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By Meredith Buel
Washington
09 July 2008
There has been wide-ranging debate in Washington and the Middle Eastrecently regarding the possibility of a military attack on Iran'snuclear program. The war of words between the United States, Israeland Iran has escalated and has military and political expertsconsidering the consequences. VOA Correspondent Meredith Buel has morein this background report from Washington.
Top officials in theWhite House and Pentagon believe Iran is continuing on a path to buildnuclear weapons, but estimates vary on when Tehran could complete thecomponents for an actual bomb.
World powers have been pressingIran to stop its uranium-enrichment program and have offered a new setof incentives for the Tehran government to back away from a plan thatcould lead to nuclear weapons.
U.S. President George Bush hasrepeatedly committed to diplomacy as the first choice to curb Iran'snuclear program,abercrombie france, but he has also consistently declined to rule out theuse of military force.
"I have always said that all options areon the table,casque dr dre," said President Bush. "But the first option for theUnited States is to solve this problem diplomatically."
Debate on the issue of a military campaign against Iran skyrocketed in recent weeks and the rhetoric is getting hotter.
Noone is advancing a timetable for military action,casque beats, but former StateDepartment official Elizabeth Cheney, a daughter of the vice president,says the United States will not tolerate a nuclear Iran.
"We cannot live with it," she said. "It is an existential threat to Israel. It is a significant threat to American national security."
While military action against Iran is being debated, other activity has been underway in the Middle East.
Americanand allied naval forces just concluded a series of military exercisesin the Persian Gulf. The U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet saysthe drill was aimed at protecting oil installations.
A topIranian official recently threatened to shutdown strategic oil shippinglanes and Iran's Revolutionary Guards are also engaged in highlyvisible training maneuvers.
Tehran is also testing ballisticmissiles and Iranian officials say some of those weapons could reachIsrael and other U.S. allies in the region.
Last month,louboutin, theIsraeli Air Force carried out large-scale exercises that were believedby many analysts to be a rehearsal for a possible attack againstIranian nuclear facilities.
The Executive Director of theWashington Institute for Near East Policy, Robert Satloff, says Iraniannuclear weapons would be disastrous.
"It would inflame aregional arms race," he said. "It would perhaps, lead to terroristsgetting nuclear weapons, it is a huge danger. For Israel,burberry pas cher, the dangeris exponentially worse. A regime whose leaders have publicly committedto destroying the state of Israel are spending their national wealth toacquire the means to implement that threat."
Iran denies it has a nuclear-weapons program and says it is enriching uranium to be used for generating electricity.
Tehranhas responded to the incentives package presented by the EuropeanUnion, and E.U. representatives say they hope to resume negotiationslater this month.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottakisays he does not believe there will be war between Iran and the UnitedStates or Israel.
"The Israeli government is facing a politicalbreakdown within itself and within the region, so we do not foreseesuch a possibility for that regime to resort to such craziness," hesaid. "The United States, too,abercrombie, is not in a position where it canengage in, take another risk,burberry, in the region."
Military analystssay an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would be complicated,abercrombie and fitch, quiteunlike the one-time strikes Israel did in Iraq in 1981 and morerecently in Syria.
Given the commitment of U.S. troops in Iraqand Afghanistan, America's top military officer,franklin marshall, Joint Chiefs of StaffChairman Mike Mullen,louboutin pas cher, says an attack on Iran would be difficult.
"Openingup a third front right now would be extremely stressful on us," hesaid. "That does not mean we do not have capacity or reserve, but thatwould really be very challenging. And also the consequences of thatsometimes are very difficult to predict."
Those consequences arelikely to include retaliation from Iran. Officials say Israel and theU.S. naval fleet in the Persian Gulf would be the first targets if thecountry were attacked.
With President Bush in his last year inoffice, Middle East experts like Rob Satloff say time may be runningout on definitive action.
"I think people are looking toPresident Bush to see whether there will be any finality on the Iranissue under his watch or whether he merely hands off the issue to asuccessor," he said. "And finality, few things are more final than anact of military force."
Military analysts say an attack onIran would require a sustained campaign that would target thecountries' retaliatory capabilities first and then strike the nucleartargets.
相关的主题文章： The year 2011 was a momentous one around the world. The shape of the Middle East changed after the Tunisian government fell to people power in January. This event started the Arab Spring that saw Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak resign and popular uprisings spread across the Arab world. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s murder in October completed his country’s successful uprising. There were many natural disasters in 2011. The biggest was the earthquake and tsunami that devastated much of Japan’s northern coastline. It killed 15,840 people and created one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters. Floods in Rio de Janeiro and Thailand killed thousands. The world population officially hit 7 billion, although Osama bin Laden, Apple’s Steve Jobs and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il died.
