West battles to pull Iran's leader back from Judgment Day bomb
Sarah Baxter, Washington and Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv
The Sunday Times January 15, 2006
www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1986052,00.html

...Bush is expected to invite Ehud Olmert, the acting Israeli prime
minister, to Washington next month for talks on Iran. The timing is
sensitive. Israel goes to the polls in March and it would be bad form for
the White House to give the successor to Ariel Sharon an apparent electoral
boost. But the Iranian threat is considered so serious that Bush may not
want to wait.

Before the massive stroke that left him in a coma, Sharon had declared:
"Israel will not accept a nuclear weapon equipped Iran." He had quietly
ordered the Israeli Defence Forces to be ready to launch airstrikes against
nuclear sites in the Islamic republic if necessary.

"The whole issue is now with the Americans," said an Israeli defence source.
"Once we get the green light, we're ready."

For now the light has stalled on amber. Condoleezza Rice, the American
secretary of state, chastised Iran last week for its "dangerous defiance"
and warned that "the president of the United States never takes any of his
options off the table". She added, however, that diplomacy was the best way
to solve the crisis: "If the international community stays united, it has a
chance to work."

....Some Israelis have declared themselves willing to shoulder the burden.
"We should attack and we are capable of completing the job," said General
Uzi Dayan, former head of Israel's national security council, last week.
"Iran is an imminent danger to Israel."

Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the right-wing Likud party, has backed the
destruction of Iranian nuclear facilities, although Olmert's Kadima party
looks the more likely election winner.

At the Hatzerim air base on the edge of the Negev desert, the elite 69
strategic F-15 I squadron is ready to attack. Months of preparations have
been completed and the young pilots have finished training for the long-haul
flights that will be necessary to reach Iran and back without refuelling.

The planes, costing GBP 60m each, are equipped with secret state-of-the-art
weaponry and precision bombs that have yet to be tested in battle.

Two submarines capable of launching cruise missiles are on standby: one
hidden in the depths of the Persian Gulf, the other stationed in the Israeli
port of Haifa. In
an attack they will be used to receive high quality signal intelligence.

Israel's elite special forces are also prepared for their role - flying into
Iran by helicopter to sabotage the underground targets that cannot be bombed
from the air.
That Israel has a plan of action surprises nobody, but it is a long way from
pressing the start key. Its air force successfully bombed Iraq's nuclear
reactor at Osirak in 1981 but, mindful of the lessons of that attack, the
mullahs have dispersed their nuclear sites around Iran. There are thought to
be at least 40 targets, some buried deep in the ground.

"What we now have is a lot of targets, which makes the operation much more
difficult," said Ze'ev Raz, the former pilot who led the attack on Osirak.

It is inconceivable that the Israelis could strike without the support of
the Americans. "The reality is that it would have to be a sponsored mission
because the Israelis would have to fly across Iraqi or Turkish air space,"
said a senior British defence official.

"Then there is the question of retaliation. Iran has got ballistic missiles
and some chemical weapons. What would happen if they used them?"

A wave of terrorism could be unleashed against Israeli and Jewish targets.
On Israel's southern border with Lebanon, Iran's Hezbollah allies could fire
off rockets
- although, as with Osirak, there would be plenty of Arab nations relieved
that Iran had been de-fanged.

The consequences, however, are so unpredictable that Perle believes it would
be safer for America to take on the job itself. "If the only credible
solution to Iran acquiring nuclear weapons is an airstrike to destroy their
facilities, we are far better able to do it than the Israelis. The worst
thing would be to attack and not succeed."

If Olmert comes to Washington next month, Bush is certain to warn him
against acting precipitately. "Our working assumption is that the Americans
will try to pour water on our military plans," said an Israeli defence
source.

One of the questions uppermost in the policymakers' minds is the state of
public opinion in Iran. It is overwhelmingly likely that an attack would
inflame people against the American "Great Satan" and Israel.

Not only would Iranian national pride be wounded; civilian casualties could
also provoke fury at a time when pro-western sentiment in Iran had been on
the rise.

For Perle, the correct strategy is obvious: hold off military action for now
and extend vigorous support to the internal opposition in Iran. As he sees
it: "There's nothing being done there. We're giving the mullahs a free
ride."

Mounting international pressure on Iran could test the unity of the Islamic
regime and the Iranian people. The son of an ironworker, Ahmadinejad's
humble background and simple lifestyle have won him the respect of many of
the poorest Iranians, who still hope he will fulfil election promises to
fight unemployment and corruption.

The country's political elites, although aghast at his gaucheness, mostly
support his nuclear policy out of national pride. "Ahmadinejad is using the
nuclear question to play to the domestic gallery," said a Foreign Office
official. "He has revived the sentiments of the 1980s. That's his
philosophy."

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president, has been one of Ahmadinejad's
most outspoken critics but he has remained silent on the nuclear issue.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran who has the final say on
all matters, is said to favour Ahmadinejad's uncompromising stance.

Some reformists are concerned by Iran's defiance of world opinion. Mohammad
Reza Khatami, the younger brother of Ahmadinejad's predecessor as president,
believes that the country should not risk international isolation.

"It's impossible to put very strict and broad sanctions in place against
Iran. The world is not unified and it needs Iran's oil," said Khatami. "But
it is important that Iranians feel they are part of the world and their
isolation would have a very heavy effect on them."

How to put pressure on the regime without punishing its citizens is a vexing
question for the security council. One idea floated last week was to ban
Iran from the World Cup, for which the country has qualified for the first
time.

"It would give a very clear signal to Iran that the international community
will not accept what they are doing," said Michael Ancram, the Conservative
MP.

That was not the view from the terraces in Tehran on Friday, where the
Iranian team Persepolis was playing Germany's Bayern Munich in front of a
home crowd for the first time since 1972. Many fans expressed relief that
the German team had ignored the political fallout over the nuclear issue and
turned up to play.

In London, Straw soon rejected the idea anyway, saying he was "not certain"
that sports sanctions would help. "Sports sanctions hurt the people, not the
regime," said a spokesman.

Other suggestions for sanctions include blocking travel visas for the
political elite and halting Iran's application for membership of the World
Trade Organisation.
China - Iran's top oil importer, with burgeoning energy needs - is likely to
veto all but the mildest of diplomatic sanctions. "It would be a replay of
the Iraq debate," said one western diplomat gloomily.

Only last month a high-level Chinese delegation slipped into Tehran for
talks on an oil and gas deal worth more than $57 billion. The two nations
also have military links stretching back to the Iran-Iraq war.

The Russians are furious that their attempt to play the go- between with
Iran and the West has gone nowhere. They had hoped that Ahmadinejad would
take up their offer to enrich uranium in Russia for Iran's civilian needs.
His humiliating lack of interest led to some unusually sharp criticism of
the Iranians last week.
Even so, it is highly doubtful that President Vladimir Putin would support
stringent sanctions jeopardising Moscow's huge economic and strategic
interests in the region. Even the French and Germans have warned that
economic sanctions are "premature".

As a first step, the UN security council president is likely to issue a
stern statement condemning Iran, a move likely to be interpreted in Tehran
as a sign of western weakness. The pressure will then be increased by
degrees but it is a risky gambit that will allow Iran to continue its
nuclear work.

The Israelis believe that time is running out. Its nuclear scientists claim
that Iran is fast approaching the "point of no return" when it will have the
technical expertise to enrich uranium to bomb-grade purity.

According to a study by the London-based International Institute for
Strategic Studies, Iran will be three years away from producing a nuclear
bomb if it can feed the uranium through 1,000 centrifuges that it hopes to
operate at Natanz. A 50,000-centrifuge plant being built nearby could hasten
the process considerably.
The 2½ years of talks with the Iranians have already sped by. By the time
the talking stops, Iran may have the know-how to build what the rest of the
world dreads: an "Islamic" bomb.

Additional reporting: Michael Sheridan, Bangkok, Mark Franchetti, Moscow,
Tom Walker and Flora Bagenal

Where sanctions have succeeded and failed

The easiest sanctions the United Nations security council could impose on
Iran would be travel restrictions on members of the Tehran theocracy and a
freeze on assets held abroad. But any sanctions affecting trade and
investment would probably be vetoed by China and Russia, given their
reliance on energy deals with Iran.
An oil embargo is extremely unlikely.

If the UN fails to agree on measures, the European Union could impose its
own sanctions. These would probably mirror those applied to Zimbabwe and
would include a travel ban and an assets freeze, plus a halt to investment
and exploration.

Whatever the eventual package, sanctions have an extremely mixed record and
have rarely proved effective.

Among cases where sanctions have worked without military force are:
Libya 1992-99
An arms embargo, assets freeze, flight bans and a ban on imports of oil
equipment led the Gadaffi regime eventually to hand over the Lockerbie
bombing suspects; later it gave up its nuclear research programme.
South Africa 1974-94
Arms embargo and ban on cultural and sporting links helped to end apartheid.
Instances where sanctions largely failed and regimes were overthrown by
military intervention include:
Iraq 1990-2003
Comprehensive sanctions prevented Saddam Hussein developing weapons of mass
destruction but caused widespread suffering. Saddam was removed by the
US-led invasion in 2003.
Yugoslavia 1992-96
Comprehensive sanctions may have increased Slobodan Milosevic's popularity
at home. Nato's bombing in 1999 pressured the Serbian population into
pushing him from office.
Afghanistan 1999-2002
Despite aviation and financial sanctions, the Taliban regime continued to
shelter Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden until US attacks ended its rule.
In Somalia, Liberia, Angola, Sudan, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Eritrea and
Ethiopia in the 1990s, embargoes proved useless in ending fighting and the
black market in small calibre arms.