WASHINGTON - The likelihood
of a United States or Israeli military attack on
Iran's nuclear installations seems miniscule
during the remaining months of the Barack Obama
administration's first term.
The US is
focused on domestic economic problems, winding
down wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, and
stabilizing emerging democracies in Egypt and
Tunisia. Israel is preoccupied with Arab uprisings
and new manifestations of people power by
Palestinians in and outside the West Bank and
Gaza.
Yet war cannot be ruled out,
according to regional specialists who say that the
persistent invocation of the "military option" by
some Israeli and US officials may be inhibiting
diplomatic initiatives.
Retired Admiral
William "Fox" Fallon, who resigned as head of US
Central Command in 2008 after a profile in Esquire magazine
portrayed him as opposing a
military strike on Iran, told a Washington
audience on Tuesday that while there seemed to be
"little chance" of a preventive strike, "I have no
idea" whether one could occur.
"The
problem was and still is this incessant focus on
conflict, conflict, conflict," he told a symposium
of the American Iranian Council, a group that
advocates engagement with Iran. "We ought to be
working pretty hard to focus on other things that
would put us in a different place" with Iran, he
said.
One spark for conflict could be a
shooting incident in the narrow waters off Iran in
the Persian Gulf.
Fallon said that during
the many years he spent stationed in the region as
a navy flyer and commander, US interactions with
the regular Iranian navy were "in my experience,
very professional. The problem for us lately is
that the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps]
has muscled in more frequently than ever and they
don't behave in the expected ways. They've been
challenging in some respects."
"On several
occasions while I was the commander we had some
shooting out there that was absolutely
unnecessary," Fallon added. "This kind of
potential is not good."
Fallon and his
predecessor, Army General John Abizaid, sought but
were apparently denied permission from the George
W Bush administration to negotiate an "incidents
at sea" agreement with Iran that would have
established procedures for preventing altercations
from turning into a major conflict.
"General Abizaid had some very good ideas
but they weren't accepted by the Bush
administration," said Colonel David Crist, a
special adviser to the current head of Centcom,
Marine General James Mattis, and the author of an
upcoming book on the history of US military
clashes with Iran.
Speaking on Tuesday at
the same Washington symposium as Fallon, Crist
said that "there is always the potential for an
unintended consequence in the Gulf". He noted a
lack of understanding in both countries of how
national security decisions are made and examples
of "Tom Cruise fly-bys" of Iranian aircraft close
to US ships.
"Is this part of an Iranian
plan to systematically harass the United States or
just [the actions of] hot shot pilots?" Crist
asked. The US and Iran are in a "regional cold war
but the means to de-escalate are not in place".
Some hardliners in Iran might actually
welcome conflict with the United States or Israel
to unify a politically divided nation.
At
the same time, Iran is continuing its provocative
nuclear progress. On Tuesday, Iranian Vice
President and Atomic Energy Chief Fereydoun Abbasi
announced that Iran would install advanced
centrifuges to produce uranium enriched to 19.75%
at Fordow, an installation outside the theological
center of Qom that is built into a mountainside
and was revealed by the United States in September
2009. Abbasi also said Iran intended to triple its
output of 19.75% enriched uranium by the end of
this year.
While the uranium is ostensibly
meant to be fuel for a Tehran reactor that
produces medical isotopes, the Institute for
Science and International Security, a Washington
research group that focuses on nuclear
proliferation, warned that such a step would
enable Iran "to more quickly break out and produce
enough weapon-grade uranium for a nuclear weapon,
if it chose to do so".
United States
intelligence officials have said they do not
believe that Iranian officials have made a
decision to produce a nuclear weapon. The US has
not disclosed any hard evidence that Iran has
resumed weapons research that, according to a 2007
US intelligence estimate, ended in 2003.
However, Yukiya Amano, the head of the
International Atomic Energy Agency, the global
nuclear watchdog, told the IAEA board on Monday
that the agency had acquired new "information
related to possible past or current undisclosed
nuclear related activities that seem to point to
the existence of possible military dimensions to
Iran's nuclear program".
President Barack
Obama, after a brief and unsuccessful effort at
engagement with Iran, has focused on sanctions to
try to convince Tehran to suspend uranium
enrichment. The policy has failed to achieve its
goal in part because of high oil prices and
China's deepening involvement in the Iranian
economy.
Obama has said repeatedly that an
Iran equipped with nuclear weapons is
"unacceptable".
Greg Thielmann, a senior
fellow at the Arms Control Association and veteran
nuclear expert at the State Department, told Inter
Press Service that while he thought the chances of
an unprovoked US attack on Iran in the next two
years was "very low", some Israeli officials would
continue to press for US military action.
"Some in Israel want to prod us into an
attack while others want to wave the saber so that
the US will have more sanctions and not consider
talking to Iran," Thielmann said.
Any
attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would probably
not destroy all the sites, would certainly not
eliminate Iran's nuclear knowledge and could
provoke formidable retaliation against Israel by
Iranian partners such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and
against US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Meir Dagan, the former chief of the
Israeli intelligence agency, the Mossad, said
recently that an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear
installations would be "the stupidest thing I have
ever heard". This provoked harsh criticism of him
by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and
Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
"They're not
arguing with his logic," Thielmann said. "They are
arguing with his right to talk about this
publicly."
Fallon said the best solution
would be negotiations with Iran but that "it takes
two to tango".
"The interests of both
people are better addressed with engagement and
cooperation rather than antagonism and hostility
[but] there is no clear path to this preferred
alternative anytime soon," he said.
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