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salon.com The neocons’ big Iran lie

The right-wing hawks who thought Iraq would be a cakewalk think it'd be easy to attack Iran. Real soldiers say no.

By Matt Duss

In testimony to the Senate Armed Services committee in April 2010, then-Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman Gen. James Cartwright said that strikes would, at best, only delay the Iranian nuclear program for a few years, while at the same time solidifying Iranian domestic support for the regime and removing any hesitancy that may have existed over the necessity of obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Asked by Sen. Jack Reed whether the only way to prevent Iran from achieving a nuclear capability was “to physically occupy their country and disestablish their nuclear facilities,” Cartwright answered: “Absent some other unknown calculus that would go on, that’s a fair conclusion.”

Cartwright’s comments echoed those of retired Gen. Anthony Zinni from a speech at the New America Foundation in September 2009. Zinni said that he liked to respond to advocates of strikes on Iran with “And then what?”

After you’ve dropped those bombs on those hardened facilities, what happens next? What happens if they decide, in their hardened shelters with their mobile missiles, to start launching those? What happens if they launch them into U.S. bases on the other side of the Gulf? What happens if they launch into Israel, or somewhere else? Into a Saudi oil field? Into Ras Laffan, with all the natural gas? What happens if they now flush their fast patrol boats, their cruise missiles, the strait full of mines, and they sink a tanker, an oil tanker? And of course the economy of the world goes absolutely nuts. What happens if they activate sleeper cells? The MOIS, the intelligence service; what happens if there’s another preemptive attack by the West, the U.S. and Israel, they fire up the streets, and now we’ve got problems. Just tell me how to deal with all that, OK?

“Because, eventually, if you follow this all the way down, eventually I’m putting boots on the ground somewhere,” Zinni concluded. “And as I tell my friends, if you liked Iraq and Afghanistan, you’ll love Iran.”

link to full article:

http://www.salon.com/2012/02/10/the_neocons_big_iran_lie/singleton/

Panetta & Pentagon admits their "bunker buster" bombs cannot penetrate Iran's underground facilities

Haaretz: The futility of attacking Iran
By Reuven Pedatzur

Published 03:42 09.02.12

Senior American defense officials told The Wall Street Journal that even the largest bomb in the hands of the American military, the one known as the "bunker buster", is not able to penetrate and destroy those of the Iranian nuclear installations that are buried deep underground. Panetta admitted that the Americans do not possess the means of penetrating facilities like the underground uranium enrichment plant at Fordow, near Qum. This is where the problem lies. Some of the nuclear facilities in Iran, especially those that are critical for the continuation of its nuclear program activities, are located deep below the surface and protected by reinforced concrete fortifications. This makes the task of destroying them almost completely impossible. In Israel, those involved have ignored the limitations of these bombs that are supposed to annihilate the nuclear sites; but ignoring this will not solve the operational problem that those planning the attack will have to deal with.

If Israeli Air Force planes succeed in reaching the targets and in dropping bombs on them with great accuracy, but they are nevertheless not destroyed, this would pose questions about the justification of a military operation. If those critical sites are not annihilated, the Iranian nuclear program will be postponed only for a relatively short period.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/the-futility-of-attacking-iran-1.411840

from Haaretz: The futility of attacking Iran By Reuven Pedatzur

In short, everything appears to be ready for an Israeli attack. And success, it seems likely, is ensured, because after all, as the Minister for Strategic Affairs, Moshe Yaalon, told the conference, "any facility that is guarded by a human being, can be penetrated by a human being. It is possible to strike at all the facilities in Iran militarily, and I say that from my experience as chief of staff." Indeed, how can one argue with the minister's experience as chief of staff?

Senior American defense officials told The Wall Street Journal that even the largest bomb in the hands of the American military, the one known as the "bunker buster", is not able to penetrate and destroy those of the Iranian nuclear installations that are buried deep underground. Panetta admitted that the Americans do not possess the means of penetrating facilities like the underground uranium enrichment plant at Fordow, near Qum. This is where the problem lies. Some of the nuclear facilities in Iran, especially those that are critical for the continuation of its nuclear program activities, are located deep below the surface and protected by reinforced concrete fortifications. This makes the task of destroying them almost completely impossible. In Israel, those involved have ignored the limitations of these bombs that are supposed to annihilate the nuclear sites; but ignoring this will not solve the operational problem that those planning the attack will have to deal with.

If Israeli Air Force planes succeed in reaching the targets and in dropping bombs on them with great accuracy, but they are nevertheless not destroyed, this would pose questions about the justification of a military operation. If those critical sites are not annihilated, the Iranian nuclear program will be postponed only for a relatively short period.

It is doubtful whether the price we would pay - which would find expression in the form of an Iranian response that could lead to a regional conflict, barrages of missiles and rockets from the north and the south, international pressure on Israel, waves of terror against Jewish targets around the world and various other negative repercussions - would justify the strike. It is to be hoped that someone in the Prime Minister's Office has drawn Benjamin Netanyahu's attention to the modest item published by the Wall Street Journal.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/the-futility-of-attacking-iran-1.411840


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"Ron Paul" — a Bad Lip Read Sound Bite - and now with Rick Santorum, Newt and Mitt

Here is a brief video that reveals the REAL Ron Paul

Chastened liberal hawk fears clash with Iran

Dealing with a nuclear state is preferable to another Middle East war, says Kenneth Pollack

By Jordan Michael Smith for salon.com

Kenneth Pollack has been among the most influential Middle East experts in Washington over the last generation. He directed Persian Gulf affairs at the National Security Council and the CIA. His 2002 book “The Threatening Storm” was profoundly influential in convincing some Democratic Party intellectuals and lawmakers that invading Iraq was a national security imperative.

All of which makes his views on Iran both surprising and significant. Pollack’s 2004 book “The Persian Puzzle“ contended that containing a nuclear Iran was possible, if not desirable. Nearly eight years later, he has just written an important piece for the New Republic warning that the Obama administration’s policies are unwittingly leading us to war with Iran.

Pollack was one of the authors of America’s “dual-track” policy with Iran, whereby efforts at serious talks are coupled with sanctions. He is now convinced that policy is failing. “The problem is that Iran sees it very differently from the way we see it,” Pollack said in an interview. “They put our efforts in terms of human rights and reaching out to the opposition, as well as the sanctions, in the same scheme as what the Israelis are doing, which includes assassinations, acts of sabotage, cyberattacks; and what the Saudis are doing, which is aid to basically every group fighting the Iranian proxies all over the Middle East; and what the British are doing, which is gathering information.”

Cumulatively, he says, these efforts are convincing Iran not that it should relinquish its nuclear efforts but that it is under attack: “To the Iranians, this looks like a concerted Western covert war against them.” The current hard-line regime in Iran takes this as the threat of war, and is prepared to fight a war rather than back down, Pollack says. His TNR article points out the ways in which U.S. policies toward Iran, intended as an alternative to war, are leading us directly to that result.

http://www.salon.com/2012/02/02/chastened_liberal_hawk_warns_against_war_with_iran/singleton/

Are We Sliding Toward War With Iran?

Kenneth Pollack for The New Republic

January 18, 2012


It’s important to try to see the world from Tehran’s perspective. What the Iranians see is a concerted, undeclared war being waged against them by a coalition of the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and some European states. The fact that all of these countries are not necessarily always coordinating their actions is doubtless lost on the Iranian leadership. They are under cyber attack like the Stuxnet virus. Someone is killing their nuclear scientists in the streets of Tehran and blowing up their missile facilities. The United States and Europeans have ratcheted up their contacts with the Iranian opposition. The Iranians believe that foreign elements are also making contact with dissident groups like the Kurds, the Baluch, and the Arabs in Khuzestan. The United States has ratcheted up its efforts to broadcast into Iran to undermine the regime’s control over information. Washington is building up the military capabilities of states in the Gulf Cooperation Council. The Saudis are funding proxies to fight against Iran’s proxies from Bahrain to Lebanon to Iraq to Yemen. And the Americans and Europeans are waging economic warfare in the form of increasingly crippling sanctions.

From the vantage of Iran’s leadership, it would be easy to see an all-out, undeclared, covert (but multi-pronged) offensive being mounted against them. And the Iranians seem to be fighting back however they can. While I have no independent confirmation that the Iranians really did try to kill the Saudi Ambassador to the United States last fall, U.S. government officials at all levels appear remarkably certain that they did, and claim that it was one of only several operations the Iranians were developing. It would certainly make a lot of sense that given the campaign they see being waged against them, the Iranians would strike back in exactly that fashion—going after a symbol of the U.S.-Saudi relationship, and doing it in the American capital in retaliation for the assassinations taking place in their own.

What’s more, it seems unlikely that that will be their last such effort. Their threats to close the Strait of Hormuz are not serious—they know full well that doing so would be horribly counterproductive to their own cause—but they were undoubtedly an effort to panic the oil market, driving up prices which help them and hurt us. It was a bid at economic warfare of their own. We should expect more.

The great problem is that at some point, the Iranians might succeed in one of their retaliatory gambits. Imagine how the American people would have reacted had they succeeded in blowing up a restaurant in the heart of Washington, D.C., killing dozens and injuring scores more? Of course, Americans would have seen it as an unprovoked attack and there likely would have been a public cry for blood. In short, the more we turn up the heat on Iran, the more Iran will fight back, and the way they like to fight back could easily lead to unintended escalation.

Doubtless such a war would leave Iran far, far worse off than it would leave us. But it would be painful for us too, and it might last far longer than anyone wants because that is the nature of wars, especially wars involving this Iranian regime. Thus, if we continue down this path, we had best be ready to walk it to its very end. And if we don’t have the stomach to countenance the possibility of such an escalation, we may want to reconsider our current course.

Kenneth M. Pollack is Director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.

http://www.tnr.com/article/world/99741/war-iran-america

......Roseanne Barr seeks Green Party presidential nod

WASHINGTON (AP) — Roseanne Barr said Thursday she's running for the Green Party's presidential nomination — and it's no joke.
The actress-comedian said in a statement that she's a longtime supporter of the party and looks forward to working with people who share her values. She said the two major parties aren't serving the American people.

"The Democrats and Republicans have proven that they are servants -- bought and paid for by the 1 percent -- who are not doing what's in the best interest of the American people," Barr said.

Occupy Wall Street protesters popularized the "We are the 99 percent" slogan in their fight against economic disparity and perceived corporate greed.

Barr has submitted paperwork to the Green Party for her candidacy. The party's presidential nominee will be selected at a convention in Baltimore in July.

http://news.yahoo.com/roseanne-barr-seeks-green-party-presidential-nod-234829062.html

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Top Iran Expert Vali Nasr: Sanction will not work and might lead to war - Foreign Policy Magazine

Asia Times: Growing elite opposition to strike on Iran - By Jim Lobe

Adding to the sense that war was suddenly a very real possibility, these events more or less coincided with the publication by the influential Foreign Affairs journal of an article entitled "Time to Attack Iran: Why a Strike is the Least Bad Option''. It advocated a limited and carefully calibrated US aerial attack on Iran's air defenses and nuclear sites, and was authored by an academic, Matthew Kroenig, who had just completed a one-year stint as a strategic analyst in the office of the secretary of defense.

The confluence of all these developments provoked a number of influential members of the foreign policy establishment - including several prominent liberal interventionists who had supported the Iraq war - to warn against any further escalation either by the US or Israel.

...

"As before, we're letting a bunch of ignorant, sloppy-thinking politicians and politicized foreign-policy experts draw 'red line' ultimatums. As before, we're letting them quick-march us off to war," warned Gelb, a repentant Iraq-war hawk, about the chorus of neo-conservatives and other hawks with whom he had previously been aligned.

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On the pages of The New Republic, Kenneth Pollack, a former top Central Intelligence Agency analyst at the Brookings Institution whose 2002 book, The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq, was cited frequently by liberal hawks before the war, argued not only against any further escalation, but also suggested that the sanctions track on which the Barack Obama administration and the European Union have increasingly relied was proving counter-productive.

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Meanwhile, another influential liberal hawk, Princeton Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter, argued in project-syndicate.org that the West and Iran were playing a "dangerous game" of "chicken" and that the West's current course "leaves Iran's government no alternative between publicly backing down, which it will not do, and escalating its provocations."