Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec. 2 / Trend T.Konyayeva /
A military attack on Iran, mentioned in the recent controversial publications of WikiLeaks, would entail catastrophic consequences for all countries, including countries of the region, Trend Expert Council member Vladimir Sokor told Trend.
"Consequences of attacks on Iran would be catastrophic for everybody, including the regional countries," Senior Fellow of Jamestown Foundation (Washington) Sokor said at the Center for Strategic Studies under the President of Azerbaijan. "Just think about the price of oil, blockade of the Persian Gulf, waves of refugees that will stream out of Iran and enmity that would be created for generations and generations to come like a blood feud between Iran and anyone who would be considered responsible for such an attack."
Roughly 250,000 secret diplomatic telegrams and letters sent from U.S. diplomatic missions in various countries to the U.S. State Department were transferred via WikiLeaks to the New York Times, Guardian, Spiegel, and several other influential media outlets this week.
Of these, particularly the Arab world is deeply concerned about the situation in Iran. So, the King of Saudi Arabia has repeatedly called on U.S. to attack on Iran to stop its nuclear program. According to documents, in April 2008, the ambassador of Saudi Arabia in Washington at a meeting with Pentagon officials once again announced this request, stating: "You [Americans] should cut the head off the snake."
According to published documents, Iran is regarded in Egypt, UAE, Jordan as "evil" and "permanent" threat.
Sokor said Saudi Arabia is not really an important international player and its similar statements show the immaturity of the Saudi government.
"There are a lot of speculations about a possible attack on Iran. The U.S. Pentagon is the greatest opponent to attacks on Iran. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen are strongly opposed to military resolution of Iranian problem," he said.
Nuclear-armed Iran poses a grave threat to Israel, the Middle East peace and humanity, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Monday.
Israeli prime minister believes that in case of attack from Iran, Israel will be "the first but not the last target of attack".
The WikiLeaks documents also include Defense Minister Ehud Barak's evaluation of nuclear capabilities of Iran. In June 2009, he said that Tehran has left six to 18 months to build an atomic bomb. Barak also said that the U.S. could prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, but "any military solution is dangerous."
Sokor is not sure that Israel is serious when it threatens to attack Iran. He thinks the purpose of such threats is mainly to scare the American and Western European governments and to force them to introduce economic sanctions against Iran in order to avoid the attack.
"This becomes a diplomatic tactics of Israel, which it is also using in Washington and Washington, in turn, is using in Europe," Sokor said. "The logical chain of thinking is: Israel threatens to attack, Washington states that we must pass sanctions and then Washington goes to West Europeans saying: if you don't want Israel to attack Iran then support us to introduce sanctions in the UN Security Council (UNSC)."
The U.S. and other Western countries accuse Iran of developing nuclear weapons for military purposes under the guise of peaceful nuclear energy program. Tehran denies the charges, saying that its nuclear program is aimed solely at meeting the country's electricity needs. The U.N. Security Council adopted six resolutions in connection with the suspension of Iran's nuclear program. Four involve the use of economic sanctions on Iran.
Until now, Israeli threats to attack Iran looked mostly like a political gesture designed to support economic sanctions against Iran in the UNSC, he said.
"Such threats are not really credible. But they are harmful because they can legitimize the idea of attack on Iran and make this question a topic of custom discussion," Sokor added.
In addition, Sokor said, threats also make a number of key economic groups nervous, for example, those who provide financial insurance for tankers in the Persian Gulf.
"The cost of insurance will rise and cause bankrupt. Even the oil markets can be nervous and the price of oil can rise because of such threats. So, it's not healthy situation," he said.
Sokor believes but the most negative consequences of such threats - an obstacle to political dialogue between Israel and Iran.
"Relations between Israel and Iran, of course, cannot be changed as long as they threaten each other. Iran and Israel were allies during the Shah's rule in Iran. So, there is no historical reason why Israel and Iran should be permanent enemies," Sokor noted.
Iran has no diplomatic relations with Israel and refuses to recognize it as a state. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks regularly about the prompt breakup of Israel.
With respect to US-Iranian relations, Socor believes that the problem between the United States and Iran creates an unnecessary complications and danger for the Iranian neighbors including Azerbaijan.
"There is a lack of diplomatic initiatives on Iran. There is no real dialogue. There could and should be a comprehensive dialogue between the United States and Iran," he said.
Sokor also mentioned the American and European interest in having Iranian oil and especially gas reach world markets.
"I'm not talking about pipelines to Europe because of Iran's geographical position, he said. It would make a grade of sense to have Iranian gas liquefied and export it worldwide as LNG not to Europe but to other markets".
Iran has the world's second largest proven reserves of natural gas (27.5 trillion cubic meters, or 18 percent of total world reserves and 33 percent of gas reserves of OPEC member countries).
However, gas production in Iran so far is relatively small - 460 million cubic meters per day. Iran has never acted and does not act as a major exporter of natural gas. Just over 15 million cubic meters of Iranian gas are exported per day.