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Blogs by Andy Parker
Time to Attack Iran?... 1/11/2010 7:11:49 AM
If Iran continues to defy the West, Barack Obama will be forced to launch military action?... When U.S General David Petraeus, the head of Centcom, says the American military has drawn up plans to attack Iran’s nuclear programme, it suggests the international crisis over Iran’s refusal to give up its illicit nuclear activities is reaching a critical juncture.
As one would expect of a polished political performer such as Gen Petraeus, he was careful to stress that the plans are nothing more than a contingency, in the event that President Barack Obama needs to give serious consideration to attacking Iran.
But should we be fooled by this?
Various contigency plans to overthrow Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein were put together from early 2002, we now learn from the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war, even though military action wasn’t actually launched until the spring of 2003.
Even though Mr Obama’s deadline for Iran to respond to his offer of direct talks to resolve the crisis expired on New Year’s Day, the U.S. and U.K. powers tasked with bringing the Iranians to their senses would still like to have one last go at diplomacy, even if it means trying to tighten the sanctions at the U.N. as a means of persuading the hardline regime of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that they mean business.
But this could fail for two fundamental reasons, the first one being that I can’t see either Russia or China signing up for the kind of “crippling” sanctions that Hillary Clinton, the U.S. Secretary of State, is demanding. Beijing and Moscow might have signed up to a U.N. -sponsored censure motion against Iran last November, but this was more to punish Iran for building a second enrichment plant at Qom without informing their Russian and Chinese sponsors than a radical change of position. China, in particular, is more interested in Iran’s oil than its nuclear programme, while the Russians have little interest in resolving a security issue that they regard as being a Western priority, rather than a Russian one.
Then there is the attitude of the Iranian government itself to the issue, which has showed no sign of softening since Mr Ahmadinejad was elected to serve a second four-year term as president in controversial circumstances last summer. Since then the Iranian leader has repeatedly said that the nuclear issue is non-negotiable, and has pressed ahead with the development programme, going so far as to announce he wants to build an extra 20 uranium enrichment plants. In addition Iran has made impressive progress in developing the missile systems that could deliver nuclear warheads, which hardly suggests that Iran’s nuclear intentions are peaceful.
All of which suggests to me that the Iran negotiations are not going to make any significant progress this year, and that, sooner or later, White House will be calling on Gen Petraeus to present his proposals for resolving the issue by force of arms.
