DEBKAfile Special Report July 25, 2010, 10:41 PM (GMT+02:00)
Tags: Iran nuclear 
Michael Hayden US military option
Ex-CIA Director Michael Hayden said Sunday, July 25, that during his tenure (under President George W. Bush), a strike was "way down the list" of options. But now it "seems inexorable" because no matter what the US does diplomatically, Tehran keeps pushing ahead with its suspected nuclear program.
Talking to CNN's State of the Union, Gen. Hayden predicted Iran would build its program to the point where it's just below having an actual weapon. In his view, "That would be as destabilizing to the region as the real thing."
debkafile's sources take this as affirmation that neither Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf states nor Israel will be willing to live on constant edge with an Iran which can build nuclear bombs or warheads whenever it likes. They note that Hayden has added his voice to a growing number of leading American figures and publications which have indicated in the past fortnight that the military option against Iran has climbed the top of President Barack Obama's list of priorities.
According to our Washington sources, the US president switched course after hearing Saudi King Abdullah assert explicitly: "We cannot live with a nuclear Iran."
Abdullah added he no longer believes diplomacy or sanctions will have any effect and made it clear that if the Americans continued to back away from direct action to terminate Iran's advance on a nuclear bomb, the Saudi and its allies would go their own way on the nuclear issue.
Today, therefore, the White House is no longer willing to countenance Iran's nuclear development advancing up to the threshold of a weapons capacity and stopping there. And since Tehran will never cede its prerogative to determine every stage of its nuclear program without outside interference, the only option remaining to the United States is military.
(This radical change in the Obama administration's outlook was examined in depth in the latest DEBKA-Net-Weekly issue 454 published July 23.)
debkafile's Washington sources add that the White House was finally brought to the point of seriously considering military action against Iran, as Gen. Hayden noted - not as a result of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's efforts at persuasion - which failed, but because of the Saudi ruler's ultimatum.
The Middle East can therefore expect far-reaching military shifts and redeployments in the coming weeks -but Israel is not likely to gain any kudos for this new development because it has lost considerable traction under the incumbent government.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report July 22, 2010, 1:30 PM (GMT+02:00)
Rising military tensions are reported in Iraq as pro-Iranian Shiite militias appear to be planning attacks on American forces, debkafile's exclusive sources report from Washington and Baghdad. Tehran is furious over Washington's decision to retain a number of US troops in Iraq, possibly as UN peacekeepers, after the pullout pledged by President Barak Obama to start on September 1
Administration officials are holding intense consultations with UN Secretary Ban Ki-Moon for the US detachment staying on in Iraq to be reclassified as international peacekeepers. This means that not all the American troops due to withdraw in six weeks will in fact do so.
Just last Friday, July 16, Vice President Joe Biden told a Democratic Party event in Nashville, Tennessee, shortly after returning from a visit to Iraq: "We will have brought home 95,000. There is no one in the military who thinks we cannot do that. I do not have a doubt in my mind that we will be able to meet the commitment of having only 50,000 troops there and it will not in any way affect the physical stability of Iraq."
But then, on Wednesday night, July 21, General Ray Odierno, commander of the US forces in Iraq, said the American army is busy reinforcing its bases and preparing its forces in anticipation of attacks by at least three Shiite militias recently trained in Iran to strike American targets in Iraq.
He also said the US drawdown was progressing on schedule, with about 74,000 troops currently in the country. According to the Obama administration's drawdown timetable, U.S. forces will number just 50,000 by the end of August and drop to zero by the end of 2011 in time with the transition to Iraqi agencies.
However, for the second time in a week, the American general warned of an Iranian threat to US forces. debkafile's military sources report that the new state of combat alert may well delay the departure of some of the troops scheduled to leave Iraq by Sept. 1. Instead of preparing for their exit they have been pressed into work on new defense systems for US bases. If tensions with Iran continue to rise, the next batch of 24,000 troops due to withdraw may have to stay on after that date.
General Odierno named the three Iraqi pro-Iranian militias preparing for attack as Ketaib Hizballah (the Iraqi branch of the Lebanese Shiite terrorist group); Asaib Ahl al-Haq -The League of the Righteous; and the Promised Day Brigade.
In his first warning of July 13, the general mentioned only the Ketaib Hizballah, but on Wednesday, he said US officials have confirmed that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' elite Al Qods Brigades are training and funding the three militias.
debkafile's Iranian sources report that Tehran refuses to countenance the transformation of the 24,000 US troops remaining in Iraq into UN peacekeepers for three reasons:
1. Their blue caps will authorize them to enforce UN Security Council sanctions against Iran in the Persian Gulf region.
2. In their dual role as US combat troops, there may be pressed into service for an American military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.
Iran's leaders took note of recent US media reports that the Obama administration had put a military option against Iran back on the table of Pentagon planners.
3. Intelligence-gatherers in Iraq have warned Tehran that the Obama administration is resolved on a harder line against any Iranian meddling - military or political - in Iraq. They understand that Washington is determined to install a power-sharing government in Baghdad between the incumbent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his rival Iyad Allawi, whose Iraqia party won the last elections.
This coalition would push Iran and its Shiite pawns out of the new administration's governing institutions.
Tehran has roped friendly Syrian president Bashar Assad into a scheme for thwarting the American design.
At his invitation, the pro-Tehran Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr visited Damascus on Saturday, July 17 together with Allawi, for talks on a combined scheme to torpedo Washington's plans for Iraq.
Until now, it was assumed in Washington and Persian Gulf capitals that Iran would only activate its terrorist surrogates in Iraq and the region in response to a direct US or Israeli strike against its nuclear facilities.
debkafile's military sources report that this evaluation has been radically revised in the wake of disturbing military and political moves in Iraq.
Possible Iranian surrogate attacks on American forces in Iraq and the Persian Gulf are now being considered as realistic on a track aside from - or an offshoot of - the events surrounding the Iranian nuclear program.
EU to hit Iran with 'toughest ever' sanctions, diplomats say: Proposed EU sanctions are understood to go further than current UN sanctions, calling for a ban on 'dual-use' goods which can be used for both military and civilian purposes.
Iran won't trade with countries imposing sanctions: "Any country that creates limitations for Iran's assets, we will stop trading with them," Hamid Borhani, deputy head of the Central Bank of Iran, told the semi-official Mehr news agency. "We have to protect our assets."
Manufacturing Consent For Attack On Iran: U.S. strike on Iran likelier than ever, former CIA chief says: A former CIA director says military action against Iran now seems more likely because no matter what the U.S. does diplomatically, Tehran keeps pushing ahead with its suspected nuclear program.
July 24, 2010
Act Now To Stop
Congress Green-Lighting Israeli Strikes on Iran
By Jamal Abdi
Republicans in the House of Representatives have introduced a measure that would green-light an Israeli bombing campaign against Iran. The resolution, H.Res. 1553 (in full below), provides explicit support for military strikes against Iran, stating that Congress supports Israel's use of "all means necessary" against Iran "including the use of military force". Continue
Repubs Plot Israel-Iran Apocalypse and the Collapse of the US Economy
By Juan Cole
It is not impossible that the people behind this resolution are fervently hoping for the Judgment Day to come more quickly and look forward to a Middle East apocalypse as a step toward the Return of Christ and the end of that pesky but temporarily necessary Judaism. Continue
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