Dangerous Games Israel, Iran Play

Just when you thought with the exit of the Bush administration, the threat of a US-Israel attack on Iran has receded, here comes this report suggesting Israel has launched a different kind of war on Teheran.

Reports in a British newspaper citing US intelligence sources claim that having failed to get Washington’s go-ahead for a military attack on Iran, Israel has launched an elaborate covert war that seeks to destroy Teheran’s nuclear programme. The methods and tactics include the use of hitmen or assassins to take out key figures associated with the nuclear programme, sabotage, decoy companies, double agents and all the old-fashioned tools of subversion that Israel’s much-feared intelligence agency Mossad routinely uses.

Not surprisingly, the Israelis have reportedly concluded that with the change of guard in Washington and President Barack Obama pushing for dialogue and direct talks with Teheran, there’s little chance that the new administration will give its blessings to a unilateral Israeli attack on Iran. Which is certainly a positive development. Washington has finally realised that the use of force is no solution to Iran’s nuclear dispute. However, the fact that Israel has unleashed a secret war of subversion to target Teheran’s nuclear ambitions is equally alarming.

We have no sympathy for Iran’s quest for nuclear power or any other weapons. However, such a campaign involving enormous subterfuge, double agents and assassinations could be very unpredictable and dangerous. And any attack on nuclear installations — covert or overt — could have disastrous consequences for the entire region, especially the Gulf states that border Iran.

This is why we have always argued that diplomacy and dialogue should be the way to deal with Iran. If Iran has been on a definite course of military expansion and confrontation that regularly manifests itself in its nuclear programme, missile programme and military exercises, the neocon-Bush administration rhetoric against the Islamic republic and Israel’s war talk are also to blame for the increasingly tough posturing by Teheran. The new administration in Washington would do well to ask its friends in Tel Aviv to exercise caution.

If Israel’s sabotage tactics lead to a full fledged conflagration between Teheran and Tel Aviv, it could easily get the United States tangled in yet another conflict, opening a third front.

This is why it is time for both Israel and Iran to demonstrate restraint and common sense. These fresh tensions between the two countries that threaten to obliterate each other demand urgent efforts by the world community to check nuclear proliferation and disarmament. The world’s most sensitive region with at least two conflicts already simmering cannot afford a third one. This is why the Gulf and Arab states have been pushing for a nuclear weapons-free Middle East. All nukes and other weapons of mass destruction are a clear and present danger to the entire region whether they belong to Israel or Iran.