Paul Pillar writes: Those in the United States who genuinely yearn for war are still a neoconservative minority. But the danger that war might break out—and that the hawks will get their way—has nonetheless become substantial. The U.S. has just withdrawn the last troops from one Middle Eastern country where it fought a highly costly war of choice with a rationale involving weapons of mass destruction. Now we find ourselves on the precipice of yet another such war—almost purely because the acceptable range of opinion on Iran has narrowed and ossified around the “sensible” idea that all options must be pursued to prevent the country from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Given the momentousness of such an endeavor and how much prominence the Iranian nuclear issue has been given, one might think that talk about exercising the military option would be backed up by extensive analysis of the threat in question and the different ways of responding to it. But it isn’t. Strip away the bellicosity and political rhetoric, and what one finds is not rigorous analysis but a mixture of fear, fanciful speculation, and crude stereotyping. There are indeed good reasons to oppose Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons, and likewise many steps the United States and the international community can and should take to try to avoid that eventuality. But an Iran with a bomb would not be anywhere near as dangerous as most people assume, and a war to try to stop it from acquiring one would be less successful, and far more costly, than most people imagine.

What difference would it make to Iran’s behavior and influence if the country had a bomb? Even among those who believe that war with the Islamic Republic would be a bad idea, this question has been subjected to precious little careful analysis. The notion that a nuclear weapon would turn Iran into a significantly more dangerous actor that would imperil U.S. interests has become conventional wisdom, and it gets repeated so often by so many diverse commentators that it seldom, if ever, is questioned. Hardly anyone debating policy on Iran asks exactly why a nuclear-armed Iran would be so dangerous. [Continue reading…]

The Guardian reports: Barack Obama has accused Republican presidential candidates of casually “beating the drums of war” over Iran without having the political courage to directly advocate a military attack or considering the human cost of battle.

In his first press conference of the year on Tuesday, Obama turned on the Republican politicians who for days have been accusing him of weakness and naiveté over Iran, ramped up by the visit of the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and a meeting of the US’s most powerful pro-Israel lobby group.

The president said his policy of sanctions has united much of the international community to pressure Iran and that “we have a window of opportunity where this can still be resolved diplomatically”.

“That’s my track record. Now, what’s said on the campaign trail – those folks don’t have a lot of responsibilities. They’re not commander-in-chief. And when I see the casualness with which some of these folks talk about war, I’m reminded of the costs involved in war,” he said.

“I’m reminded that the decision that I have to make in terms of sending our young men and women into battle, and the impacts that has on their lives, the impact it has on our national security, the impact it has on our economy. This is not a game. There’s nothing casual about it.”

Aluf Benn writes: In his speech to the AIPAC conference Monday night Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moved closer than ever to the point of no return en route to war with Iran.

Netanyahu compared Iran to Nazi Germany, its nuclear facilities to death camps, and his current trip to the White House to a desperate plea to former U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt by the U.S. Jewish community to bomb Auschwitz.

The request, as Netanyahu told a sympathetic AIPAC crowd, was denied, using justifications similar to those used today by those who object to a military strike against Iran.

“Israel has patiently waited for the international community to resolve this issue. We’ve waited for diplomacy to work, we’ve waited for sanctions to work. None of us can afford to wait much longer,” Netanyahu warned, adding that, as Israeli premier, he would “never let Israel live under the shadow of annihilation.”

It was the same reason former Prime Minister Menachem Begin used to bomb the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981: preventing the possibility that Jewish children would face the peril of another Holocaust. Now it’s the turn of his successor, Netanyahu, to remove the danger hovering over the heads of Jewish children.

Netanyahu was in the habit of comparing the Iranian nuclear threat to the Holocaust back when he was opposition leader, claiming that the western powers were not doing enough to thwart it. But, since coming back to power, three years ago, he has refrained from making these kinds of statements, opting for a vaguer rhetoric and asking his ministers to keep the fervor down. That vagueness dissipated on Monday. In his speech to AIPAC, coming mere hours after his meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama in the White House, Netanyahu escalated the tone, both in his reference to a clock that was running out, and in his expressed disappointment from U.S.-led diplomatic sanctions.

The Holocaust talk has but one meaning: they force Israel to go to war and strike the Iranians. The justifications against an attack, weighty as those may be, turn to fumes when put up against the Warsaw Ghetto, Auschwitz, and Treblinka. No calculus of missiles falling on Tel Aviv, rising oil prices and economic crisis can hold water when compared to genocide. If that’s the situation, the option of sitting quietly, expecting the “world” to neutralize Iran, or of a stable balance of terror, becomes nonexistent. If Netanyahu doesn’t act and Iran achieves nuclear weapons capabilities, he’ll go down in history as a pathetic loud mouth. As a poor man’s Churchill.

But Netanyahu booby-trapped himself back when he was still making his way to Washington, when he presented Iran with a public ultimatum: dismantle the underground enrichment facility near Qom, cease all enrichment activity, and remove the medium-grade uranium from Iranian territory. He realizes that the Iranian government will never agree to those terms, which seems more like setting up a casus belli that a reasonable diplomatic demand. But Netanyahu’s Holocaust speech at the AIPAC conference went much further than that.

Obama asked Netanyahu to avoid inflammatory statements in regards to Iran, to keep gas prices down in America’s gas station. It’s an important issue when trying to rebuild the American economy as well as, of course, his reelection bid. And while Obama’s thinking may seem reasonable, he’s living in an entirely different world than that of Israel’s prime minister. From the White House, Iran looks like a strategic problem, not as a Holocaust. Thus, time isn’t of the essence, and diplomacy and sanctions should still be given a chance. Netanyahu is motivated by other things.

It’s possible to detect enough loopholes that would allow Netanyahu to escape an imminent decision to go to war. Netanyahu has a political interest to aid his Republican friends against Obama, so his statement that “there wasn’t a decision to attack” seems more like an attempt to stir things up ahead of the U.S. presidential elections than a command to Israel Air Force units. There are those who believe he’s just a second-guessing coward who would never take it upon himself to initiate a war. It could be that all those interpretations are true. Nevertheless, Netanyahu took on a public obligation on Monday that would make it very hard for him to back away from the path of war with Iran.

The Guardian reports: Hamas will not do Iran’s bidding in any war with Israel, according to senior figures within the militant Islamic group.

“If there is a war between two powers, Hamas will not be part of such a war,” Salah Bardawil, a member of the organisation’s political bureau in Gaza City, told the Guardian.

He denied the group would launch rockets into Israel at Tehran’s request in response to a strike on its nuclear sites. “Hamas is not part of military alliances in the region,” said Bardawil. “Our strategy is to defend our rights”

The stance underscores Hamas’s rift with its key financial sponsor and its realignment with the Muslim Brotherhood and popular protest movements in the Arab world.

Bardawil’s words were echoed by a second senior Hamas figure, who declined to be named. Hamas, he said, “would not get involved” in any war between Iran and Israel.

The Daily Beast reports: Benjamin Netanyahu, in Washington today, is laying more political groundwork for a possible preemptive Israeli airstrike against Iran’s nuclear sites.

But as Netanyahu rallies his American supporters and discourages diplomatic engagement with Tehran, some intelligence officials and Iran experts tell The Daily Beast that an Israeli attack may be exactly what Tehran’s most hard-line leaders have been trying to provoke.

Marty Martin, a former senior officer in the CIA, ran the unit that hunted Al Qaeda terrorists from 2002 to 2004. Iran’s most militant leaders “are goading the Israelis,” he tells The Daily Beast, “because a bombing will help them put their internal problems aside.”

Martin, who spent most of his 25-year career at the CIA in the Middle East, argues that some clerics and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders, confronted with a discontented and restless population, are looking for ways to solidify public support. “The way they see it, if Israel bombs them it relieves the internal pressure,” says Martin. “Amid this turmoil, its always good to have an outside enemy.”

Iran’s internal troubles include a 12 percent unemployment rate, a shattered economy (due in part to international sanctions), resentment over the oppressive regime, and widespread disgust over corruption.

Martin, who retired from the agency in 2007, now works as an independent consultant. He was prominent inside the agency not just for his leadership against Al Qaeda but also for his expertise on the Middle East: his Louisiana drawl disguises the fact that he speaks fluent Arabic.

“If you are an Iranian,” he says, “there is actually a benefit to an Israel strike—an Israel strike which won’t be successful completely militarily, but will be successful for saying ‘game on’!”

Paul Pillar, the former national intelligence officer for the Middle East, agrees, though he emphasizes that only part of the Iranian leadership is likely plotting this way. “It’s quite rational,” he said, “from the perspective of the specific elements in the regime that believe it would work to their political advantage.” Pillar, who spent 28 years at the CIA, is now a professor at Georgetown University. “I strongly believe that the net political effect of an attack would be to help the hardliners,” he says.

Robert Naiman writes: A funny thing happened on the way to the Showdown at the AIPAC Corral, where pro-war Republicans and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu have been planning to ambush President Obama with charges of being “soft on Iran” because US military commanders have said that an Israeli military attack on Iran would be a very bad idea.

Someone asked the Israeli public what they thought.

And it turns out that the majority of Israelis have their shekels on the lanky guy from Chicago.

In a poll conducted this month by Professor Shibley Telhami of the University of Maryland and Israel’s Dahaf Institute, only 19 percent of Israelis said they would support an Israeli military attack on Iran if it is not approved by the US.

But that’s not even the most striking result of the poll.

The poll suggests that the reason that the majority of Israelis don’t support an Israeli military strike on Iran without US approval is not because they are afraid of making the US angry. The poll suggests that the reason that the majority of Israelis do not support an Israeli military strike on Iran without US approval is that they share the cautions of US officials against an Israeli strike on Iran: they think that the costs would be high, and the benefits small or nonexistent.

That is, they see the assessments of US officials of the dubious merits of an Israeli strike as good data – better data than they are getting from Prime Minister Netanyahu.

A majority of Israelis think an Israeli war with Iran would last months or years. Two-thirds think Hizbullah would join Iran in retaliating against Israel. As many Israelis think an Israeli military strike would strengthen Iran’s government as think it would weaken it. A slim majority think an Israeli strike would delay Iran’s nuclear program by more than a year; nearly a third think it would have no effect on Iran’s nuclear program or even accelerate it.

Trita Parsi writes: Despite the words of friendship, the diverging perspectives of the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government on key issues in the Middle East — the Arab uprisings, the Palestinian issue and the Iranian nuclear program — are profound.

The dispute on the nuclear issue is centered on red lines. Israel, like the Bush administration, considers a nuclear capability in Iran a red line. It argues that the only acceptable guarantee that Iran does not get a nuclear weapon is for Iran to have no enrichment program.

The Obama administration puts the red line not at enrichment — which is permitted under international law — but at nuclear weapons. This is a clearer, more enforceable red line that also has the force of international law behind it.

While expressing his sympathy and friendship with Israel, Obama did not yield his red line at AIPAC. With the backing of the U.S. military, he has stood firm behind weaponization rather than weapons capability as the red line.

President Obama: Moving forward, I would ask that we all remember the weightiness of these issues; the stakes involved for Israel, for America, and for the world. Already, there is too much loose talk of war. Over the last few weeks, such talk has only benefited the Iranian government, by driving up the price of oil, which they depend upon to fund their nuclear program. For the sake of Israel’s security, America’s security, and the peace and security of the world, now is not the time for bluster; now is the time to let our increased pressure sink in, and to sustain the broad international coalition that we have built. Now is the time to heed that timeless advice from Teddy Roosevelt: speak softly, but carry a big stick. As we do, rest assured that the Iranian government will know our resolve, and that our coordination with Israel will continue.

If until very recently it looked like Netanyahu might be able to use the AIPAC conference as an opportunity to push Obama into a corner and escalate pressure to start a war against Iran, it now seems Obama will not yield to such pressure — at least not before November. But even if this policy of containment works over the coming months, the question remains: what will happen over the following four years (assuming Obama gets reelected)?

Earlier, the New York Times reported:

The pressure from an often-hostile Congress is also mounting. A group of influential senators, fresh from a meeting with Mr. Netanyahu in Jerusalem, has called on Mr. Obama to lay down sharper criteria, known as “red lines,” about when to act against Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

“We’re saying to the administration, ‘You’ve got a problem; let’s fix it, let’s get back on message,’ ” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who took part in the meeting with Mr. Netanyahu and said the Israeli leader vented frustration at what he viewed as mixed messages from Washington.

“It’s not just about the Jewish vote and 2012,” Mr. Graham added. “It’s about reassuring people who want to avoid war that the United States will do what’s necessary.”

To give teeth to the deterrent threat against Iran, Israel and its backers want Mr. Obama to stop urging restraint on Israel and to be more explicit about the circumstances under which the United States itself would carry out a strike.

At least in this round of the fight, it looks like Obama’s GOP critics and the Israel lobby overplayed their hand. They made their expectations too explicit and in response Obama has reinforced his own “red lines” and they are not the ones the warmongers want.

Colin H. Kahl writes: For Israelis considering a strike on Iran, [Israel’s 1981 attack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor at] Osirak seems like a model for effective preventive war. After all, [Saddam] Hussein never got the bomb, and if Israel was able to brush back one enemy hell-bent on its destruction, it can do so again. But a closer look at the Osirak episode, drawing on recent academic research and memoirs of individuals involved with Iraq’s program, argues powerfully against an Israeli strike on Iran today.

To begin with, Hussein was not on the brink of a bomb in 1981. By the late 1970s, he thought Iraq should develop nuclear weapons at some point, and he hoped to use the Osirak reactor to further that goal. But new evidence suggests that Hussein had not decided to launch a full-fledged weapons program prior to the Israeli strike. According to Norwegian scholar Målfrid Braut-Hegghammer, a leading authority on the Iraqi program, “on the eve of the attack on Osirak . . . Iraq’s pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability was both directionless and disorganized.”

Moreover, as Emory University political scientist Dan Reiter details in a 2005 study, the Osirak reactor was not well designed to efficiently produce weapons-grade plutonium. If Hussein had decided to use Osirak to develop nuclear weapons and Iraqi scientists somehow evaded detection, it would still have taken several years — perhaps well into the 1990s — to produce enough plutonium for a single bomb. And even with sufficient fissile material, Iraq would have had to design and construct the weapon itself, a process that hadn’t started before Israel attacked.

The risks of a near-term Iraqi breakthrough were further undercut by the presence of French technicians at Osirak, as well as regular inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. As a result, any significant diversion of highly enriched uranium fuel or attempts to produce fissionable plutonium would probably have been detected.

By demonstrating Iraq’s vulnerability, the attack on Osirak actually increased Hussein’s determination to develop a nuclear deterrent and provided Iraq’s scientists an opportunity to better organize the program. The Iraqi leader devoted significantly more resources toward pursuing nuclear weapons after the Israeli assault. As Reiter notes, “the Iraqi nuclear program increased from a program of 400 scientists and $400 million to one of 7,000 scientists and $10 billion.”

Iraq’s nuclear efforts also went underground. Hussein allowed the IAEA to verify Osirak’s destruction, but then he shifted from a plutonium strategy to a more dispersed and ambitious uranium-enrichment strategy. This approach relied on undeclared sites, away from the prying eyes of inspectors, and aimed to develop local technology and expertise to reduce the reliance on foreign suppliers of sensitive technologies. When inspectors finally gained access after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, they were shocked by the extent of Iraq’s nuclear infrastructure and how close Hussein had gotten to a bomb.

Daniel Levy writes: A tendency characterizing Netanyahu’s long term in office, and a counterintuitive one at that, is the degree to which he has been risk-averse, not only in matters of peace, but also in matters of war. No Operation Cast Leads, Lebanon wars, or Syria Deir ez-Zor attack missions under his watch. In fact, he has no record of military adventurism. What’s more, Netanyahu hardly appears to be in need of a Hail Mary pass, military or otherwise, to salvage his political fortunes. Polls consistently show that he is a shoo-in for reelection. The right-wing block in Israel currently has a hegemonic grip on Israeli politics, something that seems unlikely to change. Netanyahu secured his own continued leadership of the Likud party in Jan. 31’s primary. His primacy on the right faces few challenges from either within the Likud or beyond it. Despite never winning favor with much of the mainstream media, the messy management in his own office, and the challenges of coalition balancing (particularly over issues of religion and state), Netanyahu maintains solid approval ratings with a relatively strong economy and can even now bask in Israel’s lowest unemployment numbers in 32 years.

Although it is fair to speculate that a successful, daring mission to the heart of Iranian airspace would be domestically popular and a boost to the prime minister, such a mission is anything but risk-free. Not only would the specific military action be fraught with uncertainty and potential hiccups, but the fallout from a strike, even one successful in immediate terms, could have far-reaching repercussions and consequences for Israel in the security and diplomatic arenas and by extension, of course, in the domestic political domain. The Hebrew expression she’yorim shotkim (“silence when shooting”) is used to describe the phenomenon whereby domestic criticism of the government is suspended when military action is under way. The problem for Netanyahu is that all signs point to that rule not applying in this case. Former security establishment figures at the highest levels have mounted an unprecedented campaign warning Israel’s leader and its public of the follies of launching a solo and premature Israeli military action against Iran. Most outspoken has been recently retired Mossad chief Meir Dagan, who has described a strike on Iran as “the stupidest thing I have ever heard.” But he has not been alone. Other former IDF chiefs of staff, as well as Shin Bet and intel leaders, have joined the cautioning chorus. Many are unlikely to shut up if Bibi defies their counsel. And in the public arena, these voices cannot be dismissed as just so many self-serving chickenhawk politicians. The fallout from an attack on Iran is possibly the biggest threat to Bibi serving a third term.

Another oft-overlooked aspect is the absence of public pressure in Israel for military intervention or of a supposed Iranian threat featuring as a priority issue for Israelis. The pressure to act is top-down, not bottom-up. And to the extent to which there is trepidation among the public, that is a function of fear at the blowback from Israeli military action, rather than fear of Iranian-initiated conflagration. Also to be factored in is the possibility of 2012 being an election year in Israel (though technically the current parliament could serve until October 2013). If Netanyahu does pursue early elections, as many pundits expect, then the political risk associated with an attack increases, heightened by the likelihood of a strike being depicted as an election ploy. What’s more, prices at the pump are an issue for Israeli voters, just as they are in the United States.

Especially noteworthy is the extent to which the elements of Netanyahu’s coalition further to his right have not embraced or promoted military action against Iran. In fact, they tend to demonstrate a lack of enthusiasm at the prospect. This applies to both the ultra-Orthodox and the greater Israel settler-nationalists. One reason is that they view the Iran issue as peripheral when compared with, say, the pursuit of settlements and an irreversible presence in all of greater Israel. In fact, a strike on Iran is sometimes depicted as presenting a threat to the settlement enterprise, in as much as there is an expectation that part of the fallout would be enhanced pressure on Israel to tamp down resulting regional anger by displaying more give on the Palestinian front. With so many in the settler movement convinced that the irreversibility of 40-plus years of occupation is within touching distance, the last thing they want now is to rock the boat by creating new and unpredictable challenges to their cause. [Continue reading…]

Tony Karon writes: Their poor chemistry and well-documented differences notwithstanding, President Barack Obama may yet emerge as the friend Benjamin Netanyahu most needs right now — by offering the Israeli Prime Minister a path that would avoid a dangerous confrontation with Iran while strengthening Israel’s sense of security against any Iranian nuclear threat. What remains to be seen, in the course of Netanyahu’s Washington visit and beyond, is whether he’ll accept the terms on offer.

Asked in a lengthy interview with the Atlantic Monthly’s Jeffrey Goldberg published Friday, March 2, to clarify the terms of his oft stated vow that “all options are on the table” in dealing with Iran’s nuclear program, Obama answered, “I think both the Iranian and the Israeli governments recognize that when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say.”

It has been widely reported that while in Washington, Netanyahu intends to press Obama to clarify the “red line” that, if crossed by Iran, would trigger the military response signified by the “all options” phrase. In the Goldberg interview, Obama appeared to draw that red line at Iran’s actually building a nuclear weapon. Not that he accepts all of Iran’s current nuclear activity and defiance of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) demands, but Obama sees “crippling sanctions” as sufficient to give Iran’s leaders pause on that score. But building a nuclear weapon — which Iran, by the consensus of U.S. and Israeli intelligence, has not yet decided to do — appears, from Obama’s statements, to be the red line.

Israeli officials had suggested in the media in the weeks ahead of the visit that unless Netanyahu is satisfied that the Obama Administration is willing to take military action should Iran’s nuclear work breach a red line, Israel would be obliged to take matters into its own hands. The Goldberg interview suggests that Obama is willing to do that — but also that his red line is not necessarily the same one that the Israelis have drawn up to now.

Obama warns that “it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon,” but that’s not the same as the Israelis’ insistence that it is unacceptable for Iran to have the capability to build such a weapon. That’s a distinction with a profound difference, because Iran’s existing nuclear infrastructure arguably already gives it the capability to build a nuclear weapon, although the U.S. and Israel agree that it hasn’t taken a decision to do so. [Continue reading…]

Marsha B Cohen writes: The ever-smirking Israeli Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak, has calculated that the casualties of a war with Iran could be limited to fewer than 500. “There won’t be 100,000 dead, not 10,000 dead nor 1,000 dead. Israel will not be destroyed,” Barak said reassuringly during a November radio interview quoted by the Washington Post. “If everyone just goes into their houses, there won’t be 500 dead, either,” he said.

Barak means Israelis. As for Iranians, who’s counting? Who cares?

No one is talking about the harm that “surgical air strikes” against “suspected Iranian nuclear facilities” with GBU-28 “bunker-buster” bombs, which derive their ability to penetrate concrete and earth from depleted uranium, would inflict on 74 million Iranians, nearly a quarter of whom are under the age of 14 and under and half of whom are under the age of 30. (Where are those self-designated “pro-life” voices that should be expressing outrage? Or does “the right to life” evaporate as soon as a fetus exits the womb?)

No worries are being expressed about the release of radioactive materials into the biosphere of Central Asia (and by eventual extension, the entire earth). If the depleted uranium in the bombs comes into contact with radioactive nuclear materials present in the targeted nuclear research sites–nearly all of which operate under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) supervision–the potential for disaster would be magnified exponentially.

Israeli Military Intelligence Chief Major General Aviv Kochavi grimly told the hawkish Herziliya Conference recently that Iran possesses more than 4 tons of low-grade enriched uranium as well as almost 100 kilograms of uranium enriched at 20%. If true, is it really a good idea to send these radioactive materials spewing into the air and water of Central Asia and beyond? Is it any wonder that Russia, China and India–all whom are much closer geographically to Iran, as well as downwind of the direction in which radiation and toxin-tainted winds would initially blow–are the UN Security Council members most opposed to attacking Iran?

Nor is anyone questioning the wisdom of dropping unprecedented numbers of 5000 lb. “bunker busters” capable of penetrating 100 feet of earth or 20 feet of concrete into the bowels of an already earthquake-prone region. No one seems to care about the irreparable and uncontainable environmental damage that could be done to miles of Iranian coastline: the adjacent Caspian Sea to the north, the Arabian Sea to the south, and the Persian Gulf to the west. What about the permanent damage to the underground aquifers of Central Asia, where water is already scarce? If fracking for natural gas can render US drinking water flammable, imagine what pounding some of the most plentiful natural gas fields with bombs could do.

Prognosticating the full extent of the damage that could and would be inflicted upon Iran and upon Iranians is difficult to impossible. No one outside of top security circles can even guess the number of targets of an Israeli and/or US attack (the BBC suggests five in addition to Bushehr). Other variables include the quantity or capacity of the weaponry that would be employed, whether Israel plans on using nuclear weapons, whether so-called “precision surgical strikes” reached or missed their intended targets, all of which would affect the scale of “collateral damage” to human beings, infrastructure, homes and apartments, schools, mosques and World Heritage sites as a consequence of “bomb-bomb-bombing” Iran’s suspected nuclear research facilities.

Almost assuredly an attack on facilities buried deep within the earth would utilize “bunker busting” guided bomb units (GBUs) that gain their power to penetrate from depleted uranium. The cost in lives, injuries, and long-term dangers to the health of civilians, including genetic damage to unborn future generations from toxins and radioactive materials in the depleted uranium bombs dropped and nuclear materials leaked is also incalculable. [Continue reading…]

Glenn Greenwald writes: In 2009, The New York Times‘ David Barstow won the Pulitzer Prize for his two–part series on the use by television networks of retired Generals posing as objective “analysts” at exactly the same time they were participating — unbeknownst to viewers — in a Pentagon propaganda program. Many were also plagued by undisclosed conflicts of interest whereby they had financial stakes in many of the policies they were pushing on-air. One of the prime offenders was Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who was not only a member of the Pentagon’s propaganda program, but also, according to Barstow’s second stand-alone article, had his own “Military-Industrial-Media Complex,” deeply invested in many of the very war policies he pushed and advocated while posing as an NBC “analyst”:

Through seven years of war an exclusive club has quietly flourished at the intersection of network news and wartime commerce. Its members, mostly retired generals, have had a foot in both camps as influential network military analysts and defense industry rainmakers. It is a deeply opaque world, a place of privileged access to senior government officials, where war commentary can fit hand in glove with undisclosed commercial interests and network executives are sometimes oblivious to possible conflicts of interest.

Few illustrate the submerged complexities of this world better than Barry McCaffrey. . . . General McCaffrey has immersed himself in businesses that have grown with the fight against terrorism. . . .

Many retired officers hold a perch in the world of military contracting, but General McCaffrey is among a select few who also command platforms in the news media and as government advisers on military matters. These overlapping roles offer them an array of opportunities to advance policy goals as well as business objectives. But with their business ties left undisclosed, it can be difficult for policy makers and the public to fully understand their interests.

On NBC and in other public forums, General McCaffrey has consistently advocated wartime policies and spending priorities that are in line with his corporate interests. But those interests are not described to NBC’s viewers. He is held out as a dispassionate expert, not someone who helps companies win contracts related to the wars he discusses on television.

Despite Barstow’s Pulitzer, neither Brian Williams nor anyone else at NBC News ever mentioned any of these groundbreaking stories to their viewers (even as Williams reported on other Pulitzer awards that year); the controversy over the Pentagon propaganda program was simply suppressed. And NBC continued to feature those same ex-Generals as “analysts” — including McCaffrey — as though the whole thing never happened.

The evidence that Israel is ill-prepared for war suggests to some observers that its repeated threats to attack Iran might be no more than bluster.

Even so, one shouldn’t assume that Israel’s military planners necessarily think too much about civil defense. At the beginning of the 2006 war against Lebanon, IDF Chief of Staff Lt Gen Dan Halutz seemed to be more concerned about the value of his stock portfolio than the damage that Hezbollah’s rockets might cause.

Reuters reports: Israel’s civil defenses are not ready to protect the population in a missile war, an opposition lawmaker said on Monday, fuelling debate about the feasibility of an attack on Iran’s nuclear program.

Almost one in four Israelis lack access to bomb shelters, whether communal or reinforced rooms in private homes, said Zeev Bielski, chairman of a parliamentary panel on Israel’s home defense preparations.

“Are we prepared for a war? No,” he told Reuters. “Things are moving too slowly and we are wasting very precious time.”

Such shelters could be vital if Israel were to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities and Tehran struck back, either directly or through its allies on the borders of the Jewish state.

Israel says 100,000 rockets and missiles are pointed at it, many of these held by Syria, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas, although they may decide to sit out any war between Israel and Iran.

The Civil Defense Ministry, which was set up after Israel suffered thousands of rocket strikes in the 2006 Lebanon war, confirmed Bielski’s data while seeking to play down his alarm.

“Our position remains that if everyone does what they are expected to do during an emergency, the situation will be tenable,” one ministry official said.

That appeared to reinforce remarks in November by Defense Minister Ehud Barak that, should Iran retaliate for an attack with missile salvoes against Israel, it could inflict fewer than 500 fatalities “if everyone stays in their homes”.

Stay at home? And for how long is that defense strategy meant to endure?

During the 67 years of the nuclear age, the United States has remained the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons in warfare. Since their use in 1945, nuclear weapons have remained the ultimate deterrent. The idea that Iranians would view such weapons in any other way is nothing more than a crude piece of Zionist propaganda designed to terrify anyone gullible enough to believe it. On the other hand, the risks involved in going to war to preempt what in many ways is an imaginary threat, are very real. Eric Margolis spells out some of the consequences.

Destroying Iran’s many reactors and processing facilities could release large amounts of radiation and create radioactive dust storms. Winds would carry this toxic miasma over Afghanistan and its large U.S. military garrison. Dangerous radiation would also extend to Pakistan, western India, Iraq, Kuwait and to the Gulf, where large numbers of U.S. military personnel are based. Equally ominous, radioactive dust could blanket oil fields in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. High-altitude winds would spread radioactivity around the globe, as occurred at Chernobyl in the Ukraine, but at a factor of twenty times or more.

Israeli attacks by air and commando units could damage or delay development of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, but the Jewish state lacks the power to permanently destroy it. Israel also fears some of its pilots will be captured and put on show trial. So Israel is straining every sinew to get Washington to do the job. The Pentagon has estimated it will need to strike at least 3,200 targets in Iran, including nuclear facilities, air and naval bases, military production plants, headquarters, communications hubs, missile bases, Gulf ports, and that reliable catchall, “command-and-control facilities.” And this is just in the first wave of strikes.

Air and missile strikes as well as special forces raids would have to continue for weeks, perhaps months. Air wars generate their own “mission creep” as new targets are discovered or old ones moved around. Power stations and high voltage lines, civilian airports, truck plants, radio and TV stations, intelligence headquarters — all will be added to the hit list.

During the first Iraq war, U.S. forces even destroyed many of Iraq’s sewage-treatment and water-purification plants, leading to epidemics of water-borne diseases. Iran could expect the same punitive treatment.

Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was a war hero and highly decorated officer of Iran’s special forces during the Iran-Iraq War. He was credited with many successful missions deep behind Iraqi lines. Iran’s tough special forces will launch ground attacks on U.S. units and bases in Afghanistan, Central Asia, Kuwait and down the Gulf to Oman. Such raids may force the United States to send Marines, then regular ground troops into Iran to forestall attacks.

The Los Angeles Times reports: As U.S. and Israeli officials talk publicly about the prospect of a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program, one fact is often overlooked: U.S. intelligence agencies don’t believe Iran is actively trying to build an atomic bomb.

A highly classified U.S. intelligence assessment circulated to policymakers early last year largely affirms that view, originally made in 2007. Both reports, known as national intelligence estimates, conclude that Tehran halted efforts to develop and build a nuclear warhead in 2003.

The most recent report, which represents the consensus of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, indicates that Iran is pursuing research that could put it in a position to build a weapon, but that it has not sought to do so.

Although Iran continues to enrich uranium at low levels, U.S. officials say they have not seen evidence that has caused them to significantly revise that judgment. Senior U.S. officials say Israel does not dispute the basic intelligence or analysis.

Haaretz reports: [Israel’s] Defense Minister Ehud Barak strongly criticized President Shimon Peres yesterday, after a Haaretz report revealed that Peres is expected to tell U.S. President Barack Obama that he does not believe Israel should attack Iran in the near future.

The two presidents are due to meet in Washington, D.C., on Sunday March 4.

“With all due respect to various officeholders from the past and present, the rumor that there is [only] one government in Israel has also reached the United States,” Barak said sarcastically in private conversations, adding: “In the end, there is an elected [Israeli] government that makes the decisions and that is its responsibility.”

During Barak’s criticism of the Israeli president, he made reference to Peres’ conduct in the early 1980s when Israel attacked the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak, when Menachem Begin was prime minister.

“It’s the same Shimon Peres who in 1981 opposed the bombing of the reactor in Iraq,” the defense minister said.

“Peres argued then that Begin was leading us to a holocaust, and there are those who claim that, to this day, Peres thinks the attack on the reactor was a mistake. Imagine what would have happened if the Americans and their allies had attempted to get [Iraqi dictator] Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait if he had three atomic bombs. The Americans said in retrospect that Begin was farsighted,” Barak reportedly said.

Barak’s harsh criticism of Peres is unusual in that over the past three years, the defense minister has carefully accorded respect to Peres, even meeting with him every Sunday before cabinet meetings.

Nonetheless, tension between the two has been simmering for over a year on the Iranian issue, as far back as the tenure of former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi.

In Barak’s office, Ashkenazi – who opposed an assault on Iran – was thought to have enlisted Peres as a supporter of his stance during his dispute on the issue with Barak.

Yesterday’s Haaretz report about Peres raised eyebrows in both the Prime Minister’s Office and in Barak’s bureau. Sources close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the premier was surprised to read Peres’ comments in the newspaper. They called the comments very disturbing, and added that although the president has the right to express an opinion, ultimately there is only one prime minister in Israel, and he’s the one who is responsible for making decisions.