OpEdNews, PA

August 16, 2008 at 13:15:52

U.S. Intentions Unclear; Israel Lobby Presses for War

by bhwhite

U.S.-Iran War: U.S. Intentions Unclear; Israel & Israel Lobby Press for War

Mixed Signals

After months of increasing expectations that the Bush Administration
was preparing to attack Iran, a series of events in the last few weeks
indicated a possible shift in strategy. The central question about
these events, listed below, is whether they represent a genuine shift
away from intended war making, or are just repositioning designed to
enhance conditions for the long-planned attack on Iran?

Among those events in question:

· Resolution of the Lebanon’s latest internal conflict, initially
trigged by a failed effort to seize Hezbollah’s communications
infrastructure, apparently inspired and backed by the Bush
administration, after which Lebanon’s government and Hezbollah reached
an accommodation, left those facilities intact and strengthening
Hezbollah’s already dominant military and political position;

· Israel and Syria initiated and acknowledged ongoing negotiations,
despite the objections by the Bush administration;

· Iraqi factions agreed to halt the US-back offensive against Sadr
City in Baghdad, allowing Iraqi troops, but not US troops, to patrol
the district;

· Israel and Hamas, using Egypt as a go-between, negotiated the
extension of a developing de facto cease-fire in Gaza;

· Preparations by the Bush administration to give up power at the end
of their legal term of office, indicating an acceptance of such a
termination;

· Iraq’s government indicating, in the face of White House pressure,
that it wants a US withdrawal time table; and

· US participation in "direct talks" with Iran and possible
establishment of a U.S. interest section in Tehran.

Prediction Error

While it is clear that speculation about the future is particularly
prone to error, we think it important to acknowledge such
misjudgments, as we do now by noting our April 2008 conclusion about a
likely US attack on Iran by the end of June:

"Since we continue to believe the attack will likely come before the
end of May, or, at the latest June, we think it is likely the attack
will come between May 11, 2008 and June 30, 2008. If not, then with
near certainty before the US elections in November. Should the attack
not come before Bush leaves office, the chances of a major attack on
Iran would be greatly diminished, no matter which of the three
remaining major candidates takes office in his place, even if
potential war provoking incidents between the US and Iran were to
occur. And this is why the Israel Lobby is pressing Bush to act before
it is ‘too late’." ~ April 30, 2008.

Covert Acts of War

Nevertheless, acts of war by the U.S. against Iran are occurring. The
Bush Administration, with Congressional approval, has undertaken
covert acts of war against Iran. These ongoing actions, funded by
Congressional appropriations for operations within Iran meant to
destabilize Iran enough to provoke either regime change or policy
modification, include bombings and assassinations. While one could
argue that the U.S.- Iran war on a covert level has already begun,
these actions, while provocative, have not created within the present
government in Tehran a provocation of sufficient magnitude to warrant
a state of war, which would presumably result in Iranian attacks on
US naval and ground forces in the region, if not wider attacks
elsewhere – attacks the Bush Administration appears to be inviting,
perhaps with the expectation that the resulting losses and
counter-attacks would generate public support for the administration
and the Republican presidential candidate. Recent Events Undermine
Support for War with Iran

Advocating a war between the U.S. and Iran suffers from the widely
held judgment that the last attempt to contain Iranian influence by
war-making, the Israeli attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon, resulted in
exactly the opposite outcome. In addition, increased Iranian
influence is one of the few unambiguous results of the U.S. invasion
of Iraq.

Economic and political climates have changed from the time of the
U.S. invasion of Iraq, wherein unintended economic consequences of the
Iraq war and large U.S. deficits have undermined the U.S. corporate
support for Bush and Cheney. A U.S. war with Iran now is seen as bad
for "business as usual", a grave, if not fatal, flaw for any
U.S. policy initiative. While some of the same companies that
supported and profited from the invasion of Iraq stand to gain from an
U.S.-Iran war, a far larger portion of corporate interests see this
new conflict as a significant danger to the general economy and their
overall interests. Despite repeated assertions about success in Iraq,
the Iraq invasion is widely considered have been a strategic blunder
with vast costs and few, if any, benefits. Now, with many of the same
advocates of the Iraq invasion pressing to attack Iran, the
U.S. military establishment has move from caution to alarm about
undertaking a conflict with a potentially more difficult opponent for
equally dubious objectives, including the suspicion an attack on Iran
may be an ill advised effort to correct problems created by the Iraq
invasion and a way to avoid admitting a mistake. These concerns add
to widely held doubts about Bush’s competence and judgment to
undertake such war, even if it were otherwise consider a viable
policy.

Israeli and Bush Administration claims about Iranian nuclear weapons
development appear a red herring on the same order as the Weapons of
Mass Destruction claims advanced prior to the invasion of Iraq. Only
now, having learned from the Bush Administration’s characterizing
Whitehouse cherry picking intelligence before the Iraq invasion as
institutional "intelligence mistakes", the U.S. intelligence community
made clear its skepticism about administration claims of an Iranian
nuclear weapons program in its November National Intelligence
Estimate. European Union and NATO support for an attack on Iran is
nonexistent, with the latest conflict between Russia and Georgia
raising additional concerns about provoking armed conflict with Iran,
a country that receives military equipment and training from Russia
and shares its northern borders with former Soviet Union republics
Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan.

Evidence of increasing resistance to the right-wing AIPAC’s dominance
within the Israel Lobby can be found in the emergence of an
alternative, the pro-peace, pro-Israel J Street Lobby that opposes a
war with Iran and calls for Israel’s withdrawal from the Occupied
Territories as part of regional peace agreement. A recently reported
poll among American Jews indicating diminished support for Senator
Lieberman (I-Conn), a leading war advocate increasingly seen as
advancing extremist right-wing Israeli interests in the Middle East
for which no sacrifice of blood and treasure by the U.S. seems too
great.

Israeli Government and Israel Lobby Press for U.S.-Iran War

Given wide opposition to an attack on Iran, why is it being considered
at all?

Apart from whatever inclinations Bush/Cheney may harbor to attack
Iran, the main advocacy appears to be a coordinated effort by both the
Israeli government and its Israel Lobby in the U.S. to maneuver the
U.S. into a war with Iran.

Israel sees a U.S.-Iran war strengthening its grip on the Occupied
Territories by weakening Iran, whatever its costs to the U.S. Most
fundamentally because Iran is the critical source of support for those
forces most effectively challenging Israel’s regional territorial
ambitions: Hezbollah in southern Lebanon; Syria on the Galan Heights;
and most especially, Hamas’ resistance to occupation and incremental
annexation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem as well as to the
maintenance, with Egypt, of the Gaza Strip as essentially the world’s
largest prison/concentration camp. By contrast, Iranian’s nuclear
program is a more distant concern, but a far more acceptable pretext
for war than territorial expansion. It would not do for Israel and
its lobby to demand U.S. blood and treasure to make the West Bank
safer for Israeli "settlements" or to tap the waters of the Litani
River in Lebanon

Israel’s war-provoking effort appears to be divided into two major
elements: a U.S. domestic political campaign; and, Israeli military
and intelligence programs:

Israel’s U.S. domestic campaign’s most conspicuous component is the
Israel Lobby effort, led by AIPAC, introducing on May 22, 2008
concurrent resolutions (H. Con. Res. 362 and S. Res. 580) in both
houses of the U.S. Congress, calling on the Bush Administration to
take certain actions against Iran. Despite a massive lobbying effort
and wide nominal congressional support, with 220 co-sponsors in the
House and 32 in the Senate, the resolution may have been a tactical
blunder, because it over-reached in two critical areas:

Some of the resolution’s whereas assertions have been widely
discredited as being false; and,
· A provision calling for the U.S. to enforce an embargo against Iran
is, in the opinion of many, a virtual declaration of war by the
U.S. on Iran.
So, despite a near blackout in corporate media reporting about this resolution and it being advanced under rules reserved for "non-controversial" matters in the House by Speaker Pelosi, the resolution has come under increasing criticism. As a consequence, some of its most influential sponsors have withdrawn their support. In addition, there is a concomitant effort led by Lieberman to build grass roots political support for a U.S. war with Iran, using such allies as Pastor John Hagee, a "leading right-wing Christian Zionist."

The Israeli military and intelligence programs, publicly centered
around preparations for an attack on Iran, appear to be designed to
augment Israel’s pressure on the U.S. to attack Iran instead as well
as to cover secret preparations for a possible false flag attack on
U.S. interests by Israel to be blamed on Iran. The clear intent is to
provoke an immediate shooting war between the U.S. and Iran.

An attack on Iran by Israel itself is unlikely, because it would have
limited impact on Iran’s nuclear program, military forces, and
national infrastructure, while potentially resulting in substantial
Israeli naval and air force losses, and therefore ultimately
threatening Israel’s political establishment. Clearly, Israel wants
to avoid war against its most substantial opponents, Egypt or Iran,
when its current territorial interests can be satisfied by attacking
its immediate, less capable abutters Lebanon and Syria, especially if
Iran is less able to assist them. Given increasing U.S. military
resistance to Israel’s efforts as well as many elements among the
U.S. political and economic establishment opposing a U.S. war with
Iran, a false flag attack on U.S. interests may be Israel’s last, best
hope.

Given Israel’s and the Israel Lobby’s central role in, and success at,
helping start Bush’s Iraq War, this effort to start a U.S.-Iran War is
considered among the most serious threats to U.S. national security by
those who believe such a war both gravely dangerous and manifestly
contrary to U.S. national interests.

Likely Future Events

Whether the U.S. will become involved in war with Iran is unclear.
What is likely is a set of events or non-events over the next few
weeks, indicating the current intensions of the Bush Administration
and Israeli governments toward Iran and each other.

So what might happen? It seems likely that if Bush is going to start
a war with Iran, one would expect the ramp-up PR effort and
accompanying threats shortly after the end of August, beginning with
complaints about "diplomacy not working", followed by new "evidence"
of Iranian nuclear weapons development and perhaps an Iranian hand in
killing American troops in Iraq, then building to "final warnings" as
well as "last chances to come clean" etc., before hostilities in
October. There may be a naval confrontation and some other casus
belli, real or contrived. This timing would give McCain the best
possible advantage from the bounce expected when the shooting first
starts, especially if Obama is blamed for Iran’s supposed
intransigency. If McCain looks to win, then Bush may wait until after
the election to strike; if Obama is ahead or the race is too close to
predict, then Bush may strike before the election in the hopes of
changing McCain’s fortunes.

vAmong possible war-starting event sequences would be a limited
U.S. attack on Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities near the
Iraq border, followed by an Israeli false flag attack on a
U.S. vessel, with Bush Administration turning a blind eye to evidence
of Israeli evolvement, possibly ignoring warnings about such an
attack, and then ordering wider ranging attacks on Iran in "defense"
of U.S. forces, resulting in a rapid series of escalating military
exchanges between the U.S. and Iran.

An early indication of such a new PR effort came from Secretary of
State Rice, a leading Iraq war advocate. After the U.S. attended a
much publicized, single meeting with Iran, Rice charged Iran was not
serious, when attending Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs
William Burns, under her orders, was to say nothing to the Iranian
delegation. This ludicrous claim about failed diplomacy is not a good
sign. Neither is evidence of a continued build-up of U.S. naval forces
in theater. Despite its reputation for secrecy, the Bush
Administration is much like a giant transparent clockwork, whose
movements are often apparent.

If this pre-war event sequence begins to develop, then there may be
additional push-back from military-corporate interests against a war
with Iran, which would manifest itself in Congress and the corporate
media. However, barring highly unlikely multiple resignations at the
highest command levels, military objections would be very dependent on
support from the U.S. Congress, which is not expected to play any
significant role in the decision to go to war. Whatever reluctance
the U.S. Congress might manage in the face of current Israel Lobby
demands for passage of its war starting resolution, congressional
Democratic leadership would likely bow immediately to Bush
Administration requests for a "show" of support once a confrontation
with Iran develops. This is especially true if the Democratic
leadership sensed that failing to go along would present any risk to
its immediate election prospects, easily triggered by even a hint of
criticism from qRepublicans. Such a show of support would likely be
similar to the Iraq War resolution, which the Bush Administration
could claim, while unneeded, supports military action, and the
Democrats could later deny intending to do so, should the war’s
consequences be as disastrous as many expect.

So, from the Bush Administration’s likely perspective, it would be
best that a crisis and demands for congressional support occur before
the election, with the timing of the attack before or after the
election, based in part on McCain’s fortunes as the election nears.
Bush is able to control the timing, provided Israel does not attack or
otherwise provoke a conflict, because, as in the U.S. invasion of
Iraq, a U.S.-Iran war would be a war of choice, decided by the U.S.
In the new American Homeland, all is a matter of the will of the
imperial decider.

On the other hand, should the Bush Administration not attack Iran,
then chances of war between the U.S. and Iran would be greatly
reduced.

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