By Michael Tanji
The Daily Standard

Thinking in advance about post-action DOCEX should be part of any military plan.

NO ONE KNOWS whether or not an Operation Iranian Freedom is in the cards. A good deal of focus is already being placed on military planning. But it is also worth asking what America is doing to prepare for the trove of documents and other media that a newly liberated Iran could produce.

Knowing something about how we prepared, from a captured-media perspective, for postwar Iraq, it is safe to say that lessons were learned.

It is important that we plan to exploit captured Iranian documents, recordings, and computers. There is no point in the foreseeable future when the United States will not be able to physically defeat an enemy. The problem is that most of our major adversaries are in places where we have a hard time recruiting spies. Without spies, we have few ways of knowing what the man behind the curtain is actually doing and whether or not we should put our military might to use. Under such conditions we are forced to justify our calls for action based in part on the findings of third parties (who have their own agendas) and inspectors (who can be led around to chase geese).

The Washington Times

Iran under its present rulers cannot be allowed finally to acquire nuclear weapons -- for these would not guarantee stability by mutual deterrence but would instead threaten us with uncontrollable perils.

The rulers of Iran are openly financing, arming, training and inciting anti-American terrorist organizations...If this is what Iran's extremist rulers do now even without the shield of nuclear weapons to protect them, what would they do if they had it?" So writes Edward Luttwak of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, an opponent of military strikes, in the May issue of Commentary magazine.

Mr. Luttwak argues against military action on grounds that there is still time to prevent Iran from going nuclear. The urgency of the Iran issue continues to grow, however, in the wake of newly released commercial satellite photographs which help to document a pattern of building and concealment activities dating back to 2002 at two major Iranian nuclear facilities: a uranium conversion site at Isfahan and a uranium enrichment site at Natanz.

The Wall Street Journal

A threat that can't be outsourced any longer.

Bill Clinton often complained that history had denied him the sort of historic challenge--a Great Depression or war--that might have made his Presidency great. We suspect that, after five tumultuous years, President Bush has more than once wished that he could have been so lucky.

But that is not the fate of this President, who has had to confront the consequences of the holiday from history that was the 1990s: September 11, continuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and now his most severe test yet, the looming crisis over Iran's drive for nuclear weapons.

Iran's announcement this month that it has enriched uranium to reactor-grade levels marks a watershed, and there is no point putting a hopeful gloss on it. Iran now owns the entire nuclear fuel cycle, from mining uranium ore from its own deposits, to milling it, crushing it, converting it to hexafluoride gas and enriching it in homemade centrifuges.

By Thomas Joscelyn
The Daily Standard

Have the mullahs really stopped aiding anti-American terrorism?

IN A NEW YORK TIMES OP-ED this past Sunday, former National Security Council staffers Richard Clarke and Steven Simon lamented the possibility of a military strike on Iran. They warned, "a conflict with Iran could be even more damaging to our interests than the current struggle in Iraq has been."

At the heart of their concern lies a simple cost-benefit analysis. Iran has not supported anti-American terrorism since the mid-1990s. But if provoked, the mullahs may unleash their terrorist network, which is "superior to anything Al Qaeda was ever able to field." In the war on terrorism, therefore, the potential benefits of a military strike on Iran are rather low, while the costs are prohibitively high.

Clarke and Simon tell us that Iran's last act of anti-American terrorism came in 1996 when the "the Qods Force, the covert-action arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, arranged" the Khobar Towers bombing. (It is worth noting that there is still some uncertainty surrounding the Khobar Towers bombing. For example, the 9-11 Commission concluded, "While the evidence of Iranian involvement is strong, there are also signs that al Qaeda played some role, as yet unknown." Eight years after the attack, therefore, the government still wasn't sure if this was a joint Iran-al Qaeda operation.)

By Nicholas Blanford
The Christian Science Monitor

Iran is forging closer ties with countries and groups in the Middle East that share its hostility toward the US and Israel.

Rising tension between the West and Iran is coinciding with the emergence of a loose anti-Western alliance - Israel now dubs it an "axis of terror" - spanning the Middle East, presenting a new challenge to the US's regional ambitions.

Centered on Iran, this alignment has hardened in recent months, analysts say, with Tehran shoring up old alliances and strengthening ties with countries (Syria and Iraq) and with groups (Hizbullah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad) that share its hostility toward Israel and the US.

"The alliance that is emerging in this part of the world is a creation of Iran," says Sami Moubayed, a Syrian political analyst. "It wants to bolster its position by allying itself with countries or groups that can temporarily enhance its regional role and influence."

The Intelligencer

There are few scenarios more chilling than the notion of an aggressive, radical Islamic regime getting its hands on nuclear weapons. Iran boasts it is on the verge of developing nuclear weapons, which the regime very well may use as blackmail to control the flow of oil out of the Persian Gulf — or do far worse.

Merely jawboning the Iranians seems unlikely to work any better in the coming critical weeks and months than it has up to this point, which is to say not at all. What can the United States and its allies do about the situation?

Military action should not be ruled out. A series of well-placed strikes could deliver a serious, long-term setback to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. But other pressures should be applied first, particularly measures that would hurt Iran’s leadership rather than the Iranian people.

By Michael Hirsh
Monday 24th April, 2006
Newsweek

Spinning Out of Control: Uranium gas on show at the announcement

April 24, 2006 issue - In the minds of some Bush administration officials, the solution to America's new foreign-policy crisis lies with people like "the Larry King of Iran." That's what Ahmad Baharloo's executive producer, Maryam Velgot, calls the ruggedly handsome host of the Persian-language show "Roundtable With You" on Voice of America. Baharloo, an Iranian exile in Washington, will soon be a prime instrument of the administration's new democracy-promotion campaign in Iran. Of the $85 million President George W. Bush has requested from Congress for the campaign, about $50 million will go to expanding Farsi television programs on VOA, and Baharloo is a star performer.

Beginning in June, Baharloo's interview-and-call-in show will be beamed into Iranian homes seven days a week instead of just one. The goal: to blanket the repressive, cleric-run state with open dialogue and glad tidings from America. Asked whether any Larry King-type character—even the real one—could do much to engender democratic revolution, Velgot says, "Well, he's more like the old, serious Larry King." She adds that there is much more coming, like a fast-paced news-magazine show with a chic, comely host named Luna Shad that "can be likened to Anderson Cooper's '360º'." That will also move from one day a week to seven.

By Phillip Adams
Tuesday 19th April, 2006
The Australian

With his presidency reduced to a mess, George W. Bush may just decide to lash out wildly at Iran

WE cannot wait any longer for the impeachment of George W. Bush. Far more efficient to have Bush certified. There is no need for further debate on his mental state. The US President is bonkers.

Having turned the White House into a madhouse, having taken more lunatic positions on more issues than any head of state since GeorgeIII (are they, perchance, related?). GWB needs a long rest and a change of medication. And it shouldn't be too hard to guide him into a padded cell. Just tell him it's the presidential bomb shelter.

Let's examine the symptoms of his mental decline. First, Bush convinced Americans that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11. This is something the poor fool might have believed, given a tenuous grasp of geography, history and political reality. He then began to hallucinate about weapons of mass destruction, despite the evidence of Hans Blix and a multitude of others that there weren't any. And he finally organised a tatty little alliance to join him in the silliest war since Vietnam, one guaranteed to recruit terrorists in unprecedented numbers.

By Anneliese Fikentscher and Andreas Neumann, Translation to English: Erik Appleby
Wednesday 19th April, 2006
Kein Krieg

An analysis of media rhetoric on its way to war against Iran - Commenting on the alleged statements of Iran's President Ahmadinejad .

"But now that I'm on Iran, the threat to Iran, of course -- (applause) -- the threat from Iran is, of course, their stated objective to destroy our strong ally Israel. That's a threat, a serious threat. It's a threat to world peace; it's a threat, in essence, to a strong alliance. I made it clear, I'll make it clear again, that we will use military might to protect our ally, Israel, and -- (applause.)" George W. Bush, US-President, 2006-03-20 in Cleveland (Ohio) in an off-the-cuff speech (source: www.whitehouse.gov) But why does Bush speak of Iran's objective to destroy Israel?

Does Iran's President wants Israel wiped off the map?

To raze Israel to the ground, to batter down, to destroy, to annihilate, to liquidate, to erase Israel, to wipe it off the map - this is what Iran's President demanded - at least this is what we read about or heard of at the end of October 2005. Spreading the news was very effective. This is a declaration of war they said. Obviously government and media were at one with their indignation. It goes around the world.

But let's take a closer look at what Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said. It is a merit of the 'New York Times' that they placed the complete speech at our disposal. Here's an excerpt from the publication dated 2005-10-30:

Norman Solomon
Wednesday 19th April, 2006
HuffingtonPost

One of the nation's leading pollsters, Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center, wrote a few weeks ago that among Americans "there is little potential support for the use of force against Iran." This month the White House has continued to emphasize that it is committed to seeking a diplomatic solution. Yet the U.S. government is very likely to launch a military attack on Iran within the next year. How can that be?

In the run-up to war, appearances are often deceiving. Official events may seem to be moving in one direction while policymakers are actually headed in another. On their own timetable, White House strategists implement a siege of public opinion that relies on escalating media spin. One administration after another has gone through the motions of staying on a diplomatic track while laying down flagstones on a path to war.

Several days ago President Bush said that "the doctrine of prevention is to work together to prevent the Iranians from having a nuclear weapon" -- and he quickly added that "in this case, it means diplomacy." On April 12 the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, urged the U.N. Security Council to take "strong steps" in response to Iran's announcement of progress toward enriching uranium. Bush and Rice were engaged in a timeworn ritual that involves playacting diplomacy before taking military action.