US threatens Iran and allies with military, economic punishment

This past week saw the United States intensify pressure against Iran and its allies. The Pentagon announced on Jan. 3 that they will send a second aircraft carrier and escort ships to the Persian Gulf as a warning to Syria and Iran. Officials said the USS John C. Stennis strike group would deploy this month. It will put 5,000 more US sailors in the region, bringing the total to 16,000. A war against Iran could be launched within the next two years, a senior Bush adviser warned on Jan. 3. CIA specialist on Iran Reuel Marc Gerecht said there had been a "tidal shift" of opinion towards military action, especially in Israel. He added: "I think it has now become highly likely the Israelis will launch a strike before the end of George Bush's presidency." Gerecht's comments came on the heels of a report in the British Sunday Times saying two Israeli air force squadrons were training for a nuclear strike on Iran to destroy the country's uranium enrichment facilities. Israel is said to have identified three prime targets south of Tehran, including Nantanz, where facilities are being installed for uranium enrichment underground. Israeli pilots are believed to have flown to Gibraltar recently to train for the 2,000-mile round trip to Iran. In Tehran, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told a news conference that the newspaper report "will make clear to the world public opinion that the Zionist regime [Israel] is the main menace to global peace and the region." He said "any measure against Iran will not be left without a response and the invader will regret its act immediately." For nearly a year, a select group of US officials has been quietly coordinating actions to counter Iran, including increasing the military capabilities of Arab allies such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain. The group, known as the Iran Syria Policy and Operations Group (ISOG) is also coordinating a host of other actions, which include covert assistance to Iranian dissidents and building international outrage toward Iran by promoting allegations that the country played a role in a 1994 terrorist attack in Argentina, according to interviews with half a dozen White House, Pentagon and State Department officials who are involved in the group's work. Pentagon officials involved with the group intend to ask Congress as early as February to increase funding for transfers of military hardware to allies in the Persian Gulf and to accelerate plans for joint military activities. The request, which is still being formulated, is expected to include, but not be limited to, more advanced missile and radar systems. "Washington wants to prepare for a potential showdown,"said Emile El-Hokayem, research fellow at the Stimpson Center, a Washington-based think tank. The United States has repeatedly said its policy is not to overthrow the Iranian regime, but one former US official who attended an ISOG meeting said that he got the impression that regime change was a key goal of many of the meetings' participants. ISOG has raised eyebrows within the State Department for hiring BearingPoint–the same Washington-based private contracting firm used by the Iraq Policy and Operations Group–to handle its administrative work, rather than State Department employees. Some lower level State Department officials saw the decision to outsource responsibility for scheduling meetings, record-keeping and distributing reports as an effort to circumvent the normal diplomatic machinery and provide extra secrecy for the group. ISOG is led by a steering committee with two leading hawks on Middle East policy as chairmen: James F. Jeffrey, prinicipal deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, who once headed Iraq policy, and ex-Iran/Contra criminal Elliott Abrams, deputy national security adviser for "Global Democracy Strategy." US financing of "pro-democracy activities" in Iran is expected to double in 2008, according to the senior State Department official. In 2006, $85 million was allocated for such programs. Meanwhile, the US, in a tacit acknowledgment that sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council in late December are too weak to force Iran to abandon its nuclear power ambitions, has embarked on a new strategy to increase the financial and psychological pressure. The plan is to use the language of the resolution to help persuade foreign governments and financial institutions to cut ties with Iranian businesses, individuals in its nuclear and missile programs and, by extension, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, said Stuart Levey, under secretary of the treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence. The new strategy builds on the Treasury Department's efforts over the past few months to get Western banks to scale back business with Iran or risk running afoul of US laws. The US demonstrated its seriousness on Jan. 5 when Washington imposed sanctions against 24 foreign entities, including Russian, Chinese and North Korean firms, for allegedly selling banned weapons to Iran and Syria. On Jan. 2, Russian news agencies cited defense and industry officials as saying Russian contracts to sell anti-aircraft weapons to Syria and Iran were being fulfilled on schedule and were being stationed around Iran's civilian nuclear sites. "The United States are not for the first time trying to extend their national laws illegally to foreign countries, forcing them to work according to American rules," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement. United States and European officials said they had also begun trying maneuvers aimed at undermining the self-assurance of Iranian officials, especially those who travel abroad. The recent arrests of four Iranian diplomats by US troops in Iraq, officials said, played into that strategy. Iran complained loudly that the men were diplomats and that their arrest violated accepted diplomatic rules. The diplomats were eventually released. But their arrests are "precisely the type of thing that will chip away at their confidence," said one European official. Most of the Western officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the issue.