Terror from Iran

I'm not too sure what to make of this, whether it is just fear-mongering, further setting up Iran as the villian of the piece, or whether it represents a real concern about contingency planning indicating serious consideration of military action against Iran.

As tensions increase between the United States and Iran, U.S. intelligence and terrorism experts say they believe Iran would respond to U.S. military strikes on its nuclear sites by deploying its intelligence operatives and Hezbollah teams to carry out terrorist attacks worldwide.

Iran would mount attacks against U.S. targets inside Iraq, where Iranian intelligence agents are already plentiful, predicted these experts. There is also a growing consensus that Iran's agents would target civilians in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, they said.

Later: This next little bit of reporting from the other side of the pond makes me think more about politics than contingency planning.

The Government is to hold secret talks with defence chiefs tomorrow to discuss possible military strikes against Iran.

A high-level meeting will take place in the Ministry of Defence at which senior defence chiefs and government officials will consider the consequences of an attack on Iran.

It is believed that an American-led attack, designed to destroy Iran's ability to develop a nuclear bomb, is "inevitable" if Teheran's leaders fail to comply with United Nations demands to freeze their uranium enrichment programme.

It is certainly reasonable to assume that these meetings and concerns do involve serious study and planning, it would be irresponsible of the respective governments not to undertake these considerations, but the fact that both sets of normally very quiet "concerns" were simultaneously leaked, tells me that these stories are more about affecting the Iranians.

I do not by any means frame the possibility of strikes on Iran as out of the question, but making these concerns this public tells me that they are designed to increase pressure both on the Iranian negotiators and on the Iranian intel network to maybe force contacts or movement.

(either that, or Condi Rice is over in Blackburn right now "pencilling in the date.")