Reports from Western capitals suggest that the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities is once again the subject of intense speculation in intelligence and diplomatic circles, as it has been at various times over the past year. The concern is that Israel might seize the opportunity of the last weeks of the Bush presidency to launch a strike. In a wide-ranging speech last Friday, outgoing President George W Bush repeated his pledge that ‘America will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.' Speaking at the Saban Center, a pro-IsraeliWashington think-tank, he did not say how this was to be achieved. Some well-placed European diplomats believe an Israeli attack is likely in the few weeks before President-elect Barack Obama assumes office on Jan. 20. Their argument – for what it's worth – is that Israel may be tempted to remove the strategic threat from Iran in order to prepare the ground for making territorial concessions to the Syrians in a revived peace process. According to these diplomats, Israel may calculate that if its strikes were limited to attacking Iran's nuclear facilities – while sparing its civilian infrastructure – Iran's retaliation would also be limited in scope, and would therefore not be too disruptive to the already highly disturbed Middle East order. Speculation of an Israeli attack has been fueled by the estimate that Iran is approaching the stage of becoming a ‘threshold' nuclear power – that is to say, that it is almost at the stage of being able to manufacture at least one nuclear bomb fairly rapidly, if it chose to do so. Last month, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran had produced 630 kilograms of low-enriched uranium at its Nantanz nuclear facility. Experts concluded from this report that if this stock of uranium were enriched to weapons-grade level, and if Iranian engineers were able to master the ability to design a warhead – two rather big ‘ifs' – then the Islamic Republic could acquire a nuclear capability within the next year or so. Israel – which is estimated to have between 200 and 400 nuclear warheads, as well as land, sea and air delivery systems – has repeatedly declared that it would not tolerate any challenge to its regional nuclear monopoly. On 4 December, the Jerusalem Post quoted Israeli Air Force commander Maj-Gen Ido Nehushtan as saying that the IAF was preparing ‘a wide range of options' for an operation against Iran. All it would take to launch an attack, he added, was a decision by the political echelon. According to the newspaper, the ‘options' being prepared did not include coordination with the United States. Israel and its American supporters are worried that Barack Obama's policy of ‘direct diplomacy' with Tehran will give Iran time to make further progress with its nuclear programme. They do not think that Obama's offer to Iran of economic incentives to stop its nuclear programme, together with a warning of tougher sanctions if it were to refuse, is at all adequate to stop Iran acquiring the bomb. “We are willing to talk to them (the Iranians) directly,” Obama told NBC's Meet the Press' program last Sunday, “and give them a clear choice and ultimately let them make a determination in terms of whether they want to do this the hard way or the easy way.” This fuzzy statement seemed intended to encourage Iran to come to the table, while throwing some meat to the pro-Israeli hawks. Iran was quick to reject Obama's carrot and stick approach. “This (US) policy needs to change and transform into an interactive policy,” Iran's foreign Ministry spokesman, Hasan Qashqavi, said last Monday. “If their (i.e. America's) new stance is to remove concerns about Iran's nuclear activities, we are ready for that. But our new expectation is… that they should recognize our right to nuclear technology… Iran will never suspend uranium enrichment.” Qashqavi's hint of the need for “interactive” talks with the US – and of Iran's readiness to reassure the world about its nuclear ambitions – is more or less what IAEA chief Mohammad ElBaradei has been urging. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times on Dec. 6 he called for a ‘grand bargain' with Tehran in which the West would recognize Tehran's role in the region and give it ‘the power, the prestige, the influence' it craves. But any such policy is, of course, anathema to Israel and its American supporters, and will be vigorously challenged. Prominent pro-Israeli think-tanks, like the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, continue their barrage of propaganda against Iran. Dennis Ross, one of the Institute's leading members – who is said to be angling for a senior job in the Obama administration – has not hesitated to repeat the old mantra that Iran is a threat to America and the world. In an article in Newsweek on Dec. 4, he wrote: “Everywhere you look in the Middle East today, Iran is threatening US interests and the political order…Tehran clearly wants nukes for both defensive and offensive purposes…” Ross – whose record was abysmal when he was a Middle East peace negotiator under the Clinton administration – seems intent on preventing Obama from softening the US position. In his Newsweek article – entitled “Tough Talk with Tehran” – he urged the United States to mobilize the Europeans, Japanese, Chinese and Saudis to undermine Iran's economy. “Hitting the economy more directly,” Ross wrote, “would force the mullahs to make a choice.” One of the clearest indications of international concern about Israel's intentions regarding Iran is the candid interview which Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's former national security adviser, gave the Israeli daily Haaretz on Dec. 8. “One (piece of) advice that I would give the Israeli government,” he said, “is not to engage in this campaign for an American attack on Iran, because I don't think America is going to attack Iran, and if it did, the consequences would be disastrous. “It wouldn't be particularly good for American-Israeli relations,” Brezezinski continued, “and there will be a lot of resentment against (Israel). There already has been some after the war in Iraq.” He was referring to the real anger felt by some members of Washington's foreign policy establishment at the way Israel, and its friends inside the Bush administration, pushed America into the disastrous Iraq war. Brezezinski warned the Israelis that the military option was not a real option for them because, while Israel could damage Iran's nuclear facilities, he did not think it had the capability to destroy them on its own. A strike would only delay Iran's nuclear program, he said, while intensifying Iranian extremism. Israel could not carry out an effective strike against Iran without America's permission, he told the Israelis. “If you look at a map,” he said, “you can see the reason why it is so.” But, he insisted, the military option was not a real option for the United States. This was not a message that hard-line Israeli politicians and security officials wanted to hear. The danger is that, far from reining them in, Brezezinski's remarks might incite them to strike before Obama takes office. __
