			Foreign Correspondent

		      Inside Track On World News
	    By International Syndicated Columnist & Broadcaster
		 Eric Margolis <emargolis@lglobal.com>

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Resurrecting an old bogeyman
By 
Eric Margolis 27 June 1996

FRANKFURT -  The US and Israel could be planning to attack
Iran before American elections in November, according to    
increasingly concerned, senior European security officials.  

For the past three years, the US has steadily intensified
efforts to isolate Iran economically, militarily and
politically.  Iran and Libya remain at the top of the US
`most wanted' list of nations that, Washington claims, 
support   terrorism. Recently, the Administration has been
issuing loud warnings of an Iranian arms buildup, and making
veiled threats against Iran's rudimentary nuclear program.

Israel has been openly threatening for the past year to
attack Iran's nuclear plants at Bushir. It has also targeted
a second,  secret location at Neka, on the Caspian Sea.  A
recent Israeli-Turkish pact may allow Israeli F-15's and F-
16's to use Turkey's strategic Incirlik air base to attack
Iran - or Iraq and Syria, for that matter.  

Turkey and Iran are historical enemies and rivals.  The
Turks are furious at Syria for aiding Kurdish PKK rebels.
Syria and Iraq are boiling mad at the Turks for siphoning
off upstream water from the Euphrates River.  

In May, Iran held the largest-ever military exercises since
the days of the Shah, deploying 200,000 troops.  This 
brought predictable cries of alarm from Iran's Arab
neighbors and the US.    

In reality, Iran has only modest military forces for a
large, oil-rich nation of 65 million people, and a mixed bag
of obsolescent aircraft, ships and tanks.  Iran lost 40% of
its conventional weapons at the end of the Iran-Iraq War. 
Much of this loss has not been replaced, due to a US-
enforced arms embargo.  Iran's defense budget last year  was
US $2.5 billion, a paltry sum.  Canada, with half Iran's
population and no enemies, save its politicians, spent over
$8 billion.     

Last week, Congress sharply increased tensions by voting to
impose harsh economic sanctions on nations doing business
with Iran.  Sen. Al D'Amato of New York, the Senate's most
vocal partisan of Israel, has proposed an even more
aggressive bill, one tantamount to open trade war with US
allies.  

All this puts the US on what seems like a collision course
with its European and Asian allies, who have billions
invested in Iranian oil. US firms have also felt the lash of
election-year politics:  the Clinton Administration forced
Conoco to abort a US $1 billion oil deal with Iran, costing
at least 10,000 American jobs.  The French happily snapped
up the deal.

Here in Europe, there is a growing suspicion that President
Clinton  intends to make Iran a whipping boy, just as the
Reagan Administration inflated pipsqueek Libya into a
bogeyman.  For the Clintons, who are being swamped by a
tidal-wave of political and financial scandals, a pre-
election attack on Iran offers a welcome political diversion
and would be highly popular, particularly with the Joe 6-pack
set, where Clinton is weak. 

Recall, it was Clinton who talked Israel's former PM, Shimon
Peres, into Israel's disastrous May assault on southern
Lebanon.  In Europe, Israel's shelling of the Qana camp,
which killed over 100 civilians, was not regarded as an
`unfortunate accident,' as Israel claimed, but widely seen
as the purposeful execution of the families of Hizbullah
guerilla fighters.  

Undaunted by the bloody fiasco in Lebanon, Clinton may have
a go at Iran.  This prosect horrified US allies in Europe.
They do not consider Iran a significant threat, and want to
do business with Tehran.  Above all, Europe seeks to avoid
being drawn into the Clinton's crusade against Iran, which
they see as driven by election-year domestic politics, and
contrary to America's own interests.

Faced by the intractable Palestinian problem, and the 
murderous mess in southern Lebanon, Israel's new rightwing
Likud government may also be itching to show its mettle by
blasting the unloved Iranians.

Small wonder Europeans are nervous.

copyright Eric Margolis 1996

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