The Iranian Labyrinth

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If I knew exactly what they are up to, I would sell this secret to the CIA for $5 million. I'll put it onto a laptop! I'm afraid I don't honestly think anybody knows exactly what they are up to. But let's take the worst-case scenario. ... Let's say that Iranians have actually produced an atom bomb. ... According to the CIA and the British MI6, it will be at least 8 years before they have an operational bomb, and warhead, and missile to make use of it. Who will they strike? They will strike Israel.

Let's not block anything. OK, we have the worst-case scenario -- we're making a Hollywood movie. Yes, they want to hit Israel. If they hit anywhere in Israel, everybody knows out of six million -- the population of Israel -- one million are Israeli Arabs. So there is no way that you can hit Israel and not kill fellow Arabs, fellow Muslims. And if you are hitting Tel Aviv, because in Israel, two ministries are in Tel Aviv: the defense ministry and the agriculture ministry, don't ask me why. And suppose they hit Tel Aviv, and suppose they get it right. They are about thirty miles from Jerusalem. There is no way that the impact of the nuclear bomb hitting Tel Aviv would not affect people living in Jerusalem. And Jerusalem is the holy city for Muslims. And Jerusalem in Arabic and Persian is called al Quds, the holy.

So now the question is, What is the game? As we speak, in the Middle East proper, I'm not talking of Pakistan or India or South Asia. The Arab Middle East. The only country with nuclear bombs, everybody knows about it, is Israel. Israel has a monopoly on nuclear weapons in the Middle East, and that monopoly must, under no circumstances, be broken. That's the game. And that is the reason all of this is coming up -- WMDs by Saddam and WMDs by Iranians. See, each side has a bottom line. Israel and America have a bottom line. We won't allow Israeli nuclear monopoly in the Middle East to be broken. We will not discuss it; we will not argue it, we will not find a compromise. Iranians: We have signed the NPT, which allows us to do the full nuclear cycle. No way, we will not abdicate. So each side has its own red line, and that's it.

"Has Mr. Bush got enough troops?"
How likely is it, in your opinion, that suspicions of nuclear weapons programs and possible UN sanctions are precursors to a US or UN military invasion of Iran?

UN military is out of the question. There's no way that China and Russia are going to be involved in having a UN-mandated attack on Iran. That's simply not on. That's off. Of course, we saw what happened in Iraq. OK, when it comes to the US, yes. US and maybe Europeans. As we speak, Mr. Bush has four options: Physical attack on Iran, like physical attack on Iraq. He hasn't got enough troops. Has Mr. Bush got enough troops? No. That's one.

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