The Osterley Times: This is the path of madness.

I posted earlier about a report on Seymour M. Hersh's upcoming article in the New Yorker magazine. I've now managed to track down the article itself. Click here to read the article.

I have several observations now that I have read it rather than a report on it.

Let me first come clean, I believe in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and think that ALL country's should abide by it. The central premise of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty obliges the five nuclear weapon states to disarm their nuclear arsenal, while non-nuclear weapons states pledge to remain disarmed of such nuclear weaponry.

That was the deal. That was what the world signed up to.

The proviso to this was that non-nuclear states were allowed to develop nuclear energy - as long as this was done for peaceful means, rather than the development of nuclear weaponry.

It is very hard for Bush to demand that others comply with this treaty when he has already, in effect, ripped this treaty up by proposing a new range of "bunker busting" nuclear weapons. Blair has not yet ripped it up, but if you can find a bookie that will take a bet on the prediction that he isn't going to very soon be updating Trident - I'd safely take the bet. It's money in the bank.

Because the one thing we are not doing is disarming - which is our obligation under the treaty.

So we come to the question, of Iranian nuclear development, basically as hypocrites. We are demanding they adhere to a treaty that Bush and Blair have already, by their actions, explicitly rejected.

It's the, "who's civilised enough to have them?" argument; with us as judge and jury.

Okay, now you know where I'm coming from, let's move to Seymour M. Hersh's article:

International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.), agree that Iran is intent on developing the capability (My emphasis) to produce nuclear weapons.

Anyone who has the capability to produce nuclear energy, which is their right under the treaty (which we don't adhere to, but demand that they do), also has the capability to produce nuclear weapons. It is incumbent on us, to prove intent. Leaving aside the Bush administrations failure's to adhere to this treaty itself, I would argue that it has made no attempt to prove Iranian intention to possess a nuclear weapon.

They are insisting that Iran stop enriching uranium, which is actually Iran's right under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. A treaty that they have, so far, offered no proof that Iran has ever been in breach of. They are rather asking that we presume of Iran the worst possible intentions, just as they asked of us before their illegal invasion of Iraq.

It is said, that they see Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, "as a future Adolf Hitler", which is surely one of the most overstated arguments of all time. Hitler assembled the greatest army the world had ever known. Iran do not fall anywhere near that category. This is simply the Bush regimes' shameful hyperbol.

A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was "absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb" if it is not stopped. He said that 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 is going to be his legacy."

Bush's legacy is already written in stone. It is his failed intervention in Iraq. The idea that he could be trying to establish a new legacy by attacking Iran, a much more complex and better armed country than their Iraqi neighbour, is simply another sign of how delusional the President has become.

One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was 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." He added, "I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, 'What are they smoking?' "

Any sustained bombing campaign will do little to cause, "the public to rise up and overthrow the government." One only has to look at how Bush has manipulated the events of 9-11 to imply that anyone who opposes him is "unpatriotic" to see how Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would use an attack to cement his grip on power. This argument is as irrational as it is deluded.

"This is much more than a nuclear issue," one high-ranking diplomat told me in Vienna. "That's just a rallying point, and there is still time to fix it. But the Administration believes it cannot be fixed unless they control the hearts and minds of Iran. The real issue is who is going to control the Middle East and its oil in the next ten years."

I love the notion that you can control people's hearts and minds by bombing them. It really is the heart of the Bush doctrine, that raw power wins over everyone. Having seen this ideology fail in Iraq, they now seem keen to see it fail in Iran, with much more serious consequences.

A senior Pentagon adviser on the war on terror expressed a similar view. "This White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war," he said. The danger, he said, was that "it also reinforces the belief inside Iran that the only way to defend the country is to have a nuclear capability."

And here we see the real legacy of the Bush Presidency. The increase in nuclear proliferation, the natural consequence of a Presidency that threatens to use nuclear weapons even against non-nuclear opponents. It will not be lost on Iran and others that, since Bush reversed Clinton's rather sensible policy towards North Korea, that the North Korean regime has managed to obtain nuclear weapons and that the Bush rhetoric against Kim Jong-il has noticeably softened.

In recent weeks, the President has quietly initiated a series of talks on plans for Iran with a few key senators and members of Congress, including at least one Democrat.

Okay, here Hersh tells us that it's the usual right wing loons and that they have been joined by Joe Lieberman.

The House member said that no one in the meetings "is really objecting" to the talk of war. "The people they're briefing are the same ones who led the charge on Iraq. At most, questions are raised: How are you going to hit all the sites at once? How are you going to get deep enough?" (Iran is building facilities underground.)

One can only gasp at the failure to learn the lessons of Iraq, and the wish to repeat them in Iran. But then, someone hints at the reason.

Speaking of President Bush, the House member said, "The most worrisome thing is that this guy has a messianic vision."

And there we have it. The American Taliban, the man who God tells what to do. A man who regards doubt as weakness.

Then, they unfold their plans:

One of the military's initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites. One target is Iran's main centrifuge plant, at Natanz, nearly two hundred miles south of Tehran. Natanz, which is no longer under I.A.E.A. safeguards, reportedly has underground floor space to hold fifty thousand centrifuges, and laboratories and workspaces buried approximately seventy-five feet beneath the surface. That number of centrifuges could provide enough enriched uranium for about twenty nuclear warheads a year.

Now, as I posted here, this is simply nonsense. Leaving aside the horrors of proposing to go nuclear, there is simply no way that Iran has the capability that they are referring to. As Scott Ritter points out, "Iran will have to use it's own indiginous supply of Uranium ore which are heavily contaminated with the element molybdenum. Iran can't seperate molybdenum from it's uranium. So, if they run UF6 uranium hexafluoride through a cascade, they will destroy the cascade." So, again, Iran simply doesn't have the capability that they are claiming. This is smoke and mirrors.

The proposed "nuclear option" has also, it seems, split opinion within the military.

"There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries," the adviser told me. "This goes to high levels." The matter may soon reach a decisive point, he said, because the Joint Chiefs had agreed to give President Bush a formal recommendation stating that they are strongly opposed to considering the nuclear option for Iran.

Who could be behind such nonsense? Who could possibly be this far out of the loop that senior members of the military are talking about resignation? And then Hersh tells us:

The adviser added, however, that the idea of using tactical nuclear weapons in such situations has gained support from the Defense Science Board, an advisory panel whose members are selected by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Why is that insane person still holding that job? Nor is the inevitable reaction to such an insane policy unpredicted.

He warned, as did many others, that bombing Iran could provoke "a chain reaction" of attacks on American facilities and citizens throughout the world: "What will 1.2 billion Muslims think the day we attack Iran?"

Indeed. As I've previously argued, any attack on Iran leaves the US open to counter attack in Iraq. And, as Iraq is 60% Shia, an Iranian attack on that soil could be genuinely portrayed as "a liberation" from the weakened US forces stationed there. Bush and his gang are really playing with fire here. Nor is this scenario unconsidered by the administration:

The adviser went on, "If we go, the southern half of Iraq will light up like a candle." The American, British, and other coalition forces in Iraq would be at greater risk of attack from Iranian troops or from Shiite militias operating on instructions from Iran. (Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, has close ties to the leading Shiite parties in Iraq.) A retired four-star general told me that, despite the eight thousand British troops in the region, "the Iranians could take Basra with ten mullahs and one sound truck."

So the Bushites can't say they haven't been warned. But they seem determined to press on anyway, despite the fact that none of their allies support their chosen path.

"The Brits think this is a very bad idea," Flynt Leverett, a former National Security Council staff member who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center, told me, "but they're really worried we're going to do it." The European diplomatic adviser acknowledged that the British Foreign Office was aware of war planning in Washington but that, "short of a smoking gun, it's going to be very difficult to line up the Europeans on Iran." He said that the British "are jumpy about the Americans going full bore on the Iranians, with no compromise."

It is inconcievable that Blair could bring the British parliament behind any decision to attack Iran; so, unless Blair decides to bypass parliament (always a possibility with this right wing loon), then the US would have to do this totally on their own.

Predictably, the real reason behind the proposed attack surfaces towards the very bottom of Hersh's article:

A key ally with an important voice in the debate is Israel, whose leadership has warned for years that it viewed any attempt by Iran to begin enriching uranium as a point of no return. I was told by several officials that the White House's interest in preventing an Israeli attack on a Muslim country, which would provoke a backlash across the region, was a factor in its decision to begin the current operational planning. In a speech in Cleveland on March 20th, President Bush depicted Ahmadinejad's hostility toward Israel as a "serious threat. It's a threat to world peace." He added, "I made it clear, I'll make it clear again, that we will use military might to protect our ally Israel."

Once again, these zealous right wingers ask that America's young lay down their lives for sake of an ally. A fact they will go to any lengths to disguise.

The Bush regime are proposing embarking on a mission of madness. There is no threat from Iran, despite all the ludicrous claims Israel might make in order to persuade it's ally to remove yet another regional threat to it's power. And that's what this all comes down to, an Israeli wish to use American power to further her own aims.

The worry is that there are many in the Bush administration who see no essential difference between Israeli interests and their own. This is the path of madness.

There is evidence in the article that some sense is still being spoken to Washington.

"If you attack," the high-ranking diplomat told me in Vienna, "Ahmadinejad will be the new Saddam Hussein of the Arab world, but with more credibility and more power. You must bite the bullet and sit down with the Iranians."

The diplomat went on, "There are people in Washington who would be unhappy if we found a solution. They are still banking on isolation and regime change. This is wishful thinking." He added, "The window of opportunity is now."