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Friday 5 September 2008

Iran has declared war on the rest of the world

Douglas Davis says that this conflict can be traced back to the transport via Damascus of a lethal consignment of weapons from Tehran to Hezbollah

The Iranian consignment was transported in a military convoy through Syria and along Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley to Hezbollah bases in south Lebanon. The convoy had received an official transit permit from the Lebanese government, which knew not only the precise nature of the shipment but also its destination.

The sources say the consignment included some 12,000 Katyusha rockets, as well as various other types of missiles. Of particular concern to Israel’s military strategists was the fact that the range of the new rockets had been substantially extended. They were capable of reaching Israel’s main port city of Haifa, possibly well beyond.

At the same time as the missile consignment was heading to Lebanon, an unnamed senior Iranian official said that his country would inflict ‘harm and pain’ on the United States and its allies, and vowed to ‘use any means’ to ‘resist any pressure and threats’ designed to curb Iran’s nuclear programme. The rhetoric was not empty.

One month later the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had called for Israel to be ‘wiped off the map’, made the dramatic announcement that Iranian scientists had completed the nuclear fuel cycle and were enriching uranium, the essential ingredient for a nuclear weapons programme (Iran insists its uranium enrichment is for strictly peaceful purposes).

So why did Hezbollah wait until last Wednesday before unwrapping those missiles? Largely lost in the heat and dust of the attack and counter-attack was a brief statement issued in Paris on the same day by the French foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy.

The statement, on behalf of the foreign ministers of the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany and the European Union, came five weeks after the group had asked Iran to resume negotiations with the IAEA over suspending its nuclear programme. There had still been no response from Tehran. ‘In this context,’ declared Mr Douste-Blazy, ‘we have no choice but to return to the United Nations Security Council and take forward the process that was suspended two months ago. We have agreed to seek a United Nations Security Council resolution which would make the IAEA-required suspension mandatory.’

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