WarSclerotic

Iran says it will triple uranium… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

Photo by: Stringer Iran / Reuters

By REUTERS 
06/08/2011 17:47

Announcement draws immediate condemnation from EU; French Foreign Ministry calls move a provocation, violation of int’l law.

  TEHRAN – Iran will shift its production of higher grade uranium to an underground bunker and triple its production capacity, it said on Wednesday in a defiant response to accusations it is trying to produce atomic bombs.

“This year, under the supervision of the (International Atomic Energy) Agency, we will transfer 20 percent enrichment from the Natanz site to the Fordow site and we will increase the production capacity by three times,” the head of Iran’s atomic energy agency, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, told reporters after a cabinet meeting, the state broadcaster IRIB reported.

Iran only disclosed the existence of the Fordow site, in a mountain bunker, in September 2009, after Western intelligence had detected it and said it was evidence of covert nuclear work.

The decision to move production there and increase output drew immediate condemnation from the West, which has imposed a series of sanctions on Iran to try to force it to halt enrichment — a process that can make weapons material if done to a much higher level.

“This announcement is a provocation,” the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“It reinforces the international community’s existing concerns over the intransigence of the Iranian authorities and their persistent violation of international law.”

The European Union voiced deep concern as well, saying Tehran was increasing its defiance of the UN Security Council.

The 27-nation EU, in a statement read out by Hungary’s ambassador at a board meeting of the IAEA, said it noted with “grave concern” Iran’s lack of cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog.

“We note with particular concern the announcement made only today by Iran that it will increase its capacity to enrich (uranium) to 20 percent, thereby further exacerbating its defiance of the United Nations Security Council.”

Iran has always denied it is developing nuclear weapons and says it is enriching uranium for electricity production and medical applications.

But its decision last year to raise the level of enrichment from the 3.5 percent purity needed for normal power plant fuel to 20 percent worried countries that saw it as a significant step towards the 90 percent needed for bombs.

The Vienna-based IAEA, whose board was due to discuss Iran’s nuclear program, probably later on Wednesday, said it had only learned of the plan from media reports.

“Iran has not yet informed the agency of any such decision,” IAEA spokeswoman Gill Tudor said.

Israel’s new battlefield: Iranian submarines – Israel News, Ynetnews.

The recent wave of uprisings across the Arab world provided Iran with numerous strategic and tactical opportunities to expand its status as a regional hegemon.

The announcement that Tehran has dispatched submarines to the Red Sea, in what is the first such deployment by Iran’s Navy in distant waters, is the latest step in a series of actions the Islamic Republic has taken to secure its power in the region.

Permanent presence of warships and submarines in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea allows Tehran to keep surveillance of IDF Navy activities, which foreign reports claim Israel is conducting in the Red Sea and the eastern basin of the Mediterranean Sea.

According to the reports, Israeli naval activity aims to thwart arms smuggling from Iran to the Gaza Strip. The cargos leave from Iranian ports, pass through Yemen and reach Sudan’s Red Sea coast. From Sudan they are transported by land to Egypt and then to the Sinai Peninsula.

Another smuggling route is on board unsuspected merchant ships, which sail directly across the Red Sea, through the Suez Canal and all the way to Port Said in Egypt, where the cargo is unloaded from the ships and loaded on another vessel that sails to Syria. The cargo can also be transported by land, through the tunnels, into the Gaza Strip.

Providing assistance to Hezbollah

The reports claim that the IDF and Navy employ constant operational and intelligence efforts to thwart smuggling attempts, including sinking Iranian ships in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, attacking convoys en-route from Sudan to Egypt and seizing cargo ships suspected of carrying weapons to Syria or to Hamas.

Iranian naval presence in the Red Sea enables the Revolutionary Guard to track Israeli activity and secure arms shipments by warning the vessels carrying the weapons or the smugglers waiting on shore, and perhaps in the future – by directly confronting with Israeli naval forces.

Arms seized on Victoria ship (Photo: Tsafrir Abayov)

Foreign reports also stated that Israel has been deploying various vessels, including submarines, to patrol along the Iranian coastline in order to gather intelligence on the nuclear and ballistic missile programs and prepare for future altercations.

These Israeli submarines, the reports claim, are equipped with the latest cruise missiles that can carry nuclear warheads. If these reports are true, Iranian presence in the Red Sea might also be geared toward tracking and thwarting such activity.

But Iran is not stopping there. It wants to establish a naval military presence in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean Sea by dispatching its fleet through the Suez Canal.

Tehran regards this as an important step that will demonstrate to the Arab world and the Iranian people that it is a regional power, which is capable of military deployment in distant waters.

Iran’s military presence also aimed at hinting to its allies – Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas – that it can provide them with assistance if needed.

Iran needs alternatives

The recent uprisings in Syria and the uncertainty surrounding the future of Bashar Assad’s regime further highlights the urgency Iran is facing.

If and when the Syrian president is overthrown, Iran is expected to lose several important assets in Syria, including intelligence bases from which it keeps track of Israeli intelligence activity, and roads connecting between Syria and Lebanon, by which Iran provides Hezbollah with logistic aid and transports Revolutionary Guard members.

Iranian submarines. Coming our way? (Archive photo: AFP)

The unstable political situation in Syria can also potentially harm the connection with Hamas and Islamic Jihad’s headquarters in Damascus, with which Iran conducts most of its contact.

Iran needs to prepare alternatives in case the Alawi regime collapses. Khamenei and Ahmadinejad know that the Syrian Sunnis will turn a cold shoulder to Iran, or even become hostile, and so will other elements that might take the place of the current leadership.

Naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean and strengthening ties with Egypt may provide the answer, albeit a partial one.

The Iranians are acting determinately, but with caution – step by step. Their naval presence in the Gulf of Aden began last year under the guise of helping international efforts against Somali Piracy.

The big leap was taken in February, when Tehran asked the Egyptian authorities to allow two of its warships to cross the Suez Canal. The pretext was “a friendship and peace flotilla” to Syria.

Egypt’s Higher Military Council, still overcoming the latest events in Tahrir Square and the fall of Mubarak, authorized the move in an attempt to prove that it had shifted its policies from those of the previous regime, which has been hostile to Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in the country.

In the near future, we can expect to see more Iranian attempts to dispatch fleets through the Suez Canal and perhaps amassment of large Iranian naval forces in the Red Sea and Mediterranean coasts. This trend can be slowed down if the Americans decide to assert their influence over Egypt’s Higher Military Council.

Bennett Ramberg, Ph.D.: The Bombing of Osirak: Lessons From the 30th Anniversary of Israel’s Strike on Iraq’s Nuclear Reactor.

Thirty years ago today, eight F16-A aircraft armed with sixteen Mark 84 2000-pound bombs took off from their base in Etzion, Israel on a mission that established a new post-World War II standard to halt the spread of atomic weapons with armed force. The target: the French designed nuclear reactor known as Osirak situated near Baghdad. With the failure of diplomacy, sabotage and assassination to arrest construction, Prime Minister Menachem Begin determined that he would not leave the country’s fate to chance. By day’s end, Saddam Hussein’s first attempt to build a nuclear arsenal lay in a smoldering heap

Although three decades have passed, the daring Osirak strike continues to fascinate. But it also raises profound questions about the comparative benefits of force to stop nuclear proliferation. If military attack can immaculately reduce or eliminate the bomb’s spread as Israel demonstrated, why don’t countries apply the strategy more often? Why do we shirk today, for example, from using force to halt the likes of North Korea or Iran?

The answer lies on a bet countries repeatedly have preferred, one that banks on deterrence, diplomacy and/or hope that nuclear armed states will restrain themselves (DDR) from using nuclear arsenals. History shows DDR has worked in the past. What DDR cannot predict is future success. But history also demonstrates that neither can the Osirak template. A closer examination of both demonstrates the conundrum.

Preempt or not became an early order of business for the United States as the Cold War took off. Calls from the likes of Winston Churchill and Bertrand Russell promoted military action to halt the Kremlin’s nuclear program. While the United States historically had not shied away from initiating force, in the aftermath of World War II it recoiled. “It might be desirable to strike the first blow [against the Soviet Union but] it is not politically feasible under our system to do so or to state that we will…” The author, George Lincoln, a Pentagon planner in 1945. Although presidents beyond Truman did not exclude preemption against a Kremlin coiled to strike, it relied on DDR to address the nuclear risk. With the Soviet Union’s 1991 demise, the strategy seemed fulfilled.

But during the Cold War other challenges emerged. By the time John Kennedy entered office in 1961, increasingly the United States viewed China as the bête noir. As Beijing mounted its nuclear effort, an anguished president called on the bureaucracy to come up with options. In August 1963, the Joint Chiefs responded, “exhaust” non military alternatives first. In a September 15, 1964 memo written respectively by Secretaries of Defense and State Robert McNamara, Dean Rusk and National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, President Johnson’s senior foreign policy team concurred: “We are not in favor of unprovoked unilateral U.S. military action against Chinese nuclear installations at this time.” On October 16, 1994, Beijing tested its first device. Relying on DDR, Washington learned to live with the nuclear armed China.

In the years that followed, decision makers in and outside the Untitled States faced similar challenges. In each instance — the Soviet Union/China, India/Pakistan, Egypt/Israel, the US/North Korea — DDR prevailed. Concerns that preemption would ignite an immediate costly conventional war outweighed apprehension about the future risk of nuclear war.

Israel proved to be the most striking exception. Twice — the attack on Osirak and the September 2007 attack on Syria’s nuclear reactor — it bet air power could eliminate nuclear dangers. But the Osirak template also demonstrated limits. Iraq reconstituted its nuclear capability. But for the post-1991 Persian Gulf War’s insertion of inspectors with orders to destroy the country’s WMD stocks, Saddam would have had his bomb. Likewise it remains uncertain if Israel’s strike on Syria destroyed all vital elements of the enterprise. But for the moment Syria poses no nuclear threat.

Ultimately, Osirak’s legacy lies in its demonstration of military means to halt proliferation if other methods fail. But it is not the perfect solution. At best, it buys time banking that political developments may reduce the inclination of adversaries to go nuclear. It is a bet, but so is DDR. Both represent the best and the limits of counter proliferation policy strategy in today’s continuing uncertain nuclear world.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report June 7, 2011, 11:01 PM (GMT+02:00)

An Iranian sub in distant waters

The deployment of Iranian “military submarines” in the Red Sea, announced Tuesday June 7, was Tehran’s response to the latest International Atomic Energy Agency’s report accusing Iran of nuclear work with “possible military purposes.” It was also a pointed comment on the controversy in Israel over whether or not to go for the military option. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad then delivered his most uncompromising statement yet on Iran’s nuclear program, calling it “a train with no brakes or reverse gear.”
Iran claimed its submarines had long-range capabilities without specifying how many or what types had been sent to the Red Sea. Our Western military sources estimate that two vessels of the Qaem type defined as “semi-heavy.” Information about this submarine is sparse in the West: It is thought to be a multi-task 1,000-ton submarine capable of firing missiles from deep water with room for naval commando units trained to raid strategic targets.
Shortly after Tehran’s submarine announcement, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called a news conference in which he presented Iran’s nuclear case in exceptionally categorical and inflexible terms. After dismissing the UN watchdog’s report as “lacking legal credibility,” he declared: “The nuclear issue is like a train which has no brakes and no reverse gear, which means there will be no compromise.”
IAEA chief Yukiya Amano also criticized Iran Monday, June 6, for not cooperating with international nuclear experts at the start of a weeklong board meeting in Vienna.
This too was Tehran’s reply the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, whose key findings were published by debkafile on June 3:  “By April 2011, Iran had accumulated a quantity of U-235 that can be enriched in short order to sufficient 90 percent (weapons grade) uranium for producing four nuclear bombs, steadily stockpiling the material in secret from 2008.”
According to our Iranian sources, the Iranians felt bound to respond to the information that the Israeli Navy has taken delivery – or will shortly – of two new Dolphin submarines armed according to foreign sources with nuclear missiles. The arrivals will expand Israel’s nuclear-capable sub fleet to five – or a 66 increase.

Ahmadinejad’s hardnosed comments were aimed too at Washington, where German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Barack Obama held talks inter alia on the nuclear issue and agreed to pile more sanctions on the Islamic Republic if it continued to forge ahead with its nuclear weapons program.
Israel’s Dolphin subs are manufactured in German shipyards. The chancellor agreed to speed up delivery of the last two Israel commissioned and made the gesture of easy terms of payment, despite the economic crisis besetting Europe.
The way Tehran announced the Red Sea deployment of its submarines indicated an intention to push the radius of its defense lines farther from home waters in the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea in case of military attack on its nuclear program.
debkafile‘s military sources reckon that Iran will next send the submarines through the Suez Canal up to Syria’s naval base of Latakia on the Mediterranean.
Five months ago, Iran sent two warships, one of them bearing missiles for its Lebanese proxy Hizballah, along the same route to the same destination. The Egyptian military junta permitted the warships to pass through Suez just a week after Hosni Mubarak was ousted as president, signaling clearly that Cairo was turning a new leaf in relations with Tehran and its Palestinian ally, Hamas, after years of animosity with Mubarak’s Egypt.

Six days after those first warships docked in Syria, on Feb. 26, Moscow agreed to sell Syria advanced Yakhont SS-N-26 sea missiles. Every Israeli effort, backed by Washington, to discourage the Russians from letting Syria have those weapons was rebuffed. They may well arrive in Syria at the same time as the Iranian subs.

The interconnection of these steps was underscored two days later, on Feb. 28, when the commander of the Iranian Navy, Adm. Habibollah Sayyari, arrived in Latakia, inspected a guard of honor and declared that Iran had acquired its first Mediterranean base.

Neither the United States nor Israel reacted to these strategic milestones. The second round of Iranian warships, the submarines, heading through the Suez Canal to Syria, may also go without response.