War clouds gather over the Persian Gulf

It is becomingly increasingly clear that rhetoric about a strike on Iran is quickly moving into a phase which sets the tone for a military strike; in fact, it seems that important hurdles are being knocked down as we speak, deals are being reached and resolutions discussed which could fundamentally remove legal and territorial oppositions to a strike.

Let’s leave the years of US clamoring against Iran out of the picture for now. I’ll leave it up to your fancy to read up on Hillary Clinton and Obama’s statements about Iran’s nuclear threat and what the world needs to do against it.

What alarms me more than those increasingly hostile statements are rumblings from other, much more astute players of diplomacy. For example, the UAE ambassador to the USA recently claimed at a US conference that the UAE would not be adverse to a military strike on Iran. In fact, he endorsed the idea. He has faced no repercussions in his home country since then. The UAE has just said that the statement was taken out of context, but for a man coming out of secretive Abu Dhabi, these are indeed plain words.

Meanwhile, its is also widely being reported that the Saudis have agreed to let Israeli F16i planes fly through Saudi airspace on their way to a possible strike on Qom and Nantaz, the two Iranian cities which nuclear installations. The rumor has been denied by both sides, most vehemently by the Saudis, something that I find odd, since neither government likes to address rumors in general.

And today, in the clearest signal yet that the United States’ political leadership is getting bolder about a potential strike, a Huffington Post report explains that almost a third of Republicans in the House have signed on to a resolution urging Israel to attack Iran.

Somehow, I don’t think all these events are just inconsequential ripples in the pond. They are vibrations of a sinister kind– war drums are beating with haste now, no matter how foolhardy the call to battle may seem. Asia Times provide a good synopsis on the increasingly louder clamor of war in Weather clears for a US strike on Iran.

And for an in-depth, if not down right geeky and alarming, analysis of how a possible strike may occur, you may want to check out Asia Time’s The anatomy of an attack on Iran.

This sudden burst of considering the military option against Iran is a bit odd though, I have to say. But there needs to be a distinct line drawn between the options being considered for an attack on Iran: one camp purports a ground attack on Iran to overthrow the regime and curb its nuclear activities; the other wants air strikes against nuclear targets within Iran and almost no troop exposure otherwise.

In regards to the first scenario, If George Bush’s fantasies of attacking Iran were thwarted by his military advisors in 2006, then how is it possible that such an idea is more plausible now? Surely America is in a weaker position now than it was then. First, it is still reeling from an economic recession, something that it has not fully recovered from. Secondly, there are less troops in Iraq today, a seemingly natural base of operations were an attack to be considered on Iran. In fact, there is to be an almost all-inclusive troop withdrawal starting in August 2010. So, what has changed? How can the proponents of a military strategy say that it is a better idea today than it was four years ago. The simple fact is that every military leader looks upon a potential conflict realistically; and the reality today is that the US does not have the resources to attack Iran.

Now, in comparison, there is much to be said for a “get in and get out” strategy. This air strike/limited exposure scenario is clearly something that is being discussed extensively. The idea is to sent in a couple of bombers, strike major sites and get out before anyone is the wiser and then sit back and wait for everything to cool down. Going into the future, the US, Israel and its allies would then look to limit damage caused by Iranian covert ops in retaliation for the air strikes.

At the risk of coming off as a morose alarmist, I must say that It pains me to think that another conflict may be on the horizon in the Middle East. And I am no fan of the Iranian regime, just like I wasn’t a fan of Saddam or the Taliban. War, as we have clearly seen, fails to resolve much these days, if it ever did at all. For a species that has lived through two full-scale conflicts (Iraq and Afghanistan) and a major offensive (Pakistan) just over the last decade and continuing, we sure have learned precious little from our engagements with the “enemy”- not only about the enemy but even the nature of the engagement we are undertaking.