not only that, Hersh says,

the military'’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites

Doesn't the planning revealed by Hersh show who the real advanced nuclear powers in the Middle East/Persian Gulf region are? Certainly the US. And Israel too. Should not it be reasonable to look at that situation from the Iranian point of view? Iran faces in Israel what may well be a full-blown nuclear triad, plus whatever the US has nearby, which must be substantial if these bunker buster strikes are on the option table. That's all gotta seem to Iran to be far beyond what ``deterrence'' would require.

Any tiny international move to inject some ``fairness'' into negotiations, like the ElBaradei mission to Israel in the summer of 2004, strikes a brick wall.

Every bit of pressure is allowed to be placed upon Iran, but none on Israel. In July 2004, Sharon declared that Israel's "no show, no tell" policy of nuclear ambiguity would not even be discussed.

"I don't know what he [ElBaradei] is coming to see," Mr. Sharon said. "Israel has to hold in its hand all the elements of power necessary to protect itself by itself. Our policy of ambiguity on nuclear arms has proved its worth, and it will continue."

Talk like that of a secret, ``ambiguous'' arsenal by Iran on a claim of self-protection would invite immediate preventive strikes, wouldn't it?

A sure way to achieve progress in regional nuclear disarmament--international discussion of US and Israeli arsenals--is closed. Instead, aggressive, messianic war against a major Islamic country is preferred by the White House.

Think whatever you will about hardline Iranian President Ahmadinejad, who according to Hersh, ``may have been involved in terrorist activities in the late eighties." But a nuclear attack on Iran over its research facilities--facilities that have not been proven illegal under international law--surely would be one of the most aggressive attacks in world history and would mark the bitter end of the American-inspired post-WWII international system