The Russian News and Information Bureau reports on “Operation Bite:”

(translated from the French)

Russian military experts estimate that the planning of the American military attack against Iran passed the point of no return on February 20, when the director of the IAEA, Mohammed ElBaradei, acknowledged, in his report, the inability of the Agency “to confirm the peaceful character of the nuclear program of Iran”.

According to the Russian weekly magazine Argoumenty nedeli, military action will proceed during the first week of April, before Catholic and Orthodox Easter (celebrated this year on the 8th), when “Western opinion” is on leave. It may be also that Iran is hit on Friday the 6th, a public holiday in Muslim countries. According to the American plan, it will be a one day strike which will take 12 hours, from 4 AM to 4 PM. The code name of the operation is currently “Bite.” A score of Iranian installations are to be hit. Among them will be centrifuge machines for uranium enrichment, study centers and laboratories. But the prime target of the nuclear thermal power station at Bushehr will not be touched. On the other hand, the Americans will neutralize the DCA, will sink several Iranian war ships in the Gulf, and will destroy the keys command posts of the armed forces.

Such steps should deprive Teheran of any capacity to counterattack. Iran is expected to sink several tankers in the strait of Ormuz with an aim of cutting off the supply of oil to international markets and to strike Israel with missiles.

Analysts confirm that the American strike will be launched from the island of Diego-Garcia in the Indian Ocean, from which will take off long-range B-52 bombers with cruise missiles on board; by the naval aviation forces of American aircraft carriers deployed in the Gulf, belonging to the 6th American Fleet in the Mediterranean; cruise missiles will be also launched from submarines concentrated in the Pacific and off Arabia.

Result, the Iranian nuclear program will be thrown backward several years. In private talks, American generals admit that the deployment of American anti-missile defense in Europe can then be postponed to a later date. It is also expected that the price of a barrel of oil could soar to 75-80 dollars for a prolonged period.

Meanwhile, a new resolution concerning Iran and its (nuclear) project was sponsored by the five permanent members of the Security Council and with Germany voting should be adopted by the Security Council this week. Its text proposes sanctions against 10 Iranian public companies and three companies belonging to the Revolutionary Guards, an elite unit under the command of the spiritual leader of the Islamic Republic, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Sanctions are also proposed against 15 actual persons: eight highly placed leaders of organs of the state and seven key figures of the Revolutionary Guards.

——————————————

I certainly hope they’re right.

How the left will scream! But I suspect this kind of decisive action will help, rather than hurt, Bush public support.