Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Foreign Policy & News Bomb Iran

The IAEA report appears to vindicate Iran, according to Farideh Farhi writing at Juan Cole's Global Affairs blog. Farhi reports that the only thing standing in the way of further progress is US intransigence.
The conclusion of the essay is that everyone (with one notable exception) is ready to move on.
I think, and I know rporter will agree, that Farhi misses the meshuggah in the room - namely the Israeli leadership, bent on finding some casus belli to wipe the Iranian theocracy off the face of the earth from the pages of history.

Close.

The Israelis already have all they need. It is the Americans who are the roadblock. The Americans have convinced the Israelis to wait for justifications the administration can sell to the American people. The Americans know that an unilateral Israeli action will coalesce anti-Israeli sentiments globally, with no hope of damage control.

It's all about timing. Do they go with the current administration who supports a strike (just can't nail a justification down as the IAEA keeps taking it away and IED's didn't gain traction) or take a chance on the next administration who may not?

Like an elephant in a small room, just can't get around the Israeli scenario.

Bush May Fire CentCom Chief Adm. Fallon, Replace With Commander More ‘Pliable’ To War With Iran. If Pres. Bush relieves Adm. Fallon of his command, would it surprise anyone?

911 inadvertently provided an opportunity to invade Iraq which Rove admits now.

There have been no "opportunities" to attack Iran yet. Many people erroneously believe the phrase "to attack Iran" is equivalent to invading Iran. Nothing further from the truth can be imagined. The attack has always been planned as a strategic surgical strike aimed at destroying Iranian nuclear capabilities (the Israelis mystically believe without evidence those capabilities are for weapons, but certainly they are proven for civilian purposes). Concomitant with that strike is the requisite corollary to minimize any possible military response by the Iranians. A tall order but apparently within the capabilities of the military as noted by an independent think tank and certainly US military thinkers believe there are favorable scenarios.

For a little over a year there has been much debate over timing. Note the Israelis do not care if sanctions are in place nor their effect. Their concern is only that Iran continues to enrich uranium which to them is cognate with making a nuclear weapon. So the question is not about "if" but about "when" it will happen.

Adm Fallon has been resistant to attacking Iran for any of several reasons. His resistance has mitigated any possible campaign to build support for the Israeli agenda driven model. If he is no longer a variable, the equation would be simplified by a more compliant military willing to parrot the administrations arguments a la Gen Odierno and build an appropriate support base. Note also that the administration has now stated that everything the administration does in Iraq has already been authorized by Congress. If an Iranian scenario can derived from Iraq, the support base would be inconsequential.

So the calculus would be down to balancing Israeli impatience and US political expediency. The Israelis wonder why the US hasn't already attacked Iran based on their insistence Iran is working on nuclear weapons. The current administration at the highest levels certainly support the Israeli position but Adm Fallon is a problem. Finding what would be almost assuredly a (transparent to the "real" agenda) justification is too easy.

We have already seen the administrations use of the nuclear weapons card without effect. The reason is there is no evidence which supports it. The other is more viable, Iranian support of the Iraqi insurgency.

The military still can not say with any certainty that the weapons used by insurgents/shiite militias which flow from Iran are the result of Iran's support for the insurgency or shiite militias. However at every opportunity the administration has banged away hard that Iran is the culprit.

The last piece of the puzzle is the timing. So with Adm Fallon out of the way, a justification ready for prime time, whats stopping the attack? My guess is there is someone or a group of people who continue to point out there is no legitimate justification to attack Iran and that has caused a brief respite. But as election day looms ahead of us and the administration finds that it may not be able to continue neoconian foreign policy, the precision with which we can calculate the date of an attack will become easier.

There is another possibility overlooked by some in that should the Democratic candidate win the election that person may be on board with the Israeli agenda. If that is the case, the timing issue would be more fluid and would offer an opportunity to firm up any justification. The possibilities would be, proof the Iranian government was supporting the Iraqi insurgency or enrichment levels rising above required reactor fuel levels.

I don't believe either possibility at this time has much substance and can project in the near term neither would be viable justifications. Under these circumstances the pressure from Israeli instance to attack would become insurmountable and if no viable justification has been found then a manufactured justification would be used.

I don't believe that the Bush Administration feels it needs a justification- manufactured or otherwise, but rather just a distraction. An economic crisis around the 3rd quarter would provide all the incentive necessary to complete this Administration's agenda by the end of the year.

'Noise, and lots of it, seems to be the only weapon we have to make it less likely that such a scenario actually happens. Let’s make that noise, do it globally, and do it every day. Pound out the message through every medium we can access, including music and literature, that ordinary people around the world DO NOT WANT THE U.S. AND ISRAEL TO KILL A SINGLE PERSON IN IRAN, regardless of the status of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.'

Well it took only 5 days to "prove" part one of the rumor, Amd. Fallon was out.

Odds are the replacement will parrot the administrations position.

SoD Gates must be eating mushrooms if he believes the President and Adm " Not on my watch" Fallon had the same view on Iran.



The only thing ridiculous was his remark.

I think Gates was perfectly within reason to say that. After all it is common knowledge that the Administration was planning to go to war with Iran even before Fallon resigned. In fact, the two things might have been related. Though I'm sure not even Helen Thomas asked Secretary Gates that question.

I think Joe's right about noise, and we're fortunate that despite the circus distraction of the election campaigns, the news of the NIE's recent assessment traveled far and wide in large print and lead stories. Now if only we could get them to report on the bogus "evidence" from the bogus "stolen laptop" (which was actually supplied by the Mossad, according to some knowledgeable Middle Eastern sources), it would become even more likely that the Administration's next bogus claim would be met with howls of derision.

I take comfort in the fact that this is a lame duck Presidency, and even his own party is assiduously thinking about what comes next, just as much as the Democrats are. They are far more concerned about getting McCain elected than they are about assuring the success of the neo-cons' next folly.

We need to make Iran a major campaign issue. We need to see "Bomb Bomb Bomb" come back to haunt Mr. McCain to show the Republicans that an attack on Iran is immensely, suicidally unpopular. We can do that.

Yes we can.

Wha???

“Iran is also trying to develop nuclear weapons.” This view is held by a majority in 19 of the countries and is especially widespread among Americans (83%)

What convincing evidence do these people see I don't see? The IAEA keeps saying they haven't found any evidence of a nuclear weapons program. Obviously the drum beat of the mantra, "Iran is building nuclear weapons," is enough. No need to provide facts or evidence, who needs them anyway. But wait there's more ...

In a Zogby Poll

So 62% of those who believe Iran is building NW are ready to attack Iran. These numbers are simply a portend of the future.

I don't know where Gen Dempsey stands on the issues but in an O'Really? (yes really) segment he apparently understands there are military men who believe (yes he said believe, not know) Iran is supporting the insurgency. This suggests to me he has seen the evidence and it is not compelling.

With control of the bully pulpit, it would take a saturation campaign of all media to critically inspect all the evidence, in rebuttal to the administration's ( Israel's agenda) position. Sorry but I don't believe it will happen.

I'm not sure why you posted surveys that were conducted prior to the NIE to rebut a point I made about the NIE, rporter. The first of your two polls was conducted in 2006.

I can only imagine that you were trying to help me illuminate my point. This BBC poll, just conducted for example, shows how even support for sanctions has declined significantly worldwide. These polls, conducted much more recently than the ones you cited, show that only 18% of respondents in the US say military action is warranted, quite a drop from the 62% you extrapolated from the older surveys, and a far larger number are more concerned that the Bush Administration will do something foolish.

Like bomb, bomb, bomb . . .

So while the numbers you cited might have been considered a "portend for the future" had no further surveys been conducted, it didn't happen that way. Further surveys were conducted, and they paint a very different picture of the future.