WarSclerotic

WASHINGTON • President Barack Obama is pressing U.N. nuclear inspectors to release classified intelligence information showing that Iran is designing and experimenting with nuclear weapons technology. The president’s push is part of a larger U.S. effort to further isolate and increase pressure on Iran after accusing the nation of a plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S.

If the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, agrees to publicize the evidence, including new data it says it has gathered in recent months, it would almost certainly revive a debate that has been dormant during the Arab Spring this year about how aggressively the U.S. and its allies, including Israel, should move to halt Iran’s suspected weapons program.

Over the longer term, several senior Obama administration officials said in interviews, they are also considering banning transactions with Iran’s central bank — a major move that has been opposed by Germany, China and others — and expanding a ban on the purchase of petroleum products sold by companies controlled by Iran’s elite military force, the Revolutionary Guards.

The Revolutionary Guards are also believed to oversee the military side of the nuclear program, and it is the parent of the Quds Force, which Washington has accused of directing the Saudi assassination plot.

The proposed sanctions come as the U.S. confronts skepticism around the world about its allegations that Iran was behind the plot and limited options about what it can do — as well as growing pressure from Republicans and some Democrats to take tougher action against Iran, with the central bank and the oil industry high on lawmakers’ lists.

All of the proposed sanctions carry with them considerable political and economic risks. While Yukiya Amano, the cautious director general of the atomic energy agency, talked publicly in September about publishing some of the most delicate data suggesting Iran worked on nuclear triggers and warheads, officials who have spoken with him say he is concerned that his inspectors could be ejected from Iran, shutting the best, if narrow, window into its nuclear activities.

Similarly, China and Russia, among other major Iranian trading partners, have resisted further oil and financial sanctions, saying the goal of isolating Iran is a poor strategy. Even inside the Obama administration, some officials say they fear any crackdown on Iranian oil exports could drive up oil prices when the U.S. and European economies are weak. As one senior official put it, “You don’t want to tip the U.S. into a downturn just to punish the Iranians.”

Iran has declared that all of the documents suggesting work on how to create a weapon that could fit atop an Iranian missile are “fabrications” designed to justify an attack. The country has already been the target of covert attacks, including the assassinations of some nuclear scientists and a computer worm, called Stuxnet, that disabled some of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges.

The last time the atomic energy agency made any evidence public was in early 2008, in a closed presentation to member countries that was immediately leaked. That presentation came soon after U.S. intelligence agencies circulated a National Intelligence Estimate that declared Iran had worked extensively on warhead technology until late 2003, when the activity halted. A subsequent, classified estimate, circulated to top U.S. officials last year, concluded that although some work has resumed, it was at a much slower tempo, presumably to avoid detection.