Iranians Worry About Rumors of an American Attack
    By Marie-Claude Decamps
    Le Monde

    Saturday 24 February 2007

    A few days ago, Iranian newspapers echoed back a BBC report, according to which the United States was preparing an attack not only on the country's nuclear sites, but also on its military bases. Since then, nothing.

    Publicly, no one mentions this possibility. Friday, February 23, the first day off after the International Agency for Atomic Energy (IAEA) delivered its report - damning for Iran - Tehran's streets, given over to the madness of weekend traffic, kept their silence. Even Friday prayers at the Great Mosque, a traditional locale for political diatribes during periods of crisis, were not followed by any spillover events: neither American flags burned, nor any demonstration, as is often the case.

    The principal orator, former president Ali Akbar Hachemi Rafsandjani, kept a low profile. Concentrating on criticism of the poor management of the economy, he just added several phrases about "arrogant powers" that "are afraid of Islam's vitality." And, as he called all the while for a resumption of dialogue, he warned the United States that "if it pursues its policy, it will create new problems for itself, the region, and the whole world."

    "Attack? The Americans have neither the courage nor the capacity to do so," declares a young soldier.

    An old man raises his cane to the sky: "Allah will destroy them!" A mullah answers with a shrug of his shoulders, and a young couple refuses to comment.

    Could the subject be taboo? Virtually, but privately Iranians wonder. "Seeing foreigners in my store reassures me: they haven't been evacuated on account of the danger," confides a merchant in the bazaar. Another confesses sotto voce "I can't keep myself from watching the sky every time an airplane flies low over the city."

    "We, the Iranian people, are hostages to this extremist policy. The official message is: 'Don't think about anything; we think for you and we are ready,'" moodily explains Zarah, a student.

    In the beginning of the week, when the American naval air group led by the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis met the Dwight Eisenhower group in the Gulf, the television continually broadcast images without commentary of the military maneuvers organized in sixteen Iranian provinces, emphasizing the 750 missiles and sophisticated munitions that were fired to repel a simulated air attack.

    Criticizing, if not the substance, the way in which the Iranian nuclear issue has been managed up until now, is not without risk. For having done so, the online journal Baztab (228,000 visitors a day under normal circumstances), in spite of having no sort of reformist character or identity, has been "filtered" the last eight days. "In the name of the realism that has saved the Islamic Republic for the last twenty-eight years, we have criticized President Ahmadinejad's rigid positions on the nuclear issue," explains Fouad Sadeghi, one of Baztab's founders in 2002. That is to say that, in Iran, the elite take the eventuality of an attack seriously.

    Baztab has published articles explaining the nuclear stakes and listing "sensitive" sites. "Not to upset people, but to warn them, just in case ..." explains Mr. Sadeghi. The site had also recounted a secret meeting two weeks ago between Mr. Rafsandjani and some members of parliament. Mr. Rafsandjani reportedly told them about a meeting between the Supreme Guide of the Revolution, Ayatollah Khamenei, and Mr. Ahmadinejad. When the latter said: "No risk; they won't attack," the Guide is supposed to have answered dryly: "No; it's serious."

    Other senior dignitaries have launched warnings, including two generals and a group of grand ayatollahs, who sent a letter to the government from the sacred city of Qom. "Every day at Baztab we receive thousands of emails," continues Fouad Sadeghi. "A majority explain that they don't want Iran to find itself in a situation of confrontation with the rest of the world. Some add that, if the Europeans understand the situation, they should try to defuse it."