THE scale of the military and economic beating that the US-UK imperialists have taken, as a result of their disastrous military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, can be gauged by the fact that the current head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, says that he is in favour of a dialogue with the Iranian government.
He has taken this stance immediately after a visit to Israel, and at the same time as his political master, President Bush, refuses to rule out military action against Iran, and when the Israeli leaders are thought, by many people, to have taken the decision to attack Iran’s nuclear facility before the end of the year.
In fact, before Admiral Mullen’s visit, Israel mounted an air exercise over the Med, in Nato airspace, with up to 180 planes, plus a number of helicopters and refuelling aircraft. This was taken as a dress rehearsal of the planned raid on Iran’s nuclear reactor.
However, US observers of the exercise remain convinced that Israel does not have the ability to refuel such a multi-planed operation, and that refuelling would have to be done by US tanker aircraft over Iraq, in Iraqi air space.
The US would therefore be physically involved in the raid and would have to bear the economic, political and military consequences throughout the Middle East and the Gulf.
It is this prospect that is thought to have spurred on Admiral Mullen to speak up so quickly with his statement.
Mullen told a press conference that ‘from the US military perspective, opening up a third front right now would be extremely stressful on us.’
He added: ‘That doesn’t mean we don’t have the capacity or reserve. But that would really be very challenging and also the consequences of that sometimes are very difficult to predict.’
In the press conference Mullen refused to answer a question as to what Israel was planning to do. He did however agree with the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards who had said that Iran has the capability to disrupt and halt oil ship traffic through the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a waterway near the Gulf, in the event of an Israeli strike.
The Admiral denied that his position in relation to the Iranian regime had changed, saying: ‘They remain a destabilising factor in the region.
‘But I’m convinced that the solution still lies in using other elements of national power to change Iranian behaviour, including diplomatic, financial and international pressure.’
The admiral is in favour of negotiating with Iran and no longer afraid to state his view.
While Mullen was in Israel, his vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was in Ankara talking to the Turkish political and military leaders.
General James Cartwright, vice chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, discussed the ongoing struggle against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and ongoing intelligence sharing, a US embassy spokeswoman said.
Cartwright met with the head of the Turkish army, General Yasar Buyukanit, and his number two, General Ergin Saygun, she said.
Turkey remains concerned about the emergence of a Kurdish state in northern Iraq and the way that such a state could destabilise Turkey, Iran and Syria.
It remains committed to military intervention to prevent the development of such a state, and still claims the Mosul oilfields as its own territory.
Both the US and Turkey are concerned that there is massive opposition in Iraq to any US-Iraqi security agreement that allows US permanent bases inside the country, and massive opposition to allowing US companies to exploit a number of Iraqi oil fields, and that this opposition is undermining the Maliki government.
Far from these measures being negotiated by Bush, it looks as if they could be left for the Obama-led alternative imperialist regime to deal with, along with the issue of Iran’s right to a nuclear energy programme.
This is, of course, unless the Iraqi, Afghan and Iranian masses resolve them first, by taking advantage of the crisis of US and UK imperialism, and driving them out of Iraq, the Gulf and Afghanistan.
