The Winds of War

This week the United Nations is scheduled to release the Atomic Energy Commission's report on Iran's efforts to weaponize uranium and its efforts to make nuclear weapons. We should remember that the Obama Administration requested this dossier be opened as a consequence of Iran's purported assassination plot against the Saudi ambassador in the United States.

This past week the former head of Mossad and the former Defense Minister of Israel leaked Israel's plans for a strike against the Iranian facilities making the nuclear weapons. Outraged by the leak, Bibi Netanyahu demanded an investigation. Shimon Peres, the dovish President of Israel, suprised commentators by saying that the UN report will show that Iran has crossed the line and he called on the international community to fulfill its commitment to Israel to prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons. He said that the military option was now a real possibility.

Writing in today's New York Times, David Sanger outlines at great length the deliberations the Pentagon has been undergoing concerning the prospects of actually containing a nuclear Iran and the tension that Israel feels at this "existential threat". Sanger explains how the nuclear program was delayed several times by the computer virus and the plans the US has for introducing a newer version of it to slow the program again. He also notes the assasination of Iranian nuclear scientists working on this program. But reading between the lines, it's quite clear that scenarios for forestalling any significant actions against the facilities are doom to fail.

At the G-20 meeting, President Obama, President Sarkozy and Prime Minister Cameron were public in denouncing Iran's nuclear program a week before this report. The Guardian published accounts of British forces preparing for strikes against Iran as well as more detailed accounts of Irsael's military options. Today, Sarkozy announced that military actions against the Iranian facilities would be destabilizing to the Middle East. The Obama Administration claims to seek stronger sanctions against Iran but the arithmetic in the UN Security Council doesn't favor this approach.

For its part Iran has brought to the United Nations a complaint against President Obama that he ordered the assassination of the Iranian nuclear scientists.

Last week a bipartisan group of House members passed several laws tightening sanctions against Iran's Central Bank, its oil facilities and American companies dealing with Tehran. Press accounts say that the Obama Administration have dismissed oil sanctions right now because of fears of igniting another escalation in oil prices. But the administration is pressing for tighetning other sanctions.

CN reported an anonymous Pentagon source as saying that it was no longer clear that Israel would keep its commitment about notifying Washington before it struck at Iran. Some of this is deception. Over two years ago, it was widely supposed that Israel could not carry out such a military operation on its own. But it's clear from leaks in Jerusalem that Israel has modified its airforce to reach such a long distance and developed a new missile for such distances. Right before the Iranian assassination plot, President Obama cleared the transfer of our bunker-busting bombs to Israel, something the Bush Administration did not do. And there are no logical targets for these bombs nearby.

I suggest the wheels are now in motion for actions against Iran's nuclear facilities. Haaretz published detailed photos of the "secret" bomb-making facility in today's papers. The United States and its allies will tighten the noose of sanctions but will not be able to get fuller compliance from the United Nations Security Council. Iran will inevitably harden their positions. They have already sent out the new line to their proxies in Iraq and throughout the region. And we will be back to the period when Saddam Hussein refused to allow for UN inspectors to carry out their investigations into his weapons programs.

The timetable for this will be after the Muslim holidays and Haj period and probably before the United States is fully out of Iraq to prevent the inevitable blowback. The United States is beefing up its presence in the Gulf states, ostensibly to fill the vacuum of leaving Iraq and to protect the Saudis and Bahrainis from unilateral Iranian actions.

We've been through this many times before. But this is different in my mind because Israel now has the capability to attack Iran's nuclear facilities and the report this week will actually confirm that Iran is working on nuclear weapons in a practical sense and not in some abstract way. With Iran actively supporting the suppression of the Syrian people and alienating the Turks, the geostrategic moment has moved away from them. Couple all this with President Obama's long-term fixation on stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons and his firm commitment to the Israelis that he would never allow Iran to have nuclear weapons.

The problem is how it will be done. We are still wounded by the misrepresentations about Iraq by the prior administration, which lays doubt on much of any future American actions of this sort. But my sense of the Hill is that very few Congresspeople or Senators would object to either Israeli or American actions. And the Iranian revolution has lost its allure to anyone either In Europe or the United States.

So this week will be pivotal for the near-term. I would urge everyone to read David Sanger's article closely. The specific doubts about any containment policy sealed the deal with me. It is clear that the Obama Administration has been working on this for some time and the assassination plot just stiffened its resolve.