http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HD22Ak01.html

Deadly serious war games
By Ehsan Ahrari

It is not exactly a closely guarded military secret when the announcement appears as a dispatch in USA Today, a national newspaper that appears on every street corner, indeed, virtually every hotel in the land. The message this week: the National Strategic Gaming Center of the National Defense University (NDU) will conduct a "war gaming" exercise on July 18 involving Iran's nuclear program.

The United States' premier university for the education and training of its senior military officers, NDU is at Fort McNair in Washington, DC. War-gaming is a tabletop or even larger exercise simulating crisis management. Such exercises have become a standard business of the US military and the militaries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries. The purpose is to "game" various options, political and military, and their implications.

Such exercises now involve civilians, including even members of Congress, so it is important to recognize that going to war is treated as an option of last resort in such exercises, very much unlike what the Bush administration did in a "real-world situation", namely Iraq.

This particular "war game" is the fifth in a series that has also included exercises related to a purported avian-influenza pandemic and a crisis in Pakistan. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld started these exercises in 2002 to help the legislative and executive branches discuss policy options.

Considering the fact that interagency coordination has become such an enormously critical aspect of the US way of warfighting, representatives of various national-security and other relevant agencies are always present to provide their "real world" input in such exercises. Top military commanders pay close attention to the civilian input.

However, that should not be taken as a source of comfort. Uniformed members of the armed forces will not take part in this particular "game", since purely military exercises on issues of such importance are never publicized. Military exercises are focused on developing various military courses of action, and then thoroughly discussing the feasibility of those options. In the final phase, these exercises conclude with a rigorous discussion of "lessons learned".

The significance of the NDU exercise involving Iran stems from the fact that President George W Bush has stated many times, most recently this Tuesday, that "all options are on the table". The Defense Department has taken elaborate measures to publicize the specifics of those options. They include arming submarine-launched Trident missiles with conventional explosives; placing hardened tips on existing missiles to enhance their penetrability in hardened silos; and "setting off a huge explosion to gather data for efforts to improve bunker-busting bombs".

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), which is a combat-support agency, is expected to conduct such a test by setting off 700 tons of explosives in the Nevada desert in the coming weeks. DTRA's head has already stated that the purpose of that test is to help solve problems related to the hardened weapons sites in North Korea and Iran.

What is the meaning of all these developments?
Is the United States considering attacking Iran? If the answer to this question is yes, then why is it doing so much to trumpet its intent, even providing details of the kinds of weapons it plans to use?

It is sheer folly to dismiss the public posturing of the Bush administration as bluster and saber-rattling. This administration has an established record of invading two Muslim countries, where it maintains occupation forces to this day. No one should dismiss what Bush has stated in his National Security Strategy, issued last month, about Iran:
We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran. For almost 20 years, the Iranian regime hid many of its key nuclear efforts from the international community. Yet the regime continues to claim that it does not seek to develop nuclear weapons. The Iranian regime's true intentions are clearly revealed by the regime's refusal to negotiate in good faith; its refusal to come into compliance with its international obligations by providing the International Atomic Energy Agency access to nuclear sites and resolving troubling questions; and the aggressive statements of its president calling for Israel to "be wiped off the face of the Earth".
A similar type of hyperbolic rhetoric was used against Iraq, especially about its supposed weapons of mass destruction (WMD). At least in the case of Iran, its continued desire to sustain an independent uranium-enrichment program provides ample substance to the United States' contentious rhetoric, even though Iran insists it has no intentions of developing nuclear weapons.

However, the Bush administration not only dismisses Iran's assurances as lies, it is consistently ratcheting up its threatening rhetoric. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, repeating her inflammatory words about Iraq's non-existent WMD, is at it again. This time, her crusade is focused on trying to persuade Russia and China to apply specific and very stringent sanctions against Iran, never mind that Bush failed to extract any promise of cooperation when Chinese President Hu Jintao visited him on Thursday.

President Mahmud Ahmadinejad is becoming a perfect foil for fulfilling the aspirations of the Bush administration to tighten screws on Iran. He is turning into the classic "villain" by intermittently threatening to "wipe out" Israel, by ridiculing the Holocaust and by raising Iran's profile of support for the Palestinian intifada at a time when no Arab state cares to get very far ahead of the Palestinians.

One wonders who is advising Ahmadinejad, and why is he so intent on using such strident rhetoric against Israel, knowing that Iran is no match for Israel's military prowess. Besides, by using highly contentious language about the Jewish state, he has created ample ill-will not only in Europe but also in other parts of the world, save North Korea, Syria, Cuba and Venezuela.

Given that the Bush administration is not willing to engage Iran directly on the nuclear issue, the best option for Iran is to lower its reckless rhetoric and consider cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

As to the question of whether the Bush administration would take military actions against Iran, the chances are pretty high that it would. A number of analysts maintain that US forces are under so much stress because of commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan that military action against Iran is not feasible. They also argue that the American people have no stomach for another military invasion.

While those are valid points, there is also the possibility that precisely because of those reasons the current administration would take the option of preemptive air attacks on the Iranian facilities. Militarily speaking, such an action carries minimal risks, even though politically it would be explosive. But Bush already has a proven record for taking politically explosive actions.

At least for now, by so elaborately publicizing its military options, the United States is sending clear signals to Iran to abandon its uranium-enrichment program forthwith.

Ehsan Ahrari is the CEO of Strategic Paradigms, an Alexandria, Virginia-based defense consultancy. He can be reached at eahrari@cox.net or stratparadigms@yahoo.com . His columns appear regularly in Asia Times Online. His website: www.ehsanahrari.com.

(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing .)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HD22Ak02.html
The Gordian Knot of the nuclear crisis
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi

With less than two weeks to go before the 30-day deadline set by the United Nations Security Council for the International Atomic Energy Agency chief to report on Iran's compliance or non-compliance with the IAEA's demands, above all a halt to its uranium-enrichment program, the internal debate in Iran on the correct response to the escalating international pressure is intensifying.

One faction associated with former president Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and led by Hassan Rowhani, the former chief nuclear negotiator, has lashed out at the hardline nuclear stance adopted by President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and called for a "more balanced approach".

Rowhani, considered a pragmatic realist, has expressed concern about the debilitating consequences for Iran's national interests should the festering nuclear crisis further isolate Iran from the rest of the world and, worse, possibly invite a military confrontation with the United States, which is even now threatening to use tactical nuclear weapons against his country.

The Moscow meeting of the 5+1 (the UN Security Council's Permanent Five plus Germany) clearly showed that there is still no consensus on the next course of action. But it also revealed a narrowing of differences in terms of the "urgency of constructive demands from Iran", to paraphrase Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. For the moment, Russia has rejected Washington's call for a complete halt in its nuclear cooperation with Iran, yet one wonders how Moscow can maintain this stance if, on the eve of the Group of Eight summit in St Petersburg a few weeks from now, the Security Council invokes Chapter VII and calls Iran's defiance a "threat to international peace and security".

Doubtless, it would be a hard sell for President Vladimir Putin and company with respect to both the Russian people and the international community. Hence the chances of a gradual intensification of Russian pressure on Iran to comply or face the inevitable suspension of Russia's nuclear cooperation are quite likely.

Iran's national interests and the nuclear crisis
Iran's policy analysts engaged in threat analysis by and large agree that the nuclear standoff has dangerous potential and can inflict serious damage on the country's national-security interests. One of Iran's main weaknesses is that it is vulnerable to the criticism that it cares more for its Islamist ideological values than for its own purely national interests. Otherwise, it would not commit itself so much to the issue of Israel and Palestinians.

The fact is that Ahmadinejad's incendiary comments about "wiping Israel off the map" have given Iran's opponents a new excuse to attack that country's legal quest to master the nuclear-fuel cycle independently. Consequently, should this crisis lead to a military confrontation, the US and its "coalition of the willing" would be justified in taking unilateral action with little worry about a backlash by the world community.

On the other hand, the various Iranian opposition groups, some helped by Uncle Sam, are busy propagating the notion that the Islamic Republic has sacrificed its national interests for the sake of its pan-Islamic dogma and, as the crisis drags on, this is bound to resonate with more and more Iranians.

Thus, no matter how seriously Ahmadinejad tries to sell the nuclear program as a matter of nationalist pride and global status, the addition of the confrontational anti-Israel rhetoric is undermining Iran's national interests and, as a corollary, the world's willingness to accede to Iran's legal right to full nuclear technology.

At the same time, as an Islamic state, Iran has every right to be concerned about the continuing nuclear blackmail of the Muslim Middle East by Israel. For once US policymakers, who are nowadays branded by certain voices as hostages to the whims and wishes of Israel, should factor in Iran's legitimate concerns and the concerns of other Muslim states and push vigorously for Israel's denuclearization.

A point typically missed by the Iran analysts is that it makes sense for an Iran threatened by a military strike by Israel and/or the US on its nuclear facilities to focus on Israel and express solidarity with the Palestinian people. That gives greater depth to Iran's sphere of influence, stretching from Western Afghanistan to southern and central Iraq, to the Shi'ite communities throughout the Persian Gulf region, to Lebanon and, since Hamas' victory, the occupied territories of Palestine.

Yet what makes sense at one geopolitical level does not make so much sense from the perspective of Iran's overall national interests, currently imperiled by the United States' planned attacks should diplomacy fail. In other words, a more sober analysis of Iran's national interests is called for, which may lead to a policy revision by Ahmadinejad and his circle of policymakers.

Indeed, Ahmadinejad and the factions behind him have much to lose in their current game of "nuclear poker" if the crisis eventually leads to Iran's international isolation and once again turns the country into the international pariah it was during the 1980s, a hole the government has tried to climb out of for some 15 years.

While basking in the crisis windfall of higher oil prices, Iran is today still suffering economically from the lack of foreign investment, capital flight and a war-preparation economy siphoning off precious resources. Even Iran's burgeoning oil-and-gas industry is hurt by the decline of foreign investment in light of the industry's dire need for billions of dollars of investment to upgrade equipment.

In addition to the economic interests, Iran's national security and its territorial integrity are also threatened by the various reports, including investigative reporter Seymour Hersh's controversial piece in The New Yorker, that the US has already dispatched teams to sow sedition among Iran's minorities. This news alone translates into closer scrutiny of the minority groups by the government, in turn causing their political alienation from the government.

Signs of Iranian accommodation
In his recent one-day trip to Iran, IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei was unable to persuade Iran to stop the enrichment program, yet his trip was not altogether a failure either, as Iran showed greater willingness to cooperate to resolve remaining "outstanding questions". Moreover, on the eve of the meeting of deputy foreign ministers of the 5+1 in Moscow, Iran dispatched a high-level group that met with the representatives of EU-3 (Germany, France and Britain), reportedly offering a new proposal.

A key element in the proposal, as stated by the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, is to establish an international consortium for nuclear-fuel production inside Iran. That is why Iran has asked the European Union to participate in the planned expansion of its hitherto limited enrichment program.

This proposal, modeled after the Dutch-led consortium Urenko, which keeps key aspects of its advanced T-21 centrifuge technology in a "black box", was recently put forth by Geof Forden and John Thomson in their articles in Jane's Defense Weekly and the Financial Times. Unfortunately, the US and EU have so far completely ignored this proposal, which has been declared "workable" by certain IAEA officials. This is yet another serious indication of the lack of interest on Washington's part to see a mutually satisfactory resolution of the crisis, despite the pretensions otherwise.

Again, Washington feels justified in rejecting any proposal that would enable, even as a slight chance, the Iranians to continue their march toward mastery of the nuclear-fuel cycle, at least as long as Iran continues to be a threat to Israel.

At this point a crucial question arises: Can Iran possibly stand back from its official position of seeking the elimination of Israel? One obvious answer is that Iran cannot possibly continue with its nuclear program unhindered by possible US aerial bombardment so long as Tehran's threat to Israel remains intact. Another answer is that, as seen strictly from the perspective of Iran's national interests, the over-commitment to the Palestinian cause is introducing rather exorbitant side-effects that may eventually deprive the government of its domestic legitimacy if Iran's national interests are seen as being sacrificed for the sake of religious dogmas.

Henceforth, no matter how assiduously the government negotiators work to assure the outside world that their nuclear actions are legal, transparent and within the parameters of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and "objectively" guaranteed as peaceful, the Western perception of Tehran's government as almost entirely committed to radical Islamist norms and dead set on destroying Israel will continue to neutralize those efforts. This is the real Gordian Knot of Iran's nuclear crisis.

Breaking the Gordian knot
Strictly speaking, Iran is not endangered by Israel's nuclear might, given Israel's distance and its confrontation with the nearer Arab world. Thus, unlike Iraq's old program of weapons of mass destruction, which was partly rationalized as a deterrence against Iran and partly against the "Zionist threat", Iran is not in a position where it would feel a compulsion to go nuclear in response to Israel's arsenal.

Nor does Iran feel the same pressure from any of the other nuclear-armed states in its vicinity, such as Pakistan, whose warheads are almost certainly aimed at its arch-enemy, India. With Iraq's theoretical nuclear threat neutralized since 2003, Iran's only legitimate worry is the overwhelming might of the US. In theory that can be addressed by persuading Washington to step back from its messianic, self-imposed goal of regime change in Iran and instead reach a modus vivendi with the Islamic Republic.

Such a possibility is now on the horizon in light of the impending US-Iran dialogue over Iraq, which, according to Rafsanjani, can be connected to the "bigger talks".

Meanwhile, as the Iranian political factions debate among themselves the pros and cons of the various options to exit the nuclear crisis, another red line may need to be crossed, one that is ideologically rather painful, yet in the national interest - that is, the official line on the destruction of the State of Israel.

Considered a sellout or "betrayal", the push for softening Iran's position against Israel has a wealth of opponents, but as of now has not yet been seriously debated as a viable option. What is needed for that to happen, however, is to engage in sober threat analysis and the calculation of long-term risks to Iran's national interests, including its peaceful quest to acquire nuclear technology, caused by the continuation of the present approach toward Israel.

Already, various Iranian top officials have stated publicly that Iran has not "threatened any member state of the United Nations", even though this is contradicted almost every day by the pronouncements, led by Ahmadinejad, that Israel is on its way to being "eliminated". What Tehran desperately needs is to clarify where its real interests lie. Is it defined by abiding by the UN Charter, which demands that Iranians respect the existence of Israel, or is it an unflinching commitment to wipe out Israel?

The current double voice simply perpetuates the belief by the outside world that Iran's real policy is to help the struggle for the destruction of State of Israel, a widespread perception that may not be quite accurate with respect to Iran's security policies and priorities but, nonetheless, is sufficiently entrenched in the world's consciousness to provide validity to a future Western assault on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-author of "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He is also author of Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction.

(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing .)