WarSclerotic

Feinstein offers peak at U.S.-Israeli talks on Iran – Checkpoint Washington – The Washington Post.

Ahmadinejad wants to more than double Iran… JPost – Middle East.

By Reuters

Israel Hayom | Mossad, CIA held talks on Iran, Petraeus reveals.

Israel’s Mossad chief held a secret meeting with the director of the CIA in Washington over the weekend to discuss a potential military strike against Iran.

The sit-down between Tamir Pardo, head of the Mossad, and CIA director David Petraeus was not announced in Israel, and only became public knowledge in the U.S. on Tuesday, when Petraeus told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he met with Pardo to discuss the Iranian situation.

The focus of the meeting was reportedly Iran’s “immunity zone” — the amount of time Iran needs to hide its centrifuges in a place that will be impenetrable to Israeli air attack. For Israel, when Iran becomes capable of burying its nuclear arms out of striking reach, a red line will have been crossed.

The Prime Minister’s Office – which is responsible for speaking to the media about the Mossad and its activities – refused to comment on Pardo’s meeting with Petraeus.

According to the Wall Street Journal, committee chairman Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif). – who also mentioned Pardo’s meeting with Petraeus – told the committee, “I think 2012 will be a critical year for convincing or preventing Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon.”

Meetings between the U.S. and the Mossad are usually kept secret, but Feinstein’s conversation with the committee was not only public, but televised.

The U.S. is now concerned with more than just Iran’s nuclear ambitions. According to the Wall Street Journal, U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday that Iran is ready to carry out terrorist attacks within the U.S., due to increasing U.S. and European pressure and sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Clapper – who addressed the Senate Intelligence Committee alongside Petraeus – recalled the thwarted Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador in the U.S.

Clapper reportedly said, “The 2011 plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the United States shows that some Iranian officials – probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived US actions that threaten the regime. We are also concerned about Iranian plotting against US or allied interests overseas,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

Clapper went on to elaborate on the current intelligence assessment concerning Iran, saying, “We assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons, in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that better position it to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so. We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.”

According to Clapper, Iran is expanding its uranium enrichment capabilities. “Iran’s technical advancement, particularly in uranium enrichment, strengthens our assessment that Iran has the scientific, technical, and industrial capacity to eventually produce nuclear weapons, making the central issue its political will to do so. These advancements contribute to our judgment that Iran is technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium for a weapon, if it so chooses.”

Concerning U.S. cooperation with Israel on the Iranian issue, Clapper said “We’re doing a lot with the Israelis, working together with them. And of course for them, this is, as they have characterized, an existential threat.”

Meanwhile, Iran’s state-controlled Fars news agency reported on Tuesday that Iran completed a “constructive round of discussions” with International Atomic Energy Agency officials currently visiting Iran to discuss its nuclear program.

A senior Iranian official told the official news agency IRNA, however, that the IAEA officials did not visit Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Israel Hayom | Israel warns against Syrian WMD transfer to Hezbollah.

U.N. Security Council at standstill on Syria, reports of deaths rise – CNN.com.

United Nations (CNN) — At least 48 people were killed across Syria Wednesday, opposition activists said, as diplomats at the United Nations prepare to debate once again how to respond to the mounting crisis in the country.

The number killed in Wadi Barada, in the Damascus suburbs, rose to 21 according to the Local Coordination Committees of Syria, an opposition group that organizes and documents demonstrations. The other deaths occurred elsewhere in the region around Damascus and in Homs, Daraa, Idlib and Qamishli, the LCC said.

The latest casualties include six army defectors who were killed during clashes with government forces in the Damascus suburbs, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, another opposition activist group.

Opposition reports indicate the Free Syrian Army rebels are making serious inroads, including capturing and blowing up armored vehicles in their strongholds of Homs and Rastan, while government forces have reasserted their control over Damascus suburbs such as Saqba and Arbeen.

The reports come a day after members of the U.N. Security Council failed to reach an agreement on a resolution that would call for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down. Al-Assad has faced growing international pressure to stop a bloody crackdown on dissidents seeking his ouster and democratic elections.

Arab and Western diplomats voiced their support for the draft resolution, but representatives from Russia and China slammed it as meddlesome.

More effective than the resolution, Russia and China said, would be the fostering of dialogue within the country.

“The council cannot impose the parameters for an internal political settlement,” said Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s U.N. ambassador. “We are convinced that at a time of intense internal political crisis, the role of the international community should not be one of exacerbating conflict, nor meddling by use of economic sanctions or military force.”

The Security Council is considering a draft resolution proposed by Morocco that calls for al-Assad to transfer power to his vice president. Both China and Russia appear poised to veto it.

The resolution supports “full implementation” of an Arab League report that called on Syria to form a unity government within two months but stopped short of supporting military intervention or economic sanctions.

Russia — which, like China, is one of the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council — has said it is concerned about Syrian civil war and does not want al-Assad pushed out of power. It has proposed its own draft resolution that assigns equal blame for the violence on both al-Assad and the opposition.

But Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, said “the crisis started with absolutely peaceful demonstrations.”

He added: “The government killing machine continues effectively unabated.”

In October, Russia and China issued a rare double-veto of a resolution that lacked sanctions but would have condemned the violence in Syria. This latest draft also lacks sanctions, but it is tougher than the October version, which said nothing about a transfer of power.

Rights group Amnesty International urged Russia Wednesday to rethink its opposition to the latest draft.

“Russia’s threats to abort a binding U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria for the second time are utterly irresponsible. Russia bears a heavy responsibility for allowing the brutal crackdown on legitimate dissent in Syria to continue unchecked,” said Jose Luis Diaz, Amnesty International’s representative to the United Nations.

“Russia must work with other Security Council members to pass a strong and legally binding resolution that will help to end the bloodshed and human rights violations in Syria once and for all.”

Arab League Secretary-General Nabil el-Araby called for free elections and a multi-party system. “Do not let the Syrian people down in its plight,” he said.

Meanwhile, Syria’s envoy to the United Nations said the country is the victim of a systematic campaign to distort facts. The Arab League, he said, is interfering with Syrian affairs and has ignored reports from observers inside the country.

“Syria is going through decisive challenges in its history,” Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari said. “We want this stage to be through the will of our people, not through the will of anyone else.”

“That organization (the Arab League) is not speaking on behalf of all Arabs right now. Without Syria, there is no Arab League,” he said.

The Security Council has been unable to agree on any resolution on Syria.

The Syrian regime is a major weapons client for Russia. Analysts with Max-Security Solutions, a security consulting firm based in Israel, said Monday in The New York Times that recent Russian arms sales to Syria are worth $4 billion and that Russian business investments in Syria amount to nearly $20 billion.

A Congressional Research Service report in 2008 said the two countries had “concluded several significant arms deals.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the Security Council Tuesday that “evidence is clear that Assad’s forces are initiating nearly all the attacks that kill civilians, but as more citizens take up arms to resist the regime’s brutality, violence is increasingly likely to spiral out of control.”

She said it is crucial that the international community not embolden “the dictator.”

“At the end of the day, every member of that Security Council has a choice to make,” she told reporters. “If you do not choose to try to stand on the side of the Syrian people, then you are standing on the side of the continuing killing and abuses that are carried out every single day.”

Clinton’s support of the draft resolution was echoed by British Foreign Secretary William Hague and French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe.

Clinton has been trying for days to reach her Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, to lobby him on a U.N. resolution on Syria. Lavrov, on a visit to Australia, apparently has been avoiding her.

Russia’s Ria Novosti news agency described the foreign minister as “amazed by the hullabaloo” over his failure to talk with Clinton.

Lavrov, the agency said, “was busy negotiating with his Australian partners.”

At least 7,100 people — including 461 children — have died since the start of the Syrian anti-government uprising in March, the LCC said Tuesday.

The United Nations estimated in December that more than 5,000 people have died since March, though it has also said it has been unable to update that figure because of the situation on the ground.

CNN cannot independently confirm opposition or government reports from Syria because access to the country is limited.

Israel and US Team Up to Export Arrow to S. Korea – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

An experiment on the Arrow

IDF Spokesperson Unit

Israel and the United States have teamed up to export the Arrow anti-missile system to South Korea for $1 billion. Israel denies the report by Defense News.

If the deal goes through, it will be the first export by Boeing and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), with India another potential customer.

The report maintains that both the American and Israel governments have given the green light for exporting the Arrow system to South Korea despite the Defense Ministry’s denial.

“There’s still a long way to go, but we and our Israeli partners are working very persistently to be able to provide this phenomenal capability to South Korea, an important US ally,” Boeing Roger Krone executive told Defense News.

Exports of that magnitude would improve Israel’s export trade and strengthen the Israeli economy and the shekel, which has lost approximately 10 percent of its value the past year.

Boeing and IAI last week announced they are expanding their partnership beyond development of the Arrow systems, but they did not provide details except to state they aim “to explore and develop new opportunities in the missile defense arena.”

The magazine added, “While Israel is pushing ahead with the sale of the Arrow, the South Korean government has made no effort to introduce a high-altitude interceptor because of fears over potential backlash from neighboring countries, including China. South Korea is also preparing to build its own low-tier and medium-range missile defense systems.”

Now that the Pentagon is willing export the Arrow anti-ballistic missile system, India is a prime potential customer,

U.S. Asst. Secretary of Defense Robert Scher told an Indian news agency, “We are really open to it. This is something we ask them if they are interested in.”

“If the U.S. government allows ballistic-missile defense exports to India, it will represent a very inviting prospect for the IAI-Boeing team,” former Israeli Missile Defense Organization director Uzi Rubin told Defense News.

“I don’t see the US refusing us the opportunity to export Arrow if the other US systems are allowed to compete.”

Half of Syria no longer under Assad’s control, opposition says – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Opposition sources also report regime taking away sole responsibility for dealing with uprising from Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Daoud Rajha.

By Zvi Bar’el

Syrian opposition leader Colonel Riyad al-As’ad, commander of the Syria Free Army, said on Wednesday that around half of the country is no longer under the control of President Bashar Assad’s forces.

The Syria Free Army – which has managed to recruit over 25,000 army deserters and citizens so far – has apparently refrained from taking control of more territory out of fear that the regime would respond with more force and yield a significant increasing in the number of casualties.

This is also apparently the reason that the opposition group retreated from the suburbs of the capital Damascus on Sunday, following an attack by regime forces, in which opposition forces were shelled, and fired on by tanks.

	Colonel Riyad al-Assad, commander of the ‘Syria Free Army.’
	Photo by: Reuters

Opposition sources have also reported that President Assad has decided to split the responsibilities of his top military officers, taking away from Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Daoud Rajha the sole mandate for dealing with the crisis that has gripped Syria since March last year.

The mandate has passed partly to former Defense Minister Hassan Turkmani, who will be responsible for military operations, while General Jamil al-Hassan will be tasked with repression and arrest of opposition members organizing demonstration in the streets. Two of President Assad’s nephews, Rami Makhlouf and Hani Makhlouf, will be charged with logistics.

Assad’s brother and brother-in-law will be tasked with imposing a blockade on families of the Syrian political establishment, in order to prevent them from defecting.

If these reports are correct, they point to a very heavy pressure on Assad, and indicate fear bordering on hysteria as to what is happening in Syria.

Today, despite an increase in the number of defectors, the highest ranks of the military are still loyal to the regime. Some of those who have defected indicate that there are splits among the ranks whose origin is battles of ego within the ranks themselves, as opposed to a real opposition to the Assad regime.

It seems that some of the senior officers who recently defected intend to set up their own headquarters for the defector army, and it is not clear whether the commander of the “Syria Free Army” will join them or whether he will manage “his army” separately.

Violence continued on Wednesday as the opposition reported that at least 20 people were killed by Syrian government forces in a restive area on the outskirts of Damascus.

The deaths in the area of Reef Damascus included six army defectors, Syrian activist Ayman Idlibi told DPA.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Arab League and Western powers said at a UN Security Council meeting they were not seeking military action to end the bloodshed in Syria, in an effort to bring Russia and China onboard for a solution.

The high profile council meeting in New York was attended by several government ministers and a high-ranking delegation from the Arab League.

In Israel, A Nonstop Debate On Possible Iran Strike : NPR.

Israeli soldiers take part in an exercise at the Shizafon army base, in the Negev Desert north of the southern city of Eilat, on Tuesday. There are growing signs that Israel may be planning a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

January 31, 2012

In Israel, there is daily speculation over whether Israel will attack Iran’s nuclear facilities in the near future. The debate is not only over whether Israel should strike Iran, but what the costs and benefits might be from such a strike.

Israel believes that Iran is working to build a nuclear bomb, and dismisses Iran’s assertion that its nuclear program is solely for civilian purposes.

In Washington on Tuesday, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence asked America’s top intelligence officials the question on everyone’s mind: Is Israel preparing to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities?

While Director of National Intelligence James Clapper declined to make his assessment public, he did say that “Iran has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity to eventually produce nuclear weapons, making the central issue its political will to do so.”

Enlarge Jack Guez/AFP/Getty ImagesIsraeli army snipers pack their gear after an army exercise at the Shizafon army base, in the Negev Desert north of the southern city of Eilat, on Tuesday.

That echoes an earlier American estimate that Iran could cross the nuclear threshold this year.

The United States and the European Union have agreed on tough new sanctions against Iran’s oil industry and central bank, aimed at curbing Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

Those moves were welcomed in Israel as a sign that the international community was taking the Iranian nuclear threat seriously.

But still, the general feeling in Israel is that sanctions aren’t enough.

Brig. Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser, the director general of Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs, has been deeply involved in assessing Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

“The reason I’m skeptical about [sanctions] is that for the Iranians, the idea of getting a nuclear weapon is so important that even if these sanctions are causing them a lot of trouble, they would still be more inclined to continue the project in spite of the sanctions,” says Kuperwasser.

“They are getting closer and closer. They build better and better capability to produce a nuclear weapon. And once they have the capability, it is becoming more difficult to stop them before they turn this capability into a reality and have the weapon,” he says.

Limited Strike, Limited Damage

In recent days, there has been a flurry of high-level meetings between the U.S. and Israel — including a visit to Washington last week by the head of Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad.

Some analysts in Israel believe that Israel that is preparing to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities soon.

Ronen Bergman, one of Israel’s foremost military experts, says there is “a high probability” that Israel might strike Iran in 2012.” His prediction appeared in the Jan. 30 New York Times Magazine.

Others disagree with him and say Israel is using the threat of an attack to push the international community toward tougher sanctions and to galvanize a reluctant America into action.

They also question whether Israel actually has the capability to inflict serious damage. Analysts and military officials say Iran has been moving some of its critical nuclear facilities deep underground. And not only are Iran’s installations protected, they are also scattered around the country.

But Bergman says the objective of an Israeli strike is limited in scope.

“According to the Israeli assessment, a successful strike, a strike that would be conducted according to planning, would be able not to destroy the project — nobody thinks that Israel is able to destroy it, even not the Americans, but to inflict a significant damage that would end with a delay of three to five years,” says Bergman.

Threat Of War As Deterrent

And that has led some to go beyond the questions of “will they or won’t they?” and “can they?” to “should they?”

Meir Javedanfar, an Iran analyst in Tel Aviv, says that most reports he’s seen say that an attack would only set the Iranian nuclear program back two to three years.

“This is not long enough. This is not long enough in any way, shape or form to justify a military strike against the Iranian nuclear program,” he says.

“A military strike would rally people around the program, reluctantly even, in some cases,” he says. “And it would push the regime to rebuild its nuclear program. It means that Israel may have to keep bombing Iran every three years. Is this the scenario that we want to live?”

Israel has already bombed the nuclear facilities of two countries: Syria and Iraq. Neither government retaliated.

But Bergman says there are several doomsday scenarios if Israel goes to war with Iran.

“A rain of rockets from Hezbollah in the north, Iran and Hamas in the south, that the Israeli population is not really protected against,” he says.

And that, Bergman says, more than anything, may stay Israel’s hand. He says despite all the recent drills preparing the Israeli population for possible attack, the country isn’t psychologically prepared for what a war with Iran could unleash.

“If it wasn’t for this consideration,” Bergman says, “Israel would have attacked long ago.”

Obama’s War of Words With Iranian Leaders Is Unlike Bush’s Iraq Campaign – Bloomberg.

President Barack Obama drew a bipartisan standing ovation from members of Congress last week when he warned Iran that pursuing nuclear weapons is a red line the Islamic Republic shouldn’t cross.

“Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal,” Obama said to sustained applause during his Jan. 24 State of the Union address.

While the Obama administration’s warnings to Iran may sound like an echo of the Bush administration’s drumbeat for war with Iraq a decade ago, they differ in two critical ways, according to current and former officials and analysts.

The Obama administration’s motives, they said, are the opposite of Bush’s, and they are consistent with the U.S. intelligence community’s nearly unanimous analysis of Iran’s nuclear efforts and ties to international terrorism.

The Bush administration was seeking to build support for a war to oust Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, while the Obama administration is trying to avert a war by warning Iran of the perils if it proceeds toward producing nuclear weapons, said three administration officials. All three spoke on the condition of anonymity because they aren’t authorized to discuss the matter.

Second, the current administration’s allegations about Iran are largely consistent with the consensus in the 16-agency U.S. intelligence community, which Director of National Intelligence James Clapper outlined to the Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday.

Nuclear Activities

Iran, he said, “is expanding its uranium enrichment capabilities, which can be used for either civil or weapons purposes.” Still, he said: “We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.”

The Bush administration’s charges about Iraq’s alleged chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and ties to al-Qaeda were based largely on information provided by Iraqi exiles and collected outside of regular intelligence channels by independent cells overseen by then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney. Many U.S. and other intelligence professionals distrusted the exiles’ assertions, many of which eventually were found to be false.

The Obama administration “is being more conservative about Iran than the Bush administration was about Iraq,” Jon Alterman, a former State Department official who now heads the Middle East Program at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies policy center, said in an e-mail.

‘Disorienting Period’

“That probably partly has to do with the fact that we’re not in the disorienting period that followed 9/11, and partly that the difficulty of long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has made ground wars a less attractive option than one might have appeared earlier,” he said. “Different presidential temperaments and notions of leadership play a role here, too.”

Obama, who took office in 2009 determined to seek common ground with Iran, has taken a harder line as Iran’s leaders have ignored or rebuffed public and secret U.S. approaches, said one of the administration officials.

As Iran has continued its nuclear program, most recently firing up a new, deeply buried uranium enrichment facility near the city of Qom, the president and other officials have stepped up their warnings to Tehran.

Army General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the CBS News program “60 Minutes” on Jan. 8 that the U.S. is preparing a military option against Iran “in a timely fashion.”

Three Audiences

“The Iranians should never think that there’s a reluctance” to use force to stop them, Dennis Ross, who served two years on Obama’s National Security Council and a year as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s special adviser on Iran, said in an interview Jan. 9.

That drumbeat has three audiences, said two of the administration officials — in Iran, at home and in Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and other officials have repeatedly said all options are on the table in ensuring Iran doesn’t obtain nuclear weapons.

“The administration, even though it does not want a war, is talking tough about Iran not only in the hope of swaying the Iranians but also because of the political need to do so and to try to hold off pressure from warhawks in both the United States and Israel,” said Paul Pillar, a longtime CIA officer who now teaches at Georgetown University, in an e-mail.

Reassuring Israel

In an election year, when the president and his party need support of Democrats who back Israel, Obama needs to hold off Israel from attacking Iran without his being seen as doing so, said a former Bush administration official, who spoke anonymously because he still has a security clearance.

There is no certainty that Obama will succeed in deterring Iran from a decision to produce nuclear weapons or Israel from taking military action to prevent that outcome.

“I believe the President believes that building the pressure offers the best way to change Iran’s behavior through non-military means,” Ross said in an e-mail. “But because I believe he is serious about the objective, he is ready to use force if all else fails.”

As tensions rise, administration officials said they are increasingly concerned that a miscalculation by either side could trigger both a war that sends oil prices skyrocketing and a worldwide terror campaign by Iran and its proxies such as the radical Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah.

Already, Clapper testified, there is evidence that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other Iranian officials “have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime.”

Iran becoming ‘more willing’ to attack US, spy chief claims | Irish Examiner.

By Dan de Luce

Wednesday, February 01, 2012

Iran is prepared to launch attacks inside the US, a top American intelligence official has claimed.

Jim Clapper, the director of national intelligence, said Iran was “more willing to conduct an attack in the US in response to real or perceived US actions that threaten the regime”.

He was speaking before the senate intelligence committee. In his written remarks to senators, Clapper also said an alleged plot last year to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the US showed Iran might be more willing now to carry out attacks on US soil.

“Iran’s willingness to sponsor future attacks in the US or against our interests abroad probably will be shaped by Tehran’s evaluation of the costs it bears for the plot against [Saudi Arabia’s] ambassador as well as Iranian leaders’ perceptions of US threats against the regime,” he said.

Meanwhile, US intelligence chiefs said sanctions and diplomacy still have a chance to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear program as Tehran’s leaders have shown a rational “cost-benefit approach” in their calculations.

The officials suggested to senators military conflict with Iran was not inevitable despite soaring tensions with Tehran and a war of nerves over the Strait of Hormuz. “We judge Iran’s nuclear decision-making is guided by a cost-benefit approach, which offers the international community opportunities to influence Tehran,” said Mr Clapper.

“Iranian leaders undoubtedly consider Iran’s security, prestige, and influence, as well as the international political and security environment, when making decisions about its nuclear programme.”

He said economic sanctions were taking a toll and described a worsening rift between Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The overriding goal of Iran’s leaders remained “regime survival” and it was too early to say how economic strains triggered by a wave of tougher sanctions would affect their decisions, CIA director David Petraeus told the same hearing.

With a run on the Iranian currency, inflationary pressures and unemployment, the sanctions were “biting” more now than ever before, said Gen Petraeus.

“I think what we have to see now is how does that play out, what is the level of popular discontent inside Iran, does that influence the strategic decision making of the supreme leader and the regime?” he said.

When asked about the likelihood of pre-emptive military action by Israel, Clapper said he would prefer to answer the question in a closed-door session but said sanctions might force Tehran to change course.

“Our hope is that the sanctions, particularly those which have been recently implemented, will have the effect of inducing a change in Iranian policy toward their apparent pursuit of a nuclear capability,” he said.

“Obviously, this is a very sensitive issue right now.”

The hearing confirmed US intelligence services have not changed their view of Iran’s nuclear program since issuing an assessment last year. The 16 spy agencies believe Iran’s leaders are divided over whether to build nuclear weapons and have yet to take a decision to press ahead.

After a damning report in November by the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, the US and the EU have ratcheted up sanctions on Iran. The measures focus on Iran’s vital oil industry and central bank in a bid to force Tehran to abandon uranium enrichment work, which the West suspects masks a drive to build an atomic bomb. Iran insists its nuclear project is peaceful.