Bush, Israel putting Iran options on the table

As if on cue after the suspicious incident with Iranian gunships, President Bush, on his first visit to Israel of his entire Presidency, will be briefed on attack options from Israeli security officials.

Israel security officials are set to brief President Bush on their "Iran file" regarding the country's alleged nuclear weapons program "and how it could be destroyed - when he begins a tour of the Middle East in Jerusalem this week," the UK Times Uzi Mahnaimi reported Sunday.

"Ehud Barak, the defence minister, is said to want to convince him that an Israeli military strike against uranium enrichment facilities in Iran would be feasible if diplomatic efforts failed to halt nuclear operations," the paper added. "A range of military options has been prepared."

Of course, the Israeli (as well as the American) military establishment has attack options for a range of nations. It is said that the Pentagon has plans for attacking Canada housed somewhere. But what's notable here is that Bush is getting a personal briefing on Israeli intelligence about Iran's nuclear ambitions, after his own country's NIE revealed that Iran abandoned their nuclear program in 2003. Since then, Israel has been denying the NIE vociferously, believing that Iran restarted the program.

Now, even this report admits that Israel "does not have any evidence which could turn the tables on a recent US intelligence report which concluded that Iran has stopped developing nuclear weapons." Which is why they're focusing on uranium enrichment, an element brought up by any number of neocons in the wake of the NIE.

"While security officials are reluctant to reveal all their intelligence, fearing that leaks could jeopardise [sic] the element of surprise in any future attack, they are expected to present the president with fresh details of Iran’s enrichment of uranium - which could be used for civil or military purposes - and the development of missiles that could carry nuclear warheads," Mahnaimi wrote.

There's no doubt that Bush still wants to label Iran as a threat that needs to be dealt with before the end of his term. He desperately wants to remain relevant as his agenda gets swamped by the Presidential race. He wants to update NCLB, he wants to make his tax cuts permanent and he wants to get amnesty for the phone companies for breaking the law and supporting his illegal spying program. The first two of these are going nowhere; the third, we're going to have to fight like hell. But legitimately, Bush only gets back to the front page in a foreign policy emergency. Whether or not he creates it is of no consequence.

See also this bizarre report which claims that Syria was actually building a plutonium processing plant to assemble the bomb when it was attacked by Israel. One wonders where the plutonium went after the attack, then.

The point is that this Administration is looking for any impetus for war with Iran. If they can't cook the intelligence over here, they can certainly try to do so over in Israel. The timing of this incident in the Straits of Hormuz, combined with Bush's visit, is all too obvious.