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U.S. News & World Report; 1/30/2006; Mortimer B. Zuckerman; ; Mortimer
B. Zuckerman
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an interview several years ago,
criticized America's decision to go to war against Iraq and told me,
"The real threat is Iran." He was right. But Russia has become part of
the problem, not the solution.
Iran today is the mother of Islamic terrorism. Tehran openly provides
funding, training, and weapons to the world's worst terrorists,
including Hezbollah, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and it has a cozy
relationship with al Qaeda. It has given sanctuary to major al Qaeda
terrorists, including senior military commander Saif al-Adel, three of
Osama bin Laden's sons, and al Qaeda spokesman Suleiman Abu Ghaith. It
supports many of the barbaric terrorists in Iraq who are murdering
innocent civilians in order to destroy Iraq's fragile hold on
democracy. Through its 900-mile border with Iraq, Iran is flooding its
neighbor with money and fighters. It is infiltrating troublemakers
into Afghanistan, supporting terrorism against Turkey, sustaining
Syria, and had a hand in the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia.
Iran today is in the grip of yet a new wave of extremists. Its
president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is a revolutionary firebrand who has
directly threatened the West. In his own words, "We are in the process
of an historical war between the World of Arrogance [i.e., the West]
and the Islamic world." His foreign policy ambition is an Islamic
government for the whole world, under the leadership of the Mahdi, the
absent imam of the Shiites--code language for the export of radical
Islam. And he casts himself as Hitler reincarnated, calling for Israel
to be "wiped off the map." Who can think that Iran poses no threat to
world peace? History tells us that when madmen call for genocide, they
usually mean it.
And Russia has made the threat more real. It sold the nuclear power
plant at Bushehr to Iran and contracted to sell even more to bring
cash into its nuclear industry. As one American diplomat put it, this
business is a "giant hook in Russia's jaw." Russia provided critical
assistance in the development of Iran's Shihab missile, which has an
ever expanding delivery range and can carry a warhead designed for a
nuclear charge.
"No return." Everyone knows that the Bushehr "energy" plant is
essentially a cover for Iran to have a nuclear infrastructure with a
community of physicists, technicians, chemists, scientists, and
engineers who can create a military capability. This became clear when
Iran was found to be secretly building a facility at Natanz, involving
centrifuges that could bring about nuclear enrichment to produce
weapons-grade material. The work was suspended for a period of time,
but Iran has now removed the United Nations seals, and its nuclear
team is once again hard at work. Within a very few years, in all
likelihood, Iran will be able to launch nuclear missiles.
The Russians had to know that the work at Bushehr was not for peaceful
purposes, as the Iranians claimed, yet it has gone on assisting Iran
in its grotesque deceptions and patently false protestations. When I
challenged Putin on his support for the Bushehr program, he responded,
"Why shouldn't we sell it to the Iranians if the Germans, the British,
and the French would be the alternative suppliers if we didn't do it?"
But they wouldn't--and didn't. The Europeans have sincerely, if
naively, tried to stop the process of uranium enrichment because they
know that when Iran learns to make enough uranium hexafluoride, it
will finally be at the "point of no return," meaning it could prevent
the possibility of outside intervention.
Equally revealing--and deeply disturbing--is the fact that Russia,
under Putin, has encouraged Iran to tough it out with the
International Atomic Energy Agency. The agency has only persuasive
power, but Russia has refused to condemn Iran's nuclear work and
resists American and European efforts to force the issue at the U.N.
Security Council, which could impose economic sanctions.
Russia has even bolstered Iran's ability to resist military
intervention by confirming a deal to sell TOR-M1 surface-to-air
missiles, the most advanced system available, which uses launchers to
shoot down multiple targets like missiles and planes.
Some argue that bringing pressure on Iran weakens the moderates there.
What moderates? And just who's prepared to gamble on that kind of
wishful thinking? Military action, such as bombing the Iranian plants
with cruise missiles and strike aircraft, would be justified in the
circumstances. But that is hugely difficult politically, and covert
action is very difficult operationally.
Still, the risks may have to be taken because the alternative is so
awful. There may now be a window of opportunity for effective
preventive action, but this window is more likely to be measured in
months than years.
We must urgently find a way to persuade Moscow to reinforce the
civilized world rather than subvert it.
Copyright © 2006 U.S. News & World Report, All Rights Reserved.
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