As the old saying goes, there cannot be so much smoke without some fire. Authoritative reports about America's "accelerated" military planning and preparations to attack Iran and destroy its nuclear installations, especially those connected with its programme for enriching uranium, are fast piling up.
Ambivalent official denials describing these reports as "pure speculation" mean nothing. A well-documented dispatch in Washington Post about the intentions of the "neo-cons" who practically control the Bush administration, now in its second and last term, was alarming enough. But what Seymour Hersh, a renowned investigative journalist, has reported in the New Yorker is blood-chilling.
For, according to him, US military planners are "not ruling out using tactical nuclear weapons" against Iran. The idea, apparently discussed at the highest level, is to use "bunker busting" nuclear bombs against underground Iranian enrichment facilities at Natanz. Hersh asserts that when the Joint Chiefs of Staff "later sought permission" to drop the nuclear option, "unidentified officials at the White House resisted".
The distinguished journalist quotes senior officials to the effect, "This is much more than a nuclear issue. That's just a rallying point and there is still time to fix it. But the administration believes it cannot be fixed unless they control the hearts and minds of Iranians. The real issue is who is going to control the Middle East and its oil for the next 10 years".
In other words, America's real aim in Iran is "regime change". The allocation of $85 million in the budget for "promoting democracy in Iran" is loud and clear. However, the problem about regime change is that it calls for the use of ground troops. To send them into Iran in today's circumstances would be lunacy.
Nearly 1,50,000 US ground forces have not been able to prevent the awful mess they have created in Iraq three years after the so-called victory. Nor does the US have any idea about how to get out. Iraq is a flat and sandy desert land. Iranian terrain is different and very difficult. The Iranian capacity to resist any invaders is much greater than that of the Saddam regime in Baghdad was.
Obviously it is in this context that Hersh has given gory details of the various options approved by the strategic planners in Washington. Most of these are based on massive, but carefully selected use of cruise missiles and carrier-based formidable air power of the United States, rather like President Clinton had done in the Balkans.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is entirely right when he says that a nuclear Iran is not in India's national interest. Or in the interest of the oil-rich, highly volatile and delicately balanced region, one might add. But that does not give the US any right to unilaterally to attack Iran, from air or land or both, to set up in Tehran a regime of its own liking.
The American calculation may be that India, anxious to see the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal go through the American Congress, would quietly lump the American aggression on Iran. Some, though not all, in the ruling establishment here also might argue that silence may perhaps be India's best option. That would be utterly perverse and totally unacceptable.
At the present moment there is no need to shout publicly. But quietly, diplomatically, and politely but firmly, Washington should be told in no uncertain terms that, far from acquiescing an invasion of Iran, India would be in the forefront of those condemning it, the nuclear deal or no nuclear deal. In any case, if US cruise missiles do start pounding Iranian targets, the Indo-US nuclear deal would go down the drain.
At the time of the invasion of Iraq, the constituents of the UPA government were in the opposition. For a long while, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government remained silent, though several ministers, led by the then deputy prime minister, were anxious to send Indian troops to Iraq. Only the sagacious Atal Bihari Vajpayee put paid to that folly. Later, he agreed to the unanimous adoption of a parliamentary resolution "deploring" the American action in Iraq though not condemning it.
There are other reasons why unilateral military action by the world's self-appointed super cop would be completely out of order. The UN Security Council and the world body's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), are already seized of the issue. In fact, an IAEA delegation is already in Tehran. The agency's director-general, Mohammed ElBaradei, is to submit a fresh report to the Security Council by April 28.
Meanwhile, behind the smokescreen of heated rhetoric and high indignation, the hard-line government of President Ahmednijad has made the IAEA offers that would have been hard to believe earlier. For instance, Iran is now willing to have IAEA inspectors "posted permanently" at all its installations. It is even prepared to convert all fissile material into fuel rods for reactors and to pass a law in the Majlis forswearing nuclear weapons, but not uranium enrichment. It is also ready to undertake not to produce plutonium. And so on.
No wonder, France and Germany—two of the three European Union members that have been negotiating with Iran—have suggested that these negotiations should be extended beyond April 28. But the remaining member of the EU-3, Britain, is significantly silent. So regrettably is the US, presumably because it is too buy with its military plans.
Remarkably, Iran has nonchalantly dismissed all the frightening threats emanating from the White House and Pentagon as no more than "psychological warfare". The official spokesman of the Iranian Foreign Office has added that the war cries of America are a measure of its "anger because it is helpless". Given the awesome weight of arguments against the folly of starting a war against Iran when Iraq faces a civil war and perhaps fragmentation, this may well be the case.
To justify its "shock and awe" in relation to Iraq, Washington had made statements emphatically that have subsequently turned out to be untrue. For instance, all the allegations about weapons of mass destruction were false.
So was the charge of a link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. Never before has there been such stupendous terrorism in Iraq as under American occupation at present. The report prepared by the civilian and military officers on the spot gives the lie to the optimistic statements being made by the likes of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. No wonder George W Bush's rating has fallen to a historic low.
The Iranians may not have any military leverage against the mighty United States, except for resort to terrorism and creating trouble for the US and its allies everywhere, especially within Iraq. But of one thing all concerned can be sure. Armed conflict with Iran would certainly lead to a lowering of oil production. World oil prices could soar. That could damage the American economy and decimate that of India. That, combined with public opinion, as it manifested itself over the Iran vote at Vienna, should be warning enough for the policy makers here.
