Bush makes war moves on Iran

President Bush's national televised address on Iraq on Jan. 10, alongside several recent developments and other statements, indicate that the administration is ever more seriously considering war with Iran. During his speech, Bush made the starkest accusations yet against Iraq's neighbor, alleging that it was "providing material support for attacks on American troops." While promising to "disrupt the attacks on our forces" and "seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq," he made no mention of the flow of arms and funds to Sunni insurgents from Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Instead, he revealed the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the Persian Gulf and of the Patriot anti-missile defense system to Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states to protect US allies. The usefulness of this step for resolving the violence in Iraq remains a mystery. Neither the Sunni insurgents nor Iraq's Shia militias possess ballistic missiles. And if they did, nothing indicates that they would target the GCC states–Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The deployment of the Patriot missiles can be explained, however, in light of a US plan to attack Iran. Last year, Tehran signaled to the GCC states in unusually blunt language that it would retaliate against the Arab sheikhdoms if the US attacked Iran using bases in the GCC countries. Mindful of the weakness of Iran's air force, Tehran's most likely weapon would be ballistic missiles–the very same weapon that the Patriots are designed to strike. A first step towards going to war with Iran would be to provide the GCC states with protection against potential Iranian retaliation. On Jan. 15, new US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told reporters that the decision to deploy a Patriot missile battalion and a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf in conjunction with a "surge" of troops in Iraq was designed to show Iran that the US was not "overcommitted" in Iraq. His remarks followed tough comments from other senior US officials. Vice-President Dick Cheney told Fox News, "I think it's pretty well known that Iran is fishing in troubled waters, if you will, inside Iraq," while national security adviser Stephen Hadley said the US was "going to need to deal with what Iran is doing inside Iraq." Such remarks, following the prospect of "hot pursuit" raids into Iran as raised by Bush in his televized address, have fuelled speculation that the US is softening up the US public for possible action against Tehran. The increasingly confrontational pose struck by the US is a repudiation of one of the key recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, which called for the start of a dialogue with Iran and Syria in an effort to extricate the US from Iraq. In his speech, Bush outright rejected the group's recommendations. Rather than talking to Iran and Syria, Bush virtually declared war on these states. Bush said: "We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We'll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq." Asked whether that meant US troops could be sent across the Iranian border, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that option was on the table. "We have to recognize that Iran is engaging in activities that endanger our troops." Perhaps the starkest indication of an impending war with Iran is Washington's recent arrest of Iranian diplomats in Iraq. Around the time of Bush's speech, US Special Forces–in blatant violation of diplomatic regulations reminiscent of the hostage taking of US diplomats in Tehran by Iranian students in 1979–stormed the Iranian consulate in Irbil in northern Iraq, arresting five diplomats. Later that day, US forces almost clashed with Kurdish peshmerga militia forces when seeking to arrest more Iranians at Arbil's airport. "What the Americans express is incorrect and hyperbole against Iran in order to justify their actions," said Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Hosseini. "The United States should release all five persons, prevent possible similar acts and compensate damages." Iran said it was working with Iraqi officials on securing the release of the five Iranians. "We are trying to release the diplomats and sorting out the issue with the Iraqi government. This was an attack on the Iraqi government as well," said Iranian government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham. "This is against all the international immunity laws and political standards and was a terrorist act." Iraqis, who have echoed Tehran's calls for the US to release the five men, say the three-way standoff that has ensued reveals more about US meddling in Iraqi affairs than about Iranian influence. These operations incensed the Iraqi government, including its Kurdish components that otherwise are staunchly pro-Washington. "What happened... was very annoying because there has been an Iranian liaison office there for years and it provides services to the citizens," said Iraq's Minister of Foreign Affairs Hoshiyar Zebari, who is a Kurd. Zebari said that the government intended to transform similar Iranian agencies into consulates. He also said the government planned to negotiate more border entry points with Iran. "This is not a new discovery, this office," he said. The Iranians had been "working there publicly, openly. It was not a clandestine network. That's the thing we need to explain to our friends." Zebari said the Iraqi government had not been shown any of what US officials are saying is evidence that the Iranians were spies. "We, as Iraqis, have our own interest," Zebari said. "We are bound by geographic destiny to live with" Iran, adding that the Iraqi government wanted "to engage them constructively." The Bush administration has justified the raids–including the arrests of several Iranian officials in December last year–on the grounds that evidence has been collected on Iranian involvement in destabilizing Iraq. In the past few months, Bush signed a presidential order targeting Iranian Revolutionary Guards and intelligence officers. But to Iraq, Iran is its biggest trading partner and a source of tourist revenue, mainly from the thousands of Shiite Muslim pilgrims who travel to the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala every year. In Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish north, much of the economy is founded on trade with Iran. The US raid on the Iranian office, which handled visas and other paperwork for Iraqis traveling to Iran, struck at the heart of Kurdistan's economy, which depends on commercial ties with Iran facilitated through that office. Doing business with Iran also means doing business with Iran's Revolutionary Guard, an institution that controls Iran's borders. Hassan Kazemi-Qomi, Iran's ambassador to Iraq, is a former member of the guard. Any neighboring country that wants to do business with Iran has to deal with members of the force. Iraq's Kurds share a storied history with the Revolutionary Guard, fighting side by side against former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, once said that he planned military operations against Hussein with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president. Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador, acknowledged the past but said it was time for Iraqis to sever ties to such groups. "Now Iraq is in a different place," he said. "There cannot be and there should not be relations with security institutions of neighboring states that work against the interests of this new Iraq." Iraqis and Kurds who oppose the detention of the five Iranians say the US raid made the Iraqi government appear weak or as a puppet of the United States. "They should help the Iraqi government to demonstrate its independence [and] sovereignty in its dealing with other countries," said Zebari, the foreign minister, referring to US officials. "Because of the simplest things, any country will question the basis of your sovereignty, and that weakens the position of the Iraqi government." After the raid in Kurdistan, US officials claimed that they had found and seized maps of neighborhoods in Baghdad in which Sunnis "could be" evicted. US officials also claimed they had found proof there of Iranian involvement in last summer's conflict in Lebanon. None of this "evidence" has yet been produced for public scrutiny. On Jan. 12, Rice said that Bush had decided to "go after these networks… after a period of time in which we saw increasing activity" among Iranians in Iraq, "and increasing lethality in what they were producing." What Rice was referring to is what are called EFPs–Explosively Formed Projectiles–the increasingly lethal armor-piercing roadside bombs that have become one of the biggest killers of US troops. While it is true that the sophisticated plugs of machine-pressed steel and copper–that US military intelligence officials believe arrive in Baghdad in kit form for assembly–are being produced in someone's factory, the location is not certain. Indeed, there is strong evidence that many are produced locally. Questions have also been raised over the widespread claims by senior British and US officers that the devices are being smuggled from Iran. British troops patrolling the border last autumn insisted to several journalists that in months of patrolling they had found no evidence of the devices coming across. A second long-term accusation by the US is that Tehran is providing weapons and training to Shia forces. Again, the evidence is deeply contradictory. British officials have insisted that Tehran has no desire at all to see a "failed state" on its border, or the kind of bloodletting between Shia and Sunni that might draw it into a confrontation with Saudi Arabia.