WarSclerotic

The United States has increasingly relied on clandestine action in its strategy to curb Iranian atomic activities it fears are geared toward nuclear weapons development, National Public Radio reported on Wednesday (see GSN, May 12).

A secretive campaign of computer-based assaults, targeted killings and efforts to win the allegiance of Iranian insiders has become seen in the past 12 months as an alternative to less palatable efforts to curb the Middle Eastern nation’s nuclear program, said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“There’s a perception that shunning Iran, ignoring Iran, is not an option,” Sadjadpour said. “Bombing Iran or military engagement with Iran would exacerbate a lot of these challenges. And so the option we’re left with is this kind of more creative in-between option of covert war and sabotage and economic coercion.”

“The last thing the U.S. government wants to do is to take any measures that could prolong the shelf life of the Iranian regime, to increase the popularity of the Iranian regime, and soil the oasis of goodwill which exists amongst the Iranian population vis-a-vis the United States,” Sadjadpour added.

Clandestine efforts have supplanted military threats for the time being and shown themselves to be more useful than dialogue in impeding Iran’s nuclear progress, according to NPR. Tehran has for years maintained its atomic ambitions are strictly peaceful while steadfastly refusing to suspend activities that could support a potential nuclear weapons program.

A number of analysts contend such activities now form the basis of Washington’s strategy for dealing with the nuclear standoff.

“Some people have pointed to the success of this covert war as meaning that there is no need for overt military attack on Iran’s nuclear program or other sensitive facilities because apparently these programs are having great success,” said Muhammad Sahimi, a professor with the University of Southern California.

“The Iranian Intelligence Ministry, despite all its claims, hasn’t done a good job in tracking down who, for example, was behind the assassination attempts [on nuclear specialists] of last year and explosions that were reported in some military bases and so on,” Sahimi said.

Former CIA officer Paul Pillar added: “To the extent [covert action] is an alternative to the use of military force, which has been of course talked up considerably in our country, it can be seen as a very helpful, nonbloody way of buying time and holding off pressure to use military force that would lead to a U.S. and Iranian war.”

“I expect [Iranian leaders] assume that the United States as well as Israel is responsible for a great deal of what is happening, whether or not they are indeed responsible,” Pillar added.

Bruce Riedel, another former CIA official, said the clandestine campaign was preferable to a direct attack.

“If we can delay the Iranian program, if we can upset Iran’s terrorist activities through use of clandestine means, that’s a far more effective and useful way of disrupting Iran’s ambitions than having to send American forces into harm’s way,” Riedel said (Mike Shuster, National Public Radio, May 11).

Meanwhile, the European Union on Wednesday indicated it would reach out to Iran on the possibility of pursuing further discussions, despite its skepticism that Tehran is open to diplomatic engagement on its nuclear program, Agence France-Presse reported.

“We will be in touch with the Iranians with the aim to create the basis for a new dialogue,” said Maja Kocijancic, a spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

Iranian senior nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili in a letter this week to Ashton said his country was willing to hold a new meeting with Germany and the five permanent U.N. Security Council member nations — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Still, he reportedly avoided addressing the atomic issue and called for the potential talks to focus on other matters.

The six world powers convened talks with Iran on two separate occasions in December and January, but neither gathering yielded clear progress toward resolving a long-running dispute over Iranian atomic activities (see GSN, Jan. 24). Iran last month said any new meeting with the six world powers could not address its nuclear program (see GSN, April 19).

“We do not want a repeat of Istanbul,” one diplomat said, referring to the site of January’s multilateral discussion. “If there’s a meeting we need real substance. This would involve a common understanding of the agenda” (Claire Rosemberg, Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, May 11).

The United States was conferring with the five other world powers on Jalili’s communication, but has “also been very candid in saying that unless there’s a reason to meet, we shouldn’t meet,” U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.

The Obama administration agrees with Ashton that “Iran needs to address its nuclear program. That’s the bottom line,” the Associated Press quoted Toner as saying (George Jahn, Associated Press I/Yahoo!News, May 11).

Elsewhere, the authors of a new U.N. assessment said illicit conventional arms transfers to Syria comprise the bulk of Tehran’s violations of international limits on Iranian weapons transactions, Reuters reported on Wednesday. The report reviews the implementation of four U.N. Security Council sanctions resolutions aimed at pressuring Iran to halt its disputed nuclear activities.

“The panel notes that most reported incidents of conventional arms-related violations involve Syria, which has a long and close relationship with Iran,” the document states. “In all such incidents inspected by the panel, prohibited material was carefully concealed to avoid routine inspection and hide the identity of end-users.”

It is probable that “transfers took place undetected and that other illicit shipments were identified but not reported to the (sanctions) committee,” the report adds.

Iran has sought to transfer small arms, ammunition and low-level missile systems, it states.

Iran’s atomic program is thought “to be coming close to exhausting its supply of uranium oxide,” the panel said, adding Tehran was “seeking to procure equipment and technology that fall below the thresholds for listed (banned) items, but which are still useful, in an attempt to evade sanctions while maintaining its nuclear activities.”

The Middle Eastern nation has attempted to acquire atomic systems from countries with tight trade restrictions through third-party firms in states with looser controls, the document says (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters, May 11).

Iran indicated it has received from Russia 33 tons of additional atomic fuel in the past week for its Bushehr nuclear power plant, AP reported (Associated Press II/Google News, May 11).