HARPER: IS WAR AGAINST IRAN ALREADY UNDERWAY?

The Obama National Security Council has been reviewing three options on how to deal with Iran in the aftermath of the IAEA report.  From sources in the government, it appears that a decision has already been made, and operations have been underway that constitute a low-intensity war against the Iranian Republic, aimed, in some government officials minds, at provoking an Iranian reaction and a possible pretext for a much bigger war.
 
The three options reviewed by the NSC are:
 
1.  A new diplomatic initiative by the P5+1:   This option has been largely discounted and rejected.  When Israeli PM Netanyahu began his threats of preemptive attacks on Iran prior to the release of the IAEA report, a plan worked out between Hillary Clinton, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and German officials, to use the IAEA report to pressure Iran back to the negotiating table was killed.  There was already deep skepticism that Iran would resume negotiations in good faith, given the intense factional battle now underway within the Iranian leadership.  None of the contending factions would wish to be labeled "soft on the US," so the chances of a resumption of talks were already presumed to be near zero.

 
2.  A full scale war, involving a massive U.S. bombing campaign that would go on for 3-6 months, wiping out the entire infrastructure of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and other power centers.  This option has been unanimously rejected by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and by a vast majority within the U.S. intelligence community as "premature" and far too costly.  However, there are grave uncertainties over how President Obama would respond to a preemptive Israeli strike, that would do little damage to Iran's nuclear energy sector, but would put the U.S. on the spot to "finish the job."  Given electoral considerations, the demonstrated power of AIPAC and the Christian Zionists in the Congress, military brass and intelligence community leaders worry that Obama could draw the United States into an escalating war that could get out of control under virtually every scenario considered.
 
3.  A low-intensity clandestine "war," involving sabotage of Iran's nuclear program and other attacks against nodes of power in the Islamic Republic.  In fact, this third option is a continuation and escalation of a policy launched by the Bush Administration by no later than 2007, when $400 million was allocated for a covert regime change program.  Israel, Great Britain, France and Saudi Arabia are involved in this effort with some degree of coordination with American operations.  Last weekend's bombing of an IRGC military base just 25 miles west of Tehran was the latest incident in this covert war.  The base was the cover for one of Iran's most important missile R&D facilities, and the commander of the entire Iranian missile program, Brig. Gen. Hassan Moghadam, was killed in the blast, along with another IRGC general and a number of leading Iranian rocket scientists.  The pattern of assassinations of Iranian nuclear physicists over the past several years is well-known, along with other low-grade attacks on power facilities and other economic targets.
 
The third option is posed as a "war avoidance" plan by some U.S. military planners I have spoken with.  The idea is to disrupt and delay the Iranian nuclear program, as a way of forcing Israel to back off from their threats of preemptive action.  The stuxnet virus, and a more recent duqu virus have clearly degraded Iran's nuclear enrichment programs at Natanz and Qom, and the sanctions have cut off Iranian access to crucial specialty metals needed for the new generation of centrifuges that Iran has developed, but is having trouble manufacturing. 
 
An Iran specialist, with whom I spoke recently, posed a challenging question:  At what point are the Iranians forced to take action against this clandestine war?  There have been bombings, kidnappings and assassinations on the streets of Tehran that have been impossible to conceal from the Iranian population.  Is this going to prove to be a war delay/war avoidance strategy, or a provocation that leads Iran to retaliate and provide Israel or others with the pretext for general war?  This question is yet to be answered.  So far, the Iranians have been restrained, choosing not to even retaliate with a low-level attack on Israeli or American targets outside of the region (the bombing of the Jewish Center in Buenos Aires more than a decade ago is a good example of past such Iranian retaliatory actions).
 
We are, in effect, already in a low-intensity war with Iran.  Is diplomacy possible at this point?  Is war avoidance still an option?  I look forward to a lively response. Harper

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This article is altogether Harper's and not mine.  pl

Comments

[eakens]

Iran will do nothing until after our troops leave Iraq and congregate in Kuwait. They will also probably be waiting for a confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah first.

Nobody appears to mention the fact that in July a Cypriot military base incurred a similar explosion which originated from containers of Iranian armaments that were intercepted n 2009 by the UN and being held at the base there.

[confusedponderer]

I wonder how Israel and the US would react if the Iranians would conduct such operations in these respective countries.

Just imagine for a second: Iranians blowing up a missile in Vandenberg, knocking off a senior general? Killing the head of research at Los Alamos laboratory? Attacking Lawrence Livermore with a computer virus, destroying or rendering useless key machinery? What would the US do?

What if something similar happened in Israel?

These are indeed acts of war. The Iranians have been remarkably restrained, and I think far more so than America and Israel would have.

Richard Silverstein thinks these black ops are a surrogate for a coherent policy:

... this black ops strategy will be ineffectual, just as a frontal military assault on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be futile. The Mossad (and likely the CIA) are collaborating on a policy which is designed as a “filler.” The U.S. and Israel know that with all their bellyaching about the Iranian menace to civilization, they’d look like fools unless they did something. They refuse to put together an offer that would be attractive enough to Iran to get it to divert from its current path. Which leaves the west with no choice but to engage in various forms of sabotage in an effort to plug the wholes in the dyke that is Iran’s possible headlong rush toward nuclear status.

[Maidhc]

There is no hard evidence that Iran was responsible for the AMIA bombing. The US ambassador at the time has said they found nothing. Like the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy, eyewitness accounts say the explosion came from inside the building. The Shin Bet security were lucky enough to be out for lunch at the time.

[Ken Halliwell]

Harper wrote: "The base was the cover for one of Iran's most important missile R&D facilities, and the commander of the entire Iranian missile program, Brig. Gen. Hassan Moghadam, was killed in the blast, along with another IRGC general and a number of leading Iranian rocket scientists."

How do we (the public) know that all of this is true? Is there any direct evidence that's not from Iranian or Western intelligence sources? In other words, perhaps this incidence was a grand deception by the Iranians -- meant to lead others to believe their missile development program has been seriously harmed. Likely, the Iranians are as capable of waging war through deception as others who practice the art.

[Babak Makkinejad]

It is politically impossible for the United States to put forth an attractive offer to Iran. US policy on Iran cannot be positive.

[graywolf]

You sound like Ron Paul.
National interest loses to moral equivalence.

[securecare]

We are all locked inside a house of mirrors full of thick smoke with the lights off.

[turcopolier]

graywolf

Are you sure that you don't mean "immoral equivalence?" pl

[confusedponderer]

Ron Paul is IMO a loon on economic policy, as far as foreign policy is concerned he is the only Republican candidate who is not a damned fool.

People need to understand that actions have consequences. If the Israelis and their MEK allies keep this going there are at one point going to be consequences. There is no free lunch.

What the Israelis do is to kick the can down the road. That's not a policy. That's just action for the sake of not having to have a sustainable policy towards Iran.

They don't want that because that would inevitably involve them having to make concessions, and they are loathe to do that. By default, they appear to expect surrender from their negotiating partners.

I am not fully persuaded that the Israelis don't see the prospect of an Iranian reaction to Israeli provocations as an positive thing, and that they are actually fishing for a pretext, as it may force the US hand if they play an according incident right.

[confusedponderer]

All,
what do you make of Avigdor Liebermann apparently getting cut out?

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2011/11/10/shin-bet-withheld-iran-secrets-from-lieberman-as-security-risk/

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2011/11/17/lieberman-severs-ties-with-mossad/

[William R. Cumming]

IN a share the pain effort I would ask all citizens owning Persian rugs of any age to turn them in and the US could sell them on the world market there helping the deficit and destroying the hard currency market for those rugs internationally. And of course have BCE of DHS enforce a ban on all new imports.

This would also help fund the USA's UW in Iran.

And all the out of work rug merchants after this effort could be recruited for UW in Iran since most left after 1979 revolution there anyhow and most hoped to return someday.

Besides China and India make wonderful Persian rugs for USA market.

[eakens]

How is ending the FED a loon policy? The Treasury orders up funds from the FED, who in turn receives bonds, bills, and notes which the taxpayers have to shoulder the interest on, and this cycle goes on and on.

This money that gets wired over to Treasury originates out of thin air backed by nothing more than the "confidence of the American people". If that's the case, why not just pay interest to yourself? Why is the FED needed?

The FED, from the taxpayer's perspective, is the height of lunacy.

[Medicine Man]

Isn't it Liebermann and his crew who torpedoed Israel's relationship with Turkey? Maybe the intelligence-security establishment in Israel is just more interested in doing something practical than Avigdor is.

[Richard Silverstein]

I wonder if Pat could give my e mail to Harper. I'd love to talk to him about this piece & my own work on the Israeli side of this issue.

[Jane]

It is quite possibly politically impossible in another sense: Is there any possible offer which " would be attractive enough to Iran to get it to divert from its current path?"

What would such an offer contain?

[Jane]

"What the Israelis do is to kick the can down the road. That's not a policy. That's just action for the sake of not having to have a sustainable policy towards Iran."

If the Israelis view is that Iran is currently a theocracy in which the rulers distract the ruled by focusing anger against Israel on an irrational basis (See Holocaust denialism) and believe that there is a prospect that Iran may become a functioning democracy in a reasonable time frame, kicking the can down the road makes eminent sense.

[Andy]

There's also no evidence that the explosion near Tehran was anything more than an accident. The Iranian's are saying that they don't think there was any Israeli or US involvement.

[barry lando]

Meanwhile, while the U.S. and Israel have been trying to isolate Iran, the Chinese, in their own inimitable have only benefited. Please check out my latest blog at barrylando.blogspot.com

[Retired (once-Serving)Patriot]

Thanks Harper for your report from the inside. Done well -- and rings very true to my ears. Sadly, one side or the either has to "lose big" before there is enough softening of hard hearts to make the breakthru that restores relations. There will be no Obama to Iran (a la Nixon) in any near future. And that is what's needed more than anything.

RP

[confusedponderer]

If that's the Israeli view then it is probably a hysterical delusion.

And as for holocaust denial in Iran - in a sense, Israel's constant and ongoing utilisation of the Holocaust for foreign policy ends feeds nuts like the Holocaust deniers. Since Israel draws some legitimacy from the Holocaust, opponents try to delegigitmise it by denying the holocaust. While that is just as stupid as it is historically false, it is also somewhat predictable.

Personally, I am pretty much fed up with Israel's utilisation of the Holocaust. The Holocaust is a poor justification for, say evicting Palestinians. The Holocaust is a factor only insofar as the Israeli and Jewish angst is concerned. It is that factor alone that gives it great significance.

Iranian restraint compared to the utter lack thereof in Israel may suggest to a fair minded reader that the more rational actor in this charade sits in Tehran.

Also, if one puts his mind to it, one can easily make the argument that Israel is doing just what you accuse the Iranians of doing. Iirc the streets protests in Israel keep going.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Israeli_social_justice_protests

So, so what?

[confusedponderer]

My problem with him is more general about his faith in the quasi-magical powers of the holy market to regulate itself well, fairly and efficiently.

That's IMO just as inane as building a system based on the collective wisdom of the working class. Indeed, as if to complete the analogy, the Republican Party, well beyond Paul, nowadays clings to that creed with a devoted fervour that would many any member of the sclerotic old guard in the Kremlin pale in envy.

I have come to see capitalism as a system of governance that includes beyond the market laws and regulations and enforcement of these regulations. The market cannot exist without that. To deny that, and to reduce it on the market alone, is IMO both irresponsible and foolish.

I frankly don't see the wisdom behind abolishing the various regulatory bodies that put, in the US inevitably limited, checks on the worst excesses of the market participants.

Except for that I have great sympathy for the man, and I think that the way the US media ignores him is appalling. He deserves to be heard.

[Babak Makkinejad]

All:

I think it would be useful if any and all on this forum could sketch out a framework and a work-plan for US-Iran rapprochment.

Is it even hypothetically possible given the US laws on Iran?

[William R. Cumming]

Are Israeli/Iranian relations a one-way or two way mirror?

[confusedponderer]

Andy,
from what one reads the Israelis have been quietly bragging about it to the media. This was no accident.

I recommend Richard Silverstein's reporting on the subject.

Target of Sabotage Attack Against Iran Were Sajjil-Ghadr F Advanced Missile Prototypes

Missile Blast Disrupted Research on New Iranian Weapon Designed to Counter Israel

In Eulogy of ‘Martyred’ Revolutionary Guard Commander, Tehran Mayor Concedes Enemies Killed Him

Former Iranian Official Confirms Mossad Sabotage Behind Missile Blast

Iran Missile Base Blast: Annals of Israeli Terror Redux

Mossad-MEK May Have Bombed Iranian Missile Base, 40 Dead and Wounded

Judging by that you're apparently wrong on all points regarding Israel.

[Allen Thomson]

About that base where the explosion occurred: I looked 30 miles west of Tehran, where there is a village called Bid Kaneh. That seems close enough to the reported Bid Ganeh considering the well-known transliteration problems. And just to the west of the village there is a facility next to a modest mountain, complete with two adits accessed via roads with wide curves: 35.628 N, 50.907 E. I don't know if this is what blew up, but it's interesting in its own right.