Archaelogists Give Good Reason for Not Helping Iran's Cultural Sites

During its annual meeting held June 29-July 4 in Dublin, the World Archaeological Congress passed a resolution urging colleagues to refuse any military requests to draw up a list of Iranian sites that should be exempted from air strikes. According to the resolution, "Such advice would provide cultural credibility and respectability to the military action."

According to NewScientist.com, "Instead, delegates were advised to emphasise the harm that any military action would do to Iran's people and heritage. During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, bombing damaged important monuments, including the Al-Zohur Palace in Baghdad, and museums and archaeological sites were later looted - even though archaeologists had been consulted in advance. 'If these archaeologists had little impact in terms of saving even the few selected archaeological sites listed, what did they achieve?' asks Yannis Hamilakis of the University of Southampton, UK."

There are currently nine World Heritage sites in Iran, including Persepolis and the Armenian Monastic Ensembles just designated on July 6, 2008. In addition, there 61 sites that have been submitted to the Tentative List.

DeBorchgrave on Iran

Arnaud DeBorchgrave has a commentary in today's Washington Times in which he writes:

"Israel's message to its only ally, the United States was quite clear. Either President Bush orders military action or Israel will have to strike on its own. It can't wait till a new U.S. president is sworn in because the new White House tenant could well be Barack Obama. And Mr. Obama almost certainly would not approve an Israeli air strike without first going several extra miles on the U.N. and Western diplomatic track…If Israel were to attack Iran's nuclear facilities while Mr. Bush is still the commander in chief, China and Russia may be tempted to take a page out of Khruschchev's geopolitical playbook and rattle a few threatening economic missiles. This, in turn, would be designed to get Mr. Obama to disassociate himself from any hostile action Israel might have taken against Iran. And if that didn't elicit the desired result, Iran's formidable asymmetrical retaliatory capabilities would be unleashed throughout the Gulf in particular and the Mideast in general. Iran can also make life hell for U.S. forces in Iraq and NATO forces in Afghanistan. With U.S. consumer confidence already at a 16-year low, oil would quickly skyrocket to $400 or $500 a barrel. If, on the other hand, Sen. John McCain moves into the White House the afternoon of Jan. 20, he would presumably approve of Israeli bombing raids and Cruise missile strikes against Iran's nascent nuclear weapons capability. There is only thing worse than bombing Iran, Mr. McCain has said, and that is an Iranian nuclear bomb."

Ron Paul on Potential Attacks Against Iran and H.Con.Res. 362

A Good Reason Not to Attack Iran - This one hits close to home

On June 6, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz was quoted by the Yediot Aharonot newspaper as saying:

"If Iran continues its nuclear weapons program, we will attack it," Mofaz told the daily, stressing that such an operation could only be conducted with US support.

"Other options are disappearing. The sanctions are not effective. There will be no alternative but to attack Iran in order to stop the Iranian nuclear program," Mofaz, who is also transportation minister, said.

According to analysts, his comments, compounded by the U.S. dollar squeeze, caused crude oil to leap over the past few days. Imagine what would happen if the threats of an attack became reality.

The photo is from a BP station in Georgia.

Wilkerson on War with Iran

On June 7, Col. Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former Chief of Staff, gave an interview to the Real News Network in which he said war with Iran would reinforce U.S. strategic failure in the Persian Gulf. Click here to watch.

A third American war crime in the making?

Here is an interesting new op-ed by Paul Craig Roberts entitled "A third American war crime in the making." Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury in the Reagan administration. He has held numerous academic professorships and appointments in the US Congressional Staff. He was an associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.

Iran and Disaster Relief in Case of Military Strike

Our first meeting in Iran on February 27 was with the Iranian Red Crescent Society, a disaster relief organization similar to the International Red Cross. They have 16 medical centers in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

During the 1990s, Iran hosted the most refugees in the world, including more than two million Afghan refugees and more than a million Iraqi refugees.

The Iranian Red Crescent Society coordinated efforts following the Bam earthquake, which hit on December 26, 2003 at a magnitude of 6.5+. In talks, I often tell the story about Mercy Corps obtaining a license from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in the Department of Treasury to help with relief efforts in the year following the Bam earthquake. After the first year expired, Mercy Corps applied for an extension of its OFAC license, but was denied and forced to leave within 30 days. Mercy Corps is precisely the humanitarian emissary that the U.S. should want as its representative in Iran.

Today, the Iranian Red Crescent Society is seeking to have a joint project to establish a hospital on the Iran/Iraq border to provide special and emergency services for those inured in explosions, which might an include an orthopedic center for amputees.

At the end of the meeting, I asked whether the Iranian Red Crescent Society has prepared any contingency plans in case of a U.S. strike on Iran. The initial response I received from the Director General Dr. Seyed Hadi Samaei was that “these are political matters and we don’t pay attention.” But a young women intimately involved in relief efforts chimed in to say that they “have contingency plans in case of disasters in major population centers already in place,” implying that Red Crescent Society is indeed prepared for a disaster relief in case of a military strike.

Folly of Attacking Iran Video

In 1953, the United States violently intervened in Iran by ousting the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mossadegh and installing the shah's military regime. This backfired spectacularly in 1979 when religious militants gained power through a popular revolution and 52 U.S. diplomats were taken hostage.

Veteran New York Times correspondent Stephen Kinzer, retired General Robert Gard (Senior Military Fellow, Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation), Iranian-American scholar Trita Parsi (President, National Iranian American Council), and USA Today reporter Barbara Slavin (also a Randolph Jennings Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace) explain the need for the United States today to use diplomacy instead of force in its relationship with Iran.

Center Board Member on Hardball

Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation Board Member and MIT Security Studies Program Professor Jim Walsh was on Hardball with Chris Matthews last night to debate whether or not the US should bomb Iran. He repeated his clever line "If you like war in Iraq, you'll love war on Iran." The Center has been using Jim's line as a centerpiece for an ad campaign across the country to prevent a military strike on Iran.

Is it Fall of 2002 Again? Troubling Signs from Administration on Iran Confrontation

Today, the Friends Committee on National Legislation reported that the Bush administration has denied visas to Iranian religious leaders, who were scheduled to engage in dialogue with religious leaders in the United States.

They expressed their disappointment and said they were troubled that the administration denied the visas on what are said to be national security grounds, particularly because they received assurances that the visas would be approved.

“The denials parallel a disturbing escalation of rhetoric against Iran and further demonstrate this administration’s current strategy of confrontation rather than diplomacy,” FCNL said in an email. In February 2007, a delegation of religious leaders including FCNL Secretary Joe Volk went to Iran. They said their conversations in Iran revealed a strong Iranian desire to engage the U.S. and negotiate on the issues that divide our two countries. Failure to pursue aggressively possibilities for future agreements could lead to another avoidable catastrophe in the Middle East for the U.S. and the peoples of the region.

Meanwhile, George Packer from the New Yorker said on his blog today that if there was ever a threat level on war with Iran, we’ve now reached orange. He also confirmed a blog posting from Barnett Rubin, the highly respected Afghanistan expert at New York University, regarding an account of a conversation with a friend who has connections to someone at a neoconservative institution in Washington who said:

“They [the source's institution] have ‘instructions’ (yes, that was theword used) from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaignfor war with Iran in the week after Labor Day; it will be coordinated with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects. It will be heavy sustained assault on the airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which a war can be maintained. Evidently they don't think they'll ever get majority support for this—they want something like 35-40 percent support, which in their book is ‘plenty.’”

After Packer posted his blog, he wrote a post script which read: “Barnett Rubin just called me. His source spoke with a neocon think-tanker who corroborated the story of the propaganda campaign and had this to say about it: "I am a Republican. I am a conservative. But I'm not a raging lunatic. This is lunatic."

Potential for a US Strike on Iran?

I have received numerous emails regarding Bob Baer’s article in Time magazine that was published on August 18th asking my take on whether a strike will happen in the next six months and if recent Bush administration moves are signaling a move towards military confrontation.

The opening to the article is key:
"Officials I talk to in Washington vote for a hit on the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps], maybe within the next six months. And they think that as long as we have bombers and missiles in the air, we will hit Iran's nuclear facilities. An awe and shock campaign, lite, if you will. But frankly they're guessing; after Iraq the White House trusts no one, especially the bureaucracy."

First of all, it might be a good time to point out that numerous experts, even with reputable backgrounds, have been predicting a US attack on Iran in the next six months for the last couple of years. It hasn’t happened yet, which of course is a good thing and I don’t want it to happen.

I do believe that, yes, there elements in the Administration, particularly Vice President Cheney and his advisors, who are pushing for war. There are also others in the Administration, such as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who have been pushing for the “change in regime behavior”/"diplomacy" route.

The IRGC are both a political and military force in Iran and its members are embedded in the country’s political and economic structure. It is not clear who controls the force, though they are under the nominal control of the Supreme Leader. They act as self-appointed guardians of the revolution and they are likely to undermine any proponents of reform and moderation inside Iran. They also are likely to undermine proponents of engagement with the US or the West.

Neither the military nor the Bush administration has provided any substantiated evidence regarding its claims of IRGC’s involvement in Iraq. More than anything else, the possible move to label the IRGC as a terrorist organization has more to do with political showmanship and satisfying target audiences, such as Members of Congress who have been pushing for strengthened unilateral sanctions. But, the potential move will only undermine US security interests rather than enhance them, including hampering talks with Iran over Iraq security. Also, the potential designation of the IRGC on the terrorist list will really bring more of a backlash for Iranian citizens.

A hit on Iran’s nuclear sites would also not be in the strategic interest of the US. While a US military attack on Iran’s nuclear sites may temporarily push back the country’s program, but it would also strengthen the hand of hardliners in Iran who are pushing for nuclear weapons and rally the Iranian people around the flag.

Indeed, it is clear that the Bush administration’s present course of increased saber rattling is disconcerting and will only undermine efforts towards rapprochement with Iran. We need to do everything we can to demonstrate there are viable alternatives and that diplomacy has not been exhausted. We should also exercise caution in overhyping any potential US strike but without underestimating forces that wish to initiate it.

Military strikes could speed Iran’s development of nuclear weapons, warns new report

Military strikes, instead of setting back Iran’s nuclear program, could actually speed up their production of a nuclear weapon, according to a new report written by one of the UK’s leading nuclear scientists published on 5 March 2007.

The report shows that following an armed attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Iran could change the nature of its program to assemble a small number of devices relatively quickly.

The report is written by Dr. Frank Barnaby, who worked as a weapons scientist at the headquarters of the UK’s Atomic Weapons Establishment (Aldermaston) during the development of Britain’s own nuclear weapons, and is published by Oxford Research Group, one of the UK’s leading global security think tanks.

“If Iran is moving towards a nuclear weapons capacity it is doing so relatively slowly, most estimates put it at least five years away.

However attacking Iran - far from setting back their progress towards a bomb - would almost certainly lead to a fast-track program to develop a small number of nuclear devices as quickly as possible. It would be a bit like deciding to build a car from spare parts instead of building the entire car factory. Put simply, military attacks could speed Iran’s progress to a nuclear bomb,” said the report’s author Dr Barnaby.

According to the report, previous estimates that air strikes could set back Iran’s nuclear program by 2-3-years are based on the false premise that Iran would restart its existing large-scale program on similar lines.

The report argues that it is much more likely that, following an attack, all resources would be focused on the manufacture of one or two crude nuclear devices. This realignment of Iran’s nuclear program towards a so-called ‘crash program’ could lead to a nuclear-armed Iran within one or two years.

The report’s conclusions are backed by Dr. Hans Blix, the former head of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In a foreword to the report, he says:

“Armed attacks on Iran would very likely lead to the result they were meant to avoid – the building of nuclear weapons within a few years.”

The report sets out three routes through which a ‘crash program’ could develop following attacks:

Taking plutonium from an unguarded Bushehr reactor – Under current agreements the Russians will control all fuel and spent fuel from the reactor at Bushehr. However following military strikes the Russians would be likely to leave the country providing Iran with full access to salvage plutonium from the spent fuel assemblies. In a specially built chemical facility this could be done within a few weeks. Even if the plant were destroyed in military attacks, enough material could still be retrieved to construct a nuclear weapon.

Black market – Following an attack Iran could turn to the black market to acquire weapons useable plutonium or uranium. The quantities involved (the size of an orange) would be relatively easy to smuggle. The political costs of being detected would decrease following military action and the motivation for using any means necessary to build a nuclear weapon is likely to increase.

Clandestine facilities - the US have stated that their intelligence on Iran is poor and it is thus feasible that Iran has already set up clandestine facilities housing centrifuges that could escape an attack. Whereas Iran is currently relying on its own scientists, as part of a crash program Iran could seek external support, to overcome any technical difficulties.

Following an attack the potential speed of recovery would be accelerated further by Iran’s likely withdrawal from the non- proliferation treaty - which would enable it to proceed without further inspections – and by bolstered domestic support for nuclear production.

Commenting on the launch of the report, Dr. John Sloboda, Executive Director of Oxford Research Group, said:

“This report doesn’t get into the rights and wrongs of military strikes on Iran - it asks whether they will achieve their objectives of destroying or setting back Iran’s nuclear program. The conclusions should be food for thought for even the most hawkish: military strikes against Iran will simply not work. Indeed they could even bring a nuclear-armed Iran closer.”

Dr. Blix added:

“In the case of Iraq, the armed action launched aimed to eliminate weapons of mass destruction – that did not exist. It led to tragedy and regional turmoil. In the case of Iran armed action would be aimed at intentions – that may or may not exist. However, the same result – tragedy and regional turmoil – would inevitably follow.”