Europeans fear US attack on Iran as nuclear row intensifies

[sabra]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2002329,00.html

Europeans fear US attack on Iran as nuclear row intensifies

· Transatlantic rift emerges over how to handle crisis
· America builds up its naval forces in the Gulf

The Guardian

Senior European policy-makers are increasingly worried that the US administration will resort to air strikes against Iran to try to destroy its suspect nuclear programme.
As transatlantic friction over how to deal with the Iranian impasse intensifies, there are fears in European capitals that the nuclear crisis could come to a head this year because of US frustration with Russian stalling tactics at the UN security council. "The clock is ticking," said one European official. "Military action has come back on to the table more seriously than before. The language in the US has changed."

As the Americans continue their biggest naval build-up in the Gulf since the start of the Iraq war four years ago, a transatlantic rift is opening up on several important aspects of the Iran dispute.

The Bush administration will shortly publish a dossier of charges of alleged Iranian subversion in Iraq. "Iran has steadily ramped up its activity in Iraq in the last three to four months. This applies to the scope and pace of their operations. You could call these brazen activities," a senior US official said in London yesterday.

...

Senior members of the US Congress have raised concerns that the US will attack Iran in retaliation for its alleged activities in Iraq. The official said there were no plans for "cross-border operations" from Iraq to Iran. But he said: "We don't want a progressively more confident and bolder Iran ... The perception that Iran is ascendant in the region and that there are no limits to what Iran can do - that's what is destabilising."

...

"There's anxiety everywhere you turn," said a diplomat familiar with the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. "The Europeans are very concerned the shit could hit the fan."