NEW tensions between America and Iran spilled into the open yesterday when Teheran lodged a furious protest at the arrest by US soldiers of eight Iranians in Baghdad.
The men, who were blindfolded and handcuffed, were detained for nearly 12 hours over allegations that they possessed illegal weapons and a large quantity of cash that could have been used to finance terrorism.
Iraq's government lobbied for their release and confirmed that they were helping to repair a power plant. But in a coincidence Iran will not see as accidental, the men were seized as President George W Bush said he had authorised his commanders in Iraq to "confront Iran's murderous activities''.
The Foreign Ministry in Teheran delivered a strongly-worded complaint to a Swiss diplomat who represents American interests in the absence of a US embassy.
"We expressed a strong protest at this unjustifiable approach that is against international law, and demanded a US explanation,'' its spokesman, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, said.
America continues to hold five members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Quds Force, which specialises in foreign terrorist operations, who were seized in northern Iraq in January.
Saadi Othman, an adviser to Gen David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, denied that the incident signalled a new more aggressive approach towards Iran.
He said: "Nothing was intended and once we found out from the Iraqi government that they were Iranian officials, we released them.''
President Bush's warning to Iran on Tuesday came the day after President Nicolas Sarkozy of France told Teheran it faced being bombed unless it gave up its ambition to acquire nuclear weapons.
Rosemary Hollis, the director of Chatham House, the foreign affairs think tank, said Mr Bush's speech was an escalation of rhetoric and set out a "base line'' case for military strikes against Iran.
"There is now every possibility that the two will come to blows in the next 12 months,'' she said. "It appears to suit President Bush and Ahmadinejad [the Iranian president] who are the two leading figures in this dynamic and I don't see either of them doing a lot to avoid it.''
American complaints about Iran's activities in Iraq have risen steadily this year. Iran accuses US agents of backing ethnic separatists in its Kurdish and Arab territories.
Mark Fitzpatrick, an analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said there was now a serious prospect of American military action against Iran. He said: "There is a real possibility that President Bush will feel compelled not to allow this problem to pass to his successor.''
An all-out assault on Iran's scattered nuclear research facilities could be over in a matter of hours if it was carried out by long-range bombers and missile strikes, a report from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London said.
"The US has made military preparations to destroy Iran's WMD, nuclear energy, regime, armed forces, state apparatus and economic infrastructure within days if not hours of President George W Bush giving the order,'' the report said. "The US is not publicising the scale of these preparations to deter Iran, tending to make confrontation more likely.''
