The Middle East is supposed to be on its way to pull out from George Bush's wars. President Barack Obama has promised the withdrawal of the US fighter forces from Iraq by the end of this month according to the set deadline, and has announced that withdrawal from Afghanistan will begin next year. Nonetheless, the most information I have gathered in the past days from the sources I use for writing this column was about a new war whose supporters want to see restricted to Iran. However, I consider that if such war were to take place, it would turn into a regional war involving the Gulf and might extend to Syria and Lebanon, with negative repercussions on Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. President Obama is the last person who would wish for yet another war in the Middle East, and the primary objective of the new sanctions ratified by the UN Security Council against Iran is to mollify the Israeli campaign to involve the United States in a confrontation with Iran. Countries such as the United States, Britain, France, Canada, and Australia have followed up on the sanctions with decisions against companies and individuals who were blacklisted due to their involvement with Iran. Based on this background, the US president reopened negotiations with Iran in order to resolve the conflict on its nuclear program via peaceful methods. Journalists were surprised when the President told them that “it is very important to put before the Iranians a clear set of steps that we would consider sufficient to show that they are not pursuing nuclear weapons.” This decision was explained by the fact that the Obama administration considers that the sanctions have started harming the Iranian regime. This makes him more ready to negotiate; also, the US intelligence services have information on the stumbling of the Iranian nuclear program; the uranium enrichment faced technical problems. The latest report of the International Atomic Agency last June estimated that there are four thousand uranium-enriching centrifuges (there are others in reserve) and that Iran has amassed 2.5 tons of low-enriched uranium. Iran has been attempting to enrich uranium for 20 years, and its program was exposed from the outside by Iranian opponents and was not unnmasked by the US intelligence services. It is known that Iran enriched uranium at 5%, although the nuclear reactor for medical experiments next to Tehran needs an enrichment level of up to 19.5% to be operated. As for the nuclear bomb, it needs enriched uranium between 90 and 95%, which is impossible for Iran to produce today or in the near future. Nonetheless, the supporters of Israel in the United States, whether part of the Jewish lobby, Likudniks, or Congress members, are leading a focused and fierce campaign to confront Iran on the military level, as if it would generate a nuclear bomb tomorrow, and hit Israel with it the day after tomorrow. I'm not alone in fearing an Israeli military strike prompted by America, as I came across a letter addressed by former intelligence professionals to President Obama warning him against a conspiracy being prepared by Israel's supporters in order to trap the United States in a new military adventure. The signatories of the letter are members of a group called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS); theirs is a detailed 5-page letter which I cannot summarize here. Suffice it to say that it states the same conclusion I had personally reached: Benjamin Netanyahu is convinced that Congress will pressure the administration to support Israel if it starts a war with Iran. On the other hand, 47 House Republicans signed a draft resolution calling the administration to give unequivocal “support for Israel's right to use all means necessary to confront and eliminate nuclear threats posed by Iran.” This is a “blank check” to launch a war that starts with Iran and spreads like fire in the entire Middle East. Arabs and Muslims, along with America, will pay its price in order to serve the interests of a state that is actually an illegal settlement in Palestine. [email protected]
