Does the U.S. have a smoking gun against Iran?

What would Iran do with a nuke?
President Bush suggested last month that because Iran’s president is openly hostile to Israel, any Iranian possession of nuclear weapons could cause World War III.

But very little is known about Iran would do with a bomb, if it had one.

While he makes headlines with his rhetoric, President Ahmadinejad faces a re-election battle in two years and his popularity is plummeting.

The real power in Iran is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s top religious and political authority whose views remain shrouded in mystery. He has backed Ahmadinejad and is deeply conservative.

But almost all Iranians believe Khamenei is far more pragmatic than the president. In plain terms, he is a believer in realpolitik, the art of balancing competing factions, both hardline and pragmatic, to maintain his own position.

“We have to keep in mind, the supreme leader is not as radical as Ahmadinejad ... he cares for the survival of the country,” said Mehdi Khalaji, a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Khalaji said he believes Khamenei would never order an attack on Israel with a nuclear weapon because the Israeli retaliation could destroy Iran.

That is what retired Gen. John Abizaid, the former U.S. commander for the region, was likely suggesting when he said the West could live with a nuclear Iran.

But with the consequences so high, the point is hotly debated: Why would Iran seek a nuclear weapon if not to use it?

Most countries seek nuclear weapons as a way to gain regional power and influence, a whole host of analysts say. Above all, a nuclear program means international clout and deterrence against aggressors.

Of course, Khalaji cautions, even if Khamenei is pragmatic, no one knows for sure what Iran’s next supreme leader might be.

Facts firmer on Iran terror support
Terror is the next accusation against Iran, and here, facts are firmer.

Iran’s government does send aid to militants in neighboring countries, including Hezbollah, the group it formed in Lebanon during that country’s civil war and which won support across the Middle East last summer after fighting Israel to a stalemate.

Iran also supports Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the Palestinian militants who fight against Israel in Gaza and the West Bank.

The United States calls Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad terrorist groups. Iran, in Bush’s words, is “the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.”

In the 1980s, the groups’ forerunners launched deadly attacks against U.S. Marines and other Americans in Lebanon. The U.S. accused Iran of involvement in the 1983 bombing of the Marine Corps barracks in Lebanon and much of the hostage-taking then.

Expert: No direct threat to U.S.
But the Iranian-backed groups do not now pose any direct, imminent threat to the United States, said Rohan Gunaratna, head of the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore.

“The biggest threat to the United States, its allies and friends does not come — I repeat, does not come — from the Iran-sponsored groups,” he said. “It comes from al-Qaida.”

U.S. intelligence agencies broadly agree: McConnell told Congress this year that al-Qaida remained by far America’s biggest threat.

No one accuses Iran of helping al-Qaida. Instead, Shiite Iran appears largely hostile to Sunni al-Qaida, said Gunaratna.

As for Hezbollah, it could someday decide to attack U.S. interests if “it feels its survival is threatened or if Iran, its sponsor, is threatened,” McConnell, the intelligence director, said.

So far, it has not.

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