Behind the AIPAC Probe, Neocons Seen Battling Rivals

[Khephra]

(WORLD OPINION ROUNDUP)

By Jefferson Morley
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 7, 2004; 10:30 AM

A high-level Washington power struggle over U.S. policy toward Iran is driving the espionage investigation of the powerful American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), according to international online observers.

On one side of the conflict are neoconservative officials in the Pentagon who favor bold U.S. action to bring down Iran's theocratic government. On the other side, some see intelligence officials who view the neocons as too close to Israel.

Americans, distracted by two political conventions, the Olympics and summer vacations, probably missed the news that the governments of Israel and Iran spent the summer trading threats to attack each other.

Iran, the most populous country in the Middle East, has been secretly seeking to develop nuclear weapons, according to international weapons inspectors, a charge Tehran denies. Israel, which has maintained an official stance of nuclear ambiguity, is long suspected of possessing a nuclear arsenal but has never accepted weapons inspections. It is, by all accounts, determined to prevent the emergence of another nuclear power in the Middle East. In 1982, Israeli jets destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor to prevent Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear weapons. Israeli officials have threatened to do the same in Iran.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2149-2004Sep7.html