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Serge Truffaut | Iran Thumbs Its Nose at the World    [
Israelis Plan Pre-emptive Strike on Iran    [

    Point of No Return
    By Jean-Marcel Bouguereau
    Le Nouvel Observateur

    Wednesday 11 January 2006

    Iran is just about to cross the "red line" with the probable beginnings of uranium enrichment tests in one of its nuclear power plants. In fact, the Iranians decided yesterday, as they had announced Saturday, to break the seals placed on one of their nuclear research centers in Natanz devoted to uranium enrichment. Uranium enrichment is a crucial step in nuclear production. It allows, depending upon the degree of concentration, production of fuel for a nuclear reactor as well as for a bomb's payload. There are 164 centrifuges to enrich uranium at Natanz, next to a large nuclear factory under construction. Even if they are not a sufficient number to produce enough uranium for a bomb, by mastering this technology, the Iranians will have passed a point of no return and could reproduce the results in any clandestine installation. Hence the anxiety of the United States and the European Union. The latter's troika (Germany, France, Great Britain) has been negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program unceasingly since 2003. Negotiations broken off in August 2005, but resumed last December.

    Those anxieties have been stoked by recent statements of the new Iranian Savonarola, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called for Israel to be "erased" from the map. Statements that not even the Palestinian Hamas would endorse anymore. Now, if one believes the - necessarily pessimistic - predictions of Israeli Chief of General Staff General Dan Haloutz, Iran could acquire the know-how necessary to make a nuclear bomb within the next three months. The Israeli Chief of General Staff has also expressed his pessimism with regard to the diplomatic efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and evoked the fact that while a military option was not contemplated by Israel, that type of option does exist.... Even if the production of nuclear fuel remains suspended, this new escalation, which is supposed to continue through the lifting of seals at other sites, is enough to raise tension, the threat of a referral to the Security Council and related sanctions having been brandished by the United States.

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    Iran Thumbs Its Nose at the World
    By Serge Truffaut
    Le Devoir

    Wednesday 11 January 2006

    Iran has broken the seals at its nuclear research centers. The desired objective? To provoke, or rather, to force, the international community to live with the issue. The Teheran government having crossed the point of no return, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) should refer the case to the Security Council.

    If the legal framework that covers nuclear matters is respected by the relevant authorities, they will have no choice but to submit the Iranian case to the Security Council to impose economic sanctions. But there, as the sum of divergent political interests far outstrips the related legal conclusions, it is rather unlikely that that will happen. Let's start from the beginning.

    Among the five permanent members of the Security Council, three would normally be inclined to apply sanctions that, at first, would have a purely economic character. You will have guessed: they are France, Great Britain, and the United States. In the case of the first two, you will remember that along with Germany, they formed a troika charged the last two years with negotiating Iran's abandonment of its military nuclear ambitions in exchange for commercial opportunities and a certain support in international politics. Given the results, it's time for the players involved to agree that the work accomplished has proven to be a failure and to use the recourse available to them, i.e., the UN.

    Within that institution, Great Britain, France, and the United States will face a significant obstacle: the vetoes that China and especially Russia will brandish, the first because Iran is gorging it with oil, the second because Iran is a very important commercial partner. Russia supplies it with nuclear assistance, to the point of building a power plant, and has, moreover, endowed Iran with long-range missiles. As recently as December, Moscow agreed to sell almost thirty of these, capable of covering a distance that worries Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan. Moscow's leniency with regard to Teheran has one and only one explanation. For the masters of the Kremlin, Iran, as part of its sphere of influence, can be an ally in the geopolitical games that agitate the region.

    In that regard, certain facts must be emphasized. On account of the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq, the American Army has based itself not only in those countries, but also in certain republics of central Asia once directed by Moscow. Since this American intrusion in a region long dominated by the Russians, the latter are more than a little irritated.

    Hence, to return to the subject that occupies us today, the proposition President Putin formulated last year consisted of disconnecting the stages of nuclear production. More specifically, he proposed to help Iranian scientists with a certain number of functions in Iranian territory, while leaving responsibility to the Russians on Russian territory for more critical activities. Teheran said no to Putin, but left the door open to an eventual change of the "no" into a "yes, but."

    If I have understood the meanders of Russo-Iranian relations correctly, this change took place in only the last few days. At the same moment the seals were being broken, a meeting between Russian and Iranian representatives was scheduled for next month. Now, we can contemplate the following: the members of the troika will find themselves back in the closet of fiascos, the United States will grumble, the Russians will rub their hands, and - above all - Iran will buy the so-precious time in which to pursue its ultimate objective: the bomb. The bomb in the hands of fascists and, moreover, of unstable fascists, at that ...

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    Israelis Plan Pre-emptive Strike on Iran
    By Ian Bruce
    The Herald UK

    Tuesday 10 January 2006

    Israel is updating plans for a pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities which could be launched as soon as the end of March, according to military and intelligence sources.

    The news comes as Germany yesterday warned Tehran's regime that it would face "consequences" if it removes UN seals from portions of its atomic program and resumes enrichment of fuel which could be diverted for military use in breach of international agreements.

    The Israeli raids would be carried out by long-range F-15E bombers and cruise missiles against a dozen key sites and are designed to set Tehran's weapons program back by up to two years.

    Pilots at the Israeli air force's elite 69 squadron have been briefed on the plan and have conducted rehearsals for their missions.

    The prime targets would be the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, 150 miles south of Tehran, a heavy-water production site at Arak, 120 miles south-west of the capital, and a site near Isfahan in central Iran which makes the uranium hexafluoride gas vital to the arms manufacturing process.

    Sources say one, possibly two airfields in Kurdish northern Iraq have been earmarked as launch-points to reduce flying time over Iran.

    The Iranians have meanwhile dispersed production facilities across hundreds of miles of remote countryside to make a single, knockout blow more difficult.

    They have also ringed the sites, some of them deep underground, with missile batteries and radar-controlled anti-aircraft guns.

    Part of the reason for an acceleration of Israel's contingency strike plans is that Russia agreed last month to sell Tehran 700m-worth of advanced SA-15 Gauntlet mobile missile systems.

    Some are believed to be destined for defense of Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant on the Gulf coast, which Russian engineers are helping to build.

    Although Western military strategists think an attack on Tehran's scattered sites would be fraught with difficulties and could not be carried out without loss to the attacking forces, few doubt Israel's commitment to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear firepower.

    An Israeli source said: "We believe Iran will have useable nuclear weapons by 2007 unless something is done to prevent it. If Tehran is allowed to start enrichment of uranium, it will be too late.

    "Underground facilities have to be supplied with air, water and fuel from the surface. They also have entrances which are vulnerable to conventional attack. Close down the infrastructure and you close down the facility."