IRANIAN NUCLEAR BOMB IS A REALITY
Reader comment on item: Pipes criticises Middle East leaders

Submitted by Marcos Berenstein (Brazil), Feb 14, 2005 at 06:52

As Dr.Pipes correctly pointed out, Iran has learned a lot with the Isaraeli bombing in 1981. Before that Israeli raid, in 1980 a couple of Iranian F-4 Phantom fighter-bombers attacked the Osirak reactor,unsuccessfully though. Iranians said that their facilities are scattered across the country, making any attempt to destroy completely Iranian nuclear ambitions not likely to succeed. I suspect that
Iran already has some warheads,maybe 10 or 12.

What Washington and Jerusalem must do is focus on the military vectors of such warheads,namely the Al-Shihab missiles.That's the catch. Forget about the facilities. It'll be a lot easier to pressure Teheran about missiles than with its nuclear facilities,making
negotiations more palatable to them.

Of course, Iran's intentions are quite clear, that is, they want to prevent change of power brought from outside, as it happened in Iraq. They could be pleased at the results of Iraqi elections, for the Shia list won almost half of the votes, nevertheless they don't want
American boots on Iranian soil,and ONLY NUCLEAR DETERRENCE will work. They are absolutely right. North Korea's strategic thought is about the same, as it is a regime that prefers to starve its populace than to give up its nuclear deterrence.

Washington won't succeed to achieve its agenda in both cases, pushing the problem to the generations to come. It means only one thing:NUCLEAR WAR in the next 15 or 20 years.

China's role in both Iran and Noth Korea isn't well explained, although the linkage between these three countries are very strong. It is possibly in Beijing's interest to keep the tensions high.

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