Love of the Land: Facing Iran: Lessons Learned Since Iraq's 1991 Missile Attack on Israel

Facing Iran: Lessons Learned Since Iraq's 1991 Missile Attack on Israel

Moshe Arens
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Vol. 9, No. 21
08 March '10

The Iranians learned a great deal from the destruction of Iraq's Osirak reactor by the Israel Air Force in 1981. The Osirak reactor was the key element in the Iraqi nuclear program: a single target which, when it was destroyed, set that program back very substantially. The Iranians saw this and they dispersed their nuclear program. Much of it is deep underground. There is no single target which, if destroyed, would substantially set back the Iranian nuclear program

When I came to Washington as Israel's ambassador in 1982, the atmosphere was one of hostility and there was talk of imposing sanctions against Israel as a reaction to its unilateral action against the Osirak reactor. Yet after a few years the view in Washington changed completely. It is difficult to envision the Americans undertaking Operation Desert Storm in the Gulf in 1991 if the Iraqi nuclear program had continued beyond 1981 and had not been so seriously set back by the Israeli action.

Some say that while the missiles Israel faces are relatively cheap weapons, we are launching a very expensive missile interceptor system against it, which does not seem very wise at first sight. However, the damage that might be caused by the incoming missile may far exceed the cost of the anti-missile system.

Israel's missile interceptor system poses a dilemma to anybody who decides to launch missiles against Israel, especially a missile that has a nuclear warhead. The dilemma is that the missile may very well be intercepted and thus expose the launching of a nuclear missile, even if it didn't reach its target, which could bring about the response that could be expected for committing this deed.

At the start of the Gulf War, the Americans said they expected that within 48 hours the U.S. Air Force would eliminate the missile launch capability of the Iraqis. If they did not succeed, Israel would be free to take whatever action it considered appropriate. Although there was intensive aerial activity directed at hitting the Scud launchers, not a single Scud launcher was hit or immobilized during the Gulf War. Furthermore, the U.S.-made Patriot missiles in Israel did not succeed in intercepting a single Scud missile.

Today, in 2010, in the United States and the Western world there is a very real and acute awareness of the danger that Iranian nuclear activity - which is clearly designed to achieve a nuclear military capability - poses to the world, not just to Israel.

Some people like to think that Israel has nothing to worry about because of the sizable Muslim population in the area and that the Iranians would not dare to cause massive destruction in an area where many Muslims might get injured or killed. However, as Prof. Bernard Lewis has said on a number of occasions, this kind of immunity is imaginary because radical Muslims are convinced that God knows how to tell the difference between Jews and Muslims.

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Love of the Land: Facing Iran: Lessons Learned Since Iraq's 1991 Missile Attack on Israel

Love of the Land: Iranian Clocks, Tick Tock, Tick Tock

Iranian Clocks, Tick Tock, Tick Tock

Michael Ledeen
Pajamasmedia.com
07 March '10

The failed Israeli ex-PM, Ehud Barak, gives us the benefit of his deep thinking about Iran. It’s an Einsteinian metaphor about relative rates of the passage of time:

The clock for the Iranian regime’s downfall is ticking, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in a lecture at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy on Friday. However, “it’s clear to me that the clock toward the collapse of this regime works much slower than the clock which ticks toward Iran becoming a nuclear military power,” Barak said.

How does he know that? — we (or at least some of us) wonder. I can imagine that the Israelis think they know the timetable for the Iranian atomic bomb, but I don’t think anyone has the schedule for the regime’s final days. And anyway, this is a case where static analysis is totally inappropriate. Any scenario has to include the likelihood of new variables being introduced. There’s probably a big sabotage operation going on against the atomic project, and some day somebody in the so-called Western world might decide to help the Iranian opposition speed up the “downfall clock.”

With regard to the atomic clock, I am told that the Iranian regime intends to announce two more hitherto-secret enrichment sites in early April. One is near Mashad, over by the Afghan border. The other is in the mountains east of Tehran. In keeping with the regime’s constant use of deception and misdirection, you can be pretty sure that there are other secret sites as well.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Iranian Clocks, Tick Tock, Tick Tock

Love of the Land: Chance of Mideast war not as great as it may seem

Chance of Mideast war not as great as it may seem

Fresnozionism.org
23 February '10

Many commentators (including me) have been worried about the possibility of a new regional war in the Mideast, possibly triggered by a US or Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, or by Hizballah launching its massive rocket collection at Israel. But recently I’ve come to think that war is unlikely in the near future.

Everyone pretty much agrees that a preemptive US attack is not in the cards.

Anne Applebaum, in the Washington Post, writes:

[Barack Obama] will not bomb Iran’s nuclear installations for precisely the same reasons that George W. Bush did not bomb Iran’s nuclear installations: Because we don’t know exactly where they all are, because we don’t know whether such a raid could stop the Iranian nuclear program for more than a few months, and because Iran’s threatened response — against Israelis and U.S. troops, via Iranian allies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Lebanon — isn’t one we want to cope with at this moment. Nor do we want the higher oil prices that would instantly follow. No American president doing a sober calculation would start a war of choice now, while U.S. troops are actively engaged on two other fronts, and no American president could expect public support for more than a nanosecond.

She left out one other important point: the US is relatively low on the list of those who are directly threatened by the Iranian bomb. Said list looks something like this:

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Chance of Mideast war not as great as it may seem

Love of the Land: What the IAEA Knew: The U.N. agency charged with stopping nuclear proliferation enabled it.

What the IAEA Knew: The U.N. agency charged with stopping nuclear proliferation enabled it.

Anne Bayefsky
Eye On the U.N.
22 February '10

This article, by Anne Bayefsky, originally appeared in Forbes.com.

The most important thing gleaned from the report by the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) circulated on Feb. 18, which states that Iran may indeed be bent on developing a nuclear bomb, is not new information about Iran. It is that for years the United Nations apparatus lied about what they knew and actively stood in the way of efforts to prevent the world's most dangerous regime from acquiring the world's most dangerous weapon.

The "confidential" report leaked to every news agency on the planet, is quoted as stating that on the basis of "extensive" and "credible" information the IAEA now has "concerns about the possible existence in Iran of ... current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile," and "concerns about possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program."

While Obama administration officials have attempted to spin the first report of IAEA chief Yukiya Amano, who took over last December, as a U.N. achievement, the implications of the evident U.N. deceit cannot be overstated. After all, the organization has a choke hold on global imaginations. In 2005 the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the IAEA and its then Director General Mohammed ElBaradei "for their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes." It is now clear that this occurred at the very same time that ElBaradei was engaged in what may well prove to be the most lethal cover-up in human history.

For almost a decade, the IAEA and its director general stalled for time on behalf of Iran, with reports feigning ignorance of Iranian designs while leaving an escape hatch should the IAEA's disguise as a non-proliferation agency be blown. In February 2006 ElBaradei reported: "Although the Agency has not seen any diversion of nuclear material to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, the Agency is not at this point in time in a position to conclude that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran. The process of drawing such a conclusion ... is a time consuming process."

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: What the IAEA Knew: The U.N. agency charged with stopping nuclear proliferation enabled it.

Love of the Land: How Adam Lowther learned to stop worrying and love the (Iranian) bomb

How Adam Lowther learned to stop worrying and love the (Iranian) bomb

Fresnozionism.org
09 February '10

The most frightening thing about this mind-numbingly wrongheaded op-ed in the NY Times (“Iran’s Two-Edged Bomb“) is the line at the end that describes the author:

Adam B. Lowther is a defense analyst at the Air Force Research Institute.

Let’s hope that he wrote this as a result of a bar-room bet on the gullibility of the Times, because we really don’t want anyone basing policy on this. In that spirit, let’s look at the five reasons that Dr. Lowther thinks the Iranian nuclear bomb has an upside:

Reason 1:

Iran’s development of nuclear weapons would give the United States an opportunity to finally defeat violent Sunni-Arab terrorist groups like Al Qaeda. Here’s why: a nuclear Iran is primarily a threat to its neighbors, not the United States. Thus Washington could offer regional security — primarily, a Middle East nuclear umbrella — in exchange for economic, political and social reforms in the autocratic Arab regimes responsible for breeding the discontent that led to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The US cannot provide ‘regional security’ when all it can offer is nuclear retaliation. So when Iran, which already controls Syria and Lebanon and will soon control Iraq, pushes to raise oil prices and threatens to unleash Hizballah, for example, what do we do? Nuke them? Iran knows that the US cannot afford to get bogged down in another conventional war.

Even if we could provide security, the ‘deal’ Lowther proposes will not help defeat Sunni terrorism, for the following reasons:

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Love of the Land: How Adam Lowther learned to stop worrying and love the (Iranian) bomb

Love of the Land: Iran: The Time Has Come

Iran: The Time Has Come

Ephraim Asculai
INSS Insight No. 158
25 January '10

If its domestic situation were not so serious, Iran's government could be very happy indeed. Iran managed to gain another crucial year in its quest for a nuclear weapons capability, and every passing day brings it closer to its ultimate goal: having the potential to produce deliverable nuclear weapons in short order, if it so decides. It successfully delayed the West from pursuing a more severe sanctions regime, and the West is behaving as if it has all the time in the world. It does not.

How did this come about? Several factors combined to achieve the net result, most of them not of Iran's doing: the election of a new US president who believed in engagement as the sole way to resolve conflicts (and may still want to believe this); the unwillingness, for years, of the IAEA to acknowledge Iran's ultimate goal; the (unclassified) 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that raised the possibility that Iran abandoned its quest for nuclear weapons; the reluctance of the US to assume the lead role in confronting Iran, and letting the EU-3 deal, albeit ineffectively, with the situation; the contrary attitude of Russia and China, which are watching the West struggle to find a solution while throwing it a bone from time to time in supporting some sanctions resolutions that are not achieving their aim; and the exceptional spanner in the works embedded in the quite unproductive suggestion to transfer some of Iran's low enriched uranium (LEU) outside the country and return it as medium enriched uranium fuel for its Tehran Research Reactor. This last statement needs some explanation.

(Read full report)

Love of the Land: Iran: The Time Has Come

Love of the Land: ElBaradei's failure

ElBaradei's failure

JPost Editorial
01 December 09

As of yesterday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's nuclear watchdog, has a new director-general, the understated Japanese diplomat Yukiya Amano. Mr. Amano has his work cut out for him. His predecessor, 67-year-old Mohamed ElBaradei, stepped down after 12 years with what, by his deplorable standards, amounted to a bang rather than a whimper.

In the last few days, ElBaradei declared bitterly that the IAEA's probe of allegations that Iran has been trying to make nuclear arms is at "a dead end" because Teheran is not cooperating. He warned that confidence in Teheran had shrunk in the wake of its belated revelation of a previously secret nuclear facility at Qom.

He slammed Teheran for rejecting a proposal meant to delay its ability to make nuclear weapons. Iran would have had to ship out most of its stockpile of 1,500 kilograms of low-enriched uranium. Its demand to "dilute" the proposal, ElBaradei stressed firmly, "was unacceptable because it could mean Teheran retaining enough enriched uranium for use in a nuclear weapon."

Reflecting its outgoing director's frustrated assessments, the IAEA's board on Friday overwhelmingly passed a resolution demanding that Iran stop construction at the Qom facility and stop uranium enrichment.

The US promptly warned that its "patience" on Iran might be exhausted by year's end. Britain, sounding increasingly irritated, urged Iran to "accept the hand that has been extended toward it." And the French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, spoke of "one last chance for dialogue" before "very harsh" sanctions.

"Why did Iran announce 10 new uranium enrichment sites when it has only one nuclear plant to burn this fuel?" Kouchner demanded, not unreasonably, referring to the defiant Iranian response to the IAEA's resolution.

THE ANSWER to Kouchner's question, and to the wider question of why Iran treats the IAEA with such contempt, is simple: because, under ElBaradei's blinkered watch, it has learned that it can.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: ElBaradei's failure

Love of the Land: Breaking News: Tehran OKs Ten Uranium Enrichment Facilities; U.S. Government Begs Iran to Negotiate

Breaking News: Tehran OKs Ten Uranium Enrichment Facilities; U.S. Government Begs Iran to Negotiate

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
29 November 09

Iran's government announced a cabinet-level decision approving construction of ten new facilities to make enriched uranium, defying the United States and the UN. U.S. reaction so far? Please please talk with us . This is the moment for the president to make that "My fellow Americans..." getting tough and imposing high sanctions speech, showing leadership and urging Europe to follow him. Why is it one doubts that will happen?

This is not just another slap, it is a hitting over the head with a two by four. It’s getting pretty obvious that Iran doesn’t want to make nice no matter how hard the West and particularly President Barack Obama tries. There’s a broader lesson here: if you apologize, they take it as weakness. If you take too long to react, they use it as an opportunity to advance. If you make a concession they demand more. If you pass a resolution, they laugh in your face.

At some point in history, perhaps Western leaders, academics, and intellectuals will understand this. How about today?

After all, the Iranian regime has now approved a plan to build 10 new uranium enrichment facilities (start building five; start planning five more). Get it? You criticize us for building one, so our answer is to build 10. You criticize us for building one in secret, so we do it right before your eyes.

What are you going to do about it? Come and get me, copper! You don’t like it? Go drink the Nile. And a lot of other expressions which require words I don’t use but an example has two words, the first of which has four letters and the second of which is “you.”

It should be noted that this probably isn't going to happen. When the regime starts talking about 500,000 centrifuges that is a fantasy, so is the idea of building ten facilities. It's a largely--but not necessarily totally--demagogic response. Yet it also indicates the likelihood that Iran will build (is building? has already built?) more facilities.

Love of the Land: Breaking News: Tehran OKs Ten Uranium Enrichment Facilities; U.S. Government Begs Iran to Negotiate

Love of the Land: Iran: Enriching Uranium or its Regime?

Iran: Enriching Uranium or its Regime?

Tariq Alhomayed
Asharq Al-Awsat
25 October 09

The prevailing roundabout has returned i.e. [that of] saying yes and no, between the Iranian regime and the G5 + 1 countries in the Vienna negotiations that are discussing the Iranian nuclear file after Tehran surprised the West by asking for a new deadline next week in order to give its response to whether it will accept the proposal put forward with regards to uranium being enriched by a third party outside of Iran.

There are those who are saying that the Iranians have returned to playing the game of buying time – and this is a game that they excel at – in order to prolong these negotiations and avoid any obstacles until the end of the year. There are other reports that talk about the difficulties that the Ahmadinejad regime is currently facing in convincing Iran’s hard-liners to accept the proposal made by the West in its present form, and this is something that confirms the seriousness of the position that Ahmadinejad is in. And then there is International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] Directory-General Mohamed elBaradei saying in an interview to the [French] “L’Express” magazine that during his visit to Iran two weeks ago, the Iranian president informed him of his country’s desire to move forward with this issue. ElBaradei confirmed that Ahmadinejad “wants to normalize relations with the US and western countries, and also with the international community in general.” He added that Ahmadinejad “is not interested in a partial normalization [of relations] but a comprehensive normalization [of relations].”

The well-established issue here is the difficulty of believing in the Iranian regime’s intentions, and understanding whether they are procrastinating in order to buy more time, or whether there truly are internal difficulties facing Ahmadinejad with regards to convincing the hard-line trend of the benefits of this agreement with the West, and the wisdom of accepting what is being offered. This issue as a whole may perhaps be [connected to] the distribution of roles in Iran, and it is clear today that the Iranian president wishes to enrich his regime more than he wishes to enrich uranium.

Ahmadinejad’s regime is suffering from a lack of internal legitimacy following the recent presidential elections, which his opponents accused him of rigging. Ahmadeinjad’s regime is also suffering from an ongoing and severe internal resistance from the reformist trend. Therefore success in the Vienna negotiations is perhaps the best way out for the Ahmadinejad regime for if Ahmadinejad is able to reach a comprehensive agreement with the West, contributing to the lifting of sanctions from Iran and the normalization of relations with the US and the West, this will allow him to turn the tables on the reformists.

By doing this, Ahmadinejad will have stripped his reformist opponents of all of the issues that [they use to] influence the Iranian street with regards to economic and political openness, not to mention achieving a major breakthrough in the Iranian nuclear file which he will be able to present to the Iranian interior however he likes, whether as an Iranian victory with talk of the West backing down, or by saying that Iran has given the world a way out of the crisis which is proof of Iran’s role in the region and the world. There is no doubt that the Ahmadinejad regime will not fail to find an explanation to presents itself in a good light, for this is a game that Iran excels at.

From here we can understand the Iranian negotiators speaking about the necessity of the West taking steps to build trust with Iran by lifting sanctions and normalizing relations with Tehran. It seems that Iran is just as keen to enrich its regime as it is to enrich uranium, perhaps more so.

Tariq Alhomayed is the Editor-in-Chief of Asharq Al-Awsat, the youngest person to be appointed that position. Mr. Alhomayed has an acclaimed and distinguished career as a Journalist and has held many key positions in the field including; Assistant Editor-in-Chief of Asharq Al-Awsat, Managing Editor of Asharq Al-Awsat in Saudi Arabia, Head of Asharq Al-Awsat Newspaper's Bureau-Jeddah, Correspondent for Al - Madina Newspaper in Washington D.C. from 1998 to Aug 2000.

Love of the Land: Iran: Enriching Uranium or its Regime?

Love of the Land: Iranian Negotiations: Ploy of the Week or Deal of the Century?

Iranian Negotiations: Ploy of the Week or Deal of the Century?

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
22 October 09

There are widespread reports about an imminent deal with Iran regarding its nuclear program. Here’s how the New York Times optimistically presents the proposal:

“Iranian negotiators have agreed to a draft deal that would delay the country's ability to build a nuclear weapon for about a year, buying more time for President Obama to search for a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear standoff.”

(To be fair, even this somewhat cautious note may be much less ecstatic than what we'll be hearing if the deal goes through.)

What is the proposed bargain? It is based on an offer the Iranian government made in 2007 and reintroduced last June. In practice, the result would be that Iran enriches unlimited amounts of uranium to a level near that needed for weapons, a large amount of this would be shipped off to France and/or Russia where it would be converted into something useful for medical purposes alone. Thus, it could be said that Iran having nuclear weapons has been either stopped or delayed considerably, though in fact it would only be delayed (if at all) not very long.

If the deal is made—and don’t take for granted it will be as the Iranian regime can think of plenty of delaying tactics, demands for modifications, real or imaginary internal conflicts blocking acceptance, etc.—there will be general rejoicing and the idea of further sanctions will be put on a back shelf to gather dust.

Indeed, it could effectively be argued, that existing sanctions could be removed. This does not seem likely at present--it would require a UN resolution undoing existing sanctions--but such a thing could arise in the future. And of course various countries in Europe could interpret the restrictions more loosely to allow deals that would not have gone through otherwise.

In other words, Iran could go on sponsoring terrorism (in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, against Israel, and in other places) and calling for Israel’s destruction while being treated as a regular member of the international community. It would only be a matter of a week or two before media outlets start writing that this proves President Barack Obama did deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.

Iran is trumpeting the proposed deal as a victory. But that seems rather strange doesn’t it? If this deal is as it appears (and again assuming it happens), then Iran won’t get nuclear weapons, has wasted billions of dollars and years of effort for nothing. In fact, it will be running a huge nuclear program to produce a product which in strategic terms is totally useless.

Or to put it another way, it's like setting up a massive and expensive sword-making industry, then shipping off the completed swords to be turned into ploughshares and pruning hooks when you didn't have any agriculture.

And by the way, since Iran--and its apologists--have been insisting that its real goal was nuclear power plants (as if one of the world's largest oil producers which exports almost all of its production needs that) then why doesn't Iran just agree to some deal in which all the uranium went to fuel such reactors with foreign-enriched fuel and close supervision? Even that would make more sense than this deal.

Does this make sense? There will be many silly reasons for this put forward: Iran was scared by sanctions and a united front against it, or Obama is so popular that they like him or trust him and it proves his strategy works. These ideas are nonsense but one a lot of average people in the West will believe them).

One logical argument that will be advanced is that internal disorder is forcing the regime to take a step back and be more cautious. This is a partial argument but, again, doesn’t explain why there would be such a huge apparent concession from a regime unaccustomed to making them.

So what’s really going on?

First, the whole thing may turn out to be a maneuver for buying time and no agreement is actually made.

Second, the Franco-Russian reworked uranium could be turned back into something suitable for further enrichment into weapons’-grade material in several months.

Third, Iran may well have other secret facilities which are going to be pumping out military useful enriched uranium. We have just seen how well they can conceal these things by the public exposure of such a secret facility. These could easily replace the uranium shipped abroad in a brief period of time.

Fourth, Iranian leaders, knowing that they have some way to go before being technologically ready to build weapons, are happy to accept a seeming delay in providing the uranium which will allow them to catch up with the technological and engineering requirements of making a bomb that works and missiles that will carry it to the target. Indeed, with sanctions loosened, it might get the very techniques and tools it needs to complete this process under the guise of other uses.

Note that the Bushehr nuclear reactor, which was supposed to have begun operation some months ago, has not been started up yet. Is this due to some technical difficulties? The reason certainly doesn't seem to be Iran sending a signal of willngness to compromise since the regime has not used this factor as proof of its flexibility.

If this last argument is true--and it seems to be a reasonable one--then the idea that such a deal would even "slow" Iran's obtaining nuclear weapons wouldn't necessarily be true.

There could also be Iranian deals with other countries—perhaps North Korea or Venezuela, for example—to cooperate in supplying what’s needed. Such a possible arrangement with Syria was destroyed by an Israeli attack on a facility in that country last year.

And speaking of an Israeli attack, this agreement would buy Iran assurance that this couldn't happen no matter what Tehran did since the regime's program would be now under Western protection.

As an Arabic-language expression has it: How do you know it was a lie? Because it was so big.
For example, if Iran was truly going to change course in any real way, there would have been a heated debate within the government of which we would have heard something about.

Or there would have to be a factional dispute or domination by a less extremist group in the ruling circle that argued President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s adventurism was too dangerous to pursue. But all these people have been expelled.

Or it would seem apparent that Iran really was afraid of Western military action or tremendous pressure that would be so great as to force it into a big defeat.

Such cautions seem quite logical. Yet no matter how ridiculous the situation seems if Iran pulls off this ploy it could be a devastatingly successful one.

Love of the Land: Iranian Negotiations: Ploy of the Week or Deal of the Century?

Love of the Land: The Israeli Challenge

The Israeli Challenge

Will Bibi follow in footsteps of Begin or Peres in face of Iranian threat?

Yoram Ettinger
Ynet/Opinion
07 October 09

The options of deterrence and retaliation are not available in face of the Iranian terror regime, which sacrificed hundreds of thousands of its people during the 1980-88 war against Iraq. The only option available is that of prevention and preemption.

The Jewish state cannot rely on the US to prevent Iran's nuclearization, especially not on a US that opposes the military option and embraces the options of engagement and sanctions, which have played into the hands of Iran during the last seven years.

In 1981, the heads of Israel's Mossad and military intelligence, then Defense Minister Ezer Weizman and Opposition Head Shimon Peres lobbied Prime Minister Menachem Begin against the bombing of Iraq's nuclear reactor. They contended that the chance of success was negligible and that the prospect of watching the pilots dragged beheaded in the streets of Baghdad was higher than welcoming the pilots back in Israel. They warned that the operation would cause a deep rift between Israel and the US with devastating political, economic and social consequences. They projected the collapse of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty, an all out Muslim war on Israel – without US support – and a significant deterioration of the personal security of Jews around the globe. However, Prime Minister Begin demonstrated a pre-requisite to leadership, asserting that the cost of inaction (a nuclear Iraq) would dwarf the cost of action. He sacrificed short-term convenience on the altar of long-term national security.

In 1981, the US did not fully appreciate the severity of Iraq's nuclear threat. In 2009, the US is fully aware of Iran's nuclear threat. Would Prime Minister Netanyahu follow in the footsteps of Begin, or Peres, in face of a clear and present lethal, nuclear danger?

An Iranian nuclear cloud, hovering above Israel, would not require the launching a nuclear bomb, in order to wreck domestic and external confidence in the future of the Jewish state. Aliya (immigration of Jews) would come to a halt, emigration would surge dramatically, Israel's credit rating and growth projection would collapse, and oversea investors would stay away, causing economic, social and security devastation. Therefore, the Jewish state cannot await a smoking nuclear gun in the hand of Teheran; the Jewish state must prevent the nuclear gun from reaching Teheran's hand.

Ultimate leadership test
In 2009, Iran's nuclear infrastructure benefits from defensive means, which are superior to Iraq's 1981 defense capabilities: proliferation throughout Iran, deep and heavily fortified facilities and most-advanced Russian air defense systems. But, in 2009, Israel's offensive capabilities have improved geometrically, compared with 1981: destruction, precision, penetration and the capability to launch missiles away from the range of enemy radar. In 1981, Israel had only one-time offensive option, which was based on untested modifications of the F-15 and F-16. In 2009, Israel benefits from a number of offensive options, which are based on proved military systems and on superior human and satellite intelligence.

In 2009, the destruction of a few critical nuclear installations would paralyze, or substantially delay, Iran's nuclear effort.

In 1981, the American public and Congress shared the relative-indifference of the Free World toward Iraq's nuclear threat. In 2009, the American public and Congress are fully cognizant of Iran's nuclear threat to US soldiers in the Gulf and in the Indian Ocean, to the US mainland and to Israel. They push President Obama to adopt a more hawkish policy on Iran and they identify with Israel's right of self-defense. Would Israel leverage such attitude by the American public and its representatives in both chambers of Congress, their traditional solid support of the Jewish state and the power of Congress to initiate and stop the supply of sophisticated military systems, in order to enhance Israeli capabilities to prevent the nuclearization of Iran?

A unilateral military Israeli action in 1967 (Six-Day War) and in 1981 (bombing Iraq's nuclear reactor) triggered painful short-term condemnations and sanctions, but accorded the Jewish state with long-term strategic respect. The destruction of Egypt's pan-Arab clout and Iraq's nuclear capabilities reduced Middle East turbulence, dealt a blow to the USSR, bolstered the stability of Saudi Arabia and other pro-US vulnerable regimes, advanced US interests and upgraded Israel's posture of deterrence.

The elimination of Iran's nuclear threat would trigger similar results, in addition to a possible shower of Iranian, Hezbollah and Hamas missiles on Israeli population centers, accompanied by reinforced PLO terrorism. As severe as the cost of a military offensive would be, it would be dwarfed by the cost of avoiding military offensive: A nuclear attack on the Jewish state.

The Iranian nuclear challenge constitutes – for Israel's prime minister, cabinet and Knesset members - the ultimate test of leadership. Will they follow pragmatism, driven by tenacity and the long-term survival interest of the Jewish state, or will they demonstrate "pragmatism," driven by vacillation and short-term needs, which has characterized all Israeli governments since 1992, thus eroding the foundation of the Jewish state.

Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, expert on Middle East and US affairs, Executive Director of "Second Thought"

Love of the Land: The Israeli Challenge

Love of the Land: Why this man is laughing fit to explode

Why this man is laughing fit to explode

Melanie Phillips
The Spectator
05 October 09

There are clearly no lengths to which the world will not go to facilitate Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Consider. A couple of weeks ago, the world was stunned to discover that Iran had a second uranium processing plant at Qom, thus proving beyond doubt that its pursuit of nuclear technology was to make not nuclear energy but a bomb.

Actually it wasn’t stunned at all, since this information was known to Barack Obama before he was even elected President. But anyway. This coup de théâtre was revealed, it seemed, to strengthen the world’s hand in dealing with Iran. After all, this autumn is the deadline set by the Obama administration for Iran to halt its nuclear weapons programme, after which the US said it was finally going to get really tough with Iran and do ... oooh, really tough things like sanctions.

So what happened when the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany met Iran (its chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jali, pictured above)? A deal was reached which has been described as a ‘breakthrough’ and caused the IAEA head Mohammed al Baradei to pronounce himself ‘delighted with progress’. Unfortunately, it was Iran that made yet more progress in its path to the bomb.

Its agreement to allow the nuclear inspectors into Qom is worthless. As theWall Street Journal mordantly observed:

Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency won't find anything incriminating at the Qom facility. Having lied about it for years, the Iranians now have plenty of time to clean the place out.

The real excitement was over Iran’s ‘agreement in principle’ to send approximately one nuclear-weapons worth of Iran's low enriched uranium to Russia for enrichment and then on to France for fabrication into fuel rods for Tehran’s research reactor. The point of this is that the uranium would be returned to Iran in the form of fuel pellets inside the rods, which could not be further enriched to weapons grade purity.

But in another WSJ article John Bolton points out what a farce this all is:

Iran’s Ambassador to Britain exclaimed after the talks in Geneva, ‘No, no!’ when asked if his country had agreed to ship LEU to Russia; it had ‘not been discussed yet.’ An unnamed Iranian official said that the Geneva deal ‘is just based on principles. We have not agreed on any amount or any numbers.’

... By endorsing Iran’s use of its illegitimately enriched uranium, Mr. Obama weakens his argument that Iran must comply with its ‘international obligations.’ Indeed, the Geneva deal undercuts Mr. Obama’s proposal to withhold more sanctions if Iran does not enhance its nuclear program by allowing Iran to argue that continued enrichment for all peaceful purposes should be permissible. Now Iran will oppose new sanctions and argue for repealing existing restrictions.

The president also said last week that international access to the Qom nuclear site must occur within two weeks, but an administration spokesman retreated the next day, saying there was no ‘hard and fast deadline,’ and ‘we don't have like a drop-dead date.’

Meanwhile, the Institute for Science and International Security has posted up on its website excerpts from the internal IAEA Document on Alleged Iranian Nuclear Weaponization, parts of which have already found their way into the media. This material was allegedly based on documents obtained by German intelligence, smuggled out of Iran by the wife of an Iranian nuclear scientist. Apparently there have been arguments inside the IAEA about how to interpret this document, but it states:

The Agency has information, known as the Alleged Studies, that the Ministry of Defence of Iran has conducted and may still be conducting a comprehensive programme aimed at the development of a nuclear payload to be delivered using the Shahab 3 missile system. The information, which originates from several Member States and the Agency’s own investigations, points to a comprehensive project structure and hierarchy with clear responsibilities, timeline and deliverables. The information, which has been obtained from multiple sources, is detailed in content and appears to be generally consistent. The information refers to known Iranian persons and institutions under both the military and civil apparatuses, as well as to some degree to their confirmed procurement activities.”

Alleged Studies

“The Alleged Studies conducted by Iran refer, inter alia, to the development work performed to redesign the inner cone of the Shahab 3 missile re-entry vehicle to accommodate a nuclear warhead. The Studies further describe the development and testing of high voltage detonator firing equipment and multiple exploding bridge wire (EBW) detonators as well as an underground testing infrastructure and the probable testing of one full-scale hemispherical explosively driven shock system that could be applicable to an implosion-type nuclear device.

As Sky News’s Tim Marshall observed:

This new information, added to what was already known, suggests the Iranians now know how to make a nuclear bomb, have enough enriched uranium to make one, and have the capacity to deliver it. What is lacking is the finishing touches, and the testing.

The response of the world body to this terrifying and grim development has been to turn itself, in the eyes of the terror regime in Tehran, into a total laughing stock. It reached a transparently meaningless deal with the Iranian regime which it can flick aside with contempt – and in return for which the US, Britain and the rest have now accepted Iran back into the civilised world again, and all talk even of sanctions is now off the table. Thus America, Britain and the rest reward terror and ensure that it has the time to realise its terrible aim.

This is presumably what Obama meant when he said recently of Iran:

I'm not interested in victory. I’m interested in resolving the problem.

Well, if he doesn’t achieve victory over Iran, then Iran will achieve victory over America.

Business as usual in the genocide business!

Love of the Land: Why this man is laughing fit to explode

Love of the Land: IAEA Chief: Israel's Nukes "Number One Threat" to Mid-East

IAEA Chief: Israel's Nukes "Number One Threat" to Mid-East

Peter Noonan
The Weekly Standard
05 October 09

Perhaps he meant "Israeli nukes number one threat to Arab plans to decimate Israel." This coming off Israel's 40 year track record of nuclear restraint, even after the near collapse of IDF lines during the Yom Kippur War.

Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei said Sunday that "Israel is number one threat to Middle East" with its nuclear arms, the official IRNA news agency reported.

At a joint press conference with Iran's Atomic Energy Organization chief Ali Akbar Salehi in Tehran, ElBaradei brought Israel under spotlight and said that the Tel Aviv regime has refused to allow inspections into its nuclear installations for 30years, the report said.

"Israel is the number one threat to the Middle East given the nuclear arms it possesses," ElBaradei was quoted as saying.

Maybe ElBaradei is worried about an Israeli nuclear strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, but even through such twisted logic, wouldn't that make Iran's weapons program the number one threat to Mid-East peace?

Love of the Land: IAEA Chief: Israel's Nukes "Number One Threat" to Mid-East

Love of the Land: Bad Options on Iran

Bad Options on Iran

An Israeli strike won't suffice

by Michael Rubin
Middle East Forum
National Review Online
October 5, 2009

On October 1, President Barack Obama ascended the podium in the Diplomatic Reception Room at the White House and declared negotiations with Iran a tentative success. "The P5-plus-1 is united, and we have an international community that has reaffirmed its commitment to non-proliferation and disarmament. That's why the Iranian government heard a clear and unified message from the international community in Geneva: Iran must demonstrate through concrete steps that it will live up to its responsibilities with regard to its nuclear program. In pursuit of that goal, today's meeting was a constructive beginning," Obama said, adding, "but it must be followed by constructive action by the Iranian government."

Where Obama sees tentative success, reality suggests failure. Faced with irrefutable evidence, Tehran acknowledged that it had built a second, covert nuclear-enrichment plant, squirreled away in an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps base near Qom. Neither Obama nor the director of national intelligence, Dennis C. Blair, acknowledged that Iranian confirmation of its second enrichment plant belied the veracity of the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate. Regardless, Tehran's decision to confess when confronted with proof of cheating should not be considered the same as Iranian transparency and goodwill. Many scientists within the International Atomic Energy Agency believe that the Iranian regime now has "sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable" nuclear bomb.

Obama's supporters have rallied to put the best face on the P5+1 dialogue. "Obama . . . got more concessions from Iran in 7½ hours than the former administration got in 8 years of saber-rattling," Juan Cole, president of the one-man Global Americana Institute, wrote on his blog. Former Carter administration adviser (and October Surprise conspiracy theorist) Gary Sick was likewise effusive, calling the meeting a "historic moment after thirty years of mutual recriminations and hyperbole." The truth, however, is that any agreement was short of specifics. Iran pledged to allow inspections, but offered no specifics as to when and under what conditions. While Iranian authorities pledged to ship uranium to Russia for further enrichment, the West has no guarantee that Iranian scientists will not simply enrich the fuel further when it is repatriated to Iran.

Not surprisingly, the Iranian regime has been defiant in recent days. Ahmadinejad called Obama's criticism of Iran's second enrichment plant a "historic mistake," hardly a sign that the Iranian regime feels sincere about complying with international demands. Jomhouri-ye Eslami, a daily closely associated with the Islamic Republic's intelligence apparatus, editorialized, "The announcement of the enrichment facilities forced the West into a defensive position," and Kayhan, which voices the line of the "supreme leader," wrote, "The announcement of the enrichment facilities will be Iran's winning card in October negotiations."

The Obama administration may convince itself that it remains in control of the diplomatic process and has placed serious constraints upon any Iranian breakout capability, but countries with more at stake know better. Last month's Iranian test of ballistic missiles capable of hitting Saudi Arabia and Israel underscored both the danger and questions about Iranian sincerity.

Threat Perception

Different threat perceptions muddy the international approach to the Iranian nuclear challenge. For the European Union, the Iranian nuclear challenge revolves around the viability of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as well as the efficacy of European foreign policy on the international stage. After all, the Islamic Republic's proliferation activities marked the first international crisis in which the European Union consciously sought to lead. Should Iran go nuclear despite years of critical engagement, it would be a blow to the multilateralism-and-incentives approach favored by European foreign ministries.

For President Obama and most of the American foreign-policy apparatus, a nuclear-weapons-capable Islamic Republic would be strategically untenable. A nuclear Iran would embolden Tehran to act out conventionally and by proxy, hiding behind its own nuclear deterrence. Growing Iranian prestige and ability to project power would force other regional states to make accommodations with Tehran that might not be in the U.S. national-security interest. Any additional nuclear power in the Middle East would also unleash a cascade of proliferation: If Iran went nuclear, Saudi Arabia and Turkey would need to develop their own capabilities. If Saudi Arabia and Turkey went nuclear, Egypt and Greece would as well. A nuclear Egypt would lead Libya to reconsider its decision to abandon the bomb, which in turn might lead Algeria to reconsider its own position. In short, a nuclear Islamic Republic would be a game-changer that would complicate U.S. interests in the region for decades to come. That said, Washington need not fear that an Iranian leadership with a handful of nuclear weapons would cause the U.S.'s demise.
(Full Article)

Love of the Land: Bad Options on Iran

Love of the Land: Netanyahu’s List

Netanyahu’s List

David Satter

The Corner/NRO

04 October 09

The list of Russian nuclear scientists believed to be helping Iran develop a nuclear bomb presented to the Kremlin by Israeli prime minister Netanyahu shows why all Russian assistance to rogue regimes in the development of nuclear energy is dangerous.

The Russians have long insisted that their assistance for civilian nuclear-power projects in Iran is legitimate. Recently, it was announced that Russia would cooperate in developing a nuclear power plant in Venezuela. Russia claims that these projects are peaceful and it has the same right to seek commercial opportunities as anyone else.

This explanation, however, ignores the depth of Russian corruption. Netanyahu’s list will come as no surprise to the Kremlin because a big incentive in dealing with Iran is the opportunity for powerful individuals to enrich themselves with the help of kickbacks and illegal deals. Once contacts are established in “legitimate” nuclear energy and Russian and Iranian specialists begin traveling back and forth and officials establish contacts, myriad opportunities are created for the development and transfer of illegal weapons technology. The same situation will prevail in Russia’s dealings with Venezuela.

Russia treats the consequences of its actions with complete moral indifference. In 1992, members of Aum Shinri Kyo, the Japanese doomsday cult, held a “Russian Salvation Tour.” With the help of Oleg Lobov, the secretary of the Russian security council, the cult members, identified as “Japanese businessmen” trained at military bases near Moscow, shopped for advanced weapons and attended lectures on the circulation of gases. Sect members later carried out a sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo metro in which 12 persons died. At the trial of Shoko Asahara, the leader of the sect, Aum’s chief of intelligence testified that the production designs for the sarin had been delivered to Aum by Lobov in 1993 for $100,000 in cash. (Yeltsin’s response was to give Lobov a promotion.

In 2002, the U.S. tried to convince Russia to “reconsider” cooperation with Iran. It offered military and space cooperation and permission to store foreign nuclear waste in Iran. The visible economic benefits would have been the same or greater than the visible benefits derived by Russia from its trade with Iran. But the deal in question was rejected because no deal with the U.S. evaluated by Congress and scrutinized by the government accounting office can provide the payoffs for influential individuals that are possible in a totally non-transparent deal with Iran.

Israel is trying to embarrass the Russians into cracking down on illegal help for the Iranian nuclear weapons program. But the Russians are beyond embarrassment. The necessary conclusions need to be drawn by the West.

— David Satter is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. His latest book is Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State.

Love of the Land: Netanyahu’s List

Love of the Land: A Universe Apart

A Universe Apart

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
02 October 09

Discussing Obama’s failed Mideast-peace strategy, Michael Gerson focuses on an increasingly critical ramification (aside from the soured U.S.-Israeli relations, the humiliating rebuff to the U.S., and the encouragement of Palestinian rejectionism) of the president’s decision to put “daylight” between America and Israel:

Obama has injected considerable suspicion into the American-Israeli relationship, picking public fights on issues such as settlements and adopting a tone of neutrality in other controversies. If Israel thinks America is an increasingly unreliable partner, Israel will be more likely to depend on itself alone — and let the bombers fly.

As Gerson points out, the Israelis (along with the French) have every reason to doubt U.S. resolve. Anyone who’s listened to Obama’s rhetoric from Cairo to Pittsburgh can discern that this is not a man who draws lines in the sand and not someone willing to take decisive action (unless it’s to capitulate unilaterally, as he did on missile defense). So we find ourselves in the not unexpected situation brought about by American weakness and procrastination: ”If the Israelis were confident that America would act decisively against the Iranian nuclear threat in the greatest extremity, they would be far less likely to act themselves.”

Indeed, one senses that Bibi Netanyahu and Barack Obama are on a rhetorical seesaw. The higher Obama’s rhetoric becomes and the less grounded in reality he appears (as was the case at the UN), the more blunt and steely-eyed Netanyahu becomes (as was the case with his UN speech). Obama ignores Iran’s genocidal threats, so Netanyahu must remind us of them. Obama loves to speak of a “process,” so Netanyahu warns we must have results. Obama clings to the security blanket of “multilateralism,” while Netanyahu emphasizes that the UN is no better than a low-rent circus. Obama obscures and conceals the Iranian nuclear operations, whereas Netanyahu highlights them. There is not simply “daylight” between the two leaders but a vast expanse that separates them.

Gerson is right: the Israelis will do what they must, in no small part because the American president does not view the world as they do. And they in turn are not about to put their fate in the hands of someone who lacks both the understanding and the will to keep nuclear arms out of the hands of butchers whose fondest hope is to eradicate the Jewish state.

Love of the Land: A Universe Apart

Love of the Land: Springtime for Mullahs

Springtime for Mullahs

The Geneva talks rehabilitate Iran's beleaguered regime.

Wall St. Journal
02 October 09

From Geneva yesterday come all kinds of good diplomatic vibrations. Iran may allow U.N. inspectors into a recently unveiled uranium-enrichment plant "within two weeks." Another meeting will be held before month's end. A "freeze" on sanctions was bruited about. In an appearance at the White House, President Obama sounded sober but hopeful, calling the direct American talks with the Islamic Republic "a constructive beginning" toward "serious and meaningful engagement."

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was presumably in even better spirits at his remarkable change of fortune. A month ago, Iran's president was struggling to cement his grip on power after stealing an election and repressing nationwide protests. A week ago, the disclosure of the secret facility near Qom highlighted Iran's chronic prevarication and raised calls for more sanctions.

By yesterday, all that had changed. At the 18th-century Villa Le Saugy, Iran's representative sat among the world's powers as a respected equal. Responding to an overture from the Obama Administration, the Iranians even talked about the future of the U.N. and other nonnuclear issues. Meanwhile, Washington was "buzzing" (as one newspaper put it) that a one-day visit by Iran's foreign minister might signal more detente to come. Back in Tehran, Mr. Ahmadinejad floated a tete-a-tete with the U.S. President. In short, this engagement conferred a respectability on his regime that Mr. Ahmadinejad could only have imagined amid his vicious post-election crackdown.

The price of entry is surprisingly modest, too. Though cautious, the P5+1 (the veto-wielding Security Council members, plus Germany) welcomed signs of Iranian concessions: Inspectors at Qom, an openness to send low-enriched uranium outside Iran for enrichment, possibly suspending its own enrichment program. Mr. Ahmadinejad said the Geneva talks were "a unique opportunity" for the West.

Consider the Iranian offers in turn. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency won't find anything incriminating at the Qom facility. Having lied about it for years, the Iranians now have plenty of time to clean the place out. Iran's experience with the IAEA goes back to the first inspections starting in 1992, which somehow prevented the world from learning about Iran's bomb program for a decade and then only from an Iranian dissident group. A freeze on enrichment used to be the U.S. precondition for talks with Iran. Now the U.S. and Europeans say that in exchange merely for this enrichment promise, they'll freeze any additional sanctions.

Iran has timed its olive branch well. The Europeans are more frustrated with past Iranian stalling than is Washington and have started to hanker for tougher measures. Those demands will now be muted. For years, Iran has talked with the Europeans, using the time and diplomatic cover to make nuclear progress. The Obama ascendency offers the mullahs another chance, with an even more eager partner, to repeat the exercise with a far bigger potential payoff. Expect Iran to follow the North Korean model, stringing the West along, lying and wheedling, striking deals only to reneg and start over. In the end, North Korea tested a nuclear device.

On long evidence, the regime has no intention of stopping a nuclear program that would give it new power in the region, and new leverage against America. The Qom news reveals a more extensive, sophisticated and covert nuclear complex than many people, including the CIA, were willing to recognize. The facility is located on a Revolutionary Guard base, partly hidden underground and protected by air-defense missiles. Its capacity of 3,000 centrifuges is too small for civilian use but not for a weapons program. It's a good bet an archipelago of such small covert facilities is scattered around Iran.

Meanwhile, news reports this week say German and British intelligence believe Iran never stopped clandestine efforts to design a nuclear warhead. Their assumptions contradict the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate in 2007 that Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and kept it frozen.

The evidence is overwhelming that the window to stop the world's leading sponsor of terrorism from acquiring a bomb is closing fast. If we are serious about doing so, the proper model isn't North Korea, but Libya. The Gadhafi regime agreed to disarm after the fall of Saddam Hussein convinced its leaders that their survival was better assured without nuclear weapons. Mr. Ahmadinejad and Iran's mullahs will only concede if they see their future the same way.

This supposed fresh start in Geneva only gives them new legitimacy, and new hope that they can have their bomb and enhanced global standing too.

Love of the Land: Springtime for Mullahs

Love of the Land: Intelligence Gamesmanship

Intelligence Gamesmanship

Jennifer Rubin

Contentions/Commentary

29 September 09

Rich Lowry observes that the discovery of the secret Iranian nuclear facility puts a stake through the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which was vilified at the time by conservatives. (Thomas Joscelyn: “As many noted at the time, the language and logic of the NIE were nonsensical. There were transparent flaws in its analysis, including the arbitrary decision to set aside concerns over Iran’s overt uranium enrichment and ballistic missile development efforts — both of which continued apace.”) That would be the same NIE report that was heralded by Obama and his fellow liberals.

Lowry writes:

In November 2007, US intelligence agencies wrote a National Intelligence Estimate concluding, “We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.” . . .

The 2007 NIE had a very circumscribed definition of a weapons program, but it included “covert conversion-related and uranium enrichment-related work.” Exactly what Qom is for. What do the Iranians have to do to convince US intelligence they have a weapons program?

Iran has been very lucky in its watchdogs. The 2007 NIE, which stands exposed as about as worthless as then-CIA Director George Tenet’s prewar talk of a “slam-dunk” on Iraq’s WMD, crushed any thought of the politically weakened Bush administration moving against Iran. And the punch-pulling International Atomic Energy Agency has been suppressing damaging material, concerned more with forestalling a conflict over Iran’s nuclear program than forestalling the program itself.

But apparently at some point not even the Obama team bought the NIE’s conclusions. Obama after all was quick to admit that Iran’s Qom facility wasn’t configured for peaceful uses. And the ever changing and highly suspect conclusions about Iran’s nuclear intentions keep dribbling out. The Iranians aren’t much interested in long-range missile development, we were told—a conclusion that fit (magically!) with the Obama team’s fervent desire to give something away (missile defense) to butter up Putin.

We are left with only one conclusion: the incessant reassurances that we have little to fear from Iran are the product of wishful thinking and a high degree of “self-delusion,” as Lowry puts it. Unfortunately, the intelligence bureaucracy that churns out the feel-good estimates has a willing consumer for its defective product in the president. He is only too eager to believe what is being peddled — or ignore what’s unhelpful.

The public and our allies, however, are waking up to the gamesmanship here—and may begin to wonder why the president isn’t the least bit upset that the intelligence community got it exactly wrong in 2007. When that happened under Bush, we had a torrent of outrage and a mob of investigative committees. Yet hardly a peep here. Funny how that works.

Love of the Land: Intelligence Gamesmanship

Love of the Land: Talking Iran Down The Nuclear Road

Talking Iran Down The Nuclear Road

Obama's outstretched hand encourages Iran's quest for the bomb.

Amir Taheri

Wall St. Journal

29 September 09

The way the Obama administration portrays them, this week's talks between Iran and the so-called 5+1 group of nations represent a diplomatic breakthrough. Indeed they do—for Iran, that is.

The group, consisting of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany, talked to the Islamic Republic for almost five years with no results. The U.S. played a key part throughout—first indirectly, then with a high-level presence. Until Mr. Obama entered the scene, the talks had a clear purpose: First, to persuade the Islamic Republic to stop uranium enrichment, or to face additional U.N. measures. Second, to offer Tehran inducements to abandon its nuclear ambition. Mr. Obama's policy of the "outstretched hand" has changed all that. Using what diplomats term "creative ambiguity," the new administration has tried to circumvent U.N. resolutions by offering unconditional talks.

Sources in Tehran say neither of the two letters that Mr. Obama has written to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei demands compliance with U.N. resolutions. The view from Tehran is that Mr. Obama has already accepted Iran's nuclear program as fait accompli.

As Iran's official news agency, IRNA, put it in an analysis on Sept. 14, "Based on real indicators of its national interests and possible threats, America has no problem with Iran's nuclear project."

It went to note that "[America's] extensive problems originate in that country's military presence in the Middle East. And, since Iran is the most powerful nation in the region, America will have to cooperate with it under any circumstances."

Iran's clarity going into the talks contrasts with Mr. Obama's uncertainty.

"Iran wants its regional supremacy to be recognized by America and the West," says Hussein Pour-Ahmadi, an advisor to the Iranian foreign ministry. "Once Iran's regional dominance is acknowledged, Iran would be ready to help with regional security."

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly claimed that Iran's nuclear program is non-negotiable. Iran enters the talks assuming that the negotiations that began five years ago have ended, and that a new process is about to start. The mandate in Geneva for Saeed Jalili, Iran's top negotiator, now is to assert Iran's claim of a share in global leadership. The Islamic Republic resents that some small Third World nations are invited to the G-20 summit while Iran, the self-proclaimed regional superpower, is excluded.

"Our package covers a range of issues such as energy security, reducing poverty, economic development, nuclear disarmament, fighting terrorism and protecting the environment," Mr. Jalili told reporters in Tehran on Wednesday.

Confident that the nuclear issue is off the table, the Tehran leadership has just revealed the existence of a hitherto secret plant for uranium enrichment. In a letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency or IAEA, the Islamic Republic last week told of a new facility, built in a mountain stronghold southwest of Tehran. This could operate 3000 centrifuges.

Earlier, the man in charge of Iran's nuclear project, Ali-Akbar Salehi, had made another startling revelation. In a 5,000-word press release, the nuclear czar reported the existence of "a generation of new and much more efficient centrifuges." He offered no details and, more significantly perhaps, did not say why these superior machines were not being used to enrich uranium instead of the old and inefficient ones operating in Natanz.

The two revelations reinforce suspicions that Tehran may be running a parallel nuclear program of which the IAEA has no knowledge. And yet, Mr. Jalili's brief is to talk about everything except Iran's nuclear program. Iran analysts dub this the "Bikini Strategy"—showing everything except the most interesting parts.

Paradoxically, Mr. Obama's outstretched hand may have made a negotiated resolution of the Iranian nuclear problem more difficult. The perception in Tehran is that Mr. Obama, who has apologized for America's unspecified misdeeds against Iran, is acting from a position of weakness mixed with a desire to score points against his predecessor.

Over the past months, Iranian think tanks have organized a number of seminars on the coming talks. The participants have been divided into two camps, the first advising that Iran go for full victory over the American "Great Satan". Their argument is that the world has already entered a post-American era and that Mr. Obama's weakness and naïveté offer an opportunity for driving the U.S. out of the Middle East.

Last week, advocates of that view published a collection of essays under the title "America Is Coming to an End". The book, published by Ahmadinejad's office, claims that Mr. Obama's election indicated American popular support for a "strategic global retreat". They claim that the world is looking for "an alternative vision" that only Iran can offer.

Or, as Hamid Mowlana, former American University professor and current advisor to Ahmadinejad, says: "Today, only two men count: Ahmadinejad and Obama. As American influence fades, Iran must assert leadership with Ahmadinejad's message of justice."

To persuade the Islamic Republic to climb off its high horses was never easy. If the "End of America" camp wins the debate in Tehran, that task could become even more difficult.

The other view in Tehran says the Islamic Republic should not press its advantage too far. According to Manuchehr Muhammadi, a foreign ministry advisor, Mr. Obama has already acknowledged the Islamic Republic's regional power status.

Therefore, it would be counter-productive to inflict diplomatic humiliation on Washington. The Khomeinist regime committed such a mistake with President Jimmy Carter in 1979, after Mr. Carter went out of his way to give Khomeini everything he wanted. Mr. Carter's humiliation was a factor in Ronald Reagan's election victory. Advocates of this view argue that Iran should offer Mr. Obama a fig leaf to let him claim success where George W. Bush failed, though without conceding an inch on Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Tehran's reading of Mr. Obama's intentions may be off the mark. For the time being, however, the outstretched hand, far from persuading the regime to consider changing its trajectory, has encouraged its nuclear quest.

Mr. Obama may have encouraged those in Tehran who urge an even faster pace in developing a nuclear arsenal, and all with the best of intentions.

Mr. Taheri's new book, "The Persian Night: Iran Under the Khomeinist Revolution," is published by Encounter Books.

Love of the Land: Talking Iran Down The Nuclear Road