Our Awful Situation

War with Iran

Posted by Charlie Kilo on April 29th, 2008

Former mayor and presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani has said that “the use of military force against Iran would be very dangerous. It would be very provocative. The only thing worse would be Iran being a nuclear power.” Giuliani is absolutely right, but why are we sitting by as these frightful alternatives become the only two feasible options? Seven recent developments have brought us closer than ever to Giuliani’s point:

• Results from last Friday’s second round of Iranian parliamentary elections show that the various hard-line principlist factions and their “independent” allies will once again dominate the Majlis with roughly 80% of the seats in their hands. Although not a surprise, the results do make the prospects of a negotiated settlement with Iran less likely.

• On April 25th, the U.S.’s top military officer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, said that the U.S. is planning for “potential military courses of action” against Iran. Mullen also said that Tehran was complicit in the death of American soldiers and was an “increasingly lethal and malign influence” in Iraq. Defense Secretary Robert Gates made similar comments a few days prior.

• On April 23rd, it was announced that Gen. David Petraeus will be nominated to take over as chief of U.S. Central Command (the head of all U.S. forces in the Middle East). Petraeus, a fierce critic of Tehran’s activities in the region, will be replacing Adm. William Fallon who stepped down after appearing to criticize the Bush administration’s hard line on Iran.

• The Russian news service RIA Novosti reported that Russian intelligence has information that the U.S. has completed preparations for a military strike against Iran and that everything will be ready for an attack as early as late April (the fact that this report came out on the day before President Bush visited Ukraine to back the former Soviet Republic’s bid to join NATO should not be dismissed).

• A report to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee revealed that if the Iranians were permitted to acquire nuclear weapons, the Saudis and Turks would almost definitely follow suit. Pakistan’s nuclear weapons already have the world on edge. A handful of additional nations with their very own Islamic Bombs will cause a decrease in regional stability and security that will severely endanger U.S. interests.

• A report by Reuters stated that Tehran has begun to install IR-2 centrifuges at its uranium enrichment facility in Natanz. These advanced centrifuges can enrich uranium at a rate that is two-to-three times faster than that of the centrifuges currently in use. This development further erodes the small window of opportunity that exists to solve the situation without force.

• On his nation’s National Day of Nuclear Technology, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boasted that Iran has begun to install 6,000 new centrifuges (in addition to the 3,300 already in operation) at Natanz (it is not clear whether they are IR-2 or not). 3,000 fully operational centrifuges running for one year can produce enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb.

An attack on Tehran’s nuclear facilities would not be simple. Iran learned a lot from Israel’s 1981 Osirak strike on Iraq’s nuclear program. The Iranians have spread their nuclear plants around the country and have also built them deep underground and behind thick shields of reinforced concrete.

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War with Iran

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