By MATTHEW COLE
March 31, 2010 —
An award-winning Iranian nuclear scientist, who disappeared last year under mysterious circumstances, has defected to the CIA and been resettled in the United States, according to people briefed on the operation by intelligence officials.
The officials were said to have termed the defection of the scientist, Shahram Amiri, "an intelligence coup" in the continuing CIA operation to spy on and undermine Iran's nuclear program.
A spokesperson for the CIA declined to comment. In its declassified annual report to Congress, the CIA said, "Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons though we do not know whether Tehran eventually will decide to produce nuclear weapons."
Amiri, a nuclear physicist in his early 30s, went missing last June three days after arriving in Saudi Arabia on a pilgrimage, according to the Iranian government. He worked at Tehran's Malek Ashtar University, which is closely connected to Iran's Revolutionary Guard, according to the Associated Press.
"The significance of the coup will depend on how much the scientist knew in the compartmentalized Iranian nuclear program," said former White House counter-terrorism official Richard Clarke, an ABC News consultant. "Just taking one scientist out of the program will not really disrupt it."
Iran's Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, and other Iranian officials last year blamed the U.S. for "kidnapping" Amiri, but his whereabouts had remained a mystery until now.
Shahram Amiri's wife and other family members reportedly protested outside the Saudi embassy in Tehran last fall, claiming that Amiri had been taken against his will. She said she had last spoken to him on June 3, while he was in Saudi Arabia, when he called her from Medina. She told the Iranian news agency ISNA that Amiri reported that he had been questioned by police in Saudi Arabia. She also denied that Amiri worked for the nuclear program.
According to the people briefed on the intelligence operation, Amiri's disappearance was part of a long-planned CIA operation to get him to defect. The CIA reportedly approached the scientist in Iran through an intermediary who made an offer of resettlement on behalf of the United States.
Since the late 1990s, the CIA has attempted to recruit Iranian scientists and officials through contacts made with relatives living in the United States, according to former U.S. intelligence officials. Case officers have been assigned to conduct hundreds of interviews with Iranian-Americans in the Los Angeles area in particular, the former officials said.
Amiri has been extensively debriefed since his defection by the CIA, according to the people briefed on the situation. They say Amiri helped to confirm U.S. intelligence assessments about the Iranian nuclear program.
In September, President Barack Obama announced the U.S., the United Kingdom and France had evidence that Iran "has been building a covert uranium enrichment facility near Qom for several years."
One Iranian web site reported that Amiri had worked at the Qom facility prior to his defection.
The New York Times reported Saturday that international inspectors and Western intelligence agencies suspect "Tehran is preparing to build more sites in defiance of United Nations demands."
Officials at Iran's mission to the United Nations did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
"The Americans are definitely letting the Iranians know that they are active in going after Iran's nuclear program," said Hooman Majd, an Iranian-American journalist.
A colleague of Amiri's at Tehran University called the disappearance "a disturbing sign" and blamed the Saudis for helping the U.S., according government-approved English-language web site Press TV.
"The Saudi regime has effectively discredited itself and will be seen by those who know what has gone on in the region as being confined to American demands and effectively abiding by American wishes," said Mohammad Marandi, a Tehran University professor, according to the Iranian web site.
On Tuesday, President Obama said that he wanted sanctions against Iran "this spring."
"I'm not interested in waiting months for a sanctions regime to be in place," said Obama. "I'm interested in seeing that regime in place in weeks."
31.3.10
Iran Nuclear Scientist Defects to U.S. In CIA 'Intelligence Coup'
29.3.10
UNIFIL Versus Hariri Tribunal
It is the latest formula in town spelled out by Tawheed Movement leader Wiam Wahab.Recently, Wahab has been consistently citing "leaked information" about the The Special Tribunal for Lebanon which links Hezbollah to the assassination of Lebanon's former PM Rafik Hariri.
“Politicizing the international tribunal demolishes Lebanon and turns UNIFIL into a mailbox”, he said following a meeting with the Spanish Ambassador in Lebanon Juan Carlos Gafo, whose country is a main partner in the UNIFIL in South Lebanon.
“The matter needs to be resolved before it is too late. UN member-states should increase pressure in a bid to forbid the US from using the STL as a tool,” Wahab said.
On Thursday Wahab told al-Jadeed TV station that "according to leaked information, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon is accusing slain Hizbullah commander Imad Mughniyeh of involvement in ex-Premier Rafik Hariri's assassination".
28.3.10
Agencies Suspect Iran Is Planning Atomic Sites
By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD
WASHINGTON — Six months after the revelation of a secret nuclear enrichment site in Iran, international inspectors and Western intelligence agencies say they suspect that Tehran is preparing to build more sites in defiance of United Nations demands.
The United Nations inspectors assigned to monitor Iran’s nuclear program are now searching for evidence of two such sites, prompted by recent comments by a top Iranian official that drew little attention in the West, and are looking into a mystery about the whereabouts of recently manufactured uranium enrichment equipment.
In an interview with the Iranian Student News Agency, the official, Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had ordered work to begin soon on two new plants. The plants, he said, “will be built inside mountains,” presumably to protect them from attacks.
“God willing,” Mr. Salehi was quoted as saying, “we may start the construction of two new enrichment sites” in the Iranian new year, which began March 21.
The revelation that inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, now believe that there may be two new sites comes at a crucial moment in the White House’s attempts to impose tough new sanctions against Iran.
When President Obama publicly revealed the evidence of the hidden site at Qum last September, his aides had hoped the announcement would make it easier to win international support for a fourth round of economic sanctions, particularly from a reluctant China and Russia. Since then, however, the White House has been struggling to persuade those countries to go along with the toughest sanctions and the administration is now being forced to scale back its proposed list of sanctions.
The United Nations inspectors operate separately from the diplomats who are developing sanctions. Still, the disclosures may be intended, at least in part, to underscore the belief of Western officials that the Iranian efforts are speeding ahead, and the assertions could aid in efforts to press Iran to open up locations long closed to inspectors.
This article was based on interviews with officials of several governments and international agencies deeply involved in the hunt for additional nuclear sites in Iran, and familiar with the work of the I.A.E.A., the only organization with regular access to Iran’s known nuclear facilities. All the officials insisted on anonymity because the search involves not only satellite surveillance, but also intelligence gleaned from highly classified operations.
American officials say they share the I.A.E.A.’s suspicions and are examining satellite evidence about a number of suspected sites. But they have found no solid clues yet that Iran intends to use them to produce nuclear fuel, and they are less certain about the number of sites Iran may be planning.
In any case, no new processing site would pose an immediate threat or change the American estimates that it will still take Iran one to four years to obtain the capability to build a nuclear weapon. Given the complexity of building and opening new plants, it would probably take several years for the country to enrich uranium at any of the new sites.
One European official noted that “while we have some evidence,” Iran’s heavy restrictions on where inspectors can travel and the existence of numerous tunneling projects were making the detection of any new enrichment plants especially difficult.
Iran boasted several months ago, after the disclosure of the Qum site, that it would build 10 more enrichment plants in coming years. That number was dismissed by American officials and others as a fantasy, far beyond Iran’s abilities, or its budget.
But I.A.E.A. inspectors in Vienna now believe that Mr. Salehi was probably accurate when he referred to two sites.
According to American officials, in recent weeks Israel — which uncovered some of the evidence about Qum — has pressed the case with their American counterparts that evidence points to what one senior administration official called “Qum look-alikes.”
The most compelling circumstantial evidence, people familiar with the inspectors’ view say, is that while Iran appears to be making new equipment to enrich uranium, that equipment is not showing up in the main plant that inspectors visit regularly. Nor is it at the Natanz site in the desert, or the new facility at Qum, which inspectors now visit periodically.
That has heightened suspicions that the equipment, produced in small factories around Iran, is being held in a clandestine storage area for later shipment or installed elsewhere.
The small manufacturing factories, spread around Iran to avoid detection and sabotage, are a particular target of American, Israeli and European intelligence agencies. Several of the plants appear to have been penetrated by intelligence agencies, which are receiving sporadic reports about what Iran is producing and troubles it has encountered in manufacturing centrifuges, the machines that spin at very high speeds to enrich uranium.
Assessments of the potential for hidden enrichment sites beyond Qum, and the continued production of centrifuges, is one of the main subjects of an update to the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. That update is being prepared for distribution to President Obama, his top national security team, and selected members of Congress.
Drafts of the highly classified document are now being circulated inside the intelligence community, officials say, but its broader publication has been delayed, in part because of concerns that the early drafts failed to deal with key decisions that Mr. Obama must soon address, especially if long-delayed sanctions fail to change Iran’s current course.
When the last intelligence estimate was published, in November 2007, officials did not know about the Qum plant. Evidence of the plant was discovered later, and contributed to criticism of the report, which also concluded that Iran had halted work on designing nuclear weapons in 2003.
That conclusion, officials say, is also being rewritten, with the United States now joining European and Israeli assessments that research and development work, if halted seven years ago, has probably resumed. “The new report walks away, carefully, from many of the key conclusions of the previous version,” said one person familiar with its contents.
Besides Qum, it is unclear whether the new conclusion is based on new intelligence breakthroughs, or a revised interpretation of the existing evidence.
Iran revealed the existence of the Qum plant to the I.A.E.A. last September, apparently after learning that its existence was now known to the West. Iran subsequently told inspectors that it began work on the plant in 2007 and planned to complete it by 2011, and that it would be filled with 3,000 centrifuges.
Though Tehran’s leaders insist the plant, like their entire program, is for peaceful purposes, that is considered too few centrifuges for a commercial site but ideal for a clandestine military plant meant to make bomb fuel.
But little progress has been made. In their most recent report, the inspectors said that some construction at the Qum site was continuing, adding, however, that “no centrifuges had been introduced” as of Feb. 16.
But officials note that for all the digging, nuclear fuel production in Iran is behind schedule. While the Qum plant is only partly built, its main enrichment plant, at Natanz, operates at a tiny fraction of its intended capacity.
If Iran is indeed making plans to build new facilities, it would be in violation of its agreement with the I.A.E.A. In reports and interviews, inspectors have said they received no notice of new Iranian preparatory activity.
In 2003, Iran signed an agreement with the agency to turn over design information on new facilities. Iran repudiated the agreement in March 2007.
Iran's Nuclear Program: What Is Known and Unknown
Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad celebrated the anniversary of Iran's 1979 revolution on February 11 by proclaiming that Iran is a "nuclear state."[1] Iran's radical Shia Islamist regime clearly sees its nuclear program as a means of bolstering its sagging legitimacy and popularity, while expanding its prestige and global influence. It also sees nuclear weapons as a potent equalizer that could deter external attack and ensure its own survival. Tehran has spurned aggressive diplomatic offers from the Obama Administration to resolve the outstanding nuclear issue, just as it spurned efforts by the Bush Administration and by Britain, France, and Germany. As Ahmadinejad said in 2007, Iran's nuclear program is like a train "with no brakes and no reverse gear."[2] Despite five U.N. Security Council resolutions and three rounds of U.N. sanctions, Iran's nuclear train speeds onward.
Iran has forged ahead on its nuclear program despite growing international pressure to comply with its nuclear safeguard agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Since the discovery of its secret uranium enrichment facility at Natanz in 2002, Tehran has failed to keep its repeated pledges to cooperate fully with the IAEA to demonstrate that it has not used its civilian nuclear program as a fig leaf to mask a nuclear weapons program. Tehran has refused to fully disclose its nuclear activities and to stop its uranium enrichment efforts, which can produce fuel for nuclear reactors or, with further enrichment, the fissile material for a nuclear weapon. Iran has also pushed ahead on its ballistic missile program and building a nuclear warhead that can be delivered by a missile.
The Obama Administration has sought to engage Iran diplomatically to defuse the nuclear standoff, but with little success. Instead, over the past year, Iran has spurned Western proposals to resolve the nuclear issue, insisted that it will continue to expand its nuclear program, installed hundreds more centrifuges to enrich uranium, been caught secretly constructing another uranium enrichment facility, and pledged to build 10 more.
Moreover, on December 14, 2009, The Times of London reported that Western intelligence agencies had uncovered Iranian documents indicating that Iranian scientists had tested a neutron initiator, the component that triggers a nuclear weapon. A neutron initiator has no peaceful application. This discovery directly contradicts the U.S. intelligence community's position that Iran halted nuclear weapons-related work in 2003.[3] On December 18, Iran announced that it was testing more advanced centrifuges, which could enrich uranium faster.
Since 2002, the IAEA has bent over backwards to give Iran the benefit of the doubt, in large part due to the politicized leadership of IAEA Director General Mohammed ElBaradei, who was an outspoken critic of the Bush Administration and often acted as an apologist for Iran. In November 2009, ElBaradei was replaced by Yukiya Amano of Japan.
Under Director General Amano's leadership, the IAEA appears to be taking a more objective look at the Iranian nuclear program. On February 18, it issued a confidential report that warned for the first time of evidence that Tehran is working on a nuclear warhead for its missiles.[4] This warning contradicts the controversial 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which concluded that Iran had stopped working on a nuclear weapon in 2003.[5]
It is time for the Obama Administration to acknowledge that its engagement policy has failed to budge the dictatorship in Tehran on the nuclear issue or on any other issue. As the history of Iran's nuclear program makes clear, Tehran has resisted multiple opportunities to defuse mounting tensions over its nuclear program.
What Is Known
Tehran claims that Iran's nuclear program is devoted solely to civilian nuclear power and research purposes. This contention is contradicted by many facts and by a series of recent revelations.
Fact #1: Iran has built an extensive and expensive nuclear infrastructure that is much larger than what would be necessary to support a civilian nuclear power program.
Iran's nuclear weapons program, cloaked within its civilian nuclear power program, has made steady advances. Iran operates a large uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, which it illegally sought to conceal until 2003, and it is building up a stockpile of enriched uranium that is of no current use in its civilian nuclear energy program.[6] Iran's only nuclear power plant, which Russian technicians have almost finished testing at Bushehr, does not need domestically produced nuclear fuel because Moscow has agreed to provide all the enriched uranium that Iran needs to operate it for the first 10 years of operation. Moreover, Iran does not have a fuel fabrication plant that can produce reactor fuel for the Bushehr facility.
Iran has pursued virtually every possible technology for producing nuclear fuel and did so covertly and in violation of its treaty obligations to keep the IAEA informed. This includes laser separation, a costly and complex technology to enrich uranium that is ill suited to producing fissile fuel for a reactor. Iran has also conducted plutonium experiments and is building a reactor that appears intended for the large-scale production of plutonium.[7]
The Iranian nuclear program cannot be justified on strictly economic or energy grounds. Iran lacks sufficient uranium reserves to run power reactors for more than 10 years and would eventually be forced to import either uranium yellowcake or finished fuel rods to operate them. Moreover, harnessing Iran's enormous natural gas reserves to generate electricity would be far less expensive, given that Iran is currently flaring and burning off natural gas as a byproduct of oil production.[8]
Iran had produced approximately 1,400 kilograms (kg) of low enriched uranium (LEU) metal at Natanz by January 31, 2010.[9] The LEU is enriched to the level of about 3.5 percent, and Tehran claims that it will be used for fuel rods for civilian nuclear reactors. Approximately 1,900 kilograms of LEU is needed to produce enough highly enriched uranium (20 kilograms) to build a nuclear weapon.[10] At its current rate of production, Iran will have enough LEU by the end of July to produce a nuclear weapon if it were further enriched. Once the decision is made, the uranium processing and weapon manufacturing could take as little as six months.[11] Experts quoted by The New York Times in December 2009 claimed that Iran's centrifuges could probably produce enough LEU for two weapons per year.[12]
Tehran is also building a heavy water reactor at Arak, which it tried to build secretly in violation of its treaty obligations. If this reactor is brought online, the plutonium that it produces can be accessed at any time. Once a state has acquired a functioning heavy water reactor like the one at Arak--or even a light water reactor like the one at Bushehr--and it is reprocessing spent fuel rods to extract the plutonium, it gains access to a much easier and more plentiful source of weapons-grade fissile material than is produced in most uranium enrichment facilities. Plutonium also offers the advantage of having a smaller critical mass (the minimum amount needed to produce a nuclear explosion) than uranium-235. Using plutonium allows construction of smaller and lighter nuclear warheads, which are more easily delivered by missiles.
Tehran claims that it needs the Arak facility to produce isotopes for medical purposes. In late October, IAEA inspectors discovered 600 barrels that Iran said contained heavy water, which is used in heavy water reactors as a neutron moderator and coolant.[13] Producing heavy water is very difficult and a major obstacle to operating a heavy water reactor. The heavy water discovered in October may have been secretly imported and is evidence of yet another failure of Tehran to disclose relevant information to the IAEA.[14] Moreover, the provision of heavy water to Iran would be an alarming case of nuclear proliferation, given its weapons-related applications.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards control key sectors of the nuclear program. Nuclear installations are concealed on military bases, dug into hardened sites built underground, and defended with anti-aircraft missiles. Tehran's continued claims that it is building only a civilian nuclear power program appear increasingly ludicrous in light of these facts and each new revelation.
Fact #2: Iran sought to buy technology from A. Q. Khan's nuclear weapon proliferation network, which also provided assistance to Libya and North Korea.
Concrete evidence has confirmed long-held suspicions that Iran advanced its nuclear weapons program in close cooperation with A. Q. Khan's proliferation network, which dealt in weapons-related nuclear technologies.[15] After initially denying this cooperation, Tehran eventually admitted that it had contacts with the network, but maintains that it broke off contact long ago.
Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, has proudly admitted his role in helping Iran's nuclear program. He admitted in a televised interview in August 2009 that he and other senior Pakistani officials had helped to advance Iran's nuclear weapons program.[16] If Iran's nuclear efforts were exclusively focused on civilian uses, as it maintains, it would have had no reason to collude with A. Q. Khan's nuclear smuggling operation, which specialized in the proliferation of nuclear weapons technologies.
Fact #3: Iran continues to conceal and lie about its nuclear weapons efforts.
Iran has a long record of denial and deceit on the nuclear issue.[17] The Iranian regime ordered covert research and development on nuclear weapons and built secret pilot projects on uranium conversion and uranium enrichment in violation of its safeguards agreement with the IAEA, and it lied about these activities for years. In 2003, after the U.S. military overthrew Saddam Hussein's regime in neighboring Iraq, in part because of Hussein's lack of cooperation with U.N. inspectors, Iran admitted some of these activities and agreed to cooperate more fully with the IAEA investigators. However, Tehran reneged on its promise to cooperate and reverted to a hard-line policy after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became president in 2005.
Today, Iran continues to stonewall IAEA efforts to investigate its suspect nuclear program. It refuses to answer questions about the mounting evidence of its past nuclear weapons development efforts, contending that documents indicating that it has carried out weapons design and testing work are forgeries. It has illegally neglected its treaty obligations to provide advance notice of new nuclear facilities and allow IAEA inspectors to have regular access to facilities under construction. The IAEA has also discovered that Tehran engaged in clandestine nuclear activities that violated its nuclear safeguards agreement, such as plutonium separation experiments, uranium enrichment and conversion experiments, and importing uranium compounds.[18]
Iran continues to play a cat and mouse game with IAEA inspectors by hiding facilities, equipment, and materials from them and by refusing to give them timely access to other facilities. In September, Tehran was forced to admit the existence of a clandestine uranium enrichment facility near the city of Qom. President Barack Obama announced its discovery shortly after Western intelligence agencies had identified it.
Further stoking suspicions about Iran, The Times reported on December 14, 2009, that Iran was working on a trigger mechanism for a nuclear weapon as recently as 2007,[19] four years after American intelligence agencies assessed that Iran had suspended its weaponization efforts. The documents describe a four-year plan to test a neutron initiator, a sophisticated trigger that is one of the final hurdles for building a nuclear weapon. Significantly, the documents described the same type of neutron initiator that Pakistan received from China in the early 1980s and then passed on to Libya in the early 2000s.[20] The IAEA also found evidence of work with polonium-210 in 2004, which suggests that Iran may have been working on a neutron generator. Iran has not adequately explained the discovery.[21]
Mark Fitzpatrick, a former State Department official who focused on Iranian nuclear issues, reacted to the discovery of the documents by saying: "Is this the smoking gun? That's the question people should be asking. It looks like the smoking gun. This is smoking uranium."[22]
There are also worrisome signs that Iran has made advances in uranium metallurgy, heavy water production, and the high-precision explosives used to detonate a nuclear weapon.[23] Iran already claims to produce four kinds of centrifuges used for enriching uranium. The fact that Iran's centrifuge output remained basically level in 2009 despite a high breakdown rate suggests Iran has improved its centrifuge designs and may be using more advanced designs.
A 2009 trial in Germany revealed that the German intelligence agency (BND) assesses that Iran is still pursuing a nuclear weapons program. The trial was interesting because the accused--Mohsen Vanaki, a German-Iranian arrested in 2007 for brokering the transfer of dual-use nuclear equipment to Iran--attempted to use the 2007 NIE as a defense. A lower German court ruled in Vanaki's favor and against the BND based on the NIE's conclusion that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. However, a higher German court sided with the BND's position that Iran's nuclear weapons program is active and provided a report that noted the similarities between Iran's procurement efforts and those of countries with known nuclear weapons programs, such as North Korea and Libya.[24]
More recently, the IAEA issued a confidential report to its Board of Governors on February 18 stating for the first time that it had received extensive information from a variety of sources that "raises concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile."[25] The report also noted that Tehran has not cooperated in confirming that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities. Tehran has failed to adequately address IAEA concerns on a wide spectrum of issues including: activities involving high precision detonators; studies on the initiation of high explosives and missile reentry engineering; the "green salt project," which involves the conversion of UO2 to UF4; and various procurement-related activities.[26]
The report also confirmed that Iran has begun to enrich uranium to 19.8 percent using a small number of centrifuges, supposedly for the Tehran Research Reactor, a source of medical isotopes. The IAEA reported that Iran already has moved centrifuges from the Natanz uranium enrichment facility to the new facility at Qom. Centrifuges may also have been moved to other, unknown facilities. This is a major cause for concern because IAEA safeguards apply only to nuclear material, not to equipment such as centrifuges.[27]
Fact #4: Iran rejected a nuclear deal that would have advanced its civilian nuclear efforts, belying its claims that civilian purposes are its only motivation.
Tehran has walked away from an offer brokered by the IAEA to enrich Iranian uranium in facilities outside Iran to refuel the Tehran Research Reactor. On October 1, 2009, Iran reached an "agreement in principle" at the Geneva talks that would have sent roughly 80 percent of Iran's LEU stockpile to Russia for processing and then to France for fabrication into fuel rods. The uranium would then be returned to Iran to power its research reactor, which will run out of fuel at the end of 2010. This deal would have benefited Iran by extending the operational life of its Tehran Research Reactor and aiding hundreds of thousands of medical patients. It would also have temporarily defused the nuclear standoff by reducing Iran's steadily growing LEU stockpile and postponing Iran's ability to build a nuclear weapon.
After reaching the agreement in principle, the Iranian regime backpedaled and made an unacceptable counterproposal in mid-December that would have greatly reduced the amount of uranium that would leave Iran. U.S. officials say that Ahmadinejad initially accepted the deal, but was rebuked by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and pulled back from it.[28] On November 3, Ayatollah Khamenei warned Iranian political leaders to be wary of dealings with the United States, which could not be trusted, and said that negotiating with the United States was "naïve and perverted."[29]
The Iranian regime's initial acceptance and subsequent rejection of the nuclear deal is consistent with its long-established pattern of cheat, retreat, and delay on nuclear issues. When caught cheating on its nuclear safeguards obligations, Tehran has repeatedly promised to cooperate with the IAEA to defuse the situation and to halt the momentum for imposing further sanctions. Then, after the crisis is averted, it reneges on its promises and stonewalls IAEA requests for more information. These delaying tactics consume valuable time, which Iran has used to press ahead with its nuclear weapons research.
What Is Unknown
Many important things about Iran's nuclear program are simply not known because of Iran's systematic efforts to conceal and lie about its activities.
Unknown #1: How close is Iran to attaining a nuclear weapon?
It is not known when Iran will take the final steps to build a nuclear weapon. The uranium enrichment facility at Natanz is producing LEU at a rate that will give Tehran enough LEU by the end of July to build one nuclear device if the LEU is enriched further to weapons-grade levels.[30] Tehran could then finish the enrichment process and amass enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon by the end of the year.[31] Natanz subsequently could produce enough LEU to permit construction of two bombs per year.[32] Iran is also constructing a research reactor at Arak, which could begin producing weapons-grade plutonium as early as 2013.
Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran's nuclear program, said on December 18 that Iran has been testing more advanced centrifuge models that will be installed in early 2011. These new models will be faster and more efficient than the old centrifuges, allowing Iran to accelerate the pace of its nuclear program. Salehi claimed that more than 6,000 centrifuges were enriching uranium, which is 2,000 more than the IAEA's November report indicated.[33]
Some, including the U.S. intelligence community, believe that the Iranian leadership has not yet made the strategic decision to pursue nuclear weapons. This position has always been controversial given Iran's huge economic investment in the nuclear program, longstanding willingness to defy sanctions, and well-established pattern of confrontational behavior. It is now nearly impossible to defend this proposition after press reports of Iranian work on neutron initiators, the revelation of the clandestine Qom enrichment facility, and the IAEA's recent finding that Iran was working on a nuclear warhead for a missile.
Unknown #2: How extensive is Iranian-North Korean nuclear cooperation?
North Korea and Iran share a common hostility to the United States and have a long history of military and economic cooperation. Iran's ballistic missile force, the largest in the Middle East, is largely based on transferred North Korean missiles and weapon designs. North Korea has also sold Iran conventional weapons, including rocket launchers, small arms, and mini-submarines. The two countries are known to have close intelligence ties and to exchange intelligence regularly.[34]
The extent of North Korean cooperation with Iran on nuclear issues remains unknown. However, both are known to have received help from A. Q. Khan's proliferation network.[35] Iran helped to finance North Korea's nuclear program in exchange for nuclear technology and equipment, according to CIA sources cited in a 1993 Economist Foreign Report.[36] Increased visits to Iran by North Korean nuclear specialists in 2003 reportedly led to a North Korea-Iran agreement for North Korea either to initiate or to accelerate work with Iranians to develop nuclear warheads that could be fitted on the North Korean No-Dong missiles, which North Korea and Iran were developing jointly.[37]
North Korea has also threatened to transfer a nuclear weapon. According to Michael Green, former Senior Director for Asia at the National Security Council, the head of the North Korean delegation to the nuclear talks confirmed in March 2003 that North Korea had a "nuclear deterrent" and threatened that North Korea would "expand," "demonstrate," and "transfer" the deterrent if the United States did not end its hostile policy.[38] Senior U.S. officials warned the North Koreans that transfer would cross a red line, but Pyongyang evidently brushed aside the warning and cooperated extensively with Syria in building a nuclear reactor, which could have advanced a nuclear weapons program. Green noted that the al-Kibar reactor site, which Israel bombed on September 6, 2007, provided ample evidence of North Korean collusion on nuclear proliferation: "U.S. intelligence officials later confirmed that the reactor was being built on North Korean specs, with North Korean technicians on-site."[39]
Since Pyongyang risked nuclear cooperation with Syria, similar nuclear cooperation with Iran is easy to envision given their much closer ties. The Syrian nuclear project also may have involved Iran, which could greatly benefit from secret facilities located outside its own territory. Der Spiegel reported that North Korean and Iranian scientists were working together at the Syrian reactor when Israel bombed it. Some of the reactor's plutonium production was reportedly designated for Iran, which perceived the Syrian reactor as a "reserve site" to produce weapons-grade plutonium to supplement Iran's production of highly enriched uranium.[40] In late February, Western officials leaked the fact that before the nuclear reactor was attacked North Korea had delivered 45 tons of unenriched uranium concentrate known as "yellowcake" to Syria and that the North Koreans subsequently moved the material to Iran via Turkey.[41]
Another worrisome link between North Korea and Iran involves illegal arms transfers. In August 2008, the U.S. invoked the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) to convince India to prevent the overflight of its country by a North Korean flight from Burma to Iran. Although not a member of the PSI, India complied and blocked the flight.[42] What the cargo plane was carrying is not known, but the PSI applies only to missiles and nuclear weapons (e.g., components, technology, and materials). Any North Korean attempt to transfer such items would violate U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1695 and 1718.
Unknown #3: How much foreign assistance has Iran's nuclear program received?
A critical question is how much foreign help Iran has received, in addition to assistance from North Korea and the A. Q. Khan network. The timeline for Iran's nuclear weapons program could be dramatically shortened if it has received substantial foreign assistance in acquiring nuclear technologies, knowledge, or fissile material. The assistance of former Soviet nuclear scientists has long been a subject of speculation and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reportedly delivered a list of Russian scientists suspected of helping Iran's nuclear program during a mysterious visit to Moscow to meet with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.[43] The Sueddeutsche Zeitung recently reported that Western intelligence agencies have confirmed that Iran has been assisted by a former Soviet scientist who had worked on advanced nuclear warheads in a Soviet nuclear weapons laboratory.[44] There are also longstanding concerns that Iran could accelerate its nuclear efforts by secretly acquiring weapons-grade fissile material from foreign sources.[45]
Where Are We Now?
Iran has relentlessly made steady progress on its nuclear weapons program and soon could acquire nuclear weapons. It continues to violate its IAEA safeguards agreement, refuses to comply with five U.N. Security Council Resolutions on the nuclear issue, and has repeatedly been caught red-handed building secret nuclear facilities and violating U.N. Security Council resolutions that prohibit supplying arms to Hezbollah, its terrorist client group in Lebanon. Meanwhile, it has periodically tested missiles to trumpet its defiance, while systematically repressing and intimidating its own people after they objected to the fraudulent presidential elections in June.
On November 27, 2009, the IAEA Board of Governors passed a resolution demanding that Iran stop construction of the newly exposed uranium enrichment facility near Qom and referred the issue to the U.N. Security Council. This paves the way for expanded U.N. sanctions. Iran responded not only by refusing to halt enrichment efforts, but also by proclaiming its intention to undertake a massive expansion of its enrichment facilities. President Ahmadinejad unveiled plans to build 10 more enrichment plants at a cabinet meeting on November 29. Ali Larijani, the speaker of Iran's parliament who formerly led Iran's nuclear negotiations, warned that Iran may decide to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Iran has consistently concealed and lied about its nuclear program and cannot be trusted to abide by any agreements it signs. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband complained that "Instead of engaging with us, Iran chooses to provoke and dissemble."[46] On December 14, 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton remarked:
We have reached out. We have offered the opportunity to engage in meaningful, serious discussions with our Iranian counterparts. We have joined fully in the P-5+1 process. We've been at the table. But I don't think anyone can doubt that our outreach has produced very little in terms of any kind of positive response from the Iranians.[47]
Ahmadinejad's regime has made a mockery of the Obama Administration's engagement policy, which was based on the assumption that Iran's ruthless regime sought better relations with the United States and the West. Yet Iran's rulers fear Washington's friendship more than they fear its enmity. Their power and legitimacy is based on resistance to the United States ("the Great Satan") and enforcing Ayatollah Khamenei's harsh vision of God's will, not carrying out the will of their own people.[48]
The Obama Administration's nuclear engagement strategy was also based on the assumption that Iran's unscrupulous Islamist regime could be trusted to come clean on the nuclear issue. This expectation was shattered on September 25, 2009, when President Obama announced in a joint press conference with British and French leaders that Western intelligence agencies had discovered another secret Iranian nuclear facility hidden inside a mountain near Qom.
"Crippling Sanctions." The Obama Administration needs to make good on its promise to ratchet up international pressure to dissuade Iran from continuing to pursue its goal of acquiring nuclear weapons. If Tehran builds a nuclear weapon, it will not only increase Iran's ability to threaten its neighbors and U.S. interests, but also trigger a destabilizing nuclear arms race in the already volatile Middle East.[49] Since 2006, 15 other Middle Eastern states have announced their intentions to begin or expand civilian nuclear energy programs, possible precursors to nuclear weapons programs.
Yet the Obama Administration has resisted congressional efforts to provide it with more sanctions leverage over Tehran. On December 11, Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg wrote a letter to Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, requesting that the committee postpone consideration of sanctions legislation against Iran.[50] Steinberg asked for the delay "so as not to undermine the Administration's diplomacy at this critical juncture."[51]
Despite this request to the Senate, the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act passed the House (H.R. 2194) on December 15, 2009, by an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 412 to 12. On March 11, 2010, the Senate passed the bill by unanimous consent after amending it. This bill would penalize companies that help Iran to import gasoline and other refined petroleum products by denying them access to U.S. markets. The Senate passed its own Iran sanctions legislation (S. 2799) on January 28, which would impose similar penalties on companies that export gasoline and other refined petroleum products to Iran, add sanctions on leading officials of the ruling regime, and tighten export controls. It is difficult to understand why the Administration now opposes the kind of "crippling sanctions" that it promised to impose and that Barack Obama promised as a presidential candidate if Iran continued to drag its feet on the nuclear issue.
The United States cannot afford to rely solely on the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran. Russia and China have repeatedly weakened and delayed any action there. Therefore, Washington should push for the strongest possible sanctions that it can squeeze out of the Security Council, but press its allies and other countries to impose even stronger sanctions outside the U.N. framework, such as freezing foreign investment in Iran, banning gasoline exports to Iran, banning the travel by Iranian officials abroad, and generally raising the price that the regime must pay to continue its nuclear program.
Fixing the NIE. The Obama Administration should also update and correct the flawed 2007 NIE on Iran's nuclear program.[52] In 2009, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair reaffirmed the 2007 NIE's finding that Tehran had shut down its nuclear weapons and covert uranium enrichment activities in the fall of 2003. Since then, more evidence has come to light, indicating that Iran has continued its nuclear weapons efforts or restarted them.[53] The governments of Britain, France, Israel, and Germany have publicly disagreed with the 2007 NIE's assessment.
A new look at the controversial NIE is long overdue. Representative Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), the Ranking Member on the House Intelligence Committee, has called for the establishment of a "red team" of non-government experts to review intelligence on Iran's nuclear program and issue an independent report.[54] Representative Hoekstra is right.
Conclusion
Iran's strategy remains clear: to hide and lie about its nuclear program, feign cooperation with the IAEA to delay any sanctions, depend on its Russian and Chinese friends to block any effective sanctions in the Security Council, and eventually present the world with a nuclear fait accompli.
Regrettably, the Obama Administration remains wedded to its engagement policy, which unrealistically seeks to strike a deal with the implacably hostile regime whose self-defined ideological legitimacy is unceasing antagonism to the United States. Even if a diplomatic agreement could be reached on the nuclear issue, it would be foolhardy to expect Iran's unscrupulous dictatorship to permanently abide by such an agreement. Yet the Administration continues to seek such a deal over the bloodied heads of Iranian opposition forces.
Iran is the world's foremost sponsor of terrorism and cannot be allowed to obtain the ultimate terrorist weapon: an atomic bomb. Yet Ahmadinejad's nuclear train rumbles onward. Unless the Obama Administration alters its Iran strategy and moves rapidly to mobilize support for effective sanctions, there will eventually be a nuclear train wreck.
James Phillips is Senior Research Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation.
Israel could use tactical nukes on Iran: CSIS
Reuters
Friday, March 26, 2010; 7:13 AM
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Deeply concerned as it is by the risk of a nuclear-armed Iran, Israel has never even hinted at using atomic weapons to forestall the perceived threat.
But now a respected Washington think tank has said that low-radioactive yield "tactical" nuclear warheads would be one way for the Israelis to destroy Iranian uranium enrichment plants in remote, dug-in fortifications.
Despite the 65-year-old taboo against carrying out -- or, for that matter, mooting -- nuclear strikes, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) says in a new report that "some believe that nuclear weapons are the only weapons that can destroy targets deep underground or in tunnels."
But other independent experts are on record warning that such a scenario is based on the "myth" of a clean atomic attack and would be too politically hazardous to justify.
In their study titled "Options in Dealing with Iran's Nuclear Program," CSIS analysts Abdullah Toukan and Anthony Cordesman envisage the possibility of Israel "using these warheads as a substitute for conventional weapons" given the difficulty its jets would face in reaching Iran for anything more than a one-off sortie.
Ballistic missiles or submarine-launched cruise missiles could serve for Israeli tactical nuclear strikes without interference from Iranian air defenses, the 208-page report says. "Earth-penetrator" warheads would produce most damage.
Israel is widely assumed to have the Middle East's sole atomic arsenal. Israeli leaders do not comment on this capability other than to underscore its deterrent role; President Shimon Peres has said repeatedly that "Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the region."
A veteran Israeli defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said preemptive nuclear strikes were foreign to the national doctrine: "Such weapons exist so as not to be used."
A fixture of NATO and Soviet arsenals, tactical nuclear weapons are designed to deliver focused devastation with less contamination than city-killing bombs like those the United States dropped on Japan to end World War Two.
That damage containment would, in theory, off-set diplomatic fallout for whichever country were to use such arms on a foe.
FALLOUT
There has been speculation that the United States -- which, like Israel, has not ruled out military force to deny Iran atomic arms -- could itself resort to tactical nuclear strikes.
The Pentagon's 2002 Nuclear Posture Review, which was leaked to the media, spoke of the need to develop new "mini-nukes" for defeating bunker systems. The review cited Iran among potential enemies that might eventually warrant a U.S. nuclear deployment.
Yet Toukan and Cordesman think it "very unlikely that any U.S. president would authorize the use of such nuclear weapons, or even allow ... a strong ally such as Israel to use them, unless another country had used nuclear weapons against the U.S. and its allies."
They say the United States would be central to any diplomatic solution to the Iranian standoff and is the only country that could launch a successful military strike on Iran.
International experts who contributed essays to the 2003 book "Tactical Nuclear Weapons" mostly shied from hawkishness.
"Who could predict what might happen next if (the) taboo on the use of nuclear weapons were to be broken?" wrote former CIA director Stansfield Turner. "Getting tactical nuclear weapons under control, rather than attesting to their use by building new ones, should be our goal."
Princeton University physicist Robert Nelson assailed the idea that tactical nuclear weapons, detonated below ground, would pose tolerable risks for civilians and the environment.
"This is a dangerous myth. In fact, shallow buried nuclear explosions produce far more local fallout than air or surface explosions of the same yield," he argued.
Sam Gardiner, a retired U.S. air force colonel who runs wargames for various Washington agencies, said an Israeli decision on using non-conventional weapons against Iran would come down to how far its nuclear program was to be retarded.
Israel supports efforts by world powers to rein in Iran -- which denies seeking the bomb -- through sanctions, and some experts say any pre-emptive Israeli strike would aim to jolt international diplomats into finally knuckling down on Tehran.
"If a 3-to-5 year delay were the Israeli objective, I expect it would drive their target people to say the only way it could be done is with tactical nuclear weapons," Gardiner said.
"I expect the Israeli objective to be more like a year. That is doable without tactical nuclear weapons."
(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by William Maclean)
17.3.10
Iran ready for nuclear fuel exchange inside country
Iran's atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi revealed the new offer in an interview with hardline daily Jawan, signalling a major change in Tehran's longstanding position on the nuclear fuel plan first drafted last October.
Salehi said Iran is ready to deliver 1,200 kilogrammes (2,640 pounds) of low-enriched uranium (LEU) in one go in return for fuel for a Tehran medical research reactor, but the exchange must be inside the country.
Salehi, who is also a vice president, said Iran had earlier proposed to deliver its LEU only gradually in batches of 400 kilogrammes (880 pounds).
"But this has no technical justification because those who want to produce the (20 percent enriched) fuel say that this amount has no economic justification," Salehi said.
"What we are saying now is that we are ready to deliver the total amount of fuel in one go, on condition that the exchange take place inside Iran and simultaneously.
"We are ready to deliver 1,200 kilos and to receive 120 kilos (264 pounds) of 20 percent enriched uranium."
According to the latest report by the UN atomic watchdog, Iran currently has around 2,065 kilogrammes (4,543 pounds) of LEU which it processed at its Natanz plant in defiance of repeated Security Council ultimatums and three rounds of UN sanctions.
Iran's latest offer is significant as it had previously baulked at the idea of delivering 1,200 kilos of LEU in one go, insisting that it would only hand over the stocks in phases.
Under the plan drawn up by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Russia would have produced the 20 percent enriched uranium, which would have then been converted into fuel by France.
Iranian officials had strongly opposed the plan as they saw it as a ruse by Western powers to deprive Iran of its uranium stockpile, and had put forward a rival proposal to either buy the 20 percent enriched uranium fuel on the international market or conduct a fuel swap in stages on Iranian territory.
Uranium enrichment is the most controversial part of Iran's nuclear programme as Western governments fear some of the stocks could be covertly diverted for further enrichment to weapons grade, a suspicion rejected by Iran.
Tehran infuriated Washington in February by starting to enrich uranium to 20 percent itself, seen as a key step towards the 93 percent level required to make a weapon.
Salehi said what was important for Iran was that the fuel exchange happen on its own soil and that it be given guarantees it would receive the 20 percent enriched uranium.
"When we say that the exchange has to happen inside Iran, it means the (International Atomic Energy) Agency will take control of 1,200 kilos of our LEU and then seal it," Salehi said.
He said the UN watchdog's representatives could then "monitor it 24 hours a day and ensure that nobody broke the seal".
"When they (the major powers) deliver the 20 percent fuel to us, they can then take the LEU out of the country."
Western governments have opposed the idea of exchanging the fuel inside Iran and in recent weeks have stepped up pressure for a new round of UN sanctions against Tehran with Moscow's support.
But one of the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council, China, is still holding out against new sanctions with the support of some non-permanent members.
"This issue has to be appropriately resolved through peaceful negotiations," Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said in Beijing on Tuesday after talks with his British counterpart David Miliband.
Report: U.S. positioning 'bunker-busters' for possible Iran strike
By Haaretz Service:
The United States is transporting 387 "bunker-buster" bombs to its air base on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean as part of preparations for a possible strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, according to a report in Scotland's Sunday Herald.
The U.S. government signed a contract in January with Superior Maritime Services to transport 10 ammunition containers to Diego Garcia from Concord, California. The shipment includes 195 smart, guided Blu-110 bombs and 192 Blu-117 2,000lb bombs.
Both types of bombs could be used against reinforced or underground facilities.
Neither the United States nor Israel have ruled out military action if diplomacy fails to resolve the long-running row over Iran's disputed nuclear ambitions.
Contract details for the shipment were posted on an international tenders' website by the U.S. Navy.
"They are gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran," Dan Plesch, director of the Center for International Studies and Diplomacy at the University of London, told the Herald. "U.S. bombers are ready today to destroy 10,000 targets in Iran in a few hours."
Plesch is the co-author of a recent study on U.S. preparations for an attack on Iran.
The final decision on whether to launch an attack would be in the hands of U.S. President Barack Obama. Obama may decide it would be better for the U.S. to strike instead of Israel, Plesch said.
"The U.S. is not publicizing the scale of these preparations to deter Iran, tending to make confrontation more likely," he added. "The U.S....is using its forces as part of an overall strategy of shaping Iran's actions."
Diego Garcia is a British territory about 1,000 miles south of India and Sri Lanka. It is used as a U.S. military base as part of an agreement reached in 1971.
In the past, the British Defense Ministry has said that the U.S. would need permission to use Diego Garcia for offensive action. It has already been used in operations against Iraq during the 1991 and 2003 Gulf wars.
The U.S. Department of Defense did not respond to a request for a comment from the Sunday Herald
US: Iran nuclear weapon development has slowed
Comments by U.S. General David Petraeus and senior government officials underscored the Obama administration's message to Israel and Gulf allies -- that there is time to pressure Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons program by imposing more economic sanctions without resorting to force.
Obama's top military advisers -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- have made public their growing doubts about military action, warning Israel that an attack could have unintended consequences and merely set back Iran's program temporarily.
During a visit to Israel last week, Vice President Joe Biden received assurances from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that his country would give a new round of sanctions against Iran a chance.
But the two governments appeared at odds over how forcefully and how soon to act if that round, now under consideration, does not succeed in persuading Iran to back down, U.S. and Israeli officials said.
"We have a common assessment: the regime is vulnerable at the moment and sanctions have a chance of having an impact. But this can't be strung out for too long," an Israeli official said on condition of anonymity.
While stressing its sense of urgency about the threat, the Obama administration has made clear it will need to assess the impact of whatever new sanctions are put in place before moving to additional measures.
"There is far more that unites Washington and Jerusalem than divides Washington and Jerusalem on Iran," said Middle East expert David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "Both countries believe U.N.-backed sanctions need to be tried, hoping that tougher measures can be averted."
"Yet there are differences" over tactics and the right mix of sanctions to use, Makovsky said. In addition, "it seems the U.S. and Israel could have different clocks about how long sanctions are given a chance to work before more coercive measures are considered."
SHIFTING ESTIMATES
U.S. officials cite estimates that Iran, which denies it is seeking to build nuclear weapons, could have a nuclear weapon by the middle of this decade.
"Iran has to go through a lot of steps before it produces a 'no-kidding' nuclear weapon," said a U.S. official familiar with the intelligence.
Israel, which is believed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal, sees an Iranian warhead by 2014 and believes a prototype may only be "months away."
Asked at a Senate hearing when Iran would have a nuclear bomb, Petraeus said: "It has, thankfully, slid to the right a bit and it is not this calendar year, I don't think."
He did not elaborate.
Last month, the U.S. director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, said Iranian advancements in enriching uranium and other areas showed the government was "technically capable" of producing enough highly enriched uranium for a weapon in the "next few years, if it chooses to do so."
Blair cited information published by the International Atomic Energy Agency showing that the number of centrifuges installed at Iran's enrichment plant at Natanz had grown to more than 8,000 from about 3,000 in late 2007.
But he said Iran appeared to be "experiencing some problems" at Natanz and was operating only about half of the installed centrifuges, constraining its overall ability to produce larger quantities of low-enriched uranium.
Petraeus made clear on Tuesday that contingency planning was under way at the Pentagon should Obama decide on military action, noting that Obama had "explicitly stated that he has not taken the military option off the table."
But he and other officials said the administration's focus was on using sanctions to get Tehran to change its behavior.
Biden, in an interview with Reuters at the end of his Middle East tour, said the Obama administration's outreach to Iran, dismissed by some as naive, helped galvanize the international community to address the Iranian issue.
While nuclear development may have slowed by some estimates, Washington believes Iran continues to expand the scale, reach and sophistication of its ballistic missiles.
In response, Washington has expanded what Petraeus called a "regional security architecture" that includes a network of shared early-warning systems and ballistic missile defenses.
Some lawmakers point to signs that the Obama administration is moving to a containment strategy, rather than one aimed at denying Iran a nuclear weapon. Petraeus called that a "big policy hypothetical," describing U.S. policy as clear: "The president has said that Iran cannot have nuclear weapons."
8.3.10
Petraeus: Iran becoming a 'thugocracy'
CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus took several hard shots at Iran on Sunday, saying the country was becoming a “thugocracy” and calling President Mamoud Ahmadinejad “our best recruiting officer.”
Iran’s security forces are playing less of a role in Iraq now, since they “have had to focus a great deal more on internal security challenges than they did in the past,” Petraeus told Fareed Zakaria on CNN.
“Iran has gone from a theocracy to a thugacracy,” he said, “because of the citizens who are outraged by the hijacking of the election that took place last June.”
Saying that Iran has rejected the open hand that the Obama administration extended, Petraeus said, “The result is the transition by not just the United States -- France the U.K., even Russia are all seeing the need to transition to the so-called pressure track, with much stiffer sanctions and so forth.”
Asked whether a nuclear Iran could be contained, Petraeus said, “First of all you have to ask the country that is most directly concerns about this, and that would be Israel.”
In the gulf states, Petraeus said, “There’s almost a slight degree of bipolarity there at times. On the one hand there are countries that would like to see a strike – perhaps Israeli– there’s the worry that someone will strike. And then there’s the worry that someone won’t strike.”
“President Ahmadinejad is often our best recruiting officer,” Petraeus said, because his actions and his rhetoric are causing much more embrace of CENTCOM and other activities than would otherwise be the case.”