IT IS becoming more and more difficult to overlook the growing tension between Iran, the United States and Israel over Iran's nuclear programme, which is widely suspected of being geared to the development of nuclear weapons. This week Iran's revolutionary guards tested intermediate range missiles which they said could reach Israel.
A war of words between the two states spoke of retaliatory military attacks on Tel Aviv, closure of the Gulf of Hormuz through which 40 per cent of the world's traded oil passes, and targeting of US interests throughout the Middle East should there be any attack on Iranian nuclear installations. If the Bush administration plans any attack on Iran it would have to be mounted in the next few months.
Just because such talk seems dangerously irrational in a period afflicted by deep political and economic uncertainty and in which the US military is already over-stretched does not mean it should not be taken seriously. The demand that Iran should suspend its uranium enrichment programme has been pressed on it for a number of years by international negotiators. While there has been considerable diplomatic engagement there has also been endless prevarication on the Iranian side, spurred on by a deep ambiguity over whether the US is really willing to deal with this question politically rather than militarily. If the latter is the case it makes strategic sense for the Iranians to continue a programme with definite military as well as civilian outcomes, which its leaders probably regard as necessary to protect their sovereignty.
Iran is a large regional power surrounded by potentially hostile states, but also by a growing network of regional allies. It has been the main beneficiary of the US war in Iraq, but now faces the prospect of an indefinite US military and oil presence there. Not surprisingly it seeks regional security guarantees in return for suspending its nuclear enrichment programme - and it deserves to have them. That can really only come from an open-ended negotiation capable of delivering such guarantees credibly and for the long term. That is much the preferable course of action, but it has been systematically spurned by the Bush administration. With Israel, it prefers to demand Iranian compliance with nuclear suspension under threat of military retaliation. Behind this lies the assumption that Iran is an expansive Islamic power unreconciled to regional peace and Israel's continued existence.
Any attack on Iran now would risk tipping the Middle East region into prolonged war and deeper instability and the world economy into an unpredictable tailspin of depression. It would be the height of irresponsibility for a discredited Bush administration at the end of its term - but not uncharacteristic of its style and policy. Many other governments are frustrated with Iran's prevarications. But they should resist the logic of military confrontation being built up from Washington in favour of a comprehensive political engagement with Iran's leaders capable of giving that state the security guarantees it needs in return for its commitment to regional stability.