War on Iran: A Political Bluff or a Potential Threat?

These days there are rumours about the US planning to attack Iran everywhere. We read about current and former high ranking officials making comments on the story every single day. But how practical could this threat be?

“It is a message of pressure and possibility,” says a senior U.S. official. “We’re trying to keep up the pressure but also hold open the possibility of constructive dialogue, if they meet the conditions.”

It has been often difficult to understand both sides of the conflict as they have been making confusing decisions most of the time.

Says Ray Takeyh, author of Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic: “If Rice doesn’t want to lay the groundwork for talking to the Iranians and Syrians, why bother to attend the Baghdad conference? For the first time in this melodrama, the Iranians are easier to understand than the Americans.”

Another very important element to this conflict is Israel, which seems to be most uncomfortable with the Iranian regime’s harsh foreign policies. It has been predicted that in case if the US attacks Iran, Israel will be the first target for the Iranian missiles, as the America’s biggest ally in the region. Also, Ahmadinejad has many times questioned the Israel’s right of existance and has repeatedly revealed his interest in wiping Israel off the world’s map.

In a threatening statement, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on the state television recently: “Realities in the region show that the arrogant front, headed by the US and its allies, will be the principal loser in the region.”

The Israel Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, said in an interview on German television: “Iran openly, explicitly and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say this is the same level, when you are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel, and Russia?”

“We cannot tolerate, we will not tolerate, those who challenge Israel’s right to exist while actively seeking to develop the catastrophic weapons to fulfill their goals,” Olmert said at a convention in Los Angeles last year.

The former Saudi diplomat said: “We have two nightmares: for Iran to acquire the bomb and for the United States to attack Iran. I’d rather the Israelis bomb the Iranians, so we can blame them. If America does it, we will be blamed.”

Spite all these rumors, the US officials have always denied having planned an attack to Iran, saying that they would prefer a diplomatic solution to the conflict.

Pentagon spokesman, Bryan Whitman, said: “The United States is not planning to go to war with Iran. To suggest anything to the contrary is simply wrong, misleading and mischievous. The president and Secretary Gates have repeatedly stated publicly that this county is going to work with allies in the region and address those concerns through diplomatic efforts.”

“We are not planning for a war with Iran,” The new Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, announced on February 2nd.

But that’s only what members of the Bush’s administration say. Some former officials think that there are certainly other sides to the story and think of the republican government’s policy to trap the mullah’s regime.

A former Bush Administration National Security Council official, Flynt Leverett, said that “The Administration is trying to make a case that Iran is more dangerous and more provocative than the Sunni insurgents to American interests in Iraq.”

Leverett said. “This is all part of the campaign of provocative steps to increase the pressure on Iran. The idea is that at some point the Iranians will respond and then the Administration will have an open door to strike at them.”

A former senior intelligence official said: “The White House goal is to build a case that the Iranians have been fomenting the insurgency and they’ve been doing it all along; that Iran is, in fact, supporting the killing of Americans.”

There also seems to be a disagreement within the republicans as well. Bush and some people close to him such as Dick Chenny have proven to be more or less pro-war. That’s while most of the party are seriously against repeating the same mistake they made about Iraq.

George Bush said that “Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We also know that the Quds force is a part of the Iranian government. That's a known”

He added: “It has also become clear that we face an escalating danger from Shia extremists who are just as hostile to America, and are also determined to dominate the Middle East. Many of these extremists are known to take direction from the regime in Iran, including the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon.”

On Fox News on January 14th, Dick Cheney warned about “the possibility of a nuclear armed Iran, astride the world’s supply of oil, able to affect adversely the global economy, prepared to use terrorist organizations and/or their nuclear weapons to threaten their neighbors and others around the world. The threat Iran represents is growing.”

While all the blames are on George Bush and the republicans warmonging policies, most of the US possible future presidents don't seem to be tending to go any softer on the Iran’s issues either.

Presidential candidate, John Edwards, recently told the audience during a speech: “At the top of these threats is Iran. To ensure that Iran never gets nuclear weapons, we need to keep all options on the table. Let me reiterate: all options.”

Another US presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama, said on Friday that “The use of military force should not be taken off the table when dealing with Iran, which is a threat to all of us.”

But in the Senate, on February 14th, said Hilary Clinton in a quite different position to her rivals: “We have all learned lessons from the conflict in Iraq, and we have to apply those lessons to any allegations that are being raised about Iran. Because, Mr. President, what we are hearing has too familiar a ring and we must be on guard that we never again make decisions on the basis of intelligence that turns out to be faulty.”

Iran's Nuclear Drive: A Runaway Train

"Nuclear train of the Iranian nation doesn't have a reverse gear," said Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president last week during a press conference. This statement seemed to have irritated a number of the western governments, and the US government in particular.

But the issue got even worse when he said "Our train doesn't have brakes either, as we dismantled them and threw them away sometime ago," in response to Condoleezza Rice, the US foreign ministry who had suggested him to push the stop button only instead of worrying about going backwards!

Mr. Ahmadinejad keeps making such comments before the international tribunes as the UN Security Council’s 60 day deadline to stop the uranium enrichment was over last week and the 5+1 governments are getting closer and closer to making an agreement about the awfully diverse sanctions they are planning to impose on the Iranian nation, as a result of the hard-liner regime insisting on its nuclear ambitions.

The US vice president, Dick Cheney, warned that it was a "serious mistake" if Iran became a nuclear power, during his visit to Australia last week. But Ahmadinejad keeps calling for further negotiations, saying “the time for bullying has expired."

That is while the US government has specified for many times that it will not go through any negotiations with the Iranians unless they have stopped all of their uranium enrichment activities.

Condoleezza Rice told Fox News Sunday that “Iran needs to stop enriching and reprocessing, and then we can sit down and talk about whatever is on Iran's mind."

"I've said that I am prepared to meet my counterpart or an Iranian representative at any time if Iran will suspend its enrichment and reprocessing activities. That should be a clear signal," she added.

But also on Sunday, Ahmadinejad said Iran would not surrender to what he called "another conspiracy" by the West in the dispute over the controversial atomic programme, the Iranian state television IRIB reported.

"They think they can hurt us economically. Since they have threatened us and issued a resolution against us we have had record contracts. They cannot do anything," Ahmadinejad said.

"Our revolution is going fast towards the summit like a bulldozer. The enemies think they can stop this bulldozer by throwing a few pebbles at it. They then magnify their small pebbles 500 times in psychological warfare,” he continued.

The Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mohammadi, told the ISNA news agency: "We have prepared ourselves for any situation, even if war happens," He added that Iran was prepared for talks with the United States but without preconditions.

Basically, what is going on between the US and Iran at the moment, more seems to be like a kind of mutual diplomatic bullying from both sides, who tend to more think about defeating the old enemy rather than their nations' long-term interests.

Among all the countries involved, Great Britain's position seems to be one of the most realistic. The British authorities' statements on this issue have always represented their moderate policies at the interest of both nations. However, being the America's oldest and most powerful ally in the world, they cannot be the most objective referree you can find for this issue. But no matter what, one thing is clear about Great Britain: They are by any means against starting a war on Iran. That is definite.

British Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, said that "Iran had been offered almost everything any country that wanted modern civil nuclear power could ask for."

"No one wants to implement sanctions against Iran. No one wishes to have conflict or is preparing for conflict with Iran. While the door remains open to negotiations for Iran, someone has to walk through that door," Beckett said on Tuesday to a diplomat training college in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

"We are perfectly happy to talk to them. The question is what the conversation is about?" said Tony Blair, the UK Prime Minister, in a reaction to Ahmadinejad’s recent controversial comments on his country’s nuclear program.

He added that "The latest comments from Iran are very worrying because they indicate again they want to defy the international community". Blair insisted that "the tougher we in the international community are, the more likely we are to get the result we want. Any sign of weakness is lethal."

"I think Iran is making a big miscalculation in refusing to suspend enrichment, Tony Blair said today. think the comments from Iran are very worrying because yet again they're indicating they want to defy the international community," he said at his monthly news conference. "I think we've got therefore to consider what more measures we take which we are now doing with our partners," Blair continued.

The researches show that most of the Islamic countries are worries about the recent US-Iran conflict and about the way the US is going to handle this problem in particular. They simply do not want to witness another war in the region, against another powerful Muslim regime.

A recent statement made by Pakistan, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey suggests that "It is vital that all issues must be resolved through diplomacy and there must be no resort to use of force."