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Israel Air Force chief indicates no total security against multi-directional missiles.

November 28, 2009, 3:15 PM (GMT+02:00)

IAF commander Maj. Gen. Ido Nehushtan

Israeli Air Force chief Maj. Gen. Ido Nehushtan told a Tel Aviv University audience Friday, Nov. 27: “The time for hard decisions is fast approaching,” adding “The scope of security threats to Israel is very complex and we must prepare for all exigencies.” He was addressing a ceremony marking 30 years of the IDF’s Talpiot program which offers hi-tech, math and physics training and degrees for high IQ conscripts to join special projects.

Nehushtan was clearly referring to the No. 1 security challenge facing Israel, which is Iran’s nuclear weapons program and its constant threats against the Jewish state. DEBKAfile‘s military experts translate the “hard decisions,” he referred to as the tough choice of priorities facing government and military decision-makers in a potential war. They would have to choose between striking Iran’s ballistic missile bases or the missiles pointing at Israel from Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, as well dealing with hostile ships facing Israel from a fifth direction, the Mediterranean.

All five potential fronts were addressed by the joint US-Israel Juniper Cobra 10 missile interception exercise that took place for two weeks at the beginning of November. US and Israeli forces successfully practiced close sync between their interceptors, radar and electronic jamming systems.

It also exposed a major vulnerability: In the event of a coordinated missile offensive from several directions, Israel would be unable to extend total security both to its missile bases, airfields and strategic sites and also to its civilian population. The Israeli Air force is not capable of knocking out all out once all five potential sources of missile attacks.

This means that if the Israel air force first targeted Iran, Syria and Hizballah would be free to provide Iran with active support by sending their missiles and rockets flying into Israel from its northern borders before their bases can be seriously impaired in an Israeli counter-attack. This gap in Israel’s defenses leaves large parts of Israel open to attack – and not just the northern region which was blasted by Hizballah in 2006. Iran has provided its Lebanese proxy with upgraded rockets for reaching further south to Israel’s central urban heartland of Greater Tel Aviv.

Defense minister Ehud Barak had this expanded peril in the mind when he said Wednesday, Nov. 25, that

Hizballah’s next attack would expose all of Lebanon, not just the south, to Israel counter-strikes. He said this time unlike in 2006, the Lebanese government would be held responsible, given that the Iran-backed Shiite group had scattered its missile bases across the country.

Barak was flashing signals to the Lebanese and Syrian governments – as well as the Palestinian Hamas in Gaza – that they risked their countries being totally devastated if they opted to retaliate on Iran’s behalf for an Israeli strike on the Islamic republic nuclear installations.

He also left the door open to possible pre-emptive Israeli strikes to demolish the missiles Syria, Hizballah and the Hamas have been steadily stockpiling.

The next day, Thursday, Nov. 26, deputy defense minister Mattan Vilnai promised to present the government with a complete missile defense program for the population within two weeks. He said there was no way the state could provide enough shelters for everyone, so his plan would provide for the rapid fortification of residential buildings and the enforcement of walls in apartments and stair wells. The ministry had learned from the Juniper Cobra that in the short time available before a possible military confrontation, this was the fastest and safest way to make sure that most people stayed put in an emergency and did not go wandering across the country and getting in the way of military operations.

All three statements by the Air Force commander, the defense minister and his deputy followed came in quick succession in the space of a week, during which civil defense measures and siren alerts were tested in different parts of Israel.

DEBKAfile – Iran threatens to end cooperation with the IAEA, quit NPT.

Iran threatens to end cooperation with the IAEA, quit NPT

DEBKAfile Special Report

November 27, 2009, 1:10 PM (GMT+02:00)

IAEA chief admits failure

Tehran may well break off cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency-IAEA and withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty after the IAEA’s 35-nation board of governors Friday, Nov. 27 approved a resolution voicing serious concern about its failure to comply with international obligations and referring the issue to the UN Security Council. It also calls on Iran to halt the construction of its second enrichment site at Fordo near Qom and declare its other covert nuclear sites. All five UN Security Council permanent members supported the censure, Iran’s first in four years.

Capping his 12-year tenure, the retiring IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei was forced to admit Thursday, Nov. 26 that his efforts to work with Iran had reached “a dead end.” He told the agency’s board of governors: “There has been no movement on remaining issues of concern which need to be clarified for the agency to verify the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program.”

Therefore, DEBKAfile‘s sources report, by entering into negotiations with the big powers this summer – which led nowhere, then signaling its acceptance in principle of his proposal to send 70 pc of its enriched uranium overseas to be reprocessed for medical research – then backing off, Iran gained most of 2009 for developing its nuclear weapon program in peace and quiet.

Tehran will most likely make its response typically ambivalent. But by quitting the NPT, Iran would free itself of international obligations with regard to its nuclear activities. Our sources note that this will not change much. Anyway, while holding talks on its program with six world powers and throwing an occasional bone to IAEA inspectors, Tehran does as it pleases and conceals most of its nuclear activities heedless of world censure.

In his parting words to the IAEA governors, ElBaradei said that in his view, “the proposed agreement (for overseas enrichment) presented a unique opportunity after many years of animosity and hostility to… create a space for negotiation. This opportunity should be seized,” he said in a last appeal to Tehran, “and it would be highly regrettable if it was missed.”

This was his final admission that the agency had failed in all its efforts to open up the Iranian program to controls and inspection, just as it failed to prevent North Korea from building its nuclear arsenal. Nonetheless, the United States and most other world powers connived with Dr. ElBaradei to blind the world to the true state of Iran’s rogue program. They even gave up clamoring for a halt in uranium enrichment as a precondition for negotiations.

For weeks now, they played along with director’s obfuscation tactics and insisted Iran had accepted the enrichment proposal, the sole outcome of the latest rounds of talks with Iran in Geneva and Vienna – even after Tehran deliberately missed the Oct. 23 deadline for its acceptance.

The IAEA director’s “dead end” statement applies equally to the six powers’ bid to engage Iran in negotiations on its nuclear program and the wholesale concealment of its activities. Israeli leaders, including president Shimon Peres, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, defense minister Ehud Barak, presented an equally false face when they reiterated that Iran’s nuclear aspirations are the business of the international community rather than Israel. They knew all the time that world powers were spending more time fabricating a false picture of Iran’s nuclear attainments the facts than dealing with them. The IAEA director has finally come clean for them all.

Iran Censured at U.N. Nuclear Meeting – CBS News.

25 Nations Back Resolution that Demands Tehran Immediately Mothball Newly Revealed Nuke Facility

(CBS/AP)

The U.N. nuclear agency’s board censured Iran on Friday, with 25 nations backing a resolution that demands Tehran immediately mothball its newly revealed nuclear facility and heed U.N. Security Council resolutions calling on it to stop uranium enrichment.

Iran remained defiant, with its chief representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency declaring that his country would resist “pressure, resolutions, sanction(s) and threat of military attack.”

The resolution — and the resulting vote of the IAEA’s 35-nation decision-making board — were significant on several counts.

The resolution was endorsed by six world powers — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — reflecting a rare measure of unity on Iran. Moscow and Beijing have acted as a traditional drag on efforts to punish Iran for its nuclear defiance, either preventing new Security Council sanctions or watering down their potency.

They did not formally endorse the last IAEA resolution in 2006, which referred Iran to the Security Council, starting the process that has resulted in three sets of sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Their backing for the document at the Vienna meeting thus reflected broad international disenchantment with Tehran.

It also appeared to signal possible support for any new Western push for a fourth set of U.N sanctions, should Tehran continue shunning international overtures meant to reach agreements that reduce concerns about its nuclear ambitions.

Strong backing for the resolution at the meeting was also notable. Only three nations — Cuba, Venezuela and Malaysia — voted against the document, with five abstentions and one member absent.

That meant even most nonaligned IAEA board members abandoned Tehran, despite their traditional backing of the Islamic Republic.

The diplomats who reported the vote spoke on condition of anonymity Friday because of the sensitivity of the situation.

Iran argues that attacks on its nuclear program are an assault on the rights of developing nations to create their own peaceful nuclear energy network. The United States and other nations believe Iran’s nuclear program has the goal of creating nuclear weapons.

The IAEA resolution criticized Iran for defying a U.N. Security Council ban on uranium enrichment — the source of both nuclear fuel and the fissile core of warheads.

It also censured Iran for secretly building a uranium enrichment facility and demanded that it immediately suspend further construction. It noted that IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei cannot confirm that Tehran’s nuclear program is exclusively geared toward peaceful uses, and expressed “serious concern” that Iranian stonewalling of an IAEA probe means “the possibility of military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program” cannot be excluded.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s chief delegate to the IAEA, shrugged off the vote.

“Neither resolutions of the board of governors nor those of the United Nations Security Council … neither sanctions nor the treat of military attacks, can interrupt peaceful nuclear activities in Iran, even a second,” he told the closed meeting, in remarks made available to reporters.

Iran on Sunday began large-scale air defense war games aimed at protecting its nuclear facilities from attack, state TV reported, as an air force commander boasted the country could deter any military strike by Israel.

CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst Pamela Falk, who is based at the United Nations, said the war games are intended to show the United States and Israel that it would protect its nuclear facilities against a preemptive attack.

IAEA chief: Iran nuke probe at ‘dead end,’ Tehran not cooperating – Haaretz – Israel News.

Head of UN watchdog criticizes Iran for trying to change plan endorsed by six world powers.

VIENNA – The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog said Thursday that his probe into allegations Iran tried to make nuclear arms has reached a dead end because Tehran is not cooperating. International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei was also critical of Iran for trying to change a plan endorsed by six world powers – the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany – that would stymie Tehran’s ability to make nuclear weapons. The proposal calls for Iran to ship out most of its enriched uranium and have it returned as nuclear fuel. ElBaradei was speaking at the start of the a meeting of the IAEA’s 35-nation board of governors, who will likely vote on a resolution demanding that Iran immediately mothball the uranium enrichment site it kept secret for years. Diplomats forecast majority approval for the resolution in a vote Thursday or Friday, in what would be its first action against Iran in almost four years. The move reflects dismay over Iran’s September disclosure of a second enrichment site it had been building clandestinely for two years, and frustration at Iran’s holdup of the IAEA-brokered plan to give it fuel for its nuclear medical program if it parts with enriched uranium that could be used in weapons. The last IAEA board resolution passed against Iran was in February 2006, when governors referred Tehran’s case to the UN Security Council over its refusal to suspend enrichment and open up completely to IAEA inspections and investigations. The new measure’s sponsors were the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China, the sextet locked in a long standoff with Iran over its shadowy enrichment activity, alleged nuclear bomb research and restrictions on IAEA inspections. Russian and Chinese support was significant, and expected to secure rare developing nation votes against Iran, since the two have often blocked a tough united front against Iran in global security bodies and avoided direct criticism of Tehran. Vienna diplomats said China was won over at the last minute by strong Western lobbying. It was not clear how. The Washington Post reported on Wednesday U.S. officials had persuaded Beijing that big power unity to rein in Iran was now indispensable because Israel saw Iran’s nuclear drive as an “existential” threat that could lead to a Middle East war, stopping Iranian oil exports crucial to China’s booming economy. But it was unclear whether Moscow and Beijing’s expression of disenchantment with Iran, an important trade partner for both, would translate into readiness for harsher UN sanctions Western powers will push for if the fuel deal falls through.

via Report: US warned China that Israel could attack Iran – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Washington Post reports American warning caused Beijing to reconsider its stance on Iranian nuclear program, may lead to agreement on tougher sanctions against Islamic republic

Yitzhak Benhorin

Published: 11.26.09, 07:31 / Israel News

WASHINGTON – An American warning that Israel could bomb Iran is what caused China to reconsider its stance over the Iranian nuclear program and may have paved the way for new sanctions against the Islamic republic, the Washington Post reported Thursday.

The Americans have been trying for some time to get China to join the camp of countries supporting tougher sanctions against Iran. According to the report, two weeks before US President Barack Obama visited China a week and a half ago, two senior White House officials – Dennis Ross and Jeffrey Bader – traveled to Beijing on a “special mission” to try to persuade China to pressure Iran to give up its alleged nuclear weapons program.

The Chinese were told that Israel regards Iran’s nuclear program as an “existential issue and that countries that have an existential issue don’t listen to other countries.” According to the Washington Post, the message was clear: Israel could bomb Iran, leading to a crisis in the Persian Gulf region and almost inevitably problems over the very oil China needs to fuel its economic juggernaut.The Chinese response was given to the White House earlier this week. Beijing informed Washington that it would support a toughly worded, US-backed statement criticizing the Islamic republic for flouting UN resolutions by constructing a secret uranium-enrichment plant.

While largely symbolic, the Washington Post said, it is the first such declaration since 2006 to be backed by both China and Russia. And the statement marks a departure for China, which has long refrained from criticizing Iran’s nuclear policies.

Obama presented the Iranian nuclear issue to the Chinese as extremely severe. The issue of how China will handle the Iranian nuclear issue has emerged as an early test of what Obama has described as a relationship that “will shape the 21st century.”

Given its backing even from Iran’s erstwhile allies, European diplomats on Wednesday predicted easy passage of the resolution, which calls Tehran’s construction of an underground enrichment plant near Qom a “breach of its obligations” under UN and IAEA guidelines. If approved, the Washington Post said, the resolution will be referred to the UN Security Council, which could decide to enact harsher sanctions against the Islamic republic.It is still unclear whether Russia or China would go further and agree to new sanctions against Iran. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has already hinted that his country would agree to sanctions. American sources clarified several days ago that China would likely not veto a Security Council resolution against Iran.

IRAN, ISRAEL: Flexing muscles, turning up rhetoric in preparation for possible war | Babylon & Beyond | Los Angeles Times.

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Things are not looking good for the possibility of a peaceful resolution between Israel and Iran over the latter’s nuclear ambitions. Oil prices rose and hearts sank across the region this week as Iran began its biggest air defense drill ever and Israel readied a new missile defense system in preparation for a possible three-front war.

Since President Obama was swept into office promising a change toward strong diplomacy to resolve Middle East problems, his policies have faltered and his options narrowed.

The Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington-based think tank that favors a hard line on Iran, issued a report last week recommending that the Obama administration begin preparing for possible military strikes on Iran next year. If the U.S. does not strike Iranian nuclear and military facilities, the report said, Israel may decide to take riskier unilateral action.

The year is almost over, and so far Iran is unmoved. Neither the threat of stricter sanctions nor a U.S.-backed fuel-swap proposal has persuaded Iran to abandon its nuclear program, and the war of words with Israel is escalating.

 

“If the enemy tries its luck and fires a missile into Iran, our ballistic missiles would zero in on Tel Aviv before the dust settles on the attack,” Mojtaba Zolnour, a high-ranking government representative, told the Revolutionary Guard this week.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported today that Israel is investing in new high-tech weapons, including a cutting-edge antimissile system and two nuclear-equipped submarines. Israeli military experts have said that the army is expecting Iran’s allies Hezbollah and Hamas to retaliate by launching synchronized rocket attacks in the event of an airstrike against Iran.

Israel’s new antimissile system, known as Iron Dome, would detect incoming rockets and fire an interceptor that detonates into a cloud of pieces instead of trying to shoot down the rocket with a direct hit.

The Associated Press went on to report that in light of international condemnation of Israel over the Gaza Strip war, large resources are also going into developing more accurate weapons and noise-making explosions to scare away civilians before real bombs are dropped.

Some observers say Israel is bluffing, that it won’t actually attack Iran for fear of messing up Washington’s efforts in the Middle East.

But the prospect of armed conflict has alarmed some analysts, including Steven Simon at the Council on Foreign Relations, who this week published a short report examining the likelihood and consequences of an Israeli attack on Iran.

Although Simon urges U.S. policymakers to forestall an attack that could have serious military, diplomatic and political consequences for Americans, he also says Washington must take practical steps to mitigate the damage of such a conflict.

But, he warns, even such defensive preparations could be misinterpreted by Tehran:

The United States must hedge against the failure of a war-avoidance policy, and begin preparing for an Israeli attack on Iran and Iranian retaliation. This will be a thorny process insofar as defensive measures the United States takes in the region, or urges its allies to take, could be read in Tehran as preparation for an attack and thus cast as justification for further destabilizing Iranian action.

— Meris Lutz and Borzou Daragahi in Beirut

Photos: Above, Israeli soldiers this year take part in an army drill simulating a chemical missile attack near Tel Aviv. Credit: Sebastian Scheiner / Associated Press.

Market Rap – Obama Bows, Iran Taunts, and Supply Peaks, Making it Time to Look at OIL, USO and USL.

Obama Bows, Iran Taunts, and Supply Peaks, Making it Time to Look at OIL, USO and USL

It’s time to see Iran’s nuclear plan for what it is – The Irish Times – Wed, Nov 25, 2009.

It’s time to see Iran’s nuclear plan for what it is

OPINION: Iran’s determination to become a nuclear power by any means is moving towards a tragic endgame, writes RICHARD WHELAN

THE PLAY is called Nuclear Negotiations with Iran, 99th Round, October/November 2009, and it is taking place on the international diplomatic stage.

Act 1. Iran agrees a groundbreaking breakthrough agreement on nuclear energy with the international community in Geneva and Vienna. “A solution is at hand.”

Act 2. Iranian spokesmen immediately challenge key parts of the deal and refuse to accept the deadline set by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog.

Act 3. Iran apparently makes a counter-offer which totally undermines the agreement supposedly reached.

Act 4. Various Iranian spokesmen (they are never women) make comments on the deal, some contradictory, mainly negative, and with a variety of unusual counter-proposals. The complexity and ever-changing nature of the proposals and counter-proposals ensures that all but the most expert are effectively “clueless” on what is really going on by now.

Act 5. The Iranians drag out the timescale and eventually respond with their own ideas (in essence unrelated to the supposed agreement), indicating a desire to discuss with the international community world peace, universal nuclear disarmament, a new international order, etc.

Act 6. The IAEA director, Mohamed ElBaradei (soon to retire), remains positive. The international community loses interest, hopes for the best, doesn’t really understand the complexities. Meanwhile, Iranian enrichment and other nuclear weapons-related activities continue.

You’ve seen this show before?

This tragedy/comedy/farce has been going on since the mid-1980s. Since then, the international community has been trying to stop first North Korea and now Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. The harsh reality is that these efforts won’t succeed.

The international community, the two Clinton administrations and the two recent Bush administrations, the other powers negotiating with the US and North Korea (China, Japan, South Korea and Russia) and the IAEA all tried to stop North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons. They failed. North Korea is today negotiating to be recognised by the international community, particularly the US, as a nuclear weapons state.

This is complete failure by any definition.

The second harsh fact we should now face up to is that Iran (a close ally of North Korea, with many nuclear, missile development, military and other connections with that state) is playing the nuclear game with the international community using exactly the same tactics North Korea used. Why wouldn’t they – they know they will be successful.

The Iranian game plan goes like this. Ostensibly agree to what the international community wants, raise questions and doubts, make counter-proposals, drag out the timing, ensure details are complex and ever-changing, and the attention and understanding of the international community will move elsewhere, and never focus on the big picture.

Add to this toxic brew the short timelines of democratic administrations, short attention spans for complex ever-changing issues, and the unwillingness of UN Security Council veto holders (China with North Korea and China and Russia with Iran) to back tough sanctions, and the result is a foregone conclusion.

A regime with single-minded purpose easily outmanoeuvres the international community. What worked for North Korea will work for Iran. Iran will soon have nuclear weapons.

A logical conclusion, but is it accurate? Consider two pieces of evidence. Firstly, from the IAEA itself.

Most likely generated due to frustration with the successful tactics adopted by North Korea and Iran, parts of an internal 67-page working paper by the IAEA’s safeguards department, entitled Possible Military Dimensions of Iran’s Nuclear Program, were leaked recently. The paper indicated that the department “believed that Iran had the ability to make a nuclear bomb, and was working on developing a missile system that could carry a nuclear warhead”. It said Iran had established a high-explosives industry capable of manufacturing nuclear-weapons triggers, and concluded Iran “has sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable implosion nuclear device” using HEU (highly enriched uranium).

Secondly, what do Iran’s Arab neighbours, who are focused on long-term political and military implications, think? “I think the Gulf states are well advised now to develop strategies on the assumption that Iran is about to become a nuclear power,” according to Abdul Khaleq Abdullah, a political science professor at United Arab Emirates University. “It’s a whole new ball game. Iran is forcing everyone in the region now into an arms race.”

According to Abdulaziz Sega, former Saudi diplomat and current chairman of the Gulf Research Centre in the United Arab Emirates: “Israel can start the attack, but they cannot sustain it; the United States can start it and sustain it. The region can live with a limited retaliation from Iran better than living with a permanent nuclear deterrent. I favour getting the job done now instead of living the rest of my life with a nuclear hegemony in the region that Iran would like to impose.”

What is to be done? In my opinion, the international community needs to face up to its failures and adopt a much more robust policy, using targeted financial sanctions in particular, to attempt to dissuade Iran from its current course. This will involve Russia and China agreeing to harsh sanctions against a regime that China is developing strong trading relationships with (particularly with respect to energy), and that Russia sees as a good neighbour, to whom it wishes to sell advanced armaments. This will take time. Waiting in the wings is Israel, which is crystal clear on what Iran is up to.

Israel is “targeted” by Iran in all kinds of negative ways. There has to be a reasonable possibility that Israel will adopt the “Sadat Option” – that is, launch an attack on certain Iranian nuclear facilities. In 1973 the then president of Egypt, Anwar Sadat, did as much against Israel not in the expectation that it would succeed, but to force the international community in general, and Israel in particular, to consider the policies they had been adopting and to change the strategic landscape on the issue. This policy succeeded.

Israel could well judge that a focused strike on a known Iranian nuclear facility would wake up the international community and force it to take real action. Such an attack would change everybody’s strategic calculations, including those of Russia and China, and might lead to a better outcome for Israel than waiting for the inevitable.

Israel could assume after an attack on Iran that “something could come up” in the three to five years’ breathing space that such an attack could provide. At the very least the international community would start treating the threat posed by another rogue state acquiring nuclear weapons seriously.

Either way, the last act is shaping up to being quite a tragedy.

Richard Whelan is a commentator on international affairs. His website is http://www.richardwhelan.com

iddle East News | Six powers draft resolution to press Iran at IAEA.

Six powers draft resolution to press Iran at IAEA

The last IAEA board resolution passed against Iran was in February 2006

VIENNA (Agencies)

Six world powers have drafted a resolution at the United Nations nuclear watchdog urging Iran to clarify the purpose of its previously secret uranium enrichment site and confirm it has no more hidden atomic work, diplomats said.

The draft text, backed by the United States, Germany, France, Britain, Russia and China, is to be presented at the year-end meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 35-nation governing board that starts on Thursday.

Russian and Chinese support could be significant since they have often blocked tougher action against Iran in the IAEA’s governing body and the U.N. Security Council, including the pursuit of tough sanctions.

Nevertheless, it was not certain if the draft text would muster a majority among IAEA governors, almost half of whom belong to a developing nation bloc that includes Iran.

The IAEA said in a report last week that Iran’s late admission of the Fordow enrichment plant had eroded confidence that it was not harboring more secret activity.

The draft resolution will call on Iran to provide the agency with a timeline of the site’s design and construction, diplomats familiar with its content told Reuters, asking for anonymity due to the subject’s political sensitivity.

“There was a strong measure of agreement at the P5+1 meeting in Brussels last week that the (Fordow) revelation was a serious new development,” one senior diplomat said.

Iran revealed the site to the IAEA in September, two years after it said construction began. The IAEA said Iran was legally bound to own up about the plant as soon as plans were drawn.

The eight-point resolution draft highlighted this and also urged Iran to cooperate fully with the agency to clear up all outstanding issues about its nuclear work.

Western powers fear Iran is using the cover of a civilian nuclear programme to develop bomb-making capability. Iran denies this and says its atomic work is for peaceful uses only, like power generation.

The last IAEA board resolution passed against Iran was in February 2006 when governors referred Tehran’s case to the U.N. Security Council over its refusal to suspend enrichment and open up completely to IAEA inspections and investigations.