Face-off with Iran takes tougher turn

Iran's supreme religious leader Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei made a stern declaration in his New Year message last Wednesday, in a sign that Washington's mounting accusations about Iranian meddling in the region are being felt in Tehran.

"In case the enemies of Iran intend to use force and violence and act illegally, without a doubt the Iranian nation and officials will use all their capabilities to strike enemies that attack," he said.

That warning has been echoed by senior military officers. The British sailors were detained – British officials say "kidnapped" – less than two days later.

"The captured British sailors are under interrogation and admitted ... that they have transgressed Iranian territorial waters," said Army Gen. Ali Reza Afshar, Iran's deputy chief of staff.

"The United States and its allies know that if they make any mistake in their calculations ... they will not be able to control the dimensions and limit the duration of a war," said General Afshar.

Other reporting indicated that the Britons may have been picked up to be used as bargaining chips for the release of five Iranians detained in January by US forces in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil.

Iran claims they were "diplomats" who were "kidnapped" from an official Iranian consulate. The US alleges that the men were Revolutionary Guard operatives, caught with a "treasure trove" of intelligence and flushing documents down the toilet.

The London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, quoting what it called a source close to Iran Al Qods Brigade – an elite unit of the Revolutionary Guard Corps that the US accuses of targeting Americans in Iraq – reported over the weekend that the arrest of the Iranians had compromised Al Qods operations in Iraq.

"The decision to detain the Britons was made at an emergency meeting of the Supreme Defense [Security] Council for the purpose of bargaining for the release of the Revolutionary Guard and intelligence officers being held by the Americans in Iraq," the pan-Arab newspaper quoted the source as saying.

This dynamic points to a broader strategic game at play in New York, Iran, and Iraq, analysts say.

"The issue is much more than the nuclear program [and] in recent months that has become clearer, as the Americans have started explicitly linking Iran with destabilizing Iraq, and putting a carrier task force into the Gulf, to reassure its allies and have more leverage on Iran," says Shahram Chubin, an Iran specialist at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy.

"In the background, the fact is the nuclear program is only a symptom of the problem," says Mr. Chubin, author of "Iran's Nuclear Ambitions."

"Because the nature of Iran's activities in the region – that is anti-Americanism – is what animates most of the skepticism and the distrust of Iran's motives ... which are unacceptable to the US and many European countries."

The second unanimous UN vote against Iran may again be symbolic and nonmilitary, but unlike Iran's past talks with European and other negotiators, "there is absolutely no wiggle room" about the requirement to suspend, says Chubin. "The Security Council has twice been able to vote against Iran, but it's been unable to vote on Darfur. That tells you the Russians and Chinese are serious about this."

The result is concern in Tehran, on an issue that ranks high in national pride. Iran last week released a new 50,000 rial banknote, the largest denomination, that showed an atomic symbol over a map of Iran, and words from the prophet Muhammad: "If knowledge is in the heavens, the Persians will go and get it."

"For the last six months, the military forces of Iran have been under very high pressure – not only in Arbil, but in Istanbul, in Lebanon, everywhere in the world," says analyst Laylaz.

"The US is trying to make them nervous, and more or less it seems they have been successful," he adds. "And because of this, the system [Iran's Islamic regime] should do something. They have to react against that action."

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