Iran is feeling the heat
By C. KRAUTHAMMER
08/01/2010 22:22
– Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, July 26.
President Ahmadinejad has a penchant for the somewhat loony, as when last weekend he denounced Paul the Octopus, omniscient predictor of eight consecutive World Cup matches, as a symbol of decadence and purveyor of “Western propaganda and superstition.”
But for all his clownishness, Ahmadinejad is nonetheless calculating and dangerous. What “two countries” was he talking about? They seem logically to be Lebanon and Syria. Hizbullah in Lebanon has armed itself with 50,000 rockets and made clear that it is in a position to start a war at any time. Fighting on this scale would immediately bring in Syria, which would in turn invite Iranian intervention in defense of its major Arab clients – and of the first Persian beachhead on the Mediterranean in 1,400 years.
The idea that Israel, let alone the US, has the slightest interest in starting a war on Israel’s north is crazy.
But claims about imminent attacks are serious business in that region. In May 1967, the Soviet Union falsely told its client, Egypt, that Israel was preparing to attack Syria. These rumors set off a train of events – the mobilization of Arab armies, the southern blockade of Israel, the hasty signing of an inter-Arab military pact – that led to the Six-Day War.
Ahmadinejad’s claim is not supported by a shred of evidence. So what is he up to? It is a sign that he is under serious pressure. Passage of weak UN sanctions was followed by unilateral sanctions by the United States, Canada, Australia and the European Union.
Already, reports Reuters, Iran is experiencing a sharp drop in gasoline imports as Lloyd’s of London refuses to insure the ships delivering them.
Second, the Arab states are no longer just whispering their desire for the US to militarily take out Iranian nuclear facilities. The United Arab Emirates’ ambassador to Washington said so openly at a conference three weeks ago.
SHORTLY BEFORE the 1991 Gulf War, Pat Buchanan charged that “the only two groups” that wanted the US to forcibly liberate Kuwait were “the Israeli Defense Ministry and its amen corner in the United States.” That was a stupid charge, contradicted by the fact that George H.W. Bush went to war leading more than 30 nations, including the largest US-led coalition of Arab states ever assembled.
Twenty years later, the libel returns in the form of the scurrilous suggestion that the only ones who want the US to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities are Israel and its American supporters. The UAE ambassador is, as far as ascertainable, neither Israeli, American nor Jewish. His publicly expressed desire for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities speaks for the intense Arab fear approaching panic, of Iran’s nuclear program and the urgent hope that the US will take it out.
Third, and perhaps even more troubling from Teheran’s point of view, are developments in the US Former NSA and CIA Director Michael Hayden suggested last Sunday that over time, in his view, a military strike is looking increasingly favorable compared to the alternatives. Hayden is no Obama insider, but Time reports (“An Attack on Iran: Back on the Table,” July 15) that high administration officials are once again considering the military option. This may reflect a new sense of urgency or merely be a bluff to make Teheran more pliable. But in either case, it suggests that after 18 months of failed engagement, the administration is hardening its line.
The hardening is already having its effect. The Iranian regime is beginning to realize that even President Obama’s patience is limited – and that Iran may actually face a reckoning for its nuclear defiance.
All this pressure would be enough to rattle a regime already unsteady and shorn of domestic legitimacy.
Hence Ahmadinejad’s otherwise inscrutable warning about an Israeli attack on two countries. (Said Defense Minister Ehud Barak to Fox News: “Who is the second one?”) It is a pointed reminder to the world of Iran’s capacity to trigger, through Hizbullah and Syria, a regional conflagration.
This is the kind of brinksmanship you get when leaders of a rogue regime are under growing pressure. The only hope to get them to reverse course is to relentlessly increase their feeling that, if they don’t, the Arab states, Israel, the Europeans and America will, one way or another, ensure that ruin is visited upon them.
WarSclerotic 
August 2, 2010 at 6:29 AM
The Best way to attack Iran, is from a multi-point attack that they cannot defend themselves against. This would happen when Our Allied and U.S. Forces, in Northwestern Afghanistan and their neighbors to the North and West of there would set up, a missile defense to restrain any aggression on Our Forces as well as to Prepare Our Forces in The Sea and The Gulf to Hit them from off shore at the Same time. Then from the Israeli side as well as The Arab access to hit them with Bombers as well as Missile attacks from the Sea, the Gulf as well as over land, across the Arab and Iraqi Borders. Then if Turkey is going to Play with Us too, to launch a Few salvo’s from there too. Lebanon and Syria will Fold as they will be hit too,if they retaliate. The whole picture looks like we are set up Good and getting into the modem of the Iranians to be at their most vulnerable point just about during Ramadan. This makes them look like the ignorance of the Muslim World to exploit Terrorism,by the Iranians, as well as to support bin Ladens Operations too. All for the sake of being a Terrorist with Nukes. The Iranians will either fold up shop and Compromise, or attempt to Lengthen their staying power to launch a nuke on Our Forces and Israel too. The longer they go without producing a nuke that works, they are spending much time and money on a Failed Regime, that the Iranian Hezbollah may well come to terms with and Compromise themselves, to save their own asses. They too do have a Conscience and they may well be the ones to call the shots if it looks any worse for them to resist the NW areas of the Afghan and Turkish as well as the Northern areas of the Afghan Border. The Western Look onto The Arab and Israeli Lands is much harder for them to lose then the Afghan areas for they would lose their Allies to resist The Attacks if they don’t attack Us First. Iraq is their Biggest Headache too. The Iraqis remember the Iranians during that war with them too as well as the meddling in Our War against Saddam Hussein. The End result is now a Serious Compromise of the validity of Iran’s Word to their People and the Iranian Public is going to literally destroy Ahmadinejads. They do not want to be the bastion of Iran’s Destruction.. And we have not heard from the Iranian Public since the Compromise of the Nuclear Scientists too. Or the Downfall of the Rebellion on the Streets of Iran.If everything works in Sync to the Plan the Iranians may well Collapse without much Compromise to their Public, only their Nuclear facilities and The Military Operations.