Has the US’ military option against Iran moved up from the bottom of the list again
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
During July 2010, a small number voices in the United States have called for a reassessment of a military option against Iran.
While some of these figures refused to identify themselves by name they are suggesting that they are part of the security or political establishment; some former senior officials, however, did identify themselves by name.
Most notable among them was the former head of the CIA, General Michael Hayden, who explicitly stated in an interview with CNN that an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is not the United States’ worst option.
Hayden noted that when he served as the head of the CIA (until February 2009), the military option was at the bottom of the list, but it now seems more likely since all the steps by the United States have proven insufficient to stop Iran from continuing on its path towards a nuclear weapons capability.
Hayden’s remarks have echoed former senators Daniel Coats and Charles Robb and General Charles Wald, former deputy commander of the United States European Command, who as early as September 2009 published a joint article that called for a strong approach towards Iran: if talks with Iran fail, it is incumbent upon the United States to abandon negotiations, prepare for military action in the Gulf area, consider the option of imposing a blockade on Iran, and as a last resort, consider a military strike on Iran, the inherent dangers notwithstanding.
Considering that for since the beginning of July 2010, or around that time, two US Navy Carrier Groups are in fact laying off the Iranian coast with, as it would appear, IDF personnel on board which joined just after the vessels had passed through the Suez Canal, this all would add up.
But the US administration does not share this position, repeating that while all options, including the military option, are on the table, attacking Iran is a poor choice, dangerous, and therefore not desirable in light of the current circumstances.
Between the lines, though, it appears that a certain change is emerging in the American security establishment or among certain elements within it regarding the military option.
The change in tone was reflected in part in a recent interview by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen.
Despite his recurring reservations about military measures, Mullen cast the military options as “an important option,” and stated that if the administration reached a moment of decision and the need for a plan for military action arises, one is already in place.
While the President, the Commander-in-Chief of the US Military, seems to be stating that the military option again Iran would be a bad one the military seems to have different ideas and it would appear that the US military is beginning to “its own thing”.
The same seems to be with the security apparatus in the United States as a whole in the shape of the FBI, the CIA, the NSA and others.
The confirmation of the existence of military plans, even if no surprise, then does mesh well with April 2010 statements by administration officials that the American security establishment is engaged in the preparation of military alternatives, which will be presented to the president in the event that diplomacy and sanctions do not prove effective.
An Israeli source also said recently that the United States did not have a military option a year ago but currently the Americans are exhibiting a serious approach to plans for a military procedure, which has now become a viable option.
American defense sources confirmed that US Central Command, which is responsible for most of the Middle East, is progressing significantly in planning the targets of an air strike in Iran.
Other voices have been joining these outspoken ones from the United States and amongst those are moderate Arab states, especially the Gulf states, who are showing increasing concern regarding Iran’s advance toward nuclear weapons and the United States’ failure, as they seem to see it, to impede it.
One can but wonder as to whether everyone has gone mad.
However, this must also be seen in the light of oil and the arrival of various sources not admitting and being concerned of the fact that we are running out of the cheap and easily exploitable oil.
With UN sanctions now having been issued, so to speak, against Iran there is no oil coming from that area and thus, just like it was with Iraq, ways must be found by the powers-that-be and those that control them to get their dirty grubby hands on that black sticky stuff in Iran.
That is also the reason why we are in Afghanistan and mess around in Pakistan and yes, I do know that Afghanistan, and probably also Pakistan, do not actually have any oil. They are both, however, directly next to Iran and thus make a great place from where to hit the Iranians from another area.
That is also why the USA and NATO are so friendly with the various -stans that border Iran in the North, all of which have problems in the human rights department, to say it politely.
Like when the USA supported this or that tinpot fascist dictator in Central and South America for similar reasons, they support the repressive regimes in those -stans of the former Soviet Union; namely the reason that those -stans permit the US military to have bases there from which they could hit Iran, if they wanted to.
Has it really to do anything with Iran working on nuclear issues, and as they claim, for civil applications only? I should think not. It has everything to do with the black sticky fossil liquid, namely oil and that is all. Plain and simple. In the same way that the claim was that Saddam Hussein supposedly had WMDs and for that reason we had to go in and in the end kill him. It was also only about oil and nothing else, regardless of claims.
And why all those war preparations? Because the cheap oil, on which the global economy is based, and all living standards in the developed world, is built, has, basically, run out. We went past so-called “Peak Oil”, according to some well informed sources, a couple of years ago, and we are now using more than we can get out of the ground.
There has been many wars fought over oil before and the attack of Nazi Germany against the USSR was in part to do with oil as well, as they wanted the oilfield at Baku, and those wars will be getting fiercer the more difficult it is going to get to get to the remaining economically viable extractable oil. That is why we rattling sabers off the Iranian coast and that is why there is so much violence associated with oil.
© 2010
To learn more about Peak Oil and what a society post Oil Age might look like get and read the book “The End of Oil”. You can obtain the book via http://the-end-of-oil.blogspot.com/
