Arab Democratisation Processes Are Stalling; The Priority Is To Avert Civil Wars.

*** Will The US Bomb So Many Nuclear Targets In Iran, As Seymour Hersh Says In The New Yorker?

*** Will There Be A US-Iranian 'Dialogue Over Iraq', Instead?

*** Will The US Do Both As The Same Time - With Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad In Baghdad Leading American Negotiators For A Truce With Tehran?

*** The Democrats In Lebanon, Led By Walid Jumblatt, Still Hope They Will Have A Prosperous State And A Model For New Democracies In The GME

*** Can Hamas Manage To Have A Govt Meeting In Video Conference Style And Maintain Its 'Armed' Resistance Against Israel At The Same Time?

BEIRUT - Throughout the Arab world, democratic reforms have stalled. The main priority in most countries is to avert civil strife, in view of escalating sectarian violence in Iraq. Reform measures promised since 2003 or announced in 2004/05 are no longer talked about.

In March 2003, when US-led forces invaded Saddam Hussein's Iraq, most Arab states and the Shi'ite theocracy in Iran wished that the American project in Baghdad will fail. Most regimes surrounding Iraq feared that, if a Baghdad-based federation of prosperous democracies were to emerge, they could be the next targets for an uprising, US-backed "regime change" measures, or a revolution.

With the exception of Lebanese democracy advocates, who were then in the opposition to a Syria-controlled regime in Beirut, none of the neighbours of the Ba'thist dictatorship in Damascus wanted to see Iraq emerge as a united and democratic entity. None really wanted to see the project of George W. Bush succeed in Baghdad.

In Israel then, and now, the hope was for another American project to succeed: the partition of Iraq into sectarian and ethnic mini-states - or "weak statelets" as one neo-con member of the Bush team described the "other scenario". This scenario was for a "Greater Middle East" consisting of almost 100 such statelets.

At the March 28 Arab League summit in Khartoum, there was no mention of an Arab reform programme launched in Tunis in 2004. The summit meeting itself was cut to a day's event and ten of the rulers did not show up - although Turkey and other non-Arab states in the region were invited to attend as observers. Not only did Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan attend the summit; but he observed so many Arab absentees and a frustrated Libyan ruler, Col. Qadhafi, leave the event grumbling because he was not given the opportunity to be filmed lecturing the other Arab heads of state. He had pitched his tent in the garden of a complex of new villas built to house the guest rulers.

The results of Bush's GME democratisation project - the first scenario - now are as follows: a Libyan dictatorship surviving under Qadhafi, who describes his regime "the greatest democracy on earth" and is ready to give it other definitions; a Hamas government which was elected on Jan. 25; a Mubarak regime more entrenched in Egypt than at any time before, thanks to the big electoral victory of the Muslim Brotherhood which in late 2005 won 88 seats in the People's Assembly (a parliament still dominated by his ruling NDP); a defunct Ba'thist regime under Saddam on trial in the heavily-fortified Green Zone of Baghdad; a like-minded Ba'thist regime in Damascus awaiting "big change" - which would be either a coup or an uprising to follow a trial by a UN-controlled court for its alleged involvement in the Feb. 14, 2005, assassination of former Lebanese PM Rafiq Hariri; a "national unity government" yet to be formed in Baghdad - the outcome of Dec. 15 elections - and another turn in the sectarian conflict; and so forth.

The slowdown comes at a critical time for the Bush administration, which is increasingly seen as weakened both at home and abroad by its occupation of Iraq. Many Arab rulers seem to be betting that the American public is losing its appetite for major, costly interventions, and that this will give them a freer hand.

The brakes on democratisation have been put by the rise of Islamists, the chaos in Iraq along with the new-found Shi'ite power there with its implication for growing Iranian influence, and the sense among Arab rulers that they can wait out the end of the Bush administration, with President Bush to leave the White House in January 2009.

The New York Times on April 10 quoted Sulaiman al-Hattlan, editor in chief of Forbes Arabia and a prominent Saudi reformist, as saying: "It feels like everything is going back to the bad old days, as if we never went through any changes at all. Everyone is convinced now that there was no serious or genuine belief in change from the governments, it was just a reaction to pressure by the international media and the US".

In Egypt, the government of Hosni Mubarak, which allowed a contested presidential vote last year, has delayed municipal elections for two years after the Muslim Brotherhood made the gains in the parliamentary elections, despite the government's violent efforts to stop the group's supporters.

In Jordan, where King Abdullah has made political reform and democratisation a mandate, reformers believe their situation has been weakened with a national agenda for change put on the back burner. Plans for parliamentary elections in Qatar were postponed a third time, to 2007, in violation of the country's constitution, while democracy advocates say that laws allowing the emergence of civil society organisations have stymied their development instead. In Yemen, the government has cracked down on the media ahead of presidential elections later this year, jailing journalists who are considered over-critical of the regime.

Bahrain's parliamentary and municipal elections will not be postponed until 2008, putting an end to weeks of intense speculation. The State Minister for Cabinet Affairs and head of the Central Informatics Organisation, Shaikh Ahmad bin Atiyatallah al-Khalifa, was on April 12 quoted as saying: "Both polls will be held in 2006 as expected. According to the municipal elections law, the council polls will have to be held during the last two months of their four-year term which started with the first meeting. But since the five councils did not begin their terms together, the elections will have to be between late July and early September". Bahrain became a kingdom after the death in 1999 of its Emir Shaikh Issa bin Salman al-Khalifa. His son, King Hamad bin Issa, retains his title as "shaikh".

Parliamentary elections will have to be held between mid-August and mid-December, the last four months of the term, according to the law. Shaikh Ahmad, in charge of the executive office responsible for the elections, said: "The king will announce the dates of the municipal and legislative elections at least 30 and 45 days respectively before their scheduled date". He said municipal elections bylaws could be amended to stretch the two-month polls period to six months to make it more convenient for voters and supervising judges. Several political societies, particularly the opposition, had expressed concern that the elections would be delayed until 2008.

In Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah has refused calls that the country's consultative council be elected, while the arrest of Muhsin al-Awaji, a reform advocate and a moderate government critic, last month raised questions about how far the country's new-found openness would go.

In Syria, promises for reforms have been followed by a harsh crackdown on the opposition. Yet there is hope that some opening will be possible. For example, President Bashar al-Assad who inherited the Ba'thist regime from his father Gen. Hafez al-Assad who died in June 2000, has allowed a study on Syria's women to be conducted - for the very first time in Syria's modern history.

Syria's first comprehensive study of violence against women has concluded that nearly one married woman in four surveyed had been beaten. The study was released earlier this month as part of a report on Syria by the UN Development Fund for Women. The findings have been published in local news media, helping to draw attention to topics like domestic abuse and honour killings, which have long been considered taboo in Syria's conservative society.

The study was carried out under the supervision of the quasi-governmental General Union of Women (GUW), which oversees the welfare of Syrian females. The study included nearly 1,900 families, selected as a random sample, including a broad range of income levels and all regions. The men and women in each family were questioned separately.

The New York Times on April 12 quoted Shirin Shukri, a manager of the project at the UN regional office in Amman, as saying: "In Syria there was simply no data on violence against women; formal studies hadn't ever been done before. The issue of violence against women was kept silent here [in Syria] for many years. But we're making people in Syria aware that this is something that happens everywhere in Europe, in Asia, in the United States, and this is opening up discussion".

Hana Qaddoura, a spokeswoman for the GUW, said breaking the silence on domestic abuse was an essential first step. Many Syrians, she said, did not believe that violence in the home counted as violence. Qaddoura said: "There are some forms of violence against women that our society doesn't even see as violence. It all depends very much on education and income level, but many people see a woman who is beaten as being in a bad relationship; they don't see her as a victim of violence". The GUW said it would try to develop programmes to protect women, in response to the study's findings.

Advocates of women's rights in Syria say the fact that the official silence has been broken is a meaningful step. Ma'n Abdul Salam, a campaigner for women's rights, was on April 12 quoted as saying: "The most surprising thing is that for the first time in Syria, a semi-governmental organisation...has admitted that there is a problem". Bassam al-Qadi, a rights advocate, said the report was part of a growing openness about many forms of domestic abuse. He has been working on a public information campaign to curb honour killings - the killing of women believed to have dishonoured their families by engaging in illicit sex. Qadi said: "Until two years ago, discussion of honour killing was banned in the Syrian media. Now these subjects are becoming much more open".

US officials do not deny that there have been setbacks in the promotion of democracy in the Middle East. But they say that recent negative trends do not discredit their approach. Taher al-Adwan, editor in chief of the Amman-based Arab al-Yawm newspaper, was on April 10 quoted as saying: "Iraq has allowed people to say, 'forget the American style of reform'. The Americans are not able to present anything to the reformers to encourage them".

On April 8, the pan-Arab TV network al-Arabiya quoted President Mubarak as saying Iraq's Shi'ite Arab majority was loyal to Iran. He said all the Shi'ite communities in the Arab world were more loyal to Iran than to their own countries. This angered Iraq's Shi'ite leaders as well as their Sunni Arab and Kurdish counterparts. It drew condemnation of the Mubarak regime from Iran, Lebanon and other Arab states (see ood4-Iraq-IranApr17-06).

In the face of such open hostility from neighbouring Sunni Arab leaders, independent observers last week wondered how Iraq's Shi'ites will be convinced to share more power with Iraqi Sunnis and other minorities. Perhaps, some of these observers were quoted as suggesting, Mubarak's blundering remarks were a sign of strain. After 25 years in office, the crown of the head of the Egyptian state seems to have become too heavy for him to carry.

Mubarak has had a respectable career during which he has brought greater stability to Egypt. But now it seems that the hand at the helm has stiffened. Five terms in office would wear any president down. It is not only Mubarak who is withered by the arduous role of leadership; the entire Egyptian society is weary from bearing the weight of his presidency.

With no room for new and energetic leadership, Egypt's political process has become stagnant, whereas this country should have led the Arab world in efforts to democratise and empower citizens. Mubarak has ignored repeated calls by Egyptians for his own initiative to bring about a peaceful transfer of power by calling for early presidential elections. But he has failed to relieve himself and his people of the burden - his leadership.

Egypt is one of the closest allies of the US in the Middle East and recipient of about $2 bn a year in military and financial aid. Mubarak promised during his re-election campaign last summer to amend the constitution adequately and allow room for other political parties to grow. So far there has been virtually no movement on either front. The government continues to restrict the creation of new opposition parties, and judges who questioned the integrity of the parliamentary elections have become the focus of criminal probes.

In December, when an Egyptian court sentenced political opposition leader Ayman Nour to five years in prison on charges widely seen as politically motivated, Washington responded harshly, calling for his release. But Washington offered only mild disapproval over the February announcement of the delay in municipal elections. That delay is widely seen as an effort to preserve the monopoly of Egypt's ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) on power following the Muslim Brotherhood's success at the polls. It was also seen as an effort to halt the Brotherhood's promotion of an independent candidate for president in 2011. The Egyptian public has long held the suspicion that Mubarak is grooming his son Gamal to succeed him as president.

The New York Times on April 10 quoted Essam El-Erian, spokesman and senior member of the Brotherhood, as saying: "America had a problem with violent Islamic groups because of a lack of democracy in the region, but when people choose non-violent Islamic groups, they don't want to deal with it. Even if Islamic groups win elections and have poor relations with the US, they should at least appreciate that they will not be violent".

Toby Craig Jones, who recently completed a tour as an analyst with the International Crisis Group based in Bahrain, says: "The question many people are asking is this: Did reform slow down, or did it just never happen? This was never an example of real reform. It's an example of controlled reform".

When King Abdullah of Jordan entrusted a group of 26 prominent Jordanians to map out a reform agenda for his kingdom in February 2005, the stated objective was a plan for comprehensive reform and democratisation. But when the group presented the 2,500-page document to the king more than nine tumultuous months later, its reception was unusually subdued. The NYT quoted Taher al-Masri, a member of the drafting committee and, for a brief time, prime minister of Jordan, as saying: "For some reason, it was not publicized, it was not advertized, and it's got into the hands of very few people. We went, we took a picture, and that was it".

The effort sparked a contentious battle between Jordan's elite Western-educated reformers, who were accused of debating issues behind closed doors, and entrenched forces in the parliament, who sought to have greater say in the programme. Reformers like Marwan Mu'asher and others - dubbed "the digitals" for their hip, high-tech ways - were quickly accused of serving an American agenda rather than seeking real reform.

"Democratic development isn't always linear", said a senior US State Department official, according to the NYT, adding: "It's a process that takes time, is evolutionary and requires strong consistent support, which is what our policy is all about". Arab states are largely led by monarchies and authoritarian regimes, many of which have been unable to keep up with explosive population growth and development needs. After 9/11, the Bush administration made democratisation of the Middle East a strategic goal to answer the extremism which had taken root in many parts of the region; and Arab regimes, prodded also by emboldened opposition movements, made some moves towards reform. But Arab rulers now emphasise that change is a slow process, or simply focus on economic reform instead. With many economies booming, especially in the oil-rich Arab Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries, governments are in no hurry to bring about political change.

According to an Associated Press report, the intelligence chiefs of six Arab states - Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE - and Turkey have held a series of meetings in recent weeks to discuss plans for dealing with the impacts on the region of worsening Sunni-Shi'ite conflict in Iraq. Saudi Arabia in particular fears that unchecked sectarian violence in Iraq will negatively affect its own Shi'ite minority. The Arab states fear that it will contribute to the destabilisation of Lebanon, which has its own long-standing Sunni-Shi'ite conflict.

Apart from worries about an Iraqi civil war, Arab states argue that the current US policy on Iraq of excluding them from negotiations is playing into Iran's hands. At the Arab League Summit in Khartoum on March 28, league chief Amr Moussa said: "Any solution for the Iraqi problem cannot be reached without Arabs, and Arab participation". Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abul Gheit agreed that "there should be an Arab role" in the diplomatic efforts to stabilise the country.

Despite their fear of an over-weening Iranian influence in Iraq, however, there is no evidence that Iraq's Arab neighbours hope for a Sunni overthrow of the Shi'ite-Kurdish-dominated government through force. Instead their aim appears to be the protection of the rights of the minority Sunni population.

In an interview with US public television's Charlie Rose in mid-February, Saudi Ambassador to the US Prince Turki al-Faisal defined the two most basic interests of Iraqi Sunnis as "an equal share in the resources of Iraq, mainly oil" and being "safe from retribution" from Shi'ite militias.

Last November, the Arab League sought to help Sunni and Shi'ite parties begin a process of reaching a political accommodation by sponsoring the Cairo conference of Iraqi parties. At that meeting, which excluded representatives of the Sunni insurgents and those of the Neo-Salafi order, Arab League diplomats succeeded in brokering an agreement between Sunni and Shi'ite representatives on a set of compromise principles. The Arab League now is waiting for a government in Baghdad to be formed so that it pushes for a second reconciliation conference, this time to be held in Iraq.

Will USA Hit Iran's Nuclear Sites? The Bush administration, which publicly advocates negotiations to halt Iran's nuclear programme, is accelerating military planning for possible attacks against Iran, and has not ruled out using tactical nuclear weapons. This is according to a new article, by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker, which asserts that the Pentagon last winter presented the White House with an option to use bunker-buster nuclear bombs against Iran's underground nuclear sites. When the Joint Chiefs of Staff later sought to drop that option, unnamed officials at the White House resisted, the article stated.

The article cites numerous anonymous sources, including former Pentagon and intelligence officials, as well as sources described as having ties to the Pentagon but no direct involvement in its decision making. The New York Times on April 10 quoted Frederick Jones, a National Security Council spokesman, as saying of the Hersh report: "We're not going to discuss military planning. As the president has said repeatedly, we along with the international community are pursuing a diplomatic solution to the issues surrounding Iran's nuclear program". But The NYT said: "four Pentagon, military and administration officials who participate in high-level deliberations on Iran and who were granted anonymity to speak candidly, rejected the [Hersh] article's contention that the Bush administration was considering nuclear weapons in a possible strike against Iran. The paper quoted "a senior Pentagon official" as saying: "I've never heard the issue of nukes taken off or put on the table".

The Hersh article states that US combat troops have been ordered to infiltrate Iran to collect target data and to cultivate relationships with indigenous groups who oppose the government in Tehran. The NYT quoted Michele Ness, a spokeswoman for the CIA, as saying: "The article contains information that is inaccurate". The paper said she declined to elaborate.

Hersh is a well-known journalist credited with uncovering major stories including the My Lai massacre in Vietnam in 1969 and details of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib in Iraq. Some military and political officials have contested details of some of his articles, and some critics say he reports assertions critical of the government which are difficult to fully substantiate.

The article asserts that US carrier-based attack planes have been flying simulated nuclear-bomb runs within range of Iranian coastal radars. The NYT quoted a Pentagon official as saying he was unaware of any such flights, "but added that Iran had increased its air defenses so much in the last three weeks that it accidentally attacked one of its own aircraft".

The paper then said: "Senior Bush administration officials, while stressing that their preferred path is diplomatic, have not ruled out military attacks if negotiations should fail. Senior officers and Pentagon officials said that war planners, in particular air force targeting teams, had updated contingencies for dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions, as they periodically do. But they emphasized that the update did not reflect any guidance from the civilian leadership to prepare for military confrontation".

The NYT quoted the senior Pentagon official as saying: "There have been no operational plans or options presented to the White House". Then the paper concluded: "Top commanders say the military options range from bad to the unimaginable. None guarantees success, planners say, given that dozens of suspected sites are buried or near urban centers. Many risk causing not only casualties but a political crisis in the Middle East".

"This is a psychological war launched by Americans because they feel angry and desperate regarding Iran's nuclear dossier", Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told a weekly news conference on April 9, adding: "We will stand by our right to nuclear technology. It is our red line. We are ready to deal with any possible scenario. Iran is not afraid of threatening language".

Tehran Defiant: Iran's religious leaders on April 14 maintained an assertive stance towards the US and its allies, refusing international calls for a halt to sensitive nuclear work. Opening a conference on Palestine in Tehran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused the US of "linked plots" against Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria and demanded that Washington stop "enflaming the Middle East and Persian Gulf". Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati told Friday prayers in Tehran the April 11 announcement that Iran had completed nuclear enrichment in its Natanz laboratory was more important in its history than the nationalisation of the oil industry in the 1950s.

In day-long talks on April 13, IAEA Director Muhammad ElBaradei was promised access to nuclear sites, documents and people requested by inspectors still trying to piece together a complete picture of Iran's controversial nuclear programme. ElBaradei's trip was designed to give Iran a chance to improve ties with his agency ahead of a report he will prepare for the UN Security Council (UNSC) at end-April. The UNSC has called on Tehran to suspend all uranium-enrichment activities by then.

The US and EU governments are looking for the UNSC to take strong action against Tehran, a demand gaining further urgency with Iran's April 11 announcement. The FT on April 15 quoted diplomats "familiar with Mr ElBaradei's trip" as saying he had raised the idea of Iran making a "technical break" in nuclear work to allow talks with European governments to resume. The FT quoted one diplomat as saying this would amount to a temporary suspension lasting perhaps only a few weeks, during which negotiations with the UK, France and Germany (EU3) could resume. Bur Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad appeared to rule it out on April 12.

IAEA inspectors have already seen the cascade and will be able to verify whether Iran has indeed enriched uranium to the 3.5% level it has claimed, higher than in previous experiments but still much lower than what is needed for nuclear weapons. Iran's announcement marked a new twist in the nuclear crisis and sparked sharp rebuke from all UNSC members.

Although Ahmadi-Nejad has no direct responsibility for the nuclear file, he has been setting Tehran's tone, on April 13 saying there was "no room for defeat or retreat". Iran's decision to accelerate enrichment when the UNSC has asked for a halt to the experiments is part of a calculation that Western governments have few options to respond to Iranian defiance. The FT on April 15 quoted Iranian officials as saying their regime was determined to maintain at least a limited uranium enrichment capability - the process which makes fuel for nuclear reactors or, at higher levels, atomic bombs - but is willing to compromise on industrial-scale enrichment. They argue Iran tried unsuccessfully to reach such a deal in talks with the EU in 2005, with failure prompting the leadership to adopt unilateral actions.

The message from Tehran is that keeping the pilot plant at Natanz running for "research" is non-negotiable. Iranian officials say there is little the world can do but accept a compromise allowing limited enrichment. They insist the US would not strike militarily, because Iran could retaliate against US bases all over the Middle East, and can use allied radical groups to damage US interests in Iraq, the Palestinian territories, and Lebanon.

Tehran expects the UNSC to agree only limited sanctions, which Iran can live with, and not a comprehensive embargo that would deny the world Iranian oil and drive prices to record highs. Russia and China, although frustrated by Iran's defiance, have so far opposed any talk of sanctions, and a mild UNSC statement rebuking Iran for resuming enrichment work last month took weeks of negotiations.

However, Tehran could be overplaying its hand, prompting a strong common front against it at the UN. The escalation of tension will also raise pressure in the US for more serious consideration of the military option.

Ahmadi-Nejad on April 14 courted fresh controversy by describing Israel as "a dry and rotten tree that can be destroyed by a storm". Ahmadi-Nejad, who last year caused an international outcry by calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map", was speaking at the Third International Conference on the Rights of the Palestinian People.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on April 9 dismissed claims that the US was preparing for military action against Iran. He told BBC television that the international community was right to view Iran's nuclear programme with "high suspicion" but "there is no smoking gun, there is no 'casus belli'". He dismissed the idea of nuclear strikes with bunker-busting bombs as "completely nuts" and questioned the reliability of the reports' sources. Instead, he said he believed that Washington was still committed to diplomacy, adding: "The reason why we're opposed to military action is because it's an infinitely worse option and there's no justification for it".

In a few days last week, lengthy articles detailing planning for aerial attacks on as many as 400 Iranian nuclear and military targets appeared in the Washington Post, the London Sunday Times, The Forward, a prominent weekly serving the US Jewish community, and The New Yorker. The New Yorker account by Hersh was the most spectacular, although it relied heavily on unnamed sources outside the administration. Among other assertions, Hersh's 6,300-word article, "The Iran plans", said US combat forces had already entered Iran to collect target data and make contact with "anti-government ethnic-minority groups". It claimed that efforts by senior military officials to get the administration to eliminate contingency plans for use of tactical nuclear weapons on hardened targets had been "shouted down" by the Pentagon's civilian leadership.

Unlike other accounts which said any attack was unlikely until after the November mid-term elections at the earliest, Hersh suggested that it could come at any time. Citing official sources, he wrote: "The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium".

On CNN on April 10, Hersh said work on an attack had moved into an "operational phase, beyond contingency planning". Without denying any of Hersh's assertions, Bush on April 10 insisted that the latest reports constituted "wild speculation" and that his administration remained committed to diplomacy. But White House spokesman Scott McClellan said use of force remained an option.

The sudden spate of detailed stories has raised the question of whether the administration really intended such an attack - if not imminently, then before it leaves office, as said on April 9 by the Sunday Times - or if it was carrying out a psychological warfare campaign designed to persuade the Iranians and Washington's less warlike friends, especially in Europe, that it will indeed take action unless Tehran agreed to US demands to abandon its enrichment programme.

To some experts, the potential costs of such an attack - from an Iran-inspired Shi'ite uprising in Iraq to missile attacks on Saudi oilfields and skyrocketing oil prices (not to mention a rise in anti-US sentiment in Europe and the Islamic world) - so clearly outweigh the possible benefits that Bush's top aides would see them as exorbitant. Gary Sick, an Iran policy expert at Columbia University, who sees the latest threats by senior US officials as an effort to intimidate Tehran, was on April 12 quoted as saying: "Although they may be reckless with the security of the...[US], I think they are...cold-blooded realists when it comes to political power. One of their strongest negotiating tools is the widespread belief that they are irrational and capable of the most irresponsible actions. That is their record, so they have no need to invent it. If they can use that reputation to keep Iran - and everybody else - off balance, so much the better". But he said if that analysis was correct, "there is always the huge danger of miscalculation and accident".

Graham Fuller, a former CIA officer and Middle East specialist at the RAND Corporation, told the Forward that the recent articles "show the fine hand of US, maybe also UK, disinformation and psychological warfare against Iran...[that] may now be intensified, perhaps out of frustration that the 'real thing' is not, in fact, on the table any more".

Other analysts, however, do not see Bush as bluffing. Joseph Cirincione, a nuclear-proliferation specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote: "For months, I have told interviewers that no senior political or military official was seriously considering a military attack on Iran. In the last few weeks, I have changed my view. In part, this shift was triggered by colleagues with close ties to the Pentagon and the executive branch who have convinced me that some senior officials have already made up their minds: They want to hit Iran".

Wayne White, the State Department's top Middle East analyst until 2005, told The Forward: "In recent months, I have grown increasingly concerned that the administration has been giving thought to a heavy dose of air strikes against Iran's nuclear sector without giving enough weight to the possible ramification of such action".

Whether psychological warfare or serious premeditation, leading the charge are clearly the same aggressive nationalist and pro-Israel elements within and outside the administration who were behind the drive to war in Iraq.

Thus the rhetoric of VP Dick Cheney and UN Ambassador John Bolton - two of Bush's most hawkish aides - has been threatening in recent weeks, with Cheney vowing "meaningful consequences" and Bolton "tangible and painful consequences" in speeches last month to the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) if Iran did not freeze its nuclear programme.

Similarly, neo-conservatives (neo-cons) closely associated with right-wing sectors in Israel have been most outspoken in arguing that the benefits of an attack strongly outweigh the possible costs.

Hersh quoted Patrick Clawson, an Iran expert at the AIPAC-created Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as calling for war, if covert action, including "industrial accidents", was not sufficient to set back Iran's nuclear ambitions.

At the same time, the Sunday Times on April 9 quoted former Defence Policy Board chairman Richard Perle - a prominent neo-con - as asserting that destroying the programme would be much easier than many anticipated. "The attack would be over before anybody knew what had happened", said Perle, who told the AIPAC conference last month that a dozen B-2 bombers could handle the problem overnight. Perle's colleague at the neo-con American Enterprise Institute, Michael Rubin, stressed that "the administration is deadly serious...and while everyone recognizes the problems of any military action, there is a real belief that the consequences of Iran going nuclear would be worse".

Indeed, as in Iraq, US hardliners may be embarked on their own psy-war campaign against more moderate forces within the administration, either to counter European pressure on Washington to engage Iran in direct negotiations, to provoke Iran into an over-reaction that would offer a pretext for an attack or to rhetorically box the administration into a position where it would look unacceptably weak if it did not take action.

Sick said: "A sudden unexplained explosion at a US embassy, a clash with militias in Basra, or a thousand other things could call the administration's bluff. There are certainly individuals in and around the administration who would not hesitate for a second to recommend a bombing attack on Iran".