Between The Lines

Hezbollah’s relationship with the LAF

2010-08-05T19:26:00.004+03:00

Here you can read my op-ed in Now Lebanon in which I comment on the latest clashes in south Lebanon.

Resolution Green-Lighting Israeli Strikes on Iran Introduced by House Republicans

2010-07-23T23:32:00.004+03:00

Jamal Abdi
Policy Director, National Iranian American Council

Republicans in the House of Representatives have introduced a measure that would green-light an Israeli bombing campaign against Iran. The resolution, H.Res. 1553 (in full below), provides explicit support for military strikes against Iran, stating that Congress supports Israel's use of "all means necessary" against Iran "including the use of military force". US military leaders have warned that strikes could be catastrophic to US national security interests and could engulf the Middle East in a "calamitous" regional war.
Nearly a third of House Republicans have signed onto the resolution, which has been publicly discussed and circulated by its lead sponsor, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), for months. The National Iranian American Council is leading calls to oppose the measure, urging those concerned to demand that House Republican Leader John Boehner denounce the resolution.
The introduction of the measure coincides with a pattern of renewed calls for military strikes that have escalated since President Obama signed "crippling" Congressional Iran sanctions into law. Neoconservatives who were instrumental in orchestrating the Iraq War, such as Bill Kristol, and Reuel Marc Gerecht, have led the stepped up calls for military action.
Hawkish former Bush Administration official John Bolton recently laid out the game plan to prod Israel into attacking Iran, arguing that outsiders can "create broad support" for a strike by framing it as an issue of Israel's right to self defense. Supporters for military strikes, Bolton says, should "defend the specific tactic of pre-emptive attacks" against Iran. He urges that Congress can "make it clear" that it supports such strikes and that "having visible congressional support in place at the outset will reassure the Israeli government, which is legitimately concerned about Mr. Obama's likely negative reaction to such an attack."
In spite of enthusiasm from the neocons, top US military leaders have warned of the many dangers of military strikes against Iran. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has argued, "Another war in the Middle East is the last thing we need. In fact, I believe it would be disastrous on a number of levels." Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has expressed his own serious reservations about an attack, stating, "Iran getting a nuclear weapon would be incredibly destabilizing. Attacking them would also create the same kind of outcome. In an area that's so unstable right now, we just don't need more of that." General David Petraeus has warned that a strike on Iran would be utilized by the Iranian government to unite it's otherwise divided populace.
Simulations have been conducted over the past year to assess the outcome of a preemptive military strike against Iran. One such simulation, by the Brookings Institution's Saban Center, found that strikes would draw the US into the conflict that would engulf the region into war, and would enable Iran to use the attacks as an opportunity to unite the Iranian people and dismantle its opposition. The simulation also found that the strikes could not destroy Iran's nuclear program but merely set it back a few years.
An Oxford Research Group report released recently reinforced those findings and also warned that an Israeli attack would be disastrous and would be unlikely to stop Iran's nuclear program. Instead, the report concluded attacks could convince Iran to withdraw from the international Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and to aggressively seek to develop nuclear weapons.
Iranian activists have urged that even raising the specter of war undercuts the opposition in Iran. "The mere fact that Obama didn't make military threats made the Green Movement possible," noted Akbar Ganji. "A military attack would destroy all of that."

Is Amiri An Old Aid For CIA?

2010-07-17T00:19:00.004+03:00

Shehram Amiri, the Iranian scientist who American officials say defected to the United States, only to return to Tehran on Thursday, had been an informant for the Central Intelligence Agency inside Iran for several years, providing information about the country’s nuclear program, according to United States officials, NYTimes reported today.
US officials told the WSJ that Amiri "has given significant, original information that's checked out".
The Washington Post reported yesterday that Amiri received a payment of $5 million that was put into U.S. bank accounts to which he had access from Iran.
A U.S. official familiar with the case of the Iranian nuclear scientist says the United States "clearly got the better end of things."

An Attack on Iran: Back on the Table

2010-07-17T00:13:00.000+03:00

An Attack on Iran: Back on the Table

'Iran nearing nuclear bombs' Russia warns

2010-07-12T16:55:00.001+03:00

(BBC)

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says Iran is "moving closer" to having the potential to create nuclear weapons.

It is one of the first times Moscow has publicly recognised that Iran might be moving towards a nuclear weapon.

Russia, which has strong economic and military ties with Iran, has traditionally been an ally of Tehran.

But it has recently adopted a tougher stance towards Tehran's nuclear drive, and backed the fourth round of UN sanctions that was imposed last month.

"Iran is moving closer to possessing the potential which in principle could be used for the creation of nuclear weapons," Mr Medvedev told a meeting of ambassadors in Moscow.

The US and major European Union powers suspect that Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear programme is peaceful.

On 10 June, the UN Security Council endorsed a fourth round of sanctions on Iran, including tighter financial curbs and an expanded arms embargo.

Since then, the US and EU have unilaterally imposed additional sanctions, including a ban on investment in Iran's oil and gas industry, as well as trade with key banks and individuals.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has dismissed the vote and rejected calls to halt uranium enrichment - which could have military as well as civilian uses.

Hezbollah denies Fadlallah the Status Of Marja

2010-07-05T15:34:00.004+03:00

In an op- ed he wrote to Annahar commemorating late Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadllalah, Lebanon's Speaker of The House Nabih Berri refrained from using the word "Marja", Arabic to religious and spiritual reference, while referring to Fadllalah.

However, Berri, known for his polished pragmatic tactics, used the word "marja" in his op-ed, yet in a general manner and not in the main title of the late cleric, hence not alarming Hezbollah. Berri himself had a difficult relation with Fadlallah.

Shiites believers choose a marja, whose teachings they follow and to whom they give alms.

While Ayatollah Fadlallah was a marja to Shiites across the Islamic world, in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, as well as in Arab nations, Hezbollah never acknowledged his status. His relation with Hezbollah has suffered ever since 1989, when Hezbollah chose to subscribe to the successors of the founder of The Islamic Republic of Iran Ayatollah Khomeini.

Like Berri, Almanar TV, Hezbollah's propaganda arm, referred to him only as Ayatollah.

In fact the question of the " marjaiyah", has received more urgency in the event of Fadlallah's death. The late sayed is one of two influential Shiite clerics who oppose the theory of "wilayat Al Faqeeh", Rule of the Jurisprudent, the second being Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Iraq.

For beginners, this theory bestows on one individual the divine role of the Shiite 12 Imam Almahdi, and entitles him to be his deputy. Almahdi is messianic Shiite figure who went into occultation in the 9th century and whom Shiite believe he will re-appear before the Day Of Judgment, to rid the world of wrongdoing, injustice and tyranny.

The position of the Waley Alfaqeeh is now occupied by Ayatollah Ali Khamenie of Iran.

Fadlallah argued for the institutionalization of the "marjaiya" as opposed to individual based rule.

Other Shiite clerics, who would at a certain point qualify as "marja" are politically subordinates to the autocratic regime in Iran.

The War on The Truth

2010-06-30T19:57:00.003+03:00

For all of those following the detained Alfa employee story, pay attention to the sensitive and gigantic role attributed to him in March 8 media, where the coverage focuses on one particular aspect: Whatever this employee's role was, it is supposed to have allowed the Israelis to "manipulate cell phone data", meaning it allowed Israeli intelligence agencies to fabricate cell phone activities (calls and SMSs) on certain accounts behind subscribers' backs.

Whether the Alfa employee is an Israeli spy or not, is something to be determined through official investigation, however it is interesting that March 8 media seems to have "privileged" access to the case. Not only that, it is being very smart in preparing pretext to discredit the expected indictment in PM Rafik Hariri case.

It is now a given fact that a given group of cell phone numbers have played an "instrumental role in the planning of the investigation" as per the conclusions of Mr. Detlev Mehlis, the head of the international independent investigation commission in he Hariri case. Mehlis concluded that "the prepaid telephone cards is one of the most important leads in this investigation in terms of who was actually on the ground executing the assassination. This is a line of investigation that needs to be pursued thoroughly." His conclusions have never been refuted by his successors.

In fact Hezbollah picked up from where some of its friendly media has ended.

Hezbollah MP Mohammad Raad accused Israel of seeking to plot and sow discord among the Lebanese by targeting Lebanon's telecommunications network.
In the same sense of exaggeration displayed in the March 8 media coverage of the arrest of the Alfa employee for charges of spying for the Israeli Mossad, Raad concluded, without the slightest hint of doubt, that "the enemy is controlling all communications in this country" and is capable of "sowing strife through such calls."

Hezbollah's ally, Syrian Socialist National Party, urged the Lebanese government to send the Security Council an urgent complaint stating Lebanon's reservation on the adoption of the International Tribunal of sources and evidence pertaining to the instruments of espionage.

Accordingly, any none preferred indictment, which would be based (among other factors) on cell phone data analysis, would be easily trashed as Israeli conspiracy..

It is not a coincidence that Wissam Eid, a key intelligence officer who was killed in a car bomb on January 25, 2008, was deeply involved in technical analysis to break the group of cell phones which are believed to have played a major role in the crime of assassinating Hariri.

The Real Race for Iran: Human Rights v. Tehran’s Defenders

2010-06-25T19:25:00.003+03:00

Josh shahrayar of Enduring America penned an interesting response to "Race for Iran" authers' previous reponse to “Misreading Tehran”, a series of seven articles published on the Foreign Policy website.
RFI authers, one a former CIA and National Security Council official, the other a former diplomat in the State Department, have displayed firm support to the Tehran's neo-cons all through the current crisis, unshaken by the all the detentions, abuses, and unlawful killings since June 2009.

Meeting the Challenge: When Time Runs Out

2010-06-25T03:36:00.001+03:00

An update to the Bipartisan Policy Center report on U.S. policy toward Iranian nuclear development. The most immediate national security threat to the United States is Iran’s rapid progress toward achieving nuclear weapons capability—and time is running out. A nuclear Islamic Republic of Iran must be prevented, as it cannot be contained. Indeed, it would spark a dramatically destabilizing proliferation cascade in the Middle East—already a combustible region—and lead to a critical conflict.

Read full report here.

Iran: We've enriched uranium to 20% purity - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

2010-06-23T16:37:00.000+03:00

Iran: We've enriched uranium to 20% purity - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

My Interview With Iraqi Election Winner Iyad Allawi

2010-06-23T14:46:00.004+03:00

Nejad's Ayatollah Mentor Preaches For Nuclear Bomb Production

2010-06-15T21:18:00.004+03:00

In a thinly veiled statement the hard-line spiritual mentor of Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made a rare public call for producing a nuclear weapon.
Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi wrote the following in his book “The Islamic Revolution — Surges in Political Changes in History’’:

The most advanced weapons must be produced inside our country even if our enemies don’t like it. There is no reason that they have the right to produce a special type of weapons, while other countries are deprived of it.
(...) Under Islamic teachings, all common tools and materialistic instruments must be employed against the enemy and prevent [the] enemy’s military superiority.

Yazdi’s hard-line views, including devotion to the Mahdi, a messiah-like figure to reappear ahead of judgment day, have had a strong impact on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who shows him more respect than any other senior cleric.

Yazdi's book was written in 2005 and then reprinted last year, but would have only had a very limited circulation among senior clerics and would not have been public knowledge.

Iran Selling 45 Billion Euros of Reserves for Dollars

2010-06-02T21:11:00.002+03:00

By Ali Sheikholeslami

June 2 (Bloomberg) -- Iran’s central bank began the first phase of the 45 billion-euro ($55 billion) sale of some of its reserves for dollars, the state-run Jaam-e-Jam newspaper reported, citing people it didn’t identify.

The bank is selling 15 billion euros in the first of three stages, which will be completed by Sept. 22, the newspaper reported on its website on May 31.
Iran will “substantially” decrease its oil sales in euros, the paper said. It informed Japan and other crude-oil customers of the change, Jaam-e-Jam said. The Persian Gulf country’s euro reserves are 55 percent of the total, and would be reduced to 20 to 25 percent after the sale is complete and after oil sales in euros have been reduced, the paper said.
Iran’s shift out of euros has been prompted by the single currency’s decline, said Jaam-e-Jam, which is owned by the state broadcaster. Other central banks, including those of the Persian Gulf states, also are selling their euro reserves, it said.
The euro was little changed against the dollar, rising 0.1 percent to $1.2241 at 12:45 p.m. in New York.
The euro made up 27.4 percent of global currency reserves at the end of 2009, according to the most recent data available from the International Monetary Fund. While that was down from 27.8 percent in September, it was up from 26.4 percent a year earlier.
Experts in Iran’s central bank have suggested the country buy gold because they forecast the precious metal’s price will increase, Jaam-e-Jam said.
Euro’s Decline
The euro has fallen 15 percent against the dollar this year, reaching a four-year low yesterday, amid concern the debt crisis that started in Greece will spread to other nations and dent economic growth. The slide forced European Union leaders to piece together an almost $1 trillion loan package last month as confidence in the euro’s status as an alternative reserve currency to the dollar faded.
Gold is up 11 percent this year and is headed for a 10th annual gain, the longest rally since at least 1920. The metal reached a record $1,249.40 an ounce on May 14 and traded at $1,223.05 an ounce in London today.

Iran Has Fuel for 2 Nuclear Weapons

2010-06-01T08:57:00.003+03:00

In their last report before the United Nations Security Council votes on sanctions against Iran, international nuclear inspectors declared Monday that Iran has amassed more than two tons of enriched uranium, an amount sufficient, with further enrichment, to feed two nuclear heads.

The toughly worded report, details aspects of the Iranian nuclear program which would render the LEU swap deal offered by the P5 + 1 some 8 months ago unattractive.

Iran had now enriched 2,427 kilograms to just over three percent level. That means shipping out 2,640 pounds (1,200 kilograms) now, as per the swap deal terms, would still leave Iran with more than enough material to make a nuclear weapon.

The NY Times cites further details from the report:

It also describes, step by step, how inspectors have been denied access to a series of facilities, and how Iran has refused to answer inspectors’ questions on a variety of activities, including what the agency called the “possible existence” of “activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.”
(...) The inspectors reported that Iran had expanded work at its sprawling Natanz site in the desert, where it is raising the level of uranium enrichment up to 20 percent — the level needed for the Tehran Research Reactor, which produces medical isotopes for cancer patients. But it is unclear why Iran is making that investment if it plans to obtain the fuel for the reactor from abroad, as it would under its new agreement with Turkey and Brazil.

In addition the inspectors say sensitive equipment that could be used to extract plutonium for an atomic bomb has gone missing from a Tehran laboratory months after the apparatus was disclosed to a United Nations watchdog agency, LA Times reports:

IAEA inspectors were told in January by a scientist or official at Tehran's Jabr Ibn Hayan Multipurpose Research Laboratory that Iran was conducting pyro-processing experiments, work potentially consistent with creating warheads that could be used in developing a nuclear weapon.

But during an April 14 inspection of the laboratory, the equipment — used to remove impurities from uranium metal — had been removed, said the agency's report to its board of governors ahead of a meeting next week. Iran had earlier backtracked, insisting to inspectors it was not engaged in pyro-processing work.

Arms control experts say the apparent attempt to experiment with pyro-processing adds to the cloud of suspicion that hangs over Iran's nuclear program.

The Bushification of Obama

2010-05-26T08:29:00.011+03:00

Israeli Media highlighted what it called the first public signs of practical preparations for a possible US military operation against Iran.

The conclusion is based on an executive order signed by US Central Command chief Gen. David Petraeus and front-paged by NY Times.

The secret Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force Execute Order signed on September 30, 2009 set the stage for an increase in covert operations to counter militants and other threats across the Middle East.

Accordingly, Special Operations forces were authorized to deploy to both allied and hostile nations in the Mideast, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa to conduct surveillance missions and partner with local forces.

The seven-page order, interestingly, cites Iran as one of the many theaters these operations are taking place on, in order to "prepare the environment" for future attacks, anonymous sources told the paper.

This directive, must have had the approval of the President. However it was signed amidst a reported confrontation between President Obama on one side and Bob Gates, Mike Mullen, David Petraeus, and Stanley McChrystal on the other, as Jonathan Alter reported for Newsweek Web.

Mullen dug himself in especially deep at his reconfirmation hearings for chairman of the Joint Chiefs when he made an aggressive case for a long-term commitment in Afghanistan. White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel was enraged at Mullen’s public testimony and let the Pentagon know it. When Petraeus gave an interview to Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson on Sept.4 calling for a “fully resourced, comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign,” the chief of staff was even angrier.

General Petraeus, has a track record of relying on special forces whose work was the backbone of the US troop surge success in Iraq in 2007 as well as in eliminating Al-Qaeda top leaders.

He seems to have succeeded in tilting the administration's policies more to the right.

In his speech thanking the right wing AEI think tank in Washington for giving him the Irving Kristol Award, three weeks ago, Petraeus paid special tribute to the role Fred and Kim Kagan had in the Iraq surge.

Indeed, I’m particularly pleased to have this opportunity because it gives me a chance to express my respect for AEI, an organization whose work I know not just by reputation–but also through first-hand experience.

One recent AEI effort, of course, stands out in particular. In the fall of 2006, AEI scholars helped develop the concept for what came to be known as “the surge.” Fred and Kim Kagan and their team, which included retired General Jack Keane, prepared a report that made the case for additional troops in Iraq. As all here know, it became one of those rare think tank products that had a truly strategic impact.

For beginners, Irving Kristol is celebrated as the father of Neoconservatism, hence, it is worth noting how Petraeus ended his AEI speech.

Well, my goal tonight was two-fold: first, to explain the changes we made in our Army in 2006; and, second, to give a speech that I’d like to think Irving Kristol might have enjoyed.

The classified order, represents a significant escalation of the covert military activities ordered by former president George W Bush at the height of the War on Terror, wrote UK's Telegraph:

Gen Petraeus's directive, which would have had the blessings of the White House, suggests Barack Obama has deviated little in the military handling of the war on terror from his predecessor, George W Bush.

Confused on Iran

2010-04-20T14:01:00.001+03:00

The Washington Post Editorial

DEFENSE SECRETARY Robert M. Gates was the focus of one of those curious Washington kerfuffles over the weekend in which a senior official makes headlines by saying what everyone knows to be true. According to the New York Times, Mr. Gates dispatched a secret memo to the White House in January pointing out that the Obama administration does not have a well-prepared strategy in place for the likely eventuality that Iran will continue to pursue a nuclear weapon and will not be diverted by negotiations or sanctions. Mr. Gates quickly denied that his memo was intended as a "wake-up call," as one unnamed official quoted by the Times called it. And that's probably true: It is evident to any observer that the administration lacks a clear backup plan.

President Obama's official position is that "all options are on the table," including the use of force. But senior officials regularly talk down the military option in public -- thereby undermining its utility even as an instrument of intimidation. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, offered more reassurance to Iran on Sunday, saying in a forum at Columbia University that "I worry . . . about striking Iran. I've been very public about that because of the unintended consequences."

Adm. Mullen appeared to equate those consequences with those of Iran obtaining a weapon. "I think Iran having a nuclear weapon would be incredibly destabilizing. I think attacking them would also create the same kind of outcome," he was quoted as saying. Yet Israel and other countries in the region would hardly regard those "outcomes" as similar.

We are not advocating strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. But the public signs of the administration's squishiness about military options are worrisome because of the lack of progress on its two-track strategy of offering negotiations and threatening sanctions. A year-long attempt at engagement failed; now the push for sanctions is proceeding at a snail's pace. Though administration officials say they have made progress in overcoming resistance from Russia and China, it appears a new U.N. sanctions resolution might require months more of dickering. Even then it might only be a shell intended to pave the way for ad hoc actions by the United States and European Union, which would require further diplomacy.

And what would sanctions accomplish? Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told the Financial Times last week that "maybe . . . that would lead to the kind of good-faith negotiations that President Obama called for 15 months ago." Yet the notion that the hard-line Iranian clique now in power would ever negotiate in good faith is far-fetched. More likely -- and desirable -- would be a victory by the opposition Green movement in Iran's ongoing domestic power struggle. But the administration has so far shrunk from supporting sanctions, such as a gasoline embargo. that might heighten popular anger against the regime.

All this probably explains why Mr. Gates, in his own words, "presented a number of questions and proposals intended to contribute to an orderly and timely decision making process."

"There should be no confusion by our allies and adversaries," he added, "that the United States is . . . prepared to act across a broad range of contingencies in support of our interests." If allies and adversaries are presently confused, that would be understandable.

Video: Raw Video: Iraq Blasts Target Foreign Embassies

2010-04-05T11:00:00.000+03:00

Baghdad suicide blasts target embassies; 32 dead

2010-04-04T15:21:00.006+03:00

Suicide attackers detonated car bombs near three embassies in Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 32 people and wounding more than 100, authorities said.

The attacks outside the German, Egyptian and Iranian embassies deepened fears that insurgents will seize on the political turmoil after last month's parliamentary elections to sow further instability.

The blasts went off within minutes of each other, said Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, a spokesman for the city's operations command center.

It was not immediately clear whether anyone from the embassies was among the dead or wounded.

"These explosions targeted diplomatic missions," al-Moussawi told The Associated Press. "It's a terrorist act. We expect the death toll to rise." He said all three explosions were set off by suicide attackers in explosives-laden cars.

Multiple, coordinated bombings in the capital have become a hallmark of al-Qaida in Iraq.

Police officials said at least 18 people were killed outside the Iranian Embassy, where AP Television News footage showed civilians loading casualties into police vehicles and ambulances. Stunned victims, many in blood-spattered clothes, were fleeing the scene as smoke rose in the background.

One man was cradling a small girl wearing a white dress in his arms.

"They cannot frighten us," another man defiantly yelled as he was being helped along by police, his robe soaked in blood.

The police officials said many of the victims were employees at a nearby state-run bank. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release details to the media.

At least 14 were killed in the other explosions, police officials said. Al-Moussawi said at least 140 people were wounded in all three attacks. Other police officials put the total number of injuries at 185.

The explosion near the Iranian Embassy demolished cars and overturned a minibus outside the embassy wall.

"The explosion happened at the embassy gate, targeting visitors and Iraqi police," said Iran's ambassador to Iraq, Hasan Kazemi Qomi. "There was some damage to the embassy building but no employees were harmed inside."

Calls to the other embassies rang unanswered.

The force of the blasts shook buildings and rattled windows in the center of the capital.

Al-Moussawi said police arrested a man who was suspected of planning to detonate a car bomb near the former German Embassy, which is now a bank. The man was arrested inside a car loaded with explosives, al-Moussawi said.

Sunday's explosions came two days after an execution-style attack killed at least 24 Sunnis in a village south of Baghdad. The slayings reignited fears of the sectarian fighting in 2006 and 2007.

There have been increasing concerns that insurgents will take advantage of the postelection period to further destabilize the country. The March 7 parliamentary elections failed to give any candidate a decisive win.

Many fear a drawn-out political debate could spill over into violence and complicate American efforts to speed up troop withdrawals in the coming months.

Sunday's explosions, which occurred shortly before 11:30 a.m., came after a number of far smaller blasts overnight and early Sunday. One of those earlier blasts, believed to be caused by a bomb underneath a parked car killed one civilian and injured nine others, according to police.

Associated Press Writers Saad Abdul-Kadir, Hamid Ahmed, Sinan Salaheddin and Elizabeth A. Kennedy contributed to this report.

Gül lets the cat out of the bag on Iran

2010-04-04T13:11:00.001+03:00

SEMİH İDİZ
Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review.

President Abdullah Gül may have inadvertently let the cat out of the bag on Iran’s nuclear program. He was quoted recently by Forbes commentator Claudia Rosett uttering remarks that have not been heard before from any Islamic leader.

The fact that the Presidency issued a statement later denying that President Gül had given an interview to anyone from Forbes magazine showed just how riled the president was upon reading Rosett’s piece. It was nevertheless interesting that the Presidency’s statement did not deny the remarks attributed to Gül, but merely said that he had not given an interview to Forbes.

One can assume, as most people are doing, that Gül actually uttered the remarks attributed to him, but failed to tell the group of visiting Americans that included Rosett that he was speaking off the record. From Rosett’s point of view, and indeed the point of view of any journalist, if it is not said that something is off the record, it is on the record.

Therefore, there is no point in criticizing her, unless what she wrote is being denied, and this does not appear to be the case. Carrying the title “Turkey tilts toward Iran,” Rosett’s article reflects clear annoyance at the change in direction in Ankara’s foreign policy, especially on issues of great importance to Washington.

No doubt it was because of this that she characterized the recent talk her group had with Gül at the Presidential Palace in Ankara as “disturbing.” The basic argument in Rosett’s article is that Ankara is not toeing the U.S. line on Iran. It is instead pursuing a “zero problems with neighbors” policy, but has no concrete formula for convincing Tehran by diplomatic means to give up on its nuclear-weapons program.

For us, neither Rosett’s displeasure here nor Gül’s pushing for the diplomatic track, as opposed to sanctions or a military strike against Iran, is surprising. The former is highly predictable and the later contains nothing new. It has become Ankara’s standard position.

What does matter, however, are other remarks attributed to President Gül by Rosett.

According to her, Gül said he has no doubts that Iran wants a nuclear bomb. “This is an Iranian aspiration dating back to the previous regime, [to] the days of the Shah,” Gül is reported as saying. As for the current regime in Iran, the Turkish president apparently believes its final aspiration is also “to have a nuclear weapon in the end.”

This claim, which many Turkish diplomats and military planners also believe to be true, is, of course, in stark contrast with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s approach to the whole issue. Acting as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s advocate, Erdoğan has said in the past that suspicions that Tehran is after a nuclear weapon are just “gossip.”

Erdoğan has also established a link between Iran’s nuclear ambitions and Israel’s nuclear arsenal, suggesting in so many words that instead of putting pressure on Tehran, the West should first force Israel to get rid of its own arsenal. Many in the Islamic world have read Erdoğan’s approach as a suggestion that as long as Israel has these weapons, then Iran can have them too.

But the real “nuclear remark” said to have been uttered by Gül was not the claim that Iran is after nuclear weapons. He apparently also said that if Iran gets the bomb, it will not use it. At first appearance, this may appear a naïve remark, but what the president was quoted as saying after this puts the whole issue in a stone-cold realistic perspective.

The following is straight from Rosett’s piece:

“Gül says Israel need not worry. However irrational Iran’s leaders might become, he is sure they will remain rational enough to refrain from devastating Israel – lest, by doing so, they should harm the Palestinians or the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem (which he says would then create problems for Iran ‘with all the Muslims of the Gulf and the surrounding regions’).”

These words no doubt had a devastating effect on Iranian officials who are closely following Turkey’s position on their country’s nuclear program. Gül’s remarks must have confirmed to them that not everyone in Ankara is as pro-Iranian as Prime Minister Erdoğan on the issue of nuclear weapons.

But much more devastatingly, Gül’s remarks show that Iran is not in a position to use nuclear weapons against Israel unless it wants to run the risk of destroying and contaminating lands and edifices considered sacred by Muslims. Put another way, unless Tehran gains a highly selective “first strike” capability, as well as finely tuned air-interception abilities for counter defense, its nuclear-weapons program is useless against Israel.

That leaves Tehran with the need to establish new targets for its nuclear weapons. No doubt those will be in the West, but how Iranian capabilities will be able to acquire first-strike and counter-defense abilities in that case is again a wide-open question.

In this sense, it is clear that President Gül, in remarks attributed to him but not denied by him, has indeed let the cat out of the bag, putting forward a proposition that all Muslims will have to think about seriously.

But Israel is also put in a spot by virtue of the same token as a result of President Gül’s remarks. If there is little chance that any Islamic country in the region can use nuclear weapons against Israel, for the reasons cited by Gül, then what is the point in Israel’s having a nuclear arsenal, which merely fuels a pointless arms race in the region?

We should therefore be happy that President Gül has let this cat out of the bag, even if he may not be too happy about it himself. The remarks attributed by Rosett to Gül show there is a need for more rational thinking on this score, and less politicking according to one’s own national interests.

Nuclear weapons are no joke and should not be used in this way, unless one is prepared to court disaster.

Iran Nuclear Scientist Defects to U.S. In CIA 'Intelligence Coup'

2010-03-31T17:56:00.002+03:00

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."

UNIFIL Versus Hariri Tribunal

2010-03-29T09:34:00.007+03:00

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".

Agencies Suspect Iran Is Planning Atomic Sites

2010-03-28T20:15:00.002+03:00

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

2010-03-28T20:13:00.000+03:00

Abstract: The Obama Administration's engagement policy toward Iran has failed to defuse the nuclear standoff. Instead, Iran has continued to conceal and lie about its nuclear weapons program in an attempt to stall until it can present the world with a nuclear fait accompli. A nuclear-armed Iran not only will have a dramatically increased ability to threaten its neighbors and U.S. interests, but will also trigger a destabilizing nuclear arms race in the already volatile Middle East. The Administration's best option is to press both its allies and the U.N. Security Council to impose the strongest possible sanctions on Iran to increase the costs to Iran of continuing its nuclear weapons program.

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

2010-03-28T13:55:00.001+03:00

By Dan Williams

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)

Iran ready for nuclear fuel exchange inside country

2010-03-17T11:43:00.002+02:00

By Jay Deshmukh (AFP)

Iran offered on Tuesday a one-shot nuclear fuel exchange on its own soil, edging closer to the conditions of a plan drawn up by the UN atomic watchdog last year as major powers mulled a new round of sanctions.

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

2010-03-17T11:38:00.001+02:00

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

2010-03-17T11:26:00.001+02:00

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."

Petraeus: Iran becoming a 'thugocracy'

2010-03-08T09:45:00.000+02:00

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.”

Barak Cites Different Judgment With US on Iran

2010-02-28T08:13:00.003+02:00

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak cited Different judgment with U.S. on Iran during a lecture at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy on Friday.

(...) there’s a difference in perspective and judgement, in our internal clocks. Some in the U.S. see a world with a nuclear Pakistan, India, North Korea …. From this corner of the world (Washington), [perhaps] it doesn’t change the equation if Iran goes nuclear.
For Israel it does change the equation. It would be a tipping point.

Mousavi calls 22 Bahman celebrations 'engineered'

2010-02-27T18:19:00.005+02:00

Prolific Twitter user and citizen journalist, Persianbanoo has tweeted an English translation of much of what Mousavi said in an interview with Kalameh today. Below is a slightly edited version of the tweets put into one paragraph by A prominent Iranian activist, via Iran News Now.

Karoubi and I have decided, based on Article 27 of the Constitution, to repeat once again our request for a permit for a march. Our nation wants a progressive foreign policy and not a hostile, unfriendly foreign policy. Our nation wants that, under pretense of privatization, industries are not controlled by government entities and Sepah [Islamic Revolutionary Guards]. Our nation wants that our teachers and labor forces are not beaten or attacked for asking for their rights. Our nation wants that women don’t become subjects of accusations and attacks for wanting their equal rights. Our nation wants that the voices of all are heard from the national media and not only the voices of the few. Our nation does not like to be divided into two: groups: “God’s Party” and “Devil’s Party”. Our nation does not like their letters, text messages and phone conversations to be monitored. Our nation does not like their freedom to be limited, their constitution to be ignored. Our nation does not like their newspapers to be banned. Our nation does not like daily instructions [by the government] of what is allowed to be written about, or talked about. The desires of our nation are also the desires of the Green Movement. These facts should be distributed among the people of our nation by the Green Movement by all possible means. What we are asking for is both Islamic and Constitutionnal. Our requests are not against Shiria laws but they have resulted in shootings, murders and imprisonments. Our requests are not un-nationalistic and are not against the establishment, they are the people’s rights. Pursuing freedom, and human rights, and removing discrimination, and accepting differing view points R not illegal
Agence France Presse and the Los Angeles Times have cited Mir Hossein Mousavi’s intervie.

Is Iran inviting a strike?

2010-02-27T12:29:00.002+02:00

To the surprise of international inspectors, analysts and policy makers, Iran moved, almost two weeks ago, nearly its entire stockpile of low-enriched nuclear fuel to an above-ground plant. The move is way puzziling and triggers the question if Iran is eventually inviting a strike. By design -- or screw up, the New York Times asks:

The strangest of the speculations — but the one that is being talked about most — is that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps is inviting an attack to unify the country after eight months of street demonstrations that have pitted millions of Iranians against their government. As one senior European diplomat noted Thursday, an Israeli military strike might be the “best thing” for Iran’s leadership, because it would bring Iranians together against a national enemy.
It would offer an excuse some Iranians might sorely want to throw out the nuclear inspectors and renounce the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. That would leave Iran in the position that North Korea is in: free to manufacture fuel or bombs without inspectors to blow the whistle.
Others, including some officials in the White House, say they do not buy that theory. Iran has worked too hard to let its supply be destroyed, they argue. “I really doubt they are taunting the Israelis to hit them,” said Kenneth Pollack, a scholar at the Brookings Institution who recently ran a daylong simulation of what would happen after an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. “It would be humiliating for the Iranian regime,” he said. He speculated that Iran would have to retaliate, and “the ensuing confrontation would go in directions no one can really predict.”
Mr. Pollack numbers among those who suspect another explanation: brinkmanship. The Iranians have made clear that they do not like the terms their own negotiators came home with for swapping their nuclear fuel for specialized fuel for the medical reactor. By moving their fuel supply to the enrichment plant, they are essentially threatening to turn it all to near-bomb-grade fuel — and perhaps force the United States to reopen negotiations.
But the simplest explanation, that the Iranians had no choice, has its proponents. The fuel is stored in one big, specialized cask. When someone ordered that the fuel begin being fed into the giant centrifuges for further enrichment, engineers moved it to the only spot available — the exposed plant. Or, as one American intelligence official said, “You can’t dismiss the possibility that this is a screw-up."

Iran Contrarians: Ahmadinejad’s Washington power couple

2010-02-27T12:21:00.002+02:00

Michael Crowley joins the Leverett's bash party. Below is his take:

Say what you want about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but “he knows how to work a room.” So claims Flynt Leverett, the contrarian Iran analyst who, with his wife Hillary Mann Leverett, paid a visit to the Iranian president in New York City last fall. During the sit-down at Manhattan’s InterContinental Barclay hotel with a group of invited academics, foreign policy professionals, and other Iranophiles, the Leveretts marveled at Ahmadinejad’s attention to detail as the Iranian took copious notes and strove to pronounce their unfamiliar names correctly. “He addresses every person by name. He made a serious effort to address everyone’s issue,” Flynt says. “It was really striking, the retail politics aspect.”

As former Bush White House officials, the Leveretts might seem unlikely company for the diminutive tyrant. But Ahmadinejad has reason to admire the married Middle East analysts. They are, after all, the most prominent voices in the U.S. media arguing that he was legitimately reelected last June, and that the opposition Green Movement is a flash in the pan. “There is no revolution afoot in Iran, and the social base of this movement is not growing; it is, in fact, shrinking,” Flynt recently said on PBS’s “NewsHour.” He has made his case everywhere from msnbc to NPR to The New York Times op-ed page, where he and his wife have made three shared appearances since late May.

To the Leveretts, Ahmadinejad’s Bill Clinton-like personal touch underscores their argument that, far from a thug repressing his people, he is, in fact, a charming leader with broad Iranian support--and one whose true nature the United States fails to understand. And, in any case, they say, moral indignation over his regime’s character distracts us from clear strategic thinking. Both economic sanctions and the Green Movement will fail to contain Ahmadinejad’s nuclear ambitions. America’s only choice is to engage Iran, nuclear bomb or no. For that, they have earned the enmity of former friends and colleagues--and even drawn death threats. “We are portrayed as un-American, stooges of the regime,” complains Hillary.

But it’s not the Leveretts’ ultra-realist policy views that are so discomfiting. It is the sense that they cross a line into making apologies for the loathsome Ahmadinejad. And that makes for one of Washington’s most intriguing mysteries: How did two ex-Bush aides become the Iranian regime’s biggest intellectual defenders?

In the fall of 2001, Hillary Mann saw Flynt deliver a speech on the Arab-Israeli peace process and fell for him. Flynt was then a CIA officer with a Princeton Ph.D., on assignment to the State Department’s policy planning staff. Hillary, nearly ten years his junior at 33, was a Brandeis and Harvard law graduate working at the United Nations. When Flynt asked Hillary to lunch, he told the Times’ “Vows” column, “there was no plausible deniability” it was a date. By the time the two married in February 2003, they were both working on Bush’s National Security Council (he as director for the Middle East, she as director for Iran and Afghanistan), planning their wedding during breaks from planning the Iraq war. “I find it a bit hard to think of the Bush White House as the Love Boat,” cracked their best man, Richard Haass, then a senior State Department official, in his toast.

The Bush White House may have brought them together, but the couple soon turned against it. Flynt says he left his job the month after his wedding out of disillusionment with Bush’s hawkish Middle East policies. Hillary departed soon after, spending several months at the State Department before leaving government. (One former White House official says that Flynt didn’t quit but was fired for bureaucratic incompetence, including an office so unkempt that Condoleezza Rice herself was appalled. While admitting that he keeps “a messy desk,” Flynt denies this account.) Flynt went on to advise John Kerry’s presidential campaign and worked a stint at the Brookings Institution. In 2006, Hillary formed the consulting firm Stratega, which advises corporate clients on Middle Eastern politics.

By then, the Leveretts had begun publicly bashing Bush’s Iran policy--specifically his rejection of a May 2003 memo from a mid-level Iranian diplomat offering comprehensive talks with the United States that would include Iran’s nuclear program. Cheneyite hawks certainly had no interest in such a deal, but even former Secretary of State Colin Powell has cast doubt on whether the offer represented the regime’s true thinking. Still, the media thrilled to the idea that a bellicose Bush had rejected talks. When the Leveretts sought to publish a New York Times op-ed on the subject in December 2006, the White House insisted on censoring it, and the Times theatrically published the heavily redacted version anyway. An Esquire profile soon cast the Leveretts as heroic dissidents standing athwart another blind march to war. The couple’s new cachet drew influential Washingtonians to salon dinners they began holding at their home in suburban McLean, Virginia.

The Leveretts voted for Barack Obama in 2008, but, despite his efforts to broker a dialogue with Tehran, they found his attempts lacking and soon turned on him as well. By last spring, they were warning that Obama had already “lost” Iran, complaining that he had not halted Bush-era covert programs against Iran’s nuclear program. They also complained that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and White House Iran point man Dennis Ross were too hawkish. “The administration’s approach to Iran degenerates into an only slightly prettified version of George W. Bush’s approach,” they wrote in a May 24 piece for the Times, one that noticeably echoed Tehran’s position. And then came the June 12 Iranian election.

In the days after the election, many foreign observers were sure it had been rigged. The votes had been counted suspiciously quickly, and Ahmadinejad’s alleged 63 percent to 34 percent margin of victory struck many Iran experts as implausible given the huge crowds supporting his challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi. But, writing in Politico, the Leveretts argued against “wishful thinking.” “Ahmadinejad won. get over it,” huffed their headline. In early January, they took to the Times again to dismiss the significance of large anti-Ahmadinejad protests that had occurred the week before, arguing that pro-government crowds had been larger and that Mousavi had become “increasingly marginalized.”

It’s not obvious that this analysis is wrong--especially in the wake of disappointing Green turnout last week on the anniversary of the 1979 Iranian revolution--although, in a state willing to beat, arrest, and even kill protesters, gauging the popular mood is never simple. But the Leveretts’ argument doesn’t stop with an assessment of Iranian opinion. That was clear when I met with them at the New America Foundation, where Flynt is a fellow. (He also teaches at Penn State University.) Now 51, Flynt is tall, with close-cut gray hair, a salt-and-pepper goatee, and the fastidious manner common to national security professionals--a contrast to his chatty wife, now 42. I asked the Leveretts why, if Ahmadinejad enjoys such broad support, his regime has cracked down so brutally. In fact, they told me, Ahmadinejad has shown restraint. “It’s become politically incorrect and impossible to say it, but ... this government hasn’t even begun to deploy the force it’s capable of using,” says Hillary. (Even the videotaped shooting of Neda Agha-Soltan on a Tehran street was an “exceptional” and “isolated” case, she says.) “There’s a slightly flippant counter-response,” Flynt says with a wry grin. “Why did the Nixon campaign order the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate building when it was clear Nixon was going to win reelection by a landslide?” The Leveretts also sought to account for Ahmadinejad’s threats against Israel as shrewd regional politics. “It does get to him when he’s described to the outside world as anti-Semitic. He would describe himself as anti-Zionist,” Flynt explains. “Resistance to Israel is an important theme to him. ... If it’s crazy, it’s crazy like a fox.”

The Leveretts are not just isolated politically, but also personally. After Haass, now president of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote a recent Newsweek essay urging a U.S. push for regime change in Iran, the Leveretts posted a contemptuous online response that mocked their best man’s involvement in planning the Iraq war. Haass, who declined to comment, is said to have been furious. Another person who once considered himself a good friend of the couple now says he’s lost touch with them in part due to their policy views. And, when asked about erstwhile dinner guest Karim Sadjadpour, a prominent Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Flynt acknowledges, “Once upon a time, we were closer to him than we are now. There are other people like that.” The Obama administration is also baffled at how a couple that once cheered it on now accuses it of “diplomatic incompetence.” “I hear from very senior people in the administration who say, ‘What are Flynt and Hillary doing?’” says New America’s Steven Clemons. Meanwhile, the Leveretts say they have been sent blood-spattered photographs of a dead Neda Soltan bearing the message: This should be you.

Some former friends and colleagues say the Leveretts seem to have changed. Flynt voted for Bush in 2000 and says he didn’t oppose the Iraq war “on principle”--although he has been accused of softness on Middle Eastern strongmen before, including in a book he wrote about Syrian President Bashar Al Assad. His wife’s resumé is more surprising. Hillary, who volunteers that she is Jewish, studied at Tel Aviv University and worked briefly at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. At the latter, she denounced efforts in 1997 to engage Iran’s then-relatively moderate leadership and called for an economic crackdown against the country. “This is not the Hillary we remember,” says one ex-Bush White House official.

What happened? Some critics accuse the Leveretts of becoming corporate shills. Their salon dinners, for instance, have included executives from oil companies that have done business in Iran, including Norway-based Statoil and French Total. The Leveretts firmly deny that they are peddling access or trying to affect policy for corporate gain. Steve Coll, president of the New America Foundation, says he recently conducted a review of their business ties and is “entirely satisfied there is no conflict. ... The idea that their ideas are compromised is without foundation.”

Perhaps the Leveretts were transformed by what they saw as Bush’s blown opportunity to deal with Iran. Hillary says her dealings with Iranian diplomats as a Bush White House aide at the start of the Afghanistan war made her understand Tehran’s willingness to engage. “It seems that the Leveretts are almost frozen in time circa 2003 on this,” says Tufts University professor Daniel Drezner. The Leveretts have also come to accept the realist critique that Israel occupies too great a role in America’s foreign policy calculus; Flynt clashed with fellow Bush officials about what peace-process concessions Israel should be asked to make, for instance. “For a lot of pro-Israel groups, these [views of Iran] are non-starters,” he says.

Or perhaps, on some level, they have actually grown to admire Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In our meeting, I pressed them to say just how they feel about the Iranian leader. Geopolitics aside, did they consider him a despicable human being? “I think he’s actually a quite intelligent man,” Flynt replied. “I think he also has really extraordinary political skills.” “[T]he idea that he’s stupid or doesn’t understand retail politics is also pretty divorced from reality,” Hillary added. But that wasn’t the question.

Michael Crowley is a senior editor of The New Republic.

This article has been slightly updated from the print version.

Karroubi: This regime is worse than the Shah’s

2010-02-27T11:42:00.002+02:00

In an interview with Italy’s Corriere della Sera, first published in Italian in 22 February, Mehdi Karroubi said that the Shah's regime didn't behave as Khamenei's with the people. Read the English version in full:

Mehdi Karroubi, 73-year-old cleric and politician, has become a leader of the protests against the Iranian regime. A disciple of Khomeini, since the age of 24 he fought at his side against the Shah (and paid with six years in prison) in order to create the Islamic Republic. Since 1979, he has had relevant roles, such as speaker of the Parliament. He challenged Ahmadinejad for the presidency in 2005 and again in 2009. Both times he accused the authorities of fraud during the elections. During the last street protests in Iran on February 11, one of his sons, Ali, was arrested. He was beaten for hours in a mosque by members of the basiji militia and threatened with rape, before being freed at 11 P.M. A selection of questions and answers from the following interview also appeared in Italian on February 22 in the paper edition of “Corriere della Sera” newspaper.

How is your son now?
«Physically, my son Ali is feeling better. In the first days, his condition was terrible. Now we are worried about his mental state. The damage Ali suffered is a small example of all that is happening to the children of this nation. But the regime is already paying for this».

What happened on February 11?
«The repression was violent, no doubt. There was an unprecedented conflict with the population. This time, the regime didn’t want to allow any gathering of protesters (of the Green Movement, ed.) and it used all its strength: it gathered its forces from all the different governmental organs. They arrested our friends and family members, and they threatened the others. But their mobilization and organization didn’t stop us. I knew how it would end, but I went to demonstrate anyway. I will go again if there will be other demonstrations, even if the outcome is worse than the last one. The newspapers wrote that the people prevented the conspirators (this is how the regime defines Karroubi and Mousavi, ed.) from entering the square. I would like to ask those newspapers, which are controlled by the regime and the government: do you think that ordinary people use tear gas? Do you think ordinary people use metal bars and knives? The masters need to know that these days will pass but their sign will remain».

The events of these months have often been compared to the Revolution of 1979. You compared the violence of the repression to that of the Shah’s time, but you said that his army had shown more restraint. Do you see other similarities between our times and those?
«The Shah’s regime was corrupt at its core, but he didn’t behave like this with the people. What do the armed forces have to do with the election’s results? Why did they treat the people like this on the 22nd of Bahman (in the Persian calendar it corresponds to February 11 ed.)? During the reign of the Shah there were rules; they did not take the people arrested to the mosque to beat them to death even before they appeared in front of the judiciary. These people make arrests without a warrant, beat them and keep them in detention. Not to mention the rest (Karroubi has denounced the rape of the protesters after their arrest, ed.)».

Under what conditions would you be ready to find a compromise with Ahmadinejad and recognise him as the legitimate president of Iran? Do you consider yourself to be a leader of this Green Movement?
«I don’t consider myself the leader of the popular Green Movement. I consider myself a member of this movement and of the reformist movement. My actions aim to a return to the will and the ideals of the people, that is to say to the people’s sovereignty. I don’t have a personal conflict, nor a reason to reach an agreement or make peace with Ahmadinejad. We consider Ahmadinejad’s government an established government that has to answer for its actions, but not a lawful or legitimate government. I am nobody: it’s not up to me to find an agreement or a compromise. It is the people who have to decide whether or not they want a compromise with the government. It is the people who are in conflict with the government, and who do not accept its management of the country. The people don’t agree with the strategy that puts us in conflict with the world taken on by Ahmadinejad, and we are a part of this same people».

You said that chanting slogans against the Supreme Leader and for a secular state is wrong. What slogans should people chant?
«The things should be kept separate. We are not trying to make the regime fall. On the other hand, the Constitution is not a divine revelation and therefore is not unchangeable. But, at the moment, not even this Constitution is applied in this country».

Before the election could you imagine that the Iranian people would go so far in asking for their rights and that their anger would grow so much?
«I did not imagine or foresee that the Iranian regime would go as far as rigging the popular vote as it did. On the other hand, the regime has adopted an obstinate and non conciliatory attitude with the people, which is the cause of the current problems. In the first days (after the elections, ed.), the people said: “Where is my vote?” The people are still the same. So what happened that lead them to adopt the current slogans? The people want healthy elections and to see their votes counted».

As a student of Khomeini, I read that you were extraordinarily absorbed by him. Is he still a model for your actions?
«I loved the Imam and I still love him. Yes, he is a model and an example for me. He was a devout cleric, he had insight and far-sightedness. My love for him increased after his death because of what happened. The Imam lead the country in its most difficult time: the first decade after the Islamic Revolution. The country was at war, prominent figures and other important politicians were killed in attacks and in the war. In that situation, perhaps some special and sometimes excessive measures were taken. I don’t say that he was a perfect model. But actions and decisions have to be evaluated taking the times into account».

What is the worst thing that has been done in the name of the revolution? What were the most joyful moments of the revolution? Why do you still believe in the Islamic Republic?
«The Islamic Republic consists of two concepts: republicanism and Islam. The worst thing is the damage done to both those concepts and principles. I’m not saying that nothing is left anymore, but the damage done is very serious, both to Islam and to the concept of “republicanism” which means “the opinion and the vote of the people”. The Imam said that the final decision is up to the people. He always considered the public opinion and never allowed, even under the worse conditions, ambiguity and lack of clarity during the elections. What was damaged were the promises that we made to the people. The issue is not to make the regime fall, but to reform it. I still believe in the Islamic Republic, but not in this kind of Islamic Republic! The Islamic Republic that we promised the people had the support and the vote of 98% of the population: it was the Islamic Republic of free elections and not of rigged elections. I believe in modern Islam, an Islam full of kindness and affection, not a violent or fanatic Islam».

Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi pledged to reduce the business with Tehran and to support new international sanctions. Do you think these measures would help the opposition in any way? What effects do you think UN sanctions will have on the government and on the people?
«When I was the speaker of the Iranian parliament, the relationship between our parliaments was excellent. My official visit to Italy at that time, and the visit of two presidents of the Italian House to Iran are a sign of the good political relationship between the two countries. Even the letter sent by the presidents of the Italian House and Senate to the chiefs of the Iranian regime regarding the consequences of my (possible ed.) arrest is a demonstration of the good relationship we had at that time. For this, I am grateful to the presidents and to the members of the Italian parliament. But I am absolutely against sanctions; they increase the economic pressure that the people already suffer because of the wrong policies of the government».

Do you think that the Islamic Republic can have a dialogue with the United States?
«We said more than once that the only country we will not have a relationship with is Israel, because this country violated the rights of a people. A fair relationship (with the United States ed.), which is based on reciprocal respect and takes into account the reciprocal rights is desirable. But this government created a peculiar situation and does not allow a return to a relationship with the United States. On one hand, the Iranian government writes to the American government; on the other hand, it uses strong and harsh words and expressions against the American government. Contradictory behaviour does not work in foreign policy».

Viviana Mazza
26 febbraio 2010

Barak says Iran unlikely to launch nuclear strike on Israel

2010-02-27T11:32:00.002+02:00

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak raised doubts Friday on the likelihood of an Iranian nuclear strike on his country, during a forum sponsored by Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

I don't think the Iranians, even if they got the bomb, (will) drop it in the neighborhood.
They fully understand what might follow. They are radical but not totally crazy.

Russia says no proof Iran working on nuclear weapons

2010-02-27T11:23:00.002+02:00

There is no hard proof that Iran is working on nuclear weapons, but Tehran has to clarify some issues on its nuclear program to avoid fresh sanctions, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told RIA Novosti.

There is no evidence that Iran has made a decision to produce nuclear weapons.

On Sanctions Lavrov maintained Russia's position which opposes crippling sanctions.

If we go with the sanctions, we’ll not go beyond the goal of our purpose of defending the nonproliferation regime. We don’t want the nonproliferation regime to be used for ... strangling Iran, or taking some steps to deteriorate the situation (and) the living standards of people in Iran

Clinton compares Iran showdown to Cuban missile crisis

2010-02-26T10:53:00.001+02:00

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday compared the showdown with Iran over its nuclear program to the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. She said:

My reading of what happened with President Kennedy is that it's exactly what he did. It was high-stakes diplomacy. It was pushing hard to get the world community to understand, going to the UN, making a presentation, getting international opinion against the placement of Russian weapons in Cuba, making a deal eventually with the Russians that led to the removal of the weapons.
That is the kind of high-stakes diplomacy that I'm engaged in, that other members of this administration are, because we take very seriously the potential threat from Iran.

Iran sanctions expecyed by late March, early April

2010-02-26T10:31:00.003+02:00

The United Nations Security Council is expected to impose additional sanctions on Iran by the end of March or the beginning of April, American officials told their Israeli counterparts at Thursday's strategic dialogue in Jerusalem, Haaretz reported.

The sanctions will not be paralyzing and sweeping, as many would like," a senior Israeli official said. "But they will be firm enough to harm the regime there. Also, a mechanism will be set up to enable additional UN resolutions to be passed swiftly if the Iranians don't change their conduct.

Assad and Ahmadinejad Question US Policy

2010-02-25T20:54:00.003+02:00

Iran and Syria's presidents started two days of meetings in Damascus Thursday, and lost no time in issuing more threats against the U.S. and Israel.

Iran President Ahmadinejad said ties between his country and Syria remain "deep" and attacked U.S. involvement in the Middle East.
"The Americans want to dominate the region but they feel Iran and Syria are preventing this," he said. "We tell them that instead of interfering in the region's affairs, to pack their things and leave."
In recent months the Obama administration has launched new efforts to re-engage with the Syrian regime including the re-establishment of an ambassador in Damascus, the first since 2005.

As the pressure mounts to impose tougher sanctions on Iran over its secretive nuclear program, many in Washington hope warmer relations with Syria will drive a wedge between two members of what President George W. Bush once famously dubbed the Axis of Evil.

Thursday's summit in Damascus appears designed to present a united front against such efforts

As usual Israel was also the target of Ahmadinejad's fiery rhetoric. In recent weeks the region has been abuzz with talk of war, with both Syria and the Lebanese group Hezbollah exchanging threats with Israel.
"If the Zionist regime wants to repeat its past mistakes, this will constitute its demise and annihilation," the Iran president said. "With Allah's help the new Middle East will be a Middle East without Zionists and Imperialists."
Syrian officials have been issuing increasingly bellicose statements against Israel and has promised to support Hezbollah in the event of conflict, a commitment underscored Thursday by Syria

"We believe we are facing an entity that is capable of aggression at any point, and we are preparing ourselves for any Israeli aggression, be it on a small or large scale," he said.

During his stay in Syria, Ahmadinejad is also expected to hold meetings with leading figures from Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamic group Hamas. Both organizations are thought to receive arms and funding from Tehran.

Giant new Israeli drone can reach Iran

2010-02-22T19:05:00.002+02:00

A new drone that can remain airborne for more than 24 hours and reach as far as Iran was added to the Israeli air force's arsenal, the military said.
Described by the army as a "technological breakthrough", the Eitan - which means 'strong' in Hebrew - is a Heron-TP type drone with a wingspan of 26 metres, similar to that of the Boeing-737.
It is 24 metres long, weighs 4.5 tonnes and can remain in the air for more than 24 hours, enabling it to fly as far as Iran, Israel's arch-foe.
The drone was built by Israel Aerospace Industries in cooperation with the air force and is equipped with radar, cameras and high-tech electronic equipment including mapping devices.
The drone can reach an altitude of 13,000 metres and carry payloads of about one tonne.
"This aircraft constitutes a very important turning point in the development of unmanned aircraft," Air Force chief General Ido Nehustan was quoted as saying.
-AFP

Petraeus: US to pursue pressure track on Ira:

2010-02-21T21:41:00.004+02:00

By Stephanie Griffith (AFP)

WASHINGTON — The United States is raising the stakes in its bid to halt Iran's nuclear program, putting the issue on a "pressure track," top US general David Petraeus said Sunday.

The US and other world powers are drumming up support for a fourth round of UN sanctions against Iran for its refusal to comply with repeated ultimatums to suspend uranium enrichment and agree to a UN-backed nuclear fuel deal.

President Barack Obama had talked about a dual-track approach to dealing with Iran's suspect nuclear activities, involving efforts to engage Iranian leaders backed up by the threat of further sanctions.

"I think that no one at the end of this time can say that the United States and the rest of the world have not given Iran every opportunity to resolve the issues diplomatically," Petraeus, the head of US Central Command, said.

"That puts us in a solid foundation now to go on what is termed the pressure track. That's the course on which we are embarked now," he told NBC television's "Meet the Press" program.

Petraeus said the administration intends to "send the kind of signal to Iran about the very serious concerns that the countries in the region and, indeed, the entire world have... about Iran's activities in the nuclear program."

Concerns on Iran rose last week when the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog, said it suspected that Tehran might already be trying to develop a nuclear warhead.

A US intelligence report in 2007 said Iran halted such research in 2003, but the latest IAEA report gives credence to the belief held by some Western countries that the program continued.

Petraeus suggested that Iran's recent actions were leading US intelligence agencies to update their estimations.

"There is no question that some of the activities have advanced during that time. There is also a new national intelligence estimate being developed by our intelligence community in the United States," he said.

The IAEA also confirmed on Thursday that Tehran had begun enriching uranium to higher levels, theoretically bringing it closer to the levels needed for an atomic bomb.

Iran has previously reached uranium enrichment levels of no more than five percent at its facility at Natanz, in defiance of UN orders for it to cease and despite three rounds of UN sanctions.

Earlier this month, Iran announced it would begin enriching uranium to 20 percent, ostensibly to make the fuel for a research reactor that makes medical radioisotopes.

Iranian officials have dismissed the IAEA report and the country's all-powerful supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei denied on Friday that Tehran was seeking atomic weapons.

Last year the IAEA proposed sending Iranian low-enriched uranium (LEU) abroad for further enrichment, denying Tehran refining capacity world powers fear could be used to help build an atomic bomb.

The offer would have seen the uranium returned to Iran in a high-grade form for use in a medical research reactor, but Tehran rejected the plan.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted that the exchange had to be "simultaneous," an Iranian stance that has led to a deadlock over the deal.

Stand up to rogue regime

2010-02-21T10:38:00.002+02:00

Richrad Haass, again, on regime change in Iran. Stand up to rogue regime, he says:

History rarely unfolds smoothly or evenly. Instead, it tends to be punctuated by major developments -- battles, assassinations, breakthroughs -- that have consequences that are felt for years. Thirty-one years after the revolution that ousted the shah and brought Islamic rule to Iran, we are at one of those turning points.
We do not know the degree, direction or pace of change. What we do know, however, is that what happens in Iran will materially affect not just that country but the entire Middle East and beyond.
One future for Iran would be mostly an extension of what already exists. The Iranian regime would continue to brutally repress its domestic opponents, meddle in Iraq and Afghanistan, arm and fund Hezbollah and Hamas and, most important, develop the ability to construct one or more nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.

The emergence of such a future would present the world with a stark choice: either acquiesce to an Iran that possesses or could quickly assemble a nuclear device, or launch a preventive military attack designed to destroy much of the Iranian nuclear program.
Iran's emergence as a nuclear-weapons state would almost certainly tempt several of the main Sunni Muslim countries (Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia all come to mind) to embark on a crash program to acquire or develop nuclear arms of their own. A Middle East comprising several nuclear weapons states is a recipe for catastrophe.
An armed attack by the United States, Israel, or both on Iran's nuclear facilities is another possibility. One downside of such a prospect that Iran would likely retaliate against U.S. interests and personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, using Hamas and Hezbollah, against Israel and others. Iran could also interfere with oil traffic, leading to a spike in prices and delivering a further blow to U.S. and global economic recovery.
Moreover, while a preventive strike would delay Iran's nuclear efforts, it would not stop the regime from rebuilding, and it might also create conditions that cause problems for the regime's domestic opponents. But, despite these potential drawbacks, an armed attack on Iran's nuclear facilities will and should remain a distinct possibility given the enormous strategic costs of a nuclear-armed Iran.
It is in part to avoid the difficult choice of either living with a nuclear-armed Iran or attacking it that the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany have pursued negotiations to limit Iran's nuclear program and place it under international supervision.
Russia and China, which claim to oppose the emergence of a nuclear-armed Iran, are now being pressed to support new, tough sanctions to increase the odds it does not happen. But if history is a guide, even strong sanctions may not be enough to persuade Iran's rulers to negotiate constructively and accept meaningful constraints on their nuclear activities. These considerations raise the prospect of trying to bring about an alternative future: an Iran with a political leadership that is more moderate at home and abroad, and that forgoes developing a nuclear weapon or anything close to it.
In addition to providing a better life for Iran's 70 million people, political change there would weaken both Hamas and Hezbollah, thereby strengthening the relative position of moderates in the West Bank and Gaza and much improving the prospects for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
It is rare in history that such widely different but plausible paths stem from a common point. It is not difficult, however, to determine which one is preferable.
This is why additional measures are called for to improve the prospects for political change that brings about an Iranian government prepared to live in peace with its own people and its neighbors. Such measures include assisting the Green Movement so that it can maintain access to the Internet, introducing additional sanctions aimed at the Revolutionary Guard, and publicly supporting the political and legal rights of the Iranian people.
In today's global world, what happens in Iran is more than Iran's affair. Iran's government has a right to nuclear power to generate electricity, but not to a nuclear weapon. It also has obligations to its neighbors, to the world community -- not to support terrorism, for example -- and to its citizens. The world should not sit idly by as Iran's regime fails to meet these obligations.
Richard N. Haass is President of the Council on Foreign Relations and author of War of Necessity, War of Choice: A Memoir of Two Iraq Wars.
(C) 2010 Project Syndicate

The force needed to contain Iran

2010-02-21T10:11:00.002+02:00

Washington Post

By James M. Lindsay and Ray Takeyh

As Iran relentlessly moves toward acquiring a nuclear weapons capability, calls will grow for the United States to think seriously about how to contain Tehran. A preventive attack will not work, some will argue, and could unleash a wave of terrorism that would further imperil Iraq and Afghanistan. Conversely, containment will be held up as a way to deter Tehran without having to resort to military force.

But this view draws a false distinction between containment and force. A preventive attack might not end Iran's nuclear ambitions. Defense Secretary Robert Gates argues that a successful attack would delay the Iranian program by at most a few years. Yet a policy of containment will not save the White House from having to make tough choices about using force. Indeed, Iran can be contained only if Washington is prepared to use force against an emboldened adversary armed with the ultimate weapon.

The rationale for the Iranian nuclear program has changed over time. It began as part of a largely defensive strategy under the moderate presidencies of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami. Nuclear weapons would provide a way to deter a range of foes while enhancing national prestige.

Today, as Iranian hawks consolidate their power and the Revolutionary Guards emerge as a key pillar of the state, Tehran views nuclear weapons as the means to regional preeminence. A nuclear shield would give Iran freedom to project its power in the Middle East. Such an Iran is unlikely to be subtle about brandishing the nuclear card.

It would take considerable American political skill and will to contain such regional pretensions. Washington would need to be explicit about its red lines: no initiation of conventional warfare against other countries; no use or transfer of nuclear weapons, material or technologies; no stepped-up support for terrorist or subversive activities. Washington would need to be just as explicit about the consequences of crossing those lines: potential U.S. military retaliation by any and all means necessary.

Tehran would probably test U.S. resolve early on, believing that regional dynamics had shifted sharply in its favor. In that case, the United States would face a momentous credibility crisis because it had failed to stop Iran from going nuclear after persistently declaring that such an outcome was unacceptable. Even close U.S. allies would doubt Washington's security guarantees.

An emboldened Iran would test Washington in several ways. It would probably lend more support to Hezbollah and Hamas and encourage them to act more aggressively against Israel. It might step up subversive activities against the Gulf sheikdoms and demand that they evict U.S. troops from their territory.

A nuclear Iran could also be tempted to transfer nuclear materials and technologies to other countries. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has already declared that "Iran's nuclear achievements belong to all those countries thinking of peace and welfare, and we are prepared to provide these achievements to those who hate war and aggression." How would the United States respond to an Iran that transferred advanced centrifuges or nuclear weapon designs to its Syrian ally? Or if it gave fissile material to a terrorist group?

Such dangerous and destabilizing actions cannot be addressed by tough diplomatic talk or yet more U.N. Security Council resolutions. It can be addressed only by a willingness to respond with force. And in the curious logic that governs deterrence, a Tehran that believes Washington will retaliate will be less likely to act aggressively in the first place.

The challenges of making containment work make it far preferable that Iran stop -- or be stopped -- short of becoming a nuclear power. Efforts to negotiate limits on Iran's nuclear program must be pursued with vigor, and economic pressure on Tehran must be maintained. Military options should not be taken off the table.

If Tehran remains determined to go nuclear and preventive attacks prove too risky or unworkable to carry out, the United States will need to formulate a strategy to contain Iran. In doing so, however, it would be a mistake to assume that containment would save the United States from the need to make tough choices about retaliation. If Washington is not prepared to back up a containment strategy with force, the damage created by Iran's going nuclear could become catastrophic.

James M. Lindsay is senior vice president and Ray Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Their article "After Iran Gets the Bomb" will be published in the March-April issue of Foreign Affairs.

Ecuador says Iran ties landed it on laundering list

2010-02-20T23:06:00.002+02:00

SANGOLQUI, Ecuador, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Ecuador's inclusion on an international list of nations accused of lagging in the fight against money-laundering is a hypocritical punishment for its relations with Iran, Ecuador's president said on Saturday.

"What arrogance! And why? Because we have relations with Iran. That's it," Rafael Correa said at his weekly town-hall meeting. "This is imperialism in its most base form ... This has nothing to do with the struggle against money laundering."

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), comprised of governments and regional organizations, named Ecuador this week alongside Iran, Angola, North Korea and Ethiopia as nations failing to comply with international regulations against money-laundering and financing terrorism. [ID:nLDE61H21G]

Under Correa, Ecuador has strengthened diplomatic and commercial ties with Iran, which has opened an embassy in Quito and is forging wider relations across Latin America despite the concerns of Washington.

"We have been black-listed along with Iran, Ethiopia, Angola and North Korea. We are the financiers of terrorism in the world!" the leftist Correa said indignantly during his regular Saturday televised address.

"It's a stick so you don't misbehave, naughty boy. You didn't do what I said, don't get involved with Iran. So because you went ahead, we'll put you on the black list, that's all."

The FATF said in its report, released on Thursday, that Ecuador had not "constructively engaged" with it and had "not committed" to global standards on money crimes.

Correa said Ecuador has perfectly adequate legislation and dismissed the report as "a huge lie." He asked why nobody had mentioned Brazil, which also has growing ties with Iran.

Correa said international authorities should put pressure instead on rich nations like the United States and Switzerland over money-laundering in their financial systems.

He was speaking in his weekly televised address, this time in the highland town of Sangolqui outside Quito. He arrived in a wheelchair after a knee operation in Cuba last week. (Reporting by Alexandra Valencia and Andrew Cawthorne; editing by Todd Eastham)

IAEA Board of Governors Report on Iran

2010-02-20T22:26:00.001+02:00

Here you can read a copy of IAEA Board of Governors Report on Iran.

IAEA fears Iran working now on nuclear warhead

2010-02-20T01:18:00.004+02:00

In unusually blunt language, an International Atomic Energy Agency report for the first time suggested Iran was actively pursuing nuclear weapons capability, throwing independent weight behind similar Western suspicions.

The IAEA seemed to be cautiously going public with concerns arising from a classified agency analysis leaked in part last year which concluded that Iran has already honed explosives expertise relevant to a workable nuclear weapon.

The report also confirmed Iran had produced its first small batch of uranium enriched to a higher purity -- 20 percent.

Both developments will intensify pressure on Iran to prove it is not covertly bent on "weaponizing" enrichment by allowing unfettered access for IAEA inspectors and investigators, something it rejects in protest at U.N. sanctions.

The United States is already leading a push for the U.N. Security Council to impose a fourth round of sanctions on Iran because of suspicions it may be developing nuclear weapons and has received declarations of support from Russia, which has until now been reluctant to expand sanctions.

"We always said that if Iran failed to live up to those international obligations, that there would be consequences," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters aboard Air Force One as President Barack Obama flew to a political event.

A senior Obama administration official said the IAEA report showed an "increasing pattern of non-cooperation" by Iran with the U.N. watchdog. The report also documented "significant technical problems" that Iran continues to have with its nuclear program, the official told reporters.

Tehran says its nuclear program is meant only to yield electricity or radio-isotopes for agriculture or medicine. It took an opposing view of the report's conclusions.

"The IAEA's new report confirmed Iran's peaceful nuclear activities and the country's non-deviation toward military purposes," Iran's envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, told the state news agency IRNA.

INTELLIGENCE REPORTS

For several years, the IAEA has been investigating Western intelligence reports indicating Iran has coordinated efforts to process uranium, test explosives at high altitude and revamp a ballistic missile cone in a way suitable for a nuclear warhead.

In 2007, the United States issued an assessment saying Iran had halted such research in 2003 and probably not resumed it.

But its key Western allies believe Iran continued the program -- and the IAEA report offered independent support for that perception for the first time.

"The information available to the agency is extensive ... broadly consistent and credible in terms of the technical detail, the time frame in which the activities were conducted and the people and organizations involved," the report said.

"Altogether this 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."

IAEA's new chief, Yukiya Amano, is seen as more inclined to confront Iran than his predecessor, Mohamed ElBaradei, who retired on December 1.

"Now we see from (available intelligence) that certain activities may have continued after 2004," said a senior official close to the IAEA. "We want to find out from Iran what they've had to do with these nuclear explosive-related activities."

The U.S. director of National Intelligence concluded last year that Iran would not be technically able to devise a nuclear weapon before 2013. But a new intelligence estimate is due soon.

Iran has dismissed the intelligence reports cited by the IAEA as fabrication but failed to provide its own evidence. Tehran has boycotted contact with the IAEA on the matter for 18 months.

The report, to be considered at a March 1-5 meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board, said it was vital for Iran to cooperate with IAEA investigators "without further delay."

HIGHER ENRICHMENT

Last week, Iran announced a start to higher-scale enrichment, saying it was frustrated at the collapse of an IAEA-backed plan for big powers to provide it with fuel rods for nuclear medicine made from uranium refined to 20 percent purity.

The IAEA report complained that Iran had begun feeding low-enriched uranium (LEU) into centrifuges for higher refinement before inspectors could get to the scene in the Natanz pilot enrichment facility.

"We have expressed our dissatisfaction," said the senior official close to the IAEA. "It is of paramount importance to have this information in a timely way to make sure there are no undeclared activities or facilities in Iran."

The big powers accused Iran of reneging on an agreement to ship out two-thirds of its LEU reserve to be turned into fuel rods for the medical reactor. This would have prevented Iran retaining enough of the material to fuel a nuclear weapon, if it were refined to about 90 percent purity.

Only France, one party to the U.N. draft deal, and Argentina are known to possess the technology. So analysts ask why Iran would enrich uranium well above its needs, except to lay the groundwork for producing bomb-grade uranium.

The report further said that Iran had increased its LEU stockpile by some 300 kg (660 pounds) to 2.06 tons since November -- enough for one or two nuclear bombs if enriched to 90 percent purity.

The IAEA said over nine-tenths of the LEU stockpile had been earmarked for enrichment up to 20 percent, a significant mark as further enrichment up to 90 percent may need only a few months.

But the report also attested to stagnating capacity at Natanz. It said the number of operating centrifuges had dropped to 3,772 from nearly 4,000.

This was well under half of all the machines installed in Natanz, the report indicated. Analysts and diplomats close to the IAEA say Iran may be having serious mechanical problems in keeping thousands of antiquated centrifuges running in unison.

But the senior official said Iran appeared to be shifting focus to a second enrichment site at Fordow near Qom, which Iran has said will preserve the program if foes bomb Natanz.

First Iranian-built destroyer launched in Gulf

2010-02-20T00:51:00.004+02:00

TEHRAN (Reuters): "The first domestically made destroyer Jamaran was launched this morning and joined Iran's naval forces in the southern waters of the Persian Gulf," state television IRIB reported. It did not give the location of the launch.

The report showed footage of the warship and said it was equipped with torpedoes and electronic radar. The ship is 94 meters long and more than 1,500 tonnes, it said. Much of Iran's naval equipment dates from before the 1979 Islamic revolution and is U.S.-made.

Tension is high in the long-running international row over Iran's nuclear program, with Western powers calling for a fourth round of U.N. sanctions against Tehran for refusing to halt uranium enrichment.

The West fears Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. Tehran says it plans only civilian nuclear facilities.

The U.N. nuclear watchdog said in its latest report it feared Iran might be working now to develop a nuclear payload for a missile.

The United States and its western allies say they want a diplomatic solution but have not ruled out military action against the Islamic republic.

The United States said in January it had expanded missile defense systems in and around the Gulf -- a waterway crucial for global oil supplies -- to counter what it sees as Iran's growing missile threat.

Iran condemned the move and accused Washington of seeking to stoke "Iran phobia".

More on Iran Laughable Bluffing

2010-02-12T18:55:00.007+02:00

In a previous note I wrote that Iran's nuclear bravado is getting laughable.
By the time I wrote the note Iran was waving with its capacity to enrich uranium to the purity level of %20.
Now it is getting funnier!!
Speaking before a crowd of supporters in Tehran's Azadi Square, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced yesterday, on the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, that his nation had already enriched some of its uranium to 20% uranium, a significant step towards developing a nuclear weapon.
He even went as far as saying Iran has the capacity "to enrich uranium more than 80 percent", slightly below the 90 percent-plus level needed for a weapon.
In fact, there is something of the boy who cried wolf about Ahmadinejad's statements.
Bernard Kouchner told Europe 1 radio that the "Americans don't believe, not any more than us, that Iran is currently capable of enriching uranium to 80 percent."
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that Iran's leadership has made a series of statements about its nuclear prowess based on politics, not physics.
Hours before Ahmadinejad's speech the Washington Post reported that "Iran is experiencing surprising setbacks in its efforts to enrich uranium" including "equipment failures and other difficulties" which could undermine Tehran's plans to dramatically scale up its nuclear program.
The Washington Post wrote the following:

U.N. reports over the last year have shown a drop in production at Iran's main uranium enrichment plant, near the city of Natanz. Now a new assessment, based on three years of internal data from U.N. nuclear inspections, suggests that Iran's mechanical woes are deeper than previously known. At least through the end of 2009, the Natanz plant appears to have performed so poorly that sabotage cannot be ruled out as an explanation, according to a draft study by David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS). A copy of the report was provided to The Washington Post.
The ISIS study showed that more than half of the Natanz plant's 8,700 uranium-enriching machines, called centrifuges, were idle at the end of last year and that the number of working machines had steadily dropped -- from 5,000 in May to just over 3,900 in November. Moreover, output from the nominally functioning machines was about half of what was expected, said the report, drawing from data gathered by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog. A separate, forthcoming analysis by the Federation of American Scientists also describes Iran's flagging performance and suggests that continued failures may increase Iran's appetite for a deal with the West. Ivan Oelrich, vice president of the federation's Strategic Security Program, said Iranian leaders appear to have raced into large-scale uranium production for political reasons.

The West should help Iran go “green”

2010-02-11T20:30:00.003+02:00

Here you can read my response to Hooman Majd's article in FP magazine, in which he argues that the Green Movement doesn't want or need foreign support.

The World Reacts To Iran's Decision To Produce %20 Enriched Uranium

2010-02-09T19:29:00.002+02:00

Iran declared Tuesday it had started the process of producing 20 percent enriched uranium, defying world powers who have warned of new sanctions unless the Islamic republic halts its sensitive nuclear drive.

Below are some reactions:

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, said Washington is now aiming for a fresh UN sanctions resolution against Iran in a matter of weeks, not months.

EU criticized Iran enrichment move saying it feeds a "deficit of confidence" in Tehran's atomic ambitions. The EU's nuclear envoy said Tuesday, reiterating that the bloc will back UN action.

Russia confirmed Tuesday a tougher stance on Iran. The powerful head of Russia’s national Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev told journalists that saying Tehran's uranium enrichment move this week cast "well-grounded" doubt on its vows not to pursue nuclear weapons and must be met with stern consequences.

China expressed hopes that the relevant parties will exchange views on the draft deal on the Tehran research reactor and reach common ground at an early date which will help solve the issue that the impasse
IAEA said a team of its inspectors was in place to monitor the stepped-up enrichment work in Natanz.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for immediate "crippling sanctions" against Iran.

Iran's Laughable Bluffing

2010-02-09T11:01:00.003+02:00

Some remarkable US and Israeli official statements converged recently on toning down the threat of a nuclear Iran, or at least on ranking it lower on the list of threats their countries face.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told CNN's "State of the Union"that the threat posed by Al-Qaeda and its affiliates in Afghanistan, North Africa, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen exceeds that of a nuclear Iran. The latter is a real threat, she noted, while warning that the United States faces an even greater danger from Al-Qaeda.
Similarly, two weeks ago, Army Radio quoted Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak as saying that Israel's failure to strike a peace deal with the Palestinians is greater threat to the country than a nuclear Iran.
This sudden dilution of the Iranian nuclear threat, though, coincides with some interesting developments. Iran has over the past days announced the following:

It officially decided to enrich at least some of its low-enriched uranium stockpile to 20 per cent, considered the threshold value for highly enriched.
It intends to construct 10 new enrichment facilities within the next year.
It has launched two production lines to build unmanned aircraft with surveillance and attack.
It has announced it will soon deploy a missile air defence system more powerful than the advanced Russian S-300 system.

How could one comprehend the cited US and Israel laid-back positions in light of Iran's hot air? In fact both countries are nearing the conclusion that Iran's purported courage is eventually turning into bravado.
The close to worst case scenario was presented by US intelligence chief Dennis Blair in a written testimony to Congress. Blair reaffirmed the conclusions of the 2007 NIE assessment saying that Iran "has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity to eventually produce nuclear weapons, making the central issue its political will to do so".
"We continue to assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapon (...) should it choose to do so" he wrote to the congress, while casting uncertainty on whether Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.
Even the way less tolerant Israeli intelligence has been pushing forward the due date for a deployable Iranian nuclear bomb. Last June, Mossad Chief Meir Dagan, warned that Iran would be capable of developing and launching its first nuclear weapon by 2014, given its program "has no technical glitches (...) or does not malfunction in any way", which is not the case up till now.
The BBC’s Jon Leyne described Iran’s plans to have 10 new enrichment facilities operational within the next year as “almost laughably ambitious” given that it’s taken years bring the Natanz facility online and it still experiences problems.
Now the above shouldn't be confused with a fake peace of mind, otherwise the world will easily be sleepwalking into an post nuclear Iran Middle East.
The limited luxury of time available before the Mullahs could mushroom-cloud the sky somewhere on the planet, should be wisely invested. As essential as rushing to impose sanctions on the regime, is the attention should be payed to the internal situation in Iran, coupled with serious support to a more and more radicalized Green Movement.

Iran to start work on 20 percent nuclear fuel

2010-02-07T13:49:00.000+02:00

TEHRAN (Reuters) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday instructed Iran's Atomic Energy Organization to start work on producing nuclear fuel for a Tehran research reactor, casting doubt on the prospects for a swap deal with the West.

"I asked Dr Salehi to start work on the production of 20 percent fuel using centrifuges," Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech, referring to Ali Akbar Salehi, who heads the atomic energy body.

Iran's police chief warns against potential protests

2010-02-07T13:34:00.000+02:00

(CNN) -- Iran's police chief warned Saturday that security forces will firmly confront "illegal" gatherings on the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, a semi-official news agency reported.

Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam told semi-official news agency ILNA that it is "natural" that security forces carry out what he called their responsibility if security is threatened or if "sacred morals" are insulted on the "pretext" of criticism and protest.

Two top Iranian opposition leaders have called on supporters to protest Thursday, the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, an opposition Web site reported.

According to The Green Way Web site, opposition leaders Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Moussavi met last week at Karroubi's home. They called for people to take to the streets on Thursday to demand their rights back as citizens of Iran, the site reported.

According to the Saturday ILNA report, Moghaddam also said that security forces use "professional technology to prevent damages" in society, and mentioned monitoring text messages and e-mails.

Further details were not immediately available.

Opposition protests were launched after the disputed June 12 presidential election that gave hardline Ahmadinejad a second term. The government denies accusations of fraud.

About 4,000 people have been arrested in the post-election crackdown.

Last week, authorities hanged Mohammed Reza Ali Zamani, 37, and Arash Rahmanipour, 20, who had been convicted of being enemies of God and plotting to topple the Islamic regime.

The two were convicted in mass trials of opposition supporters in August, but Rahmanipour's lawyer said the young man was arrested two months before the election.

Gates Says U.S., Iran Aren’t Close to Nuclear Accord

2010-02-06T20:44:00.001+02:00

From Bloomberg:

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he doesn’t regard Iran as close to an accord with international powers on the handling of uranium.
“I don’t have the sense that we are close to an agreement,” Gates said today in Turkey’s capital Ankara. He discussed Iran with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said in Munich yesterday that Iran is “approaching a final agreement” on having nuclear fuel produced outside the Islamic Republic. The country is “serious,” he said.

The U.S., the other four permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany are working to persuade Iran to give up enrichment of uranium, which could be used to produce fuel or make a bomb. The group, which also includes China, France, Russia, and the U.K., offered a proposal that would allow Iran to swap uranium in return for enriched fuel for a medical reactor.

Iran’s response has been “quite disappointing,” Gates said. The country continues to resist the International Atomic Energy Agency and the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, he said.

“The reality is they have done nothing to reassure the international community that they are prepared to comply with the NPT or stop their progress toward a nuclear weapon,” Gates said. “I think that various nations need to think about whether the time has come for a different tack.”

EU Critical

The U.S. and its partners have said that Iran’s failure to negotiate a successful agreement would lead to further pressure, including financial sanctions. The six nations are discussing a potential Security Council resolution calling for another round of sanctions.

Iran has not made an adequate response to the proposals, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said in Munich today.

Gates travels on to Rome today and Paris on Feb. 8 in a European trip that started with a NATO meeting in Istanbul.

Obama relies on Turkey, one of NATO’s two Muslim members, on a range of national security issues straddling Europe and the Middle East, including Iran and a planned withdrawal from neighboring Iraq. Turkey also uses U.S. surveillance data in its fight with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which launches attacks on Turkish targets from bases inside northern Iraq.

Gates said he told Turkish officials that he would look for more ways to assist Turkey in the effort. He cited a visit to Turkey last week by Army General Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq.

“I think what we’re seeing is a further intensification of the cooperation in an effort to deal with this threat,” Gates said.

Erdogan is struggling to win domestic support for a plan to widen rights for Kurds and encourage the PKK to disarm. Ending a war that has killed 40,000 people, mostly Kurds, and cost $300 billion by government estimates, would bolster Turkey’s status as a safe route to Europe for Eurasian oil and gas. It would also help revive Turkey’s bid to join the European Union, which criticizes the treatment of Kurds.

To contact the reporter on this story: Viola Gienger in Washington at vgienger@bloomberg.net

A Strategy Not To Accept Nuclear Iran

2010-02-06T11:47:00.003+02:00

Paul J. Saunders argues in a his piece in "National Interest Online" that Washington should start to develop a serious plan to manage the most likely future: an unreformed and nuclear-capable Iran.
Without providing any shred of evidence, Saunders argues that such a strategy would attain the following:

Deterring Iran from using nuclear weapons.
Ensuring that a potentially nuclear Iran would not be emboldened in relations with its neighbors.
Preventing Iran from sharing nuclear technology with others.

While Saunders' riddled with illusion argument hovered around the idea of preparing for a possible nuclear Iran , he calls upon his readers to find comfort in the assurance that what he is suggesting is:

a sensible strategy that will allow America not to accept a nuclear Iran if one should emerge despite our best efforts.

Do we need a strategy "not to accept a nuclear Iran"?? Isn't this Washington's basic position according to which "strategies" are supposed to be designed??

Iran says nuclear deal is 'close'

2010-02-06T11:30:00.003+02:00

Iran's foreign minister has said it is closing in on a deal with world powers over its nuclear programme. BBC report

In Germany, Manouchehr Mottaki said a deal to send enriched uranium overseas in exchange for nuclear fuel could be reached in a "not too distant future".
China, opposed to imposing new sanctions against Tehran, said talks with the international community had reached a "crucial stage".
There was no reaction to Mr Mottaki's comments from Western delegates.

The US and its allies fear Iran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons. Iran insists its nuclear programme is peaceful in purpose.
The BBC Tehran correspondent Jon Leyne, reporting from London, says the strong suspicion is that the Iranian remarks are just another attempt to fend off new sanctions being proposed by the United States.
Mr Mottaki made his comments after deciding to join the Munich conference - a major international gathering of security officials - at the last minute.
He told a late-night audience that "conducive ground" on a nuclear fuel deal had been reached.
"Under the present conditions that we have reached, I think that we are approaching a final agreement that can be accepted by all parties," he said.
"[The] Islamic republic of Iran has shown it is serious about doing this, and we have shown it at the highest level," he said.
Diplomatic manoeuvring
But Mr Mottaki did not mention the key issue of timing and insisted that the quantity of fuel involved should be up to Iran.
In January, diplomats said Iran had informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it did not accept the terms of a deal agreed in October by Iran, the IAEA and the so-called P5+1 - the US, Russia, China, UK and France plus Germany.

In response, the US, Britain and France have been pressing for more sanctions and earlier this week circulated a discussion paper on further possible measures against the country.
The move came despite recent comments by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad indicating that the country would have "no problem" sending much of its low-enriched uranium abroad so it could be processed into fuel - an arrangement envisaged by the October agreement.
Western diplomats reacted warily to Mr Ahmedinejad's comments.
But China's Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told the Munich conference that the P5+1 should remain patient and keep pursuing a diplomatic solution to the issue.
"The parties concerned should, with the overall and long-term interests in mind, step up diplomatic efforts, stay patient and adopt a more flexible, pragmatic and proactive policy," he said.
"The purpose is to seek a comprehensive, long-term and proper solution through dialogue and negotiations."

Australia blocks suspicious shipments to Iran

2010-02-04T11:10:00.001+02:00

The Associated Press
Wednesday, February 3, 2010; 6:35 PM

SYDNEY -- Australia recently blocked several export shipments to Iran because of concern the cargo may have been destined for Tehran's nuclear weapons programs, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Thursday.

The bans were ordered by the defense minister under laws aimed at preventing the proliferation of material that could be used in weapons of mass destruction.

"In the case of Iran, the defense minister has on a number of occasions - I'm advised three - exercised his power under the act and has done so entirely appropriately," Rudd told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Rudd declined to say what the material in the shipments was, or give details about when they were blocked.

The Australian newspaper first reported the blocked shipments and said one of them was understood to include pumps that could have been used to cool nuclear power plants. The report said there were up to three other shipments - one more than Rudd mentioned - but that no details were known about them.

Australia has imposed various trade sanctions on Iran as part of U.N. efforts to persuade the Middle East country to end its nuclear programs.

Rudd said that Iran's nuclear ambitions posed a threat to global peace and international pressure must continue to convince Tehran to abandon them.

"If you look at the status of Iran's nuclear weapons program and their consistent thumbing of the nose to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the international community more broadly and the continuation of their nuclear weapons program despite international condemnation, there are no alternatives other than to maintain a hard line," he said.

Petraeus says strike on Iran could spark nationalism

2010-02-03T18:16:00.002+02:00

A military strike on Iran could have the unintended consequence of stirring nationalist sentiment to the benefit of Tehran's hard-line government, U.S. General David Petraeus told Reuters.

Iran's June election gave President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term but sparked the worst internal crisis in the Islamic Republic's history, putting internal pressure on a government already facing the threat of more sanctions over its nuclear program.
"It's possible (a strike) could be used to play to nationalist tendencies," Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command region, which includes Iran, said in an interview this week.
"There is certainly a history, in other countries, of fairly autocratic regimes almost creating incidents that inflame nationalist sentiment. So that could be among the many different, second, third, or even fourth order effects (of a strike)."
Tensions over Iran's nuclear program have set off speculation that Israel could make good on veiled threats to hit its arch-foe pre-emptively. But Israel's envoy to Washington said in December the U.S.-Israeli dialogue on Iran has not reached the point of discussing the military option.
U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates, have warned that any strike on Iran would not stop the Islamic Republic from pursuing nuclear weapons. Instead, it would only delay Tehran, an opinion Petraeus said he shared.
Dennis Blair, the U.S. director of national intelligence, told Congress on Tuesday that Iran was keeping open the option of developing nuclear weapons but that it remained unclear whether Tehran had the political will to do so.
Petraeus, commenting on advances of Iran's nuclear program, said: "On the one hand, there is no question that there has been a continuation of various aspects of the nuclear program but I'm not sure it has always proceeded as rapidly as has been projected at various times."
GRADUAL BOOST IN DEFENSES
Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday Iran was ready to send its enriched uranium abroad in exchange for nuclear fuel under a plan the West hopes will stop the material from being used for atomic bombs.
The same day, Iran also said it would soon hang nine more rioters over unrest that erupted after the June presidential vote, which protesters said was rigged.
Petraeus cautioned that the "big winner" of the election had been Iran's security apparatus, expanding the influence the Revolutionary Guards Corps, including its elite Qods force.
"It's gone from I think a theocracy that had democratic elements in a narrow spectrum ... to a government that is the result of a hijacked election and a regime that is kept in power by security services to a vastly greater extent than has ever been the case before," he said.
Asked how this changed prospects diplomatically, Petraeus said: "I don't think it simplifies the situation for those who are trying to pursue diplomacy if the role of the Foreign Ministry is diminished further and the role of the Qods force has been augmented."
To counter the Iranian threat and reassure anxious Gulf allies, the United States has expanded land- and sea-based missile defense systems in and around the Gulf.
Petraeus stressed it had been a gradual build-up -- an approach shared by both the Obama and Bush administrations -- and not something sparked by events in Iran in recent months.
"This has been built up over years of inflammatory Iranian rhetoric, alarming Iranian activities and Iranian provision of arms, money, training, explosives and direction in some cases to a variety of different extremist elements," Petraeus said.
Iran has accused the United States of seeking to stoke "Iran phobia" in the Middle East by deploying the missile defense systems in the Gulf.
The United States and major European allies are pursuing broader U.N. sanctions against Iran due to its disputed nuclear activity. The United States, Britain, Germany and France have called for a fourth round of U.N. measures against Iran for refusing to halt uranium enrichment activities as demanded by five Security Council resolutions.
(Editing by Bill Trott)

Ya'alon says Iran can still be stopped

2010-02-03T18:09:00.002+02:00

Strategic affairs minister tells Herzliya Conference that despite the large amount of time that has seemingly been wasted on futile diplomatic efforts, Iran can still be stopped, and the Iranian people can still be allowed back as a respected member of the family of peace- and freedom-seeking nations.

"The State of Israel must conduct itself by the notion that 'the work of righteous will be done by others,' but should prepare in accordance with the words of our fathers: 'If I am not for myself, who will be for me?'" Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon told Herzliya Conference on Wednesday regarding the options at Israel's disposal when facing Iran.
Ya'alon called upon the international community to make it clear to Iran that it is prepared to pay an economic price, and even a military price, in order to solve the nuclear issue.
Ya'alon spoke about the negotiations being conducted with Iran regarding its nuclear program: "I believe that despite the large amount of time that has seemingly been wasted on futile diplomatic efforts, Iran can still be stopped, and the Iranian people can still be allowed back as a respected member of the family of peace- and freedom-seeking nations."
"The Iranian regime has many weaknesses. It can certainly be made clear to them that foregoing the idea of entering the brink is the best course of action for them, since adhering (to their nuclear program) will endanger their basic interest of remaining in power," asserted Ya'alon.
Ya'alon did not rule out the use of force: "The plan, of course, will likely be halted, be it through a regime change in Iran or through, with no other choice, the application of force in order to deprive Iran of its capability to produce a nuclear weapon."
He added, "It is important to continue clarifying to the extremist regime in Iran that as all options remain on the table and that ignoring the demands of the international community will likely end in bitter tears for Iran."
In his speech, the minister for strategic affairs also addressed Tehran's influence on countries in the region.
"It is not beyond reason that the changes in Turkey's policies towards Iran are related to a sense that Iran is about to become a country on the brink of nuclear weapons. Under these conditions, it is even more difficult to assume that Syria will abandon its ties with Iran to advance the peace process with Israel," concluded Ya'alon.
Ya'alon called upon the international community to make it clear that it is prepared to pay an economic price in order to solve the nuclear issue: "It is important to clarify to Iran that leading officials in the international community are determined to the point of willingness to place the issue at the top of their priorities, and even to pay an economic, and perhaps even military, price."
Ya'alon warned that knowledge of Iran's nuclear capabilities may destabilize the region. One reason for this, according to him, is that it may creating a domino effect by which neighboring countries will initiate efforts to obtain nuclear arms.
"They won't wait until Iran crosses the nuclear threshold if they are convinced there is nothing stopping them," explained Ya'alon. He noted that Iran seeks regional hegemony and to create an existential threat against Israel. "However, their most important objective is changing the world order, and replacing it with one in which Islam has a leading role."

Dictatorship still exists in post-1979 Iran: Mousavi

2010-02-03T10:37:00.001+02:00

AFP TEHRAN — Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi said Tuesday the 1979 Islamic revolution had failed to achieve its goals as the "roots of tyranny and dictatorship" that marked the shah's era still exist.

The ex-premier, once rated as a key pillar of the Islamic revolution, added in a strongly worded interview posted on his website Kaleme.org that present day Iran showed the "attitude of a historic tyrant regime everywhere."

"Dictatorship in the name of religion is the worst kind. The most evident manifestation of a continued tyrannical attitude is the abuse of parliament and judiciary. We have completely lost hope in the judiciary," he said.

Mousavi added that he no longer believed, as he once did, "that the (1979 Islamic) revolution had removed all those structures which could lead to totalitarianism and dictatorship."

"Stifling the media, filling the prisons and brutally killing people who peacefully demand their rights in the streets indicate the roots of tyranny and dictatorship remain from the monarchist era... I don't believe that the revolution achieved its goals," said Mousavi in his strongest published opinion yet on the revolution.

The former prime minister, who has spearheaded the anti-government protests since the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last June, made the remarks as Iran marks the 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution.

Celebrations marking the 1979 return from exile of hardline cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini began on Monday and will climax on February 11, the anniversary of the fall of shah who had ruled Iran for nearly four decades.

The violent protests against Ahmadinejad have triggered one of the worst crises since the foundation of the Islamic republic, rocked the pillars of the regime and divided the nation's clergy.

Dozens of people have been killed in the protests, hundreds wounded and several others put on trial by authorities for plotting to overthrow the government.

A judicial official said on Tuesday that the authorities would "soon execute" another nine people arrested during anti-government protests for seeking to topple the Islamic regime. Iran executed two people on Thursday on similar charges.

Mousavi as prime minister steered the nation's economy during the brutal conflict between Iran and Iraq in the 80s under the leadership of revolutionary leader Khomeini.

"Another example is the similarity between elections (now) and the ones in past," he said in the interview, just days after implicitly calling his supporters to demonstrate yet again on February 11 when traditionally Iranians march across the country to celebrate the revolution.

He also called on Iran's volunteer Basij militia and the police who have been used by authorities to crack down on protesters, to be "nice to people."

He went on to urge his supporters to "reduce their differences with other people", adding that his opposition movement, known as the "green movement", has "risen from the people and it belongs to the people."

White House denies prisoner swap talks with Iran

2010-02-03T09:48:00.004+02:00

WASHINGTON — The White House on Tuesday denied it had held "any discussion" with Iran about a possible prisoner swap, refuting an earlier claim by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"We have not entered into any discussion with Iran about an exchange," National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer told AFP.

In an interview on state television Tuesday, Ahmadinejad said that talks about exchanging prisoners with the United States were underway when he was asked about the fate of three American hikers detained in Iran.

"They have arrested our citizens for nothing... this is very bad... now there are talks whether it is possible to do an exchange" of prisoners, he said.

But Hammer denied talks were underway, and he and other US officials said reports of Ahmadinejad's comments were "fragmentary."

"We have made clear that we would like the cases of all our missing and detained American citizens to be resolved," he said. "If president Ahmadinejad's comments suggest that they are prepared to resolve these cases, we would welcome that step."

"But we have not entered into any discussion with Iran about an exchange. As we have indicated publicly, if Iran has questions about its citizens in US custody, we are prepared to answer them."

Iran is holding a number of US citizens in custody, including three American hikers -- Sarah Shourd, Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer -- arrested after wandering over the Iraq border into Iranian territory.

"We said that we do not like to imprison anybody. Now they have given some messages and we replied that we bring these (three Americans) and they bring them (Iranians held in US prisons) and let us see what happens," Ahmadinejad told Iranian state television.

The State Department repeated longstanding US requests for access to the three Americans after the Iranian leader's remarks.

"It's hard to know what President Ahmadinejad meant from the fragmentary media reports we've seen," Gordon Duguid, a State Department spokesman, told AFP after Ahmadinejad said a prison swap could be arranged.

"We've made it clear that what we want is consular access to our citizens in Iranian custody," he added.

"If President Ahmadinejad's comments suggest the Iranians are prepared to grant us access through the Swiss and resolve the cases of the three hikers and others in custody, we would welcome that step as it's long overdue," he said.

Among the 11 Iranians that Tehran alleges are "illegally" detained in the United States is nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri who went missing in Saudi Arabia while on pilgrimage to Mecca last year.

Iranian officials have accused Washington of kidnapping Amiri from Saudi Arabia.

In Response to Iran’s Nuclear Program, German Firms Are Slowly Pulling Out

2010-02-03T09:41:00.002+02:00

By JUDY DEMPSEY

NY Times

BERLIN — German companies, long Iran’s biggest trading partners in Europe, are finding it increasingly difficult to do business there as the United States, Israel and others campaign for tougher United Nations sanctions in response to the country’s nuclear program.

Yet even those companies that said they were pulling out — most notably Siemens last week — will probably take years to wind down operations and wrap up outstanding contracts. Others are simply lowering their profile or finding third countries to do business through, fearing they will lose a lucrative market forever if they abandon it now.

“What our members want is a level playing field,” said Ulrich Ackermann, who is responsible for Iran and other countries in the region at the German Engineering Federation, a lobbying group for the sector. “If our German companies pull out, will other, non-German companies replace us?”

Although no precise numbers are available — several big German companies declined to discuss their business activities in Iran — interviews with other companies, trade associations and export guarantee agencies suggest a significant reduction of direct trade between Germany and Iran.

One of the biggest changes is that Iranian companies seeking to import from German companies can no longer receive credit guarantees for seven to 10 years, which used to be normal for big infrastructure projects.

Now, “they have to pay within 360 days,” said Ruth Bartonek, a spokeswoman for Euler Hermes, the agency that manages the German government’s export credit guarantees.

The change was made over the last two years as a result of political pressure from the United States.

As a result, credit guarantees for Iran in 2008 — the latest figure available — amounted to 133 million euros ($186 million), compared with 503 million euros in 2007. In 2005, they were 1.4 billion euros.

Germany remains Iran’s biggest trading partner in Europe, although the market is small. Dozens of German companies have offices in Iran; Herrenknecht, a German company considered the market leader in tunnel-boring machines, lists three.

German exports to Iran in 2008 amounted to nearly 4 billion euros, or less than 1 percent of total German exports. That was down slightly from 4.4 billion euros in 2005.

As a bloc, the 27-country European Union exported goods worth 14.1 billion euros to Iran in 2008 — machinery, transport equipment, manufactured goods and chemicals. Imports totaled 11.3 billion euros in 2008, mostly energy and energy-related products.

China is Iran’s largest trading partner, responsible for about 14 percent of its imports and exports in 2008.

Beijing has been resisting renewed calls for expanded sanctions on Iran, but pressure on German companies has become much stronger in recent months.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has repeatedly called for more sanctions, saying last week that “time is running out.” She even suggested that if the United Nations Security Council failed to endorse a new package of sanctions, then European countries and other like-minded governments should take action.

Vocal pro-Israeli and Iranian exile lobbies are active, too, asking questions at the annual general meetings of those German companies doing business with Iran.

Peter Löscher, the chief executive of Siemens, announced last week that the engineering company would pull out of Iran once it had cleared its order sheet and fulfilled its contracts over the next couple of years, mostly infrastructure projects. The announcement coincided with the state visit to Berlin of the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, who warned that Israel would be a target if Iran obtained nuclear weapons.

Siemens played down its involvement in Iran. “Our turnover there was insignificant,” said Wolfram Trost, a spokesman for Siemens. “It was only 0.7 percent, or about 500 million euros, of our total sales.”

Still, Siemens had been under investigation by German customs officers. Last year, they found turbo compressors destined for Iran through a Siemens branch in Sweden. The investigators said the compressors could have had a dual-use role, including, for example, in Iran’s missile program. Siemens said all its exports to Iran were “for civilian purposes” and declined to elaborate on any specifics.

Ferrostaal, a company that makes petrochemicals and power plants, said in a statement that it received no new orders from Iran in 2009 and that all its past engineering and construction contracts “are finished already.”

The company had sales to Iran of 1.6 billion euros in 2008 and expects the same for 2009. The International Petroleum Investment Company of Abu Dhabi owns 70 percent of Ferrostaal and MAN of Germany the rest.

BASF, the giant German chemicals company, which has operations in Iran, declined to comment.

ThyssenKrupp, a German steel company that has had decades of experience in Iran, said it abided by all export and sanctions regulations. Alexander Wilke, its spokesman, said the company’s business in Iran was less than 0.5 percent of global sales, which last year totaled 40.5 billion euros.

Because of the sanctions regime, the Federal Office of Economics and Export Control is scrutinizing more closely every request by a German company to export to Iran. Holger Beutel, a spokesman for the office, said that the agency was particularly on the lookout for dual-use exports, which can be used both for civilian and military purposes. Under United Nations sanctions, no dual-use equipment for nuclear or related technology is allowed.

In 2009, the office granted 7,210 permits for dual-use purposes, of which 48 were for Iran. It refused nine dual-use export licenses for Iran. In 2008, it granted 7,845 permissions for dual-use purposes, of which 39 were for exports to Iran. Fourteen export licenses for Iran were refused.

Despite such scrutiny, the office acknowledged that German companies could circumvent these restrictions by using third countries.

The office “is conscious of the fact that business activities can be done through third countries,” Mr. Beutel said.

A German business executive in Iran who represents several German companies confirmed this. “Dubai is Iran’s biggest trading partner, yet Dubai produces nothing,” he said, requesting anonymity because, he said, he would be fired if he gave his name. “The pressure from Berlin is increasing. German companies are becoming nervous. So they go to Dubai. And the Americans do business with Iran via Dubai. As for the Israelis, they can buy perfectly good Iranian washing machines via Romania.”

Mr. Ackermann, from the German Engineering Federation, would not comment on the use of third countries. But he said that even if some German companies found ways to get around the sanctions, it cost them time, money and personnel.

“I don’t want to discuss politics,” he said. “But one thing is sure: Once you lose your market niche, it is very difficult to regain it.”

Iran says ready to send uranium abroad as UN wants

2010-02-03T09:30:00.000+02:00

By NASSER KARIMI
The Associated Press

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran said on Tuesday it was ready to send its uranium abroad for further enrichment as requested by the U.N.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced the decision in an interview with state Iranian television.

He said Iran will have "no problem" giving the West its low-enriched uranium and taking it back several months later when it is enriched by 20 percent.

The decision could signal a major shift in the Iranian position on the issue.

Still, it was unclear how much of a concession the Ahmadinejad comments represented, even though he appeared to be saying for the first time that Iran was willing to ship out its enriched uranium and wait for it to be returned in the form of fuel for its Tehran research reactor.

But his time frame of four or five months appeared to fall short of the year that Western officials say it would take for Iran's enriched fuel to be turned into fuel rods for the reactor.

If that difference cannot be bridged, it could allow Iranian officials to assert that the deal failed due to Western foot-dragging, despite their readiness to accept the proposed formula of shipping out the bulk of their enriched uranium and waiting for it to be converted and returned as fuel.

Ahmadinejad also did not address whether his country was ready to ship out most of its stockpile in one batch - another condition set by the six world powers endorsing the fuel swap.

If Iran were to agree to export most of its enriched uranium in one shipment, it would delay its ability to make a nuclear weapon by stripping it of the material it needs to make the fissile core of a warhead.

Experts believe it would need at least a year to replenish its stockpile at its present rate of uranium enrichment.

For months, Iranian officials have used the media to criticize the plan and offer alternatives.

The West suspects that Iran's nuclear program is geared toward acquiring atomic weapons. Iran denies the charge and says the program is for the peaceful purpose of generating energy.

"If we allow them to take it, there is no problem. We sign a contract to give 3.5 percent enriched uranium and receive 20 percent enriched one after four or five months," Ahmadinejad said.

He dismissed concerns by what he called "colleagues" that the West would not return the uranium, saying Iran would respond to that by continuing to produce its own enriched uranium.

The plan for shipping the low enriched uranium abroad for treatment comes from the International Atomic Agency. It was first drawn up in early October in a landmark meeting in Geneva between Iran and the six world powers, and then refined later that month in Vienna talks among Iran, the U.S., Russia and France.

The talks in Vienna came up with a draft proposal that would take 70 percent of Iran's low-enriched uranium to reduce its stockpile of material that could be enriched to a higher level, and possibly be used to make nuclear weapons.

That uranium would be returned about a year later as refined fuel rods, which can power reactors but cannot be readily turned into weapons-grade material.

IAEA officials did not immediately return after-hours calls to their mobile phones seeking comment.

At the White House, spokesman Mike Hammer said the United States has made "a good faith and balanced offer regarding the Tehran research reactor" that makes sense for Iran and Western countries.

"If Mr. Ahmadinejad's comments reflect an updated Iranian position, we look forward to Iran informing the IAEA," said Hammer, the National Security Council's spokesman.

The foreign ministries of Britain, France and Germany said they had no immediate comment.

In Tuesday's interview, Ahmadinejad repeated his wish to see the West build nuclear power plants in his country. "They want to cooperate? OK, we cooperate. We do not have any problem. Let them build 20 nuclear power plants. Is there a problem? Russia, France and the U.S., come and build."

Iran is building with Russia's help its first nuclear power plant in the southern port city of Bushehr. The plant is scheduled to be inaugurated later this year.

The United States and its Western allies have been pushing for a fourth round of U.N. sanctions to be slapped on Iran over its disputed nuclear program. But with Russia, and especially China, skeptical of any new U.N. penalties, they have to tread carefully to maintain six power unity on how to deal with the Islamic Republic.

International concerns include Iran's refusal to heed U.N. Security Council demands that it freeze its enrichment program; fears that it may be hiding more nuclear facilities after its belated revelations that it was building a secret fortified enrichment plant, and its stonewalling of an IAEA probe of alleged programs geared to developing nuclear arms.

Iran's nuclear program gaining ground - U.S. review

2010-02-03T01:20:00.000+02:00

WASHINGTON, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Iran has made advances in enriching uranium and is keeping open the option of developing nuclear weapons, but it is unclear whether it has the political will to do so, the U.S. director of national intelligence said on Tuesday.

In written testimony to Congress, intelligence chief Dennis Blair said Iranian technical advancements backed up judgments in a 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate, or NIE, that "Iran is technically capable of producing enough HEU (highly enriched uranium) for a weapon in the next few years, if it chooses to do so."

"Iran's technical advancement, particularly in uranium enrichment, strengthens our 2007 NIE assessment that Iran has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity to eventually produce nuclear weapons, making the central issue its political will to do so," Blair said.

"We continue to assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that bring it closer to being able to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so. We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons," he added.

Hezbollah's Crisis

2010-02-01T21:27:00.002+02:00

Here you can read my op-ed on Hezbollah, in which I argue that the jihadist movement is neither capable of taking up the mantle of fight, not at an affordable price at least, nor it is prevailing as a deterrent.

For a resistance movement, bravado is not a substitute for actually fighting.

Hezbollah is no exception to this rule, and this is at the heart of the crisis within the party.

More than three years after the 2006 war with Israel and two years after the assassination of its top commander, Imad Mugniyah, in a heavily secured zone in Damascus, Hezbollah hasn’t launched one resistance operation. On the contrary, South Lebanon is enjoying the calmest period it’s had since 1978, according to UNIFIL’s recent assessment.

Even on the five or so occasions when Katyusha rockets were fired into Israel from South Lebanon since the July War, Hezbollah was always among the first parties to deny any involvement and has sometimes gone as far as to condemn the attacks.

Hezbollah’s leadership can't miss the signs their community sends during such incidents. Images of southern villagers fleeing in packed cars with their possessions strapped on top flutter across Lebanese TV screens every time attacks are launched from the Hezbollah-dominated South into northern Israel.

It is a normal reaction, given that the memory of the 2006 war is still fresh in southerners’ minds, something Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has noted in his speeches.

Yet in a recent address he called upon his audience "to withstand and fight" as Shia Imam Hussein and his followers did in the battle of Karbala back in the 7th century, should Israel impose the fight "upon us."

It is hardly an appealing invitation. The "Husseinis", as Nasrallah may recall, perished in the battle of Karbala, and their school of fighting, which Nasrallah is promising to imitate, ended with a crushing military defeat in which humiliated prisoners of war were forced to walk from the battlefield in Iraq to Damascus. It is a fight that goes down in military history as an example of how not to go to war.

Imam Hussein himself desperately tried to avoid the confrontation to save his people from such a fate.

Hence, the Shia community, which annually commemorates the slain Imam, aspires for a different future, and when they flee their homes it is not because they are gutlessly trying to avoid battle but because they fear for their safety.

Deterrence or delusion?

The Party of God is under attack from Israeli – and possibly other – intelligence apparatuses, which have struck the party in its most secure areas. Its operatives have been uncovered in Azerbaijan and Egypt, and arms shipments to the organization, like the weapons found onboard the Francop last fall, have been intercepted. In mid-October wire tapping devices exploded on phone lines that were part of Hezbollah’s private telecommunications network. The explosion in Hezbollah-controlled Haret-Hreik in December is believed to be an Israeli attempt on the life of top Hamas official in Lebanon Oussama Hamdan.

So Hezbollah is being attacked, and it hasn’t retaliated to any of the abovementioned offenses. Yet the party is under the delusion that it is a deterrence force against Israel.

The party’s updated political manifesto, which Hassan Nasrallah debuted on November 30, stated that the Resistance has gone from playing the role of the liberator to playing a “confrontation and deterrence role, in addition to its political and internal role as an influence in building a just and capable state."

However, the party is not playing its self-assigned deterrence role very well, as Israel, with its constant aggressions on Lebanon, is far from being deterred.

The UN Security Council listed 388 Israeli airspace violations against Lebanon in its report last June. The figure has grown since then.

Israel admits that it is conducting surveillance on Hezbollah's military activities and has threatened to take action against Lebanon as a whole should Hezbollah acquire advanced anti-aircraft missiles or any other large-scale weaponry.

So let's get this right: Hezbollah's deterrence force is so powerful that it is, ironically, becoming a pretext for permanent Israeli violations against Lebanon and possibly an inducement for a devastating war.

Nevertheless, with characteristic condescension, Hezbollah contemptuously dismisses the looming catastrophic conflict. "Resistance forces will ultimately triumph," Nasrallah said, addressing a conference of Arab and international Resistance organizations in Beirut a couple of weeks ago. He added that his party will “change the face of the region.”

Since Hezbollah considers Israel an "absolute evil" and its very existence a permanent aggression against the imaginary "Muslim nation", the party believes it has the legitimacy to take up the mantle of liberating Palestine and wiping Israel off the map.
So why the delay in accomplishing this "divine" mission?

Because it is undoable and Hezbollah knows it. This leaves the party with few options.

Hezbollah could either seek shelter in bravado while simultaneously concentrating on its sweeping domestic plans, as outlined in its manifesto, or it could involved in a serious national dialogue over how to give up its arsenal in parallel with an internal dialogue over how to turn itself into more of a political party that could excel through a democratic political process.

The Hezbollah leadership has never shown any interest in this second option.

Rather, Hezbollah has, against all odds, planted its long-range rockets deep into northern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, as Washington Post reported last month, and the party’s leader seems to have no problem luring Israel into a major war fought on Lebanese soil.

While Imam Hussein tried to avoid conflict, Hezbollah isn’t, and it should think of its supporters in the ever-vulnerable Shia community before picking a fight.

Slain Hamas Leader Helped Gaza Get Arms and Israel Links Him To Iran

2010-01-31T13:38:00.004+02:00

Hamas spokesman Talal Nasser told the UAE newspaper The National that Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, a Hamas commander killed in Dubai on the January 20, had "played a key role in supplying the Palestinian people with weapons and money," including "special weapons" for his native Gaza, where Israel waged war a year ago.
A source close to Hamas in Gaza told Reuters: "I believe the issue of weapons he used to provide Hamas and (Palestinian) resistance factions was the reason behind his being targeted."
Israel's government declined official comment on the death of Al-Mabhouh, however Israeli security sources linked him to rockets and other arms that reach Gaza from Iran, Reuters reported.

One Israeli security source said on Sunday Mabhouh had been "key" to Hamas efforts to smuggle rockets and other arms into his native Gaza Strip, ruled by the Palestinian Islamist faction and whose borders with Israel and Egypt are under blockade.

"He was a strategic asset for Hamas when it came to its armament by Iran," the source said. Israel accuses Iran of supplying weapons to Hamas by sea and land routes such as Sudan and Egypt. Iran calls its support for Hamas diplomatic only.

Hamas officials have declined to say what Mabhouh, who had long lived in the Syrian capital Damascus, was doing in the Gulf or what his role was. They called him a senior military figure and one Hamas source said he was working right up to his death.

Politico: CIA chief visited Israel; discussed Iran

2010-01-31T10:59:00.003+02:00

Laura Rozen, reported in politico.com that CIA director Leon Panetta traveled to Israel this past week where he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and Mossad chief Meir Dagan, one former Israeli official said. The main subject of conversation was Iran.

Israeli sources say CIA director Leon Panetta traveled to Israel this past week. He met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and Mossad chief Meir Dagan, one former Israeli official said. The main subject of conversation was Iran, as well as "relations" in general, the former official said.

A CIA spokesman said that they don't as a rule discuss the CIA director's travel. Regional news reports said that Panetta also traveled to Cairo for meetings with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman and other officials.

Earlier this month, Obama National Security Advisor Jim Jones traveled to Israel, the Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, accompanied by the NSC's Dennis Ross.

Panetta previously was reported to travel to Israel last May.

Yedioth Ehronot who cited Rozen's article offered this background:

The last known visit by Panetta in Israel took place last May. During his visit, senior political and security sources conveyed through him a message to the Obama administration stating that Israel plans to coordinate its moves on Iran with the US.
They stated that this commitment would stand in the event of a military option as well.

U.S. Speeding Up Missile Defenses in Persian Gulf

2010-01-30T23:43:00.004+02:00

From the NY Times by DAVID E. SANGER and ERIC SCHMITT:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is accelerating the deployment of new defenses against possible Iranian missile attacks in the Persian Gulf, placing special ships off the Iranian coast and antimissile systems in at least four Arab countries, according to administration and military officials.

The deployments come at a critical turning point in President Obama’s dealings with Iran. He is warning that his diplomatic outreach will now be combined with the “consequences,” as he put it in the State of the Union address, of the country’s continued defiance on its nuclear program. The administration is trying to win broad international consensus for sanctions against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, which Western nations say controls the military side of the nuclear program.

As part of that effort, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton publicly warned China on Friday that its opposition to sanctions was shortsighted.

The news that the United States is deploying antimissile defenses — including a rare public discussion of them by Gen. David H. Petraeus — appears to be part of a coordinated administration strategy to increase pressure on Iran.

The deployments are also partly intended to counter the impression that Iran is fast becoming the most powerful military force in the Middle East and to forestall any Iranian escalation of its confrontation with the West if a new set of sanctions is imposed. In addition, the administration is trying to show Israel that there is no immediate need for military strikes against Iranian nuclear and missile facilities, according to administration officials, all of whom requested anonymity.

By highlighting the defensive nature of the buildup the administration was hoping to avoid a sharp response from Tehran.

Military officials said that the countries that accepted the antimissile weapons were Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait. They said the Kuwaitis had agreed to take additional defensive weapons to supplement older, less capable models it fielded years ago, while it awaits delivery of an upgraded system that it is seeking from the Raytheon Company. Saudi Arabia and Israel have long had similar equipment of their own.

General Petraeus has declined to say who was taking the American equipment, probably because many countries in the gulf are hesitant to be publicly identified as accepting American military aid and the troops that come with it. In fact, the names of countries where the antimissile systems are deployed are classified, but many of them are an open secret.

General Petraeus spoke about the deployments at a conference at the Institute for the Study of War here on Jan. 22, saying that “Iran is clearly seen as a very serious threat by those on the other side of the gulf front, and indeed, it has been a catalyst for the implementation of the architecture that we envision and have now been trying to implement.”

General Petraeus said that the acceleration of defensive systems — which began when President George W. Bush was in office — included “eight Patriot missile batteries, two in each of four countries.” Patriot missiles are capable of shooting down short-range offensive missiles.

General Petraeus also described a first line of defense: He said the United States was now keeping Aegis cruisers on patrol in the Persian Gulf at all times. Those cruisers are equipped with advanced radar and antimissile systems designed to intercept medium-range missiles. Those systems would not be useful against Iran’s long-range missile, the Shahab 3, but intelligence agencies believe that it will be years before Iran can solve the problems of placing a nuclear warhead atop that missile.

As described by administration officials, the moves have several motives. “Our first goal is to deter the Iranians,” said one senior administration official, insisting on anonymity because the White House declined to answer any questions about the rationale behind the buildup. “A second is to reassure the Arab states, so they don’t feel they have to go nuclear themselves. But there is certainly an element of calming the Israelis as well.”

As Iran’s nuclear program proceeds — more slowly, American intelligence officials say, than they once feared — Israel has hinted at various times that it might take military action against the country’s military facilities unless it is convinced that Mr. Obama and Western allies are succeeding in stopping the program. In the spring of 2008, the Israelis asked President Bush for weapons able to penetrate underground bunkers and refueling technology in case they decided to carry out a strike. They were turned down, and have since focused on developing their own capabilities.

Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, took an unannounced trip to Israel this month, partly to take the temperature of the Israeli government and to review both economic and covert programs now under way against the Iranian program, according to officials familiar with the meeting.

American officials argue that the willingness of Arab states to take the American emplacements, which usually come with a small deployment of American soldiers to operate, maintain and protect the equipment, illustrates the region’s growing unease about Iran’s ambitions and abilities. Oman, which has always been sensitive about perceptions that it is doing Washington’s bidding, has also been approached, but so far there is no deployment of Patriots there, according to American officials.

One senior military officer said that General Petraeus had started talking openly about the Patriot deployments about a month ago, when it became increasingly clear that international efforts toward imposing sanctions against Iran faced hurdles, and the administration’s efforts to engage Iran were being rebuffed by the Tehran government. In October, the two countries reached an agreement in principle to move a significant portion of Iran’s nuclear fuel out of the country, but Iran backed away from the deal.

In discussing the Patriots and missile-shooting ships, General Petraeus’s main message has been to reassure allies in the gulf that the United States is committed to helping defend the region, said the military officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicate nature of the topic. But the general’s remarks were also a pointed reminder to the Iranians of American resolve, the officer said.

Mousavi And Karroubi In Implicit Call For Protest On Feb 11

2010-01-30T14:59:00.003+02:00

Opposition heads on Saturday implicitly called for demonstrations on the February 11 anniversary of Iran's Islamic revolution, as the Revolutionary Guards warned that any such protest will be crushed.

Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, who have spearheaded protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, met on Saturday and invited supporters to demonstrate on the anniversary day, Karroubi's website Sahamnews.org said.

The two leaders said Thursday's hangings of two dissidents, Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani and Arash Rahmani Pour, for allegedly plotting to topple the Islamic regime after Iran's election dispute broke out in June was an attempt to keep people away from the February 11 demonstration.

"It seems that such a move is to scare people so they do not take part in the demonstration of 22nd of Bahman (February 11)," the website quoted the two as saying, an indication of possible anti-government protests which could occur during regime-sponsored annual marches.

The website said Mousavi and Karroubi agreed that the executed pair appeared to have been arrested months before the June 12 presidential election and had nothing to do with the post-poll violence.

The two dissidents belonged to the monarchist group Tondar (the Kingdom Assembly of Iran), according to Iranian media reports.

Their hangings were the first reported executions of people tried since the wave of protests that broke out following the re-election of hardliner Ahmadinejad to a second four-year term.

Sahamnews said the two leaders also invited people to turn out in "massive numbers" on February 11 for the 31st anniversary.

Hundreds of thousands of Iranians march each year to mark the revolution which toppled the pro-Western shah but next month's event is expected to turn into another stage for anti-government protests.

On Saturday, a senior commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards militia warned that any attempt by opposition groups to protest against the government on February 11 will be crushed.

"We will by no means allow anything known as the 'green movement' to make an appearance" on the anniversary, Brigadier General Hossein Hamedani was quoted as saying on ISNA news agency.

Protesters would be considered as "foreign agents."

"Any voice, colour and gesture which is different from that of the Islamic revolution and from Iranians' voice should be driven out of people's marches ... and if there a few people who want to do something, they will be severely dealt with," he said.

Opposition supporter and ex-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, meanwhile, urged people to maintain calm on the anniversary day.

"Those who love the regime ... should try that this year's march be held calmly ... because any conflict and violence will serve the interests of enemies," Rafsanjani was quoted on state television's website.

The anti-Ahmadinejad protests which erupted after his re-election have shaken the pillars of Iran's Islamic regime and divided the clergy.

The 15 Points of “The Secular Green Movement”

2010-01-30T14:43:00.003+02:00

Below is the a declaration by the secular supporters of the Iranian Green Movement:

1. Prologue and Invitation
We, who have put our signatures under this declaration as a section of intellectual supporters of the Iranian Green Movement, have come to the conclusion that we are living in a critical moment when our inevitable historical duty is to introduce our great nation and those who participate in the Iranian Green Movement, a political alternative that we think would be beneficial for the future of our country.

We believe that a 31-year long period of lawlessness, suppression, annihilation of all freedoms, imprisonment of political thinkers, practicing torture and having no regard for the provisions of the Human Rights Declaration and International Conventions, has rendered the present regime of Iran, with all its institutions totally illegitimate.

Without denying the probable necessity of going through a gradual and non-violent period of change towards the realization of our demands, we believe that any kind of transition should have a bundle of clear-cut goals. Our declaration is based on such targets and is based on our firm belief that the present regime should be dismantled and the ingredients of a new one, including the form of the future Iranian state, the Constitutional Assembly, other assemblies and the forming of the new government should be determined through a series of free elections, supervised by relevant international institutions.

We have listed our beliefs and goals in the second section of this declaration and, have established an administrative office and an Internet site that would merely function as a hub to create a network through which all secular forces of Iran could communicate and exchange their thoughts and ideas. We invite all those Iranians who share these goals to sign this declaration by their real names and join us in good faith.

We say to our compatriots that we are not few and disabled. Nevertheless, our scattered composure diminishes our efficiency. To enter this path, no one needs to put aside her/his opinions, religion, and schools of thought. All Muslims, whether Shiites or Sunni, all Zoroastrians, Christians, Jews, Baha'is, atheists, and non-believers who endeavor to create an atmosphere of tolerance and coexistence could consider themselves as "secular" and join us for the realization of the ideas put forward in this declaration.

We also invite all those owners of different media who consider themselves as "secular" to join this effort and participate in the creation of a powerful secular network that would endeavor to reflect the true voice of the Iranian nation all over the world.

Dear compatriots, our destination will not be far away if we walk on the road to the future by friendship and having in our hearts a deep belief in the necessity of tolerance and coexistence.

2. Our Objectives and Why We Have Chosen Them

1. We have recognized that the main historical problem of the Iranian people has been a perpetual suffering caused by different kinds of discrimination which have manifested themselves with regard to beliefs, opinions, religions, ethnicities, languages, sexuality, cultural values, and social opportunities. By declaring an official religion in the past, and due to 31-year-long governance by the clergies of the Imami Shiite sect, the number and depth of these discriminations have become threefold.

2. We find the key to resolve this historic problem in building a society that is governed by mundane laws created by the will of all Iranians, for all of them and in their service, regardless of any consideration for religious orientations, ethic and sexual identities or cultural and lingual preferences. Such laws will not divide the nation into different categories of citizenship but will bestow law, order, resources and opportunities to every member of the society without any discrimination.

3. We regard all Iranians as the true owners of their country, deserving all the provisions of the Declaration of Human Rights with no religious and ideological considerations and pre-conditions. The future government of Iran should adhere to all international conventions that guarantee sexual equality, together with annihilation of discrimination, torture, political incarceration, death penalty and deprivation of education and health services, without any condition or exception.

4. We believe that having an "Iranian Nation" entails the existence of a unified country. We also think that imposing different discriminations is the main threat against this unification by creating an urge for separation and disintegration. We believe that the cure resides in the annihilation of all sorts of ethnic and cultural discrimination.

5. Apart from its legal aspects, we believe that feeling to be an "Iranian" comes from a national and historical identity that discrimination can render it meaningless and useless. Therefore, we believe that preserving the variegated heritage of "all Iranians", coming down from all stages of our history, is the best guarantor of our relationship with this identity. At the same time, we consider having a critical awareness of this history, without denying one moment of it, is the main guaranteeing condition for the preservation of national integrity of all variances within said identity.

6. If we want Iran to belong to all Iranians, we should be aware and watchful so that no individual or group could claim priority in benefiting from opportunities over others. No special merit and advantage should be plausible without reason. All vocational and political offices should be opened to all Iranians regardless of their religion, differing opinion, language or ethnic background.

7. We believe that the key to this goal is to adhere to the principals of merit, suitability and competence. Any other "criteria" could lead to discrimination.

8. All of the national resources and opportunities should belong to all Iranians. At the same time, relying on the sanctity of human individuality and one’s right to harness the results of one’s life endeavors, we regard private ownership as a principal. But, at the same time and upon the principal of non-discrimination, no material gain should give individuals any social privileges. The same principals dictate to us that all social policies should be tuned to the prerequisites of social justice.

9. It is obvious to us that eliminating discrimination in an ethnically and culturally colorful and variegated society entails that no social group or strata should be able to impose its values upon others, or segregate the people into different classes of citizenships, or distribute national resources on a discriminatory scale. It is upon such observation that we believe in a state separated from all religious and ideological inclinations and natures. Such a state would be a translator of all national aspirations of Iranians and would act upon the decision and under supervision of a national assembly with its deputies elected through free elections.

10. We believe that a manifestation of peaceful coexistence would be the inability of any social group to impose its values and celebrations as well as mournful occasions on other group that do not share those values.

11. We know that the diverse nature of Iranian society asks for simultaneous integrity through non-discrimination and the observance of the special needs of different social groups. Accepting plurality and differences entails the recognition of the ability of smaller groups in running their own internal affairs. Thus, imposition of the values of any group on others, together with unnecessary centralization of affairs, could result in social dissatisfaction and should be banned.

12. The non-discrimination principal entails that no person of authority should be non-responsible and unanswerable to the people's delegates, considering himself/herself different from others. Attaining authority should be coupled with answerable responsibility.

13. We believe in the important role of political parties and encourage everyone to establish or become member of such institutions. At the same time, we think that the function of a political party should not include the imposition of ideological and religious inclinations. Every party should render an executable program for running the government based on their beliefs and values but within the frame work of democracy and secularism. Any party that obtains the seat of authority and political power should know that it is to render its services to all Iranians and cannot discriminate between members and non-members. And, in order to prevent the despotism of any political party, their presence in power should be temporal and periodic. No official should consider herself/himself above others and should remember that he/she is employed by the rest to serve their interests.

14. In an Iran void of any discrimination, everyone should have the right of investigation, criticizing, protesting and gathering in non-violent demonstrations based on the laws sanctioned by the elected deputies of the national assembly. Parallel to that, the freedom of all media should be guarded by the government. All complaints against the media should be investigated by an independent judiciary and government should not be a deciding party to this investigation. Apart from unity of the country and freedom of its people, creating and guarding the freedom of speech on a national scale entails that nothing should be considered sacred. Nevertheless, the mundane and secular nature of this sacredness should not prevent any criticism.

15. We believe that members of the armed forces of the country should not be allowed to participate in political and economic activities unless they act within their civilian rights and by means of their personal abilities, without using any governmental means and influences. They should attend to their legal duties under the supervision of the freely elected government of Iran.

NY Times to Obama: Strengthen Your Speech On Behalf Of The Iranians

2010-01-30T12:43:00.005+02:00

The argument is growing in favor of furthering support for the green revolution in Iran. NY Times is latest to reflect on this issue in its editorial.

President Obama needs to speak out more strongly on behalf of Iranians who are peacefully seeking change. But the United States and its partners also must be very conscious of the fierce pride and independence of the Iranian people. Squaring that circle will be extremely hard, but it must be done. Meanwhile, the centrifuges keep spinning.

Proxy War Between Israel and Iran Looms in Lebanon

2010-01-30T00:16:00.003+02:00

President Barack Obama's national security adviser is citing a heightened risk that Iran will respond to growing pressure over its nuclear program by stoking violence against Israel.

The adviser, retired Marine Gen. James Jones, said history shows that when regimes are feeling pressure they can lash out through surrogates.

He said that in Iran's case that would mean facilitating attacks on Israel through Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. Iran helps arm Hezbollah and Hamas.

Jones also alluded to the prospect of additional international sanctions being applied to Iran as one factor in making Iran feel greater pressure. He said another factor is internal pressure - an apparent reference to street protests against the Iranian leadership over the disputed presidential election last summer.

In the same vein, French Foreign Minister expressed earlier his fear that the situation in Iran might prompt officials in Tehran to behave unpredictably, which could prove dangerous given Hizbullah’s weapons, and could lead to unfortunate events.

On a different note Jonathan Spyer wrote in Jerusalem Post that any future strike at Hizbullah that does not take into account its status as a client of Syria, is unlikely to land a decisive blow.

Karroubi Cries Over Spilled Milk

2010-01-29T13:12:00.008+02:00

Earlier this week, a hard-line Iranian journalist attributed to Mehdi Karroubi a softened stance on Iran's leadership, saying that the white-turbaned opposition figure recognized Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the head of Iran's government.

The controversial article, carried by The Fars News Service, affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, credited Karroubi, though, for maintaining his belief that the elections was rigged. “In response to your question in particular, I must say that I also recognize the president of the Islamic republic officially,” Fars reported Mr. Karroubi as saying.

The statement attributed to Karroubi caught on like wildfire, further confusing the political crisis in Iran.

In the aftermath, two views have competed to decode Karoubi's message, with a dominant one rushing to conclude that political winds are shifting in Iran, while the second dismissed the story on the basis of being a total fallacy.

However, both views failed to capture the essence of Karoubi's statement, which he himself put in context two days later in an interview with the Financial Times. Through this interview Karroubi's strategy seems to have stuck to four pillars.

Maintaining a harsh stance against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to the extent of predicting his early exit from office.
Standing by his assertions that the presidential election was rigged.
Saving the Valey El Fakih Ali Khamenei any criticism, defending him against the sharp slogans used in the demonstrations and called for his death and even appeasing to him.
Underscoring the fact that the regime is in danger.

Through the above four pillars emerges a tactical move on Karroubi's side, given the fact that the demonstrations are rapidly evolving in a direction deemed, by the regime, too radical to tolerate any further.

Death to the dictator, to Khamenei, to Ahmadinajad substituted the original slogan "where is my vote", while demonstrators' wrath ratcheted up to the point of burning the posters of Khamenei and Khomeini. Karroubi's maneuver, hence, aims at reviving the initial reason that got the Iranians to the streets, which was, short after, overshadowed by a wide range of interests, some of which aim at overthrowing the whole regime.

Accordingly, Karroubi walked, in the interview a fine line. He highlighted his loyalty to the system and tried to dispel the impression that the opposition targets Ali Khamenei's mandate while at the same time he appealed to him to rescue what is at stake due to Ahmadinejad's policies.

In short he decided to throw back the ball to Khamenei, leaving it to him to find the way out of the crisis. "I accept the Islamic republic and I accept the constitution. I don’t agree with slogans that call for changing power structures; our slogans are within this system and this constitution. Our constitution has some weaknesses but has lots of [democratic] capacities" he said.

Yet, Karroubi noted that a "strong body (...) can be weakened following incidents and illnesses and that "the Islamic republic has paid enormously for these four or five years of Mr Ahmadi-Nejad".

However Karroubi acknowledges that his move is not one he can bet the farm on. "The truth is", he concludes, "there is no news yet that the other side seeks a solution. The other side still thinks the post-election event was “sedition”. They believe things are going back to normal and the so-called sedition is being put off".

It is not hard to consider Karroubi's move too little too late.

The green movement, the true leader of the opposition, has developed an irreversible stance to introduce serious changes to the way Iranians have been governed for the past 31 years. People from all over the political spectrum came together to the conclusion that the system is incapable of carrying on.

This is a fact to be emphasized in the upcoming rallies in early February, in an attempt to co-opt a massive pro-regime march to commemorate the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Karroubi's move, in this sense, is a cry over spilled milk and he knows it.

U.S. Senate Approves Stronger Penalties Against Iran

2010-01-29T12:06:00.005+02:00

By REUTERS

The United States Senate approved legislation on Thursday that would let President Obama impose sanctions on Iran’s gasoline suppliers and penalize some of Tehran’s elites, a move aimed at pressing Tehran to give up its nuclear program. The sanctions would include the denial of loans and other assistance from American financial institutions to companies that export gasoline to Iran or help expand its oil-refining capacity. The penalties would extend to companies that build oil and gas pipelines in Iran and provide tankers to move Iran’s petroleum. The measure prohibits the United States government from buying goods from foreign companies that do business in Iran’s energy sector. The House has passed similar legislation, and the houses will work out the differences between the bills. Washington fears that Iran’s uranium enrichment program will be used to develop weapons, while Tehran says it is for peaceful purposes like generating electricity.

In addition, Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett -disapprovingly- point in their latest joint post on their blog The Race For Iran at a hearing scheduled to be held next week by the "House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia" on what the United States can do to assist the opposition in Iran.

Snow Ball Of Regime Change In Iran Is Growing

2010-01-27T13:42:00.010+02:00

Calls for regime change in Iran are up in the air. Not like it hasn't been there for a while since the aftermath of Iran's presidential election; but the fact that it is gaining a growing space in US main stream media and among a diverse group of intellectuals and policy makers, who vary from hardcore realists to neoconservative sympathizers, is very telling.

First it was the Newsweek piece by Ricard Haass titled Enough Is Enough. In this article, Haass, president of The Council on Foreign Relations, offers the following argument:

The nuclear talks are going nowhere. The Iranians appear intent on developing the means to produce a nuclear weapon; there is no other explanation for the secret uranium-enrichment facility discovered near the holy city of Qum. Fortunately, their nuclear program appears to have hit some technical snags, which puts off the need to decide whether to launch a preventive strike. Instead we should be focusing on another fact: Iran may be closer to profound political change than at any time since the revolution that ousted the shah 30 years ago.

Haass admits that "even a realist should recognize that it's an opportunity not to be missed".

In fact the last time Haass was involved in architecting an "Enough Is Enough" sort of approach, a regime was ousted in Iraq. That was back in 2003 when Haass was serving as State Department's Director of Policy Planning. His input was central to Secretary of State Colin Powell’s February 5, 2003 presentation to the United Nations Security Council, making the case for coercive regime change in Iraq. His Newsweek piece echoes the following line he helped formulating some 6 years ago:

“How much longer are we willing to put up with Iraq’s noncompliance before we, as a council, we, as the United Nations, say: ‘Enough. Enough’.”

Second comes Robert Kagan's monthly column in the Washington Post, in which he argues how Obama can reverse Iran's dangerous course.

Regime change is more important than any deal the Obama administration might strike with Iran's present government on its nuclear program. Even if Tehran were to accept the offer made last year to export some of its low-enriched uranium, this would be a modest step down a long, uncertain road. Such a minor concession is not worth abandoning the push for real change.
(...) Regime change in Tehran is the best nonproliferation policy...

Unlike Haass who subscribes to the realist school, Kagan was always close to the neoconservatives. He co-founded with William Kristol the Project for the New American Century, and co-signed the famous open letter to President Clinton on Iraq.

Kagan, says that Iran's post election moment is Obama's "tear down this wall" moment.

Richard Haass: Enough Is Enough

2010-01-23T12:17:00.003+02:00

When a self acclaimed card-carrying realist of the cloth of Richard Haass argues for regime change in Iran, it implies that Tehran's regime viability is scrapping the bottom. Here is his take.

Two schools of thought have traditionally competed to determine how America should approach the world. Realists believe we should care most about what states do beyond their borders—that influencing their foreign policy ought to be Washington's priority. Neoconservatives often contend the opposite: they argue that what matters most is the nature of other countries, what happens inside their borders. The neocons believe this both for moral reasons and because democracies (at least mature ones) treat their neighbors better than do authoritarian regimes.
I am a card-carrying realist on the grounds that ousting regimes and replacing them with something better is easier said than done. I also believe that Washington, in most cases, doesn't have the luxury of trying. The United States must, for example, work with undemocratic China to rein in North Korea and with autocratic Russia to reduce each side's nuclear arsenal. This debate is anything but academic. It's at the core of what is likely to be the most compelling international story of 2010: Iran.

In the wake of 9/11, the Bush administration judged incorrectly that Iran was on the verge of revolution and decided that dealing directly with Tehran would provide a lifeline to an evil government soon to be swept away by history's tide. A valuable opportunity to limit Iran's nuclear program may have been lost as a result. The incoming Obama administration reversed this approach and expressed a willingness to talk to Iran without preconditions. This president (like George H.W. Bush, whose emissaries met with Chinese leaders soon after Tiananmen Square) is cut more from the realist cloth. Diplomacy and negotiations are seen not as favors to bestow but as tools to employ. The other options—using military force against Iranian nuclear facilities or living with an Iranian nuclear bomb—were judged to be tremendously unattractive. And if diplomacy failed, Obama reasoned, it would be easier to build domestic and international support for more robust sanctions. At the time, I agreed with him.

I've changed my mind. The nuclear talks are going nowhere. The Iranians appear intent on developing the means to produce a nuclear weapon; there is no other explanation for the secret uranium-enrichment facility discovered near the holy city of Qum. Fortunately, their nuclear program appears to have hit some technical snags, which puts off the need to decide whether to launch a preventive strike. Instead we should be focusing on another fact: Iran may be closer to profound political change than at any time since the revolution that ousted the shah 30 years ago.

The authorities overreached in their blatant manipulation of last June's presidential election, and then made matters worse by brutally repressing those who protested. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has lost much of his legitimacy, as has the "elected" president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The opposition Green Movement has grown larger and stronger than many predicted.

The United States, European governments, and others should shift their Iran policy toward increasing the prospects for political change. Leaders should speak out for the Iranian people and their rights. President Obama did this on Dec. 28 after several protesters were killed on the Shia holy day of Ashura, and he should do so again. So should congressional and world leaders. Iran's Revolutionary Guards should be singled out for sanctions. Lists of their extensive financial holdings can be published on the Internet. The United States should press the European Union and others not to trade or provide financing to selected entities controlled by the Guards. Just to cite one example: the Revolutionary Guards now own a majority share of Iran's principal telecommunications firm; no company should furnish it the technology to deny or monitor Internet use.
New funding for the project housed at Yale University that documents human-rights abuses in Iran is warranted. If the U.S. government won't reverse its decision not to provide the money, then a foundation or wealthy individuals should step in. Such a registry might deter some members of the Guards or the million-strong Basij militia it controls from attacking or torturing members of the opposition. And even if not, the gesture will signal to Iranians that the world is taking note of their struggle.

It is essential to bolster what people in Iran know. Outsiders can help to provide access to the Internet, the medium that may be the most important means for getting information into Iran and facilitating communication among the opposition. The opposition also needs financial support from the Iranian diaspora so that dissidents can stay politically active once they have lost their jobs.

Just as important as what to do is what to avoid. Congressmen and senior administration figures should avoid meeting with the regime. Any and all help for Iran's opposition should be nonviolent. Iran's opposition should be supported by Western governments, not led. In this vein, outsiders should refrain from articulating specific political objectives other than support for democracy and an end to violence and unlawful detention. Sanctions on Iran's gasoline imports and refining, currently being debated in Congress, should be pursued at the United Nations so international focus does not switch from the illegality of Iran's behavior to the legality of unilateral American sanctions. Working-level negotiations on the nuclear question should continue. But if there is an unexpected breakthrough, Iran's reward should be limited. Full normalization of relations should be linked to meaningful reform of Iran's politics and an end to Tehran's support of terrorism.

Critics will say promoting regime change will encourage Iranian authorities to tar the opposition as pawns of the West. But the regime is already doing so. Outsiders should act to strengthen the opposition and to deepen rifts among the rulers. This process is underway, and while it will take time, it promises the first good chance in decades to bring about an Iran that, even if less than a model country, would nonetheless act considerably better at home and abroad. Even a realist should recognize that it's an opportunity not to be missed.

Haass, president of The Council on Foreign Relations, is author of War of Necessity, War of Choice: A Memoir of Two Iraq Wars.

Review: Iran never halted nuke work in '03 - Washington Times

2010-01-19T12:43:00.000+02:00

Review: Iran never halted nuke work in '03 - Washington Times

Kerry's Iran Visit Called Off Before Tehran's Rebuff

2010-01-17T13:18:00.003+02:00

Annahar went out today with a distorted story that Iranian authorities denied Senator John Kerry a visa to visit the country as part of President Obama's engagement strategy.

علمت "النهار" من مصادر ديبلوماسية في بيروت ان طهران رفضت منح رئيس لجنة العلاقات الخارجية في مجلس الشيوخ الاميركي السناتور جون كيري تأشيرة دخول الى اراضيها بعدما افادت وزارة الخارجية الايرانية في وقت سابق أنها تدرس طلباً تقدم به كيري لزيارة الجمهورية الاسلامية.

They could have definitely done so. It is a move that was anticipated in many lines of the analysis/coverage of the reported visit possibility.
Kerry's people themselves went as far as denying the news of a planned visit to Iran.
However, the fact is that the word was spinning in Washington, in the aftermath of the Ashura demonstrations, in which eight opposition supporters were killed including opposition leader Mir Hussein Mousavi's nephew, that the Obama administration acknowledges now that it can't proceed with engagement as if nothing is taking place in the streets of Iran's big cities.
Hence, the visit which its news floated for a while, was taken off the table before even the Iranians rebuff it.
This is less than a change of policy. True. Nonetheless, it marks a remarkable adaptation on Washington's side, to the facts emerging in the streets of Iran.
The point of departure of such an adaptation process could be spotted in Obama's significant speech during his acceptance of the Noble Peace Prize on Dec 10.
The President addressed the Iranian people in an unprecedented direct manner since the crisis erupted more than 7 months ago:

to the hundreds of thousands who have marched silently through the streets of Iran. It is telling that the leaders of these governments fear the aspirations of their own people more than the power of any other nation. And it is the responsibility of all free people and free nations to make clear that these movements -- these movements of hope and history -- they have us on their side.

In fact, CNN reports back then that Obama departed from his prepared speech, replacing the original line "hope and history are on their side" to the what he said in Oslo, that "these movements...have us on their side".

Report: Iran agrees to 2-month suspension of nuke plan

2010-01-11T22:54:00.003+02:00

Did Iran agree to 2-month suspension of nuke plan? Ron Ben-Yishai follows related reports in his piece for Yedioth Ahronot.

Iran agreed to suspend its nuclear program for two months as part of an ultimatum it set before the West, according to statements made by Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast to quasi-official news agency ILNA last week. The report was first published in Tehran Times, which is considered the mouthpiece of the Iranian regime.

"A number of neutral countries asked Iran not to enrich uranium for two months in order to give the West time to respond to Iran's proposals. We agreed to this request in order to show our good will to the international community," said Mehmanparast.

According to him, of the two months granted to the West, one month has already passed: "If the other side responds to Iran's requests (to carry out the agreement according to its requests) in the remaining time, we will start working. Otherwise, we will make the necessary decision."

The report, which was first published Monday in Haaretz, has not been confirmed by any other sources.

Officials in the West told Ynet that they "are unaware if this kind of suspension was indeed carried out." However, it seems as though Iran is interested in sending a low-level message to the West that it is interested in talking without being perceived as surrendering in public opinion at home.

About a week ago, US President Barack Obama's advisors said in an interview with the New York Times that the American administration has identified "a window of opportunity" to pressure Iran to abandon its nuclear program through targeted sanctions after they identified unexpected technical difficulties in the nuclear program that stem in part from the regime's preoccupation with putting down the opposition. It is possible that this "gesture" on Iran's part is a manifestation of the difficulties the regime has encountered.

The ultimatum to which Mehmanparast referred is in line with statements made by Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mouttaki at the beginning of the month. Mouttaki said that if no agreement is signed with the West regarding the supply of nuclear fuel by the end January, Iran would start enriching uranium on its own.

The draft agreement over which the sides are quarreling was penned during talks in Geneva under the auspices of the IAEA in October. According to the proposal the Western powers offered Iran, 75% of the low-enriched uranium in Iran's possession (about 1,200 kg or 2,645 lbs) will be transferred to Russia for additional enriching of up to 20%. From here, the uranium would be transferred to France, who would produce the fuel rods with which Iran would run its Tehran-based research reactor to create medical isotopes.

Iran agreed to the proposal in principle, but later withdrew its agreement and expressed a number of reservations. There was a disagreement over to whom Iran would hand over its low-enriched uranium. The Islamic Republic brought up Turkey as an option. Another disagreement revolves around whether the uranium will be transferred in one portion, or in 400 kg (882 lbs) portions, as Iran would like.

Petraeus: U.S. has plan to deal with Iran's nuclear program

2010-01-10T17:26:00.000+02:00

Tampa, Florida (CNN) -- In addition to diplomacy and sanctions, the United States has developed contingency plans in dealing with Iran's nuclear facilities, a top U.S. military commander told CNN's Christiane Amanpour.
Gen. David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, did not elaborate on the plans in the interview, to be aired Sunday. But he said the military has considered the impacts of any action taken there.
"It would be almost literally irresponsible if CENTCOM were not to have been thinking about the various 'what ifs' and to make plans for a whole variety of different contingencies," Petraeus told Amanpour at the command's headquarters in Tampa.
Iran's nuclear program has become a thorn for the United States and its allies, and Washington has sharpened its tone on dealings over Tehran's program. The Islamic republic maintains the program is for peaceful purposes, but the United States and other Western nations fear Iran wants to acquire nuclear weapons.
Israel has called Iran's nuclear program the major threat facing its nation.
When asked about rumors that Israel could attack Iran's facilities, Petraeus declined to comment about Israel's military capabilities. But when asked about the vulnerability of the facilities, Petraeus said Iran has strengthened the facilities and has enhanced underground tunnels.
Still, the facilities are not bomb-proof.
"Well, they certainly can be bombed," he said. "The level of effect would vary with who it is that carries it out, what ordnance they have, and what capability they can bring to bear."
Iran is holding out on a United Nations-backed deal on its nuclear program that includes enriching uranium. The country had until the end of 2009 to accept the deal offered by the "P5 plus one" -- permanent U.N. Security Council members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus Germany. Instead, Iran countered, giving the West until the end of January to accept its own proposal.
The general said he thinks there is still time for the nations to engage Iran in diplomacy, noting there is no deadline on the enactment of any U.S. contingency plans.
He added, however, that "there's a period of time, certainly, before all this might come to a head, if you will."

Israeli general Brigadier-General Uzi Eilam denies Iran is nuclear threat - Times Online

2010-01-10T15:37:00.000+02:00

Israeli general Brigadier-General Uzi Eilam denies Iran is nuclear threat - Times Online

POLITICO: Would U.S. help hurt Iran's opposition? - Laura Rozen - Would U.S. help hurt Iran's opposition?

2010-01-07T06:30:00.000+02:00

POLITICO: Would U.S. help hurt Iran's opposition? - Laura Rozen - Would U.S. help hurt Iran's opposition?

Khamenei Might Flee Iran

2009-12-30T04:29:00.001+02:00

Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei could flee to Russia should the situation in his country continue to spiral out of control, according to Radio Netherlands.
The media organization reports that the Supreme National Security Council ordered a check-up Sunday of the jet on standby to evacuate Khamenei and his family should the need arise.
If Khamenei does depart the country, it would be reminiscent of an historic event in Iranian history: Jan. 16, 1979, when the Iranian Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi fled Iran following an increase in violent protests. The anniversary of that event is coming up soon.
The plane check is already being viewed by some as an indication that Khamenei will in fact leave Iran, as protests continue.

Public Enemy In Iran

2009-12-29T18:04:00.006+02:00

A crucial moment, a tipping point, a turning point, a Berlin Wall moment and many other adjectives and parallels are in place in international media trying to grasp the nature of events taking place in Iran.

Iran stands on the brink says Massoumeh Torfeh in a op-ed in the Guardian. The situation in Iran has reached the point of no return she concludes.

The leader is now surrounded by the hardline clergy, right of centre politicians, Revolutionary Guards and Basij militia, who are calling for direct confrontation. This can only lead to further bloodshed. The opposition is now calling for more strikes and attacks at important centres of power such as the state TV, where clashes took place yesterday. And February sees the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Republic. There is talk of a military coup by the Revolutionary Guards if the situation does not settle down.
Iran is facing a long period of political instability; and with increasing tensions in neighbouring Pakistan, plus the volatile situation in Afghanistan and Iraq, regional security appears more precarious than any time in the recent past.

Simon Tisdall wonders in the same paper if what's taking place in Iran is a second revolution.

What's changing, as the battle lines sharpen, is that fantasy politics and paranoid posturing can no longer conceal the widening fissures – economic, social and ethnic as well as political – that are splintering Iranian society.
Maybe the regime can still cling to power. But the legitimacy of Khomeini's republic is all but shot. The infallibility of the Vali al-Faqih is blown. The "month of blood" is upon them.

Ali Ansari pens a very thoughtful piece in the Independent in which he says that the government in Iran is way out of control.

This is in many ways a crucial moment. Many of those who have hedged their bets will now begin to reassess their loyalties. Can Islam really be identified with Khamanei? Is Ahmadinejad really the best the Islamic Republic can do? Where in the Holy Koran – as demonstrators chanted – does it say you can sexually assault prisoners?
It is the brutality of the government response to the initial protests that has profoundly shaken Iranians, who are now confronted with an attempt to reimpose an extreme version of Divine Right.
The Iranians have responded forcefully, and with considerable courage, to these demands. This is not a disorganised mob, but a well-marshalled and coordinated crowd. Preoccupied with the events of 1978, observers earnestly cast around for a "leader". But this battle between accountability and autocracy has much more in common with an earlier movement, the Constitutional Revolution of 1906.
There was no single leader then, but there was a powerful idea. And today the means of disseminating that idea is much more potent. With literacy over 90 per cent and more than 25 million registered internet users, and 50 million mobile phone accounts, the days of Divine Right monarchy are long past their sell-by date. Change is coming to Iran.

Ramin Ahmadi goes a bit further in his comments in the Forbes magazine online edition. Iran's regime is on the ropes he says.

The military regime in Tehran is in its final days. The signs of an imminent collapse, perfectly traceable on the Iranian streets.

Robin Wright considers the events in Iran as the country's Berlin Moment. He goes on to describe the green movement as the "the most vibrant and imaginative civil disobedience campaign in the world."

It is time to start wondering out loud whether Iran’s uprising could become one of those Berlin Wall moments.
… [t]he green movement is far more than simply sporadic eruptions. This is the most vibrant and imaginative civil disobedience campaign in the world.

So far the green movement has insisted on non-violence. Perhaps the ultimate irony in the Islamic Republic today is that a brutal revolutionary regime suspected of secretly working on a nuclear weapon faces its biggest challenge from peaceful civil disobedience. And even such a militarised regime has been unable to put it down.

It is not only the media that finally starts taking the events in Iran right. Consider this Washington Post editorial.

[m]ore than ever, the Obama administration and other Western governments must tailor their policies toward Iran to reflect the centrality of the Green Movement's fight for freedom. While diplomatic contact with the regime need not be broken off entirely, by now it should be obvious that it cannot produce significant results -- and might serve to shore up a tottering dictatorship.
President Obama shifted U.S. policy partway in the right direction when, during his Nobel Prize speech this month, he departed from his prepared text to say that "it is the responsibility of all free people and free nations to make clear that" the Iranian protesters "have us on their side." He went further Monday with an admirably strong statement that condemned "the violent and unjust suppression of innocent Iranian citizens" and called for "the immediate release of all who have been unjustly detained.

Seized N.Korean weapons likely destined for Iran - source

2009-12-17T20:43:00.000+02:00

By Ambika Ahuja
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Weapons seized in Thailand from an impounded plane traveling from North Korea were likely destined for Iran, said a high-ranking Thai government security official on a team investigating the arms.
"Some experts believe the weapons may be going to Iran, which has bought arms from North Korea in the past," said the official, quoting Thai government military experts who also took part in an investigation of the weapons.
Speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media, he said the Thai investigating team considered Iran a likely destination because of the type of weaponry, including unassembled Taepodong-2 missile parts.
Security analysts have said North Korea's long-range Taepodong-2 is a product of joint efforts with Tehran, coinciding with Iran's development of the Shehab-5 and 6 missiles.
"Some of the components found are believed to be parts of unassembled Taepodong-2 missiles," the official said.
U.S. lawmakers have expressed concern about North Korea's close missile cooperation with Iran, which Washington suspects is seeking to build nuclear weapons. The relationship dates to the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s when Pyongyang shipped Scud missiles.
The components were discovered among 35 tonnes of weapons sealed in 145 crates of cargo seized by Thai authorities when the plane landed in Bangkok on Friday to refuel. The buyer and destination of the weapons have been shrouded in mystery.
A Thai court on Monday extended the detention of the five-man crew -- four from Kazakhstan and one from Belarus -- by 12 days to give authorities more time to investigate.
They each face 10 years in prison if found guilty of illegal possession of heavy weapons.
U.N. SANCTIONS
The weapons would breach a U.N. Security Council resolution in June banning communist North Korea from selling arms in response to defiant nuclear and missile tests.
The official said he understood Iran in the past had bought North Korea's Taopodong-1 multi-stage missile, which has an estimated range of up to 2,500 km (1,553 miles). It uses liquid fuel and was fired over Japan in 1998.
Taepodong-2 was first test-launched in July 2006 and flew for about 40 seconds before it blew apart. It is a multi-stage missile with a possible range of 6,700 km (4,163 miles). Another version was launched in April and flew about 3,000 km (1,864 miles) before splashing into the sea.
Thai authorities have said the airplane's cargo contained rocket launchers, explosives, ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades and components for surface-to-air-missiles.
Police Colonel Supisarn Bhakdinarinath, the chief investigator, said on Tuesday an initial estimate of the value of the weapons, most of which were unused, was about $18 million.
But Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said it was too early to determine a value, adding that a closer inspection is necessary to determine their worth, where they may have been produced and where they were being delivered.
Crew members have denied knowledge of any weapons on board and indicated that the plane stopped en route to Sri Lanka and the Middle East to refuel.
The seizure came days after President Barack Obama's special envoy made a three-day trip to the communist state to persuade Pyongyang to rejoin six-nation nuclear disarmament talks.
Arms are a vital export item estimated to earn North Korea more than $1 billion a year. Its biggest arms sales come from ballistic missiles, with Myanmar, Iran and Middle Eastern states among their customers, according to U.S. officials.
In August, the United Arabs Emirates seized a ship carrying North Korean-manufactured munitions, detonators, explosives and rocket-propelled grenades bound for Iran, the first since sanctions against North Korea was strengthened. The containers were disguised as oil equipment.
(Editing by Jason Szep and Bill Tarrant)

Obama told China: I can't stop Israel strike on Iran indefinitely

2009-12-17T18:00:00.000+02:00

By Barak Ravid and Natasha Mozgovaya, Haaretz Correspondents

U.S. President Barack Obama has warned his Chinese counterpart that the United States would not be able to keep Israel from attacking Iranian nuclear installations for much longer, senior officials in Jerusalem told Haaretz. They said Obama warned President Hu Jintao during the American's visit to Beijing a month ago as part of the U.S. attempt to convince the Chinese to support strict sanctions on Tehran if it does not accept Western proposals for its nuclear program. The Israeli officials, who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the matter, said the United States had informed Israel on Obama's meetings in Beijing on Iran. They said Obama made it clear to Hu that at some point the United States would no longer be able to prevent Israel from acting as it saw fit in response to the perceived Iranian threat.
After the Beijing summit, the U.S. administration thought the Chinese had understood the message; Beijing agreed to join the condemnation of Iran by the International Atomic Energy Agency only a week after Obama's visit. But in the past two weeks the Chinese have maintained their hard stance regarding the West's wishes to impose sanctions on the Islamic Republic. The Israeli officials say the Americans now understand that the Chinese agreed to join the condemnation announcement only because Obama made a personal request to Hu, not as part of a policy change. The Chinese have even refused a Saudi-American initiative designed to end Chinese dependence on Iranian oil, which would allow China to agree to the sanctions, said the Israeli officials. Saudi Arabia, which is also very worried about the Iranian nuclear program and keen to advance international steps against Iran, offered to supply the Chinese the same quantity of oil the Iranians now provide, and at much cheaper prices. But China rejected the deal. Since Obama's visit, the Chinese have refused to join any measures to impose sanctions. The Israeli officials say the Chinese have been giving unclear answers and have not been responding to the claims by Western nations. Beijing has been making do with statements such as "the time has not yet arrived for sanctions." China's actions are particularly problematic because China will take over the presidency of the UN Security Council in January. Western diplomats say China would have no choice but to join in sanctions if Russia agrees to support them, but China could delay discussions and postpone any decision until February, when France becomes council president. The Israeli officials say Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is showing a greater willingness for sanctions on Iran, despite hesitations by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Behind scuttled nuke pact, Iran’s regime in turmoil - The Boston Globe

2009-12-17T11:38:00.001+02:00

Behind scuttled nuke pact, Iran’s regime in turmoil - The Boston Globe

Posted using ShareThis

A Sample Of Velayet El Fakih's Justice

2009-12-13T20:48:00.004+02:00

In the video below,an enraged woman’s voice can be heard as a paramilitary truck runs a motorbike off the road amid a crowd of fleeing protesters.
“This is the Islamic Republic!” she shouts, gesturing at the vehicle.
That message has grown increasingly common in recent protests, as demonstrators have made it clear that their target is not just President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or the disputed election that returned him to power in June, but the entire foundation of Iran’s theocracy, Robert F. Worth reports for NYTimes

In Iran, Protests Gaining a Radical Tinge

2009-12-13T20:44:00.003+02:00

By ROBERT F. WORTH, for NYTimes

BEIRUT, Lebanon — In the video, one of hundreds filmed during Iran’s nationwide demonstrations on Monday, an enraged woman’s voice can be heard as a paramilitary truck runs a motorbike off the road amid a crowd of fleeing protesters.

“This is the Islamic Republic!” she shouts, gesturing at the vehicle.

That message has grown increasingly common in recent protests, as demonstrators have made it clear that their target is not just President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or the disputed election that returned him to power in June, but the entire foundation of Iran’s theocracy.

During Monday’s demonstrations, the civil tone of many earlier rallies was noticeably absent. There was no sign of the opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi, a moderate figure who supports change within the system, and few were wearing the signature bright green of his campaign.

Instead, the protesters, most of them young people, took direct aim at Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, chanting, “Khamenei knows his time is up!” They held up flags from which the “Allah” symbol — added after Iran’s 1979 revolution — had been removed. Most shocking of all, some burned an image of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the father of the revolution.

That creeping radicalization has underscored the rift within Iran’s opposition movement, analysts say, and poses a problem for its leaders, including Mr. Moussavi and the reformist cleric Mehdi Karroubi.

“The longer this goes on, the more difficult will it be for the likes of Moussavi and Karroubi to sustain their current position,” said Ray Takeyh, an Iran expert at the Council on Foreign Relations who has worked for the State Department. “They have to at some point opt for regime survival or become the leaders of an opposition movement calling for more than reform.”

Some in Iran have even speculated that Mr. Moussavi and Mr. Karroubi were uncomfortable with the most recent round of protests, which were timed to coincide with a holiday commemorating the killing of three students by the shah’s forces in 1953. While they were involved with earlier protests, the opposition leaders did not organize the most recent ones. They do not appear to have attended any of them and have been silent since. It is not clear how much influence they have over the movement, which often seems to be built more around semi-spontaneous mobilizations over Facebook and Web networks than with the aid of any clear leadership.

The aggressive tone of Monday’s protests may partly reflect the fact that they took place on and around university campuses, where radical sentiment is more common.

But students have long been central to social movements in Iran, where the population is now overwhelmingly young; as Mr. Moussavi himself pointed out last weekend, 1 in 20 Iranians is a student. And this week’s protests, in at least a dozen cities and towns across Iran, were much broader than the ones that shook Iran in 1999, said Rasool Nafisi, an academic and Iran expert at Strayer University in Virginia.

Even before the latest round of protests, a number of high-ranking figures in Iran had taken note of the opposition’s trend toward radicalism. Over the weekend, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, an influential former president, warned in a speech that “the young and the elite have been estranged from the regime” and criticized the government for using the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij militia against protesters.

Mr. Rafsanjani, a founder of the Islamic Republic who has provided crucial support for the opposition since the election, added pointedly that “there are some conservatives who think the people’s vote is just a decoration.” He admonished this group, saying, “If they want us to rule, we will; if they don’t, we will go.”

Other leaders have also called for a greater spirit of compromise from the government. Among them is a prominent conservative cleric, Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi, who noted last week in remarks to I.S.N.A., a semiofficial news agency, that a “large number” of people had voted against Mr. Ahmadinejad and that “we should sit together and negotiate.”

But the government’s response to Monday’s demonstrations was anything but conciliatory. Many witnesses said the police and Basij militia members were more aggressive than at any time since last summer, beating protesters with chains and truncheons and arresting hundreds of them in cities across Iran.

In the days after the protests, hard-liners stepped up their warnings. On Thursday, the intelligence minister, Heidar Moslehi, lashed out at Mr. Rafsanjani and accused him of siding with those who oppose the Islamic system, in comments reported by Fars, another semiofficial news agency.

“Shockingly, Rafsanjani expresses the same ideas as the leaders of the conspiracy,” Mr. Moslehi said.

The intelligence minister also seemed to throw down the gauntlet to moderates, accusing them of joining the assault on Ayatollah Khamenei.

“A lot of forces that were expected to support the supreme leader instead went with those who rose against the supreme leader,” he said.

One prominent conservative who has been critical of Mr. Ahmadinejad, Habibollah Asgaroladi, said the opposition had grown more “antirevolutionary,” the Khabar Online Web site reported.

Many in the opposition have echoed those warnings, from the other side.

“The regime is on a path which threatens its own survival,” declared the Iranian Writers’ Society, in a statement released Tuesday and posted on opposition Web sites. “Those who sow the wind will harvest a typhoon.”

Burned ayatollah photo sparks new Iranian protests

2009-12-13T19:50:00.000+02:00

TEHRAN, Iran — Police surrounded the campus of Tehran University on Sunday, trapping hundreds of students protesting what they said were fabricated government images of the burning of a photo of the Islamic Republic's revered founder.

State television has repeatedly shown images, ostensibly taken during student-led protests on Dec. 7, of unidentified hands burning and tearing up pictures of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. It was a grave and illegal insult against the former leader still widely respected in the country and the elite Revolutionary Guard, the country's most powerful military force, called for the trial and punishment of those responsible.

Video circulated widely on the Internet on the day of last week's protests also showed photos of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad being burned as well as one photo of Khamenei and Khomeini side by side going up in flames. The faces of those burning the pictures could not be seen and loud chants against the government were heard in the background.

Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters, appealed for calm but suggested the opposition was creating a hostile environment.

"Some have converted the election campaign into a campaign against the entire system," he said without naming any opposition leaders. "We call on those who are angry to remain calm."

Students, who led Sunday's protests, contended the images of burning photos were fabricated by government agents as a pretext for further crackdowns on the opposition.

Tens of thousands of students protested last Tuesday on campuses in the capital Tehran and other parts of the country, the largest anti-government rallies in months. There were also a number of demonstrations outside of campuses.

Many protesters shouted slogans against Khamenei and Ahmadinejad and chanted "Death to the Dictator."

Tens of thousands of hard-line clerics rallied in cities across the country on Saturday to denounce those who burned photos of Khamenei, the second straight day of protests by angry government supporters.

Khomeini, who led the 1979 Islamic Revolution, is revered by both the opposition and the ruling system. But Khamenei is a much more divisive figure, seen by the opposition as an dictator who rules with an iron fist.

During last week's rallies, protesters shouted "Death to the oppressor, whether it's the shah or the leader!" — making a daring comparison between Khamenei and the pro-U.S. shah, despised in Iran since his overthrow.

Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, Iran's powerful prime minister in the 80s, was strongly supported by Khomeini against Khamenei, Iran's then-president. When massive street demonstrations erupted over June's disputed presidential election, the opposition led by Mousavi borrowed tactics from Khomenei's Islamic Revolution, such as shouting "Allahu Akbar" from the rooftops of Tehran in a nightly protest.

Mousavi has said his supporters love Khomeini and would not take actions that insulted him. The opposition contends the fabricated images are being used by the regime to discredit the pro-reform movement.

Khamenei warned opposition leaders to stay away from protesters.

"Why don't they learn when leaders of oppression and arrogance, the U.S., France and Britain, support them," state TV quoted Khamenei as saying. "Open your eyes and stay away," he said.

Hundreds of pro-reform students protested against the government on the campus of Tehran University Sunday, denying the accusations they had any connection with the images. Dozens of police surrounded the campus.

The Revolutionary Guard called for the legal action against those who burned the photos of Khomenei.

"The Revolutionary Guard ... won't tolerate any silence or hesitation in the immediate identification, trial and punishment of those carrying out this ugly insult and the agents behind them," it said in a statement posted on its Web site.

Under the law, insults to the late or current supreme leader can lead to two years of prison.

The Guard, which is tasked with defending the clerical regime that came to power in Iran in 1979 under Khomeini's leadership after the pro-U.S. shah was overthrown, was at the forefront of crushing the post-election unrest.

Reformists contend that Ahmadinejad was re-elected in June by massive vote fraud that set off huge street protests. The protests evolved into a broader confrontation against the country's ruling theocracy, but eventually died down in the face of a harsh crackdown by security forces stifled the street demonstrations.

(This version CORRECTS ADDS images also showed pictures of Khamenei, Ahmadinejad being burned; corrects spelling of Mousavi; ADDS context; minor EDITS throughout; AMENDS overline)

Iranians take "Allah" emblem off flag

2009-12-08T00:29:00.004+02:00

In the video below protesters are shown waving the Iranian tricolor flag without the "Allah" emblem of the Islamic Republic and chanting "death to the dictator". This video and similar ones were beamed worldwide.

Protesters Burn Khomeini/Khamenei Posters

2009-12-08T00:20:00.002+02:00