WASHINGTON - Once again, notably in the
wake of last week's annual American Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference and
the visit to the capital of Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert, there's a lot of chatter about a possible
attack by Israel and/or the United States on Iran.
Olmert appears to have left the White
House after meeting with President George W Bush
and an earlier dinner with Vice President Dick
Cheney quite satisfied on this score, while rumors
- most recently voiced by neo-conservative Daniel
Pipes - that the administration plans to carry out
a "massive" attack in the window between the
November elections and Bush's departure from
office, particularly if Democratic Senator Barack
Obama is his successor, continue to swirl around
the capital.
What to make of this? Is this
real? Or is it psychological warfare
designed to persuade
Tehran that it really does face devastation if it
doesn't freeze its uranium-enrichment program
very, very soon and/or to warn Russia and China
that they have to put more pressure on Tehran or
deal with the consequences of such an attack?
As I mentioned in a previous post, I've
generally been skeptical of the many reports over
the past two years that an attack - either by
Israeli or the US - was imminent, as those reports
had often warned at the time of their publication.
After the release of the December National
Intelligence Estimate (NIE), I, like just about
everyone else, became even more doubtful that Bush
would order an attack before leaving office (and I
didn't think the Israelis would mount an attack
without a green light from Washington). This is in
part because neo-conservatives, who had been and
remain the most eager champions of military
action, seemed to simply give up on Bush and, in
any event, were not showing any signs of
orchestrating a major new media campaign to
mobilize public opinion in that direction, as they
did in the run-up to the Iraq invasion.
Since the abrupt resignation of Admiral
William Fallon as CENTCOM commander, which I saw
as a major blow to the realist faction in the
administration, and Cheney's subsequent visit to
the region, however, I've been increasingly
concerned about the possibility of an attack, and
the past week's events have done nothing to allay
that concern.
Let me just lay out a few
items, other than those mentioned above, that I
find disturbing.
First, there were
Olmert's very confident comments about
"vanquish[ing] the threat" after his meeting with
Bush last Wednesday. "I left with a lot less
question marks [than I had entered with] regarding
the means, the timetable restrictions and
America's resoluteness to deal with the problem,"
he said after the meeting.
This, of
course, was the day after Olmert had told AIPAC,
"The international community has a duty and
responsibility to clarify to Iran, through
drastic measures, that the repercussions of
their continued pursuit of nuclear weapons will be
devastating." (Emphasis mine). Now, this
may just be the hawkishness of a politically
besieged Israeli prime minister dishing up red
meat for a hawkish AIPAC audience, but I don't
think it can be so easily dismissed (in contrast
to the even more bellicose remarks last week of
Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz, whose domestic
political motivations are much more clear and who
is now being blamed for much of the historic jump
in oil prices last Friday).
Second, there
is the "Cheney" role which is becoming more
prominent. I am referring not only to Olmert's
dinner with Cheney last Wednesday evening in which
the two men reportedly addressed "operational
subjects", whatever that means. (Remember, it was
Cheney's top Middle East aide, David Wurmser, who,
during the spring of 2007 when the realists were
clearly in the driver's seat, was shopping around
to sympathetic think-tanks a scheme - from which
the vice president's office was later forced to
disassociate itself - for forcing Bush into war
with Iran by getting Israel to launch a cruise
missile attack on some Iranian nuclear facilities
and counting on Tehran to retaliate against US
forces.) In other words, Wednesday's dinner was
not just a courtesy call; the Israelis clearly
believe that Cheney is a player.
But I am
also referring to another Cheney, namely
Elizabeth, the former deputy assistant secretary
of state for Near Eastern Affairs and Cheney's
daughter, who, during the opening plenary session
of the AIPAC conference last Monday, took every
opportunity to attack the policies of her former
boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Liz was
particularly harsh on Rice's pet project, the
effort to gain at least a framework peace accord
between Israel and the Palestinian Authority
before Bush leaves office, arguing that the
Annapolis Middle East peace process was a waste of
time compared to the importance of dealing with
Iran in what she called a "zero-sum game".
"When we focus on that kind of arrangement
[Israeli-Palestinian peace talks], we don't have
time to focus on Iran," she declared, suggesting
as well that Tehran's leadership was not
"rational" and that previous efforts to engage it
had also been a waste of time, or worse. Iran
needs to be convinced that if it doesn't heed
United Nations Security Council demands to halt
enrichment, "They will face military action. We do
not have the luxury of time," she said to
(surprisingly) scattered applause.
Third,
Liz Cheney's remarks should be seen in the context
of a more concerted attack by the hawks on Rice of
which the recent hatchet job by the Weekly
Standard's by Stephen Hayes, the vice president's
favorite reporter, was perhaps the most important
piece. Hayes accused Rice of betraying the Bush
Doctrine and focused much of his essay on her
backing for US Assistant Secretary of State
Christopher Hill's negotiations over the past year
with North Korea, on which the State Department
has already been forced on the defensive.
Now comes Liz's top-to-bottom repudiation
of Rice's Middle East policy - from favoring
Palestinian elections in 2006, to initiating the
Annapolis summit in Maryland last year and then
inviting Syria to attend it, to welcoming last
month's Doha agreement on Lebanon. All of which,
she charged, had given Iran a "real choke-hold on
the region".
Now, I don't think there can
be any question that the views of both Hayes and
Liz reflect those of the vice president. Moreover,
because their closeness to the vice president is
so clear and unmistakable, the fact that these
views are so harsh and so public suggests to me
that Cheney feels more confident than he has felt
for some time. Moreover, the campaign to discredit
Rice seems to have hit its mark.
Not only
did she sound defensive in her own speech to AIPAC
last Tuesday morning, but she assumed a
more-hawkish tone on Iran than she had previously.
And, as noted by the New York Times, she was also
markedly more doubtful about achieving even a
framework agreement between the Israelis and the
Palestinians by the end of Bush's term than ever
before.
(In fact, Bush and Olmert
reportedly spent much more time during their
meeting on Iran than on the Annapolis process,
suggesting that the president, who has never been
as committed to the process as Rice, had, in that
meeting in any event, accepted Liz's notion of a
"zero-sum game" in which Iran should take
precedence over Israel-Palestine.) In other words,
there appears to be a major battle over Bush's
Middle East "legacy" (apart from Iraq) between
Rice, who has hoped to redeem her own "legacy" by
concluding some kind of a credible
Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement, and the
Cheneys, who believe confrontation with Iran is
inevitable and, in Liz's words, "We do not have
the luxury of time."
Judging from this
past week's events, I would have to say the
Cheneys have gained some ground.
That does
not mean they will prevail. Again, all of the
hawkishness on display last week - including the
dire warnings coming from Israeli officials both
in the US and in Israel - may simply be
psychological warfare aimed at Europe (where
former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer,
for one, seems increasingly alarmed) and Iran.
Moreover, recent statements by Secretary
of Defense Robert Gates about both gaining
"leverage" with Iran and recognizing that "they
[Tehran's leadership] need something, too" and
warnings by the US Navy commander in the Gulf,
Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff, that war with Iran
would be "pretty disastrous" and that an
"incidents-at-sea" agreement with Tehran was
highly desirable (reprising Fallon's efforts over
the previous year) suggest that the Pentagon
remains as opposed to an attack as ever.
And, despite Bush's own effective
repudiation of last December's NIE, which said
Iran had given up efforts to build a nuclear
weapon, the intelligence community is sticking
doggedly by it, if recent statements by the deputy
Director of National Intelligence can be relied
on.
Then there is the price of oil, whose
record jump on Friday following Mofaz's bellicose
warnings offered some idea of what the US (and
global) economy will face if the Cheney faction
prevails on Bush to either greenlight an Israeli
attack or launch one himself.
So, even if
Cheney neutralizes Rice in the battle for Bush's
mind - or gut - he still faces some formidable
obstacles. But I think he has made some progress.
This article is reproduced from theblogof Jim Lobe, best known
for his coverage of US foreign policy,
particularly the neo-conservative influence in the
Bush administration. He is the Washington bureau
chief of the international news agency Inter Press
Service.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
