Le Figaro
Wednesday 17 October 2007
No one knows whether George W. Bush will attack Iran, but in the prognostication game, the scenario of targeted attacks is buttressed by several "indicators." In the absence of specific information supplied by Tel-Aviv and Damascus, the mysterious Israeli raid against a Syrian installation September 6 continues to feed speculation. Analysis of the first satellite images reveals the following scenario: Six Israeli fighter planes flew along the Mediterranean coast before refueling between Cyprus and Turkey, then overflying Turkish territory where the pilots dumped their large fuel tanks to better penetrate Syrian air space. Two of those tanks were found in Syria and two others in Turkey. That unburdening allowed them to fly at supersonic speed over Syria and so escape Syrian defenses.
According to one French expert, the Israeli message is twofold: "on the one hand to show the Syrians that the IDF remains able to destroy a site whether it's proliferating or not; one the other hand, to make a demonstration of force for the benefit of the international community." In that framework, the indication of a dress rehearsal before a preventative Israeli strike against the "nesting doll" Iranian nuclear system cannot be excluded.
In anticipation of a possible Iranian riposte to American bombings, Israel has also decided to "bury" its Defense Ministry in Tel-Aviv, where "bunkerization" works proceed apace. The Hebrew state, which fears a hijacked airplane crashing against a tower of the Defense Ministry, has learned its lesson from the Iraqi Scuds' launch against Tel-Aviv in 1991. All the more so as one hundred kilometers to the north, Hezbollah is also getting ready. No longer only to the north of the Litani River in the eastern part of the Bekaa Valley, where a rearmament has been observed since the beginning of the year, but - and this is new - in South Lebanon, in the UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force, reinforced after the summer 2006 war between the IDF and Hezbollah) zone.
Lately, truck convoys have been sighted at night, as well as trenches dug amid the palm groves and immediately recovered; suspicious explosions have been heard: so many indications that strangely recall the 2005-2006 preparations, when, in anticipation of a conflict with Israel, Hezbollah dug tunnels, fortified bunkers and secured its radio communications. "The Lebanese Army has been informed, but for the moment, it does nothing," deplores the French military expert.
This summer, Hassan Nasrallah talked about future "big surprises." The Hezbollah leader insinuated that his party, allied to Tehran and Damascus, holds longer-range missiles than the Iranian models the IDF destroyed during the 2006 war: Zelzals capable of striking Tel-Aviv, or even further south in Israel.
In reprisal against any strikes against their installations, the Iranians will favor indirect actions through their proxies (Hezbollah, Shiite minorities in the Gulf States) rather than attacks against oil or American installations in the Gulf. Worried about regional stability, the Emirates like Qatar trade on their good relations with Tehran to negotiate immunity. Others, like the United Arab Emirates or certain factions of the Saudi government, have already approved - without saying so, of course - American bombings that, according to them, will stave off the age-old "Persian menace."
"The Americans seem to have decided to strike Iran," a high official in one Gulf petro-monarchy declared to Le Figaro. "We are organizing backstage meetings between officials of the two sides, but, each time, the Americans change representatives; they are not serious about wanting to go forward down the diplomatic route," this leader rues.
The Bush administration remains divided between the "hawks" behind Vice President Dick Cheney and the pragmatists, led by both Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the Pentagon's Robert Gates, who are opposed to strikes. It seems that President George Bush has not yet chosen between the two sides. "Israel could tip the balance, but the Israelis themselves are divided," adds the French expert.
Convinced that the American fiasco in Iraq prohibits any new adventurism, the Iranian government continues not to believe in a war. But in Tehran, where the government and its warrens are showing signs of nervousness; people are also going into overdrive. How else to interpret the rapprochement between the army and the Pasdaran, or the heightened surveillance around officials formerly responsible for nuclear issues, like Hussein Moussavian? "The real signal of the imminence of operations will be Israel's deployment of the anti-missile Patriot-Arrow shield designed to intercept a maximum number of the missiles that could be sent against the Hebrew State," concludes a diplomat well-acquainted with Israel. They're still only at the start of the Patriot-Arrow partner integration.
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