ABC

Author: DR.ABDUL RUFF Colachal

Iran has plenty of both oil and gas resources and energy hungry nations including USA have an extra eye on them. USA and its allies, particularly Israel, have, after the fall of Afghanistan and Iraq, targeted Iran and threatened Tehran with terror aggression if Iran still refuses to give up its nuclear ambitions. Iran denies its nuclear program is anything other than a peaceful, but Israel sees Iran’s development of the technology as a serious threat and wants USA also to perceive it like wise. As Israel tries to project its military prowess by conducting defense exercises in the regional seas, Iran has also showcased its military readiness by testing its missiles. This situation complicates the regional tensions and an impending war is looming large in the horizon.

Every nuclear power has used its nuclear technology to for manufacturing high precision nuclear weapons too, asides utilizing the nuclear advancements in power generations and other peaceful purposes, but the peaceful purposes are not clearly seen. Israel is the only nuclear power in Mideast and this has emboldened Tel Aviv to go on killing the innocent Arabs in Palestine and Lebanon. USA supports and abets the Israeli aggressions in Arab worlds and Arabs, having close economic ties with Washington, have got used to watching the show. The occasional peace talks initiated by the Arabs have not taken the leaders any where, but they are seen tied to US economic and defense scheming.

Iran’s nuclear project has further antagonized the USA-Israel combine. Tehran is defying a demand from the UN that it stop the enrichment of uranium. USA and Israel seek penal actions against Iran including a quick war. The UN Security Council approved a third round of sanctions against Iran over the issue in March 2008. Israel has carried out an exercise that appears to have been a rehearsal for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. More than 100 Israeli fighter jets took part in manoeuvres over the eastern Mediterranean and over Greece in the first week of June, US officials said.

USA and Israel make the world believe that Iran will form a threat for most of the regional countries and Israel in particular, and the U.S. also worries about a nuclear arms race in the region if Iran gets weapons. But the fact remains that Israel is worried that a powerful Iran could be an additional strength for the Arabs. 

Analysts point out that - as far as is known - Iran has not been producing weapons-grade enriched uranium at its Natanz nuclear facility, but rather low-enriched uranium, which can be used for energy generation. The US state department has criticized reported comments by a defense official that it was increasingly likely Israel would attack Iran in the coming months. The other red line the defense official identified was Iran’s purchase of Russia’s SA-20 air defense equipment. A senior defense official said Iran’s nuclear program was nearing “red lines” that would trigger an Israeli offensive and that if attacked Iran would retaliate against Israel and the US.

The Israeli exercise, it seems, was designed to send a message to Tehran that Israel has the power and will to attack if it thought Iran was close to getting a nuclear weapon. None of what has been said and done so far means an attack on Iran is coming close and talk of one faded out after US intelligence reported at the end of 2007 that Iran had given up its nuclear weapons program. Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, said an attack would put Iran on a “crash course” to building nuclear weapons. 

Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said there was a plot to kill him during a trip he took to Iraq in March, Iranian state radio reports. Ahmadinejad implied that the United States and its allies were behind the alleged plot to kidnap and kill him. During the two-day visit, President Ahmadinejad cancelled a scheduled trip to the cities of Najaf and Karbala, citing security reasons. An American spokesman in Iraq said the United States was unaware of any threats to the president’s life.  

The relationship between Iran and Turkey also seems to be getting better day by day. USA is trying to use Turkey to get Iranian support in containing Kurds and control Syria. Turkey gets involved in the nuclear issue because natural gas deals being on top, Turkey has economic cooperation with Iran. Turkey in fact follows persuasion diplomacy toward Iran, as the Americans give due.

For the Iranians, who view the United States as the global bully and a “Great Satan,” the U.S-Turkish alliance was a matter of criticism as were Ataturk’s reforms that made Turkey want to be part of the Western system of states. Ahmadinejad said the enemies are planning to dominate all countries through a long-term plan and “do not want the regional countries including Iran, Turkey, and Iraq to be powerful and live in peace.”    

The US agenda in Mideast and Europe is no more a secret issue. Energy resources in the region lure not just the USA. The United States waging a terror war in Iraq, killing thousands of Muslims there, considers the Iraqi Kurds a serious menace to its Mideast agenda and has been killing them in large numbers. USA has labeled the PKK a terrorist organization and supports Turkey’s fight against the group by providing intelligence on the rebels. But it also has urged restraint on Turkey, fearing the fight could undermine efforts to calm Iraq. “The PKK is an enemy of Iraq; it’s an enemy of the United States; it’s an enemy of Turkey; it’s an enemy of the region,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said.

Meanwhile, Gregory Schulte, U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, was in Ankara April end and said: “We don’t want war” with Iran. According to Schulte, the Iranian administration uses this domestically to prove that Iran is not isolated in the international arena and that everything goes well.

However, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned last month that drastic measures were needed to stop Iran obtaining nuclear weapons. He said Iran must be shown there will be devastating consequences if it did develop such weapons. In 1981, Israeli jets bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak, 30km (18 miles) outside Baghdad. Israel said it believed the French-built plant was designed to make nuclear weapons that could be used against Israel. It has a plan to continue the bombing in some more Arab nations, Iran being on the top of the hit-list.

One main question, therefore, is asked in international arena, if and how soon Israel attacks Iran. Also, whether it would be US-Israel joint terror attack on Iran or by one of them. Both USA and Israel are fully aware of the preparations Iran have been making for quite some time now to face the impending challenge from the US-Israel combine. Iran, unmindful of what the US-Israel combine have been planning behind the scene as well as in public view, is busy keeping an alert defense system not only to thwart any enemy adventure to attack it, but also to provide a befitting military response so that the enemy would not afford to invade any nation under any pretext or forget that any time in future, if the enemy withstands the Iranian retaliation at all.