[THS] !!! Philip Giraldi: A Timetable For War

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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25393.htm

A Timetable For War

By Philip Giraldi
Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is a contributing editor to The American
Conservative and a fellow at the American Conservative Defense Alliance.


May 06, 2010 "AntiWar" --  Readers of my articles will know that I am extremely
pessimistic about the prospects for peace in the Middle East.  I do not believe for a
second that the leaders of Israel actually consider Iran to be an "existential" threat
but the fact that they have cried wolf so often has convinced the Israeli public that it
is so.  Worse still, Israel’s friends in the US have convinced the American public of the
same thing even though Iran does not threaten the United States at all.  Relying on a
complaisant media that has fully embraced the fabricated narrative of fanatical
Mullahs brandishing nuclear weapons shortly before handing them over to al-Qaeda,
a majority of Americans now believes that Iran must be dealt with by force and that it
already has a nuclear weapon.  As in the case in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq,
the fictitious threat has taken on an ominous reality because the lie has been
repeated often enough to appear to be truth.

I believe several things must be understood in relationship to the likely formula for
initiation of such a conflict.  First, in spite of the increasingly bellicose language
coming from Robert Gates and Hillary Clinton, I do not believe that the Obama
Administration wants a war.  On the contrary, I believe that the language is designed
to convince Tel Aviv that the US is getting tough with Iran to preempt any possible
military action.  The principal advocates of war in the United States are not in the
White House.  They continue to belong to the Israeli lobby as given voice through its
acolytes in Congress and the media.

Second, the Israeli government having sold the "existential threat" fiction does want
a war, but its options are limited.  It knows it can only do temporary damage to Iran
and wants the United States to do the heavy lifting.  That will require contriving a
situation that will bring about US entry into the conflict, otherwise an Israeli attack
will have only limited value, possibly slowing down Iran’s nuclear program but not
stopping it while also guaranteeing that the Mullahs will make the political decision to
develop a weapon.

Third, Washington has no real ability to put pressure on Israel as the White House
has already made clear that it will not cut aid to Tel Aviv and will continue to use its
veto to protect Israel in international fora like the United Nations.

Fourth, once the shooting begins, even if Israel starts it, both Congress and the
media will demand that Washington intervene to support brave little democracy
Israel.  One can be sure that on the day after Tel Aviv starts a conflict Congress will
overwhelmingly pass a motion approving the Israeli action and also calling on the
White House to have American forces join in.  The Washington Post, FOX news, and
The New York Times will be beside themselves with joy.

Putting the four premises together, what does it all mean?  It means that Israel will
seek to start a conflict with Iran and pull the United States in.  It will ignore any US
calls for restraint and will attack the Mullahs with or without a pretext, whether or not
Iran remains in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty regime (which I believe it will),
and whether or not Tehran does anything aggressive.  In the lead-up to such an
attack, Israel will intensify its propaganda efforts and is quite prepared to lie to make
a case against Iran and its friends in the Middle East region.  The recent total
fabrication of a case that Syria had given Scud missiles to Hezbollah is a case in
point.  Israel sees everyone in the region as an enemy or a potential enemy and it
works very hard to make Washington see things the same way.  Once the fighting
starts, Washington will inevitably be drawn in with Congress and the mainstream
media cheerleading the process.

So let us assume that Israel will attack Iran.  After all, it is a win-win situation for
them in that they will demonstrate once again to the Muslim world that they are not
to be trifled with and will leave the serious fighting to the United States.  I believe
they will attack Iran by the shortest route, which is over Iraqi airspace.  Iraqi airspace
is controlled by the United States Air Force, which would undoubtedly be under
orders not to shoot down the Israeli planes lest Obama find himself facing a furious
AIPAC, Congress, and the press immediately thereafter.  A shoot down order is just
not possible given Congressional democrats’ fear of how Jewish political donors would
react, not to mention the danger that the usual voices in the media would turn
against the Obama administration on the eve of the midterm elections.  Unless the
Iranians were to react in an extremely restrained fashion, they would consider the US
complicit in the attack due to the passage over Iraq and their retaliation would bring
Washington into the war, which is precisely what Israel expects to happen.

The only joker in the deck for Israel is the possible unintended consequences.  If the
war were to go badly, with Iran, for example, using its Chinese supplied cruise
missiles to sink a US aircraft carrier, the role of Israel in starting the conflict might
well be challenged by many in the US, so many that even the media and Congress
would have to take notice.  But Israel probably considers that a remote possibility
given the huge military advantage that the United States enjoys over Iran so they
likely believe it to be it a risk worth taking.  Also, one must consider that the hard
right Israeli government of Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu is not necessarily a rational
player that will weigh up all the pluses and minuses.  Netanyahu is driven by racism,
intellectual arrogance, and a belief that he can control events in the United States, all
of which will be part of his decision making.

Which leads to the question of timing.  There has been some talk in the media that
Israel would likely "do something" by November.  Why that date is being selected is
not completely clear, but I believe it will be sooner and this is why:  as noted above,
the United States controls Iraqi airspace currently.  But that control will be ceded to
the Iraqi government in August when the US presence in Iraq is due to be reduced
to a "garrison non-combatant" level of 60,000 soldiers and airmen.  At that point, the
US Air Force will no longer have autonomous authority to engage in Iraqi airspace,
but the Iraqi government will be empowered to request US assistance to do so.
Imagine for a moment what it would do to US credibility in the Arab world if Baghdad
were to ask the US to help defend its airspace against an Israeli incursion and the US
were to refuse to do so.  So I think the Israelis will make their move before August.
They want to entangle the United States into fighting on their behalf but they will not
necessarily want to humiliate Obama while doing so.

So what can Obama do to stop this?  There has been some speculation that he might
send a private emissary to Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu with the message
that the United States does not support an Israeli attack and that Washington will
both denounce the action and not back Tel Aviv.  I believe that Obama has already
told Netanyahu both privately and through diplomatic channels that the US opposes
military action but the Israeli government no doubt regards such a warning as
toothless, particularly as both Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton have asserted that Israel
has a right to make its own security decisions.  Any move to punish or pressure the
Israelis would be blocked by Congress, so the Obama warning can be brushed off.
The only option that I believe would actually work is for Obama to go public
preemptively on the issue and proclaim that there is no casus belli with Iran, that any
Israeli attack will not be supported by the United States and that furthermore the
United States will take the lead in condemning such an act in the United Nations and
in all other appropriate international fora.  Is that likely to happen?  I think not.  And
that is precisely the reason why I think a new war in the Middle East is inevitable and
will take place this year, probably by August.

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is a contributing editor to The American
Conservative and a fellow at the American Conservative Defense Alliance.