Former Bush Officials Accuse White House of Trying to Provoke Iran
By Deniz Yeter
t r u t h o u t | Report
Wednesday 21 February 2007
Warn public that Bush is looking for a pretext to justify a broader, regional conflict.
Hillary Mann Leverett, the former National Security Council Director for Iranian
and Persian Gulf Affairs under the Bush administration from 2001 to 2004, until
she left the administration, has issued a sober warning to the public concerning
Bush's intentions with Iran.
In an interview on CNN, on February 12, she accused the Bush administration
of "trying to push a provocative, accidental conflict" from Iran as
a pretext to justify "limited strikes" against the country's
crucial nuclear and military infrastructures, as opposed to "an all-out
invasion like what happened with Iraq." (1)
Her warning comes a day after sources revealed to Newsweek
that "a second Navy carrier group is steaming toward the Persian Gulf"
and "that a third carrier will likely follow" to replace one of the
strike carriers already in the Gulf. In retaliation, "Iran shot off a few
missiles in those same tense waters last week in a highly publicized test."
(2)
When asked what the Bush administration should do in its confrontation with
Iran, Leverett suggested that "we should do what Nixon and Kissinger did
with China in the early 1970s. We should respond positively, [and] constructively
to Iranian overtures, to enter into comprehensive talks with Iran and to strike
a grand bargain.
Leverett continued, "A grand bargain would mean we would have to make
some concessions, and it would mean the Iranians would have to make some important
concessions. But at the end of the day I think there is a path. The Iranians
have put this on the table before."
Confronted with the question of why the Bush administration is seeking to lure
Iran into attacking, Leverett responded vaguely that it is a part of Bush's
broader agenda for the Middle East to bring about a "democratization ...
peace and stability", to the region.
< Leverett is joined by a growing consensus of current and former US government,
intelligence and military Officials who accuse the administration of trying
to spark another unnecessary and unfounded war in the Middle East for their
own self-interests.
In April 2006, Seymour Hersh, a writer for The New Yorker,
detailed the Bush administration's covert actions inside Iran stating:
"The Bush administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order
to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities
inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current
and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force
planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat
troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and
to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups." (3)
Retired US Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner also appeared in April 2006, on
CNN in defense of Seymour Hersh's claims, saying he thinks that "the
decision has been made and military operations are under way." He also
stated, "The Iranians have been saying American military troops are in
there, [and] have been saying it for almost a year."
"I was in Berlin two weeks ago, sat next to the ambassador, the Iranian
ambassador to the IAEA. "And I said, "Hey, I hear you're accusing
Americans of being in there operating with some of the units that have shot
up revolution guard units.' He said, quite frankly, ‘Yes, we know
they are. We've captured some of the units, and they've confessed to working
with the Americans.'" (4)
Jim Webb, the freshman Senator from Virginia, whose Election Day victory in
2006 tipped the power in the Senate to the Democrats favor, appeared on "Hardball
With Chris Matthews" on February 7, echoing the same warning given by Leverett.
He said, "If you look at the framers of the Constitution, they wanted to
give the president, as commander in chief, the authority to repel sudden attacks.
That is totally different than conducting a preemptive war."
"And you know one thing," Webb continued, "if you look at where
we are in the Persian Gulf right now, when I was secretary of the Navy and until
very recently, we never operated aircraft carriers inside the Persian Gulf because,
number one, the turning radius is pretty close, and number two, the chance of
accidentally bumping into something that would start a diplomatic situation
was pretty high. "We now have been doing that, and with the tensions as
high as they are, I'm very worried that we might accidentally set something
off in there. And we need, as a Congress, to get ahead of the ball game here."(5)
Zbigniew Brzezinski, the man who masterminded the failed Nojeh Coup in 1980
to topple the current Iranian government, came out on February 1 to testify
before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, blasting the Bush administration's
handling of the war. He called the "War on Terror" a "mythical
historical narrative" used to justify a "protracted and potentially
expanding war," and accused them [the Bush administration] of trying to
spread the conflict in Iraq to other parts of the Middle East by "deepening
[a] quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan."
"A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi
failure to meet the benchmarks, Brzezinski explained, "followed by accusations
of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq
or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran. ... To argue that America is
already at war in the region with a wider Islamic threat, of which Iran is the
epicenter, is to promote a self-fulfilling prophecy."
Brzezinski also made note of the Bush administration's cronyism, saying,
"I am perplexed by the fact that major strategic decisions seem to be made
within a very narrow circle of individuals - just a few, probably a handful,
perhaps not more than the fingers on my hand. "And these are the individuals,
all of whom but one, who made the original decision to go to war, and used the
original justifications to go to war," he noted. (6)
Texas House Republican Ron Paul also had harsh words for the Bush administration
and Congress, giving an alarming speech before the US House of Representatives
on January 11. He accused them both of using "the talk of a troop surge
and jobs program in Iraq" to "distract Americans from the very real
possibility of an attack on Iran."
Congressman Paul said, "Our growing naval presence in the region and our
harsh rhetoric toward Iran are unsettling.... Securing the Horn of Africa and
sending Ethiopian troops into Somalia do not bode well for world peace. Yet
these developments are almost totally ignored by Congress.
"Rumors are flying about when, not if, Iran will be bombed by either Israel
or the US," Paul added, "and possibly with nuclear weapons. Our
CIA says Iran is ten years away from producing a nuclear bomb and has no delivery
system, but this does not impede our plans to keep 'everything on the table'
when dealing with Iran."
Paul continued, "We should remember that Iran, like Iraq, is a third-world
nation without a significant military. Nothing in history hints that she is
likely to invade a neighboring country, let alone do anything to America or
Israel. I am concerned, however, that a contrived Gulf of Tonkin- type incident
may occur to gain popular support for an attack on Iran.... Even if such an
attack is carried out by Israel over U.S. objections, we will be politically
and morally culpable since we provided the weapons and dollars to make it possible.
Mr. Speaker, let's hope I'm wrong about this one," Congressman Paul said.
(7)
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Deniz Yeter is a Turkish born citizen who was originally born in Berlin,
Germany. Yeter moved to the United States, eventually settling down in
Kansas, becoming a US citizen at the age of 14. He currently resides in
Overland Park, Kansas, where he is a freelance writer and is also currently
attending college at the University of Missouri-Kansas City where he is
majoring in Education to become a teacher. He can be reached at
minmotstand@communitymail.net
Sources:
(1) CNN, "American Morning". Transcript: "Defense Department
Offers Evidence High-Level Iranian Leader Is Supplying Arms to Shiite Insurgents in Iraq", February 12, 2007. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0702/12/ltm.03.html
(2) Hirsh, Michael and Bahari, Maziar. "Blowup? America's Hidden War With
Iran". Newsweek.
February 11, 2007. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17086418/site/newsweek/
(3) Hersh, Seymour. "The Iran Plans". The New Yorker.
April 4, 2006.
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060417fa_fact
(4) CNN, "Your World Today". Transcript: "Top Iranian Government
Officials Speak Out Against the West; Sectarian Attacks Drive Iraqis From Their
Homes; Calls for Rumsfeld's Resignation". April 14, 2006.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/14/ywt.01.html
(5) MSNBC, "Hardball With Chris Matthews". Transcript. February 7,
2007. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17049478/
(6) Brzezinski, Zbigniew. United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
"Senate Foreign Relations Committee Testimony". Washington, DC. February
1, 2007. http://www.senate.gov/~foreign/testimony/2007/BrzezinskiTestimony070201.pdf
(7) Paul, Ron. "Escalation Is Hardly the Answer". US House of Representatives.
January 11, 2007. http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2007/cr011107.htm
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