imminent attack on Iran

national | miscellaneous | news report Thursday June 12, 2003 21:11 by Eunan Michael Barnes - none eunanbarnes at yahoo dot co dot uk Flat 2 , 4 Victoria Street, SCR, Dublin 8 01 6772 1836

usual zionist tripe

israel is gearing up for the inevitable assualt on iran. it is cajoling the usa into doing its bidding there as it did in iraq and will succeed in tehran as it did in baghdad

The gathering storm

Given his position as a leader of the Iranian opposition, it is easy to dismiss Reza Pahlavi’s criticisms of the Tehran mullahcracy as partisan sound and fury. But the evidence continues to accumulate that he is correct in his characterization of the clerical regime as “an imminent atomic risk and the biggest terrorist network in existence.” For it seems that not a week now goes by without fresh revelations regarding its past crimes or its present iniquities. And all of these serve to highlight that in terms of Israel’s long-term security, Iran represents the gravest of all future threats.

Since its foundation, the Islamic Republic has been a sworn enemy of Israel with both conservatives and reformists sharing an implacable hatred of what they term the "occupation regime of al-Quds." Ayatollah Khomeini’s view that its very existence "humiliates Islam, the Quran, the government of Islam and the nation of Islam" is still espoused today. Even to so-called moderate President Mohammed Khatami has called for the eradication of this "parasite in the heart of the Moslem world."

To this end Iran has long funded Palestinian terrorism against Israel and sponsored the butchery of Hizbullah but its status as the world’s ‘biggest terrorist network’ was further underlined last month by the discovery that the May 12th Riyadh attacks were planned by prominent al-Qaeda operatives working from within its borders. Donald Rumsfeld’s claim that they were being harbored there by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, though difficult to verify conclusively, is supported by much circumstantial evidence and by Israeli intelligence sources who last week reported that co-operation between Iran and al-Qaeda exists and is in fact increasing.

Given Iran’s terrorist history, its Foreign Ministry’s disclaiming of any connection with al-Qaeda on the grounds that their “violent ideology is the opposite of that of the Islamic Republic” is laughable and wholly undermined by the recent aggregation of evidence showing the hand of Tehran in past attacks based on these self-same philosophies of death. In March, Argentina formally accused Iran of involvement in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires which killed 86 people and injured 200 in what the New York Times described as “the deadliest single act of anti-Semitic terrorism since World War II.” According to an Iranian defector whose testimony provides part of the evidence already released, the attack was plotted and planned at a meeting of the Iranian Supreme Council for National Security at which Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the then-president, Hashemi Rajsanjani were present. He also stated that they were behind the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in which 29 people died. And on June 5th last the new Argentine President, Nestor Kirchner, announced that he is to publish more hitherto classified intelligence documents which will confirm the Iranian role in the attacks.

And these have not been the only atrocities laid at Tehran’s door in recent weeks. In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal published May 20th, ex-FBI chief Louis Freeh said that his investigation into the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing revealed that “the entire operation was planned, funded and coordinated by Iran's security services, the IRGC and MOIS, acting on orders from the highest levels of the regime in Tehran.” Ten days later, an American Federal judge found Iran liable for the deaths of 241 marines killed when Hizbullah suicide terrorists blew up their Beirut barracks in October 1983 saying that it was “beyond question” that they “received massive material and technical support from the Iranian Government.” Court documents described the blast as the “largest non-nuclear explosion that had ever been detonated on the face of the Earth.”

The fear that Tehran-backed terrorists might one day best this past performance with some sort of nuclear or other non-conventional attack is now a very real one. The Iranian opposition group, the Mujaheddin-e Khalq, reported last month that Tehran was actively working to weaponize at least six biological agents including anthrax, smallpox and plague in an attempt to increase its arsenal by one-third. According to a CIA report of last week, al-Qaeda-affiliated groups are already exploring ways of acquiring biological, chemical, radiological and nuclear weapons and in the right circumstances (such as an attack on Israel) the mullahs would doubtless be happy to oblige.
Needless to say, Iran still strenuously denies that it poses an ‘atomic risk’ but its actions in this area are at variance with its words. All the evidence shows that the mullahs’ claim that they have no interest in acquiring nuclear weapons is patently false. President Khatami has spoken about "gaining access to peaceful nuclear technology" but a country in possession of the world’s second largest gas reserves and third largest oil reserves hardly needs atomic power to satisfy its energy requirements. He claims that his country has signed all of the necessary treaties and that its nuclear program conforms to IAEA regulations but Iran has refused intensive inspections and been accused of hiding behind the letter of the law. This is borne out by its actions. On June 2nd for instance, Tehran refused once more to sign the Additional Protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty which would allow the International Atomic Energy Agency the right to unannounced and unfettered inspections at any site of its choosing. Why the refusal if Iran’s nuclear program is, in the words of its director, “peaceful and transparent?”
Because it is, of course, neither of these things as was again proved in May when the Mujaheddin-e Khalq revealed the existence of two more secret uranium enrichment facilities near Karaj 25 miles west of Tehran, these in addition to the enormous plant at Natanz which too was kept under wraps until its discovery by America in August last year. And meanwhile back at Bushehr, the ostensible civilian reactor being constructed with Russian help, work nears the point of completion with Moscow expecting to move fuel to the site within the next several months.
Last week’s IAEA report on Iranian compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty accused it of failing to meet its obligations in a number of areas such as “the reporting of nuclear material, the subsequent processing and use of that material and the declaration of facilities where that material was stored and processed.” A meeting to discuss the issue is to be held in Vienna on June 16th but even if the IAEA were to bow to US pressure there and declare Tehran is in breach of the Treaty, this will lead only to Security Council sanctions, a route which hardly inspires confidence given recent UN fiascos.
If, as is now widely believed, the Iranian bomb is an inevitability, then so too is some sort of future radiological or nuclear attack on Israeli interests either by the mullahs’ terrorist proxies or by the Islamic Republic itself. Even a takeover by the moderates will not neutralize the threat from Tehran. All non-conventional weapons programs have accelerated since President Khatami took power; the official in charge of the biological research report directly to the President himself and he long ago nailed his colors to the nuclear mast. And he is also a staunch supporter of the terrorists in whose hands such weapons will cause such damage. Speaking at a rally organized by his Hizbuallah friends in Beirut last month, he pledged his country’s continuing support for their “great heroic resistance.” Last month, this consisted of the Abu Hassan, the boat of bomb-making materials seized by the Israeli navy as it made its way to Gaza; one shudders to think just what future form this support might take.
Twenty-four years after the Islamic revolution, the depth of the regime’s hatred for Israel remains unchanged. Unabated also is their willingness to work to destroy the Jewish state. What is altering dramatically is Tehran’s ability to achieve its aims in this regard through its development of weapons of mass destruction and its growing readiness to work with terrorist organizations unencumbered by qualms about causing massive civilian casualties.

Something must soon be done to dispel this gathering storm which is looming ever larger on Israel’s horizon. For it is becoming ever clearer with every passing week that the so-called Eastern Front has not collapsed but merely moved address.

Sean Gannon 8 June 2003
Israel Hasbara Committee
gannon_sean@yahoo.co.uk