The 2012 Up-In-The-Air Report

We have, in case you've not noticed, a Presidential election brewing throughout most of 2012.  (It already seems this has gone on way too long.)

Iran continues to make itself more and more likely to experience some kind of action being taken against it.  The way in which Iran's leaders are behaving, it seems they wish for such action to be taken against them.  If it isn't threatening the U.S. Navy so far as passing through the Strait of Hormuz, it is the announcement that full scale uranium enrichment is going on under a mountain in southern Iran.  If it isn't testing a new missile that can reach Israel or U.S. military installations, it is finding an American citizen guilty of spying without benefit of anything approaching an open trial as we know open trials.

 Ahmadinejad tours uranium enrichment facility 

Much of the world's oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz and that is being threatened with Iran saying it will close the Strait.  The Strait is quite narrow and could be disrupted by sinking multiple oil carriers.  If nothing else, the economy of the world would be in tough condition.

All this, of course, seems timed to be happening as we work to elect the next President of our country.  I have no way of knowing what the Iranian end-game is, but they are taking delight in what they see as the repeated challenges they issue to us and to our allies.

President Obama will have his hands full with this hot spot but will no doubt be spending a huge amount of his time campaigning.  Any President would be doing the same in all likelihood.  The Republican candidate, whomever that ends up being, will walk a very fine line in the campaign having to give voice to the Iranian issue but also needing to be sensitive to over-stepping onto the President's turf.  Maybe that is what is driving Iran in the direction it is taking.  Maybe Iran thinks we can't have a political free-for-all and fight a battle at the same time.  Maybe Iran thinks the current President will see this as an opportunity to appear strong militarily during the campaign. 


 Maybe Iran thinks our Congress will self-destruct in the process.  Maybe Iran simply plans to enjoy the whole situation thinking that neither the U.S. nor Israel will dare to mount a military strike.

This is a treacherous game they seem intent on playing.  If this part of the world explodes, none of us will win.

Will Iran Dash Obama's Re-Election Hopes?

Iran presents Barack Obama with the biggest international test of a presidency mired in underachievement. Having fluffed his lines on Afghanistan, climate change and the Arab spring, he is under growing pressure to fulfil his pledge to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. A report by the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, I.A.E.A. is expected to indicate that Obama is steadily failing in this objective also. So what should he do? A wrong move now, and all the disappointments of the past three years could be wholly eclipsed by the most profound of moral ruptures.

It all comes down to Obama because, in the end, the US alone has the military firepower to stop Tehran in its tracks. Now Libya, supposedly, is done and dusted, Israeli officials have turned hyper, talking up the Iranian threat and arguing the time for diplomacy has all but passed. Those glum doomsayers, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, defence chief Ehud Barak, and president Shimon Peres, are frantically ringing alarm bells like a trio of demented churchwardens. Something, they say, must be done, preferably involving some very large American bombs.

Rick Perry

Republican hopefuls in the 2012 presidential election are beating the war drums too, sensing that Iran is a bunker-buster issue that could penetrate Obama's strong record on national security. Governor Rick Perry of Texas, a leading candidate, is saying he would fully support a pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear installations. Another aspiring commander-in-chief, former senator Rick Santorum, describes Iran as the "enemy". It is campaign-trail nonsense, but it is dangerous nonsense – and it ramps up the pressure on Obama.

Rick Santorum

While Perry and the pacemakers play drums, the Gulf's Sunni-led monarchies, historical enemies of revolutionary Shia Iran, are on acoustic guitar. Their lament, orchestrated by Saudi Arabia, is music to the ears of tone-deaf neocons and oil executives everywhere: Iran is the snake skulking under every stone – backing Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the blood-drenched Alawite regime in Syria. An Iran armed with the bomb, they warn, would terrorize the region, threaten energy supplies, and provoke a pan-Arab nuclear arms race. Their solution? By "cutting off the head of the snake", Washington would defang these troubles and maybe get Syria (and pro-Tehran Iraq) thrown in for free.

So far the Obama White House is holding the line. Officials describe the IAEA report as "deeply troubling" and say all options remain open. But Obama's spokesman, Jay Carney, insists the US continues to focus primarily on diplomacy and sanctions to bring pressure to bear on Iran. This circumspection has solid foundations. Expert opinion suggests military action against Iran's numerous dispersed and protected nuclear-related targets would probably not work, would likely kill and maim many civilians, and would certainly provoke unpredictable, potentially devastating consequences.

A 2006 study produced by the US Army War College, Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran, suggested up to 1,000 air sorties might be required to ensure underground sites were eradicated, including possible use of tactical nuclear weapons. Thus a pre-emptive strike would actually mean all out, escalating nuclear war with Iran, military retaliation against Israel, hostilities in neighbouring states, and a global oil shock. This might not look so great as Obama goes before the American people next November to seek a second term.

Yet alarmingly, the assumption that Obama would never be so dumb as to start another Middle East war is questioned. Author Jeffrey Goldberg suggests Obama would act militarily against Iran if he were persuaded Israel was at critical risk. "He doesn't want to be remembered as the president who failed to guarantee Israel's existence," Goldberg said. David Rothkopf, writing in Foreign Policy, is similarly sceptical. "If the president believes there is no other alternative to stopping Iran from gaining the ability to … manufacture nuclear weapons, he will seriously consider military action and it is hardly a certainty he won't take it."

Cynical electoral calculations about walking tall in the world could influence such a decision.

The die is not yet cast. Unlike George Bush and Tony Blair contemplating Iraq in 2002, Obama has not decided on what to do. But here is a dismal prospect, if he gets it wrong, it will be the unmaking of the Obama presidency, the betrayal of all those who believed his election would heralded a shift away from the confrontational behaviors of the past. For Obama to attack Iran would be morally insupportable: it would be a rupture of faith. As a politician and as a leader, he would place himself beyond redemption.