Beware The Ides Of June  

The review of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty seems to have been well timed, with all the bleating about the nuclear energy (and possibly nuclear weapons) programs in Iran and North Korea. Kofi Annan made some good points in his speech, including a much needed reminder that the world still possesses huge nuclear arsenals - something rarely talked about since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The pressure from the US on selected other countries to stick to their commitments under the treaty (and go even further than the treaty in Iran's case) is a bit laughable when you consider their side of the bargain was to progressively disarm - the opposite direction to the one they've been taking lately.

The pressure on Iran is vaguely reminiscent of the lead up to the Iraq invasion, though the propaganda campaign is less intense so far - however it is building up, and I suspect the "Iran nukes New York" commercials will be a signal things are about to begin.

Michel Chossudovsky has written a very detailed (and very good) article on the "Planned US-Israeli Attack on Iran" - with the attack reportedly planned for June according to Seymour Hersh, Scott Ritter and others (there is also some related material at Jeff Vail). The obvious pretext for this attack would be the Iranians refusing to halt their nuclear power program.

For the last two years, Washington has been involved in covert intelligence operations inside Iran. American and British intelligence and special forces (working with their Israeli counterparts) are involved in this operation.

"A British intelligence official said that any campaign against Iran would not be a ground war like the one in Iraq. The Americans will use different tactics, said the intelligence officer. 'It is getting quite scary.'"

The expectation is that a US-Israeli bombing raid of Iran's nuclear facilities will stir up ethnic tensions and trigger "regime change" in favor of the US.

Bush advisers believe that the "Iranian opposition movement" will unseat the Mullahs. This assessment constitutes a gross misjudgment of social forces inside Iran. What is more likely to occur is that Iranians will consistently rally behind a wartime government against foreign aggression. In fact, the entire Middle East and beyond would rise up against US interventionism.

Tehran has confirmed that it will retaliate if attacked, in the form of ballistic missile strikes directed against Israel. These attacks, could also target US military facilities in the Persian Gulf, which would immediately lead us into a scenario of military escalation and all out war.

In other words, the air strikes against Iran could contribute to unleashing a war in the broader Middle East Central Asian region.

Ignoring the moral questions posed by this final push to control all the major middle east oil producers (as I'm sure the neocons have already done), along with the likelihood of an even more vigourous insurgency / resistance inside the country than we are seeing in Iraq, I think its worth considering the risks involved.

While the Iranian military isn't likely to pose a significant obstacle to any US led invasion, it would seem that if it is successful, the US has effectively got a stranglehold on countries like China and India in terms of their future energy supplies. While Russia has significant energy reserves of its own, they are most likely well past their peak now and Putin is no doubt starting to take a very dim view of the american military build up in the Caspian sea region and the almost complete encirclement of Russia and China by US forces.

So the real question to consider is, are Russia, China and possibly others going to be panicked enough by this final push to get dragged into the conflict ? If they believe we are close to the peak, they may decide this is their last chance to avoid US domination for a considerable period of time.

Changing tack for a moment, I've just finished watching a documentary called "The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara". Its quite fascinating watching McNamara (mostly very close up) discuss the lessons he learnt while US secretary of defence. While I thought he was a bit less than honest in a few patches (and you could see some unwanted self-awareness creeping in when he does) on the whole I thought he did an excellent job of trying to explain himself, which must have been an uncomfortable experience.

The key segments from my point of view were 2 periods where he discussed his meetings with the people his main conflicts were with, long after the Cuban missile crisis and the Vietnam war were over: Fidel Castro and the Vietnamese government (and the Castro reminiscence, in particular, is the point where he realises he's lying even to himself). The lesson he learnt from these experiences was this - "Empathize with your enemy" - and this is the lesson we should be keeping in mind now.

As Iran presents little more of a military obstacle (in terms of resisting an invasion) than Iraq did, I'm sure no one is bothering to try and see this latest exercise in brute force through the iranian government's eyes. I think it is important to try and understand how the Chinese, Russian and Indian leaderhips may view this act, and how we would react to it if we were in their shoes. Jimmy Carter long ago explained America's position with regards to middle east oil - does anyone know what China and Russia's position is now with regards to the middle east and central asia ?

Technorati tags: peak oil