Exclusive: Cheney resurrects military option against Iran in Gulf tour March 19, 2008, 2:28 PM (GMT+02:00)

US Vice President Dick Cheney on tour focused on Iran

DEBKAfile's military, Washington and Gulf sources report that US V ice President Dick Cheney is again talking about possible US military action to shut down Iran's covert nuclear program.

Cheney stopped over in Oman Wednesday, Wed. March 19, after two days in Iraq. He will travel next to Saudi Arabia, is due in Jerusalem next Saturday and will also visit Ramallah and Turkey.

Our sources report exclusively that his talks are focusing on two aspects of the Iranian nuclear threat:

One is the Bush administration's decision to distance itself from the National Intelligence Estimate released last December. Its conclusion that Iran's nuclear arms program was shelved in 2003 and so rendered America's military option superfluous is now deemed a mistake.

More about the Cheney tour in DEBKAfile's Exclusive Report below.
Full article

US Military Option on Iran Is Back on the Table

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

March 19, 2008, 2:23 PM (GMT+02:00)

Cheney with US troops at Balad air base, Iraq

“Iran has got to be very high on that list,” said a senior aide ahead of the talks US Vice President Dick Cheney will hold during his 10-day tour of the Middle East and Turkey, which began Monday, March 17 in Iraq.

Singling out Oman, the aide noted that the US and Oman are co-guardians of the strategic Strait of Hormuz. “The Omanis, like a lot of other people,” he said “are concerned by the escalating tensions between the rest of the world community and Iran and by some of Iran’s activities, particularly in the nuclear field, but outside its borders as well.”

According to DEBKAfile, the official was referring to Tehran’s meddling in Iraq, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

Our military, Washington and Gulf sources report that US Vice President Dick Cheney is again talking about possible US military action to shut down Iran’s covert nuclear program.

Cheney stopped over in Oman Wednesday, Wed. March 19, after two days in Iraq. He will travel next to Saudi Arabia, is due in Jerusalem next Saturday and will also visit Ramallah and Turkey.

Our sources report exclusively that his talks are focusing on two aspects of the Iranian nuclear threat:

1. The Bush administration’s decision to distance itself from the National Intelligence Estimate released last December. Its conclusion that Iran’s nuclear arms program was shelved in 2003, which rendered America’s military option superfluous, is now deemed a mistake.

2. The administration now buys British, German, French and Israeli intelligence estimates that Iran is indeed pressing forward with programs for building nuclear weapons, warheads and ballistic missiles for their delivery.

The vice president will listen closely to his hosts’ ideas about joint efforts for containing Iran’s aggressive expansionist thrusts across the Persian Gulf and Middle East and halting its progress towards nuclear armaments.

The vice president’s choice of capitals for his tour is a pointer to the fact that the military option, off since December, may be on again. American will need the cooperation of all four - Oman, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Turkey - to mount a military attack on Iran.

Oman hosts the big American air bases which are the core of the defense shield for the Strait of Hormuz and for the US Navy, Marine and Air Force units deployed in the Persian Gulf.

Saudi Arabia is the senior Gulf and Arabian trendsetter and the key to pan-Arab endorsement for a US offensive against Tehran. Riyadh has opposed military action until now.

Israel is the only regional nation willing to actively participate in an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites; its military has been putting together plans for going it alone.

Last week, our sources report, Jerusalem was notified by the White House that the Iranian issue had been added to Cheney’s regional agenda at the last minute; his hosts were requested to prepare themselves for exhaustive and lengthy discussions on Iran with the vice president and his aides.

Israel’s defense cabinet was accordingly convened last Wednesday – officially to scrutinize the armed forces’ forward planning and applications of the Lebanon war inquiry panel’s recommendations. But, our military sources report, the ministers were convened to decide which of Israel’s military plans of action were to be presented to Cheney.

Turkey is a pivotal element in any war plan because American warplanes and missiles heading for Iran will have to transit its airspace and take off from air bases on its soil. The US and Turkey have improved their military relations since they worked together against PKK havens in northern Iraq last February.

The vice president’s Iraq visit marked the fifth anniversary of the US invasion.

While there, he made it clear that the US was in no hurry to pull out of the country before its mission was completed and would not allow the country to become a staging ground for terrorist attacks on Americans.

In his talks with Iraq leaders, he hammered out military and political plans to bridge the 10 months remaining until a new president takes office in Washington. After talking to prime minister Nouri al Maliki, the US leader flew north to meet with Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani in the Kurdish capital of Irbil.

In particular, he sought progress on Iraq’s oil law which is held up by disagreements between Kurds and Arab Sunni leaders.

Bush Embarks on Saudi-Brokered Deal with Tehran

From DEBKA-Net-Weekly Exclusive Updated by DEBKAfile

January 28, 2008, 6:52 PM (GMT+02:00)

Saudi and Iranian buddies

[b]DEBKA-Net-Weekly 328[/b] first revealed on Dec. 7 that a Washington-Tehran understanding is in the making, brokered by Saudi Arabia. According to Washington and intelligence sources, the first steps of the dialogue were made possible by the US National Intelligence Estimate of Dec. 3 affirming that Iran’s nuclear weapons program had been put on hold in 2003. This public statement effectively took the US military option off the table, as stipulated by Riyadh and Tehran.

To subscribe to [b]DEBKA-Net-Weekly click HERE [/b] .

The Saudis have been offering to mediate the US-Iranian dispute since the beginning of 2007. In early November, DEBKA-Net-Weekly disclosed, the White House announced it was ready to deal. But first, Tehran must undertake to halt its arms smuggling into Iraq, guarantee non-interference in the election of the next Lebanese president later that month and tacitly approve Syrian participation in the Middle East conference at Annapolis on Nov. 27. Furthermore, Iran must guarantee not to torpedo the conference, to which the administration attached the highest importance, by unleashing its terrorist pawns against Israel.

Shortly after DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s exclusive disclosure, the well-connected Saudi journalist Jihad El-Khazen gave his version of the course of events in the Arab newspaper Al-Hayat :

"Here is what happened: The rate of violent acts dropped in Iraq; therefore the American intelligence services discovered that Iran had halted its military nuclear program in 2003. This means that the resumption of violence will make American intelligence services find out that there is a secret military program that is different from the peaceful and famous one.

The Saudi reporter went on to ask: "Is there a deal between the Bush administration and Iran? I cannot categorically assert that a deal was concluded between the two parties through direct negotiations; however, there is an understanding resulting in the 2007 national intelligence report.”

Saudi and American sources told DEBKAfile that President George W. Bush used the Annapolis conference as a piece of theater, which presented a sham moderate Arab front against Iran to disguise the intense work underway on a Saudi-mediated accommodation between Washington and Tehran.

The Bush administration appears to be in the midst of developing a new foreign strategy based on five key elements:

1. The halt of Iranian weapons and road bomb shipments into Iraq for use against US forces;

2. An Iranian instruction to Hizballah to open the way for the election of a Lebanese president, in return for which Washington will not interfere with the formation of a new government with a place of honor for the Iranian surrogate militia.

In other words, the Bush administration is not only engaged in a sellout of the Israeli government but also of the pro-Western Lebanese prime minister Fouad Siniora.

3. The cessation of Iranian arms and roadside bombs to Afghanistan.

4. The naming of Saudi Arabia as a channel for arbitrating American and Iranian differences.

5. A US pledge to backtrack on its charges that the Iran is engaged in developing nuclear weapons. This pledge was embodied in the dramatically revised US National Intelligence Estimate compared with its estimate of 2005, and effectively lifted not only the American military axe from over Iran’s strategic and economic infrastructure – and possibly regime - but also tied Israel’s hands.

The radical Washington about-face has in the last ten days touched off a chain of repercussions.

DEBKAfile's sources disclose that Iran’s extremist president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad began purging the Iranian leadership of his opponents, emboldened by what he perceived as the victory of the intransigent nuclear policy he and the Revolutionary Guards had pursued.

Still in crowing mode, Iran’s oil minister Gholam Hossein Nozari announced Saturday, Dec. 8, the cessation of oil transactions in US dollars. He labeled the greenbacks an “unreliable” currency.

Less than 24 hours after the NIE was released, the Kremlin announced resumption of Russian work to finish Iran’s nuclear reactor at Bushehr and the consignment of nuclear fuel.

In Lebanon, the Hizballah opened the door for the election of chief of staff Gen. Michel Suleiman as president. To buy a stable Beirut government, Washington accepted a pro-Syrian Hizballah sympathizer as president.

The prospects of tough UN sanctions against Iran’s continued enrichment of uranium dimmed dramatically. The Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said there is no point in the light of the US intelligence reassessment. Saturday, the Iranian ambassador in Tokyo invited Japanese investors to put their money in Iranian oil production which he said could be expanded by 30 percent. Tehran has clearly lost its fear of international economic sanctions.

Yet Israeli leaders Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak are still touting sanctions for Iran. They hope to gloss over the serious upset in Jerusalem over the Bush administration’s willingness to deal with Iran and Saudi Arabia at the expense of Israeli concessions to the Palestinians.

Damascus-based Hamas and Jihad Islami leaders have begun marathon talks with Syrian and Saudi officials on terms for an informal truce to halt their missile bombardment of Israel from the Gaza Strip. They are anxious to ward off an Israel military operation. By tying Israel’s military hands in the Gaza Strip as well as Iran, the US-Saudi-Iranian understanding will serve to stabilize Hamas’ rule in Gaza.

Moscow has dispatched war fleets to the Mediterranean and the northeast Atlantic.

A flotilla of six Russian warships including a carrier will dock at Syria’s Tartous port for the first time.

Whether this ambitious package can be assembled and tied up is moot for all three parties, the Americans, the Iranians and the Saudis. Even if the talks are brought to conclusion, the package could leak at the seams at any time.

Tehran does not expect the US to withdraw its naval carriers and strike forces from Iranian Gulf shores yet, whereas Washington does not delude itself that Iranian arms shipments to Iraq and Afghanistan, or even Lebanon, will completely dry up overnight.

Both Washington and Tehran have not yet abandoned their fist-shaking stance.

Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that a new strategic bloc has taken its first steps and the first rumbles are already felt.

For Israel, the impact is more radical than a few rumbles. Its special relationship with the United States has collapsed amid its worst foreign policy debacle in decades. The Olmert government is paying the price for the military and diplomatic mismanagement of the war against Lebanon’s Hizballah of 2006.