US lawmakers and the head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency fear that heated rhetoric between the United States and Iran will escalate into a military conflict with devastating consequences throughout the Middle East and around the world.

“My fear is that, if we continue to escalate from both sides, that we will end up into a precipice, we will end up into an abyss,” said Mohamed ElBaredei, director general of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency. “The Middle East is in a total mess, to say the least. And we cannot add fuel to the fire.”

He said he has seen no evidence that Iran has either the material required to develop a nuclear weapon or an active weapons program.

“Building confrontation would lead absolutely to a disaster … The only durable solution is through negotiation and inspection,” he said. “And I would hope that we should continue to stop spinning and hyping the Iranian issue because that’s an issue that could have a major conflagration, and not only regionally but globally.”

Senator Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said he found Mr ElBaredei’s comments “very thoughtful. You do need to be careful about rhetoric. But you also need to be taking some actions and applying a lot of pressure, diplomatic pressure, economic pressure.”

President George Bush recently ratcheted up anxieties regarding a military strike against Iran when he said, “I’ve told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III … you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”

Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that Mr Bush’s reference to World War III was “irresponsible” and that a military strike would have grave consequences for US national security.

“I’ve been briefed by the Pentagon who say if there were to be a conflagration with Iran, which we all hope to avoid, it would be generations of jihad right here on our shores,” she said. “We don't want to go that way, so let’s calm down the rhetoric.”

Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, also said that a military strike on Iran could unleash serious consequences for the US and its allies, including another recruiting tool for terrorist organizations.

“Iran could fire missiles with at least heavy effect. They could close down the Straits of Hormuz … It would be a massive response which would have, I'm afraid, terrorist support around the world … We’re involved right now in two Muslim countries and for us to kind of casually talk about moving against a third one, it seems to me, is playing right into the hands of the terrorists and the fanatics,” he said.

Sen. Levin said that, while the military option must be kept on the table, the Bush administration’s hawkish rhetoric gives Iranian hardliners and fanatics a foreign threat to rally behind.

“Don’t give them the weapon that they use against us that we’re trying to bully them that we’re trying to do dominate them. And that’s what this hot rhetoric does when it’s just constantly repeated, about World War III or that we’re going to use a military option,” he said.

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said there need to be more “robust” multinational sanctions against Iran for diplomacy to work. Yet he agreed that “a military engagement with Iran is a very dangerous thing and nobody wants to go down that road”.

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Mr ElBaredei, Sen. Boxer and Sen. Lott spoke on CNN’s Late Edition

Sen. Levin and Sen. Graham spoke on CBS’s Face the Nation


 

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