IRAQ - No US-Iran Nuke Talks - War Hints.

The FT on April 24 quoted Philip Zelikow, counsellor at the US State Department, as rebuffing European calls for Washington to negotiate directly with Tehran over Iran's nuclear programme. He said the US commitment to democratisation of the Middle East was undimmed, despite the recent victory of Hamas, the militant Islamist group, in the Jan. 25 Palestinian legislative elections.

Zelikow said: "The US position has been that at this time we don't see value in having direct talks with the Iranians about, say, the nuclear issue", rejecting calls for such negotiations from German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and other senior European diplomats.

Zelikow, who has played an important role in framing US strategy as an adviser to Ms Rice, brushed aside European suggestions that a long-term understanding with Tehran might involve a promise from the US that it has no intention of attacking Iran. He said: "The fallacy in a lot of the arguments about security assurances...is the assumption that the agenda of the current government in Iran is fundamentally entirely defensive. Unfortunately, we're engaged in a process with a regime that is dictatorial in its practices and revolutionary in its aims, with an agenda for destabilising neighbours and the broader Middle East".

Zelikow played down the prospect of US military action against Iran, though President Bush has repeatedly said all options are on the table. Zelikow stated: "When we say all options are on the table, that includes diplomatic options, too. Let's try diplomacy first. Let's give it a chance and then we can judge whether or not it's effective..."

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad on April 28 said "Iran did not give a damn" about UN decisions. Among other things, he said: "Iran has the capacity to become a world super-power... If we believe in ourselves...no power can be compared to us". On April 24 he defiantly dismissed talk of crisis. He said he thought the UNSC would neither agree sanctions nor authorise military strikes against Iran, which would continue its nuclear programme supported "from the remotest villages to the capital".

In a relaxed and confident performance at a rare press conference broadcast live on Iranian and many Arab TV stations, he defended Iran's position in terms of international law and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), while hinting Tehran might reconsider its NPT membership if denied its "rights". His words were clearly directed towards the Arab and Islamic world rather than the US and Europe, as he criticised Israel as "a fake regime", advised Europeans to give up anti-Semitism so Jews in Israel could "return" to Europe, and opposed "US and British policies for running the world".

Iranian officials have been active in recent weeks in a charm offensive to the six Arab Gulf (GCC) states. And while a Kremlin source on April 24 told three Russian news agencies that Moscow was "categorically opposed" to Tehran gaining the knowledge to develop nuclear weapons, Iran's leaders have been encouraged by Moscow's public stance that it would not support sanctions without proof that Iran's programme was not civil.

But Hassan Rowhani, Iran's former top security official close to Expediency Council Chairman Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, on April 24 warned in remarks reported on Iranian news agencies that, while Iran could not give up its "rights", officials should resist a "mentality that Iran will be deceived whenever it sits at the negotiating table". Rowhani led Iran's two-year negotiations with the EU until 2005.

US Defence expert Anthony Cordesman said in a country like Iran, with a youthful population, high unemployment and an oil-dependent economy, Ahmadi-Nejad's insistence that nuclear power could free more oil for export and create jobs resonated, adding: "This seems to be a rallying point even for Iranians who don't particularly like the regime".

Asia Times Online (ATO) on April 25 reported a "former Iranian ambassador and Islamic Republic insider" as providing "intriguing details" about US covert operations inside Iran aimed at destabilising the country and toppling the regime - or preparing for an American attack. It quoted this source as saying: "The Iranian government knows and is aware of such infiltration. It means that the Iranian government has identified them [the covert operatives] but for some reason does not want to show [this]". He said the agents being used by the US "were originally Iranians and not Americans", possibly recruited in the US or through US embassies in Dubai and Ankara.

US journalist Seymour Hersh wrote recently in The New Yorker magazine that the US had increased secret activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a major air attack on Iran. Hersh wrote that "teams of American combat troops had been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups". The templates seem identical to the period which preceded US air strikes against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan during which a covert CIA campaign distributed millions of dollars to tribal allies.

"The Iranian accusations are true", said Richard Sale, intelligence correspondent for UPI, referring to charges that the US was using Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) and other groups to carry out cross-border operations. "But it is being done on such a small scale - a series of pinpricks - it would seem to have no strategic value at all".

There has been a marked spike in unrest in Iran's Kurdistan, Khuzistan and Balochistan, three provinces with a high concentration of ethnic Kurdish, Arab and Balochi minorities, respectively. With the exception of the immediate post-revolutionary period, when the Kurds rebelled against Tehran and were suppressed violently, ethnic minorities have had better treatment, more autonomy and less ethnic discrimination than under the shah.

ATO quoted Sam Gardiner, a retired US Army colonel who specialises in war scenarios, as saying: "The president hasn't notified the Congress that American troops are operating inside Iran. So it's a very serious question about the constitutional framework under which we are now conducting military operations in Iran".

Camp Warhorse is the major US military base in the strategic Iraqi province of Diyala which borders Iran. In March, ATO "asked the US official in charge of all overt and covert operations emanating from there whether the military and the MEK colluded on an operational level. He denied any such knowledge", adding: "They have a gated community up there. Not really guarded - it's more gated".

According to Hersh, US combat troops are already inside Iran and, in the event of air strikes, would be in position to mark critical targets with laser beams to ensure bombing accuracy and excite sectarian tensions between the population and the central government. As of early winter, Hersh's source claims that the units were also working with minority groups in Iran, including the Azeris in the north, the Balochis in the south-east, and the Kurds in the north-west.

Speaking on the sidelines of a Palestinian solidarity conference recently, Major-General Yehyia Rahim Safavi, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander, sent a warning to the US and British intelligence services he accused of using Iraq and Kuwait to infiltrate Iran, saying: "I tell them that their agents can be our agents too, and they should not waste their money so casually".

On April 9, Iran claimed to have shot down an unmanned surveillance plane in the oil-rich south-western province of Khuzistan, according to a report in the semi-official Jumhuri Eslami newspaper. US media have also reported that the US military has been secretly flying surveillance drones over Iran since 2004, using radar, video, still photography and air filters to monitor Iranian military formations and track Iran's air-defence system. The US denied having lost a drone. ATO said: "This new mission for the combat troops is a product of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's long-standing interest in expanding the role of the military in covert operations, which was made official policy in the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review, published in February. Such activities, if conducted by CIA operatives, would need a Presidential Finding and would have to be reported to key members of Congress. The confirmation that the US is carrying out covert activities inside Iran makes more sense out of a series of suspicious events that have occurred along Iran's borders this year".

In early January, ATO said, a military plane belonging to the IRGC went down close to the Iraqi border. The plane was carrying 11 of IRGC's top commanders, including General Ahmad Kazemi, the commander of the IRGC's ground forces, and Brig.-Gen. Nabiollah Shahmoradi, who was deputy commander for intelligence. Although a spokesman blamed bad weather and dilapidated engines for the crash, ATO said "the private intelligence company Stratfor noted that there are several reasons to suspect foul play, not least of which was that any aircraft carrying so many of Iran's elite military luminaries would undergo 'thorough tests for technical issues before flight'". Later, Iran's defence minister accused Britain and the US of bringing the plane down through "electronic jamming".

ATO quoted Interior Minister Mustafa Pour-Mohammadi as saying: "Given all intelligence information that we have gathered, we can say that agents of the United States, Britain and Israel are seeking to destabilize Iran through a coordinated plan". ATO added: "This sentiment was echoed on websites such as AmericanIntelligence.us, where one reader commented, 'We couldn't have made a better hit on the IRGC's leadership if planned...sure it was just an accident?' Then, in late January, a previously unknown Sunni Muslim group called Jundallah (Soldier of Allah) captured nine Iranian soldiers in the remote badlands of Sistan-Balochistan province that borders Afghanistan and Pakistan. And in mid-February, another airplane crashed just inside Iraq after taking off from Azerbaijan and transiting Iranian airspace. The Iranian Mehr news agency reported that the 'passengers on board were possibly of Israeli origin'. It added that US troops have restricted access to the site to Iraqi Kurdish officials and that Western media were reporting the passengers aboard as having been German".

In early April an unidentified source in the Interior Ministry was quoted by the hardline Kayhan newspaper as saying the leader and 11 members of the Jundallah group had been killed by Iranian troops. Then more recently, ATO said, "Iranian missile batteries shelled Iranian Kurdish rebel positions inside Iraqi territory. They were targeting a militant group called PJAK that seeks more autonomy for Iran's Kurdish population and has been operating out of Iraq since 1999".

In an article published on April 22 by ATO, Ehsan Ahrari wrote: "It is not exactly a closely guarded military secret when the announcement appears as a dispatch in USA Today, a national newspaper that appears on every street corner, indeed, virtually every hotel in the land. The message this week: the National Strategic Gaming Center of the National Defense University (NDU) will conduct a 'war gaming' exercise on July 18 involving Iran's nuclear program. The United States' premier university for the education and training of its senior military officers, NDU is at Fort McNair in Washington, DC.

"War-gaming is a tabletop or even larger exercise simulating crisis management. Such exercises have become a standard business of the US military and the militaries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries. The purpose is to 'game' various options, political and military, and their implications. Such exercises now involve civilians, including even members of Congress, so it is important to recognize that going to war is treated as an option of last resort in such exercises, very much unlike what the Bush administration did in a 'real-world situation', namely Iraq.

"This particular 'war game' is the fifth in a series that has also included exercises related to a purported avian-influenza pandemic and a crisis in Pakistan. Secretary of Defense...Rumsfeld started these exercises in 2002 to help the legislative and executive branches discuss policy options. Considering the fact that interagency coordination has become such an enormously critical aspect of the US way of war fighting, representatives of various national-security and other relevant agencies are always present to provide their 'real world' input in such exercises. Top military commanders pay close attention to the civilian input. However, that should not be taken as a source of comfort.

"Uniformed members of the armed forces will not take part in this particular 'game', since purely military exercises on issues of such importance are never publicized. Military exercises are focused on developing various military courses of action, and then thoroughly discussing the feasibility of those options. In the final phase, these exercises conclude with a rigorous discussion of 'lessons learned'.

"The significance of the NDU exercise involving Iran stems from the fact that President... Bush has stated many times, most recently this Tuesday [April 18], that 'all options are on the table'. The Defense Department has taken elaborate measures to publicize the specifics of those options. They include arming submarine-launched Trident missiles with conventional explosives; placing hardened tips on existing missiles to enhance their penetrability in hardened silos; and 'setting off a huge explosion to gather data for efforts to improve bunker-busting bombs'.

"The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), which is a combat-support agency, is expected to conduct such a test by setting off 700 tons of explosives in the Nevada desert in the coming weeks. DTRA's head has already stated that the purpose of that test is to help solve problems related to the hardened weapons sites in North Korea and Iran.

"What is the meaning of all these developments? Is the United States considering attacking Iran? If the answer to this question is yes, then why is it doing so much to trumpet its intent, even providing details of the kinds of weapons it plans to use?

"It is sheer folly to dismiss the public posturing of the Bush administration as bluster and saber-rattling. This administration has an established record of invading two Muslim countries, where it maintains occupation forces to this day. No one should dismiss what Bush has stated in his National Security Strategy, issued...[in March], about Iran: 'We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran. For almost 20 years, the Iranian regime hid many of its key nuclear efforts from the international community. Yet the regime continues to claim that it does not seek to develop nuclear weapons. The Iranian regime's true intentions are clearly revealed by the regime's refusal to negotiate in good faith; its refusal to come into compliance with its international obligations by providing the...[IAEA) access to nuclear sites and resolving troubling questions; and the... statements of its president calling for Israel to "be wiped off the face of the Earth'.

"A similar type of hyperbolic rhetoric was used against Iraq, especially about its supposed...[WMD]. At least in the case of Iran, its continued desire to sustain an independent uranium-enrichment program provides ample substance to the...[US's] contentious rhetoric, even though Iran insists it has no intentions of developing nuclear weapons.

"However, the Bush administration not only dismisses Iran's assurances as lies, it is consistently ratcheting up its threatening rhetoric. Secretary of State...Rice, repeating her inflammatory words about Iraq's non-existent WMD, is at it again. This time, her crusade is focused on trying to persuade Russia and China to apply specific and very stringent sanctions against Iran, never mind that Bush failed to extract any promise of cooperation when Chinese President Hu Jintao visited him on Thursday [April 20].

"President Mahmud Ahmadinejad is becoming a perfect foil for fulfilling the aspirations of the Bush administration to tighten screws on Iran. He is turning into the classic 'villain' by intermittently threatening to 'wipe out' Israel, by ridiculing the Holocaust and by raising Iran's profile of support for the Palestinian intifada at a time when no Arab state cares to get very far ahead of the Palestinians. One wonders who is advising Ahmadinejad, and why is he so intent on using such strident rhetoric against Israel, knowing that Iran is no match for Israel's military prowess. Besides, by using highly contentious language about the Jewish state, he has created ample ill-will not only in Europe but also in other parts of the world, save North Korea, Syria, Cuba and Venezuela.

"Given that the Bush administration is not willing to engage Iran directly on the nuclear issue, the best option for Iran is to lower its reckless rhetoric and consider cooperating with the...[IAEA]. As to the question of whether the Bush administration would take military actions against Iran, the chances are pretty high that it would.

"A number of analysts maintain that US forces are under so much stress because of commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan that military action against Iran is not feasible. They also argue that the American people have no stomach for another military invasion. While those are valid points, there is also the possibility that precisely because of those reasons the current administration would take the option of preemptive air attacks on the Iranian facilities.

"Militarily...such an action carries minimal risks, even though politically it would be explosive. But Bush already has a proven record for taking politically explosive actions. At least for now, by so elaborately publicizing its military options, the United States is sending clear signals to Iran to abandon its uranium-enrichment program forthwith".