Everyone is asking: Will it be the United States, Israel, or both who will attack Iran to eliminate its nuclear program? Will the war take on the form of air strikes targeting specific installations, or will it be an invasion similar to the invasion of Iraq in 2003? I dare say that the war has already started, years ago. However, it is an undeclared war, and perhaps this is the reason why it is surrounded by a shroud of mystery. Have the readers ever heard of the term ‘finding'? It is an English-language word which in court jargon means ‘discovery' or ‘evidence'. But in the context of American politics, the term acquires a completely different meaning. ‘Finding' as such means ‘directive' or ‘order', issued by a higher authority, to carry out covert and rather politically sensitive operations. There was such a ‘finding' issued by the Bush administration in 2003, which was upgraded in 2006, before another ‘finding' was issued in 2007. In the beginning, the objective was to thwart activities by the Revolutionary Guard on the border with Pakistan, Iraqi Kurdistan and Khuzestan, before being expanded to target the Iranian nuclear program. In truth, the U.S. State Department, in a report published in 2008, classified the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization. This meant that its assets in banks would be frozen wherever they were found, and that leaders of the Revolutionary Guard would be allowed to be targeted henceforth. Then the Obama administration issued a ‘presidential finding' by itself after an Iranian plot was exposed to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, Adel al-Jubeir, with the help of Mexican drug gangs; the finding ordered the U.S. intelligence services to step up their activities against Iran. Perhaps this column will have been barely published when yet another proof of this undeclared war raging around us emerges. However, the latest information I have is that General Hassan Moghadam, the father of the Iranian missile program, was killed along with 20 others in a massive explosion at a base belonging to the Revolutionary Guard. In fact, Gen. Moghadam is such an important figure that the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei himself took part in his funeral procession. Earlier this month, an explosion in Isfahan targeted an Iranian nuclear facility, after a similar explosion had taken place a week earlier. In July, the nuclear scientist Dariush Rezaei was killed, and I believe he was the fourth Iranian scientist to have been assassinated in recent years. A large blast had also taken place at a plant for the medium-range Shahab-3 missile near the western city of Khorramabad in October 2010. This was preceded - and also followed - by similar incidents, as we heard of similar explosions or mysterious fires taking place. All these incidents also coincided with cyber attacks against nuclear facilities, and some of these attacks were largely successful. President Barack Obama is extremely cautious. Since he carried on with the undeclared war on Iran that George W. Bush had started, then we can certainly imagine a situation where this may become an open war that would spill over to the whole Middle East, if one of the Republican contenders we know today succeeds the Democratic President. For instance, Ms. Michele Bachman said that the Iranian President had promised, threatened or pledged that Iran would wage nuclear war against Israel and the United States when it acquires nuclear weapons. This is an absolute lie, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does not have the authority to declare a nuclear war, since there is a military leadership and above it the Supreme Leader of the Revolution. Bachman has fallen back in the race, and it is likely that the Republicans would choose either Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich as the Republican candidate. The first said that he would send aircraft carriers to the Gulf and prepare for war, while the second said that the United States has to continue targeting, i.e. killing, Iranian nuclear agents. Where do we stand on the cover war and the potential open war? For years now, I have been writing here in favour of the Iranian nuclear program, even if has a military side, to confront Israel, and I do so once again today. And for years, I have called upon the Arab countries to initiate military nuclear programs, not for and by themselves, but because I am convinced that the spread of such programs in the Middle East would push the United States and Western Europe to seek to render the Middle East a WMD-free zone. This is because they would not otherwise do so if Israel is to remain the sole country with a nuclear arsenal in the Middle East, and would instead seek to only help and cover up for Israel. In this vein, Prince Turki al-Faisal, Chairman of King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, has alluded to the possibility that Saudi Arabia would seek to initiate a similar nuclear program. This is while I know that the UAE has initiated a nuclear program with the help of South Korea, and I wish that Saudi Arabia would indeed initiate a military nuclear program, that the UAE would expand its uranium-enrichment program through its own capabilities instead of importing it, and that Egypt and every other capable Arab country would follow suit so that both Iran and Israel are stripped of any existing or future nuclear weapons. I continue tomorrow. [email protected]
