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News, Views, & Analysis Governments, Lobbies, & the
Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know
The most honest, most comprehensive, and most mobilizing news and
analysis on the Middle East always comes from MER. It is indispensable!"
Robert Silverman - Salamanca, Spain MER is Free
MER Special - Weekend Reading:
This is so important, and so timely, that many recent articles from the past two
weeks are included in this report.
IRAN 2005
Year of Reckoning between Israel and Iran
"Axis of Evil, Part Two"
"Did we invade the wrong country? One of the lessons being drawn from the Sept.
11 report is that Iran was the real threat... We should have done Iran instead
of Iraq." Charles Krauthammer
Washington Post, 23 July
Mid-East Realities - MER - www.MiddleEast.Org - 30 July 2004:
Actually 2005 might be pushing it. Just yesterday the very establishment and
very pro-Israeli Council on Foreign Relations in New York took the most unusual
step of issuing a public warning to Israel (first article below) not to attack
Iran. Things of this kind do not happen in a vacuum or just out of the blue.
And if Bush and the neocons think they may be soon going down to defeat and into
exile...
The Israelis themselves have long had nuclear weapons, and in recent years have
equipped German-build-financed diesel submarines with missiles that can deliver
them throughout the greater Middle East from Libya to Iran to Pakistan. The
Israelis are believed to have many hundreds of such weapons from tactical
battlefield bombs to strategic city-destroying ones.
Moreover the United States has not only threatened to use its own nuclear
weapons in the Middle East, including before the invasion of Iraq (which is when
the above New York Post headline was published), but is now building a new
generation of specialized tactical nukes to use when conventional bombs won't
quite do the job. Plus of course the Americans have already declared Iran to
be part of the 'axis of evil' and the Israelis have repeatedly and quite
publicly at times threatened to attack Iran, as well as Syria and Lebanon.
What this all means at this point is that the year ahead, 2005, is likely to be
short-term decisive when it comes to the arms race in the Middle East. Israel
has been pushing the U.S. hard to strike, or Israel itself may strike with
covert U.S. help and overt political cover. Or...world affairs might now be
such that no one will be able to quite pull this trigger, or the ability to
actually take out Iran's nuclear capabilities at this point may not really be
there, or the dangers of a worldwide explosion of anger against Israel and the
U.S. may just be too great (which is what the CFR fears). Whatever, another
moment of reckoning is now approaching and in a very real sense it's another
moment the U.S. and Israel have brought on themselves.
Make no mistake about it, Israel is the driving engine for either forcing Iran
to stop its weapons program or taking some kind of covert or overt action to do
so with or without public U.S. help and support. Great pressures have been
brought on the U.S. by Israel regarding Iran and much more can be expected both
publicly and privately as the Bush-Kerry Republican-Democratic contest proceeds.
But regardless of outcome, just as soon as the U.S. election contest is decided,
if not before, this huge historic issue looms large for the world. And it may
well explain why the Israelis are moving toward a 'National Unity Government'
again, something they traditionally do in times of war. Indeed, as these
articles suggest, much is already happening to push public opinion, and no
doubt behind-the-scenes where the political and military planners really operate
there is much planning and anxiety underway.
There are many articles here on this tremendously important and timely subject.
Make sure to read to the end. The Washington Post Op Ed by Charles Krauthammer
was clearly meant as a shot across the bow by the American Neocons and the
Israelis not so much to the Iranians, but to the Americans and to the world.
MER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CFR to Bush: Stop Israeli strike on Iran's nuke sites
New York - Friday, July 30, 2004 A report by the New York-based Council on
Foreign Relations urged the Bush administration to stop any Israeli attempt to
strike Iran's nuclear facilities. The council warned that such an Israeli attack
would be blamed on the United States and hurt its interests in the region.
"Since Washington would be blamed for any unilateral Israeli military strike,
the United States should, in any case, make it quite clear to Israel that U.S.
interests would be adversely affected by such a move," the report, entitled
"Iran: Time for a New Approach," said.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the United States supports
Israel's right to what he termed weapons of deterrence, regarded as a reference
to nuclear weapons, Middle East Newsline reported. He said the United States
was also pressing Iran to halt its nuclear weapons program.
"Israel faces an existential threat, and it must be able to defend itself by
itself by preserving its deterrent capability," Sharon said. "We have received
here a clear American position that says in other words that Israel must not be
touched when it comes to its deterrent capability."
An air strike on Iran's nuclear facilities would incur civilian casualties, the
report said. It pointed out that many of Iran's nuclear facilities have been
located in or near urban centers.
Israel has never directly threatened Iran's nuclear facilities. But the Sharon
government has warned that it would not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapons
arsenal.
The U.S. report, drafted by an independent task force sponsored by the council,
said Washington should resolve concerns over Iran's nuclear weapons program by
coordinating with the European Union. But the council ruled out any military
attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.
"In addition, any military effort to eliminate Iranian weapons capabilities runs
the significant risk of reinforcing Teheran's desire to acquire a nuclear
deterrent and of provoking nationalist passions in defense of that very course,"
the task force said. "It would most likely generate also hostile Iranian
initiatives in Iraq and Afghanistan."
The report also said direct U.S. efforts to overthrow the Iranian clerical
regime would not succeed. The council said the regime could eventually provide
greater liberties to its people.
"Despite considerable political flux and popular dissatisfaction, Iran is not on
the verge of another revolution," the report, entitled ". The current Iranian
government appears to be durable and likely to persist in power for the short-
and even medium-term. However, Iran's generational shift and prevailing popular
frustration with the government portend the eventual transformation to a more
democratic political order in the long term. That process is too deeply
entrenched in Iran's political history and social structure to be derailed or
even long delayed." SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Israel's plans for Iran strikes
Jane's Intelligenge Digest - 16 July 2004: Amid growing concern over Iran's
alleged duplicity in declaring all its nuclear activities to the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Israel - the country that regards itself as most at
risk from a nuclear-capable Iran - may be poised to revive contingency plans to
destroy Iran's nuclear installations.
It is hardly surprising that Israel's national security establishment has
concluded that Israel would be at risk from a nuclear-capable Iran. However, if
a pre-emptive attack is to be launched Israel may have to go it alone. Any joint
US-Israeli precision-guided missile strike against Iran's nuclear facilities -
Bushehr, Natanz or Arak - is unlikely to prove an attractive option for the US
administration while it remains mired in Iraq - which shares a 1,458km-long
border with Iran.
If the USA was to participate in such an operation, Washington's allies would
undoubtedly denounce what would be seen as yet another example of dangerous US
unilateralism. However, the real concern is that a chain reaction of unintended
consequences would further destabilise the world's most volatile region. The
USA's involvement in a pre-emptive strike against Iran would also undermine the
Bush administration's last vestiges of credibility as an 'honest broker' in
negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. An Israeli strike could
effectively end hopes of reaching any kind of peace deal. The US administration
also faces the dilemma of insisting that Iran has no right to develop nuclear
weapons while Israel is believed to have several hundred in its arsenal.
The controversial role of intelligence is likely to prove significant. The US
Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) would have to produce incontrovertible
evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons which, given the recent damning
report by the US Senate on the CIA's collection and analysis of intelligence
about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD), is unlikely. This crisis of
credibility would make a US decision to launch a pre-emptive strike difficult,
if not impossible, to sell to US legislators or to the wider world.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Iran reportedly restarting nuclear work
U.N. seals on equipment broken, centrifuges built, sources say
The Associated Press - July 27, 2004: VIENNA, Austria - Iran is once again
building centrifuges that can be used to make nuclear weaponry, breaking the
U.N. nuclear watchdog agency's seals on the equipment in a show of defiance
against international efforts to monitor its program, diplomats said Tuesday.
Iran has not restarted enriching uranium with the centrifuges - a step that
would raise further alarm. But the resumption of centrifuge construction is
likely to push European nations, which have been seeking a negotiated
resolution, closer to the United States' more confrontational stance.
The United States accuses Tehran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons and wants
the U.N. Security Council to take up the issue. Iran denies the charge and says
the centrifuges are part of a nuclear program aimed only at producing energy.
Under international pressure last year, the Islamic republic agreed to stop
enriching uranium and stop making centrifuges, in a deal reached with Britain,
France and Germany.
But the moratorium ended several weeks ago, when Tehran - angry over
international perusal of its nuclear program - broke seals placed on enrichment
equipment by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the diplomats told The
Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Iranian officials then resumed assembling and installing centrifuges, which can
enrich uranium fuel for generating power or developing warheads, the diplomats
said.
North Korea not the same
The diplomats - all familiar with Iran's nuclear dossier - cautioned against
equating Tehran's move with the removal of IAEA seals on nuclear equipment by
North Korea two years ago as it expelled agency inspectors and declared itself
no longer bound by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Unlike in North Korea, the seals on Iran's equipment "were not a legal
requirement," one diplomat said. Tehran notified the IAEA of its decision to
break the seals, the diplomat said.
Iran continues to respect its pledge not to resume nuclear enrichment, said the
diplomat.
Still, the move reflected Iranian defiance of international constraints on the
country's nuclear program.
For the past year, the IAEA has been carrying out stringent inspections of
Iranian facilities, raising evidence that strengthened suspicions about Tehran's
nuclear ambitions. In June, the IAEA's Board of Governors rebuked Tehran in a
sharply phrased resolution indicating it felt too many unanswered questions
remained.
Iranian officials are tentatively scheduled to meet in the next few days with
British, French and German officials in Paris or another European capital to try
and salvage their deal. But Tehran's decision to resume work on its centrifuges
makes any agreement unlikely.
The Iranians are "driving the European Three into the U.S. camp," said one
Western diplomat.
Israel noted the Iranian step with concern, its chief of staff Lt. Gen. Moshe
Yaalon said.
"Iran in essence broke the rules of the game, Yaalon said on Israeli state-run
television. "We have to pay serious attention to Iran's intention to arm itself
with nuclear capabilities. This should not only concern Israel, but all the
countries of the free world."
Iran already announced last month that it had planned to restart the program in
response to the IAEA rebuke - a decision that led Washington to sound out allies
on calling a special session of the IAEA Board of Governors, said another
diplomat. The Security Council can only get involved if the board asks it to
take up Iran's case.
The Americans dropped the idea because of lack of backing but hope the
resumption of Iran's nuclear activities will give them the support they need at
the next regular board session, starting Sept. 13, he said.
President says 'no impediment'
Iran has not publicly announced that it has resumed building centrifuges. But
President Mohammad Khatami told reporters in Tehran earlier this month that
"there is no impediment to doing this work."
Sources at Iran's state-run television recently told the AP that the country's
top nuclear negotiator, Hasan Rowhani, said Iran restarted building centrifuges
June 29 but that the broadcaster was told not to transmit his comments -
apparently out of concern over international reaction.
Most of the IAEA's concerns about Iran's nuclear program focus on traces of
highly enriched uranium found at several sites and the extent and nature of work
on the advanced P-2 centrifuge.
Iran has grudgingly acknowledged working with the P-2, but said its activities
were purely experimental. It says the minute amounts of enriched uranium were
from equipment bought on the nuclear black market.
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei has indirectly questioned such assertions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another square-off over Iran
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, 22 July - A new round in the ongoing battle between realists and
neo-conservative and other hawks over Iran policy began this week as a task
force of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) published a report urging
Washington to engage Tehran on a selected range of issues of mutual concern.
The task force, co-chaired by Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser
under former president Jimmy Carter (1977-81), and including Robert Gates, the
head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) under past president George H W
Bush (1989-93), argues that neo-conservative and other analysts who are urging
that Washington pursue "regime change" in Iran underestimate the staying power
of the current government there.
"Despite considerable political flux and popular dissatisfaction," the 79-page
report said, "Iran is not on the verge of another revolution. Those forces that
are committed to preserving Iran's current system remain firmly in control."
The report, "Iran: Time for a New Approach", also argues that Washington's
invasion of Iraq, as well as Iran's rapid progress in developing possible
nuclear-weapons capability, makes it more urgent than ever to resume and broaden
bilateral talks that broke off 14 months ago.
But it stresses that a "grand bargain" to settle all outstanding conflicts
between Washington and Tehran is unrealistic and that talks should focus instead
on making "incremental progress" on a variety of key issues, including regional
stability and Iran's nuclear ambitions.
The 21 task-force members also stressed that Washington should offer fewer
sticks and more carrots than in the past, suggesting, "The prospect of [Iran
opening] commercial relations with the United States could be a powerful tool in
Washington's arsenal."
The report's recommendations are considered anathema to the neo-conservative
hawks closely associated with Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld, who led the drive to war in Iraq.
Indeed, its release was met with a furious attack by Michael Ledeen, a fellow at
the American Enterprise Institute, who is particularly close to both former
Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle and Defense Under Secretary for
Policy Douglas Feith, and who has long asserted that Iran is ripe for revolution
by "democratic" forces that deserve US support.
Ledeen, who considers Tehran the global capital of Islamist "terror masters",
wrote in National Review Online that the CFR recommendations were "humiliating"
and constituted "appeasement".
They were made worse, he added, in light of leaks last weekend that the
soon-to-be-released final report of the bipartisan commission investigating the
September 11, 2001, attacks will assert that Iran provided members of al-Qaeda,
including some of the hijackers, safe passage during the year before the
attacks.
The issue comes at a particularly sensitive moment in the evolution of
US-Iranian relations, which were formally broken off 25 years ago after
militants captured the US Embassy in Tehran and held its diplomats hostage.
As noted in the report, the United States currently has about 160,000 troops -
20,000 in Afghanistan and 140,000 in Iraq - deployed just across the borders
with Iran, named by President George W Bush in 2002 as a charter member of the
"axis of evil" along with Iraq and North Korea.
Reports over the past month that Israel may be planning a military strike
against Iranian nuclear facilities have added to existing tensions, particularly
due to uncertainties regarding Tehran's dialogues over its nuclear program with
the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
These new factors have intensified the three-and-a-half-year-old struggle within
the Bush administration between the hawks, particularly the neo-conservatives
for whom the security of Israel is a core commitment, and the realists, who are
led by Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Powell, in turn, is backed by a number of top alumni of past Republican and
Democratic administrations, including Bush Sr's former national security
adviser, Brent Scowcroft, Brzezinski, and Frank Carlucci, who served as national
security adviser and defense secretary for the late president Ronald Reagan
(1981-89) and also participated in the task force.
While the hawks dominated Middle East policy from September 11 through the Iraq
invasion, their star faded as that adventure came increasingly to resemble a
quagmire, so that the realists appear to have gained the upper hand at the
moment, at least as concerns Iraq.
The realists have also been strengthened by the perception that US forces in the
region, which seemed irresistible in the wake of the Afghan and Iraq campaigns,
are now seen as much more vulnerable and thus less of a military threat to Iran
than 14 months ago. "Military action [is now] highly unlikely to be attempted
and, if attempted, to be successful," Gates said on Monday.
But if the internal balance of power on Iraq favors the realists, the situation
regarding Iran is less clear. While few analysts believe Washington would launch
a military strike on Tehran before the November elections, speculation that a
second Bush term would make "regime change" in Iran a top priority has been
persistent.
And forces in Congress that back Israel's governing Likud Party are already
moving to endorse legislation that would officially endorse such a goal as
official US policy.
It is in this context that the task force, whose membership was convened by
CFR's new president and former top Powell aide, Richard Haass, is calling for
selective engagement with Tehran. "The realistic alternative," according to
Gates, "is US isolation and impotence."
The critical message is that neo-conservative claims that the Islamic Republic
is on its last legs represent wishful thinking. Given Iran's ability to make
trouble for Washington in both Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as advances made in
its nuclear program, the current situation "mandates the United States to deal
with the current regime rather than wait for it to fall", argues the report,
which recommends five specific steps.
First, the administration should offer Tehran a "direct dialogue on specific
issues of regional stabilization", much as it did for 18 months between the US
campaign in Afghanistan and May 2003, when Washington accused Iran of harboring
leaders of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda responsible for attacks in Saudi Arabia.
Second, Washington should press to clarify the status of al-Qaeda operatives
detained by Tehran, in exchange for ensuring that the Iraq-based Iranian rebel
group Mujahedin-e-Khalq is disbanded and its leaders brought to justice for
terrorist acts. Any security dialogue, however, must be conditioned on
assurances that Tehran is not providing support to groups violently opposed to
the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Third, the US should work closely with Europe and Russia to ensure that Iran
follows through on its commitment that it is not developing nuclear weapons by
getting it to extend its freeze on all enrichment-related and reprocessing
activities to a permanent ban and take other steps to guarantee compliance. In
exchange, Washington should remove its objections to an Iranian civil nuclear
program.
Fourth, Washington should resume an active role in negotiating peace between
Israel and the Palestinians, which the report says is "central to eventually
stemming the tide of extremism in the region".
Finally, the administration should promote people-to-people and commercial
exchanges between Iran and the wider world, including authorizing US
non-governmental organizations to operate in Iran, and agreeing to Iran's
application to begin accession talks with the World Trade Organization.
Both Gates and Brzezinski said the administration should also use its influence
to prevent a possible Israeli military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities,
which, according to Brzezinski, would have "extremely adverse consequences" both
for proponents of change in Iran and for the US position in Iraq and
Afghanistan, where Tehran could be expected to retaliate.
It would be impossible for Israeli warplanes to reach their targets without
flying in air space controlled by the US military, pointed out Brzezinski.
What to do over Iran
Meanwhile, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reports that Bush says he
hopes to get to the bottom of the report on Iran and September 11, with the help
of John McLaughlin, the acting head of the CIA.
Bush said: "Of course we want to know all the facts. Acting director McLaughlin
said there was no direct connection between Iran and the attacks of September
11. We will continue to look and see if the Iranians were involved. I have long
expressed my concerns about Iran - after all, it's a totalitarian society."
Bush's statement was one of his toughest remarks on Iran in recent months. But
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher has said the US is "willing to sit
down" and talk with the Iranians "if the president determines it's in our
interest to do so and we think there's the opportunity for progress".
McLaughlin, speaking to a television news program on Sunday, said the government
"has no evidence" of an official connection between Tehran and September 11.
But no matter what US intelligence agencies learn, there may be little the US
can do - or even might want to do - to punish Iran.
Marina Ottaway, a specialist in Middle Eastern and African issues at the
Washington-based think-tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told
RFE/RL that the commission's report, if accurate, is only the latest of several
reasons that invading Iraq was a mistake. Now, Ottaway said, Bush's emphasis on
military action in its foreign policy has left it little room to take meaningful
action against Iran.
"There is not a lot that the US can do on Iran right now," Ottaway said, adding
that the US "certainly does not have a military option the way things are, and
it needs some cooperation from Iran on Iraq. Iran certainly has the capacity to
make things in Iraq much more difficult for the United States. At the same time,
the United States does not have the option of doing in Iran what it did in Iraq,
and that is changing the regime."
Ottaway said a policy of regime change can succeed only if the US has enough
military might. But given the resources that the Bush administration already has
devoted to Iraq and Afghanistan, she said, it has left itself with few military
options elsewhere. "By going to war in Iraq, the US narrowed its options toward
Iran and toward North Korea," Ottaway said. "In other words, there are only so
many wars the US can fight at one time."
Another analyst, Nathan Brown, said he finds it unlikely that Iran and al-Qaeda
would have any significant contacts. Brown, a professor of international
political science at George Washington University in Washington, cited the
deeply conflicting religious principles held by the Iranian government on one
side and al-Qaeda on the other.
"Any strong connection [between Iran and al-Qaeda] would be implausible," Brown
said. "The environment which bin Laden comes out of is one which regards Shi'ite
Muslims as not simply mistaken but as apostate. But it also strikes me as not
impossible, but quite strange and maybe implausible, that the Iranians would
even approach them, because there's bad blood that goes back a couple of hundred
years - there's very deep bad blood."
Brown said there appears to be no evidence that Iran actually had a role in the
September 11 attacks, and for that reason alone he does not expect a strong
response from the US.
"The conclusions [of the independent 9-11 Commission] might be leaked, but the
evidence we may never know," Brown said. "So, unless we've got hard evidence, it
doesn't seem to me to be wise to make too much out of it. And also, it's my
reading of the political situation: That's what's likely going to happen. Right
now just does not seem to be the time for an American-Iranian confrontation."
(Inter Press Service/Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fact or Fiction? Iran's Quest for the Atomic Bomb
By Louis Charbonneau
VIENNA (Reuters - 25 July) - It has been two years since a group of Iranian
exiles accused Iran of hiding a secret atomic weapons program from U.N.
inspectors, and diplomats and analysts say Tehran is only getting closer to the
bomb.
Officials and nuclear experts say that one of the two facilities Iran had not
declared to the United Nations at the time was a uranium enrichment plant that,
once completed, could enrich enough uranium for a dozen or so nuclear bombs each
year.
Several diplomats said Iran began with a plan of developing its nuclear
capabilities so that the atom bomb option would always be there -- the
"break-out" scenario. Later, one said, Iran decided the only solution to the
U.S. threat was the bomb.
"Iranian leaders got together after the Iraq war and decided that the reason
North Korea was not attacked was because it has the bomb. Iraq was attacked
because it did not," a Western diplomat told Reuters this week, citing
intelligence reports.
Iran has vehemently denied pursuing nuclear weapons, arguing that its atomic
ambitions are limited to generating electricity and that developing the bomb
would violate Islamic law.
Wary of sparking another Iraq-like invasion of a Middle Eastern country,
inspectors from the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are cautious
and say there is still no clear evidence that Tehran wants the bomb.
"We all think the American assessment is probably right because there is no
other good explanation for the Iranian activities," a senior international
diplomat involved in the investigation of Iran told the New York Times last
week.
"But we still don't have the smoking gun," he said, adding that after Iraq "we
need smoking guns more than ever."
Uzi Arad, director of Israel's Institute of Policy and Strategy and a former
senior official in the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, disagreed, saying
it was time the IAEA stated openly that Iran is pursuing nuclear arms -- which
it could one day use to destroy the Jewish state.
"Anyone who suggests differently is under illusions," Arad said. "At which point
will the IAEA state the obvious?"
A Western diplomat said such caution and conservatism was only giving Iran the
time it needed to reach its goal.
"Is this evidence of a weapons program? Or do we need to wheel a nuclear bomb
into the IAEA boardroom first?" he asked.
U.S. CHOOSES DIPLOMACY, NOT FORCE
Washington, which is still trying to pacify Iraq, has not threatened Iran with
military action and has vowed to deal with the Iranian nuclear program at the
United Nations.
For over a year, the United States has tried to pressure the IAEA's 35-nation
governing board to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council for hiding its
uranium enrichment program from the IAEA for nearly two decades.
Washington says this is a blatant violation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT), which Iran signed in 1970. It has also said that Tehran is only
trying to drag out the inspection process to buy time as it approaches the bomb.
"Every passing day could bring it closer to producing the enriched uranium
needed for nuclear bombs," Kenneth Brill, U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, said last
month.
Experts say that once a country has enough fissile uranium, it is only months
away from a nuclear weapon.
But the Egyptian-born head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, along with the
European Union's three biggest states -- France, Britain and Germany -- have
blocked U.S. attempts to send the Iran file to the Security Council for fear of
Iran's reaction.
"You are running the risk that the Security Council might not act and therefore
the situation would exacerbate. And you run the risk that Iran might opt out of
the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) and you have another North Korea," ElBaradei
said recently in Israel.
Last year, the IAEA board referred the case of North Korea to the Security
Council after Pyongyang expelled all U.N. inspectors from the country on Dec.
31, 2002 and later announced it would leave the NPT. The council did nothing.
Officials from the EU trio agree privately that Tehran appears to be keeping the
door open to the bomb and have encouraged Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment
program in exchange for a promise of peaceful nuclear technology. So far this
has not worked though the "EU three" refuse to give up.
NO "SMOKING GUN"
While it has yet to find any "smoking gun," there is no question that the IAEA
has uncovered many things in Iran that would appear to support the U.S view.
For one, Iran already has the ability to produce fissile material for a weapon
should it choose to.
Iran has experimented with multiple avenues of enriching uranium -- using
lasers, as well as different types of centrifuges bought on a black market set
up by the founder of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, Abdul Qadeer Khan.
Also, traces of bomb-grade uranium found inside the country last year have never
been adequately explained.
Iranian scientists also experimented with a substance called polonium which can
be used to spark a chain reaction in a bomb.
Iran says that its experiments with polonium were not military-related but
civilian. But the IAEA cited an absence of information to support Iran's
statements in this regard.
Despite their frustration with the IAEA process, officials from the United
States and its allies doubt that military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities
would do more than push Tehran's nuclear activities further underground.
This is why they have pushed to report Iran to the Security Council, which can
impose unpleasant sanctions to prod Iran to decide that pursuing the nuclear
option is not worth it.
There have been hints that Israel, which in 1981 bombed Iraq's Osiraq reactor
where it believed Saddam planned to develop atomic weapons, might take similar
action in Iran.
"Everything has to be done to stop it," said a senior Israeli official about
Iran's possible nuclear arms program. "We are not discussing (a military) option
right now. Israel hopes international efforts and pressure can still be brought
to bear. This is an issue that concerns the entire world." (Additional reporting
by Dan Williams in Jerusalem)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Axis of Evil, Part Two
By Charles Krauthammer
Washington Post - July 23, 2004; Page A29: Did we invade the wrong country?
One of the lessons being drawn from the Sept. 11 report is that Iran was the
real threat. It had links to al Qaeda, allowed some of the Sept. 11 hijackers to
transit and is today harboring al Qaeda leaders. The Iraq war critics have a new
line of attack: We should have done Iran instead of Iraq.
Well, of course Iran is a threat and a danger. But how exactly would the critics
have "done" Iran? Iran is a serious country with a serious army. Compared with
the Iraq war, an invasion of Iran would have been infinitely more costly. Can
you imagine these critics, who were shouting "quagmire" and "defeat" when the
low-level guerrilla war in Iraq intensified in April, actually supporting war
with Iran?
If not war, then what? We know the central foreign policy principle of Bush
critics: multilateralism. John Kerry and the Democrats have said it a hundred
times: The source of our troubles is President Bush's insistence on "going it
alone." They promise to "rejoin the community of nations" and "work with our
allies."
Well, that happens to be exactly what we have been doing regarding Iran. And the
policy is an abject failure. The Bush administration, having decided that
invading one axis-of-evil country was about as much as either the military or
the country can bear, has gone multilateral on Iran, precisely what the
Democrats advocate. Washington delegated the issue to a committee of three --
the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany -- that has been meeting
with the Iranians to get them to shut down their nuclear program.
The result? They have been led by the nose. Iran is caught red-handed with
illegally enriched uranium, and the Tehran Three prevail upon the Bush
administration to do nothing while they persuade the mullahs to act nice.
Therefore, we do not go to the U.N. Security Council to declare Iran in
violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. We do not impose sanctions. We do not
begin squeezing Iran to give up its nuclear program.
Instead, we give Iran more time to swoon before the persuasive powers of "Jack
of Tehran" -- British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw -- until finally,
humiliatingly, Iran announces that it will resume enriching uranium and that
nothing will prevent it from becoming a member of the "nuclear club."
The result has not been harmless. Time is of the essence, and the runaround that
the Tehran Three have gotten from the mullahs has meant that we have lost at
least nine months in doing anything to stop the Iranian nuclear program.
The fact is that the war critics have nothing to offer on the single most urgent
issue of our time -- rogue states in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.
Iran instead of Iraq? The Iraq critics would have done nothing about either
country. There would today be two major Islamic countries sitting on an ocean of
oil, supporting terrorism and seeking weapons of mass destruction -- instead of
one.
Two years ago there were five countries supporting terrorism and pursuing these
weapons -- two junior-leaguers, Libya and Syria, and the axis-of-evil varsity:
Iraq, Iran and North Korea. The Bush administration has eliminated two: Iraq, by
direct military means, and Libya, by example and intimidation.
Syria is weak and deterred by Israel. North Korea, having gone nuclear, is
untouchable. That leaves Iran. What to do? There are only two things that will
stop the Iranian nuclear program: revolution from below or an attack on its
nuclear facilities.
The country should be ripe for revolution. The regime is detested. But the
mullahs are very good at police-state tactics. The long-awaited revolution is
not happening.
Which makes the question of preemptive attack all the more urgent. Iran will go
nuclear during the next presidential term. Some Americans wishfully think that
the Israelis will do the dirty work for us, as in 1981, when they destroyed
Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor. But for Israel, attacking Iran is a far more
difficult proposition. It is farther away. Moreover, detection and antiaircraft
technology are far more advanced than they were 20 years ago.
There may be no deus ex machina. If nothing is done, a fanatical terrorist
regime openly dedicated to the destruction of the "Great Satan" will have both
nuclear weapons and the terrorists and missiles to deliver them. All that stands
between us and that is either revolution or preemptive strike.
Both of which, by the way, are far more likely to succeed with 146,000 American
troops and highly sophisticated aircraft standing by just a few miles away -- in
Iraq.
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