One of the problems is that the Americans have lost credibility over Saddam’s
supposed weapons of mass destruction.

A.Q. Khan, who delivered the ‘Islamic bomb’ to Pakistan, ran a vast global network
of front companies, manufacturers and middlemen to facilitate his entrepreneurial
activities, now regarded as the most serious case of proliferation in history. He was
eventually rumbled by Western intelligence agencies in October 2003 when a Libya-
bound freighter stuffed with Malaysian-made nuclear products was seized.

The reason he is incommunicado — and that President Musharraf shields him so
zealously — is a matter of intense speculation, not least because it is unlikely that
A.Q. Khan could have ploughed such a sensitive field, on such a scale, so lucratively
and for so long without attracting high-level attention at home. But President
Musharraf is an American ally in the war on terrorism and the CIA must restrain itself

Like others in the field, he is contemptuous of Iran’s claim to be pursuing nuclear
energy for strictly peaceful purposes. It simply does not add up. Iran possesses among
the largest proven oil and gas reserves in the world, more than enough to fuel its
domestic needs. Why would it opt for nuclear energy, which is far more complicated
to develop and far more expensive to produce?

My Vienna source cautions that ‘when Iran has the bomb, it will not have respect for
anyone’.

Agreements that are locked up on Monday night somehow escape by Tuesday
morning.

Having been handed a mandate by Washington to stop Iran, Europe appears to have
comprehensively failed. Iran not only continues to use its hundreds of centrifuges to
enrich uranium in breach of ‘agreements’, but it is also using laser enrichment and it
is processing plutonium, an alternative nuclear fuel source. In the language of the
trade, it has taken the ‘plutogenic’ route.

The fatal mistake that the European negotiators appear to have made is to project their
own values on to Iran’s leaders, assuming that revolutionary mullahs share the
aspirations and impulses of rational decision-makers in the West (would it ever occur
to any Western leader to send waves of children running through minefields, as
Iranian children did in the Iran-Iraq war, in order to clear the danger?).

While the hapless Fischer insists that ‘we must do everything to contain the threat’,
what he really seems to be saying is that we must learn to live with the Iranian bomb.

The Iranians have learned the lesson of Osirak. Their nuclear facilities are widely
dispersed in scores of sites throughout the country — above ground, underground and,
most problematically, in civilian population centres. It would be hideously difficult to
destroy them all. But nothing less will do. For a military strike to be successful, all
Iran’s nuclear installations must be taken out, says my Vienna source — who notes
that Iran’s nuclear production facilities have been duplicated and, in some cases,
triplicated. Take out one uranium enrichment plant here, and two others will continue
functioning there.

Iran might be the primary focus of nuclear anxiety in the Middle East, but it is not the
sole cause for concern. Suspicion also falls on three other candidates: Saudi Arabia,
Egypt and Syria, all former stamping grounds of A.Q. Khan. Like Iran, the three have
acquired sophisticated delivery systems for non-conventional weapons, courtesy of
North Korea, the former Soviet Union and China. Syria and Egypt also have highly
developed production lines for chemical and biological weapons.

As an example, he points to the purchase of about 50 CSS-2 missiles from China at a
price of some $3 billion. Similar missiles in China’s arsenal were equipped with
nuclear warheads, but the Chinese insist that the Saudi missiles carry conventional
payloads. Maybe. My intelligence source, however, insists it simply does not make
sense to use hugely expensive, high-tech missiles to carry a conventional high-
explosive bomb. It only makes sense, he says flatly, if they are tipped with nuclear
warheads.

The Saudis are reported to have been major funders of Pakistan’s own nuclear
weapon and, in light of the developing threat from Iran, it is believed to be calling in
those favours.

More likely, he says, Syria and Iran might be involved in a joint venture — with Iran
bankrolling Syrian scientists or Iranian scientists working on a joint nuclear
programme in Syria.

Egypt denies it is nurturing a nuclear weapons programme and insists the material
found by the IAEA inspectors relates to nuclear programmes for medical research
purposes.

For a military strike to be successful, all Iran’s nuclear installations must be taken out, ... Iran’s nuclear production facilities have been duplicated and, in some cases, triplicated. Take out one uranium enrichment plant here, and two others will continue functioning there.