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DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Special Report November 24, 2010, 9:02 AM (GMT+02:00)

Stuxnet still marching

Despite Iranian claims in October that their nuclear systems were cleansed of the Stuxnet virus, debkafile‘s intelligence and Iranian sources confirm that the invasive malworm is still making trouble. It shut down uranium enrichment at Natanz for a week from Nov. 16 to 22 over breakdowns caused by mysterious power fluctuations in the operation of the centrifuge machines enriching uranium at Natanz.
The shutdown was reported by the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency Yukiya Amano to the IAEA board in Vienna on Tuesday, Nov. 23.

Rapid changes in the spinning speed of the thousands of centrifuges enriching uranium to weapons-grade can cause them to blow apart suddenly without the monitors detecting any malfunction. The Iranian operators first tried replacing the P1 and P2 centrifuges used at Natanz with the more advanced IR1 type, but got the same effect. They finally decided to shut the plant down until computer security experts purged it of the malworm.

But then, when work was resumed Monday, about 5,000 of the 8,000 machines were found to be out of commission and the remaining 2,500-3,000 partially on the blink.

Tuesday, Ali Akbar Salehi, Director of Iran’s Nuclear Energy Commission tried to put a good face on the disaster. “Fortunately the nuclear Stuxnet virus has faced a dead end,” he said. However, the IAEA report and Western intelligence confirm that the virus has gathered itself for a fresh onslaught on Iran’s vital facilities.

According to an exclusive report reaching debkafile, Stuxnet is also in the process of raiding Iran’s military systems, sowing damage and disorder in its wake.

On Nov. 17, in the middle of a massive air defense exercise, Iranian military sources reported six foreign aircraft had intruded the airspace over the practice sites and were put to flight by Iranian fighters. The next day, a different set of military sources claimed a misunderstanding; there had been no intrusions. Iranian fighters had simulated an enemy raid which too had been repulsed.
debkafile‘s military sources disclose there was no “misunderstanding.” The foreign intruders had shown up on the exercise’s radar screens, but when the fighter jets scrambled to intercept them, they found empty sky, meaning the radar instruments had lied.

The military command accordingly decided to give up on using the exercise as a stage for unveiling new and highly sophisticated weaponry, including a homemade radar system, for fear that they too may have been infected by the ubiquitous Stuxnet worm.

If we aren’t going to bomb, we have to deter.

Looking at the existing constellation of realities – the fact that the regime is led by a spiritual leader, Ali Khamenei, who was appointed by and receives his instructions directly from Allah; the fact that its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is of arguable sanity, systematically abuses the rights of minority groups, denies that the Holocaust took place, and calls for the destruction of Israel; and the fact that the Islamic Republic of Iran, from its very establishment in 1979, took up Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s decree to “export the Islamic revolution” as the heart of its worldview – all these facts spell danger for the Middle East and Central Asia.

Once this malevolent regime harnesses its resources in a race to become a nuclear power, the safety of the entire world will be at risk.

When the sun rises the day following Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear bomb, the world will awaken to a highly combustive reality: The US, the dominant nuclear superpower, will instantly lose its international hegemony, as we will witness the emergence of a radical Islamic nuclear superpower. Many Middle Eastern and Asian states will race toward nuclear proliferation.

But the most immediately threatened and first to capitulate will be the oil emirates of the Gulf and Arab states, like Iraq and perhaps even Saudi Arabia, whose oil reserves will be swiftly conquered by Iranian forces.

Who would dare block the “messenger of Allah,” armed with a nuclear bomb, from attaining regional hegemony from Lebanon to Oman? To be sure, we will see an outpouring of protests and condemnations, but the world will likely sit back as Iran marches toward realizing its strategy of enslaving the oil-dependent West.

Iran will match its military conquests with intensified support of subversive activity in other states. A nucleararmed Iran will reach out to local Islamic fundamentalist movements in Arab and Muslim countries and assist their takeover through either democratic elections or violence, and then will sign pacts with its new allies.

Iran will not hesitate to use vassal terror organizations – Hizbullah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Palestinian arena, Shi’ite elements in Iraq and elsewhere – to promote its interests. Under the Iranian nuclear umbrella, these organizations will be immune to reprisal.

THIS IS not a worst-case scenario, but a completely reasonable estimate of what will happen from the moment Iran achieves nuclear capability. Efforts to persuade it to forgo its nuclear aspirations through negotiation or sanctions are doomed to fail. This is a regime which sent its own children to their deaths during the Iran-Iraq war. At that time, thousands of children were ordered to obey a “divine command” and march directly into Iraqi minefields, paving the way for Iranian troops with their young corpses. Such a regime would not even blink when it comes to jeopardizing its economy or sacrificing its international interests for the sake of its ultimate goals.

The only way to prevent this scenario is through a sweeping military operation. Only one country has the power to take on an operation of this scale; it is the country with the most at stake and the greatest interest in preventing this new world disorder. That country is the United States.

US motives for preventing a nuclear Iran are numerous, starting with the direct threat already posed by an Islamic fundamentalist state openly developing long-range missiles capable of reaching any target in the Western world. Add the fact that Hizbullah has already infiltrated American soil, cultivating sleeper terror cells.

Yet by far the greatest motive is that a nuclear Iran will signal the instant loss of support from its traditional Middle Eastern allies, beginning with Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf states. Iran’s intensive courtship of these countries has long been in full force, lobbying them to cut their American ties and transfer allegiance to the rising regional nuclear power. This trend will only intensify once Iran has the Bomb. Having felt that they have bet on the wrong horse by opting for a special relationship with the US, we will see one country after the other cash in its American chips to buy Iranian favor.

A parallel and no-less-dangerous process will be the wave of nuclear proliferation across the Middle East and central Asia. Iran’s traditional adversaries, fearful of an Iranian invasion, will do everything possible to acquire their own nuclear weapons. This process obviously flies in the face of the Obama administration’s openly declared objective to prevent nuclear proliferation.

Worse yet is the clear and present danger of Iranian Islamic radical terrorist affiliates, armed with a divine command, unleashing nuclear weapons far beyond Iran’s borders.

Should President Barack Obama refrain from taking proactive steps and attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, every country in the world will be thrown into a new, much more complicated and dangerous Cold War-like situation, triggered by the multi-polar nuclear environment.

Next to the tough dilemmas this new state of affairs will pose, the Cuban missile crisis will seem like child’s play.

ONLY THE fear of instant annihilation might dissuade a nuclear Iran from pursuing its expansionist goals.

Western states pitted in conflict against a fundamentalist adversary that follows a divine authority will have a hard time predicting Iran’s next moves or creating deterrents. There is but one option in the face of the Iranian nuclear threat: a new American-led nuclear alliance.

The “second-strike nuclear alliance” would include Western states, pro-Western states and others who fear being targeted by an Iranian nuclear attack. Unlike NATO, the SSNA would not oblige members to supply mutual assistance in the event of a conventional war, but would provide vital strategic backup: the guaranteed destruction of any aggressive nuclear attacker of any of its members – the “second strike” capability. Making an SSNA nuclear umbrella available to members could even prevent a nuclear proliferation trend; it could neutralize Iran’s military advantage over its weaker neighbors, strengthen the West and like-minded countries, and might even deter Iran from threatening to put its nuclear capability to use.

The more determination we see on the part of the Obama administration to avoid military confrontation, the more it must establish doctrines for a new, multipolar Cold War, of which the SSNA would be a pillar.

These principles must become clearly articulated, and set into motion from the moment we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Iran has attained nuclear weapons.

The writer is deputy dean of the Lauder School of Government Diplomacy and Strategy and director of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at IDC Herzliya.

Opinion: The strange case of Iran’s centrifuges – Michael Adler – POLITICO.com.

 

The author writes that Iran’s technical woes pushed the military option of an Israeli or U.S. attack off the table — for now. Close

By MICHAEL ADLER | 11/23/10 5:23 PM EST

Stuxnet Virus ‘Warheads” Could Knock Out Iran’s Utility Systems – Defense/Middle East – Israel News – Israel National News.

A secret report bt the International Atomic Energy Agency leaked on Tuesday said that Iran had been forced to suspend activity on enriching uranium, because of “technical problems” that have surfaced in thousands of centrifuges at its Natanz nuclear reactor.

The centrifuges, which are used in the enrichment project, were taken out of service, with the entire enrichment project there on hold, the report said – indicating, observers said, that Iran’s problems with the particularly malignant Stuxnet computer virus were not yet over.

A weekend article in The New York Times quoted German security expert Ralph Langer as saying that the Stuxnet virus, which he identified in September as the worm that has caused major problems at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant, was still alive and well, despite Iranian denials. But instead of just disabling centrifuges, the virus can also “confuse” frequency convertors that control all sorts of mechanical and industrial processes, Langer wrote – giving Stuxnet not one, but two “warheads” that could cause severe damage to infrastructure, including water, gas and electric systems.

The virus is also far more virulent than had been thought, Langer said; it was designed to attack control systems manufactured by Germany’s Siemens, which are in use in infrastructure throughout the world. The Times article quoted a U.S. security expert who said that “computer security organizations were not adequately conveying the potential for serious industrial sabotage that Stuxnet foretells,” implying that many of the world’s power plants, water facilities, and other basic infrastructure that are dependent on automated control systems, are at serious risk.

But while that is possible, says Israeli security expert Rafael Sutnick, there seemed to be little likelihood that Stuxnet would “leak out” to other facilities, based on what we know about it so far.

“Whoever unleashed it on Iran seems to have a tight rein on it,” Sutnick said. “So far, Iran is the only place we’ve seen the virus active, indicating that it was a specific target and did not reach the country’s computer network by chance or accident. Whoever designed this knew what they were doing, and the experts who have analyzed the code say that years of work went into designing it. So I don’t see it disabling infrastructure randomly.”

His comments again raise the question of just who might have produced the virus. Already in September, experts were saying that Stuxnet appeared to have been far too sophisticated to have been designed by amateur hackers, and the latest information published by Langer seems to confirm this. Which brings around what has become a perennial question in the Stuxnet saga: If Iran, as Sutnick and other experts say, is being deliberately targeted, does that mean that Israeli experts designed the virus?

“No one knows, and no one will probably ever know,” says Sutnick. “It’s interesting that the IAEA report mentions the Natanz facility as having been compromised. Natanz was built eight meters underground and was topped with dozens of meters of reinforced concrete and earth in 2004, in anticipation of a possible attack by Israeli or American ‘bunker buster’ bombs.

“In other words, Natanz was designed to be the most secure Iranian nuclear site – but it has proven to be as vulnerable as an open computer network, apparently.” Whether Israel was behind the attack is impossible to know, he said – but there’s no doubt that the IAEA report has made Israelis happy.

UN report confirms: Iran halted nuke work in November – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Confidential report: Iran temporarily stopped uranium enrichment earlier this month

Reuters

Analysis: Korean clash could happen with nuclear Iran.

Thousands of kilometers away from Israel, which already has enough problems closer to home, the tension in the Yellow Sea should not immediately be a point of concern. But it is.

RELATED:
Tensions rise after North, South Korea exchange heavy fire
North, South fire artillery shells on Korean peninsula

From an Israeli point of view, the North Korean attack on Yeonpyeong Island Tuesday morning is an example of what Israel has been warning will happen if Iran is allowed to continue developing a nuclear capability – a nuclear power will be bolder in its acts of aggression.

North Korea and Iran are close allies and have for decades collaborated on military and nuclear technology. North Korea is a known exporter of missile technology to Syria and Iran, which have both built up formidable ballistic missile capabilities, from various versions of Scud missiles to Shihabs and Sajils. Some of the missiles are modeled on North Korean designs.

In nuclear terms, the collaboration was demonstrated by the revelation in 2007 that Syria was building a nuclear reactor modeled after the one North Korea has built at Yongbyon. Pictures later leaked to the press showed Chon Chibu, a leading member of the North Korean nuclear program, posing next to Ibrahim Othman, director of Syria’s Atomic Energy Commission, in front of the Syrian reactor that was destroyed by Israel.

More than anything, though, North Korea is a role model for other rogue states like Iran of how a country can violate international treaties and agreements, develop a nuclear weapon, and get away with it. This appears to be exactly what the Iranians are after.

On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman made this point at a press conference in Jerusalem with his Italian counterpart, Franco Frattini.

“I think that North Korea is, as we see, a threat not only for their part of the world, but also for the Middle East and the entire world,” Lieberman said. If the international community “cannot stop, cannot suffocate this crazy regime,” then how could it deal with Iran, he asked.

Now, with a proven nuclear capability – North Korea has already tested a weapon – Pyongyang can be aggressive and its targets – for example, South Korea – will need to be restrained in their responses so as not to come under nuclear attack as well.

This is one of the challenges Israel faces when considering a nuclear Iran. While Israel and Iran do not share a border, Iranian proxies such as Hizbullah and Hamas would be able to be more daring in their acts of aggression against Israel since they would have the backing of a nuclear country.

While saying that it was “too early” to relate to the incident in the Korean peninsula, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said the events there did show that the “world is coming under threat from irresponsible countries that are arming themselves with advanced weaponry, the most threatening weapons. And since these countries are at their core very aggressive, it is only a matter of time before this aggression is expressed in one incident or another.”

Netanyahu, who made the comments during a tour of Israel Military Industries, said Israel was familiar with this phenomenon because of Iran’s behavior, and its cooperation with North Korea, Syria and other countries.

The international community is facing the challenge of “how do you stop this aggression, and stop it in time,” the prime minister said.

Herb Keinon contributed to this report.

Lieberman: How will the world stop Iran if it can’t stop N. Korea? – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Korean Peninsula on war footing as South fires shells in response to artillery barrage from North.

By Haaretz Service and News Agencies

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Tuesday slammed the world’s response to North Korea’s atatck on its southern neighbor, saying the intenational community was showing weakness in the face of aggression.

Lieberman told journalists in Jerusalem that a failure to confront the regime of dictator Kim Jong-il left the world little able to confront other agreesors, including Iran – which Israel and the West accuse of developing a nuclear bomb.

“How the world will be able to stop Iran if it can’t stop North Korea,” Lieberman said.

Earlier Tuesday, North Korea fired hundreds of artillery shells at a South Korean island in one of the heaviest bombardments on the South since the Korean War ended in 1953. South Korea responded by firing 80 rounds of shells back at the North.

South Korea’s military said two soldiers were killed in the attack, and another 17 troops and at least three civilians wounded.

Like Iran, North Korea has defied intenatiohnal pressure to pursue a nuclear program. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons Tuesday attack came amid high tension over North Korea’s claim that it has a new uranium enrichment facility and just six weeks after North Korean leader Kim Jong-il unveiled his youngest son Kim Jong-un as his designated heir.

The United States also criticized North Korea’s actions, reiterating its commitment to maintaining peace in the region.

In a statement, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs called on North Korea to halt all belligerent action and fully abide by the terms of the armistice agreement, the 1953 pact that ended the Korean War.

Gibbs said the White House was in close and continuing contact with the South Korean government.

“The United States is firmly committed to the defense of our ally, the Republic of Korea, and to the maintenance of regional peace and stability,” he said.

	Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
	Photo by: Emil Salma