To find out Pakistan’s response to Iran's request, the White House asked Musharraf, who is formally in charge of Pakistan’s missile and nuclear warhead arsenal, for clarifications of its intelligence finding. The Pentagon also requested information from the Pakistani chief of staff, Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani.Gen. Kayani replied stiffly that the question should be properly addressed to the government – not the army. However, Musharraf did confirm that the Iranians had indeed made the application for nuclear warhead technology, but the government headed by Yousef Raza Gilani had turned them down.
This confirmation of US intelligence input has placed in the hands of the Bush administration proof of Iran’s quest for a short cut to weaponizing the components of its nuclear program – the closest step so far to a smoking gun.
Washington looked for a clue about the way the wind was blowing in Tehran on an enrichment freeze, to last at least until President George W. Bush bowed out of the White House next January.
Both tracks were equally unproductive. The Iranian officials’ tight-lipped stance cast the Bush administration into a void of uncertainty, leaving US strategists with no real leads on their next moves. They were not even sure whether the understandings reached in the secret US-Iranian powwows in recent months would stand up on such critical questions as Iraq’s pacification, Syria’s rehabilitation, Lebanese stability and the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Administration officials began to worry that a breakdown instead of a breakthrough was in store for the fine diplomatic momentum in which Bush had invested so much effort in the hope of helping his fellow Republican John McCain win the White House.
Between the ill-starred Geneva meeting on July 19 and current, speculation about the Iranian clerical rulers’ game was rife in the circles around Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, defense secretary Robert Gates and national security adviser Stephen Hadley.
Five alternative hypotheses were aired, according to our Washington sources:
1. One was that, up until Jalili set off for Geneva, the Iranian leadership had not managed to resolve its profound internal debate over whether to meet the Americans halfway, or wait for a more opportune moment. The open rift at home tied his tongue.
2. A row flared suddenly between Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) leaders and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The former accused the president of the ultimate crime of making pro-American statements and favoring diplomatic engagement with the enemy. Their extreme disapproval produced an ultimatum: Break off the secret dialogue with the Americans or be ousted from office with your associates.
The fiery Revolutionary Guards were persuaded that Ahmadinejad was selling out to America by some recent remarks.
In one speech, he urged the West to engage in talks with Iran “without preconditions” as the only open path to them. He then promised new “developments” in Iran-US relations in the coming months and said a formal US request for an interests section in Tehran – the first US diplomatic presence in the Iranian capital in thirty years – would be looked into.
Ahmadinejad also remarked: “Last year too when I was in America, I said I was ready to have a debate with the US president…
“In the coming months they will need to talk to us. They now concede we are a power beyond the region. Our power is of course human.”
On another occasion, the Iranian president told reporters, “Iran does not need any intermediaries to talk with the US. And whenever it is needed, we shall talk with them.”
Vice president Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, an unknown quantity in the West, was revealed as taking this position much too far for the radical Revolutionary Guards to stomach.
As head of the Council of Iranians Residing Abroad, Rahim Mashai told a conference for promoting tourism to Iran: “…the modern Iran considers the people of America and Israel to be friends. No nation in the world is our enemy; we are proud of that.”
He concluded with a flourish: “We consider the American people to be among the world’s greatest nations.”
In his three years as president, Ahmadinejad’s outrageous remarks and conduct have been staunchly backed by the Revolutionary Guards. But suddenly, the pugnacious president and his cronies were singing new hymns extolling amity, music which jarred badly on the ears of his former backers.
But then, at Geneva, it all changed.
3. One theory bruited about among Washington insiders is that the discomfited IRGC leaders went directly to the supreme ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to complain about the new pro-American winds blowing through the Islamic Republic’s political elite, warning of the peril they posed to the national military nuclear program.
The Islamic Republic’s feet, they said, were being placed on a slippery slope. The Revolution’s gains were at jeopardy at the very moment that 30 years of endeavor were about to pay off and bring to success all they had strived for, nuclear development, inroads in Iraq and strong positions in the Middle East at large.
Dismayed by the IRGC chiefs’ message, Khamenei ordered Iran’s negotiators to break off contact with their Western counterparts, according to this theory.
And in fact, since the critical encounter in Geneva, no Iranian official has ventured to make contact with any American or Western official.
Furthermore, according to our sources, the Iranian diplomats who once made a habit of keeping informal channels with Washington open in places like Germany, Iraq, Cyprus, Vienna and Eastern Africa, have clammed up.
A number of State Department and CIA feelers to them met with no response.
4. There is also a contrasting theory, which speculates that the Iranians are testing the Bush administration’s nerves to see how far they can be stretched; they will accordingly maintain their wall of silence until the middle of next week, two or three days before the end of the two-week deadline given for their reply to the incentives package, as a softening-up measure for their opposite numbers in Washington.
The Iranians will then come forward with positive-sounding words that will encourage the six powers to extend the deadline by several more weeks. Jalili & Co. will then come back to the negotiating table, their bargaining position much enhanced.
This stratagem of playing out negotiations to gain time has worked successfully for some years.
5. The last hypothesis for Tehran’s apparent zigzag rests on what some White House circles call the “Lake-Ross factor,” named for the Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s two leading foreign policy advisers: Anthony Lake, President Bill Clinton’s national security adviser up to 1997, who was pegged as secretary of state in an Obama presidency (until the latest new turn of events covered in another article in this issue), and Dennis Ross, former special ambassador for the Middle East.
Tehran, according to this theory, had been maneuvered by the Obama outfit into changing its American horses.
Instead of affording Bush the awaited diplomatic kudos for supporting fellow Republican John McCain’s bid for election, Iran’s rulers are in the process of switching their focus to Obama.
This theory is supported by Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki’s strange behavior.
On July 17, he and President Bush agreed by video conference on a “general time horizon'' for the reduction of US combat troops in Iraq. This general time horizon would be included in agreements now under negotiation that would define the US role in Iraq and the status of American forces there.
But then along came Barack Obama, and Maliki backtracked on his agreement with the US president, evidently under Tehran’s influence.
Without even a polite by-your-leave to Washington, the Iraqi prime minister said the Democratic senator’s 16-month timeline for the exit of American troops from Iraq “could be suitable”.
A rumor, which may have its source in administration suspicions, went around Washington and Baghdad this week, that while Obama was in Baghdad, some of his advisers met secretly with Iranian officials who came especially to the Iraqi capital for the purpose. Because of that meeting, they explained, the Democratic senator decided to head south to Basra to see for himself how US-Iranian understandings were working on the ground.
Today (July 23), Ahmadinejad broke the Iranian wall of silence, although his two-track statement did little to dispel the fog of uncertainty hanging over Washington.
He declared, “The Iranian nation… will not retreat one iota [on its nuclear program] in the face of oppressing powers.”
In a different tone, he praised US participation in the latest round of nuclear talks with Tehran [in Geneva] as a “positive step forward,” towards recognizing Iran’s “right to acquire nuclear technology.”
He was saying that American was on the right path, but needed to try harder to swallow Iran’s position whole.
But apparently Iran’s race for a nuclear bomb is not the main bone of contention between Iran and the United States, as generally assumed, although it is hugely important.
The crux of the dispute - which goes back years and was still being hammered out in the recent secret US-Iranian dialogue – is the Islamic Republic’s role in shaping Persian Gulf security and stability as the direct American military presence winds down.
American strategists concur that Tehran is aiming for the high goal of acceptance as the leading regional power – not just in the Gulf but the entire Middle East. But opinions differ on tactics for negotiating with the prickly Iranian rulers and their ultimate objectives.
One school in Washington holds that, if Iran gains the recognition it craves as a regional power its rulers will be less belligerent and more amenable to an accommodation on their nuclear program.
Another argues that Tehran with never relinquish its drive for a nuclear bomb because it is an essential appurtenance of big-power status and a ticket to the world’s most select group, the nuclear club.
Whether or not the Islamic Republic means to use the bomb to further its expansionist aspirations (shades of the ancient Persian Empire) is also subject to much debate among US decision-makers.
While consistently vowing to export Its Islamic revolution, Khomeinist Iran has so far leaned more toward imposing its will on its neighbors by the proxy method of sponsored Islamic terrorism rather than frontal aggression.
But there is no telling how a nuclear-armed Iran would behave.
The argument over how to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran rising in the heart of the Middle East is therefore a function of the larger discussion of its status. At this time, the Bush administration is holding back from affirming Iran as a paramount regional power, preferring to lump it in with a Gulf collective that will promote regional security by consensus.
Once that is finalized, the US would hope for an accommodation on Iran’s nuclear aspirations within the framework of that consensus, rather than in direct bargaining between the US and Iran.
Both the US and Iran are anxious to avoid military confrontation.
The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm Mike Mullen said this week (quoted by us on July 20, 2008) : “Opening up a third front (after Iraq and Afghanistan) right now would be extremely stressful for us. That doesn’t mean we don’t have capacity or reserve, but that would really be very challenging and also have consequences that are sometimes very difficult to predict.”
As for Iran, behind its military bluster most of its political and military elite are concerned to avoid a military clash, which everyone in Tehran admits would be suicidal.
The dialogue between Washington and Tehran is therefore pivoting on points of common interest. But, as our Iranian expert pointed out, this common ground does not promise the talks’ sustainability or happy end – especially when the two parties are sharply divided on the key question of Iran’s big-power status in the region.
The rulers of Tehran may conclude - which they have not done thus far - that without a nuclear weapon they cannot hope Washington will accept their supremacy.
It was therefore somewhat naïve of Bush administration officials to look for the Geneva meeting between the six powers and Iran on July 19 to produce a dramatic breakthrough on the uranium enrichment question. The Iranians calculated that, while the administration may be eager for rapid progress, they can afford to wait out the five months left to Bush in the White House before making any commitments.
They have found grist for their mill in the campaign rhetoric of both US presidential contenders, Senators Barack Obama and John McCain.
Both Obama’s pledge to withdraw US troops from Iraq within 16 moths and redeploy them against al Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and McCain’s call for a US security surge in Afghanistan, fell alike on willing ears in Tehran.
The Islamic rulers welcomed the prospect of the American military onus being reassigned to Afghanistan, relegating Gulf security and oil routes to second or third place on the presidential agenda as of January 2009, for the following reasons:
1. Even a partial drawdown of the American military presence before a substitute is in place would force the region to submit to Iranian supremacy, even without Washington’s blessing.
2. One of the most steadfast objectives of Iran’s policy has always been the removal of the US military presence from the Persian Gulf. After joining the Bush administration in a series of ad-hoc understandings designed to help McCain win the race to the White House, Tehran has in the last week or two switched course in favor of Obama, because his pledge to pull the US army out of Iraq is more explicit than his rival’s.
3. The Islamic Republic’s progress towards big power standing in the Gulf will consolidate its strategic gains in other parts of the Middle East, such as Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, and extend its domination to that part of the region too.
4. The refocusing of American policy goals on the radical Sunni Muslim al Qaeda and Taliban, Shiite Iran’s sworn religious foes - espoused by both US presidential contenders - suits Tehran’s strategic aspirations in the Muslim world down to the ground. The ayatollahs look forward to a mutual war of attrition pursued by America and al Qaeda, while Iran keeps its powder dry.
Iran was left alone to mull its options in peace until last week, when President George W. Bush, racing against the clock, ran out of patience with Tehran’s shifting maneuvers for promoting its long-term goals.
Then according to our informer in Israel, the military barometer there switched to red and a new scenario began to unfold.
Sunday night, July 20, at 0200 hours Middle East time, Israel’s national radio started its hourly news bulletin with word from an “Israeli political-security official” that the nuclear talks between six world powers and Iran, which had broken up in Geneva a few hours earlier, far from promoting accord, had advanced the prospect of an American military operation against Iran’s nuclear installations.
The official was quoted as stressing that if Tehran failed to meet the two-week deadline laid down by the US, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany for accepting a uranium enrichment freeze in return for US-European incentives, the US president would carry out his pledge to Middle East leaders not to leave the White House without resolving the Iranian nuclear dilemma. A military operation would accordingly be scheduled for the months between the November election and the January swearing-in of the next US president.
This news item was broadcast in seven consecutive night-time bulletins before it disappeared from the 0900 Monday morning broadcast.
It was not mentioned again – even in commentaries and newsreels.
From this it appears that either Israel was pressuring Washington to make a move after the disappointment of the Geneva meeting;
Or Washington was signaling Tehran through the Israel-sourced broadcast that its failure to reciprocate for the US gesture of sending under secretary of state William Burns to Geneva would not go unanswered. The military option had risen to the top of the agenda. Two could play the confrontation game.
The next day, Sunday, July 20, Adm Mullen was on the air again, this time to reinforce the August 2 deadline.
He told Fox News “I fundamentally believe that they’re [Iranians] on a path to achieve nuclear weapons some time in the future. I think that’s a very destabilizing possibility… I will obviously watch what happens in the next two weeks to see if they come further or if they walk away.”
The admiral certainly took into account that the military step contemplated in Washington if the Geneva talks failed – a partial naval blockade for turning away supplies of benzene and other refined oil products bound for Iran – would elicit military action to break the blockade.
In 24 hours, a military clash between the US and Iran had hovered in sight.
Monday, July 21, the US, Britain and France embarked on a naval exercise dubbed Operation Brimstone in the Atlantic Ocean. It was scheduled to end July 31, two days before the expiry of the six-power ultimatum to Iran. The USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group and the USS Iwo Jima expeditionary strike group are taking part in the maneuver.
An American military spokesman made a point of mentioning that both flotillas would soon be heading for the Middle East.
That same day, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned Iran it faced punitive measures. She was on her way to Abu Dhabi for a meeting with the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council plus Egypt, Jordan and Iraq.
Tuesday, July 22, she told reporters: The meeting sent a “very strong message to the Iranians that they can’t go and stall… and that they have to make a decision… we will see what Iran does in two weeks.”
Gulf sources learned from sources conversant with the meeting that the atmosphere there was solemn. The US Secretary warned the Arab officials gathered there to get ready to take part in the embargo of benzene and other refined fuels. If the UN did not endorse the operation, she said, the United States, Britain, France - and possibly other European nations too - would go ahead anyway as soon as October or earlier, if warranted.
She asked the participants to hold these fuel products back from Iran for the duration of military tension which could stretch to two months at least, until Iran comes to heel and consents to seriously discussing the six-power incentives offer to freeze sanctions in exchange for an Iranian enrichment suspension.
In her briefing to Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahayan of Abu Dhabi, which supplies most of Iran’s benzene, our sources report, Rice acknowledged that Iran had set up a network of smugglers and small craft in the oil principalities.
This fleet is also used to smuggle Iraqi oil to Iran.
The Secretary of State stated explicitly that Washington would not think twice about cracking down on the smuggling rings.
The extravaganza brought to the Middle East by the flying Barack Obama show hit the ground just long enough for the Democratic presidential contender’s campaign strategists to show their hand.
In fact, Anthony Lake, Bill Clinton’s national security adviser and candidate for secretary of state if Obama is elected, landed a bombshell in the course of the Middle East tour: He dropped out of the campaign. Aged 69, he disclosed that he had recently married and preferred to spend time with his family to becoming secretary of state.
In another drastic change of life, Lake revealed he had converted to the Jewish faith.
His decision to drop all aspirations in a prospective Obama administration tied in, with another campaign misfortune: Hillary Clinton’s backers and donors have not come over to the Senator from Illinois.
Their rationale is simple.
Both Democratic and Republic political activists agree that the next president will have to contend with an economic catastrophe of such dimensions that there is no way he can achieve headway in a single term. Therefore, the candidate elected in November 2008 cannot expect to be returned for a second term because he will be campaigning from the depths of a hopeless economic mess.
This opens the door for a second run by Hillary Clinton in 2012.
Apparently, Obama has not turned to Richard Holbrooke following Lake’s withdrawal, although he is qualified for the post of secretary of state by his experience as a former ambassador at the UN and architect of the Dayton Agreements which ended the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s.
Neither does Obama seem interested in Senator Joseph Biden.
He seems to be holding out for a fresh face with novel ideas, who will act as counterweight to his rival the Republican Senator John McCain’s choice of prospective vice president.
According to the scuttlebutt reaching Obama’s campaign headquarters, McCain is casting about for a distinguished Democrat for his running mate, rather than a member of his own party.
In the meantime, the Democratic senator’s two senior Middle East advisers are at daggers drawn. Daniel Kurtzer, former ambassador in Egypt and Israel, is a veteran of the Obama campaign, while Dennis Ross, President Clinton’s special Middle East envoy and Oslo Accords negotiator, is a newcomer.
The trouble is that Obama named Ross to the top slot as Middle East adviser without informing Kurtzer. Officials in the region are therefore forced to deal with both because they do not know which is really in charge.