USA-Iran
10/2/2007“Nonostante le smentite del Pentagono”, scrive il Guardian del 9 Febbraio, “i preparativi per un possibile attacco ai siti nucleari iraniani nella prossima primavera sono a un livello di preparazione avanzato”.
Le manovre militari USA sono dirette a “far pressione sull’Iran, affinché acconsenta a concessioni diplomatiche”, ufficialmente. Ma Ewen MacAskill, corrispondente del Guardian a Washington, non ne è convinto. In realtà, sembrerebbe esservi disaccordo tra i decisori statunitensi quanto al modo di affrontare Teheran.
Neo-conservatives, particularly at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, are urging Mr Bush to open a new front against Iran. So too is the vice-president, Dick Cheney. The state department and the Pentagon are opposed, as are Democratic congressmen and the overwhelming majority of Republicans. The sources said Mr Bush had not yet made a decision. The Bush administration insists the military build-up is not offensive but aimed at containing Iran and forcing it to make diplomatic concessions. The aim is to persuade Tehran to curb its suspect nuclear weapons programme and abandon ambitions for regional expansion.
In ogni caso, la posta in gioco è più che mai la supremazia regionale nell’area compresa tra il Golfo Persico e il Mediterraneo (e tra il Caspio e il Corno d’Africa), cioè nell’ “Oriente energetico” che, qualora sfuggisse alla preponderanza anglo-americana, potrebbe finire, a breve-medio termine, sotto l’influenza di Russia, Cina e ovviamente Iran. Uno scenario da incubo per Washington, ma anche per Tel Aviv, per Bruxelles, e ovviamente per Ryad.
Il tempo stringe: GW Bush non sarà più presidente dal 1° Gennaio 2009. Non può lasciare l’Iran quale superpotenza regionale in Medio Oriente dopo aver speso un’enormità di risorse materiali e umane nella Guerra d’Iraq.
Mr Bush is part of the American generation that refuses to forgive Iran for the 1979-81 hostage crisis. He leaves office in January 2009 and has said repeatedly that he does not want a legacy in which Iran has achieved superpower status in the region and come close to acquiring a nuclear weapon capability. The logic of this is that if diplomatic efforts fail to persuade Iran to stop uranium enrichment then the only alternative left is to turn to the military.
Vi è anche un altro aspetto da considerare: secondo quanto riporta oggi il New York Times, l’Iran sarebbe stato individuato come il fornitore degli esplosivi più micidiali a beneficio delle milizie sciite irachene:
The assertion of an Iranian role in supplying the device to Shiite militias reflects broad agreement among American intelligence agencies, although officials acknowledge that the picture is not entirely complete.
Il messaggio è chiaro: l’Iran ha da tempo attivato i propri “proxies” in Iraq (e in Libano) ed è dunque, praticamente, in stato di guerra con gli USA e con i loro alleati nel Medio Oriente.
The Bush administration is expected to make public this weekend some of what intelligence agencies regard as an increasing body of evidence pointing to an Iranian link, including information gleaned from Iranians and Iraqis captured in recent American raids on an Iranian office in Erbil and another site in Baghdad.
The information includes interrogation reports from the raids indicating that money and weapons components are being brought into Iraq from across the Iranian border in vehicles that travel at night. One of the detainees has identified an Iranian operative as having supplied two of the bombs. The border crossing at Mehran is identified as a major crossing point for the smuggling of money and weapons for Shiite militants, according to the intelligence.
According to American intelligence, Iran has excelled in developing this type of bomb, and has provided similar technology to Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon. The manufacture of the key metal components required sophisticated machinery, raw material and expertise that American intelligence agencies do not believe can be found in Iraq. In addition, some components of the bombs have been found with Iranian factory markings from 2006.
