[Translated from Libération (Paris)]

World

IRANIAN NUKES: BUSH WON'T EXCLUDE MILITARY OPTION
By Jean-Pierre Perrin

** Rumors swirl about the presence of American special forces in Iran **

Libération (Paris)
January 22, 2005

http://www.liberation.com/page.php?Article=269923

Has the United States had special forces commandos in Iraq since the summer of 2004 trying to identify nuclear and chemical targets? The New Yorker said so last week, even quoting a former high official of the American secret services: “Next, we’re going to have the Iranian campaign.” On this side of the Atlantic, the American weekly’s assertions are not taken seriously at all. Or rather, experts are wondering whether they are not the fruit of a psychological campaign, even of manipulation on the part of the American administration with an aim to increasing pressure on Tehran, suspected of clandestinely conducting a nuclear program for military purposes.

“EVASIVE ANSWERS”

In any case, these pseudo-revelations come at a time when President Bush himself was refusing to set aside the possibility of military operations against Iran. “I hope that we’ll be able to settle that diplomatically but I won’t exclude any option,” he said Jan. 17 on CBS News when asked to say whether a military action was ruled out should Tehran continue to furnish “evasive answers” about the possible existence of a military nuclear program. The next day, he announced that the American army would be needed “a lot more in the months and years to come.” For her part, the new secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, cited Iran as one of “tyranny’s outposts,” a formula that recalled that of Bush’s “axis of evil.”

In Tehran, where they have been watching the overthrow of the Afghan and Iraqi regimes by the American army, the scarcely veiled threats from Washington provoked sharp reactions. “Our foreign enemies’ threat doesn’t frighten us, they well know that Iran, one of Islam’s historic lands, is not a place one should choose for adventures,” said former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who remains one of the regime’s strongmen. The spokesman for the ministry of foreign affairs, Hamid Reza Assefi, went him one better by accusing Washington of trying to upset the negotiations on nuclear matters under way with the European Union. The EU, represented by France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, has been negotiating since mid-December to try to obtain a long-term agreement in which Tehran definitively renounces all military nuclear ambitions. The Europeans have obtained a suspension of uranium enrichment activities in expectation of this accord. “The agreement is a fragile one and we are keeping our eyes wide open. But there is no alternative” to a policy of negotiating with Iran, said Michel Barnier, the French minister for foreign affairs, on Friday. “The Americans are regularly informed about the state of the negotiations” being conducted “with complete transparency and cooperation with twenty-two European states and with Russia,” he added.

CLANDESTINE PROGRAM

Nevertheless, the question remains. Will force be used if the negotiations with the EU fail or if it becomes obvious that Tehran is pursuing a clandestine program? We’re not at that point yet, since the United States is “first” seeking to seize the Security Council of the matter, hoping to achieve the imposition of sanctions -- an initiative that the Islamic regime fears. But Washington also knows that time is on Tehran’s side and that it will become more and more difficult to launch military operations on Iranian soil. In addition, Israel is using every means in its power to encourage the United States to act. “Israel wants to get rid of this problem before it surfaces,” a Swiss expert said recently. But such an operation would cost Washington a lot. Diplomatically, first of all, since all Europe, London included, is hostile to such an initiative, which would also be condemned in Moscow and Beijing. Moreover, far from causing Iran to fall into chaos, it might well provoke a nationalist reaction on the part of the people. Finally, Tehran is considered to have learned the lesson of the 1981 Israeli raid on the Iraqi Tammuz site [usually referred to in English as “Osiraq,” from the name of the design; the Iraqis named it Tammuz 1, after the month in which the Baath Party took power in Iraq in 1968 --MKJ] by dispersing and burying all its sensitive installations in order to make them less vulnerable to bombing.

--
Translated by Mark K. Jensen
Associate Professor of French
Department of Languages and Literatures
Pacific Lutheran University
Tacoma, WA 98447-0003
Phone: 253-535-7219
Home page: http://www.plu.edu/~jensenmk/
E-mail: jensenmk@plu.edu