Thursday 26 April 2012

‘US not ready to wage war against Iran’


Despite conflicting statements from top Israeli officials on Iran’s nuclear program, the threat of war remains high. US Colonel Douglas McGregor told RT that after an Israeli strike, Tehran won’t need to build nuclear bombs - it will be given them.

President Obama has put forward an ultimatum for Iran: either make progress with negotiators or face consequences, meaning war.  Some say a strike [on Iran] may happen within the next few months.  In your opinion, how realistic is that? Should we expect a war in summer?

Douglas McGregor: A topical question right now in Washington DC. I think the answer right at the moment is no. President Obama is not remotely interested in waging war against Iran, so let’s be clear about that. No one at the top of the United States military establishment is interested in waging war against Iran, and the intelligence community has made it abundantly clear that Iran is nowhere near the development of a nuclear warhead or the capacity to deliver one.  So when you add those things up, it’s very, very obvious, at least in the places that count, the White House and the Department of Defense, there is no interest in waging a war on Iran.

RT: There’s a great push from Israeli influence groups for President Obama to back a potential strike.  And as you said, the administration says the Iranians haven’t even decided to build a bomb.  So, all this war talk is based on what?

DM: It’s based really on I think the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee and its subordinate elements, or affiliated elements, that represent enormous quantities of money that for many years have cultivated enormous influence and power in Congress.

RT: So the war talk is just to appease lobbyists?

DM: Well I think you’ve got a lot of people on [Capitol Hill] who fall into two categories:  One category that is interested in money and wants to be reelected. And they don’t want to run the risk of the various lobbies that are pushing military action against Iran contributing money to their opponents.

RT: The administration is basically saying that all it needs is evidence that Iran has acquired nuclear weapons capability.  But that’s very vague – it means being capable of doing something but not necessarily doing it.  How do you see it?

DM: Well, it’s deliberately vague, it’s deliberately ambiguous, so that various people can define it as they like.  What is a capability to do something in terms of weapons, nuclear weapons development?  How much enriched uranium are we talking about?  Is it just enriching uranium, does it involve packaging the enriched uranium?  Does it involve a test of some type?  No one has been very specific and I think that’s purposeful because if you’re sitting in the White House right now, you’re sitting at the CIA, the NSA, the DIA, or in the Pentagon, you can always say, "well we said capability, but we don’t see it yet.

RT: So is the purpose of that to keep the Israelis in check?

DM: President Obama’s preeminent concern is to get reelected.  And that’s a very dangerous proposition right now for him, depending upon what the Israelis do. If they launch a strike on their own without consulting us, independent of us entirely, and they do it in late October shortly before the election, Obama can then say "well, we’re obligated, we have to help our Israeli friends," and then he looks good.  If they do it earlier, then the consequences could be very profound for him, because it would certainly sink our economy. We would be in severe difficulty here in the United States.  We have a very neo-Wilsonian interventionist elite here inside Washington that operates independently of the American people, that thinks of itself as being morally superior and justified in taking action anywhere against anyone that it deems appropriate.  That’s the problem.  And the Iranians are justifiably concerned about that.  But they have not reached the point where they can weaponize anything, they don’t have that capability, and we do have the ability to detect that, know it, and respond to it.  They know those things.  What we need to do is move beyond this ridiculous, confrontational setting that both of us are trapped in – and that is very hard to do in an election year, when everyone is pandering to various elements of the electorate for money and votes. 

RT: Colonel, let’s say world powers, P5 +1 negotiate something, but the results don’t satisfy Israel and the US and they do go to war this summer as some predict.  What kind of immediate backlash should they expect?

DM: Iran’s trump card is subversion, the ability to subvert.

RT: So retaliation would be in the form of terrorism?

GM: It would be in the form of what I would call asymmetrical attacks – high payoff, low investment.  In other words, use what you can beyond your borders in populations friendly to you to attack the other person’s interests.  Now, we shouldn’t underestimate how much damage that could involve.  Remember, we know for instance that Hezbollah as well as Iranian elements are here in the United States, so we know that we would sustain losses here at home, there would be damage here in the United States. How many bombs would you have to explode in public malls to do enough damage to awaken everyone to what’s going on?  My point is, those are the kinds of things that I would expect. A direct military confrontation would be a losing proposition for them.  They might be able to inflict damage on our Air Forces and Naval Forces, but not on the scale that would make any difference to the outcome.  They would sustain enormous losses.

RT: What about long term effects?  Some say even if the Iranians haven’t decided to build a bomb, they are sure to do so if attacked.

DM: I would say there’s something more important. We talk about what they will do if they are attacked, but look at the rest of the world.  What will the rest of the world do if Israel attacks Iran?  Remember, this is an unprovoked assault.  The Israelis can claim otherwise, and insist otherwise, and paint this picture of enormous danger represented to Israel, but the truth is, no one buys that. My view has always been that if you do this, if Israel does this, then Iran will definitely have nuclear weapons.  They won’t have to build them, they’ll get them.  People will provide them.  They will have more help than they know what to do with.  And Iran will grow more hostile, and more bitter, and more angry and more dangerous than it has ever been.

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