11.10.2004, 18:23
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Zitat:TEL AVIV: Somewhere between sanctions and air strikes lurks a third option for those who seek to stop Iran's atomic programme in its tracks: sabotage.Die Israelis sind ja noch unkosherer als ich dachte. Krasse Stories..
Politically deniable - unlike failed diplomacy - and much subtler than region-rattling military offensives, covert action of the kind used elsewhere by Israel and the United States could already be under way against the Islamic republic, experts say.
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"Who's to say there has not been sabotage already, now proving its worth?" Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper in August quoted Bush administration officials as saying sabotage tactics were being considered for Tehran. The Jewish state has said "all options" are kosher for preventing its arch-foe getting the bomb.
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Independent experts question, however, whether any disruption of Iran's supply lines through sabotage or menacing of its nuclear scientists would have a lasting effect on a network that has resisted scrutiny from the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
"Historically, sabotage has served to delay programmes but has not been successful in terminating them," said Gary Samore, a former White House adviser on non-proliferation now with the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
He cited a Norwegian heavy water plant struck by saboteurs between 1942 and 1944 to stop the Nazis getting the bomb - a quest finally laid to rest by Germany's defeat in World War Two.
"Delay is good if, in the meantime, something conclusive happens - either a change of regime or a successful war." Some Middle East security experts say even delays have key strategic value in a region notorious for its instability.
COVERT CAMPAIGN: The precedent usually cited for a military strike on Iranian atomic sites is Israel's 1981 bombing of the Iraqi reactor at Osiraq. That move drove Saddam Hussein's nuclear programme underground until it was uncovered by the IAEA in 1991.
Well before Osiraq, a quieter campaign was in full swing. Nuclear components destined for Baghdad were blown up in a French port. An Egyptian nuclear physicist hired by Iraq was killed in his Paris hotel. Bombs exploded near an Italian firm supplying Saddam Hussein with laboratories for atomic testing.
Saddam blamed the United States and Israel for the sabotage spree. Neither country commented, but then Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin told an American interviewer he hoped France and Italy had "learned their lesson" for helping Iraq.
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"If the Israelis believe sabotage is the only way of stopping Iran getting the bomb, I think they will go with it, even if this ends up harming relations with Europe," Vatanka said. "The Europeans have invested enormous diplomacy in Iran, but that means little to those planning Israel's self-defence."
A new report by the Dubai think tank Gulf Research Centre says Tehran could retaliate for any sabotage on its atomic plans by ordering proxies to attack US targets in the Gulf or stepping up support for Palestinian militants fighting Israel.
There are also risks if the secrecy around sabotage lapses. In 1963, Swiss police nabbed an Israeli suspected of threatening the daughter of a German scientist linked with Egypt's missile programme.
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