Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery by Nicolas Poussin, 1653

Horse race coverage isn’t limited to the Republican primary. Foreign policy coverage has its own, exemplified by the title of an article by Ronen Bergman in last Sunday’s New York Times magazine, Will Israel Attack Iran? Bergman says yes. Israel will attack Iran sometime this year, before Iran enters the “immunity zone”, the point at which Iranian knowledge, skill and material will be so great that an attack will not derail their progress towards construction of a bomb. Iran denies that it is building a nuclear weapon, but no one seems to believe that. Bergman says that there are three preconditions to the attack, and that some Israeli leaders believe that all three conditions have been met.

1. Does Israel have the ability to cause severe damage to Iran’s nuclear sites and bring about a major delay in the Iranian nuclear project? And can the military and the Israeli people withstand the inevitable counterattack?

2. Does Israel have overt or tacit support, particularly from America, for carrying out an attack?

3. Have all other possibilities for the containment of Iran’s nuclear threat been exhausted, bringing Israel to the point of last resort? If so, is this the last opportunity for an attack?

Then the NYT reported that Tamir Pardo, the Chief of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, was in Washington last week, where Bergman’s article was the subject of extensive discussions. The Times also reports that a senior Israeli official corrected point 2. All that is needed is a sympathetic view towards the concerns of Israel among the international community, not outright support.

Other writers weigh in on the big horse race question. For example, Steve Coll writes in the New Yorker that between steadily increasing sanctions, and the costs of an attack, compared with the benefit of delaying Iran’s weapons program for a few year, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to attack.

Time Magazine says that an Israeli attack would not derail the Iranian program, though it could do “significant damage”. The article makes even that assessment questionable, and another article in the dead tree version available only to subscribers discusses the difficulties in detail. Other people think Israel is just saber-rattling, because it has no decent military option; that’s the view of Kenneth Pollack, whose main claim to fame was his book arguing for the invasion of Iraq.

Of course, people have been predicting an attack on Iran for some time. Here is a long article from September 2010 by Jeffrey Goldberg in predicting an attack, and calling President Obama weak and indecisive for wanting to engage with Iran at all. Goldberg gives a sympathetic portrayal of the Israeli point of view.

The costs of an attack on Iran are obvious and horrific. No doubt there would be attacks on Israel by Hezbollah from Lebanon, and possibly Hamas from Gaza, and attacks from Iran. The Iranians are said to have sleeper cells that would carry out terrorist attacks in Israel and against Israeli targets in other countries. There are concerns that the Iranians would try terrorist attacks in the US according to Israeli sources, and according to James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence . If the Iranians carried out their threat to close the Straits of Hormuz, the price of oil would skyrocket, and that might well lead to a world-wide recession. And so on.

It’s harder to see the benefits. The most optimistic view is that an attack would delay the Iranian program by 5 years, but most observers think that a three-year delay would be a good outcome, and some say even a shorter period. It is hard to see the value of delay. No one says there would be an increased probability of détente, let alone peace in the region, in the aftermath of an attack by Israel.

Ronen Bergman appeared on NPR’s Talk of the Nation last week, where host Neal Conan asked why Israel’s estimated 300 nuclear warheads would not work as deterrence. Bergman said he doesn’t think that Iran would launch a nuclear weapon at Israel. He thinks that the leaders of Iran are not suicidal. So, if Iran wouldn’t launch a nuclear weapon at Israel, wouldn’t that suggest that aggressive Western responses are overreacting?

Bergman says that if Iran had a nuclear bomb, it would narrow Israel’s military options. He describes an interview he had with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Suppose, Barak said, Hezbollah attacks, and we decide to take them out. Iran shows up and tells us an attack on Hezbollah is an attack on Iran, and threatens Israel with that nuclear bomb. It isn’t that Israel wouldn’t act, but it would have to think twice.

Then he says:

And also – and this is something that you need to live in Israel (unintelligible) put some time to understand. If Iran declares a successful nuclear test, people in Israel are going to be, I would say – I think I’m not exaggerating if I say in a hysteria. This would change the – some of the society of Israel, and it would damage the economy of the country.

The idea is that the smart people in Israel would leave, or their children would, because no sane person wants to live under the threat of nuclear attack, or even the possibility of nuclear blackmail. That would harm the idea of a Jewish State.

The other major thread in explaining why Israel should attack is the view of Israeli leaders that the Iranian government is evil and morally corrupt. You don’t have to look far to find others joining that chorus, like this person, and this one. Of course, it’s possible that even evil and morally corrupt leaders can figure out the dangers of provoking a nuclear attack by a nation as heavily armed as Israel, let alone its staunch ally, the United States.

If people really thought that Iran would attack Israel with a nuclear weapon, it would be a matter of obvious concern. As it is, we are asked to expend enormous time and resources to deal with the possibility of hysteria in Israel, or to punish the morally corrupt Ayatollahs.

The US was under the threat of nuclear attack from the Soviet Union for decades, and we lived through the Cuban missile crisis. Maybe the Israeli people could think about that. Instead, we get foolish pieces like this one by Cliff Freilich, a meditation on the terrible decision to be made by one great man, Benjamin Netanyahu.

President Obama continues to say directly and through members of his administration that no options are off the table in the great effort to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon. He has yet to explain why that is, in Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s words, a red line. If Israel attacks Iran, the US and the rest of the world will pay a steep price. What do we get for that price? And don’t tell me about ending an evil empire. The US and its allies have been attacking one evil empire after another for decades, including the evil empire of Mohammed Mosaddegh, the scary Red Menace in Iran, in 1953. We have nothing to show for any of them. Someone needs to explain why this time things will be different.

Ehud Barak (photo: wikimedia)

Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, said today that Israel was “very far off” from any attack on Iran. More important, Israeli intelligence indicates that they have not yet determined that Iran has decided even to build a nuclear weapon. These are things you don’t hear much in the US press, so let’s run the tape from the Financial Times:

Asked whether the United States was asking Israel to let them know ahead of any assault against Iran, Mr Barak replied:

“We haven’t made any decision to do this,” and added: “This entire thing is very far off.”

When pressed as to whether “very far off” meant weeks or months, Mr Barak replied: “I wouldn’t want to provide any estimates. It’s certainly not urgent.”

The story about Israeli intelligence and Iran comes from Haaretz, probably in a better position to know than the Wall Street Journal editorial board.

The intelligence assessment Israeli officials will present later this week to Dempsey indicates that Iran has not yet decided whether to make a nuclear bomb.

The Israeli view is that while Iran continues to improve its nuclear capabilities, it has not yet decided whether to translate these capabilities into a nuclear weapon – or, more specifically, a nuclear warhead mounted atop a missile. Nor is it clear when Iran might make such a decision.

Israel also believes the Iranian regime now faces an unprecedented threat to its stability, which for the first time combines both external and internal pressure: from abroad, increasingly harsh sanctions and threats of military action, and at home, economic distress and worries about the results of the parliamentary election scheduled for March.

Of course, Haaretz is Benjamin Netanyahu’s biggest enemy, so maybe they should check overhead for any warplanes over their offices (Netanyahu denies the statement, incidentally).

The US also maintains that sanctions on Iran have been effective, contradicting Israeli claims. But I’m more interested in the fact that the debate in America around Iran has so many sins of omission that it’s impossible to get an unbiased viewpoint.

War games: The only winning move . . . (photo via flickr)

Prior to all the rising tensions around Iran, the US and Israel had scheduled a large set of joint military exercises in the spring. Maybe this wasn’t necessarily a provocative act, but with everything happening around Iran, it gained a new resonance. So today, when the two sides postponed the exercises, some saw it as a way to cool those tensions.

The missile defense exercise, dubbed “Austere Challenge 12,” was scheduled for April to improve defense systems and cooperation between U.S. and Israeli forces. The Israeli military confirmed in a one-line statement that the drill would be rescheduled for the second half of 2012, but did not disclose reasons for the postponement or any other details.

The defense officials who linked the deferral to Iran spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the decision-making process. They offered no other reasons for the delay.

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said it was a “joint” decision with the U.S. to defer the military exercise. “The thinking was it was not the right timing now to conduct such an exercise,” he said. He refused to elaborate.

Thousands of American and Israeli soldiers were to take part in the exercise, which was designed to test multiple Israeli and U.S. air defense systems against incoming missiles and rockets from places as far away as Iran.

The Wall Street Journal goes further, claiming that the US warned Israel off an attack on Iran, and that the postponement of these exercises reflects that. The new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Martin Dempsey, will meet with Israeli officials this week.

President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other top officials have delivered a string of private messages to Israeli leaders warning about the dire consequences of a strike. The U.S. wants Israel to give more time for the effects of sanctions and other measures intended to force Iran to abandon its perceived efforts to build nuclear weapons [...]

The U.S. and Iran, however, have taken steps in recent days apparently designed to ease tensions. Iran has agreed to host a delegation of United Nations nuclear inspectors this month. The U.S., meanwhile, has twice this month rescued Iranian sailors in the region’s seas.

I certainly hope for this to be the case. Before the general election gets into full swing and Republicans bully Democrats into accepting a military frame on Iran relations, it would be good to start things on a far less tense footing. Juan Cole believes that the US will not launch a strike on Iran during an election year because of the uncertainty surrounding that event. Uncertainty doesn’t play well in politics. And that’s perhaps true. But there’s no question that the Romney campaign (I think we can safely say he will be the President’s 2012 opponent) will attempt to cast Obama as soft on Iran, unwilling to do what’s necessary to protect Israel. And that adds an unpredictability of its own. So before we get off into dangerous territory, lowering the volume of the exchanges would be a good start.

Given the respect the Israeli government has shown the President, and the closeness of that government with movement conservatism, I wouldn’t rule out an Israeli strike simply to inject that level of unpredictability into the Presidential race.

(photo: RonAlmog/flickr)

The memos, as described by the sources, one of whom has read them and another who is intimately familiar with the case, investigated and debunked reports from 2007 and 2008 accusing the CIA, at the direction of the White House, of covertly supporting Jundallah — a Pakistan-based Sunni extremist organization. Jundallah, according to the U.S. government and published reports, is responsible for assassinating Iranian government officials and killing Iranian women and children.

But while the memos show that the United States had barred even the most incidental contact with Jundallah, according to both intelligence officers, the same was not true for Israel’s Mossad. The memos also detail CIA field reports saying that Israel’s recruiting activities occurred under the nose of U.S. intelligence officers, most notably in London, the capital of one of Israel’s ostensible allies, where Mossad officers posing as CIA operatives met with Jundallah officials.

The officials did not know whether the Israeli program to recruit and use Jundallah is ongoing. Nevertheless, they were stunned by the brazenness of the Mossad’s efforts.

“It’s amazing what the Israelis thought they could get away with,” the intelligence officer said. “Their recruitment activities were nearly in the open. They apparently didn’t give a damn what we thought.”

According to the story, the Bush Administration found out about this and did nothing, but the Obama Administration scaled back US-Israel cooperation on intelligence targeting Iran. [cont'd.]

“We don’t do bang and boom,” a recently retired intelligence officer said. “And we don’t do political assassinations.” Israel regularly proposes conducting covert operations targeting Iranians, but is just as regularly shut down, according to retired and current intelligence officers. “They come into the room and spread out their plans, and we just shake our heads,” one highly placed intelligence source said, “and we say to them — ‘Don’t even go there. The answer is no.’”

If this exonerates the US, I’m hard-pressed to see it. “Shutting down” covert operations against Iran would mean actually shutting them down. Instead, nuclear scientists have been assassinated with a disturbing frequency in recent years, and Iran just captured a US drone surveillance plane. So I’m somewhat skeptical of drawing a full conclusion here. At the very least, this happened with the knowledge of US officials, and not much of an effort has been made to stop it.

But there’s no question that, if true, Israel deserves massive condemnation for engaging in terrorist operations with known terrorist groups, and for encouraging attacks on Americans by posing as US intelligence agents to shift the blame. The “special relationship” between the US and Israel involves the forced participation of every US politician publicly announcing undying support for Israel, while Israel spies on the US and steals the identity of US officials in its covert operations. This relationship is simply disproportionate.

And this has had real consequences. In a diplomatic note, Iran accused the CIA as being behind the most recent killing of a nuclear scientist. Meanwhile, the Pentagon sent a “surge” of troops and materiel over to the region as the tensions rise. Much of this stems from new sanctions on Iranian oil, with an attack on the financing. Iran lashed out today by saying that efforts from other OPEC nations to increase oil production to make up for the freezing out of Iranian product in the marketplace would be seen as an unfriendly act with “consequences” to come.

We’re seeing a significant rising in the possibilities for war, and the genus of much of the tension comes from spy games played by either Israel or a Western consortium, outside the boundaries of international law.

Natanz back in 2007 (photo: openDemocracy)

Glenn Greenwald has a follow-up on his story about the murder of Iranian nuclear scientists, and he calls the incidents what they actually are: Terrorism.

Part of the problem here is the pretense that Terrorism has some sort of fixed, definitive meaning. It does not. As Professor Remi Brulin has so exhaustively documented, the meaning of the term has constantly morphed depending upon the momentary interests of those nations (usually the U.S. and Israel) most aggressively wielding it. It’s a term of political propaganda, impoverished of any objective meaning, and thus susceptible to limitless manipulation. Even the formal definition incorporated into U.S. law is incredibly vague; one could debate forever without resolution whether targeted killings of scientists fall within its scope, and that’s by design. The less fixed the term is, the more flexibility there is in deciding what acts of violence are and are not included in its scope.

But to really see what’s going on here, let’s look at how a very recent, very similar assassination plot was discussed. That occurred in October when the U.S. accused Iran’s Quds Forces of recruiting a failed used car salesman in Texas to hire Mexican drug cartels to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador at a restaurant in Washington, D.C. Let’s put to side the intrinsic ridiculousness of the accusation and assume it to be true [...] when that plot to kill the Saudi Ambassador was “revealed,” virtually every last media outlet — and government official — branded it “Terrorism.” It was just reflexively described that way. And I never heard anyone — anywhere — object to the use of that term on the ground that targeted assassinations aren’t Terrorism, or on any other ground.

It’s not like there is no evidence suggesting at the very least targeted assassinations, regardless of who is directing them. So why do media outlets resist the label of terrorism for these acts? Glenn cites this as an example of labeling terrorism as a pure move toward marginalization, and I think that’s right.

Meanwhile, in the NYT article cited above there’s quite a bit of evidence for this being part of a covert plot:  [cont'd.]

The campaign, which experts believe is being carried out mainly by Israel, apparently claimed its latest victim on Wednesday when a bomb killed a 32-year-old nuclear scientist in Tehran’s morning rush hour.

The scientist, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, was a department supervisor at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant, a participant in what Western leaders believe is Iran’s halting but determined progress toward a nuclear weapon. He was at least the fifth scientist with nuclear connections to be killed since 2007; a sixth scientist, Fereydoon Abbasi, survived a 2010 attack and was put in charge of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization [...]

“I often get asked when Israel might attack Iran,” Mr. (Patrick, director of the Iran Security Initiative at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy) Clawson said. “I say, ‘Two years ago.’ ”

Mr. Clawson said the covert campaign was far preferable to overt airstrikes by Israel or the United States on suspected Iranian nuclear sites. “Sabotage and assassination is the way to go, if you can do it,” he said. “It doesn’t provoke a nationalist reaction in Iran, which could strengthen the regime. And it allows Iran to climb down if it decides the cost of pursuing a nuclear weapon is too high.”

Charming realist, that Mr. Clawson.

The State Department vehemently denied any role in the attacks. If they are indeed being carried out by Israel, it strains credulity to suggest that the US has no knowledge.

Of course, Iran could be responsible for killing some of these scientists only to blame it on the West. Perhaps they all got out of line with the program for nuclear enrichment. Perhaps they were enemies of the regime. I’m sure you can come up with a lot of possibilities. What we do know is that, as Gary Sick writes, the US and Iran have sharply and swiftly moved to a war footing, propelled forward by a series of events. This is despite the fact that nobody can even confirm whether Iran has an active nuclear weapons program. We need to stop this trajectory before it’s too late, and catastrophic consequences ensue.

Are Iran's scientists targets of state-sponsored terrorism? (source: CIA World Factbook)

One important part of the suspected covert war with Iran, in addition to the drone surveillance and cyberwarfare, concerns the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists. Several scientists have been murdered under questionable circumstances over the past several months. And now, another death has been reported:

An Iranian university professor working at a key nuclear facility has been killed in a bomb explosion, the latest in a series of assassinations and attempted killings linked by the country’s authorities to a secret war by Israel and the US to stop the development of what Tehran insists would be a peaceful nuclear capability.

Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, 32, a chemistry expert and a director of the Natanz uranium enrichment plant in central Iran, died after two assailants on a motorcycle attached magnetic bombs to his car, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

Two other Iranian nationals were reported injured in the blast, which comes at a time of rising international tension.

Safar Ali Baratloo, a senior security official, was quoted by Fars as saying the attack was the work of Israelis.

“The magnetic bomb is of the same types already used to assassinate our scientists,” he said. “The terrorist attack is a conspiracy to undermine the [2 March] parliamentary elections.”

Israeli officials have previously hinted about covert campaigns against Iran without directly admitting involvement.

Maybe this has nothing to do with Israel or the US. I can see why the Iranians would want to blame them. I can’t see why they would want to kill their own nuclear scientist just to give them a talking point about Israeli mischief. You would think they would want to hold on to their assets. The case for Iranian duplicity makes little sense, and the most obvious explanation of the car bomb-style assassinations suggests that they come from those who want to stop Iran from furthering its nuclear program. That’s the Occam’s razor argument here.

I mean, we’re not talking about car accidents or other unfortunate events. We’re talking about remote-control car bombs, suicide attacks and drive-by shootings. There’s nothing subtle going on here, and the killings have all the hallmarks of covert operations. In fact, as much as the assassinations are presumed to have the intention of degrading Iranian nuclear capability, they may also be intended to kill the nuclear scientists in the most showy way possible, to deter other Iranian intellectuals from joining up on the nuclear program.

Keep in mind that the Secretary of Defense confirmed on national television just a few days ago that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon. There’s no credible evidence to the contrary. And yet, over the past couple years, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that Western or Israeli interests are spying on Iran from above, designing cyberworms to disable their technologies and killing their scientists.

Like Glenn Greenwald, I remember when Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds suggested that the US should kill Iranian nuclear scientists, and how liberals unanimously condemned him for such a wild suggestion. Now someone is actually carrying out the assassinations. Where is the outrage?

Nuclear is okay for me, but not for thee (image: futureatlas.com, flickr)

It must be an election year, because the noise about war with Iran has quite suddenly elevated. You have Republican Presidential candidates talking about blockades and putting missiles on high alert, threats to block the Strait of Hormuz, and the like. And Iran is doing its best to avoid an apocalyptic rhetoric gap, by announcing a series of advances on the nuclear and ballistic front. First, Iran said it produced a nuclear fuel rod:

Iranian scientists have produced their first nuclear fuel rod, Iran’s nuclear agency said Sunday, another step despite United Nations sanctions and measures by the United States and others to stop the nation’s atomic work and shut down any possible pathways to weapons production.

Iran has long said it is forced to seek a way to manufacture the fuel rods on its own, since the sanctions ban it from buying them on foreign markets. Nuclear fuel rods are tubes containing pellets of enriched uranium that provide fuel for reactors.

Iran’s atomic energy agency’s Web site said the domestically made fuel rod had already been inserted into the core of Tehran’s research nuclear reactor, but the claim could not be verified.

And today, they announced a long-range missile test, achieved during military exercises in the Persian Gulf.

Iran says it has successfully test-fired a long-range missile during naval exercises in the Gulf, flexing its military muscle to show it could target Israel and US bases in the region.

The announcement came a day after Iran claimed to have successfully tested a new medium-range, ground-to-air missile.

The hope is that this is all posturing around a possible resumption of nuclear talks. But the election season adds a pretty negative dynamic. Iran amps up its rhetoric, and candidates of both parties desire to avoid the label of “weakness” on Iran. So the rhetoric escalates. And after that, it’s really just a hop and a skip to a practical escalation. The public, depressingly, would largely go along with military action with Iran to prevent the production of weapons of mass destruction, despite the catastrophe that ensued from the last military actions along those lines.

Map of Iran and Strait of Hormuz (source: CIA World Factbook)

Economic forecasts as well as year-end “what to look for” lists cannot possibly take into account unexpected scenarios that could lead to economic catastrophe or international incidents. The death of Kim Jong-il is conceivably one of these unpredictable events on the foreign policy side. The Iranian threat to close off the Strait of Hormuz would have implications across the board.

The U.S. warned Iran on Wednesday it will not tolerate any disruption of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz after Iran threatened to choke off the vital Persian Gulf oil transport route if Washington imposes sanctions targeting its crude exports.

The increasingly heated exchange raises new tensions in a standoff that has the potential to spark military reprisals and propel oil prices to levels that could batter a global economy already grappling with a European debt crisis.

Iran’s navy chief boasted Wednesday that it would be “very easy” for his country’s forces to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the passage at the mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a sixth of the world’s oil passes daily. It was the second such threat in two days following a warning by Iran’s vice president.

It’s not entirely clear how easy it would be for Iran to shut down the Strait. But 15 million barrels of oil pass through it every day.

This, incidentally, is the entire acknowledged purpose of the US military presence in the Middle East; to ensure safe shipping for hydrocarbon tankers. If the real cost of oil took into account all the military infrastructure in place designed to secure its passage, the price of a gallon of gas would approach $10. The Navy’s 5th fleet in Bahrain quickly put out a statement saying they would “counter malevolent actions to ensure freedom of navigation.” That’s their entire purpose.

The Saudis quickly said that they would offset any loss of exports from Iran, but they simply don’t have the production capacity to cover oil blocked at the Strait. In fact, they could not even cover the 4 million barrels a day pumped by Iran, if their product falls under an embargo or if Iran pre-emptively holds back its oil shipments. And the point is not the production capacity but the ability to ship; alternate routes for Gulf oil are incredibly shaky. Prices would spike to at least $140 a barrel in the event of a disruption in the Strait.

If Iran goes through with their threat, I fail to see how military operations would be avoided. This is a fight that many have been spoiling for, and Iran’s aggressive move would give them a pretext they have so fervently desired.

Maybe this is a case of speaking loudly and carrying a small stick. I certainly hope so. Because of the consequences, Iran would have to have some hesitation over this move, and other Gulf states would fall on the side of the international community in any dispute (it would be their meal ticket getting blocked, after all), as well as China and Russia, the beneficiaries of much of Iran’s oil.

So while I tried to do other things, he watched Mike Huckabee being interviewed Sunday morning and heard him say a number of things about Ron Paul:

Huckabee blasted Paul on Iran, saying Paul’s views were disqualifying and outside the mainstream.

Now, of course, there are many reasons which can be spelled out in black and white or in simple gold coins why Ron Paul will never be President and is on many issues, rather nuts. But his position on Iran and the bomb is completely sound and valid. While we may not want Iran to get the bomb because it would give them even more political leverage, it is not like they are going to use it to bomb Israel. Such an event would ensure their complete annihilation. The Iranian government may be kept under the control of religious conservatives, but not lunatics (that’s reserved for U.S. Congressional districts). Yet, Paul’s clearly accurate and logical statement is proclaimed to be the one out of the “mainstream”.

It’s going to be another long year.

An American military drone which had been used to monitor piracy off the East African coast has crashed at an airport on the island nation of Seychelles during a routine patrol, officials said.

Pulse-less Dick Cheney will soon reappear for news channel airtime otherwise devoted to Ann Coulter to demand the drone’s return from the Seychelles or we would have no choice but to bomb Iran.