WarSclerotic

The American-Israeli disparity over Iran.

Why Iran vs. Israel rhetoric could escalate into war – CSMonitor.com.

Iran and Israel traded verbal barbs this week, with a former Israeli intelligence chief calling for a preemptive military strike against Iran. Analysts worry that both sides could get carried away and find themselves at war.

By Scott Peterson, Staff writer / June 22, 2010

“A lot of people in Israel who had dealings with Iran in the 1980s, and obviously extensively in the 1970s, who know the country quite well, are less and less in the bureaucracy,” says Parsi, author of The Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States. “That distance between actual understanding, and the [Iran-threat] talking points that were used externally … creates a very dangerous situation for Israel, because it turns the threat from Iran into a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

But Ram points out that the hard-line rhetoric goes in both directions.

“It’s two-dimensional: one side always provokes the other side, and vice versa; it’s a dialogue,” says the historian, author of Iranophobia: The Logic of an Israeli Obsession. “So when [Iran’s President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad says he would wish the death of the ‘Zionist occupying regime,’ it is in essence not different from when [Israeli President Shimon] Peres or another Israeli functionary says that we should bring an end to the Iranian regime.”

One approach: Let Iran know missiles = Israeli strike

The outcome of Iran-Israel sparring, then, may depend on how Israel interprets Iranian rhetoric and possible actions and reactions.

Reuven Pedatzur, head of a strategic dialogue center at Netanya Academic College, analyzed seven options for Israel at an Iran seminar last week. “Most of them are bad, and one which is less bad – and eventually we will have to adopt it – is open nuclear deterrence,” says Mr. Pedatzur, a long-time critic of missile defense, saying it is “irrelevant” in the case of a nuclear attack.

Israel should declare its own nuclear arsenal, and spell out the “rules of the game” to Iran, says Pedatzur. “The main rule would be … ‘You should know what will happen if we detect one missile going westward from Iran. We are not going to wait to see whether it’s [nuclear], automatically we are going to launch our missiles and destroy Qom, Tehran, Tabriz, Esfahan, and so on.’”

If that were clear, Pedatzur believes Tehran would be deterred.

“I don’t see any Iranian national interest that justifies destroying Iran, just for killing 200,000 Zionists,” he says.

Olmert asked: Have we taken this too far?

Van Creveld has also argued for such nuclear deterrence. In 1997, he told the Monitor that “when Mao and Stalin acquired nuclear weapons, they calmed down,” and that if Iran were to ever acquire nuclear weapons “the effect will be the same” because “war ceases to be fun. It becomes suicide.”

The historian believes that deterrence can work in a country where some have argued that Iran is irrational, and can’t be deterred. He says former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert asked him whether “we [Israelis] had not taken this too far, to the point where it was doing more harm than good,” by “frightening ourselves.”

Nuclear deterrence “has worked elsewhere in every single place around the world,” says Van Creveld. “So why not in the Middle East?”

US military pressure increasing in the Persian Gulf | Spero News.

Some 12 US warships transited through the Suez Canal a few days ago. Three naval squadrons are currently in the region. Forces appear to be in position for a possible attack against Iran’s nuclear sites. Late July and early August could provide a window of opportunity for action.

Milan – After 387 bunker buster bombs were shipped to the US base in Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean, whose great potential AsiaNews had already revealed last April (see Maurizio d’Orlando, “Winds of war and economic crisis behind the attacks on the Pope,” in AsiaNews, 14 April 2010), 12 US warships, as well as one Israeli corvette, have crossed the Suez Canal, this according to Arabic-language newspaper Al-Quds-al-Arabi, confirmed by the newspapers Jerusalem Post and Haaretz.

The Debka online news agency, usually well connected with Israel’s secret services Mossad, also confirmed increased activity in the Persian Gulf. According to Debka, three Israeli nuclear-armed subs are believed to be currently operating off the coast of Iran. The German-built submarines are considered technologically top of their class.

Coming from the Mediterranean, the USS Harry S Truman aircraft carrier also transited through the Suez Canal, this according to an article published in Zerohedge (Tyler Durden, “12 American Warships, Including One Aircraft Carrier, And One Israeli Corvette, Cross Suez Canal On Way To Red Sea And Beyond,” in Zerohedge, 19 June 2010).

Thus, three naval squadrons with fighter planes are in position in the region, plus planes deployed at the US airbase at Diego Garcia. Preparations thus are complete for a possible attack against sites where, according to the United States and Israel, Iran is building its first nuclear bomb. If war does break out, the best period would be the end of July and early August.

Iran has always claimed that its uranium enrichment installations are for the civilian production of energy. Over the years, Tehran has allowed inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of the United Nations to visit those installations to verify that they are not being used for military purposes.

Recently, on 16 May, Iran agreed to a plan put forward by Brazil and Turkey (see “Tehran accepts an agreement on enriched uranium with Turkey and Brazil,” in AsiaNews, 17 May 2010) for uranium to be enriched outside Iran, in Turkey, to guarantee that the material would not be used for military purpose, a move not welcomed by Israel.

Every threat leads to a counter threat

For its part, Iran’s PressTV news network published an article in English that quotes from a letter written by a member of the Saudi royal family, Prince Turki bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud (see “Prince warns S. Arabia of apocalypse,” in PressTV, 9 June 2010), that was published by Cairo-based Arabic-language Wagze news agency.

The prince, who has lived in Egypt for years after falling out with Saudi Arabia’s reining family, warns the dynasty and its members that they are at risk because they are hated by the population. A coup could remove them from power, putting their lives in great danger. He urges them to leave and, in a somewhat dramatic tone, find refuge abroad before people “cut off our heads in streets.”

Most people living in the kingdom’s oil-rich regions are Shia, like in Iran. Shia Islam and the Wahhabi-oriented Sunni Islam backed by the Saudi dynasty are not exactly on friendly terms.

The publication of the story based on the prince’s letter shows what strategy Iran might adopt in case of an attack. It suggests that Tehran might try to cause havoc in its neighbour, Saudi Arabia, and thus put at risk the latter’s oil exports. In that case, the effects on oil prices would be huge since the desert kingdom is the world’s largest oil producer. Even so, it is still unclear how serious Iran’s threat to the Saudi royal family really is.

However, the letter also contains another element. “Do not fool yourself by relying on the United States or Britain or Israel,” the prince tells his family, “because they will not survive the loss”. What this actually means is unclear. Does he mean economic loss, military loss? Perhaps this obscure passage is a warning the Iranian network attributes to the prince in order to hint that Tehran might call for a ‘Jihad’, a holy war to urge the masses to rise up in Muslim countries and for Islamist cells to launch terrorist attacks.

Here too it is unclear how a hypothetical Iranian appeal to Islamic solidarity might unfold in the case of an attack and a terrorist counterattack.

Based on our evaluation of the threats and counter threats, the danger of a conflict is likely to be at its highest in late July and early August and this for various reasons.

First, the deployment of the US-Israeli military forces will be done by that time.

Second, leaders at the G8-G20 summits in late June in Toronto will have a venue where they conduct high-level consultations, a necessary preliminary step before any political-military action is taken.

For its part, Iran has to wait for the necessary provocation that can raise tensions, i.e. the arrival of a flotilla to break the naval blockade of Gaza to bring “humanitarian” aid.

The weight of US debt

The main factors behind the timing of this political-military crisis are economic in nature.

The first one is that US budget estimates for 2010 should be released in mid-September. Usually, rumours about them already abound by August. This year, this will not be necessary because it is already clear that Obama’s “economic stimulus”, as advised by Keynesian economists like Paul Krugman, has not only failed to increase employment, but that it has, through higher government spending, punched a huge hole in the US federal deficit, certainly more than 10 per cent of the GDP.

In order to hide the economic and social fiasco (with real unemployment at 22 per cent of the active workforce), a foreign threat and a military and political emergency are needed, but they must come before tax and employment data are released in order to achieve a minimum degree of credibility and be picked up by big information media.

A second factor that is often left out of the equation is that the United States (and others) not only has a huge public debt crisis but that it also has a huge private debt, affecting families and companies.

US private debt stands at US$ 50 trillion or 330 per cent the US GDP. On the long run, this cannot be sustained; it has to come down in real terms through deflation or hyperinflation.

Financial leverage must be cut and properties bought wholly or partially on debt must be liquidated. We might expect a repeat of the subprime crisis of September 2007. The difference this time will be that, instead of insolvent subprime debtors, the crisis is more likely to hit the more solvent private debt holders.

Mid-September will also see a mass of commercial mortgages and quality debts come due, but quite a few holders will have a hard time getting them renewed. A foreign threat will come in handy if it occurs right before the collapse in the real value of property, stocks and bonds, which would otherwise pose a threat to the traditional two-party system of the United States.

Iran’s governing regime also needs an external threat to hold onto power. Increasingly, a new generation of Iranians is putting pressure on the system, unable and unwilling to tolerate the regime’s corruption and technological backwardness. The inability to find a job and the isolation from the rest of the world are particularly heavy burdens to bear.

Unlike their parents, young Iranians did not participate in the Islamic revolution against the Shah, an event remembered also and perhaps especially as an uprising against US economic and cultural imperialism. They do not really know what anti-Americanism is and thus view the struggle against the “Great Satan” as tired old rhetoric used for domestic consumption. For the regime, it therefore becomes imperative not to lower its guard, but rather keep the threat level high through concrete steps.

Indeed, both sides appear to follow the rationale that led to the Falklands War when Argentinian generals were in charge of a country on the brink of economic bankruptcy and the British establishment was still facing tough domestic choices in order to restructure the country’s economy in the wake of Britain’s long movement away from empire.

A foreign threat or a war overseas are one of the oldest and most tested political tools to close ranks at home. However, today’s social, political and economic instability are global in scope. It is hard to imagine how an intervention could be surgically limited to a specific context, especially if that context is the Persian Gulf. Lighting a match and throwing it in to start a fire could quickly get out of hand and blow up the world’s powder keg.

Israel launches new spy satellite.

Photo by: Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI)

By YAAKOV KATZ
06/22/2010 22:23

Improving intelligence to face Iran’s pursuit of nuclear power.

FrontPage Magazine » Saudis: Green Light for Israeli Attack on Iran » Print.

Posted By Ryan Mauro On June 22, 2010 @ 12:15 am In FrontPage

The Iranian regime does not just seek the destruction of Israel, but seeks to overthrow the pro-American Sunni Arab regimes, ushering in an era of Shiite dominance of the region. These Arab countries, despite their public denials, are wishing for the very scenario that the Obama Administration is trying to prevent: An Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. And there are growing signs that such a strike is being prepared for.

The call ^[1] for a “Greater Iran” stretching from Palestine to Afghanistan and vanquishing Saudi Wahhabism by the head of Hezbollah in Iran shocked the media, but the entire Middle East was already well-aware of this objective. The Iranians waged ^[2] a proxy war against Yemen and Saudi Arabia last year, providing a tremendous amount of support to the radical Shiite Houthi rebels. The regime has been trying to dominate Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories via proxies, and the governments of the Arabian Peninsula have accused Iran of stirring up unrest in their lands for years.

“The Saudis are as threatened as Israel by Iran’s nuclear ambitions,” Aaron Klein, the Jerusalem Bureau Chief of WorldNetDaily.com, told FrontPage. He has broken numerous stories about the fear of Iran expressed by Arab officials behind the scenes.

“Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia secretly back an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. The Saudis are particularly active in coordinating with Israel since their oil interests are at stake in a major war,” Klein said.

The Saudis have been sharing ^[3] intelligence with Israel about Iran and they reportedly ^[4] told the head of Mossad in early 2009 that Saudi air space could be used to carry out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. There have been consistent reports of secret high-level meetings between Israeli and Saudi officials over the past two years, and the Saudis have just simulated ^[5] a scenario where Israeli aircraft pass over a thin stretch of their territory to attack Iran to make sure there is not a confrontation. Predictably, the Saudis have denied ^[6] the arrangement, saying they’ll never allow their nation to be used to attack another country.

The panic over Iran’s activities in the region and pursuit of nuclear weapons capabilities can be clearly seen in the Saudi media and Saudi officials are increasing the tempo of the warnings. The former Saudi ambassador to the U.S., Prince Turki al-Faisal, spoke ^[7] in Beirut last month and said that the Arabs must do everything they can to stop Iran from going nuclear. He said that if Iran succeeds in doing so, the situation is irreversible and the Arabs will face an increasing danger. Of course, he combined his call to stop Iran with criticism of Israel’s own nuclear stockpile, as is to be expected.

Egyptian officials are also taking a stronger line, particularly since the arrest ^[8] of 49 Hezbollah members in the country planning attacks on Israeli targets. Hezbollah reacted to the arrests by calling for the overthrow of the more moderate regimes in the region, including that of Egypt. The Egyptian Prime Minister accurately said that Hezbollah had “virtually declared war.” On May 3, the former ambassador to Israel clearly stated ^[9] on Egyptian television that Iran is not a friend. Last July, the Egyptians publicly allowed ^[10] Israel to send two missile boats and a Dolphin-class nuclear-capable submarine to transit the Suez Canal, practicing a potential deployment for a strike on Iran.  And last week, over a dozen U.S. ships and at least one Israeli warship transited ^[11] the Suez Canal with Egyptian forces providing security. This comes as a senior Egyptian security official anonymously said ^[12] that his government sees an Israeli strike on Iran happening as early as this July.

There are more countries than just Egypt and Saudi Arabia supporting an Israeli strike. A member of Israel’s parliament from the Likud Party said ^[13] in March that a “wall-to-wall coalition” of Muslim countries had secretly contacted Israel, some of whom the Israelis do not even have diplomatic relations with, expressing their support for any measure taken to stop Iran.

In January, for the first time, an Israeli minister visited ^[14] the United Arab Emirates to participate in an energy conference and the UAE teamed up with the Saudis to pressure ^[15] China into supporting sanctions on Iran. Algeria has accused Iran of supporting terrorists fighting the government, and Morocco cut off ^[16] ties with Iran in March 2009 because of their promotion of extremist Shiite Islam through non-governmental organizations.

Ethiopia is an opponent of two of Iran’s allies, Sudan and Eritrea, and has accused the latter of supporting Somali terrorists that they have gone to war with. Even Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has frequently called Hamas a puppet of the Iranians and has blamed ^[17] them for Israel’s 2009 offensive into Gaza. The other countries in the Arabian Peninsula have had their own problems with Iranian meddling. The Israeli MP’s claim is not far-fetched.

This doesn’t mean that an Israeli strike on Iran doesn’t bring serious risks to the Sunni Arabs, though. Iran has repeatedly stated that Arab countries hosting U.S. military bases will be retaliated against if an attack happens. The Arabs, however, feel they have no other choice but to support Israel, especially considering they will likely be attacked regardless of whether they permit the strikes.

“There’s too much at stake for them,” Klein said. “They are betting an Israeli strike, as dangerous as it is, will be successful.”

The Arab countries also have to be concerned about domestic unrest in the aftermath of an attack. However, a recent poll indicates this will not significantly affect the stability of their governments. They were able to remain in power when the U.S. invaded Iraq, an action more infuriating to their populations because of their shared Arab identity.

A Pew Research Center poll ^[18] dated June 17, 2010 found that strong majorities of the people in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt view Iran negatively, lack confidence in Ahmadinejad and oppose Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. A majority of those in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon opposing a nuclear-armed Iran actually favor the use of military force if necessary to stop them. The popular backlash resulting from an Israeli strike may not be as much of a threat as is assumed.

Ironically, these Arab countries appear to be actually promoting Israeli military action against Iran while the U.S. is trying to stop it. If Israel ultimately decides to strike Iran, the Arabs will join the Obama Administration in condemning them—but privately, they will be thanking their Jewish adversaries for saving them from having to handle a nuclear Iran, an enemy far more threatening to them than Israel ever was.

IDF strengthening ties with Chinese military.

AFP: Former Israeli top spy calls for strike on Iran.

(AFP) – 7 hours ago

JERUSALEM — Israel should launch a pre-emptive strike to prevent arch-foe Iran from going nuclear, a former head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency said on Monday.

“I am of the opinion that, since there is an ongoing war, since the threat is permanent, since the intention of the enemy in this case is to annihilate you, the right doctrine is one of pre-emption and not of retaliation,” Shabtai Shavit told a conference.

Shavit, who served as chief of Israel’s foreign spy agency from 1989 to 1996, was speaking at a conference held at the hawkish Bar Ilan University outside Tel Aviv.

“To use retaliation as the main strategy means to sit idly and wait until the enemy comes to attack you,” a university statement quoted Shavit as saying.

“But we are dealing with an enemy that plans all the time and waits for the opportunity to arise in order to attack, so what is the point, even morally, to wait and do something only when we are attacked,” he said.

Israel, which has the Middle East’s sole if undeclared nuclear arsenal, regards Iran as its principal threat after repeated predictions by the Islamic republic’s hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of the Jewish state’s demise.

Along with the West, it suspects Iran of trying to develop atomic weapons under the guise of its nuclear programme, a claim Tehran denies.

Israel has backed US-led efforts to prevent Iran developing a nuclear weapons capability through sanctions, but has also refused to rule out military force.

In 1981 Israel bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor and reportedly also attacked a suspected Syrian nuclear facility in 2007.

Iran insists that its nuclear programme is aimed solely at power generation and medical research and says that the international community should focus its attention on Israel, which, unlike Iran, is not a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved. More »

The American-Israeli disparity over Iran.

When Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu visits the White House in early July, the Iranian nuclear file is sure to be discussed.

And he is bound to be disappointed with what he hears from Barack Obama. That is because there are profound differences between the Obama administration and Israel when it comes to the perception of the threat posed by a nuclear-armed Iran, as well as their estimation of the consequences of preventative military action.
First, there are analytical problems stemming from the White House’s belief that Iran would be willing to strike a “grand bargain” if an American president emerged who threw cold water on the US-Israeli relationship. Netanyahu suffers from no illusion that Iran would reorient itself toward the West. After all, one of the pillars of the Iranian revolution is to despise big and little Satan (America and Israel, respectively), and it has long been embodied in Iran’s foreign-policy slogan: “Neither East nor West.”

Then there is the problem of effective sanctions. Israel believes time is running out and sanctions will not alter the regime’s behavior. But the Obama administration is proud of the new toothless sanctions passed by the UN Security Council. Indeed, Resolution 1929 fails to target Iran’s energy sector and safeguards Russia and China’s economic interests. Moreover, while the US Congress wants to punish companies that sell refined petroleum products to Iran, team Obama prefers a slower approach. This fourth round of sanctions is being billed as proof positive that American foreign policy toward Russia and China is a smashing success. Yet the Bush administration managed to gain their support for three separate rounds of sanctions from 2006-2008. It is difficult, then, to see how Obama’s foreign policy outreach has paid dividends, and equally hard to conclude that the latest UN sanctions will affect Iranian behavior. For Netanyahu, the idea that working through the UN could effectively solve such a time-sensitive problem is absurd.

Yet the analytical problem goes even further when contemplating a preemptive strike and the resulting fallout. The Israeli view is that Israel would be hit with rockets from Hamas and Hizbullah, and Jewish sites around the globe would be attacked. There would probably be attacks against the US as well, and the global economy would take a dive. But in the end, Iran would be forced to face Israel’s counterdeterrent.

The Iranian people may even turn against their leadership and say, “look at the mess you have brought upon us.”

In the Israeli view, maybe their preemptive strike only sets the program back a year – but that is what Israel thought after bombing Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981 and today, some 30 years later, Iraq’s nuclear program was never reconstituted. Accordingly, buying a year in the Middle East could actually be quite significant. In this view, the morning after does not look so bad for Israel; it is something the Jewish state can weather.

THE OBAMA administration’s view is very different. The result of an Israeli raid would mean that American soldiers – 150,000 in Iraq and Afghanistan – would be more exposed than ever. The global war on terrorism would become even more difficult to prosecute. The regime in Teheran that today is weak and divided will grow united along with its people. It will redouble its efforts to get a nuclear weapon and there would be precious little international support to prevent that. Those weapons would be delivered to its terrorist proxies. In the White House’s estimation, an Israeli preemptive strike would be catastrophic.

But the disparity between Israel and the US is more than analytical. There is a stark analogical difference as well.

Israel views Iran like Europe in the 1930s, with a country openly determined to eliminate all the Jews. It presents a very real existential threat.

On the other hand, Obama sees Russia and China during the Cold War where a combination of containment and deterrence prevented nuclear hostilities.

Yet given the ideological-messianic fervor of many in the Iranian leadership, Israelis rightfully question whether such a regime can be deterred.

Moreover, there is no hot line between Jerusalem and Teheran such as existed between Washington and Moscow during the Cold War. Any diplomatic incident would run the risk of snowballing toward a nuclear clash. Indeed, the possibilities for conflict are endless in a region that has long been a tinderbox.

These two strikingly different analytical and analogical frameworks are mutually exclusive and are bound to lead the US and Israel in very different directions. The past year and a half has been a story of missed American opportunities to pressure the Iranian regime.

Moreover, Obama’s “charm offensive” in the Muslim world has displayed American weakness rather than strength.

Today, Iran can proudly add Turkey and Brazil to its resistance camp. By way of contrast, America’s allies wonder if the Obama administration has the ability to bring about peace through strength. Given the current American trend, the answer firmly appears to be no, and Iran has certainly taken notice.

The writer is director of policy at the Jewish Policy Center in Washington, DC.

Brazil drops role in Iran nuclear dispute – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Brazil’s foreign minister says his country’s active support of Iran in its dispute with the West over its nuclear program is being scaled back after the UN Security Council decision to move for a fourth set of sanctions.

	Technicians measuring parts of Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant in this undated photo.
	Photo by: AP

“We will help whenever we can, but of course there is a limit to where we can go,” Celso Amorim told reporters on the sidelines of an official visit to Austria.

Brazil and Turkey last month brokered an Iranian nuclear fuel-swap deal in hopes that they would at least delay new UN sanctions, but the new penalties were imposed nonetheless.

Iran has barred two UN nuclear inspectors from entering the Islamic Republic, adding to tension less than two weeks after Tehran was hit by new UN sanctions over its disputed atomic program.

Officials accused the two unnamed inspectors of providing wrong information that some nuclear equipment was missing in a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last month and declared them persona non grata.

They made clear Iran would still allow the Vienna-based UN watchdog to monitor its nuclear facilities, saying other experts could carry out the work.

“Inspections are continuing without any interruption,” Iran’s IAEA envoy Ali Asghar Soltanieh told reporters in Vienna.

But, “we have to show more vigilance about the performance of the inspectors to protect the confidentiality,” he said, criticizing alleged leaks by inspectors to Western media.

Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said Tehran had asked the IAEA to replace the two inspectors, the ISNA news agency reported.

There was no immediate comment from the IAEA, but a diplomat confirmed that Iran had notified the agency of the ban.

Iran has the right to refuse certain inspectors under its agreement with the agency, which has around 200 people who are trained to conduct inspections in the Islamic state. Iran denied entry to a senior U.N. inspector in 2006.

Theodore Karasik, research director at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, said he believed Iran’s decision was in retaliation for the latest sanctions.

The United Nations Security Council on June 9 imposed a fourth round of punitive measures on the major oil producer because of nuclear activity the West suspects is aimed at making bombs. Tehran denies the charge.

Iran has branded the sanctions, which among other things target its banking and shipping sectors, as “illegal” and lawmakers have warned of scaling back ties with the IAEA.

“It is part of the escalation ladder of tit-for-tat that is now beginning to emerge,” Karasik said in Dubai.

Brazil hopeful on fuel plan

The IAEA’s report in May said some nuclear equipment had gone missing from a Tehran site where Iran had started researching production of uranium metal, which has both civilian and weapons applications.

Iran denied that the equipment — an electrochemical cell — had disappeared from the research laboratory and said inspectors had incorrectly described the work taking place there.

“We gave documents, pictures, everything, which proved this was a mistake,” Soltanieh said.

Salehi said Iran last week announced the two IAEA inspectors were banned for an “utterly untruthful” report.

“We asked that they would not ever send these two inspectors to Iran and instead assign two others,” he added.

Last month’s IAEA report also showed Iran pushing ahead with higher-level uranium enrichment and failing to answer questions about possible military dimensions to its nuclear work.

Enriched uranium can provide fuel for nuclear power plants, or material for bombs if refined much further.

Washington, which was leading the push to impose new UN sanctions, at the time said the IAEA report underscored Iran’s refusal to comply with international requirements.

Ties between Iran and the IAEA have become more strained since Yukiya Amano took over as head of the agency in December.

The Japanese diplomat has taken a tougher approach on Iran than his predecessor Mohamed ElBaradei, with the IAEA saying in a February report that Iran could be trying to develop a nuclear-armed missile now, and not just in the past.