
[The Times, U.K.]
Le Figaro, France
American
Report a 'Turning
Point in
the War on Terror' …
"The
assumption of a Soviet-style CIA coup against George Bush, with the goal of
disarming the hawks from now until the end of the President's mandate, is
unacceptable."
By Alexandre
Adler

Translated By James Jacobson
November 9,
2007
France
- Le Figaro - Original Article (French)
The
announcement U.S. intelligence that Iran is not - strictly speaking - on the
point of manufacturing an atomic bomb
, and that it lacks the
technical capacity to obtain one until about 2010 or even 2015, is undoubtedly
the most important turning point of the war against terror that began around
the year 2000. This decision by Iran is as clear as it is obscure, which is
doubtless the reason that some in the press and a good portion of international
political analysts remain reticent to grapple with its full significance. It is
nevertheless completely clear that in agreeing to give this estimate a solemn
and public airing, President Bush is now committed until the end of his mandate
not to intervene militarily in Iran. This will be a shame for all the
pen-pushers whose work predicted a new Iranian-American war, which will now
wilt on bookshop shelves.
But
there's still more in the message that U.S. intelligence has sent to global
opinion - as well as to the Iranian leadership: Between the lines one can also
read the outlines of negotiations to come - and even a trace of a negotiation
that may already have begun - which if true, would be considerably more
sensational. If the reader would allow me a personal confession, I will gladly
recount that a good year before the election of Ahmadinejad to the presidency
of Iran, I suggested to high-level Iranian negotiators the “Japanese solution,”
to which they expressed great interest. I was alluding to the fact that Japan
already has on hand all the components for a nuclear weapon, but which it
refuses to assemble, considering that it already has a strong deterrent with
the parts disassembled.
So
I was not surprised to read three weeks later in The Economist that “certain Iranian officials referred to a
compromise called the Japanese solution” ... and it is this concept that the
pens of CIA analysts refer to, when they refer to a difference between the
fabrication of a nuclear explosive - which Iran has not pursued since 2003 -
and the manufacture of nuclear fuel, which Iran has pursued imperturbably since
the end of a freeze on uranium enrichment at Natanz
.
No one can ignore the fact that if Iran can produce enriched uranium - but
deliberately produce less than is needed to build a Bomb - the essential point is that it is continuing to master
uranium production, and at any time it could push the button and effortlessly
proceed to obtain The Bomb.
This
American distinction between potential and actual is therefore an invitation to
Iran to content itself with a “Japanese solution” in which The Bomb, while technically feasible, would never be assembled. But
there's more: By commending a freeze in uranium enrichment before the
re-election of Ahmadinejad, the United States is here alluding to what could be
the politics of a reformist coalition including Rafsanjani
and Khatami
,
the two predecessors of the current president, who both seek to be leaders
again. This document is therefore a very strange item. It's an analysis - and
much more: a public invitation to Iran to adopt a particular negotiating
position.
The
assumption of a Soviet-style CIA coup against George Bush, with the goal of
disarming the hawks from now until the end of the President's mandate, is
unacceptable. Rather, the coup took place a year ago, when former CIA chief Bob
Gates replaced Rumsfeld as the head of the Pentagon,
and when the prudence of Condi Rice was reinforced. The report was President
Bush speaking through his (sixteen) intelligence services. If we introduce into
the matrix two additional equations; the likelihood of a defeat of the Iranian
fundamentalists in parliamentary elections scheduled for next spring; and the
increasingly real possibility of a relative calming of Sunni terrorism in Iraq,
we have an overview of the new American strategy.
Everything
deliberately done to relax the atmosphere for the anti-fundamentalists in Iran,
which now includes most of the more moderate conservatives, will ensure that
the next election will be freer than the previous presidential one. Has
Rafsanjani provided secret guarantees to his American counterparts? It's
difficult to answer this question.
But
it may be recalled that in 1953, America was able to return the Shah to power
, but paid the price by
ultimately accepting the nationalization of oil that the people elected Mossadegh
to accomplish.
Will "the Japanese solution" be the price agreed to by the two
parties, to ensure the effective convergence of two diplomacies that the
Baghdad regime [Saddam] had so long prepared for?
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Version