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NICOSIA - The Shi'ite theocracy of Iran, leading an axis of rebelling forces in the Middle East, is at war with the West and with a US-led alliance in the region. So far this war is cold, with Iran being contained under two sets of UN Security Council (UNSC) sanctions and unilateral US penalties in force for many years. Soon Iran will face additional pressures over Tehran's nuclear and regional ambitions, with France having warned repeatedly in less than two months that a hot war against the theocracy is a possibility.

Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency on Sept. 20 quoted Gen. Mohammad Alavi, deputy head at the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for air force operations, as saying Iran had a plan to bomb Israel if attacked by the Jewish state. Analysts speculated Israel could seek to stage a pre-emptive strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, where Israel and Western powers suspect Tehran is developing atomic bombs.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino then told reporters: "I won't ascribe motives to them (Iran) but it does seem provocative. I would tell you that Israel doesn't want war with its neighbours".

When asked if Iran - if attacked - would block the Hormuz Strait, the world's most important waterway for oil shipments, Iranian government spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham dismissed as "far-fetched" that anybody would take "this foolish option". But he said: "we would use all our means to defend ourselves because territorial integrity is a key issue for every country".

Tehran has said it will not rule out using oil as a weapon if hit. It has threatened to hit American regional interests if the US launched a military strike against the theocracy. On Sept. 20, President Bush said the US approach to Tehran's nuclear and regional ambitions was diplomatic. US naval chiefs are concerned that Iran could resort to mining the strait and the wider Gulf in a major conflict.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insists that diplomacy is the focus. But Washington has not ruled out military action should that route fail. At a news conference in Jerusalem with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Rice on Sept. 20 said: "It can't be business as usual with Iran, but our view is that the diplomatic track can work. It has to have both a way for Iran to pursue a peaceful resolution of this issue and it has to have teeth". Comments by French officials, including President Nicolas Sarkozy, have driven the speculation about a possible war with Iran.

Interviewed on RTL radio on Sept. 16, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said: "We have to prepare for the worst [with Iran], and the worst is war". His words shocked some, aggravated others, but later appeared to be orchestrated ahead of a key international meeting in Washington. Tehran immediately accused France of being a "translator of White House policy". Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, after meeting with Kouchner in Moscow on Sept. 18, reiterated Russia's concern with frequent mention of the use of force against Iran.

At a joint news conference in Washington on Sept. 21, Kouchner and Rice warned Iran it will face additional sanctions if it did not stop uranium enrichment. Kouchner spoke of "specific sanctions".

In an annual meeting with French ambassadors on Aug. 27, Sarkozy described the diplomacy/war approach on Iran as "the only one that can enable us to avoid being faced with an alternative which I call catastrophic: an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran".

Francois Heisbourg, adviser to the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris, says Kouchner's words were intended for Tehran and Moscow, adding: "The Iranian nuclear programme is going very quickly. But the Iranians simply do not believe in the risk of [war]...so it is important not to use weasel-words like 'options'. Sarkozy used the word 'bombing'...while everyone was at the beach, and now Kouchner is using the 'war' word. I hope it caught everyone's attention".

Speaking on the sidelines of week-long Governing Board meetings of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), IAEA Director-General Muhammad ElBaradei on Sept. 17 urged patience and compliance with UNSC resolutions - citing the mess in Iraq as a cautionary example (see ood3-IraqGetsCostlierSep24-07).

On Sept. 19 Rice told ElBaradei not to step into fields beyond his mandate. At the heart of the problem is an accord between Iran and ElBaradei under which Tehran has three months to start answering questions the IAEA has long posed about its clandestine nuclear work. The IAEA believes this "work plan" gives Iran an opportunity to show goodwill in meeting its obligations to the UN. But the plan has been bitterly contested by the US and its EU allies. They say it fails to meet their central goal - that Tehran must immediately suspend uranium enrichment. Rice on Sept. 20 gave full vent to Washington's deep frustration with ElBaradei's private deal with Iran, saying: "It is not up to anybody to diminish or to begin to cut back on the obligations that the Iranians have been ordered to take" by the UNSC.

The "work plan" has had big diplomatic consequences. Russia and China argue Iran must be given its chance to comply - and are blocking Washington efforts to get a new UN sanctions package agreed. At the same time, the prospect of failure at the UN has prompted France and the UK to urge EU states to "go it alone", levying their own sanctions on Iran to keep up the pressure. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel refuses to back such a move.

Accepting the "work plan" is viewed as a clever move by Tehran. Gary Samore, a former US National Security Council official and now director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, says: "The tactical objective was to delay the next sanctions resolution and they've successfully out-manoeuvred the US". He says the US believes it can afford to sit out the problem for a few months and see how the Iranians respond. Iran, he says, faces a host of technical difficulties getting its uranium enrichment working smoothly. "A few more months [of waiting] won't hurt".

However, analysts argue that Tehran's success may end up strengthening US arguments for tougher sanctions or even giving US hawks who favour military action greater ammunition. Richard Dalton, a former UK ambassador to Iran, says: "The Iranians may not answer questions in a useful way, in which case this would play into the hands of those who argue that the Iranians cannot be trusted. Or, they may give equivocal answers which are unsatisfactory to the IAEA, leading to endless disputes with inspectors".

The next few months may give Iran's scientists time to overcome technical problems. Analysts believe events in recent days may be the start of a long period of disagreement between the IAEA and the US over Iran. This is because Iran might do just enough to satisfy the IAEA. For Samore, this is the nightmare scenario for the US, warning: "If Iran satisfies the IAEA - and the agency says so - then the international consensus for suspension of uranium enrichment will fall apart".

ElBaradei privately agreed to the "work plan" with Iran last month. The plan says Iran already resolved questions about its past experiments with plutonium, a material which could be used to make nuclear weapons. It says Iran is finally ready to clear up other issues, including explaining a document Tehran probably received from Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, showing how to cast uranium into hemispheres, a shape suitable for use in a weapon.

Kouchner's comments have sparked a stream of invective from Tehran. But whatever one makes of his judgment in general, Arab experts say, its effect is that it has focused international attention on a matter of paramount importance for the Middle East and the world. The experts argue that the issue is neither the validity of Kouchner's analysis nor the advisability of his having aired it in public: It is the growing threat to regional stability posed by a combination of factors. One of these is the proven willingness of US hawks, as demonstrated in Iraq, to make war on flimsy pretexts and without the consent of the UNSC.

Another problem, the Arab experts add, is the seeming refusal of the theocracy's supremacists to accurately gauge Iran's image on the world stage and a resultant failure to pursue policies to protect Tehran's - and its people's - best interests. The experts admit that Iran is being subjected to double standards, wilful ignorance and fear-mongering by Western officials. But Iran's supremacist President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad has played into the hands of Tehran's enemies by employing a combination of bombast and obstructionism.

Ahmadi-Nejad has made it clear he never took Bush seriously and does not take Sarkozy seriously either. The experts say that, by adopting a confrontational path, Ahmadi-Nejad is increasing the likelihood of military action eventually being launched against his country, that his people will suffer untold hardships, and that the goal of developing nuclear technology will be jeopardised.

In Moscow Kouchner on Sept. 18 played down suggestions that Western powers were on the verge of a military attack, saying war with Tehran was the "worst thing that could happen". But the French government insisted it would continue to maintain heavy diplomatic pressure on Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment, suggesting that EU states could soon start to enforce their own sanctions against the theocracy. After meeting with Lavrov, Kouchner stated: "I do not want it to be said that I am a warmonger". He added: "Everything should be done to avoid war. We have to negotiate, negotiate, negotiate - without stopping and without a rebuff".

Lavrov, however, said: "We are convinced no modern problem has a military solution, and that applies to the Iranian nuclear programme as well. We are seriously concerned about increasingly frequent reports that military action against Iran is being seriously considered". Lavrov argued there was no new need for sanctions, now that Iran had agreed with the IAEA on transparency in some parts of its nuclear programme. He criticised the idea of the EU levying its own sanctions, saying: "If we agreed to work collectively, and that is represented in collective decisions made by the UNSC, then what purpose would unilateral sanctions have?".

As criticism of France increased, Kouchner on Sept. 19 set out in a lengthy morning interview with France Inter radio to explain and to defend, but not to retract, his words, stating: "I said, 'The worst, it is war. The worst', this is not what I want. I did not say, 'The best, it's war'. I did not say, 'My choice, it's war'. I said, 'The worst'". At times sounding defensive, at times irritated, Kouchner declared: "I am not a warmonger. I am a peacemonger". He faulted the news media around the world "for throwing, like a bomb, one word without explaining it".

Kouchner on Sept. 16 also said France was doing military contingency planning for an eventual war. On Sept. 19, French Defence Minister Herve Morin said Paris had no military plan to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, adding in an interview with Canal Plus TV: "Nobody should think for a single instant that we are imagining and preparing military plans concerning Iran". He called speculation about a possible conflict "fantasy".

Kouchner rejected Iranian charges that Paris had aligned itself with Washington's foreign policy, saying: "I reject it completely and this is not true". Recalling his recent trip to Iraq, he said: "I went to Iraq without the Americans, without informing them ahead of time, without using their services, without being protected by them".

However, Kouchner acknowledged that under President Sarkozy, French policy towards the US had changed, saying: "We don't take our orders from Washington, even if we have a different policy than the one that was based on permanent anti-Americanism". He said the presidency of Jacques Chirac "was not very pro-American. Yes, this is a secret for no one".

Heisbourg points out a worry among some EU diplomats that Israel will precipitously conduct air strikes on Iran, possibly dragging the US into further military action. Mark Pekala, the No. 2 diplomat at the US embassy in Paris, on Sept. 18 was quoted as saying: "We hope that other countries will adopt a similar position and increase the pressure [on Iran]. Also, we continue to believe the UN Security Council must move forward as soon as possible to adopt a third resolution under Chapter 7, imposing additional sanctions".

Sarkozy's stance is irritating some of France's EU allies, however. In Italy, Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema has spoken out strongly against Kouchner's comments, saying a new war would only create "new tragedies and new dangers". Italian officials are also unhappy with the idea of a unilateral EU sanctions, arguing these risk sidelining mediation efforts by the UN. In London, a senior British official said the UK's first priority was still to press hard for the UN to agree further sanctions.

The FT on Sept. 19 quoted a UK official as saying: "We need to explore as hard as we can the possibility of agreeing something at the UN level because that expresses the unity of the international community". But the FT added: "UK officials privately acknowledge it will be difficult to get Russia and China...to agree a new sanctions regime. UK officials acknowledge that Britain and France may have to act unilaterally in the next few months if the UN route is blocked".