[Reader-list] The Steady March to War on Iran

[Neepa Majumdar]

The Steady March to War on Iran:
What It Would Take to Stop It
By VIRGINIA TILLEY
Johannesburg, South Africa

http://counterpunch.org/tilley01182007.html

>From its inception, the US occupation was a lose-lose proposition. Simply 
rolling into Iraq -- a society of which the Bush neocons had so distorted 
a conception and US occupation commanders and foot soldiers had no grasp 
at all - was a formula for doom. But US policy in the Middle East has now 
advanced to a new stage and the risk to the rest of us has changed. For 
stopping an attack on Iran, which is the only way to avert final regional 
disaster, may require action in Washington that falls outside the 
parameters of what is normally politically possible.

For the first two years of the occupation, the US dilemma was plain to 
everyone. On the one hand, pulling out "prematurely" promised an internal 
Iraqi melee for power and the quick collapse of the feeble pro-US Iraqi 
government. On the other hand, the ongoing presence of American troops and 
the inevitable brutalities of occupation could only inspire more armed 
resistance, progressively wreck US legitimacy, and make things worse. As 
it staggered forward, wreaking tens of thousands of direct Iraqi 
casualties (and possibly hundreds of thousands in indirect ones), the US 
occupation fed an unprecedented surge of anti-US and anti-western 
militancy. As a result, three short years later, five decades of largely 
uncontested US hegemony in the Middle East are collapsing into the same 
clouds of dust now engulfing Iraq's national society -- the World Trade 
Center towers going down in slo-mo.

Yet in a sense, the occupation has already done its work on the support 
structure, as the US occupation has already combusted on social forces 
that its architects never comprehended even as they manipulated them. From 
the beginning, the Bush neocons viewed the region through an Orientalist 
lens, and therefore saw tribes everywhere, as mentors like Daniel Pipes 
encouraged them to do. Viewing the Middle East also through an Israeli 
lens, they saw ethnicity as the best way to break up national and pan-Arab 
solidarities. Their staggering ignorance of the region was perhaps best 
exposed by their early faith in the charlatan Ahmed Chalabi, who promised 
a pro-Israeli Shi'a-led Iraqi government. On such rampant idiocy were 
their enthusiasm and deceitful arguments for war fueled.

Predictably, their neocolonial efforts to foster and employ ethnic divides 
- e.g., creating Shi'a militias to attack Sunni neighborhoods to root out 
Baathi insurgents -- have resulted in blowback. The soaring death count 
(at this writing, some 100 Iraqis are dying daily) is grim testimony of 
the country's slide out of the US's hammy hands. Every day, old norms of 
Sunni-Shi'a ethnic coexistence are transforming further into mutual fears 
and murderous mutual hatreds. With every death, the Iraqis' own ability to 
reconcile this deepening ethnic bitterness dwindles. Every day the US 
stays in the country, the ethnic militias grow in size and legitimacy. The 
US capacity to contain them has withered to nothing. One might think the 
US military architects would grasp their fatal blunder and try to amend 
their ethnic machinations, but the latest US plan is to send Kurdish 
troops to patrol Baghdad, on the insane premise that a third ethnic force 
will somehow defuse the other two. (Kurdish naivety in collaborating in 
this fatal plan is equally impressive.)

The report of the Iraq Study Group gets several things wrong, but its 
appraisal of what must happen now is credible and widely accepted. The 
only way to salvage US standing in the region, they argue, is to withdraw 
as fast as possible, while obtaining essential Iranian and Syrian help in 
multi-lateral efforts toward forging a new national consensus in Iraq. 
>From the Iraqis' perspective, too, the only hope is an immediate US 
withdrawal, which can allow them to begin tortuous negotiations toward 
national reconciliation. This effort cannot be started as long as the US 
is there, not only because the US still controls practically everything in 
the country, making genuine domestic politics impossible, but because the 
US presence itself will inevitably distort and discredit any new political 
process or leadership that tries to arise.

Still, in setting out its package of recommendations, the supremely 
pragmatic Iraq Study Group neglected one glaring political fact. It 
assumed that the package was a real possibility -- i.e., that the Bush 
administration could muster the necessary energy and faith to engage in 
the multilateral diplomacy essential to it. The Bush neocons have no 
talent or faith in multilateral politics and indeed openly deride them. 
And they are still in charge, whatever the changing political climate in 
Washington and mounting popular hostility to the Iraq war. The Great 
Decider is still the president. Mr. Cheney is still the Vice-President. 
All the old villains, like Douglas Feith and David Wurmser and the scary 
Michael Ledeen, are still in government or guiding events from Isengards 
like the American Enterprise Institute. They have exactly two years to 
complete the agenda they formulated in the 1990s: that is, reshape the 
entire Middle East, in the interest of Israel and their own construction, 
security, and oil companies, by taking out any regional rival to Israel's 
uncontested military hegemony.

Hence we have increasingly clear signals that, far from withdrawing 
troops, the US plans to take the next disastrous step in their program: 
bomb Iran's nuclear facilities and, they hope, change Iran's regime.
Long in the making, a US attack on Iran has been maturing over the past 
year. Most graphic, although not catching much public alarm until now, was 
the transfer last year of two US naval carrier groups to the Persian Gulf 
(each flanked by nuclear submarines and battleships, carrying fleets of 
attack jets, and holding special Marine landing forces). Now some staff 
changes in the US security and command staff are drawing worried comment. 
One change is the replacement of General Abizaid (who did not favor a 
troop increase) with the Pacific theatre's top naval commander, Admiral 
Fallon, hitherto in charge of those same carrier groups (which were posted 
in the Pacific). Another signal, less widely noted, is that Director of 
National Intelligence John Negroponte, who downplayed the nuclear threat 
from Iran, has been replaced by Vice Admiral John Michael "Mike" 
McConnell, also a Navy man seen as much more compliant (having already 
facilitated the Bush administration's programs to monitor international 
financial transfers).

It is over-obvious that, while the Navy is a vital support to US 
operations throughout the Middle East, a massive carrier build-up in the 
Gulf cannot possibly assist the US occupation in Iraq. But it is 
absolutely pivotal to launching an attack on Iran and containing Iran's 
retaliation. In this context, even Bush's proposed troop "surge", 
otherwise puzzlingly meaningless, may be intended to support an attack on 
Iran, as the US will need more ground troops to consolidate its 
transportation lines in the event of Iranian or allied Iraqi-guerrilla 
reprisals. (That the "surge" itself can only prolong and worsen Iraq's 
suffering and further demolish US standing in the region is relatively 
unimportant.)

Bombing Iran will cast the Middle East into such a frenzy of violence, 
however, that desperate editorials denouncing it are starting to appear 
all over the world press. But the Bush neocons -- and, of course, Israel - 
also have utter contempt for world opinion and indeed any analysis outside 
their immediate crazed circle. Certainly the little question of 
international law, which makes a preemptive strike on Iran entirely 
illegal, does not figure for them in the slightest. (It did not stop them 
from raiding and seizing Iranian consular staff and archives in Arbil, 
which was also entirely illegal and has recklessly imperiled US consular 
relations globally.)

The only hope of stopping a US strike on Iran is therefore the Democrats, 
who now control the purse strings for US war-making and are already 
sending signals that the troop "surge" might be in trouble. Whether they 
have sufficient spine to stop the attack on Iran is universally 
questioned. But even if a US attack is somehow stalled by domestic action, 
Israel can always strike Iran instead. It is still not widely debated 
that, over the past few years, Israel has purchased a cluster of advanced 
German Dolphin submarines, which would allow sea-based missile launches on 
Iran from the Indian Ocean, as well as a new fleet of attack jets and 
thousands of "bunker-busting" bombs. Or that last year Israel was running 
test bombing runs on a mock-up site of the Natanz reactor, well ahead of 
its recently revealed long-distance bombing test flights to Gibraltar.
Why such a dangerous US-Israeli alliance in such a clearly crazed mission? 
The old necon strategy of A Clean Break is one obvious answer. But the 
goals may go further. A strike on Iran by Israel might be the magic bullet 
for the sinking US neocons and their stumbling military global mission. No 
Democrat now breathing is going to vote to withhold the US funds necessary 
to "defending Israel" from an Iranian counter-attack. Generating a direct 
threat to Israel may indeed now be their only way to ensure that war 
funding continues to flow lavishly.

If an Israeli attack is indeed pending, only something close to a coup in 
Washington can stop it. The real question now, therefore, is whether the 
same pragmatists who entered US politics unbidden to comprise the Iraq 
Study Group (led by Baker but representing the old Cold-War guard, 
including now-frightened Pentagon officers, desperate State Department 
experts, and even alarmed oil men) will conclude that the US national 
interest is indeed in such imminent peril that they must launch emergency 
political measures to preclude a US or Israeli attack. This effort could 
take several shapes, but the normal options are not promising. Hearings to 
expose White House malfeasance (lying, fraud, graft) in the Iraq war, 
leading even to an impeachment process, could fatally cripple the attack 
plan, but would take more time than we have and would not stop Israel in 
any case. Hearings to expose Israeli espionage and discredit Israel's role 
in US foreign policymaking could stymie an Israeli attack, but the 
AIPAC-saturated Congress would never countenance them. Normal Washington 
peer pressure, represented by the Iraq Study Group, has demonstrably 
failed. More urgent methods, that might be pursued in other countries 
facing such a crisis, are precluded in the US by very potent political and 
military cultures that preclude any open revolt against a sitting 
president or the civilian command. (Recall General Powell's quiet 
capitulation to lies, deceit, and foolery that he could not possibly 
support.) No one wants the US to operate otherwise.

The challenge to the US political system is therefore now extremely grave: 
somehow to retake rational control of US foreign policy, from people known 
to be lying criminals, within as little as two months, yet with no 
precedent for doing so. It should not be impossible. Insider Washington 
pressures must should now become ultimatums. But insider operations 
require political backing that can only be obtained through a pincer 
strategy: rapid public revelations of White House criminality by serving 
officials, with responsible headline coverage by the national press 
sufficient rapidly to cripple White House foreign policymaking. This 
political rebellion would require rare political will.

The US occupation of Iraq has appeared since its inception like a large 
and cumbersome truck driven into a swamp. We have been watching, in 
horrified fascination, as it slowly sinks. In recent months, we have been 
certain that even the drivers must soon surely abandon the truck, jump for 
shore, and try to preserve some shred of dignity as it goes down. Instead, 
we are seeing those drivers flinging out ropes around everything in sight 
and getting ready to haul, apparently in the hope of dragging the whole 
carcass back onto solid ground and rolling on to glory. That they can only 
strangle the rest of us, and bind everyone into the swamp with them, must 
finally inspire decisive collective action. Washington insiders and key 
players in the new Democratic Congress, with political backing from an 
alarmed electorate and frantic international allies, can still stop the 
neocons' rush to disaster. But it would require rare determination, 
initiative, transparency, and courage, and it would have to happen fast.

Virginia Tilley is an alarmed US citizen now working at the Human Sciences 
Research Council in South Africa. She can be reached at tilley at hws.edu.