Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Washington suffers yet another setback

Aug.27, 2008


Washington suffers yet another setback

IRAN's warning that Israel is too vulnerable to Iran's longer-range missiles to dare launch a military attack against Iranian targets is indeed what could be expected under the developing scenario. It should be seen within the framework of Iranian defiance against US-led pressure on Tehran to scrap its nuclear programme and signs that Israel is building itself up for military action against Iranian nuclear installations.
The US finds itself in no position to rattle its sabres — and indeed use them — against Iran  (unless of course stupidity and thickheadedness reign supreme in Washington which could never be ruled out), particularly in the wake of the rapidly escalating tensions between the United States and Russia over Moscow's intervention in Georgia.
There have also been suggestions that
An acute awareness that the Georgia conflict has tied the US hands seems to be behind the fresh tough talk emanating from Tehran against Israel entertaining any thought of military action against Iran.
"Our strategic assessment shows that if the Zionist regime took action, whether alone or with the United States, in minimal time all of its territory would be vulnerable because this country lacks strategic depth and lies within the range of Iranian missiles," the head of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, General Mohammad Ali Jafari, said on Wednesday.
"Iran's ballistic capabilities are such that the Zionist regime, with all the means at its disposal, has no way of countering them," Jafari said.
"In the event of an attack against against Iran, the Israelis know that with the capabilities that the Islamic world and the Shiite world have in the region, they will suffer deadly strikes," he added.
Predictably, Israel is interpreting the warning as a threat of military action, but the world knows better than to expect the Iranians to launch its missiles at the Jewish state — if indeed it has rockets of that range — except as retaliation for an Israeli attack.
Jafari's posture underlines the weakened position that the US finds itself under. There is indeed talk of a shift in thinking in Washington against a US. military attack on Iran before President George W. Bush leaves office next January, given the still-uncertain outcome of the Georgia crisis.
On the diplomatic front also, the US faces a serious set back because the likelihood that Moscow will cooperate with US and European efforts to impose additional sanctions on Tehran through the U.N. Security Council has been sharply reduced.