[Media-watch] US sets sights on toppling Iran regime - The Times - 17/7/2004

[Julie-ann Davies]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1181969,00.html



July 17, 2004

US sets sights on toppling Iran regime
By Michael Binyon and Bronwen Maddox


Re-elected Bush would act to foment revolt, says senior official



THE US will mount a concerted attempt to overturn the regime in Iran if
President Bush is elected for a second term.

It would work strenuously to foment a revolt against the ruling theocracy by
Iran's "hugely dissatisfied" population, a senior official has told The
Times.

The United States would not use military force, as in Iraq, but "if Bush is
re-elected there will be much more intervention in the internal affairs of
Iran", declared the official, who is determined that there should be no
let-up in the Administration's War on Terror.

To what extent the official, known to be hawkish, was speaking for the White
House was unclear, but his remarks are nevertheless likely to cause alarm in
Europe. He hinted at a possible military strike against Iran's nuclear
facilities, saying that there was a window of opportunity for destroying
Iran's main nuclear complex at Bushehr next year that would close if Russia
delivered crucial fuel rods. To destroy Bushehr after the delivery would
cause huge environmental damage. The rods would allow the Iranians to obtain
enough plutonium for many dozens of nuclear weapons, he said.

The official also stepped up the pressure on Britain, France and Germany to
take a tougher line on Iran, voicing the disdain within the Administration
for the Europeans' attempt to defuse the Iranian nuclear threat through
diplomacy. Britain had joined the effort in order to demonstrate its
European credentials, he said. France and Germany had teamed up with Britain
because they realised that the pair of them could no longer run Europe
alone.

Washington believes that the trio has been embarrassed by Iran's failure to
hold good to a deal it struck with the Iranian regime last October. Iran
pledged to give UN inspectors the freedom to make snap inspections, and also
to suspend uranium enrichment.

Since then, some members of the Administration have begun referring in
private to Britain, France and Germany as "the Tehran three", and to Jack
Straw, the Foreign Secretary, as "Jack of Tehran".

If the Europeans fail to get Iran to back down at a meeting this month, the
US wants to close the gap between the rival diplomatic approaches and refer
Iran to the United Nations Security Council.

Russia is due to deliver the first shipment of nuclear fuel to Iran early
next year for insertion into the reactor at Bushehr before the end of the
year.

Despite that, the official believes that "it is not impossible to get Russia
to see it our way" and back a UN resolution that would "raise the
international saliency" of Iran's nuclear ambitions. He is convinced that
Iran is afraid of a "conveyor belt" that would lead inexorably to sanctions
and even military action.

Iran is one of the three members of President Bush's "axis of evil" and has
further angered Washington with its covert interference in Iraq since the
end of last year's war to topple Saddam Hussein.

The official dismissed suggestions that Washington would hesitate to seek
regime change in Iran, given the problems it has encountered in Iraq, and
Colin Powell, a restraining influence as Secretary of State, will not be
serving a second term. It is less clear how the Administration could foment
a revolution without uniting Iranians against "the Great Satan".

The official claimed that more than its dislike of the mullahs, the Iranian
population was dissatisfied with an economy that did not have jobs for the
young: 60 per cent of the population is under 24.

There is little organised opposition inside the country and financing it
directly or through front organisations would probably play into the hands
of the mullahs anyway.

At present the US relies on about a dozen Farsi satellite television and
radio channels in the San Fernando Valley, California. They beam pirate
broadcasts to the estimated seven million Iranians with illegal satellite
dishes.

Last year Washington also set up a Persian-language Voice of America
programme that is broacast into Iraq. The internet offers another channel
for US propaganda, but efforts to impose stiff sanctions or fund
anti-Government exile groups have been frustrated by a Republican split over
the relative merits of confrontation or engagement.

Despite the US threats one of Iran's top ruling clerics vowed yesterday that
the Islamic republic would continue to pursue its controversial nuclear
programme. "We are resolute. It is worth achieving it at any cost,"
Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of the Guardians Council, said.