Debat was speaking at a meeting organised by The National Interest, a conservative
foreign policy journal. He told The Sunday Times that the US military had concluded:
“Whether you go for pinprick strikes or all-out military action, the reaction
from the Iranians will be the same.” It was, he added, a “very legitimate
strategic calculus”.
President George Bush intensified the rhetoric against Iran last week, accusing
Tehran of putting the Middle East “under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust”.
He warned that the US and its allies would confront Iran “before it is
too late”.
One Washington source said the “temperature was rising” inside the
administration. Bush was “sending a message to a number of audiences”,
he said ? to the Iranians and to members of the United Nations security council
who are trying to weaken a tough third resolution on sanctions against Iran for
flouting a UN ban on uranium enrichment.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last week reported “significant”
cooperation with Iran over its nuclear programme and said that uranium enrichment
had slowed. Tehran has promised to answer most questions from the agency by
November, but Washington fears it is stalling to prevent further sanctions.
Iran continues to maintain it is merely developing civilian nuclear power.
Bush is committed for now to the diplomatic route but thinks Iran is moving
towards acquiring a nuclear weapon. According to one well placed source, Washington
believes it would be prudent to use rapid, overwhelming force, should military
action become necessary.
Israel, which has warned it will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons,
has made its own preparations for airstrikes and is said to be ready to attack
if the Americans back down.
Alireza Jafarzadeh, a spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran,
which uncovered the existence of Iran’s uranium enrichment plant at Natanz,
said the IAEA was being strung along. “A number of nuclear sites have
not even been visited by the IAEA,” he said. “They’re giving
a clean bill of health to a regime that is known to have practised deception.”
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, irritated the Bush administration
last week by vowing to fill a “power vacuum” in Iraq. But Washington
believes Iran is already fighting a proxy war with the Americans in Iraq.
The Institute for the Study of War last week released a report by Kimberly
Kagan that explicitly uses the term “proxy war” and claims that
with the Sunni insurgency and Al-Qaeda in Iraq “increasingly under control”,
Iranian intervention is the “next major problem the coalition must tackle”.
Bush noted that the number of attacks on US bases and troops by Iranian-supplied
munitions had increased in recent months ? “despite pledges by Iran to
help stabilise the security situation in Iraq”.
It explains, in part, his lack of faith in diplomacy with the Iranians. But
Debat believes the Pentagon’s plans for military action involve the use
of so much force that they are unlikely to be used and would seriously stretch
resources in Afghanistan and Iraq.
