|
Jumped, provoked and pushed
By Bruce Riedel ; August, 2007 ; Bitterlemons-international.org
Hamas' swift victory in the June 2007 battle of Gaza was a stunning defeat
for American interests in the Middle East. Hamas, an organization the United
States has blackballed for 20 years, took control of 1.4 million
Palestinians in less than a week, humiliating not only the US-backed Fateh
but also the US-created coalition of Israel, Egypt and Jordan that had been
training and equipping Fateh to defeat Hamas.
Hamas' victory was clearly well planned and executed. According to accounts
from Hamas commanders, the planning for the takeover had been underway for
months. Certainly some of the preparations, like the digging of a 220 meter
tunnel under Fateh's Khan Yunis headquarters to blow it up, must have taken
considerable time. Hamas had carefully built up its arsenal to include new
weapons like mortars to gain battlefield advantage. Hamas used the tactics
it had developed against the IDF to defeat its Arab enemy with speed and
precision. No doubt it was helped by considerable advance penetration of the
corrupt Fateh security apparatus.
At least some of the fighters in Hamas jumped at the chance to humiliate
Fateh and especially Mohammad Dahlan, whom they saw as collaborators with
the Israelis akin to the old South Lebanon Army. The military apparatus of
Hamas was never very enthusiastic about the February Mecca agreement and was
quick to argue that Fateh, Israel and America were subverting its outcome.
Hamas military commanders have said they were surprised at the ease of their
victory; but those who argued against Mecca from the beginning were eager to
take on Fateh.
Yet Hamas was also deliberately provoked both strategically and tactically.
The US and Israel made no secret of their doubts about the Saudi deal and of
their efforts to train and equip the PA and Fateh to crush Hamas. American
General Keith Dayton was clearly trying to build a force to overcome Hamas
with help from Egypt and Jordan and with tacit Israeli approval. The allies
just underestimated Hamas, and not for the first time. The attempt to kill
the imam of the largest mosque in Gaza provided an immediate spark for a
battle that was long coming.
And Hamas was also pushed to act by at least two outside parties. Iran saw
the Mecca deal for what it was: a calculated Saudi attempt to contain and
then reverse Iranian influence in the Palestinian movement. Palestinian
politics have been a central political battlefield in inter-Arab politics
for decades and could not be allowed to fall under Shi'ite influence. The
Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and Ministry of Intelligence and Security
along with their Hizballah partners have been training key Hamas officers
for years and would have had every reason to encourage them to thwart King
Abdullah's Mecca accord and the danger it represented to their interests. It
is likely the IRGC and MOIS helped with the military planning and may have
expanded their presence in Gaza since June.
Al-Qaeda also made abundantly clear its opposition to the Mecca agreement
and used its position at the center of the global Sunni jihadist movement to
encourage Hamas to repudiate it and to kill Dahlan in particular. Last
March, Qaeda's key ideologue Ayman Zawahri was particularly harsh in
condemning Hamas' deal with Fateh in Mecca. Zawahri said the Hamas political
leadership had "sold out" to the Saudi monarch: "I am sorry to have to offer
the Islamic nation my condolences for the virtual demise of the Hamas
leadership as it has fallen into the quagmire of surrender." In May he
repeated these charges. Hamas responded by saying, "we are a movement of
Jihad and of resistance. We in the Hamas movement remain loyal to our
positions and we assure Dr. al-Zawahri and all those who remain unwavering
in their attachment to Palestine that today's Hamas is the same Hamas you
have known since its founding." After the coup, Zawahri was quick to signal
his support for it and to urge all Muslims to help defend Gaza, while still
repeating his concerns about the Hamas political leadership's
"collaborationist" tendencies.
So a heady mix of Hamas firebrands eager for war, the barely concealed
American and Israeli desire to reverse the results of the 2006 elections and
pressure from both the Shi'ite and Sunni global jihadist centers created the
explosive mix last June. Finally, of course, there was also the incompetence
of the Fateh leadership. How much each factor alone counted is impossible to
know; the combination is what mattered. The question now is, will Hamas be
able to exploit its posture as the "real" voice of Palestine to undermine a
"quisling" Fateh in the West Bank, where it is even more dependent on
Israeli and US support and especially IDF bayonets to survive?- Published
16/8/2007 © bitterlemons-international.org
Bruce Riedel is a senior fellow in the Saban Center at Brookings. A 30 year
CIA veteran, he served as a senior advisor on Arab-Israel issues for
president's Bush, Clinton and Bush.
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A nuclear-armed Iran would not be good
Greg Sheridan. foreign editor | August 23, 2007 ;
Theaustralian
A FEW weeks ago US President George W. Bush issued an unusual request to the
Australian Government.
He wanted to see the Australian ambassador to Iran, Greg Moriarty. The
Americans don't have an ambassador in Tehran and it is no news to anybody
that the Australian and British ambassadors brief their US colleagues on
goings-on there. But I believe a US president requesting a meeting with our
ambassador is a first.
The episode demonstrates the absolute intensity of White House attention to
Iran right now. Make no mistake, the world is building to a crisis in Iran.
The technical detail is endlessly fascinating and the manoeuvres by all the
players gothic in their complexity.
But the basic story is simple enough. Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. It
has two programs for this: a highly enriched uranium program and a
heavy-water reactor that will produce plutonium.
These facilities were constructed in secret and in contravention of the
nuclear non-proliferation treaty to which Iran is a signatory but has
consistently flouted.
Iran is the leader of the Shia version of fundamentalist and extremist
Islam. It sponsors terrorism promiscuously. Its most important terrorist
client is Hezbollah, a Shia group that de facto rules southern Lebanon. It
is also the most important foreign sponsor of Hamas, a Sunni terrorist
organisation that rules the Gaza Strip. Islamic Jihad, which has been
responsible for much Palestinian terrorism, is effectively a branch of the
Iranian intelligence services.
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for Israel to be "wiped off
the map". Iran also sponsors Shia and Sunni elements of the insurgency in
Iraq.
There is no doubt the US has given the deepest possible consideration to
taking military action against Iran's nuclear plants. When I interviewed US
Vice-President Dick Cheney earlier this year, he endorsed Republican senator
John McCain's formulation that the only thing worse than a military
confrontation with Iran would be a nuclear-armed Iran.
Yet some analysts consider the idea that Bush may strike Iran to be wildly
unrealistic. Let's be quite clear. I am certainly not advocating a strike
against Iran but we should all know that we are heading for an epoch-marking
crisis. The US has deployed extensive naval resources into the Persian Gulf
in a bid to coerce Iran into some co-operation and to reassure Iran's
neighbours, especially the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, that the US will
look after their security. At the same time it has strengthened its military
bases in the Gulf states and provided moderate Arab governments with
extensive military equipment. Washington is also considering declaring
Iran's revolutionary guard a terrorist organisation.
The best-informed analysts in the world believe the Bush administration will
try very hard to make UN-mandated sanctions against Iran as powerful as
possible to deter Iran from pursuing nukes. However, these analysts also
believe this will be unsuccessful and that, whatever the outside world does
by way of sanctions and pressure, nationalism will trump economics and Iran
will eventually get the weapons.
The Europeans have been their usual pathetic selves in all this but a
sanctions regime of sorts is in place and it should get tougher. And Iran is
vulnerable to sanctions, even though it has huge reserves of oil and gas.
The revolution of the ayatollahs is worse at running a modern economy than
even the old command economies of the defunct Soviet bloc were.
But it won't matter because Iran's leadership is motivated by a type of
religious conviction that cannot be trumped by economics. Young people in
Iran are reportedly alienated from their leadership, but they still want
nukes. Virtually every section of the Iranian population, whether motivated
by religion, nationalism, power considerations or whatever else, wants
nukes. Indeed, one part of Ahmadinejad's problems with the religious leaders
stems from their feeling that they could get nukes more quickly and with
less trouble if he would just shut up.
On the positive side, the US is implicitly offering Iran full diplomatic
relations, trade benefits and any other reasonable benefit it could want if
it gives up the nuclear chase.
But Iran is a classic demonstration of the limits of realist theory in
foreign relations. It is genuinely motivated by ideology, not by a normal
calculus of national interest. Washington has been offering Iran some
version of this deal - diplomatic and trade normality in exchange for
nuclear non-proliferation and regional stability - virtually since the
ayatollahs came to power in 1979. It was once Madeleine Albright's chief
goal in life when she was Bill Clinton's secretary of state.
The deeply flawed James Baker-Lee Hamilton report on Iraq contains some
sentence along the lines of saying that Iran shares the US's interest in a
stable Iraq. Which Iran are the two esteemed American statesmen talking
about? It is an Iran of their imagination, it is certainly not the real,
existing Iran.
Iran's leaders are delighted with today's geo-strategic situation. They
would rather not have sanctions but they have shown full mastery of the
techniques of suppressing their population and are not seriously
inconvenienced by its troubles. Otherwise, for them life is fine. The
Americans are in a world of pain in Iraq. Iran's ally Hezbollah is slowly
trying to take control of the Lebanese Government, in alliance with a pro
al-Qa'ida Syrian front group, Fatah al-Islam. One of their techniques is
novel: to assassinate the existing Lebanese parliamentary majority one by
one.
Meanwhile Iran's other proxy, Hamas, goes from strength to strength. The
Iranians are leading the Shia reassertion in the Middle East at the same
time as they are polarising the broader Arab population around the idea of
resistance to the West. Thus, as things stand, Iran has no incentive to make
a bargain, except the fear of a US military strike.
The world's best analysts believe that whatever Washington decides, Israel
will act to meet an existential threat. And it views a nuclear-armed Iran as
an existential threat. There is some thinking within the Australian Labor
Party to the effect that Israel would have a right to pre-emptive action
under international law because it legitimately faces a grave threat from a
nuclear Iran.
An Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities would be less effective in
delaying Iran's nuclear weapons than a US strike. The Israelis believe Iran
could have a nuclear weapon by the end of 2009. The International Atomic
Energy Agency thinks it's three to eight years but is constantly revising
this estimate down. Once Iran possesses nuclear weapons, its danger as a
sponsor of Hezbollah rises exponentially. It can also paralyse Israel and
render life there almost unbearable by moving periodically to nuclear alert,
forcing Israel to do the same and effectively chasing out foreign investment
and tourists and shutting down industry.
A strike on Iran would be an awesomely dangerous and fraught action to take.
Allowing Iran to develop nuclear weapons may be equally as dangerous. There
are no good options.
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Exclusive:
Challenging the Islamic Republic
By Tom Ordeman, Jr.
Source: The Family Security Foundation, Inc.
Date: August 28, 2007
The fight against Islamist terrorism is being
waged on many fronts, and alliances of convenience a crucial part of this
struggle. FSM Contributing Editor Tom Ordeman, Jr. looks beyond the surface
media reports to bring you the background on these important associations.
As the nations of the West and their allies continue to fight the
International War on Terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq, interference from
neighboring Iran has resulted in increased scrutiny from the military and
intelligence communities. Ironically, Iran has become both an instigator and
a victim of guerilla action in recent months.
In order to understand the current situation, a brief review of recent
history is required. The current stalemate with Iran began in 1979, when
Shah Reza Pahlavi was ousted and the revolutionary government of Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini took power. Almost overnight, a major Western ally in the
Middle East was transformed into a paranoid, hostile rival. Several months
later, the American embassy in Tehran was overrun by protestors, resulting
in the infamous Iran Hostage Crisis. Motivated in part by the resulting
turmoil, Iraq initiated a protracted eight year war in September of 1980
that would last until 1988. The war was ultimately a stalemate, severely
stretching Iran's resources and leaving an estimated half-million Iranians
dead.
In October of 1983, Islamist terrorists bombed the U.S. Marine Corps'
barracks in Beirut, Lebanon; the attack killed nearly 250 American
personnel. Evidence links the attack to militants who would eventually
become the Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah. Hezbollah was formed with
support and guidance from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and Iran
continues to support Hezbollah to this day.
As the Iran-Iraq War raged, American forces were drawn into the fracas in an
effort to protect Kuwaiti oil tankers in the Persian Gulf; this operation
was known as Operation Earnest Will. In April of 1988, USS Samuel B. Roberts
(an American frigate involved in Earnest Will) struck a mine and was nearly
lost. Upon recovering more mines in the area, they were determined to be
from the same lot as mines from the Iran Ajr, an Iranian mine-laying
amphibious assault ship that had been captured and scuttled in September of
1987. This evidence led to the execution of Operation Praying Mantis, a
retaliatory naval attack against Iranian naval forces.
Relatively speaking, the decade and a half following the end of the
Iran-Iraq War were marked by quiet opposition. In recent years, the Iranian
government has prioritized the development of nuclear power, and many in the
intelligence community believe that this vigor is covertly directed at the
development of nuclear weapons. Evidence indicates that the Iranian
government is also aiding not only Shiite militias in Iraq (most notably
Moqtada al Sadr's al Mahdi Militia), but also the Taliban in Afghanistan and
Pakistan. Some evidence also points to Iranian government support for al
Qaeda. The Iranian navy has also captured, and subsequently released, the
members of two British naval patrols during the course of the Iraq War, and
directly challenged multinational forces on several occasions.
Thus, Iran continues to be a strategic challenge for the West. However, the
Iranian government, currently led by Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei and the controversial President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, are not
without home-grown challengers. Two major groups have received media
attention in recent months.
The largest and most aggressive Iranian opposition group is known variously
as the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) and the People's Mujahideen of Iran, among
other names. It was founded in the 1960s by college-educated Iranians
opposed to the Shah; although they participated in the Iranian Revolution,
their combined Marxist/Islamist philosophy put them at odds with Khomeini
and his supporters. They operated along the Iran/Iraq border for several
years, before being expelled and relocating to Paris. The MEK supported Iraq
during the Iran-Iraq War, and moved there in 1986.
In addition to various terrorist activities directed at the Iranian
government, the MEK assisted the Saddam Hussein with internal security and
suppression of opposition forces, including assistance in putting down the
1991 Kurdish and Shiite uprisings. In the 1970s, their targets included
Americans working for the government in Tehran. After several operations in
the late 1990s, MEK insurgent operations essentially stopped after 2001. The
State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations includes the MEK.
The organization is led by a married couple, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. The
wife, Maryam, became the overall leader of the entire organization a number
of years ago, while Massoud commands the military wing.
The primary MEK base is at Camp Ashraf, approximately one hundred kilometers
north of Baghdad. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a ceasefire was
established almost immediately, and the MEK contingent of several thousand
(nearly all of their worldwide membership) remains there under the
protection and supervision of both the United States military and the
International Red Cross. When questioned about this, both organizations cite
the Fourth Geneva Convention.
In contrast to the identity of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, a second group has
arisen in the eastern Iranian province of Sistan within the last several
years. Calling itself "Jundallah", meaning "Brigade of God", this group has
enjoyed some degree of success since its initial operations against the
Iranian government in 2003. While the MEK is secular-leaning in recent
years, Jundallah is an openly Sunni organization, waging a war for the
interests of ethnic Balochi Sunnis in Iran's eastern Sistan-Balochistan
province.
Balochistan has proved problematic in recent years to the governments of
South Asia. Not unlike the bordering Waziristan region, a lawless country
bridging Afghanistan and Pakistan that is believed by many to be the current
refuge of al Qaeda leaders, the Pakistani portion of Balochistan is almost
completely ungovernable. Balochistan spans portions of Afghanistan, Iran,
and Pakistan; because of this, it serves as a refuge for cross-border
attacks into Afghanistan and Iran from the untamed Pakistani portion.
Jundallah has apparently taken advantage of this refuge when staging attacks
and operations against the Iranian government.
Jundallah is led by Abdulmalik Rigi, a Balochi in his mid-twenties. He was
been reported dead by the Iranian government at least once in 2005, only to
appear in a video several days later. He has denied holding separatist
intentions, and describes himself as an Iranian. He claims that his group's
operations are aimed at improving conditions for ethnic Baluchis, a group
oppressed by the Iranian government for both its ethnic and religious
minority status. Some claim that Rigi and his group are affiliated with al
Qaeda; he has given interviews to both Iranian news agencies and the Voice
of America, the latter of which could indicate that al Qaeda connections may
be overstated. He has also issued statements via MKO-TV, the television
outlet of the MEK.
Jundallah has carried out several kidnappings, including one kidnapping and
ransom of seven Iranian soldiers. The group gained worldwide attention in
February when they carried out a car bomb attack against a motorcade
carrying members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard. The attack, which
occurred in the Sistan-Baluchistan capital Zahedan, resulted in the deaths
of eleven Revolutionary Guardsmen, and injuries to more than 30. The Iranian
government captured and subsequently executed suspected accomplices. Two
days later, a gun battle erupted between suspected Jundallah members and
Iranian security forces following the explosion of a percussion bomb.
ABC News reported in April of this year that the United States has been
"secretly encouraging and advising" Jundalah since 2005, funneling resources
to the group through intermediaries. The article goes on to say that the CIA
denies any involvement, while an unnamed senior government official noted
that groups like Jundallah are instrumental in helping to track known
terrorists, and that it is appropriate to work with them in that context.
The implications of these factors to allied prosecution of the War on Terror
are complex. On the one hand, an absolute moral fortitude is crucial in the
underlying image war that accompanies every individual bullet that coalition
troops fire. Can America appear complicit with terrorist attacks that happen
to be directed at strategic rivals like Iran? Shouldn't American military
and intelligence officers remember the lesson learned by the accidental
encouragement and creation of the al Qaeda during the Soviet-Afghan War?
As usual, the situation is more complex than surface level-media coverage
indicates. First, it is worth noting, once again, that while America
supported mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan, the faction that received
American support went on to become the Northern Alliance, while the allies
of the Saudi-supported "Arab Afghans" went on to found al Qaeda and the
Taliban. However, as important as this point is, it is tangental.
In the case of the MEK, they have been completely cooperative with the
United States since the fall of the Shah's government in Iran; indeed, their
agenda has changed and matured into one supportive of pluralistic democracy,
and they have renounced terrorist violence against Iran in recent years.
Some sources even indicate that it was MEK intelligence and surveillance
operations that originally revealed the new Iranian nuclear efforts. The
U.S. military cites the MEK as a crucial source of intelligence with respect
to Iran, a major strategic rival for which intelligence is difficult to come
by.
With respect to Jundallah, not only has Jundallah focused exclusively on
Iranian government targets (primarily military ones, like kidnapped soldiers
and the aforementioned Republican Guard motorcade), but they are precisely
the type of group that has served as a valuable source of intelligence in
the past. Their agenda is not dissimilar to that of important allies of the
past and present, like the Kurdish Peshmerga militias in Iraq, the Northern
Alliance in Afghanistan, or the Degar/Montagnard forces of Vietnam. Despite
the ABC News coverage, hard evidence of American support to Jundallah is
practically non-existent; even so, their motives and history do not justify
anxiety at present.
While the United States has a responsibility to maintain a moral superiority
in both word and deed when compared with the enemies of freedom, other
examples from the past serve as a reminder that allies must sometimes be
chosen for reasons of convenience. One need look no further than the
presidency of Jimmy Carter, whose refusal to deal with any unsavory elements
nearly led to the loss of the Cold War, and sheer economic, political, and
social turmoil on American soil. In contrast, President Reagan's willingness
to deal with dictators and other questionable groups on his own terms led to
the collapse of the Soviet Empire.
There are many threats to freedom in the world today, but the most dangerous
and potent threat is the threat from Islamist terrorism. A victory against
the enemies of freedom will be secured only by opposing Islamist terrorist
groups, and flagrant state sponsors like Iran, on every level and at every
opportunity. Established and executed on our own terms, careful alliances
with opposition groups like the MEK and Jundallah, coupled with more formal
measures such as sanctions and diplomatic pressure, can do nothing but
strengthen our hand in the perpetual fight for freedom.
# #
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Tom Ordeman, Jr. is a
technical writer for a major defense contractor. He holds a B.S. in History
and Naval Science from Oregon State University, and specializes in military
affairs and international terrorism.
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Iran seeks to tame
wild border province
By Hiedeh Farmani ; Aug 26 - 2007 ;
news.yahoo.com/
ZAHEDAN, Iran (AFP) - "It is possible and we can," boasts President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad on the banners above Zahedan, vowing to breathe life into this
under-developed arid city in southeastern Iran.
Zahedan is the capital of Sistan-Baluchestan, Iran's second largest yet one
of its poorest provinces, lying on a major narcotics route that leads from
neighbouring Pakistan and Afghanistan towards Europe.
The streets of the city of half-a-million people have the feel of frontier
land, lined with rundown houses and modest shop fronts -- a far cry from
Tehran with its steel and glass towers, highways and parks.
Smuggled goods are the big deal here: In Zahedan's Rasouli market, shops
mainly sell smuggled fabrics and Ceylon tea. Several shops offer second-hand
Dr Martens boots and sneakers brought in from Pakistan.
Single-minaret mosques dot the town -- evidence of the province's large
ethnic Baluch community which mainly adheres to Sunni Islam rather than the
Shiite faith dominant in Iran.
The province has a well-earned reputation for instability and has been the
scene of kidnappings, shootouts and bomb attacks in the past years blamed
both on rebel groups and armed drug traffickers.
In a bid to increase security through economic development, Ahmadinejad has
allocated 50 trillion rials (over five billion dollars) to
Sistan-Baluchestan for infrastructure projects in the two years since he
came to power.
"This province has a lot of unexplored potential," provincial governor
Habibollah Dahmardeh told an AFP correspondent. "But it has many problems,
most notably water shortages and drugs.
"Many of the developmental projects were decided in previous governments,
but they lacked the money or the will, or priorities lay elsewhere. This
government gives 10 years' budget in a year."
Many economists have criticised Ahmadinejad for using high revenues from oil
projects for a string of high spending projects in backwater areas, saying
that they risk further fuelling Iran's double-digit inflation.
Ahmadinejad has staged public rallies in all 30 of Iran's provinces since
taking power, a first for an Iranian president, always making ambitious
promises of higher spending in the regions.
But giving Tehran journalists a rare glimpse of one of Iran's least visited
provinces on a press tour, the government is proud to show off the roads,
cement factories and power plants it is building.
It has funded the expansion of universities, replacing tent schools in
remote villages with classrooms, renovating the cemeteries of the dead from
the Iraq war and giving housing loans to war veterans.
The engineering arm of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards have won a 2.6
billion dollar project to build a 900 kilometre (550 mile) pipeline to
transfer gas from Iran's energy hub of Assalouyeh to the province.
A 500 kilometre (300 mile) railway extension, scheduled to be completed in
2008, is being built that will connect Zahedan to Bam in the neighbouring
Kerman province and the national network.
Taxi driver Abdolrahman, a Baluch, says he went to see Ahmadinejad when he
visited and, like thousands of others, wrote a letter to him asking for a
piece of land to build a home for his family.
"People say I can get a loan, but I cannot afford the monthly payments,"
said the 42-year-old father who earns around 100,000 rials (11 dollars) a
day but has to spend a third of it on black market petrol for his rundown
car.
"I cannot see any changes yet in my life, but maybe these projects that they
talk about will get us out of poverty," he said.
Improvements in the local economy could go some way towards ending the
instability that has dogged the province, be it from fuel smuggling,
drug-trafficking or separatist insurgents.
Thirteen Revolutionary Guards were killed in February in a militant bomb
attack in the centre of Zahedan, the deadliest such strike anywhere in Iran
in years.
The last two weeks have seen bandits in the region abduct two Belgian
tourists -- one of whom remains kidnapped -- as well as 21 Iranians who were
whisked into Pakistan before being freed.
Iran blames its arch enemy the United States for stirring unrest in the
region and backing Abdolmalek Rigi, a shadowy young Sunni militant whose
Jundallah group has been behind a string of attacks in the province.
As its name suggests, the province is home to Shiite Farsi-speaking Sistanis
who are concentrated in the north and the Sunni Baluch, most of whom live in
the south around the Pakistani border.
On Zahedan's streets, it is not easy to tell the Baluch from Sistanis as
many men don the traditional white long shirt and loose trousers. People
from both groups live in mixed neighbourhoods and intermarry.
Some locals complain about unequal opportunities between Sistanis and Baluch
in governmental jobs. But the governor dismisses such claims and says he has
appointed six Baluch as local governors out of a total of ten.
"Shiites and Sunnis live peacefully here, those outside Iran want to play up
differences for their own aims," he said.
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Will President Bush bomb Iran?
By Tim Shipman in Washington 02/09/2007 ;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
In a nondescript room, two blocks from the American Capitol building, a
group of Bush administration staffers is gathered to consider the gravest
threat their government has faced this century: the testing of a nuclear
weapon by Iran.
The United States, no longer prepared to tolerate the risk that Iranian
nuclear weapons will be used against Israel, or passed to terrorists, has
already launched a bombing campaign to destroy known Iranian nuclear sites,
air bases and air defence sites. Iran has retaliated by cutting off oil to
America and its allies, blockading the Straits of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf
bottleneck, and sanctioned an uprising by Shia militias in southern Iraq
that has shut down 60 per cent of Iraq's oil exports.
The job of the officials from the Pentagon, the State Department, and the
Departments of Homeland Security and Energy, who have gathered in an office
just off Massachusetts Avenue, behind the rail terminus, Union Station, is
to prevent a spike in oil prices that will pitch the world's economy into a
catastrophic spin.
The good news is that this was a war game; for those who fear war with Iran,
the less happy news is that the officials were real. The simulation, which
took four months, was run by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think
tank with close links to the White House. Its conclusions, drawn up last
month and seen by The Sunday Telegraph, have been passed on to military and
civilian planners charged with drawing up plans for confronting Iran.
News that elements of the American government are working in earnest on how
to deal with the fallout of an attack on Iran come at a tense moment.
On Tuesday, President Bush dramatically stepped up his war of words with the
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whom the US government accuses of
overseeing a covert programme to develop nuclear weapons. In a speech to war
veterans, Mr Bush said: "Iran's active pursuit of technology that could lead
to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability
and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust."
He went on to condemn Iranian meddling in Iraq, where America increasingly
blames the deaths of its soldiers on Iranian bombs and missiles. Mr Bush
made clear that he had authorised military commanders to confront "Iran's
murderous activities".
This was widely taken to mean that he is set on a confrontation with Iran
that will culminate in a bombing campaign to destroy Iranian nuclear
facilities, just as Israel bombed Saddam Hussein's Osirak reactor in 1981.
The president's intervention came just weeks after leaks from a White House
meeting suggested that Vice-President Dick Cheney, who is understood to
favour the use of force, has regained the upper hand over the Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice and Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who both advocate
diplomacy and sanctions to isolate Iran. Mr Cheney reacted with fury when
the State Department suggested that negotiations might continue past January
2009, when Mr Bush leaves the White House.
So the question is: did Mr Bush last week set America inexorably on a path
to the next war?
Washington officials, with close links to the Pentagon, the State Department
and the National Security Council, say that the speech was designed as a
threat not just to Iran, but to America's Western allies, along with Russia
and China, who have been slow to support - or who have opposed - UN
sanctions against Iran. James Phillips, a Middle East expert at the Heritage
Foundation, who helped devise the war-game scenario, said: "It is
simultaneously a shot across Iran's bows and an appeal for the international
community to do more to stop or slow Iran's nuclear programme."
A former White House aide added: "If this creates in the Iranians' mind a
state of fear such that they back off, that helps your diplomacy. Bush is a
political poker player. To play poker, you have to know when to bluff."
Mr Bush had another reason for speaking out, too. With General David
Petraeus due before Congress on September 11 to report on progress on his "surge"
in Iraq, Mr Bush wanted to make the case that a withdrawal from Iraq would
boost Iranian influence there - in the hope that this would increase
domestic support for his policies.
In Teheran, Mr Ahmadinejad was also quick to make the Iraq connection, but
as an impediment, not impetus, to American adventurism. "We have an
expression in Farsi which says, 'Bring up the one that you have given birth
to first, then go for another one'," he said. "Let them do what they started
in Afghanistan and Iraq then think of other countries." He dismissed threats
of military action as "more of a propaganda measure than factual".
But European observers, and some in the
American government, believe that Mr Bush has resolved to "do something"
about Iran before he leaves office. A State Department source said: "If we
get closer to the end of this administration and we are not seeing suitably
tough diplomatic action at the UN, and other members of the P5 [the five
permanent members of the Security Council] are still resistant to anything
amounting to more than a slap on the wrist to the Iranians, then people will
start asking the question: how do we stop our legacy being a nuclear-armed
Iran?"
Mr Bush's escalation of the rhetoric was deliberate. A former White House
aide said that the reference to a "nuclear holocaust" was a precise attempt
to bracket Mr Ahmadinejad's quest for nuclear weapons and stated desire to
wipe Israel off the map with Hitler's destruction of the Jews.
"By using that word 'holocaust', Mr Bush has provided a moral reason to
allow the Jewish state to do what it needs to do," said the former aide. "He
is reinvoking the notion of 'never again'. If you believe that there could
be another Holocaust, it becomes morally indefensible to stand back. It is a
powerful and loaded term. Those people in Europe who believed that the
neo-cons have gone away and shrunk under a rock had better wise up fast."
British and American military officials believe that Mr Bush's ideal
scenario is to bring about regime change in Iran, whose mullahs humiliated
the US government during the hostage crisis, 28 years ago. "Unless you live
here, it is difficult to understand how much the hostage crisis - is burnt
into the psyche of Washington," said a Western diplomat in Washington. "They
were made to look weak and the people who did it are still in power."
There are credible reports that the US has stepped up clandestine activities
in Iran over the past 18 months, using special forces to gather intelligence
about military targets - nuclear infrastructure and air bases, and
Revolutionary Guard command centres from which Iran could coordinate attacks
in Iraq.
The Pentagon has made contact with a Kurdish group called the Party for Free
Life in Kurdistan, which has been conducting cross-border operations in
Iran, and with Azeri and Baluchi tribesmen in northern and south-eastern
Iran, who oppose the theocratic regime. By using military special forces,
rather than the CIA, the administration does not have to sign a Presidential
Finding, required for covert intelligence activity, or report to oversight
committees in Congress.
Information on US targets has leaked from the Pentagon. B2 bombers and
cruise missiles would strike up to 400 sites, only a few dozen of which are
linked to the nuclear programme. B61-11 bunker-busting tactical nuclear
weapons would be the ultimate weapon against the heavily fortified
installations; first in the crosshairs would be the main centrifuge plant at
Natanz, 200 miles south of Teheran.
A Pentagon source said: "We have a targeting list and there are plans, but
then there are also plans for repelling an invasion from Canada. We don't
know where everything is but we do know where enough is to cause them enough
damage to set back the programme."
But there are grave doubts that bombing would work. Davoud Salhuddin, a US
dissident and Muslim convert living in Iran, said: "The US will not have the
ability to change the regime here. Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Seyyed
Ali Khamenei has been preparing himself for a US attack for the past 30
years. If they attack Iran, the problem of terrorism that they are trying to
solve will get 100 times bigger than it is now… Americans will not feel safe
in their own homes."
The other problem is that the CIA, apparently, does not have enough
intelligence to guarantee that the nuclear programme could be permanently
crippled, and little way of knowing after the event how much time they have
bought with a raid. International estimates of how long it would take Iran
to get a bomb vary between a year and 10 years.
The latest polls show that just one in five Americans would support the
bombing of Iran now, but about half would do so if their government
considered it necessary: clearly a position from which Mr Bush could build a
case for war. Three out of four voters want to prevent Iran from acquiring
nuclear weapons.
Just as crucially, US government officials say that the CIA has failed to
come up with a "smoking gun" that would persuade the international community
to back military action. Last autumn, the CIA told the White House that
while it believes Iran is running a clandestine nuclear weapons programme,
it does not have conclusive proof. Radioactivity detection devices placed
near suspect facilities did not find the expected results. Stung by
criticism of their performance over Saddam Hussein's weapons programmes, CIA
bosses warned Mr Bush and Mr Cheney that this did not prove that Iran had
successfully concealed the programme from inspectors.
The diplomatic case against Iran suffered
another blow when the International Atomic Energy Agency last week gave an
upbeat assessment of Iranian co-operation with weapons inspectors. It found
that Iran continued to enrich uranium - necessary for a bomb, but also for
civil nuclear power - in violation of UN Security Council demands, but at a
slower rate than was expected.
A State Department source said a new push would be made to advance the case
for sanctions this autumn, but the hopes of progress were mixed. "The
Russians and Chinese are still stonewalling, and the Europeans don't want to
get involved," he said.
The one bright light for American hawks was a speech from the French
President Nicolas Sarzoky, fast becoming Washington's favourite European,
who, while ruling out French involvement in air strikes, did warn that Iran
could face military action unless it abandoned the enrichment programme,
presenting the world with a "catastrophic choice" between "an Iranian bomb
or the bombing of Iran".
Complicating everything is President Bush's weak ratings in public opinion
and on Capitol Hill, and the fact that some of his closest allies, including
the political strategist Karl Rove and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales,
have jumped ship.
Only Congress has the power to declare war, and Mr Bush would need
Congressional approval for military action against Iran within 60 days. Some
think he might struggle to win that approval. "I don't think there is any
real fight left in this White House. And no one in Congress wants to help
them," said one Republican.
But critics fear that if Mr Bush cannot advocate confrontation with Iran, he
might yet seek to provoke it. Joseph Cirincione, of the Centre for American
Progress, accuses Mr Bush of "taunting Iran". He said: "Like the similar
campaign for war with Iraq, this effort seems to be designed to find a casus
belli, perhaps by provoking Iran into some action that could justify a
military assault."
In the meantime, administration officials are studying the lessons of the
recent war game, which was set up to devise a way of weathering an economic
storm created by war with Iran. Computer modelling found that if Iran closed
the Straits of Hormuz, it would nearly double the world price of oil, knock
$161 billion off American GDP in a single quarter, cost one million jobs and
slash disposable income by $260 billion a quarter.
The war gamers advocated deploying American oil reserves - good for 60 days
- using military force to break the blockade (two US aircraft carrier groups
and half of America's 277 warships are already stationed close to Iran),
opening up oil development in Alaska, and ending import tariffs on ethanol
fuel. If the government also subsidised fuel for poorer Americans, the
war-gamers concluded, it would mitigate the financial consequences of a
conflict.
The Heritage report concludes: "The results were impressive. The policy
recommendations eliminated virtually all of the negative outcomes from the
blockade."
James Carafano, a former lecturer at West Point, the American military
academy, who led the war game, said: "It's not about making the case for
war. I have yet to meet a government official who says: 'I've just come from
a fierce debate about whether to bomb Iran'."
But in Teheran they are waiting. Abbas Abdi, one of the US embassy hostage
takers in 1979, now a reformist political activist, said: "The style of the
Americans is that they go forward with the political dialogues, get a couple
of resolutions and then they wait to see what the circumstances are. They
have no problems in attacking Iran, for sure."
Additional reporting by Kay Biouki in Teheran
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