A war of position in Washington is well underway in advance of the status report on the United States military "surge" in Iraq being prepared by the military commander in the country, General David Petraeus. The general's hint on 4 September 2007 that progress in achieving key objectives might allow modest troop withdrawals from Iraq early in 2008 is being used as one gambit in this power-game; the bleak report of the US government's accountability office - stating that the Iraqi government had passed only three of the eighteen "benchmarks" set for it by the US Congress - is another.

Paul Rogers is professor of peace studies at Bradford University, northern England. He has been writing a weekly column on global security on openDemocracy since 26 September 2001

Petraeus's signal may reflect a realistic assessment of the United States army's current overstretch as much as any real confidence that security in Iraq has or will improve in an enduring way. But it reinforces the sense that the combination of his testimony to Congress (on 10 September) and the release of the report itself (on 15 September) is likely to recommend a continuation of the surge for the next six months at least.

The presence of the military's voice in public debate on the war in Iraq, of which Petraeus's report is only one example, is questioned by some observers. In principle, it can increase the presentational problems for the army's political leaders (if the surge is going well, it might make it harder to justify a large-scale US troop presence). But the current predicament and mindset of the George W Bush administration is indifferent to such concerns. The determination to maintain an upbeat narrative is absolute; this was demonstrated by the president himself, in his cheerleading stopover on 3 September at a heavily fortified desert base (rather than Baghdad).

The real facts on the ground in Iraq may suggest a different picture (see "Iraq: the dissonance effect", 30 August 2007). Indeed, the administration's claims are contrasted with a far more sobering reality in much of the media (see Karen De Young, "Experts Doubt Drop in Violence", Washington Post, 6 September 2007). A remarkable, lengthy report that is positive in tone about the "successes" of US forces in making "local deals" with traditional leaders in several areas of Sunni Iraq concludes with a limpid comment from a US strategist that speaks volumes about the longer-term realities: "This [approach] works against national level accommodation because it politicises sectarian identity" (see Yochi J Dreazen et al, "U.S. Shifts Iraq Focus as Local Tactics Gain", Wall Street Journal, 5 September 2007 [subscription only]).

But the time to look clearly at the US's predicament has not yet arrived. The Bush administration's argument is that victory is in sight and to withdraw any time soon would be disastrous. A narrative therefore takes shape in which things are going well; the US forces keep up the pressure; things go even better; so that in 2008, selected contingents of soldiers can be deployed homewards in a phased, orderly fashion - just as the election campaign hots up. If facts on the ground eventually do suggest otherwise, then there will be two groups to blame: the failure of the Iraqis to grasp the opportunity presented to them by Washington, and interference in Iraq by the perfidious Iranians.

The spiral crisis, again

For the second time this year, Iran is again visibly in the US's sights. In late January and early February 2007 tensions rose markedly (see Nasrin Alavi, "Iran's attack blowback", 5 February 2007). The escalation was fuelled by rhetoric from Washington and Tehran, including US claims of Iraqi insurgents being supported by the Pasdaran-e Inqilab (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps); a conspicuous build-up of US forces in the Persian Gulf; and manoeuvres (and some missile tests) by the Iranian military.

The atmosphere was intensified too by a press leak of a decision by the Bush administration to allow US forces in Iraq to kill or capture members of the Quds force, a component of the Revolutionary Guards (see "The United States and Iran: the logic of war", 1 February 2007). Five Iranians were detained shortly afterwards (they are still in American custody), and in March, Britain faced the embarrassment of sailors and marine commandoes being captured by other Revolutionary Guard units (see Sanam Vakil, "Iran's hostage politics", 2 April 2007).

In addition to his weekly openDemocracy column, Paul Rogers writes an international security monthly briefing for the Oxford Research Group; for details, click here

Paul Rogers's latest book is Global Security and the War on Terror: Elite Power and the Illusion of Control (Routledge, July 2007). This is a collection of papers and essays written over the last twenty years, with two new essays on the current global predicament

By the end of February, the United States was routinely maintaining two aircraft-carrier battle groups and two expeditionary strike groups in the region, roughly double the deployments typical of the previous four years (see "The Persian Gulf: a war of position", 8 February 2007). Allowing for other units within a reasonable distance of the Gulf, the United States can maintain this level of force more or less indefinitely and can increase it at a matter of a few weeks notice.

This situation remained static since the tensions of early 2007, until a notable sharpening of rhetoric in the past three weeks - coming mainly from Washington, but with vigorous responses from Tehran. On the US side, there have been substantial claims that Iran is playing a major role in the insurgency (see Kimberley Kagan, "The Iran Dossier", Weekly Standard, 29 August 2007); some have even declared that Tehran is operating "terrorist training camps" on its own territory (see William Kristol, "Terrorist Training Camps in Iran: Should They Be Safe Havens?", Weekly Standard, 5 September 2007). President Bush's decision to list the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organisation is part of this process, as are persistent reports that vice-president Dick Cheney is committed to "sorting out" the Iran issue before the Bush administration leaves office (see Warren P Stroebel et al, "Cheney Urging Strikes on Iran", McClatchy Newspapers, 9 August 2007).

There have also been several reports of plans for US air strikes against Iran. The Sunday Times (London) described a plan for a three-day operation hitting up to 1,200 targets across Iran (see Sarah Baxter, “Pentagon ‘three-day blitz’ plan for Iran”, 2 September 2007); a report by two British analysts, Dan Plesch and Martin Butcher, also cited the likelihood of attacks that would going far beyond limited strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities (see their paper Considering a war with Iran: A discussion paper on WMD in the Middle East, September 2007; summarised here). In addition, numerous blogs - some from within the US military - have reported a build-up of forces and training directed to a possible war (see, for example, George Packer, "Interesting Times", New Yorker, 31 August 2007).

On the Iranian side, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has declared the Iran has 3,000 uranium-enrichment centrifuges now operative. These would theoretically be enough to produce sufficient enriched uranium for a crude bomb in perhaps a year if all the other technical difficulties could be overcome and if the centrifuges could work efficiently. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is doubtful on both counts.

Ahmadinejad is speaking to a national audience and is almost certainly exaggerating, but he faces continuing economic problems and such claims are useful diversions. Furthermore, his position is not helped by the success of the former president, Hashemi Rafsanjani, in being elected the head of the Assembly of Experts, a key religious body that has recently failed to utilise all its powers but may well now do so.

A war for hardliners

However important Ahmadinejad's domestic electorate might be, his belligerent rhetoric is just what the hawkish elements in Washington want to hear. Moreover, if there really was a possibility of an armed confrontation with Iran, it is certainly the case that there are strong military arguments for conducting major operations rather than just a limited attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

It is widely recognised that such an attack would lead to major Iranian retaliation (see Paul Rogers, "Iran: Consequences of a War", Oxford Research Group, 2006), including wholesale involvement in support for Shi'a militia in Iraq.

The thinking in Washington is therefore as follows: a small-scale attack would inevitably lead to a wider confrontation, so better to limit the size of such an Iranian response by pre-emption. Such an operation would set back Iranian nuclear aspirations by several years, and would greatly damage the ability of the Quds force and other Revolutionary Guard units to make things worse in Iraq.

All of this may fit uneasily with US military overstretch but it has to be remembered that the US air force and navy are very far from being under stress. They have had little to do with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars; and there will be many senior air-force and naval officers who are concerned at all the attention, and funding, going to the army and marine corps. An intense air war with Iran involving the navy's aircraft carriers and the air-force's planes in the middle east would do much to restore the domestic political balance between the services.

The prospect

What remains open to question is whether American domestic opinion can be moulded sufficiently to accept the need for a war with Iran. Since the Tehran government is not creating particular difficulties with the IAEA, it is highly unlikely that the United States can get much international support for military action. Domestic support will also be limited unless the claim can be made that it is Iran that is behind most of the problems in Iraq. Again, international opinion will not bend to this view but the Bush administration, in the last months of its power, will regard the domestic audience as vastly more important than the views of Europeans or others.

The core issue at stake is whether there is a real probability of a US attack on Iran. Air-force and navy chiefs may see value in it for their own services; there may be strong support from neo-conservatives and others; and many supporters of Israel will be very positive. That does not mean that it will happen. Even a major attack on more than a thousand targets will have little effect on the Iranian ability to respond in the longer term; it will also unify the country, increasing Ahmadinejad's power-base and rapidly making life even more difficult for US forces in Iraq. There are plenty of people in the middle and upper ranks of the US military who would be frankly aghast at extending the war to Iran, and this might be enough to ensure that wiser counsel prevails.

There is always the possibility that the Israelis themselves will provoke a war, inciting in return an Iranian response against US forces in the region which then leads on to full-scale US military action (see "Iran in Israel's firing-range", 8 December 2005). A greater risk, though, is that some small incident sets in motion a chain of escalation that rapidly gets out of hand - possibly made worse by deliberate overreaction. There are, after all, powerful forces in the United States and Iran that actually seek a clash.

This is the real danger of the present atmosphere of confrontation. It is likely to endure for many months, quite possibly right up to the presidential election in November 2008. That is a long time to manage a stand-off without some misjudgment or accident. It goes a long way to explaining why the Persian Gulf region remains the most important focus of danger anywhere in the world.