Iran, So Far Away

If it's summer, it must mean another "Iran is an imminent nuclear threat!" story, only this time the twist is that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is the one who will start the music.  MJ Rosenberg at Media Matters quotes former CIA legend Robert Baer (played by George Clooney in the movie Syriana, Baer also wrote the book the movie was based on) who went on to say that an Israeli attack on Iran could come before the end of September.

There is almost "near certainty" that Netanyahu is "planning an attack [on Iran] ... and it will probably be in September before the vote on a Palestinian state. And he's also hoping to draw the United States into the conflict," Baer explained.

The Israeli air force would attack "Natanz and other nuclear facilities to degrade their capabilities. The Iranians will strike back where they can: Basra, Baghdad," he said, and even Afghanistan. Then the United States would jump into the fight with attacks on Iranian targets. "Our special forces are already looking at Iranian targets in Iraq and across the border [in Iran] which we would strike. What we're facing here is an escalation, rather than a planned out-and-out war. It's a nightmare scenario. We don't have enough troops in the Middle East to fight a war like that." He add, "I think we are looking into the abyss."

Masters asked Baer why the U.S. military is not mobilizing to stop this war from happening. Baer responded that the military is opposed, as is former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who used his influence to thwart an Israeli attack during the Bush and Obama administrations. But he's gone now and "there is a warning order inside the Pentagon" to prepare for war.

It should be noted that the Iranian regime is quite capable of triggering a war with the United States through some combination of colossal stupidity and sheer hatred. In fact, as Baer explained, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard would welcome a war. They are "paranoid." They are "worried about ... what's happening to their country economically, in terms of the oil embargo and other sanctions." And they are worried about a population that increasingly despises the regime.

They need an external enemy. Because we are leaving Iraq, it's Israel. But in order to make this threat believable, they would love an attack on their nuclear facilities, love to go to war in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and Iraq and hit us where they could. Their defense is asymmetrical. We can take out all of their armored units. It's of little difference to them, same with their surface-to-air missile sites. It would make little difference because they would use terrorism. They would do serious damage to our fleet in the Gulf.

Given all that, is it possible that the United States would allow Israel to attack when the president knows we would be forced' to join the war on Israel's side?

Baer reasons that without Robert Gates stopping Netanyahu, things could be mobilized pretty quickly as far as an Israeli military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.  It would certainly draw the US into the conflict, Congress would insist on that.

From there, well.  Who knows?  China jumps in, possibly?  Russia?  Things could spiral out of control extremely quickly if Israel goes after Iran.  How valid Baer's assumption is, I have no idea, I'm not on the CIA's Middle East desk.  I do know that many Israeli voices have cautioned against such action, and I know relations between Netanyahu and President Obama are pretty much in the basement right now.

One would think Leon Panetta, the new Defense Secretary and former CIA director, might be cognizant of what Israel plans to do militarily.  I sure hope he has plans to put a leash on the guy, otherwise we're truly screwed.