Elbaradei: Military attack cannot stop Iran nuclear program

Former head of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says a military attack on Iran may delay the country’s nuclear energy program, but will never be able to stop it forever. “You can bomb their [nuclear] facilities, but you cannot bomb their knowledge,” Mohamed ElBaradei said in Hong Kong on Wednesday. The former IAEA chief also warned Western countries and Israel that if Iran was attacked over its nuclear energy program, the country may choose to develop nuclear weapons as deterrence, Bloomberg reported. ElBaradei further stated that Western countries need Iran “to help stabilize a region dealing with conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon.” “They [Iran and the West] both need each other…. Right now, each one is waiting for the other side to blink first and that is not going to happen,” he said. On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said a possible attack on Iran over its nuclear energy program will have disastrous consequences as it may lead to an arms race in the Middle East region. "The CIA and other US officials admit they now have no information about the Iranian leadership taking the political decision to produce nuclear weapons…. But I am almost certain that such a decision will surely be taken after (any) strikes on Iran," he added in an interview with Moscow's Kommersant FM radio. Lavrov stated that if a real attack happened, it “…will force a lot of Third World countries to pause and realize that if you have a nuclear bomb, no one will really bother you.” The US and Israel have been escalating war rhetoric against Iran in recent months, claiming that there is diversion in the country’s nuclear energy program towards military purposes. Refuting their claims, Tehran argues that as a committed member of IAEA and a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) it is fully entitled to all peaceful uses of the nuclear energy. Iran also says that IAEA has never been able, in its frequent inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities, to prove a diversion towards making weapons.