In early April 2007, Michael T. Klare claimed that references to Iran by US president George W. Bush in major televised speeches on January 10, January 23 and February 14, 2007 establish that Bush "has already decided an attack is his only option and the rest is a charade he must go through to satisfy his European allies". Klare claims that in these speeches in particular, Bush has developed a casus belli in order to prepare public opinion for an attack, focussed on three reasons: claims that Iran supports attacks on US troops in Iraq, claims that Iran has a nuclear weapons program, and claims that Iran could become a dominant power in the region and destabilise pro-US governments in Israel, Jordan, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
In October 2007, The Times reported that the UK had already begun attacking Iran with the SAS launching a series of limited ground invasions:
BRITISH special forces have crossed into Iran several times in recent months as part of a secret border war against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Al-Quds special forces, defence sources have disclosed.There have been at least half a dozen intense firefights between the SAS and arms smugglers, a mixture of Iranians and Shi’ite militiamen.
The unreported fighting straddles the border between Iran and Iraq and has also involved the Iranian military firing mortars into Iraq. UK commanders are concerned that Iran is using a militia ceasefire to step up arms supplies in preparation for an offensive against their base at Basra airport.
In an interview with Esquire magazine in March, Admiral William Fallon, then head of United States Central Command, expressed opposition to war with Iran. On March 11, Fallon resigned in part because of his opposition.
In March, United States Vice President Dick Cheney went on a tour of the Middle East. On March 22, Cheney visited with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. On the next day, the Saudi Arabian government began preparing for nuclear and radiological emergencies.
Israel conducted the largest emergency and evacuation drill in its history from April 6 to April 10. The drill, dubbed Turning Point 2, simulated conventional, chemical, and biological attacks from the Gaza Strip, Iran, Lebanon, and Syria. During the drill, on April 7, Israeli National Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said that if Iran attacked Israel, Israel would "destroy the Iranian nation. On April 15, Iranian Deputy Chief of Staff Mohammed Rada Ashtiani responded by saying that if Israel attacked Iran, Iran would "eliminate Israel from the universe.
On May 8, Unites States Representative John Conyers, Jr. wrote a letter to President George W. Bush, threatening him with impeachment if he were to attack Iran without Congressional authorization.
On May 19, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with several members of the United States House of Representatives, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and asked the United States to impose a naval blockade on Iran. On May 22, Representative Gary Ackerman introduced H.Con. Res. 362, part of which reads "Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress demands that the President initiate an international effort to immediately and dramatically increase the economic, political, and diplomatic pressure on Iran to verifiably suspend its nuclear enrichment activities by, inter alia, prohibiting the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products; imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran; and prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials not involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran’s nuclear program. The bill has 261 cosponsors. Several commentators expect the resolution to pass and claim that it calls for a naval blockade against Iran. On June 28, on the floor of the House, Representative Ron Paul labeled the resolution a "virtual war resolution.
On June 6, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz said that "[a]ttacking Iran in order to stop its nuclear plans will be unavoidable. On June 9, Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said that if Israel attacks Iran, Iran will attack Israel's nuclear reactor at Dimona.
In June, Israel set up an Iran Command within the Israeli Air Force. Early that month, Israel carried out a rehearsal, dubbed Glorious Spartan 08, for an attack on Iran with over 100 F-15s and F-16s along with refueling tankers and rescue helicopters. In an interview with The Observer, Shmuel Bar, Director of Studies at the Institute of Policy and Strategy at Herzliya, said of public support for war with Iran that "The support is almost unanimous for this in Israel. One hundred percent. On June 20, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned Israel not to attack Iran. On June 21, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed ElBaradei threatened to resign if Iran is attacked, saying that such an attack would turn the Middle East into a "ball of fire. On June 25, Bahraini Major General Abdul Latif bin Rashid Al Zayani asked the United States to provide early warning to Bahrain before attacking Iran.
On June 20, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with retired Colonel Aviam Sela, the planner for Operation Opera, the Israeli attack on the Iraqi nuclear reaction at Osirik in 1981, to discuss the possibility of an attack on Iran.
In June the United States completed construction of four advance bases on the Iraqi side of the Iran-Iraq border.
On June 27, Iran moved its Shihab-3 ballistic missiles into launch positions within striking range of the Israeli nuclear reactor at Dimona. On April 15, the Israeli Arrow 2 anti-ballistic missile system successfully intercepted a simulated Iranian Shihab-3 medium-range ballistic missile. On July 6, Israel tested Iron Dome, a missile defense system that is under development.
On June 28, Chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen met with Israeli Armed Forces Chief Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi, in part to discuss Iran's nuclear weapons program.
On June 29, Iranian General Mir-Faisal Bagherzadeh said that Iran will dig 320,000 graves "to provide for the burial of enemy soldiers.
In the July issue of Proceedings Magazine of the United States Naval Institute, Vice Admiral Sandy Winnefeld, Commander of the United States Sixth Fleet, wrote that an Iranian ballistic missile attack on Israel is "by far the most likely employment of ballistic missiles in the world today. He went on to write that there may be "a need for a U.S. or NATO response."
On July 2, a Russian Foreign Ministry official said that "[i]f force is used it will be catastrophic for the whole Middle East. On July 3, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called on the United States to stop threatening Iran.
On July 3, General Mohammad Ali Jafari, Head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, said that "[a]ny action against Iran is regarded as the beginning of war" and that Iran would respond to an attack by closing the Strait of Hormuz. Forty percent of the world's oil supply passes through the Strait of Hormuz. On July 7, Commander of the United States Fifth Fleet Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff said that the US Navy "will not allow" Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz. Last month Vice Admiral Cosgriff warned that any attempt to seal off the Strait of Hormuz would be an act of war.
On July 4, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said that he will not allow Iraqi land, sea, or airspace to be used for an attack on Iran. On July 5, Iraqi representative Mahmoud Othman warned that military action against Iran would destabilize Iraq.
On July 8, Ali Shirazi, a representative of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that Iran would respond to an attack by attacking Tel Aviv and the United States Fifth Fleet. On July 9, as part of an exercise dubbed Great Prophet III or 'Noble Prophet', Iran test fired nine ballistic missiles, including Shahab-3s, Zelzals, and Fatehs. Speaking of the tests, General Hossein Salami, Air Force Commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, said "Our hands are always on the trigger and our missiles are ready for launch." On July 10, Iran launched a second round of missile tests.
On July 10, OPEC Secretary General Abdalla Salem El-Badri warned that if Iran is attacked, oil prices "would go unlimited.
On July 12, Iranian official Mojtaba Zolnour said that, if attacked, Iran would destroy Israel and 32 United States bases.
From July 21 to July 31, Brazil, Italy, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States participated in Joint Task Force Exercise 08-4/Operation Brimstone, a "a graduate-level exercise for strike groups who are preparing to forward deploy. The exercise involved 15,000 service members.
On July 23, Israeli officials reported that Iran could acquire Russian SA-20/S-300 surface to air missiles as early as September.
On July 24, Associated Press distributed a report by journalist George Jahn which suggested that Iranian Vice President Gholam Reza Aghazadeh had announced that Iran would end cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency. A day later, George Jahn published another article, titled "Iran to increase cooperation with IAEA". A press release by Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran a few days later published an English translation of the words stated by Aghazadeh: "The two sides were conscious that the so-called alleged studies is a side issue and does not affect our ongoing and bilateral cooperation with the Agency. Iran has done whatever it could in connection with the alleged studies case and the IAEA will draw necessary conclusion on the issue at an appropriate time."
On July 27, Israeli Defense minister Ehud Barak traveled to the United States to have talks with President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Michael Mullen, and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. Gates told Barak that he is considering providing Israel with early warning radars and missile defenses.
On July 28, Ralph Nader and Ron Paul warned that the United States may be preparing to invade or attack Iran.
On August 4, Revolutionary Guards Commander General Mohammad Ali Jafari claimed that Iran had tested a new anti-ship missile with a range of 186 miles. On August 5, he threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz.
On August 7, the Kuwait Times reported the Kuwaiti government "is finalizing its emergency plan" and that two more United States aircraft carriers are en route to the Persian Gulf and Red Sea. Currently the Nimitz class USS Abraham Lincoln is operating in the Persian Gulf. The Jerusalem Post believes that the two carriers en route may be the Nimitz class USS Ronald Reagan and the Nimitz class USS Theodore Roosevelt
On August 7, the Associated Press reported that Israel had purchased 90 additional F-16l fighters and two additional Dolphin class ballistic missile submarines.
During 2007, CNN/Opinion Research Corporation polls in January, June and October 12-14, 2007, found an approximately stable, roughly 2/3 majority (68 percent, 63 percent and 68 percent respectively) opposed to a US military attack against Iran.
In a USA Today/Gallup poll on November 2-4, 2007 with leading information in the question "What do you think the United States should do to get Iran to shut down its nuclear program: take military action against Iran, or rely mainly on economic and diplomatic efforts?", a large majority (73 percent) preferred economic/diplomatic efforts, with 18 percent favouring military action. In the following poll question, an absolute majority (55 percent) directly opposed military action against Iran even if "U.S. economic and diplomatic efforts do not work."
According to a Zogby Poll in the United States in late October 2007, 52% of respondents said they would support a US strike to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon and 53% said they believed it was likely that the US would attack Iran before the next presidential election in 2008.
On August 6, 2007, the 62nd anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, several Nobel Prize winners, Shirin Ebadi (Nobel Peace Prize 2003), Mairead Corrigan-Maguire and Betty Williams (joint Nobel Peace Prize 1976), Harold Pinter (Nobel Prize for Literature 2005) and Jody Williams (Nobel Peace Prize 1997), along with several anti-war groups, including The Israeli Committee for a Middle East Free from Atomic, Biological and Chemical Weapons, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, CASMII, Code Pink and many others, warned about what they believed was the imminent risk of a "war of an unprecedented scale, this time against Iran", especially expressing concern that an attack on Iran using nuclear weapons had "not been ruled out". They quoted Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein's July 1955 statement ending "The question we have to ask ourselves is: what steps can be taken to prevent a military conflict of which the issue must be disastrous to all species?" They listed specific steps which they judged would reduce the risk of nuclear war in the Middle East, including a call for "the dispute about Iran's nuclear programme, to be resolved through peaceful means" and a call for Israel, "as the only Middle Eastern state suspected of possession of nuclear weapons", to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Journalist Stephen Kinzer, author of All the Shah's Men, a history of the CIA-sponsored coup d'état that toppled the Iranian government in 1953, has spoken out widely and frequently against what he considers the folly of a U.S. attack on Iran, which he says would destroy all of the pro-American sentiment that has developed among the Iranian populace under the repressive Islamic regime.
In March 2005, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, British MP George Galloway, former UN Assistant Secretary-General Dennis Halliday, former First Lady of Greece Margarita Papandreou, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton and others launched an international grassroots campaign called Stop War on Iran. (http://www.StopWarOnIran.org)
In November 2006, several peace organisations in the San Francisco Bay Area in the USA, in particular American Friends Service Committee, Bay Area United Against the War, Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace and Justice, Berkeley Gray Panthers, Courage To Resist, Crabgrass, Declaration of Peace SF Bay Area, Ecumenical Peace Institute/Calc, Grandmothers for Peace, South Bay Mobilization, and The World Can't Wait--Drive Out The Bush Regime!, organised themselves together as the "Don't Attack Iran Coalition" and called for various actions including direct contact between US leaders and/or members of US Congress and Iranian leaders and members of parliament.
In June 2007, on the 20th anniversary of the June 28, 1987 chemical weapons attack on the Iranian town of Sardasht, two Iranian NGOs, the Society for Chemical Weapons Victims Support (SCWVS) and the Organisation for Defence of Victims of Violence (ODVV), signed a joint petition with Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran opposing both sanctions and a military attack against Iran, as well as asking the Iranian government to "pay more attention to human rights and social and political freedoms, so as to create the grounds for a stronger and greater unity of the people of Iran in the face of foreign pressures and threats."
In November 2007, the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, a non partisan arms control advocacy group in Washington, D.C., launched a campaign aimed at gaining support for a diplomatic, not military, solution to growing tension in U.S.-Iran relations, which including blog and newspaper ads in efforts to gain 1 million signatures urging Congress to promote diplomacy.
During global anti-war protests on March 18, 2006, in addition to protests against the Iraq War, many of the protests were directed against the perceived threat to attack Iran..
On September 23, 2006, one of the main slogans and themes of speakers at a demonstration of about 50,000 people criticising British prime minister Tony Blair at the Labour Party Annual Conference in Manchester was the call "Don't attack Iran".
Antiwar demonstrations by tens of thousands of citizens in London and some other cities in the United Kingdom on February 24, 2007 included opposition to a military attack against Iran, including protestors carrying posters with the statements "Don't attack Iran" and "Hands off Iran".
During antiwar demonstrations in the United States on October 27, 2007, demonstrators in some cities, including Minneapolis, protested against military action against Iran.
On September 24, 2007, during the event at Columbia University with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Columbia University President Lee Bollinger many students protested outside. One student carried a sign proclaiming "No war on Iran". The event was highly controversial. Bollinger's introduction before Ahmadinejad's speech and the subsequent response by Ahmadinejad were considered controversial by some journalists. Some thought that the event would lead to war with Iran..
In February 2007, ex-supreme NATO Commander, US General and 2004 presidential candidate Wesley Clark founded the website StopIranWar.com, which advocates against an attack on Iran.