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The Sunday Times
Peter Conradi
 THE German chancellor, Angela Merkel, compared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran to Adolf
Hitler yesterday as Tehran
vowed to resume the enrichment of uranium which could be used to make
nuclear weapons.
Amid growing fears that the Iranians are intent on acquiring an
“Islamic bomb”, Merkel warned that the world must not repeat
the mistakes it made in appeasing the Nazis.
“Looking back to German history in the early 1930s when National
Socialism was on the rise, there were many outside Germany who said,
‘It’s only rhetoric — don’t get
excited’,” Merkel told an international security conference in
Munich.
“There were times when people could have reacted differently and, in
my view, Germany
is obliged to do something at the early stages,” she added. “We
want to, we must prevent Iran
from developing its nuclear programme.”
Merkel issued a blunt warning to Ahmadinejad, who
has called for Israel
to be “wiped off the map”.
“Iran
has blatantly crossed the red line,” she said. “I say it as a
German chancellor. A president who questions Israel’s
right to exist, a president who denies the Holocaust cannot expect to
receive any tolerance from Germany.”
The statement came as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the
United Nations nuclear watchdog, voted overwhelmingly in Vienna
to report Iran
to the UN Security Council, expressing doubts that the country’s
nuclear programme “is exclusively for
peaceful purposes”.
Iran responded by announcing that it would resume
“commercial-scale” enrichment of uranium, the fuel for power
plants or bombs, which was suspended in 2004. Ahmadinejad
later ordered an end to spot checks by IAEA inspectors from today.
Tehran described as “dead” a
compromise brokered by the Kremlin under which Russia
would enrich uranium for Iran
to the purity required for nuclear power but not weapons. Moscow insisted the deal was still on the
table.
Ali Asghar Soltanieh,
Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA described the vote — carried by
27 to three, with five abstentions — as a “historic
mistake” and insisted his country would press on with its nuclear programme.
“We don’t want confrontation but we can tolerate some problems
for the sake of principles that we are committed to,” he told The
Sunday Times.
Soltanieh said it was not clear when enrichment
would begin. In an apparent sign of confusion in Tehran an Iranian news agency which had
said Ahmadinejad had given the order to start,
immediately withdrew its report last night.
The escalation in the stand-off with Iran, the world’s fourth
largest oil producer, seemed certain to drive energy prices higher on the
markets tomorrow.
It will also raise fears that Tehran might
respond by increasing support for militant Islamic groups in the Middle East, of which it is already a major financial
backer.
Donald Rumsfeld, the American defence
secretary, backed the German leader’s call for tougher action and accused
Iran
of being “the world’s leading state sponsor of
terrorism”.
Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar, his Iranian counterpart,
rejected the charges as “ridiculous”.
It nevertheless postponed discussion of the issue at the Security Council
until next month to give Iran
a last chance to climb down. But the vehemence of Tehran’s initial reaction made this
look unlikely.
It will now be up to the Security Council to decide what further action to
take. It is expected to start by making a so-called “presidential statement”
reinforcing the IAEA’s demands.
Diplomats said any tougher action, such as sanctions, were further down the
line and would depend on Iran’s
behaviour. China, a permanent member of
the Security Council, opposes sanctions.
Calls for stronger measures were growing last night, however. At the Munich conference, the influential American senator
John McCain said the military option could not be ruled out if diplomatic
efforts failed to stop Iran
acquiring a nuclear bomb. “Every option must remain on the
table,” he said. “There’s only one thing worse than
military action, that is a nuclear armed Iran.”
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