How we can stop worrying and learn to 'love' the Iranian bomb

Seymour Hersh’s article in the New Yorker, Iran and the Bomb, is stirring up great interest, because he argues that the latest National Intelligence Estimate, released last February, says that essentially nothing has changed since the last (2007) NIE.  In other words, just as the earlier report said it appeared Iran had ended its nuclear weapons program in 2003 (after Iran’s arch-enemy Saddam Hussein was overthrown), the new version could find no definitive evidence showing that Iran had resumed its effort.

Now, this is an incredibly controversial claim just as the 2003 report was.  Then, Bush and Cheney railed against the notion that everything they’d been saying about demon Iran was wrong.  Now, the 2010 NIE contradicts almost every basis of current U.S. policy toward Iran.  That’s why Obama’s staff have anonymously (no courage among this lot) smeared Hersh’s work in Politico as little better than a school “book report.”

Hersh reveals that U.S. intelligence analysts believe that when Iran was developing its nuclear weapons program, the purpose was not to deter an attack from Israel or the U.S. as Bibi Netanyahu claims, but against Iraq, which the Iranians believed was developing a bomb (just as Bush believed, remember WMD?).  This accords with a number of analyses I’ve read, which say that Iran historically is most threatened by its regional neighbors.  It fought a costly eight-year, war-to-the-death against Iraq and logically, the primary reason for building a bomb would be to protect itself from attack from that quarter, and not from Israel.

Meir Dagan, Israel’s recently departed Mossad chief, doesn’t quite agree with Hersh.  Lately, he’s been saying that Iran is trying to develop a bomb and that it will do so.  But perhaps most radical of all (compared to Hersh at least) is Dagan’s contention that Iran will get the bomb, but that this will not mean the end of the world; or as Terry Southern put it, “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.”  For Dagan, the key is negotiating a modus vivendi with Iran so that each country can live in peace despite the fact that they may have enough firepower to obliterate the other.  This is quite a radical thought inside Israel for many reasons, but perhaps most critically it means that Israel’s former top spy believes that Iran, even the brutal regime currently in power, is composed of rational leaders with whom an understanding may be negotiated.

No, Dagan hasn’t said this explicitly, perhaps because it would further isolate him among the intelligence community he once headed, but it flows logically from all his other statements on the subject.  In fact, Bibi’s minions have begun doing just that, actually accusing Dagan of being “insane” (Hebrew) for single-handedly (supposedly) destroying Israel’s military option with his statements.

The New Yorker writer quotes a former British foreign service officer almost precisely echoing Dagan:

One of [his] worries is that Netanyahu “might take a pot shot” at Iran, as the former adviser put it. “Everything in London is now about containment and the notion that if the Iranians get a bomb we’ll have to live with it.  I believe that the Iranians do understand the logic of nuclear deterrence, but the Israelis do not.  London believes we cannot allow containment to be seen as a policy of failure”—in terms of a fallback policy for dealing with Iran. “And so we’re trying to shift the public perception of deterrence so it is seen as a good. The Brits are really concerned about the Israelis, and what they might do unilaterally.”

One of Hersh’s most incisive criticisms of current U.S. policy is that we are exploiting the supposed Iranian nuclear weapons program in order to advance our own political goals of bringing Iran to heel:

Donilon said that Iran’s nuclear program “is part of a larger pattern of destabilizing activities throughout the region. . . . We have no illusions about the Iranian regime’sregional ambitions. We know that they will try to exploit this period of tumult and will remain vigilant. . . . The door to diplomacy remains open to Iran. But that diplomacy must be meaningful and not a tactical attempt to ward off sanctions.”

America’s sanctions policy thus is increasingly aimed, as Donilon indicated, at changing Iran’s political behavior, and the spectre of nuclear-weapons development has become a tool for accomplishing that goal.

The Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist draws an apt historical analogy to prove the likely failure of the U.S. led international sanctions regime against Iran.  He points to fifty years of American sanctions imposed on Castro after he took power in 1959.  Just as these policies led to no significant change in the Communist regimes policies and certainly did not topple it; so we can assume the punitive sanctions on Iran will have similarly minimal effect.  All sanctions do is allow Obama to save face by claiming he’s doing something about the supposed problem.  This covers his right flank from attack by pro-Israel and Republican forces looking to shrey, as conservatives did in 1949 (“who lost China”), when Iran gets a bomb: “who lost [a WMD-less] Iran?”

From the New Yorker essay emerges a prominent Iranian fear that deters a pragmatic future policy–that is, that Israel and the U.S. are intent not just on forcing Iran to end its nuclear program but on regime change.  There is a realist caucus consisting of former State Department official Tom Pickering and others who’ve undertaken Track II talks with Iran and this is one of the most glaring concerns raised by the other side.  Thankfully, Pickering, who has unfortunately not been able to get Obama’s ear for his efforts, would tell the president if he could meet him, both to end any U.S. efforts in this direction and discourage Israeli efforts as well.

Hersh does acknowledge a camp that believes that while Iran may be pursuing nuclear research and development, it is not doing so with the intent of weaponizing, but rather of going right up the edge and stopping.  So that it would have the capacity to make a bomb if it felt it needed to do so, but it would not actually have a bomb.  At a conference I organized on Iran-Israel relations, one of the speakers noted that Japan is a nation that has followed this policy.  Curious how you never hear anyone complaining that Japan poses a nuclear threat to China and its region.  Yes, Japan’s leaders are perceived as more rational than Iran’s.  But to believe Iran’s leaders are prepared to incinerate their cities in order to achieve the goal of ridding the world of Israel, carries such pathology to ridiculous extremes.  Bibi may convince himself that this is true, but there’s no law saying we have to jump off the bridge with him when he takes the plummet into such murky waters.

Uri Blau focuses lens on the deterioration of Israeli democracy

Yet another nail in the coffin of Israeli democracy will be hammered by the nation’s attorney general, who announced that the State will prosecute one of Israel’s most distinguished investigative journalists, Uri Blau, for his reporting in Haaretz about the top-secret IDF documents leaked to him by Anat Kamm.  Never, as far as I know, has a journalist been charged with a crime for publishing such leaked documents.  There will be Israeli advocates who will attempt to use arguments of strict legalism saying Blau violated a law and therefore must be prosecuted, etc., etc.  But by the attorney general’s own admission this case is one of revenge against a reporter who’s gored the ox of the intelligence apparatus one too many times with his sharp, incisive and damaging reporting of stories of outrages perpetrated by the generals and intelligence agents.

In a startling admission apparently made with the approval of the attorney general, a senior government lawyer told a right-wing columnist why the government was pursuing Blau, but not Haaretz itself or it’s publisher, Amos Schocken:

“…I [Mati Golan] got a phone call from [deputy Attorney General] Raz Nezri. He said he was calling me because I’ve written before about the problematics of not having Haaretz and Shocken put on trial. Alongside the decision to try Blau, Nezri said, the Attorney General decided not to prosecute Haaretz. Why? Nezri confirmed “Haaretz acted inappropriately when it backed and sponsored Blau’s stay abroad”, but “we thought it was more correct to go for the precedent-setting move of prosecuting a journalist for retaining stolen documents, and not a move against Haaretz for obstruction of justice…

Uzi Benziman goes even farther in the online media criticism journal, 7th Eye:

The announcement [of Blau's prosecution] derives from [the State's] anger that he has insulted Shabak investigators because earlier in the case he agreed to return secret documents to the Shabak, but did not return all of them.  Shabak cannot stand lies.

Except its own.  It’s darkly ironic that Shabak take such umbrage at Blau’s impudence in lying to it when this agency lies both to detainees, lawyers and the public with equal impudence.  How does the Shabak or government make a serious claim regarding Blau’s ethical lapses when they violate such norms regularly?

I’ve written about Yuval Diskin’s public comments that Blau “stuck his finger in his agency’s eye and twisted it” when he not only published a top-secret IDF document, but a photograph of the document itself.  This effrontery the agency could not stomach.  Though he continued by claiming there was no motive of vengeance or settling scores, as Benziman notes, this is precisely what the attorney general’s prosecution reveals.

Can you imagine that there is an Israeli journalist who advocates that the publisher of a competitor be thrown in prison because he published a story based on top-secret IDF documents?  Israeli defense reporters do this virtually every day.  They are leaked top-secret documents and information that the generals WANT the public to know.  But when a reporter writes about such a document that IDF doesn’t want the public to know about, only then does it become a criminal offense.

Make no mistake, this is the criminalization of investigative reporting.  This is the State saying you may report what we wish you to report and nothing more.  It’s not quite there yet.  But I note the absolute cowing of the Israeli media in the face of the Dirar Abusisi story, which I offered almost a score of Israeli and foreign journalists before it broke widely.  To this day, there are major aspects of the case not yet reported within Israel.  Why?  Because journalists are patriots?  That’s what Yossi Melman once argued to me.  But I don’t buy it.  And even if it’s true, this means journalists are subordinating their obligation to their profession to their obligation to the State.  An unwelcome state of affairs in any so-called democracy.

Not to mention that very few Israeli journalists have come to Blau’s defense.  You’d think there would be thundering editorials in all but the most right-wing publications.  There are none.  You’d think columnists would rally to Blau’s defense.  With only rare exceptions, they haven’t.  Partly, this stems from jealousy at the audacity of Blau’s stories; partly it stems from a desire for self-preservation.  Only the protruding nail gets clobbered by the hammer.  Those journalists who keep their heads down and don’t threaten the established order or consensus will continue to have access to their cherished intelligence sources who dole out leaks to them at their pleasure.

One might easily argue that this is a case of legal double jeopardy since Blau has already signed a plea deal through which he returned all top-secret documents in his possession (not just those offered him by Kamm) in exchange for being allowed to come back to Israel and not be charged.  Now the State has changed its mind and thrown the plea deal out the window and decided to go full steam ahead with a prosecution that makes a mockery of due process and fair dealing, not to mention commits a grievous violation of press freedom.  It does so based, according to Dimi Reider, on the unsupported claim that Blau hasn’t returned ALL the documents in his possession.

Let us be clear, Uri Blau is no ordinary reporter and turning him into a convicted felon is no ordinary undertaking.  Blau has unearthed some of the most damaging stories involving generals, politicians and their feudal dynasties that were published in Israel in the past decade.  This would be the equivalent of the Justice Department trying Seymour Hersh for his reporting.  Many have likened him to Julian Assange in terms of his breathtaking access to whistleblowers inside the belly of the beast.  From the authorities point of view, if they can knock off Blau they will have struck a major blow for defanging the Israeli media.  While there are other good reporters in Israel, ones who are courageous and principled, Blau has been in a class by himself.  His downfall would be a tragedy of major proportions for Israeli democracy and the public’s right to know.

Benziman notes the critical importance of leaks to all democracies:

Israeli media serve their social purpose successfully only when journalists are able to obtain and publish leaks.  And such leaks sometimes take the form of secret documents.

This prosecution reveals once again the inadequacy of the Israeli political system in the absence of a constitution or Bill of Rights, which clearly define the obligations and rights of citizens under the law.

Related articles

• Internal Security violated agreement with Haaretz to get to Anat Kamm (promisedlandblog.com)
• Smothering the “Dynamic Debate” in Israel (mitchellplitnick.com)

Seymour Hersh is probably shouting “I told you so” after reading this story. He’s been reporting for months, even years about deliberations within the Pentagon on eliminating Iran’s nuclear capability. The crux of his reporting as I’ve read it is that it seems highly likely that either we or the Israelis will attack Iran. Bunker busting nuclear bombs would very likely be used according to Hersh. Much of this is confirmed in a Times of London report today quoting unidentified “Israeli military sources.”

ISRAEL has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons.

Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear “bunker-busters”, according to several Israeli military sources.

The attack would be the first with nuclear weapons since 1945, when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Israeli weapons would each have a force equivalent to one-fifteenth of the Hiroshima bomb.

All of this raises some interesting questions and thoughts. First, what is the IDF’s motive in releasing this statement? Here’s how the authors respond:

Military analysts said the disclosure of the plans could be intended to put pressure on Tehran to halt enrichment, cajole America into action or soften up world opinion in advance of an Israeli attack.

I don’t actually think the Israelis believe this will “put pressure” on Iran to halt enrichment. I think Israel fully expects Iran to pursue enrichment as long as it takes till it has a weapon. I think Israel is laying down a marker to the Iranians saying we WILL attack you, make no mistake about it. It’s the kind of street-tough language you imagine coming from drug dealers battling over turf. It is also possible the IDF is warning the U.S. and world that it will most definitely attack Iran. This would accord with the “softening up” scenario noted above.

However, I don’t think world opinion can be “softened up” regarding the use of nuclear weapons against Iran. The very notion of using them contravenes so many norms of international relations, not to mention international law that Israel will virtually guarantee pariah status not just among Arab nations, but among all nations for decades. Israel will also take a huge hit among Americans, and even everyday American Jews (as opposed to Jewish leaders who will cheer enthusiastically as the first bombs fall) will cringe in horror.

One thing this leak certainly indicates is a desperate IDF–but especially an IAF-desire to regain its vaunted military reputation which has been permanently tarnished by its performance both in Lebanon, where it was bested or at least fought to a draw by a small band of militant irregulars, and Gaza, where it has been completely unable to stifle Qassam fire against southern Israel. Not to mention yesterday’s botched raid in Ramallah. Dan Halutz and IAF commander Eliezer Shkedi know how much such a spectacular victory would mean to retrieving their services’ reputations. No doubt, they’re not just prepared for the go ahead, they’re salivating for it.

I mentioned getting a “go ahead.” But given that the IDF saw no need to notify either the prime minister or minister of defense in advance of yesterday’s Ramallah raid, one wonders how much, if any deliberation there would within the cabinet before approving the use of nuclear weapons against Iran. I’m going too far, you say. Perhaps. But even if there is deliberation, I strongly suspect there will be virtually no true opposition to the operation, certainly none on moral grounds. Perhaps some opposition on purely pragmatic grounds warning how much Israel could lose in the hasbara wars, etc.

Here is proof that amidst all its abject failures, the IDF has learned nothing about hubris:

“As soon as the green light is given, it will be one mission, one strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished,” said one of the sources.

The idea of wagering on the use of nuclear weapons is repugnant, otherwise I’d propose betting someone on this boast. The IAF couldn’t even effectively knock out Hezbollah rocket launchers in Lebanon. It boasted falsely that it had killed Nasrallah in his reinforced Beirut bunker. How does it guarantee that it can take out heavily reinforced 70 foot thick concrete Iranian facilities? Does anyone believe such bellicose boasting anymore? Do Israelis believe this shit anymore??

More proof that the Israeli army is in dream land comes in this passage from the article:

Under the plans, conventional laser-guided bombs would open “tunnels” into the targets. “Mini-nukes” would then immediately be fired into a plant at Natanz, exploding deep underground to reduce the risk of radioactive fallout.

To “reduce the risk?” What they should say is that instead of killing millions of Iranians it might just kill 10-or 20,000. The Times’ journalists thankfully include this partial ‘rebuttal,’ though much farther back in the story:

Scientists have calculated that although contamination from the bunker-busters could be limited, tons of radioactive uranium compounds would be released.

“Tons of radioactive material would be released.” I’m not a nuclear scientist. I don’t know how many will die from a release of “tons” of radioactive material. But tons to me says deaths in the tens, if not scores of tens of thousands. After all, there are several major cities near these facilities. An Oxford Research Group report predicts that 10,000 would die. If such a result happens, is Israel prepared for the firestorm it would face? After such an assault, Israel can expect to be in the crosshairs not just of Hamas, as it is now, but of every Arab and Muslim the world over. For those of my Islamophobe readers who say: “how would that be different from now?” I say: wait, just wait. And the rest of the world, I’m sorry to say, wouldn’t shed a tear when Shkedi is charged with war crimes and hauled before an international court. And make no mistake, the world will eventually not ask, but demand such an accounting from Israel.

What types of response can Israel and the world expect? Iran can exhort its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas into holy war mode and arm them with the most advanced weapons it possesses. Iran can launch its own missiles at Israeli cities. And make no mistake, Iranian gunners will likely be far more accurate than Qassam rocketeers.

The Times reporters also list other potential retaliatory responses:

Some analysts warned that Iranian retaliation for such a strike could range from disruption of oil supplies to the West to terrorist attacks against Jewish targets around the world…

American experts warned of repercussions, including widespread protests that could destabilise parts of the Islamic world friendly to the West.

Colonel Sam Gardiner, a Pentagon adviser, said Iran could try to close the Strait of Hormuz, the route for 20% of the world’s oil.

Here’s what I think the repercussions will be: if you think that Iraq is a maelstrom of killing, it is a cakewalk compared to the blood that will spill following such an attack. It will be a field day for international terror. In fact, it will be the “full employment” card for terrorists everywhere. And they will be gunning not just for Israelis or Jews–they’ll also be gunning for Americans. The article makes clear that U.S. and Israeli officials have met a number of times to discuss this plan. No one in their right mind believes that Israel would do such a thing without at least America’s tacit, if not explicit approval.

Another false assumption in the IDF calculations of the impact that the attack will have on Iran’s nuclear capacity:

Israeli officials believe that destroying all three sites [Natanz, Isfahan and Arak] would delay Iran’s nuclear programme indefinitely and prevent them from having to live in fear of a “second Holocaust”.

I’d say there’s a better than even chance that however successful this raid is that it does not knock out Iran capabilities. It may knock out portions of its program, but by now this program has been so compartmentalized in order to prepare for just such an eventuality that there is maximum redundancy built into it. The Iranians probably have 10 of everything spread out all over the country.

What’s more, Israel’s first use of nuclear weapons would violate an explicit pledge by every Israeli prime minister going back to the 1960s that Israel would not be the first Middle Eastern country to introduce (by which they really meant “use”) nuclear weapons to the region. Think how easy it is to blow away decades worth of national security policy.

In addition, one must not discount the “Saddam response.” A Center for Non-Proliferation Studies (CNS) report says that the Israeli attack on Osirak had precisely the opposite effect on Iraq’s nuclear program than was intended:

Contrary to popular belief…Israel’s attack on Osirak in June of 1981 did nothing to hinder Iraq’s nuclear aspirations. Although it temporarily set back its capabilities, it served rather to…increase Saddam’s desire for a nuclear arsenal. In fact, Iraqi nuclear scientist Imad Khadduri claims that Israel’s preemptive strike against the French-built Tamuz Iraqi nuclear reactor, which was not really suitable for plutonium production anyway, had the exact opposite effect of the one intended: it sent Saddam Hussein’s A-bomb program into overdrive and convinced the Iraqi leadership to initiate a full fledged nuclear weapons program immediately afterwards.

Khidir Hamza, another Iraqi nuclear scientist and one of the leading proponents of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, gave a near identical assessment. He told Mike Begala on CNN’s Crossfire on February 7, 2003:

…What Israel [did]…got…the immediate danger out of the way. But it created a much larger danger in the longer range. What happened is that Saddam ordered us – we were 400… scientists and technologists running the program. And when they bombed that reactor out, we had also invested $400 million. And the French reactor and the associated plans were from Italy. When they bombed it out we became 7,000 with a $10 billion investment for a secret, much larger underground program to make bomb material by enriching uranium. We dropped the reactor out totally, which was the plutonium for making nuclear weapons, and went directly into enriching uranium…. They [Israel] estimated we’d make 7kg of plutonium a year, which is enough for one bomb. And they get scared and bombed it out. Actually it was much less than this, and it would have taken a much longer time. But the program we built later in secret would make six bombs a year.

Does anyone doubt that Iran would pursue this program with a vengeance if Israel attacked? This too is from CNS:

…There is no reason to believe that an attack on the facilities in Bushehr, Arak, or Natanz would have any different consequence than…Osirak…Such an attack would likely embolden and enhance Iran’s nuclear prospects in the long term. In the absence of an Iranian nuclear weapon program, which IAEA inspectors have yet to find, a preemptive attack by the United States or Israel would provide Iran with the impetus and justification to pursue a full blown covert nuclear deterrent program, without the inconvenience of IAEA inspections. Such an attack would likely be seen as an act of aggression not only by Iran but most of the international community, and only serve to weaken any diplomatic coalition currently available against Iran.

The most troubling aspect of such a scenario is that, unlike Iraq in 1981, Iran is not dependent on foreign imports for nuclear technology and already has available the raw materials, and most of the designs and techniques, required to pursue a nuclear weapons program. Iran has the necessary know-how and has already produced every stage of the nuclear fuel cycle. Furthermore, Iran has uranium mines in Yazd and is in the process of constructing milling plants to manufacture yellow cake uranium and conversion plants that convert it to UF6 gas. Iran has also begun manufacturing its own gas centrifuges used to enrich uranium. Even if Natanz, Arak, and Bushehr were destroyed in a preemptive strike, Iran probably has duplicate equipment that can be activated and has the know-how to produce more, to pursue a more vigorous and unabated nuclear weapons program in the long term.

Does anyone doubt that several other new Arab nations would join the race for nuclear weapons? No, attacking Iran will mean sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind.

The twisted thinking behind this prospective raid is the same thinking that led George Bush to believe that merely by toppling Hussein he could unleash the power of democracy in Iraq. Instead, he has released the power of murderous sectarian hatred. So in Iran, Israel believes it can rid itself of a problem with a ‘neat, clean’ military solution. Instead, it will unleash 100, maybe 1,000 times the hatred that the Arab world now feels toward the U.S. and Israel. The groundswell of enmity will itself be like a nuclear bomb in world affairs.

Truly, I fear for Israel and the world if Israel pursues this madness and folly.

I first read this story in Haaretz.

In the past few weeks since the Gaza and Lebanon invasions began, I’ve been inveighing against George Bush’s ineffectual response to the mass mayhem. I thought it was sheer ineptitude a la Hurricane Katrina. But with U.S. veto of a Lebanese government call for a cease fire in return for deployment of the Lebanese army in the country’s south, I wonder whether there may not be more far-reaching and sinister purposes. One of the reasons these doubts come to mind is that Lebanon’s prime minister, in offering to deploy army troops in previously Hezbollah-held territory, has satisfied a prime demand of both Israel and the UN. What more could the U.S. want from Lebanon before supporting a ceasefire? Return of the kidnapped soldiers? How can Lebanon return hostages it doesn’t hold? Bush and Israel’s negative response to the Lebanese proposal smells fishy to me. It’s clear to me why Israel would not want the war to end. But it is unclear to me why Bush wouldn’t.

Everyone in the media talking about this crisis notes that Hezbollah is a Syrian and Iranian proxy. But no one is saying that Israel may be a U.S. proxy. Not that Israel is doing on our behalf anything it doesn’t want to do. But may we not be advancing our own foreign policy objectives in confronting Iran through Israel’s bloodying of Lebanon and by extension Hezbollah? Are we allowing Israel to fight the first phase of a proxy war against Iran in much the same way that the Nazis used the Franco forces in the Spanish Civil War both as a proxy and as a stepping stone to a much greater conflict to come? And if there is any truth here (and this is all educated conjecture on my part), then the second phase of this conflict could be a direct confrontation between Iran and the U.S.

Sy Hersh has been all over the story of the Bush Administration’s preparations for military action against Iran. His latest, Last Stand, came out earlier this month in the New Yorker. Now, with Hezbollah attacking Israel and Iran’s fingerprints all over the action could Bush be hoping to use Iran’s complicity as yet another excuse for war (or at least air war)?

Blogging the Middle East actually first planted this idea in my head when I read this:

Fouad al Sanyura just made a public statement accepting to send the Army to the border (Israel’s initial and continuing demand throughout the raids) and called for immediate cessation of air raids and a ceasefire through the UN. This was (of course) categorically rejected by Israel, which said it will continue to pound Lebanon. Make no mistake, this is not about the 2 soldiers…nor is it about HezbAllah. This is part of the Bush administration’s Greater Middle East Initiative, and this explains the “strange” U.S/British silence that many people I have been talking to have observed…

The point is, and I don’t think anyone in this stupid ignorant world can deny it anymore, Israel’s intention from day 1 was not the recovery of the kidnapped soldiers, nor deterrence (what deterrence?), nor the elimination of HezbAllah. As I said HezbAllah is still operating freely in the south…

He doesn’t flesh it out entirely but given the confusion of facing Israeli aerial bombardment and one’s home shaking to its very foundations, it’s no wonder that it may be hard to complete a thought or two.

The neocons have wanted a war with Iran for a long time. One wonders whether the Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal see Lebanon as a golden opportunity to fiddle around with that notion to see what “fruit” it may bear. If there is any truth in this then the deeply cynical policy treats Lebanon as the innocent victim of a proxy war between two stronger powers. Lebanon is caught in a brutal auto da fe and the U.S. and Iran are the torturers turning the screws.

All I can say is for shame if any of this is true.

The parallels between the Bush Administration’s approach to Iran as the latter steams ahead to create a nuclear weapon and its approach to Saddam Hussein in the runup to the Iraq war are eerie, ominous and frightening. First, Bush appears to give diplomacy a chance by working with the UN and allies to influence the other side’s bad behavior. But all along, Bush is vigorously pursuing a course of military action. He tells the world that military force is a “last resort” and that diplomacy is the first resort, but in the meanwhile refuses to take a vigorous leading role in negotiating a resolution. We now know that regarding Iraq, the president merely paid lip service to the diplomatic option. He was convinced from the beginning it wouldn’t work. In fact, he didn’t want it to work and was prepared to provoke a war by trickery if necessary.

If we look at the news of the last few days we see all these parallels being played out once more. Iran, like Saddam before, bellicosely brags to the world of the nuclear milestones it passes. This in turn, only confirms the war-hawks in their conviction that “the only language Iran will understand is force.” Bush tells the world that diplomacy is the only approach he’s considering. But anonymous government sources reveal their “doubts” that it can work:

U.S. officials continue to pursue the diplomatic course but privately seem increasingly skeptical that it will succeed. The administration is also coming under pressure from Israel, which has warned the Bush team that Iran is closer to developing a nuclear bomb than Washington thinks and that a moment of decision is fast approaching.

Note Israel’s role in all this:

Israel is preparing [for attack], as well. The government recently leaked a contingency plan for attacking on its own if the United States does not, a plan involving air strikes, commando teams, possibly missiles and even explosives-carrying dogs. Israel, which bombed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear plant in 1981 to prevent it from being used to develop weapons, has built a replica of Natanz, according to Israeli media, but U.S. strategists do not believe Israel has the capacity to accomplish the mission without nuclear weapons.

Iran appears to be taking the threat seriously. The government…has launched a program to reinforce key sites, such as Natanz and Isfahan, by building concrete ceilings, tunneling into mountains and camouflaging facilities. Iran lately has tested several missiles in a show of strength.

Israel points to those missiles to press their case in Washington. Israeli officials traveled here recently to convey more urgency about Iran. Although U.S. intelligence agencies estimate Iran is about a decade away from having a nuclear bomb, Israelis believe a critical breakthrough could occur within months. They told U.S. officials that Iran is beginning to test a more elaborate cascade of centrifuges, indicating that it is further along than previously believed.

“What the Israelis are saying is this year — unless they are pressured into abandoning the program — would be the year they will master the engineering problem,” a U.S. official said. “That would be a turning point, but it wouldn’t mean they would have a bomb.”

Many nuclear experts express grave reservations about Israel’s pronouncements about Iran’s progress in the nuclear arms race. They say that Iran is nowhere near as close as Israel states to having a weapon. And further, we should note that Aipac serves as Israel’s attack dog on this issue here in the U.S. It’s recent national policy conference was dedicated to ringing alarm bells about Iran’s military threat. I hope to God President Bush won’t let Aipac set the agenda when it comes to Iran. Lest you scoff at this suggestion, I note that Aipac already sets the tone and substance of much of the policy debate over U.S. Mideast policy. It would not surprise me to know that Aipac’s lobbying staff and lay leadership are speaking every day with Congress and the White House and urging a muscular response, including military force, to Iran’s nuclear buildup. Neither Israel nor Aipac believes that diplomacy can work. They’d have us giving up on that right now and going straight to the bombing runs over Natanz and Isfahan. And my fear is that Bush agrees with them wholeheartedly.

What is new compared to what happened with Iraq according to Seymour Hersh’s New Yorker feature, The Iran Plan, is the Administration’s pursuit of an option that includes the possible use of nuclear weapons against Iran:

One of 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…

The lack of reliable intelligence leaves military planners, given the goal of totally destroying the sites, little choice but to consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons. “Every other option, in the view of the nuclear weaponeers, would leave a gap,” the former senior intelligence official said. “ ‘Decisive’ is the key word of the Air Force’s planning. It’s a tough decision. But we made it in Japan.”

The Post too confirms this allegation:

Pentagon planners are studying how to penetrate eight-foot-deep targets and are contemplating tactical nuclear devices…

“The targeteers honestly keep coming back and saying it will require nuclear penetrator munitions to take out those tunnels,” said Kenneth M. Pollack, a former CIA analyst. “Could we do it with conventional munitions? Possibly. But it’s going to be very difficult to do.”

Thank God according to Hersh, there appear to be a few sane individuals at the Pentagon and Joint Chiefs who see this pathological plan for what it really is:

The attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings inside the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he added, and some officers have talked about resigning. Late this winter, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sought to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans for Iran—without success, the former intelligence official said. “The White House said, ‘Why are you challenging this? The option came from you.’ ”

The Pentagon adviser on the war on terror confirmed that some in the Administration were looking seriously at this option, which he linked to a resurgence of interest in tactical nuclear weapons among Pentagon civilians and in policy circles. He called it “a juggernaut that has to be stopped”…

“There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries,” the adviser told me. “This goes to high levels.” The matter may soon reach a decisive point, he said, because the Joint Chiefs had agreed to give President Bush a formal recommendation stating that they are strongly opposed to considering the nuclear option for Iran. “The internal debate on this has hardened in recent weeks,” the adviser said. “And, if senior Pentagon officers express their opposition to the use of offensive nuclear weapons, then it will never happen.”

The adviser added, however, that the idea of using tactical nuclear weapons in such situations has gained support from the Defense Science Board, an advisory panel whose members are selected by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. “They’re telling the Pentagon that we can build the B61 with more blast and less radiation,” he said.

And the Administration, of course, denies to the NY Times that it’s considering such a hellfire proposal:

“I’ve never heard the issue of nukes taken off or put on the table,” a senior Pentagon official said

First, this statement is far different and more equivocal than one clearly saying: “we are not contemplating using nukes against Iran.” Second, just because this particular official has “never heard” the “issue of nukes put on the table” doesn’t mean it wasn’t. It only means he hasn’t heard of it. Third, given this government’s past history of lying and deceit regarding Iraq could we trust that if it WERE planning to use nukes that it wouldn’t say precisely the thing this official has said? In other words, they would lie about it just as they lied about WMD and countless other matters related to Iraq. So unfortunately you have to completely discount any statement from the government denying a plan to use nukes and assume that they are considering it. To do otherwise would violate the old saying: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

For the love of God, how can our government consider a nuclear option? Jack Straw, Britain’s foreign secretary, has correctly labeled such a scenario “nuts.” Certainly, during the Cold War we knew that our government would use nuclear weapons if the Soviets used them first. But Iran is different because it doesn’t yet have them and even if it did it couldn’t directly attack us with them. The hardliners will argue that consideration of the use of nuclear weapons is a bluff designed to get the Iranians to understand how serious we are. If so, we’re not showing resolve to Iran. Instead, we’re showing desperation. Only a desperate nation would use WMD or consider using it in pursuit of its policy objectives.

The Washington Post quotes military sources doubting the efficacy of ANY military attack against Iran:

Many military officers and specialists, however, view the saber rattling with alarm. A strike at Iran, they warn, would at best just delay its nuclear program by a few years but could inflame international opinion against the United States, particularly in the Muslim world and especially within Iran, while making U.S. troops in Iraq targets for retaliation.

“My sense is that any talk of a strike is the diplomatic gambit to keep pressure on others that if they don’t help solve the problem, we will have to,” said Kori Schake, who worked on Bush’s National Security Council staff and teaches at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.

Others believe it is more than bluster. “The Bush team is looking at the viability of air strikes simply because many think air strikes are the only real option ahead,” said Kurt Campbell, a former Pentagon policy official.

If we bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities and fail to take them out, this will only continue the ominous decline of the U.S. in successfully executing its military strategies around the world. We’re failing miserably (no fault of our military) in Iraq. Fail in Iran as well and we begin to look like an inept bumbling would-be superpower. Our enemies will only be emboldened.

Hersh also notes that U.S. ambitions go beyond dismantling Iran’s nuclear program:

The Europeans are rattled…by their growing perception that President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney believe a bombing campaign will be needed, and that their real goal is regime change. “Everyone is on the same page about the Iranian bomb, but the United States wants regime change,” a European diplomatic adviser told me.

So there you have it. We’ve swung full circle and come back to Iraq again. There Bush used a fraudulent WMD charge to gin up a war against Iraq whose real goal was to topple Saddam. Regarding Iran, there seems to be little doubt that it wants a nuclear weapon and is pursuing a plan to get one (unlike Saddam at the time we attacked him). But can there be little doubt in George Bush’s monolithic and unilateral world that there is any policy short of regime change that would satisfy him? The only question is what he will do to bring this goal about and how far he’s willing to go. All very scary thoughts to contemplate.