Storm clouds

The elite Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps during a naval manoeuvre in the Persian Gulf on April 22.-AP

The U.N. Resolution to subject Iranian cargo ships to searches and the aggressive moves by the U.S. and Israel portend another war in West Asia.

THERE are ominous signs of a build-up to another war in West Asia. The naval forces of the United States are already stationed in strength off the Iranian coast. The aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman has joined USS Dwight Eisenhower near the strategic Straits of Hormuz, not far from Iran's territorial waters. Israeli warships are known to have crossed the Suez Canal in June and be heading towards the Persian Gulf. A former Israeli intelligence chief, Shabtai Sahavit, said recently that the Jewish state should not sit idly and wait until the enemy comes to attack you. He advised Israel to follow the doctrine of pre-emption.

Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has warned that his country will retaliate if Iranian cargo ships are inspected by Western navies. The Barack Obama administration has reportedly issued an order for the search of Iranian cargo ships. The June 9 United Nations Security Council Resolution authorises countries to stop and search Iranian ships suspected to be carrying cargo connected with Iran's nuclear programme. The naval commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) warned that if North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) troops boarded Iranian ships, the IRGC would retaliate against U.S. targets in the Straits of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf. The Straits of Hormuz is an important waterway through which most of the Gulf's oil is transported. The Iranian navy has warned that it has hundreds of ships armed with missile launchers in the area.

The Associated Press cited unconfirmed reports that Saudi Arabia has given Israel permission to use its territory for any possible attack on Iran. The Saudi authorities have denied that they are cooperating with Israel though a report in The Times, London, avers that the Saudi authorities have given the green signal to Israel. Yusuf al-Otaiba, the United Arab Emirates' Ambassador to the U.S., in a signed article that appeared in The Washington Times, supported U.S. military action against Iran, saying that his small country was willing to live with the consequences that could follow. The UAE government was, however, quick to disavow the views expressed by its top diplomat. It reiterated that it remained completely opposed to a military attack against Iran.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who is not known for diplomatic niceties, declared at the recent Group of Eight summit in Toronto that world leaders absolutely believed that Israel would take military action against Iran. Iran is not guaranteeing a peaceful production of nuclear power (so) the members of the G-8 are worried and believe absolutely that Israel will probably react pre-emptively.

Opinion polls in the U.S. show that the majority of the people in the country are in favour of an attack against Iran. With mid-term elections looming, the Obama administration is under extreme pressure from the resurgent right wing for such military action. There is no doubt that the West is engaged in an intense psychological war against Teheran, but many well-meaning statesmen and governments in the world are worried that things may go out of hand. The real fear is that someone will get carried away by his own rhetoric and fear-mongering, Martin Van Creveld, a military historian at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, told The Christian Science Monitor.

CASTRO CAUTIONS

Cuban leader Fidel Castro has been using his columns to warn the world that there is an imminent danger of a nuclear holocaust if better sense does not prevail. In a column that appeared in the first week of July, he wrote that both the U.S. and Iran would not give in: One prevented by the pride of the powerful, and the other because it has the capacity and the will to fight oppression, as we have seen so many times in the history of mankind. Castro pointed out that this was how the two World Wars, in which millions of lives were lost, had started. In another article, written in the second week of July, he emphasised that one of the parties involved in the current confrontation was fighting for its national interests while the other party pursued illegitimate and coarse material interests.

In his latest Reflections, Castro wrote that the extremely draconian Security Council Resolution passed against Iran in June left very few loopholes for a negotiated settlement. He bemoaned the fact that China and Russia were a party to the resolution. From my viewpoint, the U.S. and NATO have had the last word. Two powerful states with authority and prestige failed to exercise their right of vetoing the perfidious U.N. Resolution, he observed. The Cuban leader, who for more than five decades was successful in thwarting the machinations of the U.S. to undermine the Cuban revolution, feels that things will go out of hand when the U.S. and Israeli military flotilla board the first Iranian ship.

Castro, who recently made his first public appearance in more than three years, used the opportunity to warn about the imminent danger.

Castro is of the opinion that Iranians will be left with no option but to retaliate. I have absolutely no doubt that as soon as the American and Israeli warships are deployed alongside the rest of the American military vessels positioned off the Iranian coast and they try to inspect the first merchant ship from the country, there will be a massive launching of missiles in both directions. At that moment exactly, the terrible war will begin, he writes.

Castro is not the only statesman predicting a dire scenario for West Asia. Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed said that a U.S. attack on Iran was only a matter of time. He said the U.S. compelled the Security Council to impose sanctions against Iran in order to weaken the country and prepare the ground for a military attack. He observed that the sanctions were passed despite the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohammed ElBaradei, repeatedly stating that there was no evidence that Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapons programme. Mahathir pointed out that the U.S. had declared war on Iraq after first weakening the country by imposing punitive sanctions. It is only a matter of time before the war criminals in Israel and the United States launch another war of aggression, once Iran has been weakened by sanctions, he told an International Conference on Siege of Gaza in Kuala Lumpur in the second week of July. A study by the Oxford Research Group, a think tank which seeks to promote peace through non-violent means, has warned that an Israeli attack on Iran could be the start of a long-drawn-out conflict. An Israeli attack on Iran would be the start of a protracted conflict that would be unlikely to prevent the eventual acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran and might even encourage it, the report says. It says that another war in the region would lead to more political instability and unpredictable security consequences for the wider world. It stated that the U.S. was unlikely to launch a military attack against Iran. That job would be left to Israel.

Long-range strike aircraft acquired from the United States combined with an improved fleet of tanker aircraft, the deployment of long-range drones and the probable availability of support facilities in north-east Iraq and Azerbaijan, all increase Israel's potential for action against Iran, the report says. Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon had boasted in May that Israel had the capacity to target Iran. An Israeli attack, the report warns, would cause a huge number of civilian casualties. The Iranians, it says, could react by closing the Straits of Hormuz, targeting Israel with missiles and walking out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The war, if it breaks out, will be a prolonged one, which will have regional and global ramifications, the report warns.

The aggressive moves of the U.S. and Israel in the Persian Gulf were bolstered by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's recent statement at a meeting of Russian Ambassadors in Moscow. Medvedev said that Iran was gaining the ability to build a nuclear bomb. It is obvious that Iran is moving closer to possessing the potential, which in principle could be used for the creation of a nuclear weapon, he said. Iran was not acting in the best way, he said, and advised it to show openness and cooperate with the IAEA.

The Iranian government was critical of the Kremlin's decision to support the fourth Security Council Resolution. Teheran said at that time that Moscow had succumbed to the pressure exerted by the Obama administration. Moscow has since said that it will not deliver the SS-300 surface-to-air missiles it had promised Teheran. But the Russian-built nuclear power plant at Bushehr is scheduled to open later in the year. Moscow has been issuing statements against the use of force to solve the issue. At the moment, patience is demanded and the speediest resumption of productive dialogue with Teheran is required, Medvedev said. Otherwise, he warned, it will be a collective failure for the entire international community.