Brzezinski tells how U.S. could provoke war with Iran

In mid-February, a U.S Navy aircraft carrier strike group, led by the USS John C. Stennis, steamed into Mideast waters, doubling the U.S. presence in the Persian Gulf, and raising the specter of a Pentagon military strike against Iran.

The Stennis, leading a strike force of cruisers, destroyers and submarines, joins the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. These aircraft carriers are mammoth floating military bases, equipped with hundreds of cruise missiles, carrying more than 80 warplanes and a crew of 5,000 troops.

In addition to the military buildup, a media offensive has targeted Iran with a steady stream of sensational news charging Iranian support for “terrorist” and “sectarian” violence in Iraq. And last week, Vice President Cheney said it would be “a serious mistake” if Iran were allowed to become a nuclear power. “All options are on the table.”

On Feb. 1, former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, warned that the Bush administration is seeking a pretext for war against Iran.

Brzezinski, chief anti-Soviet cold warrior of the Carter administration, was the architect of U.S.-CIA intervention in Afghanistan in the late 1970s in support of fundamentalist, anti-Soviet Islamic forces against the then pro-socialist government. Today Brzezinski is a loud critic of the Bush administration’s Mideast policy, fearing, in his words, that the war in Iraq “is a historic, strategic and moral calamity, which is undermining America’s global legitimacy. [sic!]”

Being a Pentagon insider, his testimony was all the more remarkable for laying out the broad strokes for how U.S. military intervention against Iran might actually unfold.

“If the United States,” he said, “continues to be bogged down in a protracted bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large. A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iran; culminating in a “defensive” U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.”

In the question and answer period, Brzezinski, in response to a question from Sen. Menéndez (D-NJ) as to how military conflict with Iran would unfold, Brzezinski recounted the now infamous Downing Street memo. “Basically,” he said, “escalation, accusations, some incidents—there have already been some incidents between us and the Iranians. There are some allegations that the Iranians are responsible for certain acts—allegations but not facts. And that would spark, simply, a collision. It could even be in some fashion provoked.”

Brzezinski drew the attention of the senators to a meeting between Bush and the British Prime Minister during the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq and a March 27, 2006, New York Times article on this meeting.

“And in it, according to this account, the president is cited as saying that he’s concerned that there may not be weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq and that there must be some consideration given to finding a different basis for undertaking the military action. And I’ll just read you what this memo allegedly says, according to The New York Times.

“The memo stated, ‘The president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq.’

“This is two months before the war.

“’Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation.’

“And he described, then, several ways in which this could be done, and I won’t go into that. I don’t know how accurate these ways were. They’re quite sensational, at least one of them.

“And if one is of the view that one is dealing with an implacable enemy that has to be removed, that course of action may, under certain circumstances, be appealing.

“I’m afraid if the situation in Iraq continues deteriorating, and if Iran is perceived as in some fashion involved or responsible—or the potential beneficiary thereof—that temptation could arise.”

A widely cited article by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker (March 5), adds substance to Brzezinski’s charges. Hersh documents the new “redirection” by the White House to line up its Middle East allies in an anti-Iranian axis.

It seems utter madness to suggest that the U.S. government, embroiled in the mounting debacle in Iraq, unable to subdue the impoverished nation of Afghanistan, facing a deficit crisis of historic proportions, and facing its lowest approval ratings ever here at home would contemplate a new military adventure against Iran, a nation of 70 million people with a standing army of 450,000 soldiers.

Some may believe that the U.S. threats are aimed at intimidating sectors of Iranian society. Yet, given the adventurous and aggressive character of U.S. imperialism, it would be a mistake for opponents of U.S. militarism to let down their guard.