By Jacques Julliard
    Le Nouvel Observateur

    Tuesday 24 January 2006

    The Iranian president can say, "Thank you, Mr. Bush!"

    Of all the conflicts the West has had to confront since the end of the Cold War, the one that presently opposes it and Iran is undoubtedly the most serious and dangerous to world peace. To general surprise, and thanks to massive fraud, the country brought to its leadership the former ultra-conservative mayor of Teheran, Ahmadinejad, who has set himself the objective of "erasing Israel from the map." It would be a mistake to imagine that is just rhetoric. The former head of the Pasdaran knows that he can act with impunity today, so obvious is the West's impotence.

    That's why, defying America, the UN, and the recently mobilized International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran decided on January 10 to resume its uranium enrichment activities and break the seals the IAEA had set on its three nuclear research centers.

    Who could believe in purely civilian and industrial research with regard to a country that oozes with oil? Didn't Ahmadinejad assert at the UN that nuclear energy is a "gift from God" and that "Iran has the right to master this energy's complete cycle?" He knows that in that regard he can count on the unanimous support of Iran's population, which doesn't understand why the country - flanked on the west and on the east by nuclear powers, i.e., Israel and Pakistan - shouldn't have the right to become one itself. The time remaining before reaching that stage: eighteen months to five years, according to the experts.

    To explain this development, we must understand that Iran is the great beneficiary of the rash and foolish policy the United States has conducted in the region the last three years.

    1. After supplying Saddam Hussein with weapons when he attacked Iran (1980), the White House's little geniuses decided to go to war against their former Iraqi allies. As they did with the Taliban in Afghanistan - other former allies - they obligingly got rid of the Teheran regime's two principal enemies in the region, Saddam and the Taliban.

    Thank you, Mr. Bush!

    2. In the same fell swoop, the Iraqi "democratic revolution" brought Iran's natural allies in Iraq to power, i.e., the Shiites.

    Thanks again, Mr. Bush!

    3. But above all, the disastrous recurrence of a war against a country that was not producing weapons of mass destruction has militarily, politically and psychologically rendered impossible any recourse to force against countries like Iran and North Korea that make no bones about preparing for it. War, a joker we won't be able to use in case we need to.

    Bravo, Mr. Bush!

    As for the Europeans, persuaded that they themselves are protected from history, they have offered their good offices in the form of negotiations between France, England, and Germany on the one hand and Iran on the other. The result: nil, with the Iranians making no effort to conceal that the Europeans were nothing but useful idiots who allowed them to gain time.

    Now recourse to the Security Council appears inevitable. And for once, Americans, French, Russians and Chinese are in agreement in their condemnation of Iran for failing to keep its own promises.

    But the latter have already made clear that that they couldn't care less. War? I've posited above why even the United States can't contemplate it. Economic sanctions in the form of an embargo on Iranian oil? It's highly unlikely that the Chinese, who draw 12% of their oil supplies from Iran, would veto it. We cannot hide the fact that the slap in the face the UN and the international community are about to receive from Teheran will take us into a new phase in the post-war period, perhaps the most dangerous of all.

    After the Cold War, characterized by the balance of nuclear terror, came the collapse of the Soviet Empire and the United States' sole domination of the world. That period ended September 11, 2001. After the nuclear peril, the terrorist peril. Today we are entering a new phase that combines the two preceding ones: nuclear terrorism. That could be exercised either by states or by international networks (al Qaeda).

    If the danger is so great, it's because the balance of terror is a game that, to succeed, must be played by two. However we're now entering an era of dissemination of nuclear terror. No one can answer for anyone else, neither allies, nor adversaries. And historians will say that the inability of Europeans to unite around objectives they all share will have been a renunciation, not only of power, but also of independence.

    Jacques Julliard is Editorial Director of the Nouvel Observateur.

    Translation: t r u t h o u t French language correspondent Leslie Thatcher.