Growing Risk of U.S.-Iran Hostilities - Based on False Pretexts
By Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
MEMORANDUM FOR:
The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: War With Iran
INTRODUCTION
March 01,
2018 "Information
Clearing House"
-
In our December
21st Memorandum to you,
we cautioned that the claim that Iran is
currently the world’s top sponsor of terrorism
is unsupported by hard evidence. Meanwhile,
other false accusations against Iran have
intensified. Thus, we feel obliged to alert you
to the virtually inevitable consequences of war
with Iran, just as we warned President George W.
Bush six weeks before the U.S. attack on Iraq 15
years ago.
In our
first Memorandum in this genre we
told then-President Bush that we saw “no
compelling reason” to attack Iraq, and warned
“the unintended consequences are likely to be
catastrophic.” The consequences will be far
worse, should the U.S. become drawn into war
with Iran. We fear that you are not getting the
straight story on this from your intelligence
and national security officials.
After choosing “War With Iran” for the
subject-line of this Memo, we were reminded that
we had used it before, namely, for a
Memorandum to President Obama on August 3, 2010 in
similar circumstances. You may wish to ask your
staff to give you that one to read and
ponder. It included a startling quote from
then-Chairman of President Bush Jr.’s
Intelligence Advisory Board (and former national
security adviser to Bush Sr.) Gen. Brent
Scowcroft, who told the Financial Times on
October 14, 2004 that Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon had George W. Bush “mesmerized;”
that “Sharon just has him wrapped around his
little finger.” We wanted to remind you of that
history, as you prepare to host Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next week.
* * *
Rhetoric vs. Reality
We believe that the recent reporting
regarding possible conflict with
nuclear-armed North Korea has somewhat
obscured consideration of the significantly
higher probability that Israel or even Saudi
Arabia will take steps that will lead to a
war with Iran that will inevitably draw the
United States in. Israel is particularly
inclined to move aggressively, with
potentially serious consequences for the
U.S., in the wake of the recent incident
involving an alleged Iranian drone and the
shooting down of an Israeli aircraft.
There is also considerable anti-Iran
rhetoric in U.S. media, which might well
facilitate a transition from a cold war-type
situation to a hot war involving U.S.
forces. We have for some time been observing
with some concern the growing hostility
towards Iran coming out of Washington and
from the governments of Israel and Saudi
Arabia. National Security Adviser H.R.
McMaster is warning that the “time to act is
now” to thwart Iran’s aggressive regional
ambitions while U.S. United Nations
Ambassador Nikki Haley sees a “wake-up” call
in the recent shooting incident involving
Syria and Israel. Particular concern has
been expressed by the White House that Iran
is exploiting Shi’a minorities in
neighboring Sunni dominated states to create
unrest and is also expanding its role in
neighboring Iraq and Syria.
While we share concerns over the Iranian
government’s intentions vis-à-vis its
neighbors, we do not believe that the
developments in the region, many of which
came about through American missteps, have a
major impact on vital U.S. national
interests. Nor is Iran, which often sees
itself as acting defensively against
surrounding Sunni states, anything like an
existential threat to the United States that
would mandate the sustained military action
that would inevitably result if Iran is
attacked.
Iran’s alleged desire to stitch together a
sphere of influence consisting of an arc of
allied nations and proxy forces running from
its western borders to the Mediterranean Sea
has been frequently cited as justification
for a more assertive policy against Tehran,
but we believe this concern to be greatly
exaggerated. Iran, with a population of more
than 80 million, is, to be sure, a major
regional power but militarily, economically
and politically it is highly vulnerable.
Limited Military Capability
Tehran’s Revolutionary Guard is well armed
and trained, but much of its “boots on the
ground” army consists of militiamen of
variable quality. Its Air Force is a
“shadow” of what existed under the Shah and
is significantly outgunned by its rivals in
the Persian Gulf, not to mention Israel. Its
navy is only “green water” capable in that
it consists largely of smaller vessels
responsible for coastal defense supplemented
by the swarming of Revolutionary Guard small
speedboats.
When Napoleon had conquered much of
continental Europe and was contemplating
invading Britain it was widely believed that
England was helpless before him. British
Admiral Earl St Vincent was unperturbed: “I
do not say the French can’t come, I only say
they can’t come by sea.” We likewise believe
that Iran’s apparent threat is in reality
decisively limited by its inability to
project power across the water or through
the air against neighboring states that have
marked superiority in both respects.
The concern over a possibly developing
“Shi’ite land bridge,” also referred to as
an “arc” or “crescent,” is likewise
overstated. It ignores the reality that
Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon all have strong
national identities and religiously mixed
populations. They are influenced — some of
them strongly — by Iran but they are not
puppet states. And there is also an ethnic
division that the neighboring states’
populations are very conscious of– they are
Arabs and Iran is Persian, which is also
true of the Shi’a populations in Saudi
Arabia and the Emirates.
Majority Shi’a Iraq, for example, is now
very friendly to Iran but it has to deal
with considerable Kurdish and Sunni
minorities in its governance and in the
direction of its foreign policy. It will not
do Iran’s bidding on a number of key issues,
including Baghdad’s relationship with
Washington, and would be unwilling to become
a proxy in Tehran’s conflicts with Israel
and Saudi Arabia. Iraqi Vice President Osama
al-Nujaifi, the highest-ranking Sunni in the
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi government,
has, for example, recently called for the
demobilization of the Shi’ite Popular
Mobilization Forces or militias that have
been fighting ISIS because they “have their
own political aspirations, their own
[political] agendas. … They are very
dangerous to the future of Iraq.”
Nuclear Weapons Thwarted
A major concern that has undergirded much of
the perception of an Iranian threat is the
possibility that Tehran will develop a
nuclear weapon somewhere down the road. We
believe that the current Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action, even if imperfect, provides
the best response to that Iranian
proliferation problem. The U.N. inspections
regime is strict and, if the agreement
stands, there is every reason to believe
that Iran will be unable to take the
necessary precursor steps leading to a
nuclear weapons program. Iran will be
further limited in its options after the
agreement expires in nine years. Experts
believe that, at that point, Iran its not
likely to choose to accumulate the necessary
highly enriched uranium stocks to proceed.
The recent incident involving the shoot-down
of a drone alleged to be Iranian, followed
by the downing of an Israeli fighter by a
Syrian air defense missile, resulted in a
sharp response from Tel Aviv, though
reportedly mitigated by a warning from
Russian President Vladimir Putin that
anything more provocative might
inadvertently involve Russia in the
conflict. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu is said to have moderated his
response but his government is clearly
contemplating a more robust intervention to
counter what he describes as a developing
Iranian presence in Syria.
In addition, Netanyahu may be indicted on
corruption charges, and it is conceivable
that he might welcome a “small war” to
deflect attention from mounting political
problems at home.
Getting Snookered Into War
We believe that the mounting Iran hysteria
evident in the U.S. media and reflected in
Beltway groupthink has largely been
generated by Saudi Arabia and Israel, who
nurture their own aspirations for regional
political and military supremacy. There are
no actual American vital interests at stake
and it is past time to pause and take a step
backwards to consider what those interests
actually are in a region that has seen
nothing but disaster since 2003. Countering
an assumed Iranian threat that is minimal
and triggering a war would be catastrophic
and would exacerbate instability, likely
leading to a breakdown in the current
political alignment of the entire Middle
East. It would be costly for the United
States.
Iran is not militarily formidable, but its
ability to fight on the defensive against
U.S. naval and air forces is considerable
and can cause high casualties. There appears
to be a perception in the Defense Department
that Iran could be defeated in a matter of
days, but we would warn that such
predictions tend to be based on overly
optimistic projections, witness the outcomes
in Afghanistan and Iraq. In addition, Tehran
would be able again to unleash terrorist
resources throughout the region, endangering
U.S. military and diplomats based there as
well as American travelers and businesses.
The terrorist threat might easily extend
beyond the Middle East into Europe and also
the United States, while the dollar costs of
a major new conflict and its aftermath could
break the bank, literally.
Another major consideration before
ratcheting up hostilities should be that a
war with Iran might not be containable. As
the warning from President Vladimir Putin to
Netanyahu made clear, other major powers
have interests in what goes on in the
Persian Gulf, and there is a real danger
that a regional war could have global
consequences.
In sum, we see a growing risk that the U.S.
will become drawn into hostilities on
pretexts fabricated by Israel and Saudi
Arabia for their actual common objective
(“regime change” in Iran). A confluence of
factors and misconceptions about what is at
stake and how such a conflict is likely to
develop, coming from both inside and outside
the Administration have, unfortunately, made
such an outcome increasingly likely.
We have seen this picture before, just 15
years ago in Iraq, which should serve as a
warning. The prevailing perception of threat
that the Mullahs of Iran allegedly pose
directly against the security of the U.S. is
largely contrived. Even if all the
allegations were true, they would not
justify an Iraq-style “preventive war”
violating national as well as international
law. An ill-considered U.S. intervention in
Iran is surely not worth the horrific
humanitarian, military, economic, and
political cost to be paid if Washington
allows itself to become part of an armed
attack.
FOR THE STEERING GROUP, VETERAN
INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS FOR SANITY
William Binney, former NSA Technical
Director for World Geopolitical & Military
Analysis; Co-founder of NSA’s Signals
Intelligence Automation Research Center
(ret.)
Kathleen Christison, CIA, Senior Analyst on
Middle East (ret.)
Graham E. Fuller, Vice-Chair, National
Intelligence Council (ret.)
Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer
(ret.)
Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC Iraq;
Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan
(associate VIPS)
Larry C. Johnson, former CIA and State
Department Counter Terrorism officer
Michael S. Kearns, Captain, USAF; ex-Master
SERE Instructor for Strategic Reconnaissance
Operations (NSA/DIA) and Special Mission
Units (JSOC) (ret.)
John Brady Kiesling, Foreign Service
Officer; resigned Feb. 27, 2003 as Political
Counselor, U.S. Embassy, Athens, in protest
against the U.S. attack on Iraq (ret.)
John Kiriakou, Former CIA Counterterrorism
Officer and former senior investigator,
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Edward Loomis, Jr., former NSA Technical
Director for the Office of Signals
Processing (ret.)
David MacMichael, National Intelligence
Council, National Intelligence Estimates
Officer (ret.)
Ray McGovern, former US Army
infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst;
CIA Presidential briefer (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National
Intelligence Officer for Near East (ret.)
Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate
(ret.)
Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former
Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)
Greg Thielmann, former Director of the
Strategic, Proliferation, and Military
Affairs Office, State Department Bureau of
Intelligence & Research (INR), and former
senior staffer on Senate Intelligence
Committee (ret.)
Kirk Wiebe, former Senior Analyst, SIGINT
Automation Research Center, NSA ret.)
Lawrence Wilkerson, Colonel (USA, ret.),
former Chief of Staff for Secretary of
State; Distinguished Visiting Professor,
College of William and Mary (associate VIPS)
Sarah G. Wilton, CDR, USNR, (ret.); Defense
Intelligence Agency (ret.)
Robert Wing, former Foreign Service Officer
(associate VIPS)
Ann Wright, Colonel, US Army (ret.); also
Foreign Service Officer who, like Political
Counselor John Brady Kiesling, resigned in
opposition to the war on Iraq
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