Iran pursues diplomacy, Israel threatens military action

Adam Robertson

As the European Union resumes diplomatic talks with Iran, urging the United States to follow suit and stressing that the Iranians are ready for such negotiations, Israel is recommending ways to destroy Tehran’s nuclear installations.

"It is impossible perhaps to destroy the entire nuclear program but it would be possible to damage it in such a way that it would be set back years," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in an interview with Germany's Focus magazine. "It's technically feasible. It would require 10 days and the launch of a thousand Tomahawk missiles," he said in the interview, due to be published on Monday.

Olmert also said that "nobody could exclude" military action against Iran, echoing a position long held by the U.S., which doesn’t want to negotiate with Tehran unless it suspends its uranium enrichment program, a demand Tehran refuses to meet despite being slapped with two sets of UN sanctions.

Olmert’s suggestion that a rain of missile could degrade Iran’s nuclear program came as the EU’s foreign police Javeir Solana ended two days of talks with Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani. After the talks, which have been described as constructive, Solana demanded Washington to open direct negotiations with Tehran, stressing that Iranian officials are ready for such unconditional talks.

"We have always said we are ready for talks if they have something new to say. We are fully prepared for talks without preconditions to reach a solution," Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said earlier this month.

But Olmert’s threat of military action against Tehran could hinder Iran and the EU’s diplomatic efforts.

Iranian authorities, who insist that Tehran’s nuclear plans are strictly peaceful, immediately described Olmert's warning as empty “bravado.”

"If the United States and Israel commit such a mistake, they know better than anybody what the consequences will be for themselves,” said the head of Iran’s parliamentary foreign affairs commission, Alladin Borojerdy, according to the state-run news agency Isna.

Borojerdy added that the head of the UN nuclear watchdog "Muhammad El-Baradei has stated that Iran's nuclear science cannot be destroyed by missile strikes ... because the science is national."

The science indeed could not be destroyed. But Olmert’s recent warning raises fears that Israel and the United States are preparing plans for a military strike against Iran, a move that military experts say could be disastrous for a region already suffering from two U.S.-led initiated wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In a report, the Oxford Research Group suggested last month that pre-emptive air strikes, like those reportedly being considered by the U.S. and Israel, would harden Iranian attitudes and political resistance to outside pressure to stop uranium enrichment. "Armed attacks on Iran would very likely lead to the result they were meant to avoid -- the building of nuclear weapons within a few years,” said the report, backed by the former chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq, Hans Blix.

Another fact usually ignored by supporters of military action against Iran is that many of Tehran’s nuclear facilities are believed to be deep underground, in reinforced bunkers difficult to destroy with conventional weapons. Using thousands of missiles, as suggested by Olmert, could result in a high number of civilian casualties, as a surprise attack would inevitably catch many people unprotected, leading to the deaths of thousands of civilians in another conflict that could still be resolved through diplomacy.

How Rice Plans to Tackle Iran

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice never once used the word "isolate" in connection with Iran during her three appareances on Sunday political talk shows. That may be some kind of a record, since Rice rarely misses an opportunity to call for isolating Tehran until it abandons its uranium-enrichment activities and its support for radical groups in the Middle East. But it would be hard for Rice to demand the isolation of Iran when, in a dramatic course correction approved by President Bush, the Secretary of State plans to sit across a table with her Iranian counterpart, Manoucher Mottaki, at a conclave of Middle Eastern foreign ministers focused on stabilizing Iraq.

In fact, at some point during the so-called "neighbor's conference" convened by the Iraqi government and held in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, Rice may even go so far as meeting one-on-one with Mottaki. "I wouldn't rule it out," she told ABC's George Stephanopoulos, "because this is not a meeting about the United States and Iran; this is a meeting about Iraq and about what Iraq's neighbors and interested parties can do to help stabilize the situation in Iraq."

The change of tack by the Bush Administration may reflect the mixed results of its efforts to isolate Iran: On the one hand, the U.S. has managed to overcome Russian and Chinese objections to secure two important UN Security Council sanctions resolutions turning up the heat on Iran, and it has managed to constrict Iran's access to global capital markets. But despite the pressure, none of these actions has prompted Tehran to change course. And many of the governments on which the U.S. would rely to implement an isolation strategy — friendly Arab leaders and the Europeans — have strongly echoed calls by the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group for the U.S. to engage directly with Tehran.

Not that the Sharm el-Sheikh encounter presages a thaw in US-Iranian relations: Rice sees the step as necessitated by tactical flexibility, but she holds fast to the Bush Administration view that Iran is the engine of much of the violence and chaos in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. As she tells it, the encounter in Sharm will be more of a lecture than an exchange, with the U.S. berating Iran over arms and fighters crossing into Iraq, the actions of militias and so on. Iran is not likely to be moved by those charges, which it routinely denies, and nor does it accept lectures from U.S. leaders.

Even if the two sides remain at loggerheads, U.S. officials believe the encounter is an opportunity to "put the Iranians on the record, at the ministerial level, that they are making commitments to the Iraqis to help solve their problems." Washington hopes that if Iran makes security commitments to Iraq's government and the governments of the region, the onus will be on Tehran to curb its covert meddling and make a positive contribution. Such engagement is premised less on the idea that more radical elements in Iran's leadership will change their ways, than on the prospects for a more pragmatic outlook in Tehran. "It's not a matter of looking for moderates in Iran," Rice said recently. "I don't think there are any in this regime; but it is a matter of looking for reasonable people who might want to have a different course."

The Iranians will bring complaints of their own to Sharm el-Sheikh, and insist that Iraq's security crisis can't be resolved while U.S. forces remain in the country. If Rice is hoping that influential Arab moderates will echo the U.S. position, she may be disappointed. Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, who earlier this year denounced the U.S. occupation of Iraq as "illegitimate," recently turned down a request from Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to meet in Saudi Arabia before the Sharm conference. "The Saudi king's schedule was not suitable for the timing," Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari said on CNN Sunday.

U.S. April death toll in Iraq passes 100

By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD - Five U.S. troops were killed over the weekend in Iraq, the military said Monday, pushing the death toll for April past 100 in the deadliest month for American forces this year.

A suicide bomber, meanwhile, blew himself up during a Shiite funeral in a volatile area north of Baghdad, the deadliest in a series of attacks that killed at least 51 people nationwide.

The bomber detonated his explosives about 6:30 p.m. inside a tent where mourners were gathered in Khalis, a flashpoint Shiite enclave in Diyala province, where U.S.-Iraqi forces have seen fierce fighting with Sunni and Shiite militants.

At least 20 people were killed and 30 wounded in the blast, which occurred four days after a suicide car bomber killed 10 Iraqi soldiers at a checkpoint in the city, 50 miles north of Baghdad.

Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility for that attack in an area where Sunni Arab insurgents are thought to have fled to escape the security crackdown in Baghdad that U.S. and Iraqi troops launched Feb. 14.

The killings of the Americans came as U.S. troops have been increasingly deployed on the streets of Baghdad and housed with Iraqi troops in joint security operations away from their heavily fortified bases, raising their vulnerability to attacks.

Three American soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were killed by a roadside bomb while on a combat patrol Sunday in eastern Baghdad, the military said. A U.S. soldier was slain Saturday by small arms fire in the same part of the city — a predominantly Shiite area where American and Iraqi forces have stepped up operations as part of the nearly 11-week-old operation to quell sectarian violence.

A Marine also was killed Sunday in Anbar province, a Sunni insurgent stronghold west of the capital, the military said.

An al-Qaida-linked group vowed Monday to pursue a "long-term war of attrition" in Anbar against U.S. forces and an alliance of Sunni tribal leaders who have turned against the terror network.

Underscoring the threat, a tanker truck exploded near a restaurant just west of the Anbar provincial capital of Ramadi, killing four people and wounding six, police said.

U.S.-backed Sunni sheiks and tribal leaders have begun turning against al-Qaida in Anbar, forming the Anbar Salvation Council. That has helped reduce violence in Ramadi and elsewhere, but has triggered clashes for control of the vast desert area that borders Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

The Islamic State in Iraq, an umbrella group that includes al-Qaida, warned militants were developing long-term plans and tactics for a "long-term war of attrition" against the Americans, in a statement posted on a militant Web site.

"The Marines do not confront the militants face-to-face, but they hide themselves behind thieves and highway robbers," the group said in an apparent reference to the tribal alliance. "The mujahedeen are ongoing in their fights against the enemies of God."

Bombings, shootings and mortar attacks struck a series of other targets Monday, including a car bomb that exploded just before 5 p.m. in a residential area in the mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhood of Baiyaa, killing five civilians and wounding 10, police said.

Another car bomb struck a commercial area at about the same time in the eastern Baghdad area of Talibiyah, killing two civilians and wounding eight, police said.

Hours earlier after a suicide car bomber struck an Iraqi checkpoint as he emerged from an underpass in a predominantly Sunni area in western Baghdad, killing four people and wounding 10, police said.

The blast, which occurred at 10 a.m. at an Interior Ministry checkpoint in Nisour Square in the Harthiyah neighborhood, caused part of the road to buckle and destroyed the underpass, killing the two commandos and two civilians.

On Sunday, Iran agreed to join the U.S. and other countries at a conference on Iraq this week, raising hopes the government in Tehran would help stabilize its neighbor and stem the flow of guns and bombs over the border.

Senior Iranian envoy Ali Larijani flew to Baghdad on Sunday for talks with Iraqi leaders ahead of this week's meetings in Egypt — the highest-ranking Iranian official to visit Iraq since the collapse of
Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003.

Larijani met Monday with Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and offered Iranian support for the Iraqi government, saying "we see that Iraq's territories and unity must be preserved."

Zebari stressed the importance of the meetings Thursday and Friday in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik.

"It is true that it aims to help the Iraqi government in improving security and stability, but it also has regional and international dimensions. It is in Iraq's interest that the atmosphere be good," Zebari said.

The U.S. deaths raised to at least 104 American troops who have died in Iraq as April draws to a close, the deadliest month since December, when 112 Americans died. The U.S. monthly death toll has topped 100 five other times since the Iraq war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count based on military figures.

At least 3,351 members of the U.S. military have died since the war started, according to the AP count.

President Bush has committed some 30,000 extra American troops to the security operation in Baghdad, but he is facing legislation by the Democratic-led Congress calling for the Americans to begin withdrawing from Iraq by Oct. 1. Bush has promised to veto the measure.

It also has been the deadliest month for British forces in Iraq since the first month of the war. The 11 British troops deaths reported this month is surpassed only by 27 who died in March 2003, reflecting increasing violence in southern Iraq where they are based, particularly among Shiite groups vying for influence as Britain prepares to reduce its forces.

The area is mainly Shiite and rarely sees the car bombs usually blamed on Sunni insurgents, although rival Shiite militias frequently clash and stage attacks.

On Monday, Iraqi commandos detained a suspected Shiite militia leader linked to death squad activities in the Basra area, according to a U.S. military statement.

The U.S. military also said a joint American-Iraqi raid Sunday was aimed at capturing "high-value individuals" in Baghdad's heavily Shiite district of Kazimiyah and the resulting clash killed one Iraqi soldier and eight gunmen.

Iraqi police in the area said the raid targeted a local office of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and guards had clashed with the troops. The U.S. statement said none of the individuals targeted by the raid were captured.

Hundreds of Shiites waving Iraqi flags and posters of al-Sadr and his late father rallied Monday outside a revered Shiite mosque in Kazimiyah to protest the raid as funerals were held for those killed.

In northern Iraq, a parked car bomb struck a police patrol in the Raas al-Jada, a mainly Sunni Arab area in Mosul, killing one policeman and wounding two others, police Brig. Gen. Mohammed Idan al-Jubouri said.

The attack occurred at 8 a.m., about four hours after some 50 gunmen attacked a police station in the same area, prompting a firefight and clashes as police chased the gunmen through the narrow streets. Four of the gunmen were killed and two others detained, while one policeman was wounded, police said.

In other violence reported by police:

• Mortar attacks targeting a residential area and a coffee shop killed at least two civilians and wounded 14 in northeastern Baghdad.

• A roadside bomb killed one civilian and wounded two others in the Baiyaa area in Baghdad.

• Gunmen killed a retired brigadier from Saddam Hussein's former army as he was driving in southwestern Baghdad.

• A member of the main Kurdish political party, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, was shot to death in a drive-by shooting near Mosul.

• At least eight bullet-riddled bodies, many bearing signs of torture, also were found in different cities, including the body of another Kurdish Democratic Party member who had been kidnapped last week in Mosul.