About the Author
The Author
Andrew Heyman lives and works in Seattle Washington USA. His true vocation is political writing and agitating for the radical idea that a society that is governed by, and serves the needs of the people is best.
Andrew is also the member of a wonderful family with his loving wife, Pam, and the proud father of 2 wonderful children, Josie and Adam. They all keep him from becoming immersed in blogging to an unhealthy degree, and remind him of why he cares about what is going on in this world in the first place.
You can email him at kiacyclic-AT-gmail.com.
Iranian Nuclear Nightmare
For almost 40 years Seymour Hersh has been one of America's preeminent investigative journalists on intelligence and national security matters. His book, Chain of Command, is one of the best looks at torture, the manipulation of intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq, and the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib. Hersh has a new piece in this week’s New Yorker, where he reports on the frightening extent to which the Bush administration might be willing to go to, in order to avoid Iran developing a nuclear weapons program.
One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.” He added, “I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?’ ”
Given the current state of affairs, that question is by no means out of bounds when considering this administration’s plans for the future. The question is even more relevant when we consider how far they might go to deny Iran the weapons that IAEA and US intelligence say that they want.
One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites. One target is Iran’s main centrifuge plant, at Natanz, nearly two hundred miles south of Tehran. Natanz, which is no longer under I.A.E.A. safeguards, reportedly has underground floor space to hold fifty thousand centrifuges, and laboratories and workspaces buried approximately seventy-five feet beneath the surface. That number of centrifuges could provide enough enriched uranium for about twenty nuclear warheads a year. (Iran has acknowledged that it initially kept the existence of its enrichment program hidden from I.A.E.A. inspectors, but claims that none of its current activity is barred by the Non-Proliferation Treaty.) The elimination of Natanz would be a major setback for Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but the conventional weapons in the American arsenal could not insure the destruction of facilities under seventy-five feet of earth and rock, especially if they are reinforced with concrete.
This sounds far-fetched. But the fact that it is Seymour Hersh reporting it, should give us all pause at the terrible scope of possibilities that might arise if this plan were carried out.
The possibility that this might be a credible “option” for the US to carry-out is reinforced by the ideological zeal of those inside the administration.
There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change. Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has challenged the reality of the Holocaust and said that Israel must be “wiped off the map.” Bush and others in the White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler, a former senior intelligence official said. “That’s the name they’re using. They say, ‘Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?’ ”
Considering what the US has done to assure itself the domination of the doctrine of “preventive war,” and to remove all lawful constraints of the international system, we might ask a similar question of the radical nationalists in Washington.
Are they willing to start a world war?
A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was “absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb” if it is not stopped. He said that the President believes that he must do “what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do,” and “that saving Iran is going to be his legacy.”
Also when we consider the Bush’s feeling of “that no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do” this, we might also ask ourselves if the comparison to Hitler might be better applied elsewhere, and what kind of world such courage might leave to our children?