![](\"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/lobe\/lobelog.jpg\")
<\/a>Visit Lobelog.com<\/a> for the latest news analysis and commentary from Inter Press News Service’s Washington bureau chief Jim Lobe.<\/i><\/p>\nIn my last post<\/a>, I argued that the release by the U.S. military of nine Iranians, including two of the five officials seized in Irbil last January, suggested that Pentagon chief Robert Gates and the administration\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153realist\u00e2\u20ac\u009d wing was making progress in wresting control of Iran policy from resurgent hawks led by Vice President Dick Cheney. In addition to the release, I cited as evidence the public assessments by Gates and senior military officers that the alleged flow of EFP\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s (explosively formed projectiles) and other weapons from Iran to Shi’ite militias in Iraq had declined in recent months. Now comes the estimable Financial Times<\/em> with a front-page article<\/a> and a thorough back-page analysis<\/a> that strengthens the case, quoting, among others, Centcom commander Adm. William Fallon at length as to why war with Iran is not an attractive option. It even quotes Patrick Clawson of the hawkish Washington Institute on Near East Policy (WINEP) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the same group that last month provided the forum for Cheney\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s strongest war hoop against Iran \u00e2\u20ac\u201d who is close to Cheney\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s national security adviser, John Hannah, as saying: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The national intelligence director is saying we have time before the Iranians get the bomb, the secretary of state is saying diplomacy still has a chance, the secretary of defence is saying the military is at breaking point and the [White House] political advisers are saying another war would probably not be a good idea.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n I would add that the last week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s events in Pakistan \u00e2\u20ac\u201d not to mention the continuing rise in oil prices and rapid decline in the U.S. dollar \u00e2\u20ac\u201d have also probably set back the hawks\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 hopes of confrontation with Iran. Not only is the crisis necessarily displacing Iran in the media spotlight, but it is also diverting the time and energy of key policymakers within the administration, including the vice president\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s staff and deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams, who is also in charge of the White House\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s badly tattered \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Global Democracy Strategy.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And it gives Iran another card to play in the high-stakes regional poker game that is being played out. I personally don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know whether long-standing reports of covert U.S. support for Iranian Baluch nationalists in Iran are true or not, but impoverished Pakistani Baluchistan (whose capital, Quetta, serves as the headquarters of the Afghanistan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Taliban under the protection of Pakistan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s military) has long been restive. Indeed, riots broke out 15 months ago after the death of an important Baluch leader, Nawab Mohammed Akbar Khan Bugti, in a battle with federal forces. If Tehran wishes to add to Washington\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s regional headaches in Afghanistan and Iraq, Baluchistan offers it a new opportunity (although one that could easily blow back across the border, too). In any event, nuclear-armed Pakistan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s suddenly apparent fragility once again underlines the importance of Iran as both a relatively tranquil island in an expanding sea of turbulence and as a potentially critical player in determining whether the region stabilizes or explodes further.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Visit Lobelog.com for the latest news analysis and commentary from Inter Press News Service’s Washington bureau chief Jim Lobe. In my last post, I argued that the release by the U.S. military of nine Iranians, including two of the five officials seized in Irbil last January, suggested that Pentagon chief Robert Gates and the administration\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[676],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-4048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-antiwar-movement"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4048\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4048"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=4048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}