Has the war with Iran already begun?

[harrybarracuda]

Has the War with Iran Already Begun?
By Michael Hirsh | National Journal – 15 hrs ago

Two incidents that occurred on Sunday—Iran’s claim of a shoot-down of a U.S. drone, and an explosion outside the British embassy in Bahrain—may have been unrelated. But they appear to add to growing evidence that an escalating covert war by the West is under way against Iran, and that Tehran is retaliating with greater intensity than ever.

Asked whether the United States, in cooperation with Israel, was now engaged in a covert war against Iran’s nuclear program that may include the Stuxnet virus, the blowing-up of facilities and the assassination or kidnapping of scientists, one recently retired U.S. official privy to up-to-date intelligence would not deny it.

“It’s safe to say the Israelis are very active,” the official said, adding about U.S. efforts: “Everything that [GOP presidential candidate] Mitt Romney said we should be doing—tough sanctions, covert action and pressuring the international community -- are all of the things we are actually doing.” Though the activities are classified, a senior Obama administration official also would not deny that such a program was under way. He indicated that the U.S. was not involved in every action, referring to recent alleged explosions at Isfahan and elsewhere. But, he added: “I wouldn’t assume that everything we do is coordinated."

Former undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, who oversaw America’s Iran engagement during the Bush administration, asked Sunday about reports that the U.S. program began under George W. Bush, said he could not comment on intelligence matters.

In September, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, accused Great Britain, Israel and the U.S. of conducting attacks on him and other Iranian scientists."Six years ago the intelligence service of the UK began collecting information and data regarding my past, my family, the number of children," Abbasi-Davani told a news conference at the annual conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. Abbasi-Davani, who was said to have been wounded in 2010 car bomb explosion, said the attacks were carried out by Israel with the "support of the intelligence services of the United States and England."

Last week, Iranian protesters stormed the British embassy in Tehran. Dominick Chilcott, Britain's ambassador to Iran, later said the attack occurred "with the acquiescence and the support of the state." Then, on Sunday, Bahrain's interior ministry announced that an explosion occurred inside a minibus parked near the British Embassy. There were no immediate reports of serious damage or injuries.

U.S. officials alleged in October that agents acting for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, which has increasingly exerted control over the Tehran regime, were involved in a plot to kill that Saudi ambassador to Washington in a restaurant. Iran denied the allegations. Then, on Sunday, in what have been another escalation, Iran’s news agency reported that Iranian armed forces shot down an unmanned U.S. spy plane that illegally crossed the country's eastern border.

Responding to the Iranian report, NATO command in Afghanistan released a terse statement Sunday: "The UAV to which the Iranians are referring may be a US unarmed reconnaissance aircraft that had been flying a mission over western Afghanistan late last week. The operators of the UAV lost control of the aircraft and had been working to determine its status."

The White House declined to comment but officials did not seem unduly alarmed, suggesting that the drone's capture would not provide Iran with significant information about U.S. surveillance technology and techniques.

Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council in Washington, said the tit-for-tat incidents “add up to a very worrisome picture,” in part because “the Iranians are absorbing all of these assassinations without seeing the pace of their nuclear program slow down to the extent it would be acceptable to the West.” But if Iranian retaliations grow serious enough, he said, they could provide “the pretext for a much larger war” in which the Israelis, and possibly the Americans, launch a full attack on Iran.

Mark Hibbs, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment in Germany, says the intensity of the covert war indicates that this is where the U.S. and Israel are putting their energy for now. “If the U.S. or Israel were determined to take Iran’s nuclear installations out they wouldn’t be wasting time pinpointing individual scientists like this,” he says. Still, he points out, that Israel’s 1981 attack on Iraq’s Osirak reactor was also preceded by assassination attempts on Iraqi scientists.

By accident or not, it’s entirely possible the covert war could escalate into a real one, experts say. “I am less enthusiastic about how effective all this going to be than some people in the administration,” says Matthew Bunn, a nuclear investigator at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Bunn says he has occasionally discussed the program with the Obama administration officials, and “some have broadly suggested they think this is major element of slowing down Iranian progress.”

He’s not so sure. “Take Stuxnet. It’s possible that a thousand centrifuges went down” because of sabotage by the mystery computer virus _ a super sophisticated program said to have caused substantial parts of Iran's uranium enrichment program to self-destruct several years ago. “But Iran has a thousand more than they would require to enrich to highly enriched uranium” needed for a bomb. Bunn also notes that Iran is increasingly keeping its key scientists such as Mohsen Fakrizadeh, said to be the “Oppenheimer” of the Iranian program, hidden away from sight and burying its facilities deeper underground.

Beyond that, says Hibbs, “Some of the concern in the expert community is that in going this route we’re unleashing forces we cannot control.”

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[tuktukdriver]

Iran declared war on the US and Israel back in 1979. They haven't changed their mind yet. These are just the latest events.

[Breny]

Here we go again!. Its going to alot harder to fight an army who know what they are doing. Also Iran is a very big place, its about the same size as Germany and france combined. That with the compulsary redundancys in the British Army at the minute moral is rock bottom. For what the oil dont make me laugh, China is the biggest exporter of oil from Iraq and Kuwait without deploying one soldier.

[bsnub]

There is not doubt that the big explosions at the missile sites are due to hacking. The fact that they took out the head of the Republican Guards missile operations is no mistake.

[billy the kid]

if not , the spook department are doing a great job.

[Butterfly]

Iran is going to own USA ass, would be quite funny to see actually

[tuktukdriver]

^ shutup you silly American,

the USA deserves to get a good kicking, they are the bully of the world

they got hammered already in Iraq but apparently they are looking for more, so Iran will be their biggest contender, and let's hope that Israel get their fair share too

I take it you are English. How did your country do in Iraq? They had the girly job and they ran from that.

[superman]

I take it you are English.

You take it wrong.

They had the girly job and they ran from that.

Name the link yank

[FarangRed]

Rejoice unemployed Americans! While you struggle to pay your bills the US government has seen fit to spend your tax dollars spying on a country because its president doubted the validity of the Holocaust! I'm sure you'll sleep easier tonight knowing millions of your dollars are being flushed down the Israeli toilet! Good luck figuring out how you're going to pay your bills this month!

[blue]

give war a chance

[FarangRed]

Oh how ironic it would be that the US drone that is only over Iran to "protect Israel" was brought down because Israel sold US technology to the Chinese.

[BobR]

^ shutup you silly American,

the USA deserves to get a good kicking, they are the bully of the world

they got hammered already in Iraq but apparently they are looking for more, so Iran will be their biggest contender, and let's hope that Israel get their fair share too

The massive pull-out from Iraq has been in the news quite a bit lately. I wonder if they are pulling the grunts out of Iraq so they can be sent to Iran?

[FarangRed]

I wish they would all give it a rest leave the world in peace

[blue]

I'm sure the poor /unemployed Americans are sick to death of watching the TV news, just before Xmas , ie endless shots of greedy people gorging themselves shopping .
A good war will at least take that crap off the screens.
Better to have as many wars now with Islam, rather than in a few years time .

[Butterfly]

it's time for Iran to show the world they are not pussy like Sadam or Gadafi

they should send a strong signal, like a nuke onto Israel

I think that traitor Obama will get the message,

[Butterfly]

The massive pull-out from Iraq has been in the news quite a bit lately. I wonder if they are pulling the grunts out of Iraq so they can be sent to Iran?

excellent point, apparently American soldiers are looking forward for another tour

I think Jimmy Rogers is right, we have reached peak oil and it's declining fast, so they need to secure all those production point before it's too late and the world is taken hostage by those ragheads

[buriramboy]

Seeing as Iraq generally had the upper hand in the 8 year Iran/Iraq war, i can't really see the Iranian army doing much better against an American invasion than the Iraqi army did.

[blue]

It's time for Iran and the muslims to show the world they are not pussy like the west, they should send a strong signal, like a nuke onto San Fransisco or some other gay enclave
I think that traitor Obama will get the message

[blue]

Seeing as Iraq generally had the upper hand in the 8 year Iran/Iraq war, i can't really see the Iranian army doing much better against an American invasion than the Iraqi army did.

in that war the Iran had the huge army , the Iraqis the weapons
Iraq almost won the war very quickly , but just failed to do
and it was the massive Iranian army counterattacking that led to the stalemate .
In Americas case they have no counterattack ,as America wont be invading , just taking out the infrastructure .

[Butterfly]

Seeing as Iraq generally had the upper hand in the 8 year Iran/Iraq war

saddam had the help of the Americans and the chemical weapons with it

[FarangRed]

Don't worry about technology falling into the hands of China and Russia, they already have it.

[Carrabow]

For what the oil dont make me laugh, China is the biggest exporter of oil from Iraq and Kuwait without deploying one soldier.

Thats why Iraq buys oil from Kuwait? Vey interesting deduction

[Neo]

America is trying really hard to kick off WWIII

[socal]

Iran is going to own USA ass, would be quite funny to see actually

Thats what people thought about Afstan and Iraq too and the regimes fell in weeks.

[socal]

Seeing as Iraq generally had the upper hand in the 8 year Iran/Iraq war

saddam had the help of the Americans and the chemical weapons with it

The Americans wanted a stalemate so the muslim rag heads would kill as much of each other as possible. I wish that war never stopped.