WarSclerotic

As Iran talks begin, Israel urges forceful action.

On the eve of the renewal of talks in Istanbul on Friday between Iran and six world powers, government officials in Jerusalem dismissed on Thursday the notion that former Mossad head Meir Dagan relieved pressure on Iran by saying two weeks ago that Teheran would not have the bomb at least until middecade.

Dagan’s comments did not lead to complacency, one official insisted. On the contrary, what he said should show the international community, which had believed that an Iranian bomb was a fait accompli, that a nuclear Iran was not imminent, and that there was still time to act.

“What the international community needs to do now is take advantage of the time and act forcefully,” the official said.

Jerusalem hoped that the meeting in Istanbul would lead to a ratcheting up of diplomatic and economic sanctions against Iran, the official said.

“We also think that keeping the military option at center stage is also essential,” he said.

Another official said that Dagan had not taken the military option off the table by saying Israel should attack only if the “dagger was at its neck.”

Rather, he said, what Dagan did was step away from the portrayal of a crazy and irresponsible Israel that needed to be stopped from carrying out an action that could endanger the world.

There were people trying to convince other countries of the necessity of sanctions by saying that if they were not taken there was no telling what the “crazy Israelis” could do, the official said.

“The problem with that tactic is that then the international community thinks they have to stop Israel, not Iran, and that is the wrong focus,” he said.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was reportedly furious with Dagan for his comments, concerned that this would make the world complacent in its dealings with the Iranian threat. In a speech last week, Netanyahu characterized the Dagan comments as only “intelligence estimates.”

Dagan himself stepped back from his remarks during an appearance at the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee this week, saying that Iran could “shorten the time” it takes to attain nuclear weapons.

Netanyahu, meanwhile, wasn’t the only one worried about complacency.

A study by the Federation of American Scientists shown to The Associated Press ahead of the Istanbul meeting indicated that even as the West believes it has bought more time, Iran last year appeared to have increased efficiency of the machines that produce enriched uranium, giving it the technical capacity to produce enough material for a simple nuclear warhead in five months.

“The biggest issue with recent statements that Iran’s nuclear drive has been slowed down is that we are getting a false sense of security that we have bought more time,” Ivanka Barzashka, the author of the study, said in an e-mail. “That takes away from the urgency… [of] a diplomatic breakthrough.”

The study concluded that “contrary to statements by US officials and many experts, Iran does not appear to be slowing down its nuclear drive.”

Such views contrast with the public optimism expressed by Washington ahead of the Istanbul talks convened by the EU and grouping Iran on one side of the table and the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany on the other.

Dagan’s estimate that Iran could only produce the bomb by the middle of the decade compares favorably with projections three years ago that Iran would have nuclear capacity by 2011.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told NBC’s Today show on Wednesday that the new Israeli estimates were “very significant.” The delay, she said “gives us more of a breathing space to try to work to prevent them from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

Two outside forces would account for any Iranian problems in enriching uranium – the increasing weight of UN sanctions, meant to choke off raw materials needed to make and maintain the program; and the apparent havoc caused by the mysterious Stuxnet computer malware.

Iran has acknowledged that Stuxnet hit “a limited number of centrifuges,” saying its scientists discovered and neutralized the malware before it could cause any serious damage. The computer worm is assumed to have caused disruption of enrichment in November that temporarily crippled thousands of centrifuges at Natanz.

Barzashka said that while the sanctions might have slowed Iran’s ability to develop new and more efficient centrifuges, they do not seem to have slowed improvements in the output of the present generation of machines used at Natanz.

Ahead of the talks, Iran is trying to take the diplomatic offensive. It is pushing an agenda that covers just about everything except its nuclear program: global disarmament, Israel’s suspected nuclear arsenal and Teheran’s concerns about US military bases in Iraq and elsewhere in the region.

“Let them issue 100,000 resolutions,” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday, referring to UN Security Council sanctions and other efforts to curb Iran’s nuclear program.

“It’s not important. Let them say what they want to.”

Iran’s UN ambassador, Mohammad Khazaee, repeated that his country will “never negotiate on our inalienable right to use nuclear energy for… peaceful purposes.

“It doesn’t mean that Iranians are looking for confrontation,” Khazaee told reporters in New York on Tuesday.

“But at the same time… it’s not going to work to put a knife in the neck of somebody, or your sword, and at the same time asking him to negotiate with you.”

On Thursday, Turkey urged Iran to offer assurances during the talks that it wouldn’t seek nuclear weapons.

“We are against nuclear weapons, but we believe that all countries have the right to peaceful use of nuclear energy,” Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said at a joint news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Lavrov, whose country is among the world powers negotiating with Iran, said there was a need for Iran to agree to intrusive inspection of its nuclear sites.

“It’s not an obligation, but it will certainly be required given the history of the Iranian nuclear issue,” Lavrov said.

NBC Weapons: Surviving The Syrian Suicide Strategy.

NUCLEAR, BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL WEAPONS

January 20, 2011: Israeli Civil Defense authorities have concluded that they can only provide residents of Tel Aviv and Central Israel with 90 seconds warning, not the previous two minutes, of impending rocket attack. This is all because of the increased number of long range rockets possessed by Hamas (in Gaza) and Hezbollah (in southern Lebanon). Israel has a radar based rocket detection system, and software that quickly calculates where an incoming rocket will land. At that point, the system automatically sounds the sirens in the target area, warning everyone to take cover, and wait for the all clear siren signal. Israeli intelligence believes that Hamas and Hezbollah, who are both clients of Iran (who also supplies the long range rockets) have so many rockets ready to launch, that the Israeli warning system would not be able to plot landing areas for all incoming rockets quickly enough. Thus the 25 percent reduction in warning time. However, starting two years from now, Israel plans to introduce a new anti-missile system (Magic Wand), which recently passed its first tests. But in the meantime, Israelis are advised to listen for the sirens.

For five years now, Israel has been constantly revising its civil defense plans, and how to deal with the growing arsenal of rockets and ballistic missiles aimed at it. Last year, for example, the military was ordered to disperse its stocks of supplies, equipment and spare parts to a larger number of (better protected) locations.

In addition to rockets fired by Hamas and Hezbollah, there is also concern that Syria would fire larger, and longer range, rockets armed with explosive or chemical warheads. Currently, the Israelis estimate that there would be as many as 3,300 Israeli casualties (including up to 200 dead) if Syria tried to use its long range missiles and explosive warheads against Israel. If the Syrians used chemical warheads, Israeli casualties could be as high as 16,000. Over 200,000 Israelis would be left homeless, and it’s believed about a 100,000 would seek to leave the country.

Israel now assumes that Iran would fire some of its ballistic missiles as well, armed with conventional warheads. But the big danger is Syria, which is a client state of Iran. Syria has underground storage and launch facilities for its arsenal of over a thousand SCUD missiles. Armed with half ton high explosive and cluster bomb warheads, the missiles have ranges of 500-700 kilometers. Syria also has some 90 older Russian Frog-7 missiles (70 kilometer range, half ton warhead) and 210 more modern Russian SS-21 missiles (120 kilometer range, half ton warhead) operating with mobile launchers. There are also 60 mobile SCUD launchers. The Syrians have a large network of camouflaged launching sites for the mobile launchers. Iran and North Korea have helped Syria build underground SCUD manufacturing and maintenance facilities. The Syrian missiles are meant to hit Israeli airfields, missile launching sites and nuclear weapons sites, as well as population centers. Syria hopes to do enough damage with a missile strike to cripple Israeli combat capability.

Israel has long been aware of the Syrian capabilities and any war with Syria would probably result in some interesting attacks on the Syrian missile network. The SCUD is a liquid fuel missile and takes half an hour or more to fuel and ready for launch. So underground facilities are a major defensive measure against an alert and astute opponent like Israel.

But Syria has been adding a lot of solid fuel ballistic missiles to its inventory, and recently transferred over a hundred of these to Hezbollah, in Lebanon. Hezbollah and Syria are both clients (on the payroll) of Iran, and would likely coordinate an attack on Israel. Hamas, in Gaza, is a semi-client of Iran, and might be persuaded to join in as well.

No unclassified government planning documents have discussed what Israel would do in response to such an attack, but in the past, Israel has threatened to use nukes against anyone who fired chemical weapons at Israel (which does not have any chemical weapons). But current plans appear to try and keep it non-nuclear for as long as possible. For the Syrians, going to war with Israel is a very risky endeavor. Just using explosive warheads won’t do enough damage to Israel to prevent Israeli troops from advancing on the capital of Syria. Chemical warheads on the missiles might stop, or slow down, the Israelis. Still a very long shot. But the Syrians do have the chemical warheads, although they may lack the nerve to ever use them.

U.S., Others to Pressure Iran at Nuclear Talks – WSJ.com.

By JAY SOLOMON

ISTANBUL—The U.S. and other world powers meeting with Iran here this week will press Tehran to take concrete steps to ensure its nuclear activities are peaceful and to justify the continuation of an eight-year diplomatic track that has so far yielded few gains, American and European officials involved in the negotiations said.

Washington and its European allies specifically want to discuss with Iran the reworking of a year-old proposal that would see President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad‘s government ship out a substantial portion of Tehran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium in return for Western energy assistance, according to these officials.

Western diplomats see such a deal as limiting Iran’s ability to quickly “break-out” and produce the weapons-grade fuel required to develop an atomic bomb. Tehran says its nuclear program is strictly for peaceful purposes.

Representatives from the five permanent United Nations Security Council members—the U.S., China, Russia, France and the U.K.— plus Germany, will also seek to explore with Iran this Friday and Saturday new ways to allow U.N. inspectors greater access to Iran’s expanding nuclear infrastructure.

The U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has voiced growing concerns in recent months that Tehran is constricting its site visits and access to documentation.

“Prospects for exploring a fuel swap will depend on whether Iranians are ready to get serious,” said a senior U.S. official involved in the talks. “Remember, this is meant as a confidence-building measure to begin to demonstrate that their nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.”

This week’s talks follow negotiations last month in Geneva between Tehran and the world powers that registered few gains, except for the agreement to hold a second round. But the U.S. and its allies are coming to Turkey with increasing confidence that economic sanctions imposed against Iran, as well as other overt and covert actions, are slowing Tehran’s nuclear work.

Israeli officials stunned the international community this month by announcing that they don’t believe Tehran can build an atomic weapon until 2015. Some senior officials in the Jewish state had initially proclaimed that an Iranian bomb would be ready within months.

Many Western officials credit a computer worm, known as Stuxnet, with attacking Iran’s nuclear-enrichment facility at Natanz and making inoperable thousands of the facility’s centrifuges. Neither the U.S. nor Israel has either confirmed or denied a role in the cyber attack.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Arab governments last week that Washington believed Tehran’s nuclear program was facing mounting “technical” problems. And this dynamic, said U.S. and European officials, is giving international diplomacy aimed at ending Iran’s nuclear program more time.

“We’ve been going through vapid talks with the Iranians for a long time. But now, we have real sanctions and a real strategy in place,” said a senior European official. “Tehran won’t find that more vapid meetings in Istanbul will allow for any alleviation of the growing economic pressure on them.”

Iran, however, is coming to Turkey offering no signs that it’s willing to respect U.N. Security Council resolutions and suspend its production of nuclear fuel. Tehran is also viewed as having secured a diplomatic victory just by getting the international community to accept Istanbul as the venue for the talks.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has evolved into an important diplomatic friend of Tehran in recent years. Turkey and Brazil were the only two countries on the 15-nation U.N. Security Council that voted last year against a fourth round of economic sanctions being imposed against Iran. And Mr. Erdogan’s diplomatic team initiated its own attempt to secure an energy assistance package for Tehran, though the U.S. eventually killed the deal after viewing it as too generous.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu is hosting a welcome dinner for the participants in the talks Thursday evening. Turkey says Mr. Davutoglu won’t sit in on any of the formal talks, but many European officials said they expected Turkey’s top diplomat to exert some influence from behind the scenes and confer with Tehran’s delegation.

Iran is also coming to Istanbul in a strengthened position regionally. Tehran’s close ally, the militant Lebanese political party Hezbollah, successfully overthrew Beirut’s pro-Western government last week over a dispute tied to a U.N. investigation of the murder of the country’s former prime minister, Rafik Hariri. Efforts by Washington’s allies in Saudi Arabia and France to mediate the crisis have fizzled. Iran’s diplomatic allies—Turkey, Qatar and Syria—are increasingly filling the diplomatic space.

Iran has also seen its political allies in Iraq and Afghanistan strengthened. And Tehran’s diplomatic team is expected to use the Turkey talks to try and talk as much about these regional issues as Iran’s own nuclear work.

“We will never negotiate [away] our right to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes,” Iran’s ambassador to the U.N., Mohammad Khazaee, told reporters in New York this week. He also said that neither the Stuxnet virus nor economic sanctions had succeeded in damaging Iran’s nuclear fuel program. But he stressed that Tehran was eager to find ways to help American forces stabilize Afghanistan, as a prelude to them leaving the Central Asian country.

Iranian officials have also said they were hoping to use the talks to discuss a number of other broader security issues, including counter-narcotics, energy collaboration, and maritime security.

Russia Cautions U.S. Not to Undermine Iran Nuclear Meeting – Businessweek.

By Jonathan Tirone and Benjamin Harvey

Jan. 20 (Bloomberg) — Russia cautioned the U.S. on the eve of a meeting of world powers over Iran’s nuclear program not to undermine negotiations by threatening the Persian Gulf country with more sanctions.

“Unilateral sanctions are serving as spoilers and undermine efforts for a joint solution,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a press conference in Istanbul today. “They are counterproductive.

Diplomats from the U.S. and Iran will try to overcome mutual distrust in the Turkish city tomorrow at the second meeting since last month to discuss Iran’s nuclear research. The U.S. “may be proposing more unilateral sanctions,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said yesterday in a televised interview in Washington with ABC.

The so-called P5+1 group, composed of China, France, Germany, Russia, the U.K and U.S., is represented at the talks by European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. The P5+1 will press Iran to resolve international concerns over its nuclear work while the Iranian government will try to broaden the meeting to include regional security issues, say analysts and diplomats connected with the talks.

“This has become a contest of wills,” Paul Ingram, executive director of the British American Security Information Council, a London-based policy-advisory group, said in an e- mailed answer to questions. “Much of the Iranian challenge results from responses to what it sees as the strategically hostile environment created by the United States and her allies.”

Cyber Attack

Iran, already under four sets of United Nations Security Council sanctions, has come under increasing pressure as it refuses to suspend its atomic work. Tehran has accused Israeli and U.S. agents of killing a nuclear scientist in a Nov. 29 bomb attack. A report by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security showed that Iran’s nuclear program was targeted and may have come under cyber attack intended to disable uranium enrichment machines.

“An enemy who kills our scientists has no qualms about infecting the Internet,” Iran’s chief negotiator Saeed Jalili told Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine in an interview published Jan. 18. “We are suspicious of the West.”

Iran test-fired a surface-to-air missile near its Arak heavy water production plant yesterday, saying it needs to assess its readiness in protecting the nation’s nuclear sites.

‘Maneuvering’

At tomorrow’s talks, “the most important point is not what’s on the agenda but for the two parties to feel that there can be a climate in which maneuvering is possible,” said Kayhan Barzegar, director for international affairs at the Center for Middle-East Strategic Studies in Tehran. Iran last met with the P5+1 group in Geneva Dec. 6-7.

The U.S. and Europe accuse Iran of lying about its nuclear work, which they say is a cover to develop atomic weapons. Iran, under International Atomic Energy Agency investigation since 2003, says it only wants to generate nuclear power.

Iran has the right to enrich uranium as soon as IAEA inspectors can certify that the country isn’t developing nuclear weapons, Lavrov said, responding to an Iranian demand entering the talks that its right to develop nuclear technology be acknowledged. Iranian pursuit of atomic technology is “quite legitimate and necessary,” he said.

China’s President Hu Jintao and President Barack Obama talked about Iran yesterday in Washington and issued a joint statement that called on Iran to engage in a “constructive dialogue process” and to implement UN resolutions requiring the country to suspend its nuclear work.

Iran’s Obligations

“To prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, we agreed that Iran must uphold its international obligations, and that the U.N. Security Council sanctions on Iran must be fully enforced,” Obama said at a press conference.

China expects the Istanbul round of talks to “bring forth some achievements through negotiations,” China’s Xinhua news agency cited Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs Wu Hailong as saying today in Istanbul. “I believe that we can achieve some progress if all relevant parties show some kind of flexibility in the talks.”

Technical glitches and sanctions that have delayed Iran’s nuclear program give the U.S. and its partners more time to exert pressure without resorting to military action, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said. Israel’s outgoing head of intelligence, Meir Dagan, said this month that Iran wouldn’t be able to produce a nuclear weapon before 2015, three or four years later than earlier Israeli estimates.

Uranium Off Limits

While Iran is willing to talk about nuclear disarmament and U.S. atomic weapons stationed in Europe, the country’s uranium- enrichment program will be off limits at the Istanbul round of talks, Jalili said in Der Spiegel.

“Everything takes place under the supervision of the UN weapons inspectors from the IAEA,” Jalili said. “Uranium enrichment for peaceful purposes is not up for discussion.”

Russia, France and the U.S. should revive talks in Vienna aimed at supplying a Tehran nuclear reactor with fuel, Lavrov said. Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who today signed a strategic agreement with Russia to boost bilateral relations, said his country is ready to “reactivate” its role in mediating a fuel swap.

Turkey, along with Brazil, tried to broker a compromise deal last year that would have supplied Iran with enriched uranium for a reactor that makes medical isotopes.

The talks are expected to end Jan. 22. Turkey will host a dinner tonight in Istanbul for diplomats from the P5+1 group, Hurriyet newspaper reported.

–With reporting by Ben Holland in Istanbul and Ladane Nasseri in Tehran. Editors: Leon Mangasarian, Alan Crawford.

Iran: Military strike would not stop uranium enrichment – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

(Depends on the strike.  Read my article on EMP.)

Comment by Iran IAEA envoy comes as Tehran denies it is to offer a new uranium-swap deal in upcoming P5+1 nuclear talks in Istanbul.

By Reuters

Iran will be able to carry out uranium enrichment even in the case of a military attack on its nuclear facilities, Iran’s nuclear envoy said in Moscow on Thursday.

	Iran’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh during a news conference in Moscow, January 20, 2011
	Photo by: Reuters

“We are faced with a very serious threat and so we have had to take measures to protect our facilities. We have provided for another facility in Fardo near Qom,” Ali Asghar Soltanieh, envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told reporters.

“It is, so to speak, a reserve facility, so that if a site is attacked, we can continue the enrichment process,” he said.

The comment by the Iran nuclear official came after Tehran denied reports alleging that it planned to revive a nuclear fuel swap proposal, saying it was, however, ready to discuss it in talks with world powers on Friday.

Expectations of any breakthrough in an eight-year-old stand-off over Iran’s nuclear ambitions were low ahead of a second round of negotiations between Iran and six powers in the Turkish city of Istanbul on Friday and Saturday.

The six dealing with Iran via European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton are the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany, and there were resurfacing signs of differences within the group that Iran has sought to exploit.

	Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant. Up and running?
	Photo by: Reuters

Speaking on the eve of the talks, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said they should look at prospects for relieving punitive sanctions on Tehran. He criticized the United States and European Union for imposing sanctions unilaterally that went beyond those agreed by the UN Security Council last June.

There is international concern that Iran’s declared civilian nuclear energy program is a cover for pursuit of atom bombs. Escalating economic sanctions have been slapped on Tehran over its refusal to curb nuclear work and make it more transparent.

Those are the powers’ goals in negotiations with Iran, which has said its uranium enrichment drive is a sovereign right and not negotiable because it is solely for electricity generation.

The Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV news channel reported on Thursday that Iran would propose a revised version of a swap that was agreed in principle at a 2009 round of talks and then unraveled. But Iranian officials denied any such intentions.

“I haven’t heard about it,” Ali Baqeri, a deputy to Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, told Reuters as the Iranian delegation arrived in Istanbul on Thursday.

Another Iranian official said: “There is no new proposal.”

Tougher sanctions over the last year and possible sabotage that may have slowed Iran’s nuclear advance could buy extra time for diplomacy and reduce the risk of the long-running dispute escalating into a military conflict, at least for now.

Time passing quickly

Iran’s envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, told a news conference in Moscow that Tehran was ready to discuss a swap on the basis of the one hatched in October 2009 and then revived last May by Brazil and Turkey.

The proposal was for Iran to part with 1,200 kg of its low-enriched uranium (LEU) — roughly the amount needed for a bomb if refined to a high level of fissile purity. It was then to be enriched to 20 percent and made into fuel assemblies for a Tehran medical research reactor now running out of such fuel.

Iran’s effort to revive the idea last May was dismissed by the powers this time since its LEU stockpile had already doubled in the intervening period and Tehran had swung into enriching to higher level that could bring it closer to developing a bomb.

Soltanieh warned that “time is passing quickly” and there would be no reason for a swap once Iran starts feeding its own 20 percent-enriched uranium into the Tehran reactor.

The UN Security Council imposed a fourth round of sanctions on Iran in June last year. The United States and European Union followed up with additional unilateral sanctions.

Signaling determination to keep up pressure on Iran, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told television network ABC the Obama administration may propose new unilateral sanctions on Iran, one of the world’s largest oil exporters.

But Russia said unilateral sanctions were “spoilers” and the talks in Istanbul should look at ways of rolling back sanctions.

“We explained to our partners in the United States and the European Union what we think about unilateral sanctions and we hope they have heard us,” Lavrov said at a joint news conference with Turkey’s foreign minister.

“It is counterproductive to continuing our common efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue.”

He said that if an approach for future talks on unresolved issues were agreed in Istanbul, that would be “a good result.”

“But this meeting doesn’t have just one topic. Canceling the sanctions against Iran should also be discussed.”

Russia and China, which have had major trade ties with Iran, have long been concerned not to drive it into a corner over the nuclear program, which Tehran equates with national pride.

Iran, U.S. Will Try to Overcome Mutual Distrust in Istanbul Nuclear Talks – Bloomberg.

Diplomats from the U.S. and Iran will try to overcome mutual distrust in Istanbul tomorrow at the second meeting of world powers since last month to discuss the Persian Gulf country’s nuclear program.

The so-called P5+1 group, composed of China, France, Germany, Russia, the U.K and U.S., represented by European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, will press Iran to resolve international concerns over its nuclear work while the Iranian government will try to broaden the meeting to include regional security issues, say analysts and diplomats connected with the talks.

“Much of the Iranian challenge results from responses to what it sees as the strategically hostile environment created by the United States and her allies,” Paul Ingram, executive director of the British American Security Information Council, a London-based policy-advisory group, said in an e-mailed answer to questions. “This has become a contest of wills.”

Iran, under four sets of United Nations Security Council sanctions for refusing to suspend its atomic work, has come under increasing pressure. Tehran has accused Israeli and U.S. agents of killing a nuclear scientist in a Nov. 29 bomb attack. A report by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security showed that Iran’s nuclear program was targeted and may have come under cyber attack intended to disable uranium enrichment machines.

‘Kills Our Scientists’

“An enemy who kills our scientists has no qualms about infecting the Internet,” Iran’s chief negotiator Saeed Jalili told Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine in an interview published Jan. 18. “We are suspicious of the West.”

Iran test-fired a surface-to-air missile near its Arak heavy water production plant yesterday, saying it needs to assess its readiness in protecting the nation’s nuclear sites.

In this week’s talks “the most important point is not what’s on the agenda but for the two parties to feel that there can be a climate in which maneuvering is possible,” said Kayhan Barzegar, director for international affairs at the Center for Middle-East Strategic Studies in Tehran. Iran last met with the P5+1 group in Geneva Dec. 6-7.

The U.S. and Europe accuse Iran of lying about its nuclear work, which they say is a cover to develop atomic weapons. Iran, under International Atomic Energy Agency investigation since 2003, says it only wants to generate nuclear power.

Not Much Time

“We will all be meeting with Iran and continuing our discussion about what Iran is entitled to and what it is not and to try to find a way forward,” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in an interview aired on television Jan. 16 in Abu Dhabi. “Their program, from our best estimate, has been slowed down. So we have time, but not a lot of time.”

Technical glitches and sanctions that have delayed Iran’s nuclear program give the U.S. and its partners more time to exert pressure without resorting to military action, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said. Israel’s outgoing head of intelligence, Meir Dagan, said this month that Iran wouldn’t be able to produce a nuclear weapon before 2015, three or four years later than earlier Israeli estimates.

While Iran is willing to talk about nuclear disarmament and U.S. atomic weapons stationed in Europe, the country’s uranium- enrichment program will be off limits at the Istanbul round of talks, Jalili said.

“Everything takes place under the supervision of the UN weapons inspectors from the IAEA,” Jalili said. “Uranium enrichment for peaceful purposes is not up for discussion.”

Right to Enrich

For the past five years, the Iranian government has built its policy on asserting and preserving its right to enrich uranium based on the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty it has signed, Barzegar said in a phone interview.

President Mahmoud “Ahmadinejad’s government has paid heavy costs for this and has too much political capital at stake to go back on it,” he said. “It is a point of no return for Iran.”

If world powers’ “fundamental demand is for Iran to halt its enrichment activities, then the talks are lost from the start,” Barzegar said. The other party “needs to take into consideration Iran’s demand and its limitations in accepting a deal.”

The “balancing point” is for other nations at the talks to accept Iran’s right to enrich with Iran providing assurance that its program is not being diverted toward arms development, he said.

Turkey, which tried with Brazil to broker a compromise deal last year to supply Iran with enriched uranium, said it “stands ready to contribute to the process as requested by the parties,” according to a government statement. The two-day talks are expected to end Jan. 22.

Dagan brought a possible attack on Iran closer – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Dagan probably thinks Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are dangerous people. He is afraid they might make some foolhardy move in Iran. But the things he said around the end of his term have not neutralized the military option.

By Ari Shavit

Ahmadinejad to US, Israel: ‘Stop sedition in Lebanon’.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday warned Israel, the United States, and some European countries to halt their “sedition” in Lebanon or the Lebanese people would “cut off” their hands, AFP reported.

Referring to the group of countries, Ahmadinejad said during a live speech in the city of Yazd: “You are on a rough downhill path that will take you into a deep valley and your actions show that your decline is on a fast track.”

“With these actions, you are damaging your reputation. Stop your interference. If you don’t stop your sedition (in Lebanon), then the Lebanese nation and regional countries will cut your nasty, plotting hand,” AFP quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

Lebanon is enduring a political crisis stemming from a UN court investigating the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Earlier Wednesday, Saudi Arabia abandoned efforts to mediate in Lebanon’s political crisis, removing a key US ally from talks to ease tensions after Hizbullah toppled the government in Beirut last week.

In an interview Wednesday with the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya TV, Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said the Saudi king has decided he is “withdrawing his hand” from Lebanon.

Asked about the situation in Lebanon, al-Faisal said: “It’s dangerous, particularly if it reaches separatism or the division of Lebanon. This would mean the end of Lebanon as a model of peaceful coexistence between religions and ethnicities and different factions.”

The Shi’ite group, which denies any role in Hariri’s 2005 killing, forced the collapse of Lebanon’s Western-backed government last week in a dispute over the court. The Iran-and Syria-sponsored group says the tribunal is a conspiracy by Israel and the United States.

Many fear the political crisis could lead to street protests and violence that have been the scourge of this tiny Arab country of 4 million people for years, including a devastating 1975-1990 civil war and sectarian battles between Sunnis and Shi’ites in 2008.

The Hague-based tribunal released a sealed indictment in the case on Tuesday, but its contents may not become public for weeks as Belgian judge Daniel Fransen decides whether there is enough evidence for a trial.

The indictment is the latest turn in a deepening crisis in Lebanon. Last week, ministers from Hizbullah and their allies walked out of the Cabinet when Prime Minister Sa’ad Hariri — the son of the slain leader — refused to renounce the tribunal.

Lengthy negotiations lie ahead between Lebanon’s factions as they attempt to build a new government. On Tuesday, Turkey’s foreign minister was in Beirut in a coordinated visit with Qatar’s prime minister to discuss the political crisis in Lebanon.

The officials met with Sa’ad Hariri — who is staying on as a caretaker prime minister — and, separately, with Hizbullah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah.

According to Lebanon’s power-sharing system, the president must be a Christian Maronite, the prime minister a Sunni and the parliament speaker a Shi’ite. Each faith makes up about a third of Lebanon’s population of 4 million.

Collision Course? | Iranian.com.

Interview with Avner Cohen

by Fariba Amini
18-Jan-2011

WikiLeaks: US advised to sabotage Iran nuclear sites by German thinktank | World news | The Guardian.

The United States was advised to adopt a policy of “covert sabotage” of Iran‘s clandestine nuclear facilities, including computer hacking and “unexplained explosions”, by an influential German thinktank, a leaked US embassy cable reveals.

Volker Perthes, director of Germany’s government-funded Institute for Security and International Affairs, told US officials in Berlin that undercover operations would be “more effective than a military strike” in curtailing Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

A sophisticated computer worm, Stuxnet, infiltrated the Natanz nuclear facility last year, delaying Iran’s programme by some months. The New York Times said this week that Stuxnet was a joint US-Israeli operation.

On Monday, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator blamed the US for the cyber-attack. Saeed Jalili told NBC News an investigation had found the US was involved in the attack that apparently shut down a fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges in November. “I have witnessed some documents that show [US participation],” he said.

A diplomatic cable sent by the US ambassador to Germany, Philip Murphy, in January 2010, records that Perthes said a policy of “covert sabotage (unexplained explosions, accidents, computer hacking etc) would be more effective than a military strike, whose effects in the region could be devastating”.

Perthes is a leading western expert on Iran. An earlier diplomatic cable, sent by Murphy on 14 December 2009 showed that his advice was heeded by politicians and officials – including Condoleezza Rice, the former US secretary of state.

“The majority of the guests at the table distinctly deferred to Perthes for guidance on where the Iran issue might be headed or should be headed,” Murphy wrote. “This was striking amongst such a high ranking group of people operationally involved with the Iran issue.”

In an interview with the Guardian, Perthes said the ambassador accurately reflected his view “that ‘unexplained accidents’ or ‘computer failures’ etc are certainly better than military strikes. And that military strikes – a military escalation with Iran – must be avoided.

“Compared to military action, such acts have the advantage that the leadership of a country that is affected wouldn’t need to respond – everybody can agree that there was a technical failure, no one needs to shoot or bomb. And at the same time, everybody has understood the message – about what developments are unacceptable to the other side.

“My sense at the beginning of 2010 was – without having any specific knowledge – that some countries were indeed preparing to slow down the Iranian nuclear programme by acts of sabotage, or computer hacking.”

US and Israeli officials refused to comment on their reported involvement with Stuxnet yesterday. However, the leaked cables show that more covert methods of infiltrating Iran’s nuclear programme – including powerful cyber attacks – was a proposal gaining traction inside US diplomatic circles last year.

President George Bush approved $300m (£189m) on joint covert projects aimed at Iran, understood to have included Stuxnet, before leaving office in 2009.

The chances of a military strike against Iran are now understood to be receding, in part because of the success of the Stuxnet cyberattack, but also due to the assassination last year of two Iranian nuclear scientists, which was attributed to Israel.

Stuxnet wiped out roughly a fifth of the centrifuges used to enrich uranium at Iran’s Natanz base around August last year. Security experts told the Guardian at the time that Stuxnet was “the most refined piece of malware ever discovered”, raising suspicion that it was a well-funded and potentially state-sponsored operation. According to the New York Times, the Stuxnet worm was tested at a secret Israeli bunker at Dimano, near the Negev desert.