CAIRO - Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak yesterday played down speculation that Israel was intending to strike Iranian nuclear facilities. In his apparently soothing statement, he said that his country had not decided to embark on any military operation. “War is not a picnic. We want a picnic. We don't want a war,” Barak told Israel Radio ahead of the release this week of an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report on Iran's nuclear activity. IAEA is expected this week to issue its most detailed report yet on research in Iran, seen as geared to developing atomic bombs. Barak's statement was given hours after Russia and Germany frantically rushed to warn of ‘grave consequences' if Israel carried out its threats to bomb Teheran's nuclear facilities. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that any Israeli military action against Tehran would be a grave mistake and claim many lives. Germany is also confident that more political pressure on Iran would help defuse the growing worries of the US and Israel about Iran's nuclear threat to the Jewish State. Regardless of the global panic provoked by the Israeli threats against Tehran, it seems that, in collaboration with Western countries and Russia, Washington and Tel Aviv are stepping up their psychological warfare on the stubborn regime of President Ahmedinajad. The volatile Middle East region, which is struggling hard to come to terms with the Arab Spring, could witness more catastrophic developments. Tehran is not prepared to relinquish its nuclear ambitions and the US and Israeli psychological warfare against Iran could swiftly lead to a military strike on Tehran. Neither Israel nor the US is prepared to tolerate any Muslim country attempting to acquire nuclear weapons. In September 2007, Israel reportedly attacked a Syrian nuclear facility. In 1981, Israeli fighter planes attacked Iraqi nuclear plants.
