"Target Iran" tackles a very relevant,current hot topic. The issue is whether the Administration will continue to pursue regime change as it did in Iraq. Of great interest to me was the report in "New Yorker" magazine by Seymour Hersh that CIA and spec ops personnel have been in Iran for a year.

A very intriguing aspect of the targeting of Iran(and eventually Syria)is that Israel has picked the targets. The reason that they resorted to a lobbying effort through people like John Bolton is a complete lack of trust in the U.S. tracing back to a failure to deliver on promises in Iraq in the previous war.

Mr. Ritter identifies some of the governments that cooperated in investigating WMD. The Libyan cooperation in a sting operation and Germany's investigation of native companies that did business with Iraq and Iran are two examples.

The author also debunks the myth that Iran wouldn't use diplomacy. They attempted through a Swiss intermediary to initiate one-on-one talks with the Cheney/Bush administration.

Mr. Ritter exposes what could be accurately labeled the "neo-con manifesto for global domonation",or better known as "National Security Strategy of the U.S." and "Rebuilding America's Defenses" (RAD for short as in Radical).

Another deja vu aspect of the Iran situation is that like Iraq, Iran is expected to prove a negative. Add to that more failures of U.S. intelligence agencies.

I wondered what is keeping Bush from invading Iran? Scott Ritter provides the likely answer. "In short, China alone possessed the ability to collpase the U.S. economy if the United States invaded Iran" - from page 161.

The foreign policy objective for the administration is the same in Iran as it was in Iraq. "When it came to the issue of Iran, the Bush administration had only a single policy objective: regime change,at any cost." - from page 168.

I highly recommend "Target Iran" to anyone that wants to investigate the Iran situation and the circumstances that led up to it.

Former chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq Scott Ritter, author of Endgame, War on Iraq and Iraq Confidential, has written a brilliant demolition of the case for attacking Iran.

He points out, "There was absolutely no evidence whatsoever that linked Iran's efforts to acquire nuclear technology to a nuclear weapons program." The International Atomic Energy Authority has repeatedly said that its inspectors have not found any evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons programme. Ritter notes, "Iran was not in violation of its Non-Proliferation Treaty obligations in any aspect of its ongoing interaction with the IAEA."

He observes, "neither the Israelis nor the United States could detect any activity whatsoever that could point to a definitive location on the ground inside Iran where covert nuclear weapons activity was taking place." The US National Intelligence Estimate of 3 December stated that since 2003 Iran has not been pursuing a nuclear weapons programme. So "Iran threatens neither Israel nor America."

In fact, the USA should really be backing Iran's nuclear programme because it increases "the viability of Iran as a net exporter of energy during a time when the world's hydrocarbon energy resources are diminishing."

But, despite all the facts, the US state continues to threaten Iran with war. Ritter observes, "In a large part due to the lies and distortions peddled by Chalabi concerning the so-called `weapons of mass destruction threat' emanating from Iraq, America finds itself embroiled in an illegitimate war of aggression in Iraq, one that has currently manifested itself as a disastrous occupation of that once sovereign state." Now the National Council of Resistance in Iran, which the USA deems a `terrorist organisation', is playing the same role that Chalabi's `Iraqi National Council' played before the war on Iraq.

In September 2003, the European Union adopted an extreme hard-line stance against Iran, copying the USA. It tried to ban Iran from doing what Article IV of the Non-Proliferation Treaty allowed - enrich uranium for use as fuel for the peaceful development of nuclear energy.

In November 2004, the European Union signed the Paris Agreement with Iran, but, as Ritter writes, "regardless of what the Europeans had signed up to in the Paris Agreement, the EU-3 [Britain, France and Germany] had no intention of allowing Iran to possess an indigenous enrichment capacity, and in effect had subordinated European diplomacy to U.S. policy objectives." "the Europeans were negotiating with Iran to convince the Iranians to give up a nuclear program that operated demonstrably within the framework of international law. Europe committed to the principle of Iranian legal rights regarding the enrichment of uranium, all the while caving into pressure from the United States to deny Iran this right."

In 2004 Bush said that US policy was that it would not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. Colin Powell threatened, "every option remains on the table." As Ritter sums up, "the only policy objective acceptable to the Bush administration regarding Iran is regime change." The USA and Israel keep trying to get Iran referred to the UN Security Council, so that they can get the UN to tighten sanctions on Iran and to support an attack. The Brown government is playing the same lackey's role that Blair played over Iraq.

In 2004 China agreed a huge deal to buy Iranian oil and gas. China also holds $600 billion in US currency reserves. If the USA invaded Iran, China could respond by shifting these holdings of US bonds and dollars to euros.

Further, Iran has no single nuclear target, so invading could be another military disaster. Ritter warns that an invasion could lead to soaring oil prices, yet more destabilisation of the Middle East and economic ruin for those dependent on the Middle East's oil. After the Iraq disaster, who can say he is wrong?

Ritter concludes, "Once again, the world finds itself on the brink of another Middle East war in which the United States is using trumped-up charges centered around false threats of weapons of mass destruction as a smoke-screen to hide its true policy objectives of regime change."