If you believe the left-wing Guardian, the Administration pendulum on Iran has swung back toward taking military action before Bush leaves office. The villain? Dick Cheney of course:
The balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favour of military action before President George Bush leaves office in 18 months, the Guardian has learned.The shift follows an internal review involving the White House, the Pentagon and the state department over the last month. Although the Bush administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said: “Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo.”
The White House claims that Iran, whose influence in the Middle East has increased significantly over the last six years, is intent on building a nuclear weapon and is arming insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The vice-president, Dick Cheney, has long favoured upping the threat of military action against Iran. He is being resisted by the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates.
The story bases its conclusions on mostly anonymous sourcing. The problem with doing that was made amply clear last week as several reports by the media regarding an imminent Administration turn on Iraq toward withdrawal using unnamed sources proved to be absolutely bogus when President Bush came out on Friday saying he was contemplating no such thing.
But there is little doubt that the Cheney faction is putting tremendous pressure on the President to take out Iran’s nuclear program prior to their leaving office in 2009. The reasoning mentioned in the article better be made up by some lefty Guardian reporter because if it isn’t, it would constitute an arrogance beyond anything shown so far by the Bushies:
The Washington source said Mr Bush and Mr Cheney did not trust any potential successors in the White House, Republican or Democratic, to deal with Iran decisively. They are also reluctant for Israel to carry out any strikes because the US would get the blame in the region anyway.“The red line is not in Iran. The red line is in Israel. If Israel is adamant it will attack, the US will have to take decisive action,” Mr Cronin said. “The choices are: tell Israel no, let Israel do the job, or do the job yourself.”
They don’t “trust” any potential successors to “deal with Iran decisively?” I can’t begin to tell you how offensive that idea is – not to mention its raw stupidity. The world may look a lot different to a new President on January 20, 2009 than it does to Dick Cheney and his advisers today or even next year.. And any military action taken against Iran next year – which is the current timetable – will mean that Cheney and Bush’s successor will be reaping the bulk of the whirlwind sown by the current Administration following any massive attack on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.
And make no mistake. That “whirlwind” will be the mother of all blowbacks. We’ve been over and over the downside to attacking Iran so repeating the enormous cost to the United States and perhaps the west would be redundant punditry.
This is not to say that absorbing such a hit may not be necessary and that bombing the Iranian nuclear sites should not be done under any circumstances. There are few things in this world that would be more inimicable to American interests than Iran with nuclear weapons. The question has never been if that would be bad for America because even some lefties think it would be. The question has always been would the advantages in bombing Iran outweigh the disadvantages. And as far as I’m concerned, at this moment the scales tip toward negotiations and sanctions rather than war.
That’s because despite what Cheney and Bush want as far as “dealing” with Iran before they bid farewell to Washington, we still have time to head off the prospect of Iranian bomb making. To do so would require some tough diplomacy and even tougher work at the United Nations. But it can be done if we have the patience and the will to do so.
Iran’s construction of a bomb is not by any stretch of the imagination “imminent.” Dr. Jeffrey Hart of Arms Control Wonk explains why. Right now, the Iranians have installed and are operating around 2000 centrifuges at their main enrichment facility at Nantanz. But what does that mean as far as their ability to construct a nuclear device:
Iran could, with the current 1,968 centrifuges operating at 1.5-2.0 kg SWU per year and assuming 4.8 t SWU/a to produce 25 kg of 90 percent HEU, produce a significant quantity of HEU in 14-19 months or, say, September 2008-February 2009. (Readers might want to double check that calculation.)But the “general view†of the IC is still—at least as of June 2007—2010-2015.
That’s odd, isn’t it?
One explanation is that the IC must believe Iran is going to, or has, run into some substantial operational barrier—maybe those Iranian manufactured components and/or UF6 feedstock really do suck ball bearings—that could add a year or more to the estimates.
That might explain the IC sticking by the 2010-2015 estimates, as well as the recent slowdown from Iran’s crash installation period this spring. For example, “a senior European official†told WaPo’s Robin Wright “They’ve committed down a road to expand as quickly as possible. But Iran won’t be the first to discover that it does happen to be rocket science, and development has its peaks and troughs.â€
I had earlier noted that IAEA officials said Iran had enough good imported components 1,000-2,000 centrifuges, so that we would have to wait for evidence that Iran could get over 2,000. Stilll waiting, I guess.
Or, maybe, Iran may simply be attempting—as David Albright suggested—to learn to operate the centrifuges installed, rather than building more.
Or, maybe, Iran just wanted to create facts on the ground (underground, actually), avoid new sanctions and, perhaps, cut a deal.
The Iranians have experienced problems in mastering centrifuge technology, not unsurprising given the engineering tolerances involved in getting so many machines to work in synchronization. And as Hart points out, their supply of yellowcake may be deficient. And besides all of this, they have yet to enrich uranium beyond the 3-5% range although ratcheting up their enrichment process to achieve the 85% threshold to make a bomb would simply be a matter of time, not technology.
Even if the Iranians overcome all the technical challenges posed by enrichment, they still have to build a bomb. And you just don’t go to your local library and find a workable bomb design. Just ask the North Koreans whose “test” last summer was almost certainly a nuclear “fizzle” due to poor design. Unless they’ve purchased a tried and tested bomb design from A.Q. Khan, the Pakistani scientist who ran a nuclear convenience store, supplying expertise and technology to Iran back in the mid ‘90’s (or somewhere else), you must add another 6-9 months to any timetable to Iranian nuclear capability.
Time is the key. We still have it if we’re willing to use it constructively to put pressure on the Iranians to come to an agreement about enrichment. With adequate safeguards and monitoring by the IAEA, it would be possible to keep the Iranian nuclear program peaceful.
The uncertainty of the moment however, makes Iran a very dangerous nation. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had some interesting thoughts in response to a question at a recent speaking engagement:
Secretary Gates: I think that the general view of American intelligence is that they would be in a position to develop a nuclear device, probably sometime in the period 2010, 2011 to 2014 or 2015. There are those who believe that that could happen much sooner, in late 2008 or 2009. The reality is because of the way that Iran has conducted its affairs, we really don’t know, and it puts a higher premium, it seems to me, on the international community coming together in terms of strengthening the sanctions on Iran so that they begin to face some serious tradeoffs—in terms of their economic well-being and their economic future—for having nuclear weapons. I don’t think anyone begrudges Iran the capacity to have peaceful nuclear power under proper safeguards and supervision. The key is whether they will have nuclear weapons.[snip]
Having to take care of this problem militarily is in no one’s interest, but it does put a premium on unanimity in the international community—and I would say especially in the U.N. Security Council—in terms of ratcheting up the pressure on the Iranians, not next year or the year after, but right now, in line with the uncertainty about when their capability actually will come online.
Wise words. He’s not downplaying the threat in the slightest and yet, Gates is pointing out an alternative to war. Given the immense downside to attacking Iran, it simply makes sense to follow the course laid out by Gates and supported by Secretary Rice while eschewing the arrogant belief by some in the Administration that only they have the cohones to deal with the mullahs effectively and that Clinton and Obama (two Democrats who have not taken the military option off the table with Iran) are weak sisters who would somehow allow a nuclear armed Iran to threaten the peace.
Of course, the 800 pound gorrilla in the room is Israel and what her plans might be. The Administration is correct in believing that any attack from Israel on Iran would be seen by the mullahs as an attack by the United States. But Israel herself is conflicted about starting a war with Iran. On the one hand, they realize the Iranians are an existential threat to the existence of the Jewish state. On the other hand, they also would experience a tremendous downside by attacking the Iranians. The Israelis are self confident enough about their relationship with the United States that they wouldn’t ask “permission” to bomb Iranian nuclear sites. But that’s not to say they wouldn’t consult us if they are seriously contemplating such a course of action.
It is impossible at this point to guess Jerusalem’s intent. But it should also be fixed in the minds of our policy makers that the clock ticking toward Iranian nuclear capability also may have an Israeli component. For unless we can convince the Iranians to agree on close monitoring and intrusive inspections of their nuclear program, it is more than likely that the Israelis will take matters into their own hands if they feel threatened and attack first.
That thought should be a goad to the international community to get busy and pass additional sanctions on Iran unless they cooperate in proving to the world that their nuclear program is peaceful. Given their past rhetoric on Israel, the burden is on them, not us and not the Israelis, to prove to the world that their program will not be used to create weapons of mass destruction that would threaten their neighbors – all of whom are US allies.
Yes we have time. But the clock is ticking and the world has a lot of work to do.
UPDATE
Allah has some sobering thoughts:
My feelings about another Bush-managed war are the same as Dennis Miller’s were in an old bit he used to do about Germany’s reunification: much like a Martin and Lewis reunion, he said, he wasn’t impressed with their previous work and wasn’t really looking forward to seeing any of the new sh*t. Hey, George: Let Fred handle it. Or, god forbid, a Democrat if it comes to that.
He also thinks the story is something of an invention by The Guardian. While that may be true, I don’t think there’s any doubt in anyone’s mind where Cheney stands on Iran and that he won’t do his utmost to have his views prevail.