The immediate challenge-and a very big one for India is the imminent attack upon Iran by the US and possibly Iran.All the signs are that the US is hell bent upon massive air strikes against Iran to destroy all its nuclear,military and scientific infrastructure.Bush and his "toxic" VP (described by a senior Britiish diplomat) Dick Cheney,assisted by the neo-con think tanks are on the verge of starting another major conflict in the Middle East and Gulf,one that could destabilise the entire global economy.
India is an old friend of Iran,which wants Iran to keep its nuclear ambitions in control (no nukes).At the same time,India has large strategic interests in remaining a close friend of Iran ,both from the energy factor and the Pakistani factor.It has to warn Washington about its concerns,as any attack upon Iran will inflame not only the Gulf Middle East,but S,Asia and afar,into the ASEAN states,many of which are Muslim.the ramifications of a US strike can be imagined.More chaos in Iraq and Afghanistan ,disrupted energy supplies (we will have to depend heavily upon supplies from other sources further afar ) and the distinct possibility of Iranian sponsored terrorism abroad aimed at the US and its allies and fellow travellers.Read the two reports given below.
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www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml ... iran24.xml
American armada prepares to take on Iran
By Damien McElroy aboard USS Eisenhower
Last Updated: 3:06am GMT 24/02/2007
Ready for war
By Con Coughlin
Last Updated: 2:01am GMT 24/02/2007Page 1 of 3
There may not yet be gas masks in the street in Tel Aviv but no one should underestimate Israel's determination to prevent a nuclear Iran
Down on the seafront in Tel Aviv, where crowds of young Israelis are to be found taking advantage of the unseasonably warm spring sunshine this weekend, it is hard to imagine that Israel is confronting what is arguably the gravest threat to its survival since it emerged from the ashes of the Holocaust 59 years ago.
The apocalyptic rantings of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the menace posed by the ayatollahs' outlawed nuclear programme are a million miles from the minds of the couples lounging in the sun sipping cold beers, or engaged in vigorously competitive games of beach volleyball.
Apart from the occasional noisy interruption as a patrol of Cobra military helicopters passes overhead on its way to Gaza, or the sullen presence of the naval patrol vessels anchored offshore on the lookout for waterborne suicide bombers, these carefree souls seem blissfully unaware of the storm clouds of war gathering over the political horizon.
"We have nothing to fear from the Iranians," Amiram Levi told me. "If they become too much of a threat we can deal with them just as we dealt with the Iraqis when they tried to build a nuclear bomb."
Amiram, a 20-year-old computer science student at Tel Aviv University, was of course referring to the daredevil raid made by Israeli fighter jets against Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981, which destroyed at a stroke Saddam Hussein's dreams of turning his country into a nuclear superpower.
advertisementMost Israelis believe their country will do the same again if the outside world fails to call a halt to Iran's controversial uranium enrichment programme, which few in Israel doubt is ultimately aimed at giving the ayatollahs a nuclear weapons arsenal to fulfil Ahmadinejad's pledge to erase the Jewish state from the map.
Having already suffered a near-apocalypse in the form of the Holocaust, the Jewish people have no intention of being the hapless victims of Ahmadinejad's genocidal designs. Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, last month gave his most explicit warning to date that Israel was prepared to use military force to prevent Teheran from obtaining a nuclear weapon: "The Jewish people, with the scars of the Holocaust fresh on its body, cannot afford to allow itself to face threats of annihilation once again."
That single sentence sums up the consensus among most of the Israeli people. If the wider world is not prepared to take pre-emptive action to stop Iran from fulfilling its nuclear ambitions, then Israel is ready to act alone.
Normally, in times of national emergency, such as the build-up to the 2003 Iraq War, Israel is bustling with precautionary activity - civil defence organisers handing out gas masks and ensuring the bomb shelters are ready.
But today there is scant evidence of anyone preparing for a potential war. The only gas masks on display are those used by children for fancy dress, while recent press reports that the super-rich residents of Herzliya were building their own state-of-the-art nuclear bunkers were greeted with derision by less well-off citizens.
In contrast, the country's political, military and intelligence-gathering infrastructure has thrown all the resources it can muster at the challenge of neutralising Iran's nuclear capability.
"The amount of effort we are putting into this single issue is unprecedented in the history of the State of Israel," said a senior Israeli security official who works on the strategic committee that has been set up to deal with the Iran threat, which is personally chaired by Olmert.
The committee's main function is to ensure the closest possible liaison on the latest intelligence and military developments. It is also responsible for maintaining a close dialogue with countries supportive of Israel's concerns, particularly the United States, which has seconded officials to work alongside the Israelis.
The committee has yet to have any contact with Britain, although it is hoped that a dialogue will begin "in the not-too-distant future".
Nor should anyone be in any doubt as to the extreme sense of urgency that is driving the Israeli government's activity. To ensure that the country has the best available resources at its disposal, Olmert announced last week that Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad, Israel's overseas intelligence service, had been asked to postpone his retirement until at least the end of 2008.
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