Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Irak...ora Iran... one more  step toward the 'great israhell'...

Questi bastardi non si sono accontentati della guerra contro l'Irak... Gli
europei hanno ragione...Israhell e' la peggiore minaccia per la pace...
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20040701-042335-4421r.htm
Commentary: Israel to bomb Iran?
By Arnaud de Borchgrave
UPI Editor at Large
Washington, DC, Jul. 2 (UPI) -- As the Bush Administration concludes it
cannot risk Iranian retaliation against a fragile Iraq under U.S.
occupation, Israel is dusting off contingency plans to take out Iran's
nuclear installations.
On June 24, the key question was asked by Brent Scowcroft, former National
Security Adviser to President George H.W. Bush (41): "Are we serious in our
efforts to prevent (Iranian) nuclear proliferation, or will we watch the
world descend into a maelstrom where weapons-grade nuclear material is
plentiful, and unimaginable destructive capability is available to any
country or group with a grudge against society?"
It did not require an overwhelming effort of imagination for Israel's
national security establishment to conclude that the Jewish state would be
the first threatened by Iranian nukes. One scenario now bruited would
involve a joint U.S.-Israel precision-guided strike against the Bushehr,
Natanz and Arak nuclear projects in Iran. But the Bush administration has
concluded that a U.S. air attack against Iran would trigger a major Iranian
campaign to destabilize Iraq. The two countries have a 1,458-kilometer (906
miles) common border that stretches from Turkey to the Shatt al Arab
terminal on the Gulf. Iran also enjoys wide grassroots support among Iraq's
dominant Shiite population.
A U.S. House of Representatives resolution last May 6 authorized "all
appropriate means" to put an end to Iranian nuclear weapons development. The
Senate is yet to vote on the resolution. But it leaves no doubt it is a
green light for an offensive military strikes against Iran's three nuclear
facilities.
The worldwide reaction against a U.S. attack on Iran's theocratic regime
would almost certainly put an end to growing moderate dissent. Rival Shiite
and Sunni Muslims in Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain (headquarters for
the U.S. 5th Fleet) would close ranks against U.S. interests. America's
allies would denounce a return to dangerous U.S. unilateralism after
President Bush's recent moves back to multilateral diplomacy.
While an "October surprise" of American air strikes to rid the world of
Iran's looming nuclear threat might prove helpful to President Bush on Nov.
2, the blowback of unintended consequences would further destabilize the
world's most volatile region -- the Middle East.
U.S. air strikes at this juncture would quickly be equated with the
CIA-engineered coup that overthrew Iran's socialist leader Mohammad
Mossadegh in 1953, which many Iranians say led to the Iranian Revolution of
1978-79 that overthrew the monarchy, forced the late Shah into exile, and
allowed obscurantist mullahs to rule the country. The mullahs made the
excesses of the Shah's Savak secret police seem like child's play compared
to the tens of thousands executed by the religious extremists and their
Revolutionary Guards.
Israeli leaders concluded years ago that Dr. A.Q. Khan, the father of
Pakistan's nuclear bomb and the world's biggest nuclear proliferator, had
sold bomb-making wherewithal to Iran and that nothing would reverse this
capability short of air strikes, similar to the one Israeli fighter-bombers
conducted in 1981 against Iraq's Osiraq nuclear reactor near Baghdad. It had
been built with French assistance, including 27.5 pounds of 93 percent
weapons-grade uranium.
When Israeli intelligence confirmed Iraq's intention of producing weapons at
Osiraq, Israel's then Prime Minister Menachem Begin decided military action
was the only remedy. Elections then and now were a consideration. Begin
feared his party would lose the next election, and the opposition Labor
party would fail to preempt prior to the production of the first Iraqi
nuclear bomb. Iraq was then believed to be two years away from fashioning
its first nuclear weapon.
So Israel had to strike before the Iraqi reactor went critical, before the
first fuel was poured into the reactor, lest the surrounding community fall
victim to radiation. The target was 1,100 kilometers (660 miles) from
Israel. Target mock-ups were part of a full-scale dress rehearsal. Briefing
the cream of IAF's pilots, IDF Chief of Staff Gen. Rafael Eitan said, "The
alternative is our destruction." The surprise attack by F-15s and F-16s
vaporized Osiraq in 80 seconds, too fast for Iraqi anti-aircraft gunners to
get off their first salvo.
Similar preparations to take out Iran's capabilities -- also judged to be
two years from nuclear fruition -- have been completed. Standoff,
precision-guided munitions will have to be used to avoid Iran's thick air
defenses, including missiles purchased from Russia.
Under an $800 million contract, Russia began building Iran's Bushehr reactor
in May 1995 with 150 technicians at the site. The Russian contract called
for 3,000 Russian engineers and construction workers. By 1999, some 300
Russians were among the 900 working there. After several years of denial
about an Iranian bomb-making potential, President Putin of late has sided
with IAEA's chief Mohamed elBaradei's strong criticism of Iran's bad faith
in its refusal to comply with the international inspection regime. Putin
presumably realizes that a nuclear-armed Iran ruled by religious fanatics
would probably be tempted to pass on dangerous stuff to Islamist guerrillas
in Chechnya.
Originally started during the Shah's reign in a deal with Siemens, some
2,100 German and 7,000 Iranian workers completed 85 percent of the work
before the 1979 revolution. The ayatollahs then decided to drop the entire
project as "anti-Islamic," before changing their minds in favor of
construction in the early 1990s. Fearful anxiety prevailed among the clerics
after they watched in awe the deployment of half a million American soldiers
and the five weeks of saturation U.S. bombing that preceded Operation Desert
Storm -- and the collapse of the Iraqi army. They watched a rerun of another
U.S. military spectacular in 2003 -- with yet another collapse of the Iraqi
military.
The Europeans still believe that political, economic and trade sanctions
will eventually bring Iran into compliance. The Bush administration is on
the horns of a painful dilemma. How can it claim that Iran has no right to
nuclear weapons when Israel not only possesses both strategic and tactical
nuclear weapons, but has several hundred in its arsenal. For the U.S. to
preempt against Iran would also undermine the Administration's last shred of
credibility as an honest broker between Israel and the Palestinians.
After all the blue-smoke-and-mirrors "intelligence" that justified the U.S.
invasion 15 months ago, the CIA's evidence of an Iranian nuclear bomb would
have to be incontrovertible. This sets the bar impossibly high. Hence
Israel's conclusion it's on its own. Bombs away? Not yet, but they've
rehearsed it.
K
-- 
"God Is Coming, And She Is Pissed!"

occupation,
Davvero?  E quando avrebbe concluso questo? :)
*LOL*
-Stefano