Iran: The Drum Beats On

By Jason Syrmopoulos

IAEA inspectors have once again come to Tehran and have again been  denied access  to any suspected nuclear sites. On another front, the spy wars between Iran and Israel have increased in lethality as of late as Iran has decided to engage in retaliation for the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists. There has been an ongoing campaign of assassination of scientists involved in the Iranian nuclear program over the last few years with the most recent occurring a couple of weeks ago in Tehran. Subsequently, attacks on Israeli diplomats abroad were carried out in New Delhi, Tblisi, and Bangkok with varying degrees of success. This draws attention to the fact that it looks as if Iran has decided that they will no longer allow themselves to be the passive victim in this campaign but will look to a strategy of using proportional responses to aggression.

What is also of interest, is that the US and British are becoming increasingly vocal in opposition to a unilateral Israeli attack on Iran. Iran is now also taking a page out of the Bush Doctrine, claiming that they have a right of pre-emption. With so many divergent interests, and lack of dialogue between Iran and the west, the prospects of avoiding war seem very slim.