Robert Gates, US defence secretary, stressed on Saturday that Iran remained a threat to the US and the world despite a new American intelligence report that Tehran suspended its nuclear weapons programme four years ago.
”Everywhere you turn, it is the policy of Iran to foment instability and chaos, no matter the strategic value or cost in the blood of innocents – Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike,” Mr Gates said.
In a unusually tough speech delivered to an audience of security officials in Bahrain, Mr Gates added: ”There can be little doubt that their destabilising foreign policies are a threat to the interests of the United States, to the interests of every country in the Middle East, and to the interests of all countries within the range of the ballistic missiles Iran is developing.”
Speaking at a conference sponsored by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Mr Gates called on Gulf states to work multilaterally with each other. He urged them to cooperate with the US towards creating a regional missile defence system to guard against Iranian missiles. The push for missile defence in the Middle East comes as critics suggest the US intelligence estimate on Iran will complicate US efforts to build a controversial missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.
”We should bear in mind the deterrent effect such a system would have,” Mr Gates said. ”If the chances of a successful attack are greatly reduced, then so too is the value of pursuing offensive weapons programs and delivery systems.”
The Bush administration has come under heavy criticism since the release earlier this week of the latest national intelligence estimate on Iran. Despite months of strong rhetoric on Iran from President George W. Bush about Iran’s nuclear programme, the NIE estimated with ”high confidence” that Iran halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003. ”The estimate is explicit that Iran is keeping its options open and could re-start its nuclear weapons program at any time – I would add, if it has not done so already,” said Mr Gates.
Critics have accused the White House of exaggerating the threat posed by Iran. Asked yesterday to explain the US ”spin” on Iran, Mr Gates acknowledged that the release of the NIE had come at an ”awkward” time for the Bush administration, which wants the international community, especially Russia and China, to step up pressure on Iran.
Acknowledging that the NIE had ”annoyed” some US allies, Mr Gates described as a ”watershed” moment Iran’s embracing of the main conclusion of the report. He said that Tehran should not ”cherry pick” conclusions, stressing that the report pointed to the existence of a previous covert nuclear weapons programme. Manouchehr Mottaki, Iran’s foreign minister, was scheduled to attend the meeting but pulled out at the last minute.
Mr Gates, who was in Bahrain on the final leg of a week-long trip that took him to Djibouti, Afghanistan, and Iraq, called on the international community to step up pressure on Iran to make sure it could not restart a nuclear weapons programme. He also rejected suggestions that the US and European efforts to apply pressure on Iran had been severely damaged by the NIE, saying ”I don’t think it has been destroyed”.
Asked during a sometimes hostile question and answer session whether he believed Israeli nuclear weapons posed a threat to the Gulf region, Mr Gates responded: ”No, I do not”.
Looking back to the Cold War, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency said many people in the 1970s had ”discounted the value of holding strategic talks” with the Soviet Union, although ”it turned out that maintaining that dialogue helped each side better understand the other’s intentions, and laid the groundwork for gains that ultimately brought the Cold War to a close”.
But when asked why the US would not apply the same logic to Iran and hold high-level talks with Tehran, Mr Gates said. Tehran’s ”behaviour has not given one confidence that a dialogue would eb productive ona range of issues”.
The tough rhetoric from the White House raised speculation that the US was preparing to take military action against Iran, although senior US military commanders, including Admiral William Fallon, the head of US Central Command, have attempted to tone down the language, saying military action was not being planned.
Mr Gates on Saturday repeated the US mantra that ”all options are on the table” but said the US at this point was ”100 per cent” focused on applying diplomatic and economic pressure.
In an effort to hit back at suggestions in the Middle East that the US has been weakened by the war in Iraq, Mr Gates said that would be a ”grave misconception”.
”Imperial Germany, Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, the Soviet Union – all made this fundamental miscalculation. All paid the price. All are on the ash heap of history. As I have said before, restraint should never be confused with weakness.”
