TMCnet News
EDITORIAL: 'Wild speculations'(Newsday (Melville, NY) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Apr. 12--"Completely nuts." That's how British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw dismissed reports of a possible U.S. nuclear strike against Iran. He's right, of course. And President George W. Bush was equally dismissive of the same reports, which suggested the Pentagon was planning for a military strike sometime this spring to derail Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program. "Wild speculations," Bush said. We hope that's all they are. But the White House denials bear a disconcerting resemblance in tone and even language to the dismissals of reports that the Pentagon was preparing invasion plans in the run-up to the Iraq war. As the White House correctly insists, the Pentagon routinely develops contingency plans for any military eventuality -- an invasion of North Korea, say, or intervention in a Pakistani coup d'etat -- no matter how far-fetched those scenarios may be. In Iran's case, contingency plans must not, at least at this stage, turn into operational plans for an actual air strike. The consequences would be disastrous. But the details of attack plans in reports published in The Washington Post and The New Yorker magazine are specific enough to suggest a high degree of operational involvement. That's troubling. So why have these reports surfaced now? Are they part of the "coercive diplomacy" Bush says he favors to pressure Iran to back off its nuclear weapons program? Are they the result of intentional leaks by the Bush administration to credible -- and critical -- media outlets, to serve as a kind of psychological warfare against Iran? If so, they amount to a clumsy and transparent bluff that's unlikely to succeed. Any attack against Iran would result in immediate cross-border retaliation in Iraq, where more than 140,000 U.S. troops are tied down. And Iran, which has been conducting naval exercises in the Persian Gulf for the past two weeks, vowed to shut down oil production if attacked, even if such a step were to bankrupt its own economy. Yesterday, on the same day Bush denied the reports of attack plans, Iran announced it has succeeded for the first time in achieving "industrial output" of enriched uranium, the fuel needed for nuclear weapons. Is Iran perhaps just as nuts as Bush's attack plans, if such plans exist? Who can be believed, either in Tehran or Washington? |