US strikes on Iran predicted as tension rises over arms smuggling and nuclear fears
by Julian Borger and Ian Black for the Guardian
The growing US focus on confronting Iran in a proxy war inside Iraq risks triggering a direct conflict in the next few months, regional analysts are warning.
US-Iranian tensions have mounted significantly in the past few days, with heightened rhetoric on both sides and the US decision to establish a military base in Iraq less than five miles from the Iranian border to block the smuggling of Iranian arms to Shia militias.
The involvement of a few hundred British troops in the anti-smuggling operation also raises the risk of their involvement in a cross-border clash.
US officers have alleged that an advanced Iranian-made missile had been fired at an American base from a Shia area, which if confirmed would be a significant escalation in the “proxy war” referred to this week by General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq.
“The proxy war that has been going on in Iraq may now cross the border. This is a very dangerous period,” Patrick Cronin, the director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said.
Iran’s leaders have so far shown every sign of relishing the confrontation. The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared yesterday that American policies had failed in the Middle East and warned: “I am certain that one day Bush and senior American officials will be tried in an international court for the tragedies they have created in Iraq.”
In such circumstances, last week’s Israeli air strike against a mystery site in northern Syria has triggered speculation over its motives. Israel has been silent about the attack. Syria complained to the UN security council but gave few details. Some say the target was Iranian weapons on their way to Hizbullah in Lebanon, or that the sortie was a dry run for a US-Israeli attack on Syria and Iran. There is even speculation that the Israelis took out a nuclear facility funded by Iran and supplied by North Korea
The situation is particularly volatile because the struggle for influence threatens to exacerbate a confrontation over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
The US has called a meeting of major powers in Washington next Friday to discuss Iran’s defiance of UN resolutions calling for its suspension of uranium enrichment. It comes amid signs that the Bush administration is running out of patience with diplomatic efforts to curb the nuclear programme. Hawks led by the vice-president, Dick Cheney, are intensifying their push for military action, with support from Israel and privately from some Sunni Gulf states.
“Washington is seriously reviewing plans to bomb not just nuclear sites, but oil sites, military sites and even leadership targets. The talk is of multiple targets,” said Mr Cronin. “In Washington there is very serious discussion that this is a window that has to be looked at seriously because there is only six months to ‘do something about Iran’ before it will be looked at as a purely political issue.”
US presidential elections are due in November 2008, and military action at the height of the campaign is usually seen by voters as politically motivated.
Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA counter-terrorism chief who is now a security analyst, said: “The decision to attack was made some time ago. It will be in two stages. If a smoking gun is found in terms of Iranian interference in Iraq, the US will retaliate on a tactical level, and they will strike against military targets. The second part of this is: Bush has made the decision to launch a strategic attack against Iranian nuclear facilities, although not before next year. He has been lining up some Sunni countries for tacit support for his actions.”
US and British officials have complained to Iran about the use by Shia militias in Iraq of what they say are Iranian-made weapons. The main concern is the proliferation of roadside bombs that fire a bolt of molten metal through any thickness of armour, which the officials say must have been made in Iran.
A US military spokesman in Baghdad, Major General Kevin Bergner, raised the stakes when he said the 240mm rocket that hit the US military headquarters outside Baghdad this week, killing an American soldier and wounding 11, had been supplied to Shia militants by Iran.
Gen Bergner used to work in the White House, where he was aligned with administration hawks, and his dispatch to Baghdad was seen by some as a move to increase pressure on Iran.
“There are an awful lot of lower level officers who are very angry about the deaths from explosively formed projectiles said to come from Iran. There is a certain amount of military pressure to do something about this,” said Patrick Clawson, the deputy director for research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “That said, it is very difficult for us to do anything without much better evidence. In that respect, border control is a sensible solution.”
Any US decision to attack Iran would force Gordon Brown to choose between creating a serious rift in the transatlantic alliance and participating in or endorsing American actions. British officials insist that Washington has given no sign it is ready to abandon diplomacy and argue that UN sanctions are showing signs of working. They point to the resurgence in Iran of Hashemi Rafsanjani, seen as a pragmatic counterweight to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Hopes that a new war could still be avoided have also been boosted by Gen Petraeus’s claim that Iran’s covert Quds force alleged to be supporting Shia attacks on coalition forces had been pulled out of Iraq. If true, it could be that in the stand-off between the US and Iran, Iran has blinked first.
Some questions to ponder;
1) why would Iran supply “Iranian made weapons” when they could easily and cheaply provide Chinese made knockoffs of the same Russian origin stuff?
2) How would one base along a 1300 km border stop the alleged smuggling?
3) Since we get so many warnings of impending war, are there any signs to look for before the real thing? Other than carrier movements, such transfer of Air force squadrons to Qatar, unexplained jumps in oil prices, filling up strategic oil reserves, etc.
Thanx
Since we get so many warnings of impending war, are there any signs to look for before the real thing? Other than carrier movements
You are asking THE big question on this one. What would be the indicators and warning (I&W) of an imminent attack?
Well, the list of I&W can range from political I&W to military ones, and from relatively long term to immediate ones (incomings on the radar screen).
I cannot give you a full matrix of I&W here, but it is quite obvious that all the political ones have already occurred, so that what we are left with are military ones and they depend largely on your scenario. If the USAF wants to bomb certain sites in Iran with B2s and some cruise missiles from B52s Diego Garcia the only I&W will be the explosions on the ground or, at best, the contacts on the radar screen. However, if the US is planning of massive bombing campaign (which is the most likely scenario) then there are plenty of I&W which could confirm the imminence of a strike. The task here would be complicated by the fact of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which make is easy to hide a lot of activity against the background of “regular” warfare in these two countries. Last, but not least, the most telling data is, of course, classified and is hard to get by using open sources.
Since we do not have access to the classified data we are bound to rely on stuff like leaks, reports from the media, blogs, etc. However, this is not such a liability as, after all, who among us, simple observers, cares when and how exactly the attack will happen? What we care about is that it will happen and all the W&I of the latter are definitely active.
Sorry for the probably disappointing reply, but the science of detecting an imminent attack is a complex one and does require means which simple civilians rarely have.
HTH
Thanx for the answer. I have another question and I know it may sound wierd or stupid; has anyone considered that Iran might strike first if it begins to sense the U.S. about to attack?
Seems extremely unlikely, but I remember a stark statement from an Iranian official 3 years ago along the lines of preemptive war does not belong exclusively to the U.S. and we will not “wait with arms folded for what others will do to us.”
Not sure what Iran could accomplish, though.
Two questions:
With regard to the following quotation:
British officials insist that Washington has given no sign it is ready to abandon diplomacy and argue that UN sanctions are showing signs of working.
I’m not being facetious, but is there any serious diplomacy going on?
– AA
@lysander:
well, even if preempting might make sense militarily (and in this case I do not think that it would), that would give such a huge political advantage to the USA that I do not think that Iran will do that. In fact, my advise to the Iranians would be to ride out the attack initially, and only respond via Shia proxies in Iraq so as not to be traceable. If the US stops the attack early, keep it at that. Only of the US goes on on a massive offensive against Iran should Iran actually openly retaliate. They should wait for the public opinion to turn against the USA (which will happen in less than a week), give an appearance of being beat down (I just can see CENTCOM annoucing that Iranian C4I are destroyed and the leaders in hiding after just 3-4 days). Then I would hit directly at the Green Zone with a missive coordinated missile attack followed by insurgency attacks and sabotage inside Baghdad. Remember that Iran needs to win *politically* (symbolically if you prefer) and not militarily. It would be another version of the VC’s “you kill many of us, then we kill some of you, and then we win”. Going after the Green Zone will give the illusion of a major military victory (which it will not be at all). I think that ALL Iranian military responses need to have clearly defined political objective designed to create a sense of chaos and havoc inside the White House.
There is no way Iran will win a clear military victory over the USA, but likewise even military actions limited in scope can have huge political effects on the conflict which, by definition, will be decided by political factors.
Should the USA use nukes against Iran I would recommend a gradually escalating but initially semi-covert land offensive against southern Iraq (Basra, Kerbala) region aimed at creating chaos in insecurity in the supply lines. The aim of that operation should not be to achieve any military objective other than overwhelm CENTCOM by taking over the initiative.
In fact, after a week of so of largely passive and lukewarm responses designed to give CENTCOM a false sense of easy victory (remember the “mission accomplished” photo op?) the PRIMARILY MILITARY OBJECTIVE OF THE IRANIAN FORCES WILL HAVE TO TAKE OVER THE INITIATIVE and force CENTCOM to go in a “reaction” mode. I personally think that if they play their cards carefully the Iranians can achieve this within a short time.
These are just some broad outlines of where I see the Iranians might go, the devil being in the details of course.
But if Hezbollah’s actions against the IDF last summer are indicative of anything, I think that this is also how the Iranians will approach the challenge.
@AA: its hard to tell, but I don’t believe that the Neocons in power in the USA have ANY desire to negotiate with Iran at all. As Scott Ritter says – their goal in Iran is “regime change” and everything else is subordinated to this prime imperative.