Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: US plan for air strikes on Iran

US plan for air strikes on Iran 'backed by Brown'
By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Published: 02 October 2007
A plan by the Bush administration to launch surgical strikes on Iran's 
Revolutionary Guard Corps has won the support of Gordon Brown, according to 
a US report, although a presidential "execute order" required for such an 
operation has yet to be issued.
The report in The New Yorker magazine by the journalist Seymour Hersh states 
that the White House has concluded that many of its problems in Iraq are the 
responsibility of Tehran. But rather than conduct an unpopular all-out 
assault on Iran's nuclear facilities, the US is planning limited air 
strikes, arguing that they are needed to defend soldiers in Iraq.
The article stated that, "The bombing plan has had its most positive 
reception from ... Gordon Brown", but this was denied yesterday by some with 
close ties to the US military.
"It is quite the opposite," said Phillip Giraldi a former CIA 
counterterrorism officer. "In fact Robert Gates [the US Defence Secretary] 
was rebuffed during his recent visit to London when the idea was floated.
"Because British mine-sweepers based in the Gulf of Hormuz will be essential 
to any US action against Iran, US war planners need to have Britain on 
board," he said. "So far that is not forthcoming."
The US has changed its emphasis to counter-terrorism, supported by Pentagon 
planners wary of earlier plans for an all-out attack on Iran, Hersh writes. 
The strategy calls for the use of sea-launched cruise missiles and more 
precisely targeted ground attacks and bombing strikes, "including plans to 
destroy the most important Revolutionary Guard training camps, supply depots 
and command-and-control facilities".
Hersh quotes an unnamed senior European as saying that there were four 
possible responses to Iran-ian activity in Iraq: to do nothing (this would 
be sending "the wrong signal"); to publicise Iranian actions ("There is one 
great difficulty with this option - the widespread lack of faith in American 
intelligence assessments"); to attack the Iranians inside Iraq ("We've been 
taking action since last December, and it does have an effect."); or, 
finally, to attack inside Iran.
"The British perception is that the Iranians are not making the progress 
they want to see in their nuclear-enrichment processing," said the European 
official.
"All the intelligence community agree that Iran is providing critical 
assistance, training, and technology to a surprising number of terrorist 
groups in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, through Hezbollah, in Lebanon, and 
Israel/Palestine, too."
Earlier this summer, according to Mr Giraldi, the Pentagon, acting under 
instructions from Vice-President Dick Cheney, tasked Strategic Command to 
draw up a response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the US. "The 
plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional 
and tactical nuclear weapons," said Mr Giraldi.
That may now have changed, in part because of opposition within the 
military. "A number of senior air force officers involved were appalled at 
the implications of what they were doing ... that Iran was being set up for 
an unprovoked nuclear attack," said Mr Giraldi. None were prepared to object 
and damage their career, he added.
Hersh maintains that the Bush administration's emphasis on "surgical" 
strikes reflects a failure to persuade the US public that Iran poses an 
imminent nuclear threat.
The White House has come to terms, in private, with the general consensus of 
the US intelligence community that Iran is at least five years away from 
obtaining a bomb. There is also a growing recognition in Washington that 
Iran is emerging as the geopolitical winner of the war in Iraq.
Further Reading
Indipendent

 US plan for air strikes on Iran 'backed by Brown'
toh, Poodle2 ha già imparato a riportare il bastone al padrone...chi
l'avrebbe mai detto?

 wrote:
questo e' il momento per cominciare a giocare sui future
sulla quotazione del petrolio (ovviamente sulla salita dello
stesso, che gi Iraniani perche' dovrebbero prendersi la briga
di affondare una nave da guerra US/UK? basta una petroliera)
ovviamente gli amici dei Bush&Brown
partecipano al gioco con delle "insider information" notevoli,
pero' con un po' di attenzione qualcosa si dovrebbe raccogliere,
soprattutto scommettendo sul lungo periodo
