U.S. PLANNING "SURGICAL" ANTI-TERRORISM STRIKES ON IRAN
PanARMENIAN.Net
01.10.2007 18:12 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "In a series of public statements in recent months,
President Bush and members of his Administration have redefined the
war in Iraq, to an increasing degree, as a strategic battle between
the United States and Iran," an investigative journalist and author,
Seymour M. Hersh writes in The New Yorker.
"The President’s position, and its corollary – that, if many of
America’s problems in Iraq are the responsibility of Tehran, then the
solution to them is to confront the Iranians – have taken firm hold
in the Administration. This summer, the White House, pushed by the
office of Vice-President Dick Cheney, requested that the Joint Chiefs
of Staff redraw long-standing plans for a possible attack on Iran,
according to former officials and government consultants. The focus
of the plans had been a broad bombing attack, with targets including
Iran’s known and suspected nuclear facilities and other military and
infrastructure sites. Now the emphasis is on "surgical" strikes on
Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere, which,
the Administration claims, have been the source of attacks on Americans
in Iraq. What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation
mission has been reconceived as counterterrorism."
"The shift in targeting reflects three developments.
First, the President and his senior advisers have concluded that their
campaign to convince the American public that Iran poses an imminent
nuclear threat has failed (unlike a similar campaign before the Iraq
war), and that as a result there is not enough popular support for
a major bombing campaign. The second development is that the White
House has come to terms, in private, with the general consensus of
the American intelligence community that Iran is at least five years
away from obtaining a bomb. And, finally, there has been a growing
recognition in Washington and throughout the Middle East that Iran
is emerging as the geopolitical winner of the war in Iraq," he writes.
"The new administration plan gains support among U.S. allies including
the UK, Australia and other states.
Not to mention Israelis who go crazy with the idea," the journalist
told CNN, INOPRESSA reports.