Monday, August 11, 2008

Blind to realities on the regional ground

Aug.11, 2008

Blind to realities on the regional ground


A report published by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) reaffirms the belief that use of military force would not be particularly effective in eliminating the perceived threat of Iran developing nuclear weapons.
In the report, titled "Can military strikes destroy Iran's gas centrifuge programme? Probably not," David Albright, ISIS president and a former UN weapons inspector, lists the short-comings which include a lack of sufficient intelligence to be able to destroy all of the nuclear production sites, Iran's ability to quickly replicate whatever centrifuges are destroyed, and the likely strengthening of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's domestic standing in the wake of such an attack.
The report, co-authored by Albright, Paul Brannan and Jacqueline Shire, also reject any equivalence between a strike on Iran and the 1981 Israeli bombing of Iraq's Osirak reactor, or Israel's attack on an alleged incipient reactor in Syria last year.
"This analogy is grossly misleading. It neglects the important differences between a gas centrifuge uranium enrichment programme and a reactor-based programme, and fails to account for the dispersed, relatively advanced, and hardened nature of Iran's gas centrifuge facilities," says the report. "It also ignores the years Iran has had to acquire centrifuge items abroad, often illicitly, allowing it to create reserve stocks of critical equipment and raw materials."
The release of the report came shortly before US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice quelled speculation that the Bush administration had warned Israel not to attack Iran saying Israel was free to make its own decision about whether it takes military action against Iran.
"We don't say yes or no to Israeli military operations. Israel is a sovereign country," she said in response to a question from The Politico Web site as to whether she was concerned that her country would be blamed in the case of an Israeli attack on Iran.
What is clearly emerging is a picture where Israel is politically and militarily ready to strike at Iran but is waiting for the most opportune time. In the US, the neoconservatives are helping it by suggesting that Iran could not effectively retaliate for military action and therefore there is no real threat to the US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and American interests in the region.
Pointedly ignored in their arguments is the realities on the ground. Few people in Washington seem to have any grasp of Iran's ability and its options to make the region a very disturbed neighbourhood in the event of any military action against it. Few people also seem to accept the argument — underlined by the ISIS report —  that military action could not really cripple Iran's nuclear programme and hence there is little sense in carrying out military strikes against it.
The reasons for sidestepping the realities on the ground are also clear: The US-Israel alliance is determined to bring about "regime change" in Tehran and the dispute over Iran's nuclear activities offers the perfect smoke screen for it.
Also overlooked in the bargain is the certainty of destabilisation of the region in the event of military action against Iran. The region cannot afford to witness yet another military conflict, with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq having already dealt very damaging blows against regional security and stability.
The Washington hard-liners should realise that the situation in the Middle East could get out of hand if they continue to blindly serve their Israeli masters with little care for the interests of their country and people. Those who stand to pay for their misadventures and misguided policies and actions are the people of the Middle East region.