US/Israeli Plans to Attack Iran

January 21, 2007

By Joe Miller

In addition to the Bush/Cheney/Neocon plans to escalate/surge troops into Iraq, plans which fly in the face of virtually every recommendation they've received, this same group seems to be preparing for an attack on Iran -- despite reports by the CIA and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that there is no conclusive evidence that Iran is building a nuclear bomb. US plans to attack Iran were compellingly described by Seymour Hirsch (1) and Scott Ritter (2) in late 2006, and more recently by Wayne White in a January 19th Reuters article (3).

The following are the four paragraphs of the Reuters' article:

"U.S. contingency planning for military action against Iran's nuclear program goes beyond limited strikes and would effectively unleash a war against the country, a former U.S. intelligence analyst said on Friday.

"I've seen some of the planning ... You're not talking about a surgical strike," said Wayne White, who was a top Middle East analyst for the State Department's bureau of intelligence and research until March 2005.

"You're talking about a war against Iran" that likely would destabilize the Middle East for years, White told the Middle East Policy Council, a Washington think tank.

"We're not talking about just surgical strikes against an array of targets inside Iran. We're talking about clearing a path to the targets" by taking out much of the Iranian Air Force, Kilo submarines, anti-ship missiles that could target commerce or U.S. warships in the Gulf, and maybe even Iran's ballistic missile capability, White said.

Re plans by the United States to attack Iran, Jorge Hirsch has a superb article (4) on the CommonDreams website today entitled "How Congress Can Stop the Iran Attack -- Or be Complicit in Nuclear War Crimes." The article, and all the recent events, issues and recommendations it addresses and documents, deserves the widest possible reading and dissemination.

Parallel to the above, on January 7 the UK's Sunday Times revealed secret Israeli plans to use conventional followed by tactical nuclear "bunker-buster" weapons to destroy three facilities involved in Iran's nuclear program (5). Such plans are very consistent with an analysis offered by Stephen Zunes late last April that while "direct U.S. military action against Iran is still very possible, it is more likely that the United States will encourage Israel to take military action instead. In such a scenario, the U.S. officials believe that the United States would gain the perceived benefits of a military strike against Iran while limiting the damage to the United States by focusing the World's wrath on Israel" (6). Scott Ritter also offers some very important observations about what he views as Israel's movement away from "fact-based" intelligence analysis, and the implications of this shift for the likelihood that Israel would attack Iranian nuclear facilities (7).

The stakes keep getting higher and higher. All the above articles contain really important perspectives, and Hirsch's article offers some very concrete suggestions -- at least for US citizens and legislators.

Joseph Miller
Department of Psychology
51 Madeleva
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556

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US/Israeli Plans to Attack Iran

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