MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Poytr Goncharov.)
Tehran has announced that it will assemble 3,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges by the end of the Iranian year, which is March 21, 2007.
This is not the first exchange of "pre-emptive strikes" between Washington and Tehran, which fuels the thought that a war between them is unavoidable. Washington responded to the large-scale naval exercises in the Persian Gulf, which demonstrated Iran's readiness to protect its nuclear program from a potential aggression, with an article by Seymour Hersh, a regular contributor to The New Yorker on military and security matters.
Revelations by that journalist, who is known to have connections in the U.S. Administration, about a potential air attack at about 400 targets in Iran are most probably based on insider information. But they did not embarrass Tehran, even though Hersh writes about possible use of tactical nuclear weapons. Analysts mentioned the same number of targets when writing that Iran might attack 400 targets in Israel if the U.S. drives it into a corner.
The possible use of tactical weapons should not have come as a surprise to Tehran either, because the National Security Strategy made public by Washington on March 16 reaffirmed its intention to use such weapons in preventive strikes.
Tehran responded to Hersh's article by saying that Iranian scientists had enriched uranium to 3.5% and 3,000 enrichment centrifuges would be assembled soon.
"Iran will soon join the international club of states that have nuclear technology," President Ahmadinejad has said. The U.S. Administration blanched at this statement as one more example of the Iranian regime's neglect for the international community.
How long will the sides keep exchanging these "pinpoint strikes" and what will be the end? The U.S.-initiated escalation of tensions over Iran's nuclear program is gathering momentum. In early March, the United States rejected the idea of a meeting of the European Trio and China to draft a new strategy on the Iranian nuclear problem. In one of his interviews, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns mentioned the creation of an anti-Iranian coalition. The new National Security Strategy labeled Iran the main enemy of the U.S. And in mid-March, the U.S. started amassing troops on the border with Iran and announced - but has not started - Operation Swarmer aimed at clearing "a suspected [Iraqi] insurgent operating area."
Meanwhile, Iran refused to comply with the request of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regarding the additional protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which would allow the IAEA to make surprise inspections of its nuclear facilities. Tehran also does not agree to stop its uranium enrichment projects. It looks as if it wants to fuel tensions over the nuclear dossier no less than Washington; its latest statement on uranium enrichment has forced the problem into a dead-end.
Tehran probably thinks that the U.S. would never start a military operation against it, because it is bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, and American public opinion will be categorically against starting one more war. Israel is not likely to participate in a military operation against Iran either, especially in view of growing tensions in the Palestinian territories. And lastly, experts say that Iran is much stronger than Iraq, and Washington should take this into account.
All, or nearly all, of this is true. But the U.S. is not doing as badly in Afghanistan as in Iraq, and hence the possibility of another military operation waged simultaneously with actions in Afghanistan cannot be ruled out. And Washington certainly knows that Iran is not Iraq, which is why the potential Iranian operation will not be a carbon copy of the Iraqi war.
As to Israel and the Palestinian problem, the United States will hardly look benignly at Iran's intention to acquire the status of the regional superpower, which Tehran has recently proclaimed as its goal. Washington regards Iran's uncompromising stand on the creation of a full nuclear cycle as a wish to create the bomb, though Iran claims that it is creating the infrastructure for a peaceful nuclear program.
According to Washington, there are more than enough reasons to doubt Iran's sincerity. Indeed, why should Iran need a full nuclear cycle if producing nuclear fuel is nearly four times more expensive than buying it?
Will the U.S. decide against a military operation to suit Iran's ambitions? Difficult to say, because it is America's interests in the region that are at stake.
UN Security Council's sanctions against Iran are another factor. Israel, which is America's strategic ally in the region, suggested imposing increasingly harsh sanctions on Iran. Therefore, Washington probably regards a military operation against Iran as the last resort to be taken if the UN does not approve sanctions. In short, nobody can say now if the U.S. will avoid a war with Iran.
