Analysts US strategy on Iran may have backfired

Raw Story
Tuesday April 3, 2007

Some analysts believe that the Bush Administration's strategy on Iran may have backfired, according to an article in Tuesday's L.A. Times.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time: Increase the military, diplomatic and economic pressure on Iran to get the country to bow to the international community on its nuclear enrichment program and curtail its alleged troublemaking in Iraq," Borzou Daragahi and Ramin Mostaghim write for the L.A. Times. "But now, with 15 British sailors and marines held captive and Tehran threatening to withhold its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, that strategy has apparently backfired."

Excerpts from article:

Elements of Iran's government, painted as a rogue state for its refusal to halt its uranium enrichment program, responded forcefully to the U.S.-led challenge, those analysts say. Not only have they sparked an international crisis by capturing the 15 Britons in disputed Persian Gulf waters, and airing alleged confessions on television, they've ramped up security operations in the gulf with war games and missile launches.

The clang and clatter of military hardware and rhetoric from all sides has trickled into Iran's daily discourse. Ordinary residents say they fear a U.S. attack is imminent and that they are powerless to prevent it. "Will the Americans attack?" is the question on the lips of every Iranian who meets a foreign reporter.

Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh's New Yorker articles detailing U.S. plans to attack Iran, and a Russian newspaper report specifying this Friday as the day for U.S. airstrikes have made the rounds of blogs and Persian-language satellite channels.

Analysts tell the paper, "Months of hard-nosed U.S. political and military pressure on Iran may have further radicalized and emboldened the regime, undermining Washington's stated aim of neutralizing the Iranian threat without resorting to war."

Full LA Times Article can be read at this link.