Sunday Times (London) January 23, 2005
Blair's loyalty tested as Bush menaces Iran
By Tony Allen-Mills Washington
AFTER two years of unswerving solidarity over the war in Iraq, Tony Blair's relationship with President George W Bush is coming under strain from the newly revived threat of an American military attack on nuclear facilities in Iran.
British officials are increasingly concerned that months of patient European led diplomacy aimed at curbing the ayatollahs' nuclear ambitions may suddenly explode in a torrent of bunker-busting bombs dropped by B-2 stealth bombers.
Reports last week that US special forces are already scouting for targets in Iran have fanned concern that London and Washington are heading for an embarrassing split over American mistrust of Tehran.
Despite Blair's commitment to the so-called EU-3 Iran initiative launched by Britain, France and Germany, a consensus is emerging in Washington that an approach dubbed by some officials as "European carrot and American stick" -and by others as "good cop, bad cop" -is failing to produce results.
European negotiators were recently described by David Kay, the former US weapons inspector, as "impotently manipulable". A prominent Washington defence hawk warned: "At some point the Americans are going to turn to the Europeans and say, 'The goal is disarmament but all we are getting is arms control. It's time for a bigger stick'."
Although Downing Street publicly insists that Bush and Blair remain "closely in touch" on the Iranian threat, some British officials are privately concerned that Dick Cheney, the hardline American vice-president, is driving the administration's policy on Iran.
"You look around at potential trouble spots. Iran is right at the top of the list," Cheney said last week.
There is also concern in London that the Pentagon may be ordered to act on the basis of flawed intelligence. Despite the debacle over Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction, the Pentagon appears to be relying heavily on satellite photographs of Iranian installations that British sources describe as alarmingly inconclusive.
"They tell us, 'Look, bulldozers have been down this road three times. Something's going on'," said one well informed source. "They are very dismissive when European humint (human intelligence) suggests something different."
One well known US weapons specialist last week described the Iranian nuclear issue as "the Cuban missile crisis in slow motion". But whereas President John F Kennedy successsfully forced Moscow to withdraw its missiles from Cuba in 1962, much of Washington already appears convinced that the ayatollahs will not back down.
"I think the administration takes the view that this (European) negotiation is bound to fail," said Robert Einhorn, a former State Department adviser on non-proliferation.
"I quite frankly am pessimistic," added Kay, who led the futile American search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. "I think the regime is in fact hell bent on this capability.
"I think it would be a huge mistake to take the military option off the table, even if the Europeans will never agree to it."
Even some of the president's critics agree that Iran has become an unacceptable threat. At her confirmation hearings before the Senate foreign affairs committee last week, Condoleezza Rice, the incoming US secretary of state, was asked by a Democratic senator about her views on the nuclear issue.
When she replied that Tehran "has to be held accountable for its unwillingness to live up to its international obligations", Senator Bill Nelson of Florida replied: "Hopefully sooner rather than later."
Bush also signalled in his inauguration speech that military setbacks in Iraq had not shifted his focus from other members of his "axis of evil". He warned of the dangers of tyrants who allowed violence to "gather and multiply in destructive power ... and raise a mortal threat".
Bush made no specific reference to Tehran, but Rice at her confirmation hearing listed Iran alongside North Korea, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Burma and Belarus as "outposts of tyranny".
Complicating the Iranian issue is the position of Israel, which has vowed to act if Tehran's nuclear development continues. Shaul Mofaz, Israel's defence minister, warned two years ago that "under no circumstances would Israel be able to tolerate nuclear weapons in Iranian possession".
Since then Israeli officials have consistently complained that Iran is approaching the "point of no return" in its uranium enrichment and plutonium production programmes.
Cheney acknowledged last week that Israel "might well decide to act first and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards".
Despite reports in Israel that Washington is secretly encouraging Tel Aviv to strike, many US analysts believe that the limited range of Israeli air force bombers would make the mission exceptionally perilous. Learning a lesson from Israel's successful strike on Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981, Iran is believed to have located key elements of its programme as far from Israel as possible.
"I spent a lot of time with Israeli air force officers who were looking hard at this problem and they all believed they cannot do it," said Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA analyst and author of The Persian Puzzle: the Conflict Between Iran and America.
He added: "I know we would all like the Israelis to take care of this problem for us, but that is why you are hearing them shout so loudly. They are deathly afraid that the Iranians are getting close. They know they can't take care of it and they want us to do so."
American officials also recognise that an Israeli attack would demolish the Middle Eastern peace process and provide Arab terrorist groups with a potentially lethal recruiting tool.
"The attack is better done by the US than by the Israelis with US connivance," said John Pike, a defence specialist who is convinced that Washington is waiting for an early diplomatic breakdown in order to launch an attack.
"I think it's a question of months, not years. I think they are absolutely serious when they say that atomic ayatollahs are unacceptable."
The main targets of any attack would include a 1,000-megawatt reactor under construction at Bushehr on the Gulf; a heavy water reactor and uranium conversion facility at the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Centre in central Iran; a uranium enrichment plant at eastern Natanz and research facilities at Arak.
Special forces saboteurs might be used to attack certain urban-based sites, including a suspect electrical company in Tehran.
Yet British and other officials warn that intelligence on Iranian nuclear development is far from complete. While the ayatollahs have boasted about some of their nuclear assets, American experts are divided over whether a parallel, clandestine programme is being developed in hardened bunkers out of sight of US satellites.
"We just don't know where all the stuff is," said one British official. "We don't know how far they have dispersed or duplicated facilities and we don't know how much of what we can see is dummy or decoy construction. In short, we can't be sure we've got all the targets to stop them from building a weapon."
Some nuclear specialists argue that Saddam Hussein's Iraq showed how easy it is to hide nuclear facilities. "When we went into the Gulf war (in 1991), we thought we knew where all the Iraqi nuclear facilities were," said Pollack. "We bombed them to smithereens. Then David Kay went in and said, 'Oh, by the way, you missed 60% of them'."
Pike is among other specialists who believe that "what you see is what you get" in the Iranian nuclear programme. "The infrastructure that we see basically replicates what we see in Pakistan," he said. "And it has never been suggested that Pakistan had a massive clandestine infrastructure."
He argued that America should strike at night against buildings housing nuclear scientists and workers. "They need to maximise the number of casualties," he said.
"You can rebuild a building in a couple of years, but it could retard the programme for decades if they have to replace all their people."
Yet the ayatollahs scarcely appear worried by US military threats. "They do not have accurate information about our military capabilities," Ali Shamkhani, Iran's defence minister, retorted last week. Another government spokesman dismissed reports of American special force activity in Iraq as "a ridiculous bluff" and "psychological warfare".
The official Iranian news agency warned: "Today the Islamic republic has acquired massive military might, the dimensions of which still remain unknown ... It is prepared to attack any intruder with a fearsome rain of fire and death."
Behind the ayatollahs' posturing lies what British officials believe is a persuasive argument against a military attack: far from encouraging Iranian reformers to rise up against their theocratic government, any form of US intervention might unite the country behind Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's supreme leader.
© Copyright 2005, Times Newspapers Limited
