“The ‘making sense’ filter was not applied for over four years for Iraq and it is unlikely to be applied in evaluating whether to attack Iran.” The Financial Times (March 5) carried this fascinating insight into the danger of war on Iran:
For Israel and the US, maintaining pressure on Iran is a balancing act. While talking up the threat posed by the Islamic Republic’s government – the two allies are also trying to play down the likelihood of military action.
“As the president, Condi Rice and Bob Gates have said numerous times, we’re not looking for a pretext for war with Iran, nor do we desire war with Iran,” a White House spokesman told the Financial Times, responding to reports of alleged US attack plans to wipe out Iran’s military installations. US diplomats meanwhile insist the dispatch of a second US aircraft carrier group to the Gulf is intended to reinforce the diplomatic effort, not prepare for a widening of the Iraq conflict. Activities by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in arming and aiding anti-American factions in Iraq will be dealt with inside Iraq, Washington officials say.
Democrats now in control of Congress are not persuaded, however. “The president does not have the authority to launch military action in Iran without first seeking congressional authorisation,” declared Harry Reid, Senate Democratic leader.
Legal experts say the White House has another view of executive power – that the president has the constitutional authority to respond to an attack on the US without congressional approval. Recent accusations levelled against Iran’s alleged actions in Iraq could be seen to justify a claim of self-defence under article 51 of the United Nations charter, says Tom Farer, dean of the graduate school of international studies at Denver University.
Although a large number of military analysts in the US argue that strikes against Iran’s scattered, buried and hidden nuclear facilities do not make sense and would most likely result in serious retaliation, they also concede that this might not stop President George W. Bush.
“The ‘making sense’ filter was not applied for over four years for Iraq and it is unlikely to be applied in evaluating whether to attack Iran,” Sam Gardiner, a retired Air Force colonel and planning expert, wrote for the Century Foundation, a think-tank. In fact, he says, military operations have already begun, citing reports that US and Israeli commandos started penetrating Iran in 2004 and that covert aid has been supplied to anti-regime militants.
That Iran heads up Washington’s list of international threats is due in part to Israel’s relentless diplomacy on the issue. The Islamic Republic has been at the top of Israel’s strategic agenda since long before the war in Iraq.
In recent months, however, the spectre of a nuclear Iran has turned these long-standing concerns into a national obsession. “It’s startling to talk to people who say they are actually losing sleep over when the Iranians will attack,” says one Israeli businessman.
In a country constantly attuned to the emergence of threats, the intention of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad to “wipe Israel off the map” – whether or not his comments have been mistranslated or misinterpreted, as Tehran claims – are not easily dismissed. As the threat posed by the Palestinian uprising has receded, Israelis have turned their attention to external dangers, particularly after a Lebanon war that delivered a smarting blow to the concept of Israeli deterrence.
Support for an early pre-emptive strike against Iran has so far been confined to ex-generals and rightwing academics and was reflected in the hawkish tone of many of the presentations at this year’s Herzliya Conference, Israel’s annual forum for right-of-centre strategic analysis.
The government, however, shows no inclination to undertake unilateral action that would be militarily even more challenging than Israel’s successful strike on Iraq’s nuclear facility in 1981.
But it is facing increasing pressure from an Israeli right wing eager to capitalise on the weaknesses of a government undermined by the Lebanon war. Latching on to Mr Ahmadi-Nejad’s rhetoric and his hosting of a Holocaust-denial conference last year, Benjamin Netanyahu, Likud opposition leader, has accused the Iranian president of preparing a second Holocaust.
“It’s 1938 and Iran is Germany,” he told a Jewish audience in Los Angeles in November. Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, last month chastised Mr Netanyahu for his alarmism. Asked about his comments by Ha’aretz, the Israeli daily, she said: “I am fond of historical analogies, but not that fond.”
Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister, has also been more measured, perhaps anxious not to raise public expectations of an Israeli unilateral first strike to liquidate the perceived Iranian menace. He insists Iran is an international concern and that world pressure is still capable of solving the crisis and avoiding military action.
He told foreign journalists recently: “My personal view is that the sanctions that were already applied and other measures taken by the international community, including financial measures, are effective.” He added: “I think that the Iranians are not as close to the technological threshold as they claim to be and, unfortunately, they are not as far as we would love them to be.”
