Is War Coming to Iran?

asif iqbal said:

if theres one thing Iranians cant do that is politics and negotiating, that something they have never learnt

considering all the educated Iranians there are none have been able to bring a peaceful solution to many of the problems Iran has faced

and that is a irony, because pre-Khommeni Iran was number 1 allies of US, u can say more than even Japan and Israel

Iran had on order 160 F16s in 1975 and increased the order to a staggering 300 F16s by 1978, this was even before F16 was inducted, infact the order for the F16s was so large that when revolution happened US did not know what to do with them, a great number of them went to Israel

there are even reports that Iran already got ground equipment for F16s in 1978, this ground equipment was then sold to Pakistan in 1983

90 Chinnoks were operated by Iran in 1979, with another 50 due to be added to that, to make a total of 140 Chinnoks!!!even today UK does not even operate half as much

Iran is the only country outside the US to operate the F14 Tomcats, bought to knock out the high flying Soviet Mig25s which routinely crossed Iranian airspace

during the Cold War any counter-attack on the Soviet Union was to be a joint US-Iranian attack, which later was turned into a US-Turkish one

makes you wonder where Iran would have been if the revolution never happened, they would have most certainly have been part of JSF

Iran can be a force for good in the region, they have a big complex country with a large population, i hope one day both Iran and the rest of the world can sit down and sort out thier differences, but that is maybe a bit of a long shot for now

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Iran talks have right mix for history
By Chris Cook

"The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences."

Winston Churchill's rhetoric in 1936 is as relevant now, as the "Iran Six" nations prepare to meet Iran in Istanbul later this week, as it was then. (The "Iran Six" or P5+1 are the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States - plus Germany.)

I believe that this meeting, through the consequences which will flow from it during the following months, has the potential to shape
history. Unlike most observers, I am optimistic as to the outcome.

The prize

"While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies" - Dick Cheney, Halliburton chief executive officer, Institute of Petroleum, London 1999.

When Cheney came to power as US vice president in 2001, he was able to act to secure the oil prize, based on his belief that a peak in oil production was imminent.

The first act was the campaign to liberate Iraq's oil, and the demonstration of the sheer scale of US arms and fire-power had a salutary effect on recalcitrant nations generally and on the potential nuclear troublemakers, Libya and Iran in particular.

Libya's capitulation was sufficient for Muammar Gaddafi to be able to remain in power for a few more years, while Iran immediately ceased all work on nuclear weapons and offered - via the Swiss - everything the US was looking for, short of regime change.

Pragmatists such as then secretary of state Colin Powell, who considered that this olive branch should be accepted, were over-ridden: the neo-conservatives were riding high, flushed with success: real men go to Tehran!

The ill-prepared and catastrophically badly managed US occupation of Iraq rapidly bogged down, and the realization that Iran was instrumental in the Iraqi resistance led to the gradual ramping up of the Iranian "nuclear threat" as a casus belli.

But in 2007, the world changed.

Currency wars
By 2007, the sheer scale of US dollar liabilities to China led to the opening of a new front. I believe that at this point - in the same way that the US, as principal creditor, vetoed further British adventurism at Suez in 1956 - the Chinese called a halt to US adventurism by using an economic veto - ie mutually assured economic destruction.

I believe that energy security is a red line issue for China as much as for the US, and China was prepared to pull the plug on the US economy unless they pulled out of Iraq, and refrain from attacking Iran.

We have entered into a new era of policy and diplomacy as a result: an era of currency wars.

The US and Israel have in my view been warned off any physical attack on Iran or other significant oil producers without the consent of China and are therefore restricted to sanctions ... and this is where it gets interesting.

Oil sanctions are a completely dumb policy, which Beijing has not been unhappy to see because they enhance China's bargaining power and potentially enable it and other consumer nations to buy discounted oil from Iran to fill their reserves. Threats by the US to apply sanctions to China and the other BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa) are in my view a bluff.

Financial sanctions are another matter, and it is true to say they have been instrumental in motivating Iran to come to the table. But these sanctions, which have now extended to persuading the craven Belgian domiciled SWIFT bank messaging system to throw out Iranian banks generally and the central bank in particular, will have unintended consequences with far-reaching effects.

Iran - a window of opportunity
Whereas in the West power is exercised through the banking system, in the developing world it is exercised by those who control resources, and particularly valuable and saleable energy resources like oil and gas.

What we have seen in Iran may be viewed as an ongoing struggle for control of oil and gas resources during the privatization process, with close parallels to the oligarchic struggle that took place after the end of the Cold War in Russia.

Since the election of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad in 2005, we have seen an ongoing power struggle that culminated in April 2011 with an attempt to take control of the crucial Intelligence Ministry. At that point, key players in the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution (aka Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, or IRGC) and elsewhere sided with the present leadership, and a political battle was then left to play out during the approach to the recent Iranian parliamentary elections.

Although these elections were dismissed outside Iran, they were instrumental in conferring legitimacy on the winning faction. Once it was clear that the Ahmadinejad faction had been soundly defeated, action has followed swiftly by a leadership more confident than it has been for years.

An overture was made within days to the P5+1 to restart negotiations, and key ministers have been given much more freedom of action free from obstructionism, too often based upon personal vendettas and rent-seeking.

The nuclear element of the offer made by Iran in 2003 is possibly now back on the table. Former ambassador Hossein Mousavian, who was Iran's nuclear negotiator at the time, supported this view recently in a US article. I also believe that for his part President Barack Obama has - unlike president George W Bush in 2003 - ruled out military action aimed at regime change.

The question is whether the demands by the P5+1 will be politically acceptable to Iran, and things are not looking good so far, if one listens to the spin from the US and European Union in relation to demands for closing down and even dismantling the underground nuclear facility at Fordow, near Qom. The key questions are what common ground there is among the members of the P5+1 and whose view will be dominant?

US and EU strategy
My analysis is that the Obama administration's strategy is to negotiate a politically advantageous settlement with Iran in the months leading up to the November election, and to manage down the oil market price as the Iran "risk premium" leaks away.

This market management would be achieved through continuation of the macro-market manipulation of the crude oil price orchestrated since 2009 between JPMorgan Chase and the Saudis (with fellow members of the Gulf Cooperation Council - Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates).

This has been achieved through the facilitation by JPMorgan of Enron-style "pre-pay" financing of Saudi crude oil inventory funded by risk averse "inflation hedging" passive investment.

The result of such a strategy would be a "win/win" prior to the November election. The first "win" would be for Obama to have largely resolved an issue that cost president Jimmy Carter re-election. The second "win" would be a managed pre-election reduction in the politically sensitive US gasoline price to below US$2.50 per gallon. Obama's opposition has nothing remotely resembling a credible policy to achieve this.

France, Germany and the United Kingdom will probably take a harsh line in an attempt to be "holier than the pope", whether through grandstanding prior to an election (France); an imaginary "special relationship" with the US (UK), or a generally pro-Israeli line (Germany).

Russia and China
On the face of it, Russia has - like all producers - a short-term interest in prolonging the risk premium on oil as long as possible, but no medium- or long-term interest in oil price levels that act to destroy demand, as now, particularly in their closest markets.

China, on the other hand, would wish to see the end of sanctions and the risk premium which goes with them, and also to maintain the privileged access to Iranian oil that they have been assiduously cultivating for years.

My analysis is that Russia and China will be inclined to accept the sort of Iranian terms set out by Mousavian, and more to the point, they have the economic clout to back up their position.

"How many divisions has the pope?" - Joseph Stalin

Or in this context, how many barrels has the Group of 7 leading industrialized nations? This is the question that exemplifies realpolitik at its most brutal. The fact is that the oil sanctions imposed unilaterally by the US and EU on Iran are counter-productive, and they benefit those who do not participate. In the event of a disagreement at Istanbul or subsequently, China, India, South Africa and others will undoubtedly buy, at a price, every barrel Iran can sell.

But it is through over-reaching in relation to financial sanctions where the US may well have made a major strategic error. At the very time when the banking system is in crisis, the last thing the US should be doing is forcing a major oil producer like Iran to make alternative arrangements.

A secure messaging system - which is all that SWIFT actually comprises - is actually pretty trivial to replicate, and all it needs is participants, which may or may not be banks, that are looking to clear and settle obligations.

When the BRICS nations met late last month in New Delhi, at the top of their agenda was a BRICS bank. There is no reason at all why such a credit institution need pay heed to US sanctions in respect of Iran because, quite simply, the US needs the BRICS more than the BRICS need the US. In fact, there's no reason why it needs to be a bank at all, as opposed to a BRICS credit clearing network or clearing union.

I suspect we are now entering a period of consequences ... unforeseen consequences.

Chris Cook is a former director of the International Petroleum Exchange. He is now a strategic market consultant, entrepreneur and commentator.

(Copyright 2012 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.

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asif iqbal said:

no attack on Iran will take place, if it was to happen it would have

plus attacking Irans nuclear programme will only set it back and not finish it

in addition they can attack Iran but then what will be Irans retaliation strike? can international community afford it? all indictions are no and certainly GCC are not for such a attack

one Shahab missile flying over Dubai and all foreign FDI will be flowing out overnight

plus Iran is big trade partner for GCC, Iranian lobby in US is powerful, Iran has influence in Lebanon and open a 2nd front against Israel, the list is too long

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Kurt said:

What if someone wants that conflict? What if these threats are used as oblique approach for other goals?
In a systemic way, the nuclear conflict does stabilize Iran's gouvernment by highlighting a foreign aggression on perceived inalienable rights on nuclear energy production and research. The other Gulf States have to fear Iranian retaliation and are bound to improve their cooperation with the US. From this perspective the Damocles sword looks like a most convenient tool for a state of affairs until a strike is really more beneficial.

The Iranian uranium enrichment has little to do with nuclear bomb technology that is a whole level of complications ahead of that and anyone who can deliver stuxnet can sabotage the required high-tech complex of a bomb. Totally forgotten seems the reported deal between Iran and Kazakhstan on two nuclear warheads (out of 100 in the short-lived post-Soviet Kazakhstan arsenal

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) that would provide Iran with already enriched material for crude 1-2 bombs. I don't know if this deal happened or not, but it seems likely because the other nuclear disarmaments are also rumoured to have had "leaks". Handing such a nuclear device to someone with a capable scientific level with an agreement of exchanging know-how would be a way to ensure the cheapest second strike level, theoretical nuclear capability. On a scientific and technology level Kazakhstan is not as developed as Iran, the country that traditionally had a major influence on this region if the Shia-Sunni conflict is put aside.

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Iran's Persian Gulf gambit takes shape
Kaveh L Afrasiabi

Responding to the onset of the European Union's oil embargo with a defiant show of military strength and renewed threats to close the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has signaled to the West that it won't be a passive victim of economic warfare.

Iranian officials this week made defiant remarks over a United States build up of forces in the Persian Gulf after a three-day missile drill concluded on Wednesday. The commander of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps' aerospace division, Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, said that all US bases in the region are within the reach of Iran's missiles.

The Great Prophet 7 exercise concluded a day after a "technical meeting" between Iran and the Iran "5 +1" on Tuesday that, as expected, failed to produce any meaningful results.

The US had dispatched two of its top proliferation experts, Gary Samore and Robert Einhorn, to the meeting in Istanbul, likely to indicate its commitment to the "diplomatic channel". However, few Iranians are convinced that the US and its Western allies are serious about reaching a compromise. As was noted by Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Ali Asghar Soltanieh, "some countries are not serious about negotiation".

Even in the US there is a rising chorus of disapproval over the Western approach toward Iran, with US commentators criticizing Western governments for failing to offer Iran any tangible rewards in exchange for concessions Tehran is willing to offer on the issue of its enriched uranium.

The international relations theorist Kenneth Waltz has also openly defended Iran's legitimate right to develop a nuclear arsenal to balance against Israel's destabilizing nuclear monopoly. (See Why Iran does not want the bomb, Asia Times Online, July 4, 2012).

The credibility of the West's coercive approach to Iran has been undermined and no amount of US or Israeli propaganda can hide the fact. It is also growing harder to obscure that the rigid and inflexible Western strategy vis-a-vis Iran has put the world on the brink of a disastrous war, in light of rising temperatures in Persian Gulf.

The battle over Hormuz
Concerned over pending legislation in the Iranian Majlis (parliament) calling for a closure of the Strait of Hormuz - at least to oil tankers en route to countries that have accepted US sanctions - the US Navy has beefed up its presence in Persian Gulf.

The US has doubled its number of minesweepers in the regional waters to eight in recent weeks, and several squadrons of F-22s and F-15s have been relocated to nearby US base. These forces would be tasked with keeping the Strait open in the event of an Iranian attempt to close it or interfere in oil transport.

The legislation on closing the Strait, prepared by the Majlis's national security and foreign affairs committee, has already been signed by 100 deputies (from a total 290 members) and is on the verge of being sent to the floor for voting. If passed as expected, this will spur Iran's military commanders to rely more forcefully on "hard power" to respond to US sanctions.

A militarization of the Iran nuclear crisis seems likelier now than ever before, portending a volatile scenario that will impact on oil prices and the health of the world economy.

The US and its allies are gambling that Iran will refrain from disruptive behavior in Persian Gulf waters simply due to the asymmetry of any conflict. However, this rests on the erroneous assumption that Iran will bear the crippling brunt of sanctions without striking back. This is exactly what Iraq under Saddam Hussein did for a decade and half before his country - weakened considerably by the punitive measures - was subjected to a brutal, illegal invasion.

A number of Iranian pundits say the US and its allies have already declared "economic warfare" against Iran and therefore should expect stern reactions. This may come in the form of targeting Western interests in the region, undermining Persian Gulf stability, or supporting anti-North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in Afghanistan.

Tehran may decide to target foreign tankers in a strategy tantamount to maritime guerrilla warfare, while playing a game of brinksmanship with the superior US military power. Other steps would be accelerating Iran's enrichment program possibly even beyond the limit of 20% to achieve weapons grade plutonium, reducing cooperation with the IAEA and even exiting the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Far from being irrational and or suicidal, Iran has calculated is that the US, economically bleeding from military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, is ill-prepared for a war would instantly hit the American consumers in the pocket in the form of heightened oil prices, particularly in an election year.

"Iran's message to [US President Barack] Obama is very clear: we are not another Iraq and have learned the right lesson from America's invasion of Iraq after bleeding it for years," says a Tehran University political science professor who spoke on the condition of anonymity. He adds that most Iranians are "nationalistic" and will support the government in case of a military confrontation "with Uncle Sam".

For now, however, the long list of 20 nations granted exemptions from the oil embargo, covering some 80% of Iran's oil market, represent a major barrier to the war scenario, by giving Iran temporary assurance that its economic lifeline is not cut off. These exemptions by the Obama administration are subject to review in six months - after the November US presidential elections - with a view towards containing the Iran crisis. Should the US determine that most if not all of the present exemptions need to be overturned, that would be an invitation for some serious blowback.

Defying the hawkish maneuvers by the US, Iran's response is tempered by the belief that there are significant loopholes in the sanctions that give the countries breathing space. Without doubt, unless the West makes a U-turn in its present diplomatic charade the stage will be set for that eventuality sooner rather than later.

Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) . For his Wikipedia entry, click here. He is author of Reading In Iran Foreign Policy After September 11 (BookSurge Publishing , October 23, 2008) and Looking for rights at Harvard. His latest book is UN Management Reform: Selected Articles and Interviews on United Nations CreateSpace (November 12, 2011).

(Copyright 2012 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

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Kurt said:

@ Subedei: The Saudi oil installations and US bases are defensible against the Iranian missiles because they can set up predictable missile trap situations to intercept Iran's not-state-of-the-art arsenal.

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