Russian Analysts: US Unable To Fight Against Iran

Moscow, Dec 20, IRNA – Russian political analysts referring to intensified tension between Iran and US, have ruled out military engagement between two countries as a very remote possibility, for various reasons. According to IRNA, the state Voice of Russia radio quoted the Head of Eastern Studies Academy Andrei Velodin as saying, “Most of the military personnel of the United States are not willing to get engaged in a military invasion against Iran, because they know the high extent of resulting military, technical, and political damages of such an engagement.” He meanwhile referred to the various viewpoints at the US Foreign Office on invading Iran, adding, “For all these reasons, launching a military invasion against Iran by the United Sates is a very remote possibility.” According to the Russian sate radio, a senior political analyst of the Easter Studies Institute of Russia, Vladimir Sutinkov, too, opined that Iran would ward off the entire pressures imposed by the US and its western allies, and reply to them respectively. According to him, for instance blocking the strategic Hormoz Strait by Iran, which Tehran has declared as a territory linked to Tehran’s vital national interests, is one of Iran’s levers in case of emergency. The political analyst further reiterates, “Such a move by Iran and provide as a pretext for launching a military invasion against that country, but the US President Barack Obama would not permit it, because he is in the course of the US presidential election campaign now, and that would mean losing the campaign for him. Another Russian analyst, Stanislaw Tarasov, too, reiterated, “A geopolitical game is behind the new tension generation and sanctions against Iran.” According to the Voice of Russia, Tarasov, too, said that the probability of a US military invasion against Iran is very remote, adding, “Under the current conditions, Washington wishes to harness Iran’s military, political and diplomatic maneuvers, and to ill-fame Tehran’s nuclear program.” Tarasov added, “No military engagement in the Persian Gulf is predicted, since the aftermaths of a probable war there would be more than catastrophic for the entire world.” Minister of Defense and Logistical Support for Armed Forces said here Monday subject of invading Iran is a type of psychological operation launched by Americans as an escape goat from their own nation’s public opinion. IRGC Brigadier General Sardar Ahmad Vahidi added in a press conference in Mash’had, “The United States is basically not capable of invading Iran.” He reiterated, “The US election time approaches, the US economic problems have surfaced, the US forces’ exit from Iraq and other issues have all in all urged the US officials to resort to Iran invasion issue as an escape goat to divert the public opinion from the real problems inside America.” General Vahidi said, “The United States cannot have a successful presence anywhere in the world any longer.” He reiterated, “Today, we are fully ready for defense against any type of military invasion in our country and to mightily safeguard the interests of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Sardar Vahidi referring to the programs of the Defense Ministry during the Research Week, said, “During this week, as of tomorrow (Tuesday) various types of missiles, new software and electronic capabilities, would be put to use.” He then referred to the issue of general aviation, saying, “Manufacturing and mass production of airplanes by the aviation industry is now in the agenda of the Defense Ministry.” The Defense Minister speaking about the influence of the sanctions on the country’s aviation industry, said, “The sanctions have no effect on the country’s general aviation industry, as we have been pursuing the normal procedure of our work.” He pointed out that culture building plays a significant role in this industry, adding, “The aviation industry in our country, for instance, is not developed enough.” Sardar Vahidi added, “Today we have good capabilities in general aviation industry, but sufficient advantage of it has not been taken, and it is necessary to do so by establishment of a center for general Aviation.” The International Atomic Energy Agency made public the names of Iranian nuclear scientists in a new report released late November. Publishing their names makes these scientists targets for assassination. This unprecedented violation of the international guidelines, and of the IAEA’s own Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement, is the most menacing proof to date that the agency is not even superficially a neutral UN body that monitors nuclear weapons. Showing the agency’s bias, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano met with the White House officials before meeting with UN officials on that latest report. Several Iranian scientists have already been killed by bombs and drive-by shootings. The secretary general of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights, Mohammad Javad Larijani, says the US and Israel were behind the murders. Exposing that these targeted killings are considered acceptable practice, US presidential candidate Newt Gingrich declared that Washington is seeking to stop Iran’s nuclear program through maximum covert operations, including the assassination of scientists. The US, the CIA, or Israeli Mossad agents have also carried out virus attacks on the computers of legal Iranian centrifuges, explosions at Iranian industrial sites and continuing acts of sabotage. All this is part of an ongoing US war that attempts to set back Iran’s development as a modern, self-sufficient country. A new round of demands that other countries join in sanctions against Iran comes at a time of increasing crisis and upheaval in the region. The impact of an intractable capitalist economic crisis turns Pentagon war planners in an increasingly threatening direction. The IAEA report was leaked to the press before its official release. Rather than presenting information from the agency’s countless inspections in Iran, it repeated discredited allegations originally made four years ago regarding a laptop computer “found” by US authorities. The laptop supposedly showed Iran’s “intention” to construct atomic warheads. The leak of the report follows bourgeois media frenzy over a wild claim that Iran was planning to execute a Saudi Ambassador in Washington, D.C. Most ominous are the media reports of a possible Israeli military attack on Iran. Israel is totally dependent on US financial, diplomatic and military aid to survive. Any attack on Iran could occur only with US authorization and over-flight clearance of regions where the Pentagon has controlled the sky for decades. Like every other country, Iran is guaranteed the right to develop and acquire nuclear technology. Iran is also a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Today, at least 30 countries have nuclear power plants. According to the IAEA’s most recent “International Status and Prospects of Nuclear Power” report, another 65 countries “are expressing interest in, considering, or actively planning for nuclear power.” (iaea.org, March 2011) But only Iran has faced every form of attack to block development of a nuclear energy program. Every Iranian nuclear facility is under 24-hour-a-day surveillance by IAEA cameras, and Iran has not one nuclear weapon. Yet the US continues to demand that Iran stop the development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, because it could potentially lead to a nuclear weapon sometime in the future. The IAEA does not criticize the attack or demand inspections of the more than 10,000 nuclear weapons that the US holds, nor of the hundreds of nuclear weapons developed by Israel. The bogus charges of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction to justify the US invasion of Iraq — despite years of total monitoring of every industrial plant in Iraq — confirms that no inspection can satisfy Washington’s demands. The most recent US sanctions are not focused on nuclear research. Instead, they are an attempt to hamper Iran’s petrochemical industry. Iran nationalized its production of oil after a revolutionary upheaval that drove the US and the British imperialism out of Iran in 1979. Since then, every effort has been made to destabilize Iran and regain the vast wealth that once flowed into Western banks and corporations. Due to its past unequal relation with imperialism and the years of sanctions since, Iran has had to import large amounts of refined oil and petroleum products, from gasoline to jet fuel, cooking gas and more. In 2008, Iran still had to import nearly 40 percent of its market needs. However, after completion of seven new refineries and improvements to existing refineries, Iran is now almost self-sufficient in oil refining needs. This is why the US is so determined to again blocking Iran’s refining capacity by hampering all forms of international investment. As this entire resource-rich region continues to slip from the US imperialism’s control and domination, the danger of a Pentagon-inspired provocation against Iran escalates. All those who are opposed to another imperialist war should therefore be on heightened alert. (Courtesy for the background on US enmity against Iran to an analysis in Workers World website)/end