Strikes against the nuclear sites of Tehran, mingled with the insane hope that a war will destabilize the regime of the Mullahs, are ready in the desk drawers of the Pentagon.

Will the end of this month mark the beginning of a new stage in the American plan for intervention in the Middle East ? The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, the U.S., China, U.K., Russia and France, together with Germany, must decide whether to opt for sanctions, and what sanctions to apply, against an Iran that refuses to put an end to its means for enrichment of uranium, an operation which could, in a more or less long term, enable them to possess nuclear weapons.

At the Pentagon, the targets are shown on the maps, the bombardment plans are ready (see the revelations of Seymour Hersch). Militarily, intervention will involve a strike on well dispersed sites, with no guarantee of complete success. As in Lebanon, the eradication cannot be total in a country five times the size of France. Economically, the destruction of the Iranian infrastructure and the counter attack by the Talaban may well mean a stoppage of production by the OPEP’s second biggest petroleum exporter — and the fifth largest exporter of natural gas. Who will be ready to put up with a barrel of petroleum at more than a 100 dollars ?

A stop to exports, blocking the Straits of Ormuz, through which pass the oil-tankers from the Gulf, will provoke a world-wide economic crisis. And politically, such an aggression will weld together 70 million Iranians around Ahmadinejad, behind his dangerous Islamist politics, to boot. This is antipodal to the supposed American project, which claims to work toward a change in government. The scene is familiar. In Lebanon, for Israel and the U.S., the crushing of the south and of the Hezbollah was to reinforce the Lebanese government and the friends of the Americans. We now know the result, but it is by no means sure that Washington has learned its lesson.

The consequences of an aggression against Iran will be catastrophic. So much so that, last Friday, high-ranking American personalities denounced in advance, "the disastrous consequences for security in the region and for U.S. forces in Iraq".

The spokesman for the White House rejected this letter, pretending that it was a political declaration prepared in the context of the upcoming elections. Simultaneously, the counsellors of the president returned the charge. In the current issue of the Weekly Standard, organ of the neo-conservatives, William Kristol, one of the initiators of the PNAC (see) complains that the White House has too long offered the carrot to Iran, North Korea, ..., and to all who threaten the United States.

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