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Attacking Iran would be ‘catastrophic’: Mubarak
BERLIN: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said in an interview published on Saturday that he hopes tensions over Iran’s nuclear programme will not lead to a US attack on the country - a move that would be “a mistake of catastrophic proportions.”
Washington believes Iran has a secret nuclear weapons programme and has been pressing the UN atomic agency to refer Iran to the UN Security Council.
“If the United States were really to attack Iran, that would be a mistake of catastrophic proportions,” Mubarak was quoted as saying by the German weekly Der Spiegel, responding to a question about Middle Eastern fears of such an attack.
“Terror and violence in the Middle East and, shortly afterward, in the whole world, would then overshadow everything we have seen so far,” he added. “I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
Iran insists that it is only pursuing a peaceful nuclear energy programme. In Saturday’s interview, Mubarak also asked the US to push forward the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
“We would like the Americans to concentrate on solving this problem,” he said, adding that he remains confident a Palestinian state will be created in the coming years. “I see the year 2008, when the second term of US President George W. Bush ends, as the probable time frame,” he said.
On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said his plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip next year, coupled with the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, could turn 2005 into a “year of great opportunity.” “As things stand, Sharon is the only one in Israel who can take the courageous step toward peace,” Mubarak told Der Spiegel. “The contacts that we had with Sharon over recent weeks showed that he wants to move.”
Washington has shown no sign of willingness to overcome 25 years of hostility with the Islamic republic, dating back to the 1979 hostage siege at the US embassy in Tehran, and open a dialogue of its own with Iran.
Influential neo-conservatives such as former Defence Policy Advisory Board chairman Richard Perle advocate “regime change” in Tehran. Others have talked of the possibility of US military strikes against Iranian nuclear plants.
With the imminent departure of Secretary of State Colin Powell, the US cabinet member seen as most sympathetic to European views, an opening towards Tehran seems remote.
Iraq Shiite win may bring 'Super Iran': critics
Associated Press
BAGHDAD, Iraq — A resounding Shiite victory in next month's elections will bring Iraq closer to Tehran, forming a "Super Iran" that could change the face of the Middle East, critics say.
But others discount such claims as exaggerations and say Iraq, a diverse country of Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds and Christians, will never let any outside player, particularly Iran's hard-line religious theocracy, dictate its future.
Views vary dramatically over what shape Iraq's political future will take following nationwide elections scheduled for Jan. 30, but few dispute that this Shiite-majority country's relations with its eastern neighbor — which is ruled by Shiite ayatollahs — will grow closer.
"Welcome to the new Iraq, this is the reality of Iraq where the majority are Shiite," said National Security adviser Mouwaffaq al-Rubaie, a candidate on the 228-member United Iraqi Alliance coalition embraced by Iraq's top Shiite cleric and featuring a wide range of Iraqi ethnic and religious groups, including some pro-Iranian Shiites.
While much attention centers on U.S. interference in Iraq through invading the country and occupying it with thousands of troops, a different struggle is going on between ordinary Iraqis — one that looks set to re-map the national and regional political landscapes.
With Shiites accounting for 60 percent of Iraq's 26 million people, the Islamic sect that was long suppressed under Saddam Hussein and crushed in a 1991 uprising is expected to dominate next month's polls.
This may embolden Shiites here and throughout the Middle East, some regional analysts say. But Iraq's likely political shift is also stirring fears of the spread of an Iranian-brand of Shiite power throughout the Sunni Muslim-dominated region.
Jordan's King Abdullah, a pro-U.S. Sunni Muslim, this month said Iraq's elections could lead to the establishment of a hard-line Shiite regime based on the model in Iran, a country the United States accuses of sponsoring terrorism and trying to build nuclear weapons.
Iraq's interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite running a separate ticket to the al-Sistani-backed one, accuses Iran of opposing Iraq's postwar reconstruction. His defense minister labels Iran as his country's "number one enemy" and calls the United Iraqi Alliance the "Iranian list" that would install a rule of "turbaned clerics" in Iran if it succeeds in the polls.
Al-Rubaie discounts such fears, saying any new government will demand security cooperation from Iran while at the same time seeking close relations with its neighbor.
"If we have any serious evidence that the Iranians are smuggling arms or interfering in our security and not helping in controlling security, Iraq will have very serious issues with Iran," he said, adding that he would quit the alliance if it seeks to adopt an Iranian-like government.
Views among Iraqi Shiites toward Iran range from hate to devotion. Despite 60 percent of Iraq's 26 million people being Shiite, many harbor resentment toward Iran over the bloody 1980-88 war between the countries in which 1 million people died. Many Iraqis also accuse Iran of sponsoring this country's rampant insurgency.
But many Iraqi Shiites, who were suppressed under Saddam's three-decade rule, also look to Iran's Shiite establishment for religious guidance.
This dichotomy is fueling election campaigns of various parties, which began Wednesday, including the United Iraqi Alliance, a coalition of independents and political parties dominated by Shiites — both pro-Iranian and nationalists — along with Sunnis, Kurds and other minorities.
Key among its parties is the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution, a group closely allied to Iran and led by Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, the alliance's top candidate whose comments about Iraq being responsible for compensating Iran for their war in the 1980s angered many Iraqis. Al-Hakim had lived in exile in Iran, where he led SCIRI's armed wing, the Iran-based Badr Brigade, during Saddam's rule.
Al-Hakim's prominence on the list and his close relations with Iran give ammunition to many secular and non-Shiites to attack his coalition, saying Iraq's political future will mirror Iran's Shiite-run establishment if he and his supporters gain power in Iraq's 275-member National Assembly.
Such a scenario worries people like Iraqi-born Mustafa Alani, director of national security at the Dubai-based regional think-tank the Gulf Research Center.
"The nightmare scenario in the region is the election of an Iranian-influenced Shiite government in Iraq will lead to the creation of a 'Super Iran' emerging as a regional superpower" says Alani. "We are talking about a huge shift in the region's power balance."
Such a development will force Arab Gulf states, like Sunni Muslim-ruled Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain, to "move closer together and with the United States to guarantee their own protection," he says.
But Entifadh Qanbar, spokesman for one of the United Iraqi Alliance parties, the Iraqi National Congress Party, says that although pro-Iranian lawmakers may win some National Assembly seats, most will go to politicians working for a secular government free from outside influence.
"I don't see a danger of a religious Shiite government coming to power in Iraq," Qanbar said. "There will be serious concerns if we do follow Iran's model."
Iran VP arrives in Syria for three days official visit
Dec 18, 2004, 19:20
http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_5009.shtml
Iran's Vice President and Chairman of Management and Planning Establishment, Hamid Riza Bradran Shoraka, and an accompanying delegation arrived in Damascus on Friday on a three-day official visit to Syria. In a statement to reporters Shoraka said that his visit came in the framework of boosting and consolidating relations with Syria in all fields particularly in sphere of economic planning, pointing out to Syria's prominent place in the Iranian foreign policy. For his part, Chairman of the State Planning Commission, Abdullah Dardari who welcomed the Iranian official at Damascus International Airport stressed in a similar statement that Syria has advanced relations with Iran in all the political, economic, cultural and social spheres. He underlined the importance of Shoraka's visit in consolidation of consultation policy among the two countries in spheres of the overall economic planning and liberalization of foreign trade and economic reform.
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