MEDIA outlets in the West have been reporting that Israeli jets have been executing rehearsal bombing runs for an attack on components of Iran's nuclear program. This came less than a week after UN representative Javier Solana arrived in Tehran with a multi-laterally backed proposal for stemming the tide of acrimony over Iran's atomic research. Such an attack on Iran has been long-predicted by many on both sides of the issue, and there is certainly a precedent for Israel taking such action. They did it in 1981 when they bombed nuclear reactors in Iraq, and the attack they carried out on Syria last year was supposedly aimed at destroying that country's nascent, if denied, nuclear program. An attack on Iran, however, could have more deeply felt repercussions worldwide than the ones Israel carried out against Iraq and Syria. Specifically, it would almost certainly result in a disruption of the flow of oil to the world, Saudi Arabia's commitment to increased production notwithstanding, at a time when prices continue to hit record levels. Tension in the Middle East is often cited as the impetus behind price rises but a strike against Iran would go far beyond creating simple “tension.” Tehran has a full arsenal of weapons even without nuclear capability and a president who believes that Israel should be “wiped off the face of the earth,” so the idea that there would be no retaliation whatsoever seems far-fetched. With an enormous number of US troops already in Iraq, an attack on Iran could escalate into something no one in the region wants to be a part of. The US has said that the reports of the supposed “rehearsal” has made Tehran “extremely nervous,” which may well be the sole intent of the rehearsals or the reports of them, at any rate. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not extremely popular in Iran and a jittery Iran could well prove to be his undoing, actual military attack or not. In the end, the best hope that we can have is that this is all psychological warfare on the part of the West aimed at persuading Iran to go along with the proposal that Solana delivered last week. The alternative is extremely frightening. __
