MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Vladimir Simonov.)
Seymour Hersh is often accused of sensationalism, but his shocking exposure of the My Lai massacre or his 2004 reports on the U.S. military's treatment of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison make one look and listen carefully. This time Hersh, a regular contributor to The New Yorker on military and security matters, claims that "the Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has intensified planning for a possible major air attack" on Iran.
It does not seem likely that American military intelligence groups are reconnoitering the Iranian territory, collecting targeting data and distributing dollar rolls among anti-Tehran Baluchi, Azerbaijani and Kurd tribes, as Hersh writes in his article called "The Iran Plans: Would President Bush go to war to stop Tehran from getting the bomb?"
However, the Pulitzer Prize winner surely has a network of top-class sources in the Washington administration, the Pentagon and the expert community associated with them, who supply him with hot exclusive information. Hersh is using it to make the decision-making mechanism in Washington slightly more transparent.
There is one more formula for judging the correctness of Hersh's conclusions about the forthcoming air attacks on Iran. It is the similarity between them and the events in America's recent history. A comparison of U.S. plans regarding Iran with its preparations for a war against Iraq reveals glaring similarities.
For example, a hypothetical air attack at some 400 targets in Iran with "the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11," has a bigger goal than simple liquidation of Iran's nuclear program, which the Americans claim has never been peaceful. Washington's goal is to replace the regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
"Bush and others in the White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler," Hersh writes in his article. According to his information, the military planning is premised on a belief that "a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government," as easily as the bronze monument of Saddam Hussein was overthrown in Iraq three years ago.
It is quite possible that the White House is hatching these plans, especially if we consider the possibility in the context of its global messianic sentiments. Hersh cites consultants with access to the president who say that George Bush views himself as the saver of Iran. According to the journalist's source, "the President believes that he must do 'what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do,' and 'that saving Iran [from getting the bomb] is going to be his legacy'."
This sounds wild, but it fits the spirit of the Iraqi campaign. Though the attack against Baghdad has lasted for more than three years and is turning into a merciless civil war, and political process is hopelessly skidding, President Bush continues to extol his historical mistake as U.S. assistance to Iraqis. "By helping Iraqis build a democracy, we will inspire reformers across the Middle East," Bush said March in the first of three speeches to mark the anniversary of the Iraqi war.
Washington seems unable to lay the messianic specter to rest. Having bumped its head on problems in Iraq, it is still eager to move on to the neighboring country.
This supposition is confirmed by information about preparations for the two campaigns. Iraq was attacked to find and remove weapons of mass destructions, which Saddam Hussein allegedly had, but which nobody has found so far. Iran may fall victim to rumors about "a parallel nuclear-weapons program in Iran."
According to this theory, Iran has an open nuclear research program devised specifically for the International Atomic Energy Agency. At the same time, the Iranian military and radical "guards of the revolution" are working on a parallel program and allegedly can create the bomb not in 8-10 years, as the IAEA assumes, but within two years.
Nobody has presented an inch of evidence of a parallel nuclear program, but the Americans mostly cite Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, who told the Knesset last December that "Iran is one to two years away, at the latest, from having enriched uranium." Others mention Abdullah Khan, the so-called father of the Pakistani atomic bomb, who is now living under house arrest in Islamabad. He is accused of setting up a black market in nuclear materials.
Both pieces of information are nothing more than rumor, but they produce a strong feeling that Iran's "parallel nuclear-weapons program" is assigned the role played by WMD in Iraq three years ago.
But Iran is not Iraq. The consequences of a bombing attack against that respected Arab power might surprise Washington with the size of a punitive response. Iran, which now produces nearly four million barrels of oil a day, would not have to cut off production to disrupt the world's oil markets. It could blockade or mine the Strait of Hormuz, the thirty-four-mile-wide passage through which Middle Eastern oil reaches the Indian Ocean, and oil prices would immediately spike to $90-$100 per barrel, or even higher, according to experts. Presumably, the U.S. has enough in its strategic reserves to keep America running for sixty days, but this is not the main problem. The U.S. Navy could keep shipping open by conducting salvage missions and putting minesweepers to work.
The bombing of Iran would boomerang at the attacker. It is impossible to imagine the effect the first air attacks at Natanz, a town south of Tehran where Iran's main centrifuge plant is located, would have on the 1.2 billion of Muslims. This would initiate a wave of terror attacks against the United States in home territory and abroad. Many terrorism experts say the attack on Iran might mobilize Hezbollah, probably the best terror network, and put America up against the group that drove Israel out of southern Lebanon and now has twenty-three seats in the 128-member Lebanese Parliament.
Contrary to Washington's expectations, the air attack will not humiliate but will strengthen the Ahmadinejad regime, which is losing popularity because of economic problems. Most importantly, the attacks would convince Tehran and a part of the world's developing community that the best security guarantee, primarily against the U.S. global messianic drive, is the bomb, which some countries are allowed to have and others are not.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and may not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
