[lit-ideas] Timmerman's update on Iran
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas" <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 09:22:01 -0800
Back in February I read and commented upon Timmerman's Countdown to Crisis,
The Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran, 2005. The following article from
FrontPageMagazine.com
<http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=26150> | December
27, 2006 comprises an update.
Lawrence
"Showdown" by Kenneth R.
<http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/authors.asp?ID=1021> Timmerman
The nuclear crisis boiling away under the surface for the past three years
with Iran has finally erupted.
Over the next three to six months, expect things to get much worse, with a
very real possibility of a war that could spread far beyond the confines of
the Persian Gulf.
How we got here was entirely
<http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=25504> predictable -
and avoidable. So is the path to a violent future.
We got to this point because the White House essentially caved in to intense
<http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=24529> pressure from
the CIA and the foreign policy establishment, and refused to do the one
thing that could have headed off this crisis: that is, to support the rights
of the Iranian people and their struggle for freedom against this clerical
tyranny. And now, it is almost - almost - too late.
The immediate trigger for the crisis occurred on Saturday, just two days
before Christmas, when the UN Security Council finally quit dithering and
passed a binding resolution to impose sanctions on Iran because of its
illegal nuclear program.
While far from perfect (remember: this is the UN), UNSC
<http://www.iranwatch.org/international/UNSC/unsc-resolution1737-122306.htm>
Resolution 1737 bans nuclear and missile-related trade with Iran, and
includes a short list of Iranian government entities and individuals whose
assets could be subject to seizure and who could be banned from
international travel.
(The United States had wanted both to be mandatory measures in this
resolution, but gave in to a Russian demand to again give Iran more leash).
The UN Security Council passed a similar,
<http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=24175> binding
resolution on July 31 giving Iran one month to suspend its nuclear programs
in a verifiable manner, or else.It's taken all this time since that the
earlier deadline expired for China and Russia to exhaust their formidable
bag of diplomatic tricks. Now even they have come to acknowledge the
obvious, that Iran is using the IAEA as a foil for acquiring all the
technologies it needs to make the bomb.
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad responded typically to the news from
Turtle Bay in New York. "This resolution will not harm Iran and those who
backed it will soon regret their superficial act," he
<http://www.marzeporgohar.org/index.php?action=news&n_id=33828&l=1> said on
Christmas Eve.
"Iranians are neither worried nor uncomfortable with the resolution...we
will celebrate our atomic achievements in February," he added.
In earlier statements, he has claimed Iran would have a big nuclear
"surprise" to unveil to the world by the end of the Persian year, which ends
on March 20. So unless he is just blowing smoke (and I will explain shortly
why I don't believe that he is), then we will be facing very bleak choices
in very short order.
Remember, just a few weeks ago, Ahmadinejad announced to the world that Iran
had completed its uranium enrichment experiments and was now preparing to
install 3,000 production centrifuges at its now-declared enrichment plant in
Natanz, in central Iran.
His announcement fell exactly within the timeline that Israeli nuclear
experts have derived from Iran's public declarations to the IAEA, and the
on-site inspections by IAEA experts in Iran.
As I wrote after interviews in Israel this past June, the Israelis projected
that Iran would complete work on two 164-centrifuge experimental enrichment
cascades within six months, and that installation of the 3,000 centrifuge
pilot plant would take another nine months. From then, it would take Iran
twelve months more to make its first bomb's-worth of nuclear fuel.
So far, Iran is right on schedule. This will give it nuclear weapons
capability by September 2008 - just in time for the U.S. presidential
elections. (And remember: this timeline is not speculative. It is based on
information, not intelligence.)
Once the UN Security Council resolution was passed, Ahmadinejad's top
nuclear advisor, Ali Larijani, said the regime now planned to accelerate the
installation of the production centrifuges.
"From Sunday morning [December 24] , we will begin activities at Natanz -
the site of 3,000-centrifuge machines - and we will drive it with full
speed. It will be our immediate response to the resolution," Iran
<http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iran-Nuclear.html?n=Top%2fReferenc
e%2fTimes%20Topics%2fOrganizations%2fU%2fUnited%20Nations> 's Kayhan paper
quoted him as saying.
How is this possible? Well, for one thing, it is likely that Iran has been
producing centrifuges in factories and workshops it has not declared to the
IAEA. Worse, it may be operating a clandestine enrichment facility buried
deep underground already, as many in Israel and U.S. intelligence have long
believed.
The Israelis told me this summer this was their
<http://newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/6/26/152424.shtml?s=lh>
"worst-worst case" scenario. But a senior Israeli intelligence official I
saw recently said the likelihood of that "worst-worst case" now appeared to
be far greater than he or others had previously believed. "There can be no
doubt they have a clandestine program," he said.
And because it's clandestine, we don't know the size or shape of it, and
therefore can't make estimates of Iran's nuclear timeline based on
speculation and fear. But now the Israelis, the Americans and the British
are beginning to understand - finally - that what they don't know about Iran
could be fatal.
After all, they are facing a president in Iran who has said that the
Holocaust never really occurred under Hitler, but that he intended to carry
it out himself, by accomplishing Ayatollah Khomeini's goal of "wiping Israel
off the map."
On December 21 - just two days before the UN Security Council resolution -
British Prime Minister Tony Blair gave the bleakest assessment of his entire
tenure at 10 Downing Street of the threat posed to the West by the Islamic
Republic of Iran.
Speaking in Dubai, he gave an
<http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/12/20/151824.shtml?s=lh>
unusually blunt speech that warned of a monumental struggle between Islamic
moderates and Islamic extremists, and that labeled Iran as "the main
obstacle" to hopes for peace.
For the first time, a key world leader actually uttered parts of the laundry
list of Iranian regime misdeeds that people like myself and Michael Ledeen
and Iranian dissidents such as Rouzbeh Farahanipour and Reza Pahlavi have
been warning about for years.
Blair said there were "elements of the government of Iran, openly supporting
terrorism in Iraq to stop a fledgling democratic process; trying to turn out
a democratic government in Lebanon; floutting the international community's
desire for peace in Palestine - at the same time as denying the Holocaust
and trying to acquire nuclear weapons capability."
Blair expressed surprise that despite these overt deeds, "a large part of
world opinion is frankly almost indifferent. It would be bizarre if it
weren't deadly serious."
"We must recognize the strategic challenge the government of Iran poses,"
Blair added. "Not its people, possibly not all its ruling elements, but
those presently in charge of its policy."
While all of this is developing, the United States and Britain have begun a
<http://www.navy.mil/navydata/navy_legacy.asp?id=146> quiet buildup of
their naval forces in the Persian Gulf, with the goal of keeping the Strait
of Hormuz open to international shipping.
The spark point of open military confrontation could occur in many different
ways.
The Iranians, for example, might choose to get directly involved should the
U.S. military aid the Iraqi government in a crackdown on the Iranian-backed
Mahdi Army and the Badr brigade, two Shiite militias fueling the sectarian
violence in Iraq. (A clear sign that Iran is contemplating just such a move
was revealed on Christmas day, when the U.S. Acknowledged it was holding
four Iranians captured during a raid on the Headquarters of Abdulaziz
al-Hakim in Baghdad just three weeks after he met with President Bush in the
Oval Office).
Should Iran send troops, or escalate its current level of military
involvement in Iraq, the U.S. might choose to take the war into Iran, say by
attacking Revolutionary Guards bases near the Iraqi border that were
involved in aiding the Iraqi Shi'ite militias.
Should the United States bomb a Rev. Guards base here or there, the Iranians
might choose to respond by launching "swarming" attacks against U.S.
warships in the Persian gulf, or by attacking a foreign-flagged oil tanker
carrying Iraqi or Kuwaiti oil, or by increasing rocket and missile supplies
to Hezbollah in Lebanon to spark another diversionary war against Israel.
There are scores of ways this could happen. But where it gets us is to a
direct military confrontation with Iran - an Iran which could be a nuclear
power, and certainly will be a suspected nuclear power, in a matter of
months, if not weeks.
And there is no easy way of walking this back. Even the insane
Baker-Hamilton proposal of a direct dialogue with Iran will not get them to
abandon their nuclear program, which this regime in Tehran has clearly
identified as a strategic asset it is willing to make great sacrifices to
develop and protect.
So fasten your seat belts. We are in for a rough ride.
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