WarSclerotic

Barak Obama

In his thirteen-and-a-half months in office, President Barak Obama has never stopped looking for Iranian partners to engage in diplomacy for reining in its nuclear program. Spurned time and time again, he is now on his fourth try.
His administration started out with the working hypothesis that Iran’s supreme ruler, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were not, despite their often wild rhetoric, total lunatics but political pragmatists who would eventually come around to a deal on their nuclear program.
A plan was devised to let them off the hook of the international ban on uranium enrichment, and allow them to continue the process and go after the technology for building a nuclear weapon.
It was assumed that the Iranians would stop short of actually assembling one. On this assumption, the Obama administration refrained from throwing its moral weight behind the protest movement when it sprang up in June over the alleged falsification of the presidential vote face of brutal suppression.
When Tehran remained impervious to this inducement and diplomatic persuasion, Obama set September 2009 as the first deadline for Iran to comply with UN Security Council resolutions on enrichment and level with the International Atomic Energy Agency on its clandestine projects.
He pushed the deadline back to December, when Tehran joined talks with representatives of the 5+1 (the five permanent Security Council members plus Germany) on a fresh plan for the transfer of most of Iran’s low-grade enriched uranium stock to Europe for further processing as fuel for medical research.

Courting the Revolutionary Guards

December went by without a formal Iranian response to the Six-Power plan – and so did January.
Yet Washington still waited. Then, in early February, Ahmadinejad announced proudly that Iran would begin enriching uranium to 20 percent grade on its own. Still, Obama did not rule out another engagement bid. In answer to a question put to him on Feb. 9, he said: “At this point, it seems they have made a decision, but the door is still open.”
Meanwhile, a US effort to bring Russia aboard a Security Council sanctions motion sank almost without a trace.
The Obama administration’s fourth move is revealed here for the first time by DEBKA-Net-Weekly Washington sources: Since the last week of February, US emissaries have been engaged in a hush-hush quest for a deal with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps leaders, with a view to distancing them from their loyalty to president Ahmadinejad, a former member.
In secret encounters with IRGC high-ups in Tehran and European cities, administration envoys made the following pitch:
The Obama administration is not after regime change in Tehran; it has proved this by withholding its support from the opposition’s campaign of anti-government street protests in the heart of the Iranian capital in the last six months. In the meantime, US intelligence currently estimates that Iran’s opposition Green Movement is fading and no longer a threat to the regime.

How about a lame-duck president?

The Americans are also naturally au fait with the Revolutionary Guards’ internal affairs and therefore aware of the fundamental change in emphasis it is undergoing, gradually evolving from an organization geared to military functions to one dominated by the financial interests of its huge business empire.
This dynamic was exhibited most prominently in the low profile its leaders maintained during the months of domestic upheaval besetting the government. Only rarely did a corps figure speak out in defense of the president or spiritual ruler. Indeed, note was taken in Washington that since January 2010, too, not a single commander has voiced support for Ahmadinejad.
The Obama administration deduced the Guards had come to regret engineering his re-election as president in June 2009. Washington hoped that this disenchantment stemmed from the same disappointment as the Obama administration felt in Ahmadinejad’s continued pursuit of the most radical path in all circumstances, rather than opting for a more pragmatic nuclear policy vis-à-vis the US.
Inferring a common interest, White House strategists drew up a four-point plan for a joint US-IRGC effort to sideline the president.
1. Neither believe it is possible to oust the troublesome Iranian president or force him to resign before his term is up in 2013. Therefore, what the US is proposing is that the IRGC clip his wings and make him a lame-duck president for his remaining three years in office.

The IRGC would be first in line for sanctions

2. The Revolutionary Guard high command should take into account that harsh sanctions against Iran, whether imposed by the UN Security Council or unilaterally by the US and its allies, could cripple up to one-third of the Islamic Republic’s economic activity. The Corps’ business bodies would be first in line for penalties that would seriously stunt its financial growth pattern.
If, on the other hand, sanctions could be averted by becoming superfluous, the Guards’ economic base and its profitability would retain its robustness and continue to expand unhindered.
3. The Guards must pick a new candidate for president and groom him for election in 2013.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly sources discuss the candidates proposed.
The administration’s Iran experts are confident the Revolutionary Guard command would not want to see another extremist like Ahmadinejad’s mentor, the radical Ayatollah Messabah-Yazdi, replacing him, especially after Yazdi wrote in a political-religious work that it was incumbent on Iran to obtain nuclear arms, which he called a “special weapon of war.” Iran’s clerical elite rarely refers to the nuclear program in these terms in public.
They would much prefer a realistic politician like the former president Hashem Rafsanjani or a seasoned diplomat like the Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani.

IRGC reps listen and report back

Because the bellicose ayatollah’s words have given wings to Tehran’s drive for a nuclear bomb, the US emissaries urged the Guards to start looking for a new presidential candidate right now and start preparing the ground for his ascent to office.
4. Touching on the most sensitive part of their mission, the men from Washington said the US is reconciled to Iran attaining a military nuclear capacity so long as it does not the cross the threshold and actually assemble or build stocks of atom bombs. Accepting that the IRGC is in control of the two key branches – the nuclear weapons program and the production of missiles for their delivery – Obama’s messengers proposed that both continue to be developed up to a point mutually agreed between Washington and the Guards.
The US administration is still waiting for the Revolutionary Guards’ high command to respond to its proposals which its representatives promised to pass on to their superiors. But Washington is optimistic about an affirmative reply to its offer of cooperation. Indeed, the few administration insiders privy to the plan have been advised that moves are afoot to strip Ahmadinejad of his (Revolutionary Guard) armor.
As for its al Qods Brigades external terrorist arm, the administration hopes that as ties of cooperation evolve, the IRGC can be weaned from its rampant relations with the most radical terrorist organizations in the Middle East. Obama and his aides are not deterred by the failure of this tactic when they tried to engage Syrian Bashar Assad. He cheerfully continues to host myriad terrorist organizations and arm Hizballah, while Hizballah itself used Western tolerance to lever itself into the Lebanese government without relinquishing its smuggled missile arsenal or dismantling its militia.

Nuclear watchdog grants Obama five months for his new tack

President Ahmadinejad chose Saturday, March 6, to heap insults of exceptional virulence on the United States: “September 11 was a big lie paving the way for the invasion of Afghanistan under the pretext of fighting terrorism,” he ranted, making sure the quote was aired in a state broadcast.
He went on to call the al Qaeda hijackers airborne strikes on the World Trade Center’s twin towers a “scenario and a complex act of intelligence services.”
This unbridled attack was taken in Washington to indicate that Ahmadinejad had got wind of the new diplomatic feelers Washington had sent out to the Revolutionary Guards and would not take them lying down, any more than he would give up his verbal abuse of Israel.
Wednesday, March 10, the Iranian president landed in Kabul for added provocation. Addressing the media, he accused the US of playing a double game by establishing terrorist organizations, then fighting them.
The impact of Obama’s latest venture on the political equilibrium of the Islamic Republic’s ruling regime has yet to be assessed. In the meantime, Washington has won some months for pursuing its latest diplomatic track. The gift came from Vienna Monday, March 8, when International Atomic Energy Agency director Yukiya Amano said the agency’s board would resume its consideration of Iran’s nuclear program and reach decisions only in five months’ time.
July 2010 is therefore the US president’s next deadline for making headway on the Iranian nuclear controversy with its newest diplomatic partner, the Revolutionary Guards Corps, an internationally listed terrorist organization. He has five months to explore this channel.

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Gen. David Petraeus

Iran was clearly uppermost in the mind of the US Central Command chief Gen. David Petraeus when he was interviewed Sunday, March 7, by CNN’s by Fareed Zakaria. Some of his remarks, though sparsely reported, were unexpectedly revealing on the political situation in Tehran, the point its nuclear program had reached and the likelihood of a US and/or Israel attack on its facilities.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly quotes the most telling of Petraeus’s remarks:
Well, first, I think you’re absolutely right to say that the security elements in Iran, particularly the Revolutionary Guard’s corps, the – the Quds force and the Basij, the militia, have had to focus a great deal more on internal security challenges than they did in the past. And, indeed, I think you’ve heard it said by pundits that Iran has gone from being a theocracy to a thugocracy, that it has frankly become much more of a police state than it ever was in – in the past since the Revolution.
Turning to the Iranian military nuclear program, he said:
I think it’s something slightly different, actually. I think, first of all, that there can be a debate about whether or not the final decision has been made. I think in fact probably that final decision has not been made by the Supreme Leader, and that will be his decision to take.
But that’s a little bit immaterial at this point in time because all of the components of a program to produce nuclear weapons, to produce the delivery means and – and all the rest of that, all of these components have been proceeding as if they want to be in a position where he can make that decision, having reached the so-called threshold capability. And that is, of course, what is so worrisome to the countries in the region, and, of course, above all, to – to Israel and obviously to the United States and the countries of the west.”

Some Gulf leaders even hope for an Israeli strike

Discussing a possible attack on Iran, which would fall under the CENTCOM commander’s jurisdiction, Gen. Petraeus said:
Well, I think, first of all, you have to ask a country that is most directly concerned about this, and that would be Israel. And, at the end of the day, what we might want with a slightly detached perspective than the other western countries. What the Gulf States and others might be willing to accept –
And by – by the way, there is no uniform or universal acceptance of what you had just laid out. In fact, it’s quite the contrary in many of the countries, and there’s quite a –
ZAKARIA: Meaning what? They – they want the United States to strike?
PETRAEUS: Well, there are some that are very, very, very, very concerned about the developments in Iran and they find that very –
(CROSS TALK).
PETRAEUS: – difficult.
ZAKARIA: What does that mean? They want – they want the United States to strike?
PETRAEUS: Well, it’s interesting. I think there – there is almost a slight degree of bipolarity there at times. On the one hand, there are countries that would like to see a strike, us or perhaps Israel, even. And then there’s the worry that someone will strike, and then there’s also the worry that someone will not strike. And, again, reconciling that is – is one of the challenges of operating in the region right now.
Our job right now is to ensure that we’re prepared for any contingencies, that we can support in deed, with the diplomatic efforts, to transition now to the pressure track and so forth.

Petraeus lets the cat out of the bag

The Obama administration – particularly its Iran strategists – would have preferred three of the American general’s utterances to have remained unsaid in public, DEBKA-Net-Weekly military and intelligence sources note:
1. By calling Iran a “thugocracy,” Petraeus publicly stigmatized Iran’s dominant Revolutionary Guards, indirectly criticizing the Obama administration for seeking to engage this highly disreputable organization in dialogue for political-military understandings.
2. He rendered the debate within the administration over whether or not Iran is resolved to develop a nuclear weapon academic by delineating Iran’s progress toward that goal: “…all the components of a program to produce nuclear weapons, to produce the delivery means, have been proceeding…” ready for that decision.
3. On the chances of a military strike on Iran’s nuclear sites, Petraeus made a disclosure which neither Washington nor Jerusalem is keen to bring to the knowledge of their publics. He noted that some Persian Gulf states – without naming them – were worried enough about a nuclear-armed Iran to hope for a military strike to smash its program, regardless of whether it was carried out by the US, Israel, or both.
The American general confirmed that the biggest danger hanging over Iran’s nuclear program came from Israel.
The CENTCOM commander made these remarks just two days before US Vice President Joe Biden began visits to Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Biden’s primary mission was to make sure Israel did not embark on unilateral military action against Iran without prior clearance from Washington.

Arabs frown on Obama’s secret talks with Revolutionary Guards

Shortly before his arrival, our Washington and Jerusalem sources report, unofficial US emissaries brought Jerusalem the news – a shocker – that the Obama administration had launched secret talks with Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps representatives – despite its history as architect and sponsor of terror – and was maneuvering for more time to properly explore this track.
The message was delivered to a number of prominent, non-official Israelis for relaying to prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and defense minister Ehud Barak.
But it did not stop there. Jerusalem and Cairo are coordinated on military efforts against Iran. Through Egypt, Israel and Saudi Arabia are also linked by a more serpentine thread. Therefore, Washington assumed that after word reached Israel, it would not be long before it hit the Persian Gulf and the rest of the Middle East.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly sources in the Gulf and the Middle East report that the Egyptians, Saudis and Gulf emirs reacted to the news with strong disapproval. Resentment in Cairo and Riyadh simmered amid the fear of disastrous repercussions. They suspected the US of not merely giving up on stopping Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon, but feared Washington was about to embrace this prospect and then offer the moderate Arab nations the protection of an American nuclear umbrella. The sense in Riyadh is that the Obama administration is looking past next year’s US troop withdrawal from Iraq, and acting to bolster America’s permanent military presence and influence in the Gulf region.
They fail to see how Washington can tame the al Qods Brigades, the IRGC’s operational arm for running terrorist and intelligence networks around the Persian Gulf and Middle East. Seen from Riyadh, the US diplomatic venture is a threat in that sense because it will let al Qods off the leash and free to enhance its potential for troublemaking among Saudi Arabia’s Shiite minority (10 million), which inhabits the oil-rich Eastern Provinces.

Israel in shock

Israeli political and military leaders were dismayed to learn of the Obama administration’s secret dialogue with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards representatives.
Their first thought was that this step had put paid to the prospect of harsh sanctions, since Washington had repeatedly singled out the IRGC as its main target for penalties against Tehran, and would therefore promise the Guards full or partial immunity to keep the talks going..
Their second thought was that the Obama administration, still guided by the determination to prevent an Israeli attack on Iran, had in fact shortened Israel’s timeline for a decision on whether to go ahead with its military option against America’s wishes.
The Netanyahu government therefore jumped as though bitten by a snake when Vice President Biden started his visit to Israel on Tuesday, March 9, by stating: “I can promise the people in Israel that we will confront as allies every security challenge that we will face.”
This statement was interpreted as a warning that America would only help those who toe Washington’s line on policy-making, emphasizing that the US was there to decide when Israel was in danger and determine the appropriate response.
The Netanyahu government first kicked back with a clumsy gesture of self-assertion. A local planning authority granted initial approval to a long-term plan for adding 1,600 housing units to the Ramat Shlomo suburb of East Jerusalem. This action succeeded in putting up every back, whether American, Palestinian or European, at the very moment that the Palestinians had been talked round into participating in US-mediated indirect peace talks with Israel, after stalling for more than a year.
Biden was furious. Although this mini-crisis was patched up before he ended his visit, differences between Washington and Jerusalem linger, and more upsets may be expected.