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2 Iran: A careful look before a US
leap By Richard M Bennett
Despite all the military, political and
moral doubts over the advisability or even the
legality of a preemptive strike on Iran's
nuclear-research infrastructure, it is a strange
twist of fate that a critically important
precedent was established for just such a violent
course of action 27 years ago. Significantly, this
was not established by either the United States or
Israel, but by Iran itself. On September 30,
1980, two US-supplied F-4 Phantom fighters of the
Iranian Islamic Air Force bombed the Iraqi nuclear
facility at
Osirak. This occurred soon
after the Israeli chief of army intelligence had
publicly urged the Islamic Republic to destroy
Osirak to prevent any chance of Saddam Hussein
obtaining nuclear weapons.
It was as a
direct result of the failure of the Iranian attack
that Israel initiated the planning of "Operation
Opera", which would lead to the destruction of the
Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak by 14 F-16 and
F-15 fighters in the following year, on July 7,
1981.
Are all US options still open?
The options for a US and/or Israeli attack
on Iran's military infrastructure may be reducing
as the US presidential election gets ever closer
and the dangers of such a strike become apparent.
However, the alternative of attempting the
destabilization of the Islamic Republic in the
hope of allowing a more moderate government to
gain power in Tehran would seem to offer an even
smaller prospect of success.
So will the
bombs begin to fall on Iran's nuclear facilities
soon? Will advanced bunker-busting weapons such as
the BLU-116 or the BLU-118S, a so-called
thermobaric bomb, penetrate deep into the rock and
soil, blasting through reinforced concrete to
devastate secret weapons-research laboratories?
Could such a massive aerial strike include the use
of the ultimate weapon?
Low-yield nuclear
weapons targeted with great accuracy and with
their deadly radioactive legacy, it is hoped,
forever trapped below thousands of tons of
collapsed and compacted earth - an acceptably safe
use found for an appalling weapon at last?
What would Iran's response be to such a
unilateral use of force? Iran and the wider Muslim
community would certainly see it as the crude use
of overwhelming Western military power, an
undeclared war, an unprovoked assault. Of course
the Iranian military would resist the actual
attack to the best of its considerable ability. It
would undoubtedly attempt to make Washington's
military gamble and probable victory slow, painful
and extremely costly in both human and material
terms.
However, Iran's main and probably
most effective response might well prove to be
military action of a different sort - retaliation
by the widespread use of terrorism, assassination
and sabotage.
The white heat of Islamic
rage that would undoubtedly pulse through the
Middle East might indeed prove strong enough to
sweep away the last vestiges of secular, moderate
opinion in the region.
Pro-Western Muslim
regimes could quickly become untenable, and
neither Washington nor London could probably offer
more in response than just to provide a safe
refuge for the deposed leaderships and their
families. Western political influence in an
already volatile and unstable region could be
seriously undermined for decades to come.
Worldwide terrorist response? Could Iran's response reach well outside the
Middle East? The probable answer is yes.
Security analysts with the US Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Federal Bureau of
Investigation, Britain's Secret Intelligence
Service (MI-6) and the Security Service (MI-5)
have been joined by those from the Dutch Algemene
Inlichtingen en Veiligheidsdienst; the French
Service de Documentation Exterieure et de
Contre-Espionnage and the Directorate of
Territorial Security; the German Federal
Intelligence Service; Israel's Mossad and the
Israel Defense Forces' Directorate of Military
Intelligence; and others from around the world in
sophisticated intelligence-sharing networks.
Conferences and liaison meetings are constantly
being held to try to unravel the true nature and
extent of any possible Iranian terrorist threat
and how best to counter it.
What many in
the US intelligence community appear determined to
prove is a direct link between Iran and Islamic
terrorism. Tehran's extensive intelligence
services have been active in both Muslim and
non-Muslim nations since the early 1980s.
Iran's intelligence-run cells are believed
to have links with a network of contacts across
three continents. Sabotage and subversion experts
from Iran are believed to be cooperating with both
Cuba and Venezuela for operations in Washington's
own back yard. Iran has also apparently
established similar cells and cooperation in
Sudan, Somalia and Yemen.
Significantly,
in European Muslim areas such as
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo and Chechnya, a highly
successful relationship with the largely Sunni
al-Qaeda has developed. Shi'ites and Sunnis have
apparently buried their religious differences in
favor of finding common cause against a joint
enemy, the United States.
Iran and
al-Qaeda In the pragmatic world of
international terrorism, religious or political
differences can be ignored when the opportunity to
join forces against a hated enemy appears. Iran
provided a safe haven and an escape route for
hundreds of al-Qaeda and many of its senior
leadership in the aftermath of the collapse of the
Taliban regime in Afghanistan in late 2001 and has
cooperated closely with al-Qaeda in support of
Muslim fighters on numerous occasions.
The
Islamic government in Tehran does appear convinced
that a US and/or Israeli attack will come
eventually and is therefore pushing ahead rapidly
in developing new allies, in the Middle East,
Africa and Latin America in particular. These
links are seen both as building a possible
deterrent and as an effective response in the
event of the destruction of its nuclear
facilities.
'Godfathers' of
'terrorism' The Islamic Republic has
promoted fundamentalist ideology to expand its
influence throughout the Muslim world. The
Iranians are suspected of having a long track
record of supporting Islamic jihad in its many
forms, the assassination of exiled members of
Iran's opposition, and creating what might be
described as an Iranian Foreign Legion in the
shape of Hezbollah and similar groups.
Iran is suspected of having instigated or
committed many acts of terrorism, including the
twin attacks carried out by their proteges in
Lebanon, Hezbollah, on military barracks in Beirut
on October 23, 1983, which left 241 US and 58
French soldiers dead.
Iran may well have
been the real culprit behind the destruction of
Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December
1988, carried out in revenge for the destruction
of an Iranian airliner over the Persian Gulf by a
missile fired by the USS Vincennes in July 1988,
killing all 290 on board the aircraft.
It
is probable that a hapless scapegoat for Lockerbie
was found in Libya, because though the more likely
instigator of this outrage was Iran or even Syria,
both these nations were apparently
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