Team Bush intends to 'transform the Middle East'

In other words, the United States has moved up a gear on Iran precisely when progress in diplomacy has been made and when the Iranian nuclear program has slowed. This demonstrates that the upsurge in rhetoric is not correlated with Iranian nuclear activity.

But Washington has dispensed more than just rhetoric.

The United States has deployed PAC-3 ballistic missile interceptors in the region (not meant for Iraqi insurgents) along with extra mine sweepers. Washington also has two aircraft carrier battle groups deployed in the Persian Gulf. One aspect that may be Iran focused is work on the “Massive Ordnance Penetrator” (MOP) a massive bomb slated for the B-2 bomber and designed to hit hard targets.

The Natanz enrichment complex is vulnerable to current US penetrator munitions but Iran has just recently constructed a tunnel complex in a mountain near Natanz. Later this year the Pentagon may accelerate development of the MOP for early 2008, in line with reported time lines for a bombing campaign.

Reports have emerged that the US is planning a three-day bombing campaign against 1,200 targets designed to severely degrade Iranian military power in the context of “containment”. Hardliners have used phrases such as “rapid dominance” that suggest we might be in for “shock and awe” part two. Some comments are suggestive that the operation may well be under the direction of Strategic Command, rather than Central Command, as a part of “global strike”. This would be an innovation in strategic planning.

In fact the recent, highly publicised, accidental B-52 flight carrying six Advanced Cruise Missiles armed with the W80-1 nuclear warhead may well have occurred not because of lax practice but because “global strike” has lowered safety standards. If so, that would be ominous. Leading analysts Ted Postol and Pavel Podvig have pointed out that “global strike” programs increase the risk of accidental nuclear war. Indeed even STRATCOM commanders have conceded that it poses a “manageable” risk of accidental nuclear war. Are we going to set a dangerous precedent?

There have also appeared a number of other concrete steps that the US has taken with respect to Iran. Firstly, President Bush has signed off on a covert action program, ostensibly “non lethal”, against Iran that includes support for Jundallah, a group that has conducted bombings inside Iran. Of course, this would not prevent Washington from declaring Iran to be a front in the “global war on terror” at the appropriate time.

The US has placed quiet pressure on financial institutions to stop doing business with Iran that goes beyond multilateral sanctions. Such actions are hurting Iran’s oil industry and provide added incentive for Iran to pursue its nuclear program.

This is a serious issue. We now know that the financial sanctions that Washington placed on North Korea were based on the false pretence that North Korea was money laundering through a small bank. These sanctions were put in place immediately after a key agreement was reached in six-party talks with North Korea. Clearly this was an “attempt to derail the process”: an attempt that was quite successful given that North Korea went on to test, successfully or not, a nuclear weapon. Some 90 per cent, if not more, of the plutonium that North Korea re-processed for its weapons program occurred after 2003.

The combination of military pressure, covert action and financial sanctions only increases the incentive for Iran to acquire a nuclear weapons capability. This demonstrates that nuclear proliferation is not a very high priority so far as policy is concerned.

In fact even mainstream press reports speak of what has been long known by observers namely that US policy is strengthening the hand of hardliners in Tehran and serving to provide the cover under which reformists can be sidelined.

But what of Syria? It might well be that Syria is in the crosshairs as well.