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U.S. Bumbling Towards Iran Attack II

Nobody sees military action as the best way to tame Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons ambitions, but as the rhetoric heats up, mutual miscalculation could suck Tehran and Washington into an unpredictable showdown. European-sponsored talks have yet to resolve the dispute over Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme, which could help it build a bomb. With postwar Iraq […]

Nobody sees military action as the best way to tame Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons ambitions, but as the rhetoric heats up, mutual miscalculation could suck Tehran and Washington into an unpredictable showdown.

European-sponsored talks have yet to resolve the dispute over Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme, which could help it build a bomb. With postwar Iraq in turmoil, the world is jittery about any fresh instability in the oil-supplying Gulf region.

While U.S. President George W. Bush has emphasised diplomacy in dealing with Iran, he has not ruled out a military option and Vice President Dick Cheney has said Israel might act alone.

“There’s a 50-50 chance of an air strike,” said Ali Ansari, an Iran expert at Scotland’s St Andrew’s University.

“This not because of deliberate policy in the Pentagon or Iran, but the tensions, the sensitivities, the paranoia are so high that the potential for slip-sliding into something is very high,” he said, noting the absence of direct communication between the diplomatically estranged protagonists. ~Reuters

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