French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner dismisses the idea that even one nuclear bomb makes the Iranians immune to attack, he told Haaretz in an interview Friday. "I honestly don't believe that it will give any immunity to Iran. First, because you will eat them before. And this is the danger. Because Israel has always said that it will not wait for the bomb to be ready. I think that they [the Iranians] know. Everybody knows," he said..."Iran with an atomic bomb is unacceptable at all," Kouchner said, in keeping with a number of aggressive statements in the past on the issue. But how can it be prevented?" "Talking, talking, talking, and offering dialogue, sanctions, sanctions, sanctions. Is the alternative to bomb first - I think not," he said.
When reminded that France has been trying to talk to Iran for years with no success, Kouchner responded: "Since the election of President [Nicolas] Sarkozy our strategy was the same - sanctions but always dialogue. But you are right - dialogue with whom - we tried, we talked to the Iranians and a lot of people tried with no real result. But the last meeting was in Geneva with the Americans. "I know that some people in Israel and in the army are preparing a military solution or not a solution but a military attack. I don't know. This is not according to my opinion the solution."
Kouchner said that contrary to Israeli intelligence estimates that Iran will have a nuclear capability in 2009, "the assessment of our intelligence people is a bit longer - apart from two years, they say. But honestly - I think that you are well informed, and so are the Americans and so are we. It has always been the case between two and four years. But to make what? One bomb."...
...War is never a solution, but sometimes I know it has been used, so let me be precise - we are not absolutely desperate - we have to start trying to get some allies, isolating [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, trying to help the people in favor of more modernity," he said. "We never succeed in offering an alternative to the Iranian people. They all believe, because they are nationalists. Because it is a great country, because they are in a place where nothing can be solved in the region - we have to deal with that and certainly to talk with them, but with whom?" Kouchner said...(Haaretz).
Full Article: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1026323.html
