Putrajaya (Malaysia): A US attack on Iran in a row over its uranium enrichment program could lead to a nuclear conflagration and a regional war stretching from Egypt to India, international activists warned on Tuesday.
The activists, led by former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, told a news conference that they will hold a three-day forum starting Wednesday to urge the United States to back down in its confrontation with Iran.
"This is not to try and create panic. This is a real moment of danger. Confrontation is in the making," former UN assistant secretary-general, Hans Von Sponeck, told the news conference.
Von Sponeck, a German, is one of the international advisers of Mahathir's Perdana Global Peace Organization, which is hosting the forum.
He and other international advisers of Perdana said the United States appears set on attacking Iran, possibly with tactical nuclear weapons, if Tehran refuses to stop enrichment of uranium.
While US officials have not talked openly about attacking Iran, they have left open the possibility of a military response.
The New Yorker magazine reported in April that the United States had intensified planning for a possible major air attack and that one option envisioned the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon to insure the destruction of Iran' s main centrifuge plant.
Helen Caldicott, a doctor and expert on medical hazards of the nuclear age, said that even if the United States did not use nuclear bombs at first, it would try to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities with conventional weapons.
This would spew radioactive material that would spread throughout the region, and as far as Pakistan and India, said Caldicott, an Australian.
The United States and its allies accuse Iran of pursuing uranium enrichment to make nuclear bombs, but Iran claims its nuclear program is only aimed at making electricity.
"If there is an attack on Iran, you could see an arc of warfare going from Egypt throughout the entire Arab world, the Persian world and on to India. This whole area could erupt into warfare," said American expert in international law, Francis Boyle.
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