Iran & Israel Are 1st Targets For Nuclear-Free Greater Middle East Project:.

*** The Street-Smart Among Iraq's Arab Nationalist Parties And Individuals, Like Muqtada Al-Sadr Who Used Imam Ali's Shrine & Human Shields In His War On The US, Will Destroy The Country If They Get The US To Withdraw To Kuwait - A Better Launch Pad For Attacks Against WMD- Ambitious Regimes In The Greater Middle East, The Main Energy Pool In The World

*** Unfortunately, The Smart Iraqis Who Lived In Exile When Saddam Was In Power And Are Now Trying To Have A Real Democracy In Their Country Appear To Be Vulnerable To The Radicals

NICOSIA - With the US trying to build up an arc of control from East Europe to the Indian Ocean and the Horn of Africa, highly-placed APS sources indicate that Iran and then Israel will be targeted for de-nuclearisation in the coming years. The US objective is for the "Greater Middle East" (GME) to become a nuclear-free zone. The size of the GME, in geo-strategic terms, will be getting bigger as the number of the zone's member-states increases.

These are the objectives of Scenario One. In this, the US in Iraq will have succeeded as a liberator and is no longer seen as a naive occupier - as the Americans battling a young mullah in Najaf now appear to be - to be taken advantage of by Iraq's ungrateful Kurds in the north, the Shiites in the south and a lethal Sunni Triangle in the centre.

In this scenario, the Shiite theocracy in Iran will have become sensible enough to prove to the world that it no longer has plants to produce atomic bombs and to dissolve itself in favour of a real democracy. With the US subsequently proving to the world that it has progressed in negotiating with both India and Pakistan pacts that will lead to their de-nuclearisation, Israel will be persuaded to get rid of all its weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

The ten-year US troop redeployment plan announced on Aug. 16 by President George W. Bush makes long-term strategic sense if it is part of Scenario One. In this case, North Korea, China and Russia will join a WMD-free GME, which should have become a nucleus for a WMD-free world. In the GME, the Arafats, the Bin Ladenists and all other types of dictatorship will be succeeded by prosperous democracies.

Scenario Two, however, is very bad for the status quo in the GME; but most of the US objectives will be achieved anyway. In this, the US in Iraq has failed and mayhem will have prevailed. As a result, Iraq will have been partly partitioned and/or partly invaded by some of the neighbours and then dismembered, and the GME will have become a Hobbesian zone of very small but failed states. Israel will have become a super-power representing American interests in this part of the world.

Edward N. Luttwak, a senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, had Scenario Two in mind when he said: "It is precisely because unpredictable mayhem is so predictable that the United States might be able to disengage from Iraq at little cost, or even perhaps advantageously".

Luttwak, the author of "Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace", said in a New York Times article published on Aug. 18: "For geographic reasons, many other countries (including non-GME powers such as France, Germany and Russia) have more to lose from an American debacle in Iraq than does the United States itself. It's time to take advantage of that difference" [by withdrawing from Iraq].

A US withdrawal to Kuwait would leave the neighbours, including Iran, vulnerable to Iraq's resultant implosion. The ensuing chaos, including anarchy in Iran, would help ease a US mission to destroy its nuclear facilities before real atomic bombs are produced in that country.

On Aug. 18 the Financial Times quoted John Bolton, the US under-secretary for arms control, as saying Washington was "using every diplomatic tool" at its disposal, including working with Russia, China and other nations to apply pressure on Iran. His comments were partly in response to criticism that the US had not been attentive enough to Iran's nuclear threats. But Bolton emphasised that Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons capability was moving the country further down a path towards international isolation.

The following is an interesting article by Charles V. Pena published on Aug. 13 by The Daily Star of Beirut. Pena is director of defence policy studies at the Cato Institute, a member of the Cato Institute Special Task Force that produced the book "Exiting Iraq: Why the US Must End the Military Occupation and Renew the War Against Al-Qaeda", and a terrorism analyst for MSNBC (www.msnbc.com).

"When President George W. Bush first named the "axis of evil" in his January 2002 State of the Union address, almost everyone knew that he was laying the groundwork for military action against Iraq. But now that the United States has invaded Iraq, the question is whether Iran will be deja vu all over again. It's worth noting that based on the Bush administration's charges against the Iraqi regime - its development of weapons of mass destruction and support for terrorism - a better case can be made against Iran than Iraq.

"Prior to December 2002, the focus of Iran's capability to develop nuclear weapons was on the Bushehr light water reactor. But at the time it was discovered that Iran was constructing two secret nuclear fuel cycle facilities at Natanz and Arak. Natanz was believed to be a uranium enrichment plant and Arak was thought to be a heavy water reactor. Iran denied any military purposes for these facilities and agreed to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections.

"In August 2003, however, IAEA inspectors at Natanz found traces of highly enriched uranium, deemed questionable for non-military purposes. In February of this year, the IAEA found blueprints for building P2 gas centrifuges that are better suited for producing weapons-grade plutonium than the hundreds of P1 centrifuges that Iran already acknowledged possessing.

"Subsequently, actual P2 centrifuge parts were discovered. And after the IAEA passed a resolution in June 2004 deploring the fact that 'Iran's co-operation has not been as full, timely and proactive as it should have been' - which sounds eerily like the lack of cooperation provided by Iraq to UN weapons inspectors as claimed by the Bush administration - Iran announced that it was going to resume centrifuge activities, which are allowed for peaceful nuclear energy, but not for making weapons.

"Former CIA director Robert M. Gates thinks the Iranians can 'go with a weapon whenever they want to'. According to 'Patterns of Global Terrorism', published by the State Department, 'Iran remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism in 2003'.

"Iran provided funding, safe haven, training and weapons to anti-Israeli groups, such as Lebanon's Hizbullah and the Palestinian Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. The Sept. 11 Commission Report implicated Iran in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing that killed 19 Americans and wounded 372.

"And the commission cited 'strong evidence' that Iran facilitated the transit of several Al-Qaeda members before Sept. 11, including perhaps eight or more of the hijackers. This left open the question of whether Tehran knowingly assisted Al-Qaeda operatives, but stopped short of claiming it was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. Bush said of the alleged Iran-Al-Qaeda connection: 'They're harboring Al-Qaeda leadership there. And we've asked that they be turned over to their respective countries. Secondly, they've got a nuclear weapons program that they need to dismantle. We're working with other countries to encourage them to do so. Thirdly, they've got to stop funding terrorist organizations such as Hizbullah that create great dangers in parts of the world'. It could just as easily have been one of the president's pre-war statements about Iraq.

"Neoconservative pundits were quick to jump on the Iran bandwagon. The same day that news stories broke about a possible Sept. 11-Iran link, the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol wrote that a 'serious policy' toward Iran included regime change. The American Enterprise Institute's Danielle Pletka, David Frum (the former Bush speechwriter who coined the phrase "axis of evil") and Michael Ledeen all wrote harsh commentaries against Iran in the weeks after the Sept. 11 report was released. Columnist Charles Krauthammer asked: 'Did we invade the wrong country?'

"Former CIA Director James Woolsey and a host of other usual (neocon) suspects revived the Committee on the Present Danger, taking out full-page ads in the New York Times and the Washington Post that cited 'rogue regimes' - a euphemism that surely included Iran - as part of the grave threat facing America. So is the United States heading down the path to war with Iran?

"A front-page Aug. 8 New York Times headline proclaimed: 'Diplomacy Fails to Slow Advance of Nuclear Arms' in Iran. And a Washington Post article the next day quoted National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice as saying: 'We cannot allow the Iranians to develop a nuclear weapon'. Thus, it seems that the stage has been set for a confrontation. Many consider the notion of invading Iran absurd, especially with 140,000 American troops bogged down in Iraq. Although the Iranian military is not comparable to the US military, it is larger and better equipped than Iraqi forces that were dispatched in less than four weeks. The Iranians also have the benefit of learning from US military operations in Iraq to adapt their tactics accordingly (for example by adopting a more organised and better-equipped insurgent resistance). And unlike Iraq, Iran has not been subject to 12 years of aerial bombardment of its air defenses and other military targets.

"Finally, even though Iran is sandwiched between Afghanistan and Iraq, the security situation in both countries is not conducive for either to be a jumping off point for a military operation. A ground invasion, then, seems unlikely - at least in the near term. But precision bombing of Iran's nuclear sites is certainly a possibility. After all, neither the US Air Force, with its JDAMs and laser-guided bombs, nor the US Navy, with its cruise missiles, is mired in Iraq. The risk would be how good the intelligence is on the locations of Iran's nuclear facilities. After all, Washington was surprised to discover that Iran's nuclear activities were not limited to Bushehr, so are there other unknown sites? There is also the issue of how many facilities are located in urban areas and the potential for civilian casualties even with precision weapons. For example, one of Iran's nuclear research centers is located in Tehran.

"Finally, there is the question of the wisdom of military action against Iran - just as there was in Iraq. Attacking another Muslim nation after Afghanistan and Iraq would likely be interpreted as a war against Islam by the rest of the Muslim world, which would be playing right into the hands of Osama Bin Laden and other radical Islamists seeking to polarize the over 1 billion Muslims around the world against the US. Like Iraq, without clear evidence that the regime in Tehran was involved in Sept. 11, or is otherwise supporting or harboring Al-Qaeda, attacking Iran would only make the terrorist threat to the US worse".