WarSclerotic

New intelligence reveals details on Iranian nuclear program | The Times of Israel.

UN atomic agency receives intelligence of weapons advances from US, Israel and undisclosed third nation

Iran’s heavy water nuclear facilities near the central city of Arak (photo credit: AP Photo/ISNA,Hamid Foroutan

VIENNA (AP) — The UN atomic agency has received new intelligence that Iran has moved further toward the ability to build a nuclear weapon by advancing its work on calculating the destructive power of an atomic warhead, diplomats tell The Associated Press.

The diplomats say the information comes from Israel, the United States and at least two other Western countries and concludes that the work was done sometime within the past three years. The time-frame is significant because if the International Atomic Energy Agency decides that the intelligence is credible, it would strengthen its concerns that Iran has continued weapons work into the recent past — and may be continuing to do so.

Because such work is done through computer modeling and must be accompanied by physical tests of the components that go into a nuclear weapon, it would also support IAEA fears outlined in detail in November that Tehran is carrying out weapons research on multiple fronts.

“You want to have a theoretical understanding of the working of a nuclear weapon that is then related to the experiments you do on the various components,” said David Albright, whose Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security is a frequent go-to source on Iran for Congress and other US government branches. “The two go hand-in-hand.”

Such computer mock-ups typically assess how high explosives compress fissile warhead material, setting off the chain reaction that results in a nuclear explosion. The yield is normally calculated in kilotons.

Any new evidence of Iranian research into nuclear weapons is likely to strengthen the hand of hawks in Israel who advocate a military strike on Iran. They argue that Tehran is deliberately stalemating international efforts at engagement while continuing its clandestine weapons work.

Iran denies any interest in nuclear weapons and says suspicions that it ever tried to develop them are based on fabricated US, Israeli and other intelligence. At the same time, it has blunted IAEA efforts to investigate such claims for more than five years.

It also has scoffed at Western allegations that it is enriching uranium to make the core of nuclear warheads, saying it seeks only to create reactor fuel. But it refuses to accept offers of such fuel from abroad and is now producing material that is easier to turn into weapons-grade uranium than its main, lower-enriched stockpile.

Although some of the new information was said to have been supplied by the United States, it appears to run counter to the stated US position that Iran shut down wide-ranging secret research and development of the components of a nuclear weapons program in 2003. At the same time the US fears that Iran continues to move toward the threshold of making such arms by enriching uranium.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s chief IAEA delegate, cut short a telephone request for comment, saying he could not talk because he was in a meeting. In Tehran, meanwhile, Foreign Ministry spokesman Rahmin Mehmanparast told reporters that Iran will start answering the agency’s “questions and concerns” only when “our rights and security issues” are recognized.

IAEA spokeswoman Gill Tudor said the agency would not comment. But four of six diplomats who spoke to the AP on the issue said an oblique passage in the IAEA’s August Iran report saying “the agency has obtained more information which further corroborates” its suspicions alludes to the new intelligence.

All six demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss classified information member countries make available to the IAEA.

Two of them said the new information builds on what the agency previously knew, not only because the research was apparently performed past 2009 but also because it reflects that Iran has allegedly moved closer to the overall ability to develop a nuclear weapon.

The IAEA first outlined suspicions in November that Iran was working on calculating the yield of a nuclear weapon, as part of a 13-page summary of Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons work that it said was based on more than 1,000 pages of research and intelligence from more than 10 member nations.

It said then that “the modeling studies alleged to have been conducted in 2008 and 2009 by Iran … (are) of particular concern,” adding that the purpose of such studies for calculating anything other than nuclear explosion yields is “unclear to the agency.”

Albright, of the Institute for Science and International Security, said such computer-run modeling is “critical to the development of a nuclear weapon.”

Associated Press writer Nasser Karimi contributed from Tehran.

In harsh rebuttal to Clinton, PM says those who don’t set red lines for Iran have no right to keep Israel from attacking | The Times of Israel.

Two days after secretary rules out Iran deadline, Netanyahu says: ‘The world tells Israel to wait because there is still time. And I ask: Wait for what? Until when?’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, speaking to his Bulgarian counterpart Boyko Borisov Tuesday in Jerusalem (photo credit: GPO)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday said that countries that refused to set deadlines for Iran to give up its nuclear program have no right to tell Israel to hold back on taking preemptive military action to thwart the regime’s nuclear ambitions.

His comments constituted an explicit and bitter rebuttal of comments made by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said on Sunday that the US will currently not set deadlines or give ultimatums regarding Tehran’s refusal to curb its nuclear program.

“The world tells Israel to wait because there is still time. And I ask: Wait for what? Until when? Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel,” Netanyahu said. “If Iran knows that there is no red line or deadline, what will it do? Exactly what it is doing today, i.e., continuing to work unhindered toward achieving a nuclear weapon.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem earlier this summer (photo credit: Ohad Zwigenberg/Flash90)

Reacting to Netanyahu’s demand for the US to set red lines — which, if crossed by Iran, would prompt US-led military action — Clinton said on Sunday that Washington still considers sanctions the best way to get Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions. “We’re not setting deadlines,” she said.

On Monday, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland reiterated Clinton’s statement, saying setting red lines was “not useful.” She added: “So, you know, we are absolutely firm about the president’s commitment here, but it is not useful to be parsing it, to be setting deadlines one way or the other, red lines.”

Netanyahu’s recent calls for the international community to set clear red lines regarding the Iranian threat was understood by many analysts as a way to signalize Israel’s willingness to hold back on a unilateral and uncoordinated strike on Iran after growing international opposition to such a move became apparent in recent weeks.

Speaking in Jerusalem at joint press conference with his Bulgarian counterpart, Boyko Borisov, Netanyahu differed with the US, too, over the impact of sanctions on Iran.

“As of now, we can clearly say that diplomacy and sanctions have not worked. They have hit the Iranian economy but they haven’t stopped the Iranian nuclear project,” Netanyahu said. “This is a fact. Another fact is that every day Iran gets closer to a nuclear bomb.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Deputy Knesset Speaker and Likud MK Danny Danon openly attacked Clinton for her refusal to set a deadline for military action to thwart Iran. Her statement “is a slap in the face [for Israel], the United States’ closest ally in the Middle East,” he said. “Instead of [the US] standing steadfastly at our side, the secretary’s comments only serve to embolden the Iranians and likely hasten their weapons program. We expect more from our American friends, who have pledged close cooperation in combating this radical threat to the free world.”

The Israeli and Bulgarian governments on Tuesday held their second intergovernmental consultation in Jerusalem. On the agenda was the signing of a security cooperation agreement, which includes assurances for the security of Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, among other things. In July, five Israeli tourists and their local bus driver were killed in a terror attack in the Bulgarian vacation resort of Burgas.

PM: World has no ‘moral right’ to… JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.

Could Syria and Lebanon be steppingstone to Iran?.

By Linda S. Heard

Tuesday, 11 September 2012

Few would dispute that Syria’s Al-Assad regime has to go; it’s crossed too many red lines soaked in innocent blood to be a credible leadership — and just about everyone from all sides of the political spectrum want the killing to stop. Likewise, the governments of almost all regional countries, unsure about Tehran’s avowal that it does not intend to develop nuclear weapons, would breathe easier if Iran relinquished its uranium enrichment program. In that case, on a superficial level at least, Western intervention in terms of sanctions as well as financial and military aid to rebels is the morally responsible way to go. Isn’t that right? Viscerally, most of us would answer ‘yes’ but, when the big picture is examined the situation isn’t quite as black-and-white.

Besides the fact that the U.S. and its Western allies tailor their respective foreign policies based on their own interests rather than morality, it’s worth considering whether they may harbor less than altruistic motives for their keenness to overthrow or destabilize Middle Eastern regimes. In the case of Syria, are they really concerned about Syrian civilians when the U.S. didn’t even bother to tally the deaths of Iraqis or Afghans killed at the hands of their ‘finest’ estimated at over one million? Let’s agree that there aren’t too many Mother Teresa-type decision-makers strolling along the corridors of power in Washington, London and Paris and examine the bottom line.

The first question worth asking ourselves is whether the G.W. Bush era’s neoconservative vision of a new American century has been binned as a failure or has it merely been left simmering quietly somewhere out of sight? The revelation of former 4-Star General Wesley Clark was echoing in my memory when I revisited one of his book launch speeches delivered some years ago.

“We had a policy coup; some hard-nosed people took over U.S. policy and didn’t bother to inform any of us. I went through the Pentagon ten days after 9/1…and an officer from the Joint Staff called me into his office and said, “I want you to know sir that we are going to attack Iraq.” I asked ‘why?’ He said, ‘We don’t know’…I came back to the Pentagon six months later. I saw the same officer. I said, ‘Why haven’t we attacked Iraq? Are we going to attack Iraq?’ He said, “Oh sir, it’s worse than that. He pulled up a piece of paper from his desk saying ‘I just got this memo from the Secretary of Defense’s office. We’re going to start with Iraq and move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran — Seven countries in five years.”

Gen. Clark said he “sat on this info for a long time” before linking it with a 1991 meeting with then US Undersecretary for Defense Paul Wolfowitz. “I said, ‘Mr. Secretary, you must be pretty happy with the performance of our troops in Desert Storm.’ ‘Well, yeh, but not really. The truth is that we should have got rid of Saddam Hussein and we didn’t. But one thing we did learn is that we can use our military in the region, in the Middle East, and the Soviets won’t stop us. And we’ve got about five or ten years to clean up those old Soviet client regimes — Syria, Iran, Iraq — before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us.”

That conversation may have taken place decades ago, but keeping a resurgent Russia out of the loop is still pertinent from the American perspective no matter who has the top job. In the event the Syrian and Iranian regimes fell, the region would be almost completely within the West’s sphere of influence. Both Moscow and Beijing would lose out big-time strategically, economically and geo-politically.

Secondly, it won’t have escaped your notice that hobbling Syria and Iran would automatically quell Israel’s existential concerns and reduce incentives for Israel to swap land for a comprehensive peace treaty with the Palestinians and all 22 Arab League member countries. A US-dominated region would guarantee Israel’s security and impunity without Tel Aviv being obliged to make concessions.

The little-publicized H.R. 4133 Enhanced Security Cooperation Act of 2012 passed by the House of Representatives earlier this year by a vote of 411-2 — and drafted with AIPAC’s in-put — reaffirms the “enduring commitment of the United States to the security of the State of Israel as a Jewish state” and the provision to Israel “of the military capabilities necessary to deter and defend itself by itself against any threats.” The act also urges the US vetoing of “any one-sided anti-Israel resolutions at the United Nations Security Council and to ensure that Israel retains a “qualitative military edge.” For some unknown reason, the US mainstream media took the view that the act wasn’t newsworthy.

If the proof is in the pudding, then the neoconservative’s grand plan is still alive and well. Iraq and Libya have been defanged. The Syrian regime’s longevity is unlikely to be long and Israeli — and to a lesser extent, US — war drums are beating against Iran. A major obstacle on Israel’s doorstep Hezbollah must also be tackled before any Iran strike when Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has threatened missile attacks on Israeli cities should Iranian nuclear sites be targeted. It’s notable that the UK and the EU are currently considering designating Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and are pushing for anti-Hezbollah sanctions, ostensibly for its role in Syria.

For now, the U.S. appears to be on the same side as the majority of Syrians, those who dream of a free and democratic Iran, not to mention Gulf States for which a nuclear-armed Tehran as an anathema. But for every action there’s a reaction, and often unintended consequences. So before we loudly applaud countries that just a few years ago had an invasion of Arab countries to-do list (and may still), it’s worth pausing to reflect long and hard on the shape of the day after.

(Linda Heard is a columnist for the Saudi-based Arab News, where this article was first published Sept 11, 2012)

Israeli plans to attack Iran | Vestnik Kavkaza.

by Peter Lyukimson, Israel. Exclusively for VK

Israeli political observers agreed in early September that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scrapped plans to attack Iranian nuclear facilities in 2012.

Political analysts believe that the decision was made in the light of tensions between him and US President Barack Obama. The government, Israeli military authorities acknowledged the wise position of the US, confident that such operation carried out without US and NATO support would be destined to fail and could worsen the position of Israel in the region. Analysts do not rule out that all talks about a possible attack were necessary for Israel to pass harsher sanctions against Iran and gain guarantees that the US and Israel would destroy Iranian nuclear facilities when the point of no return is reached and nuclear bomb creation becomes inevitable. Netanyahu achieved the goals at a certain extent. Sanctions got harsher and, although Obama has given no guarantees about the point of no return, he is being pressurized by the US society to give a promise.

One of the most informed Israeli journalists Yossi Melman listed five reasons why Israel would not attack Iran before the presidential polls.

1. Israel will have autumn holidays lasting about a month. All governmental and civil work in the country will be “paralyzed”, making a strike at that period when everyone is having time off is pointless.

2. Netanyahu will visit the US in late September to attend the UN General Assembly and meet Barack Obama personally. It would be foolish to expect an attack during his visit to the US or his return.

3. Israel and the US plan joint military drills in October. Israel would most likely want to keep the plans in force.

4. Netanyahu has no need for approval by the Cabinet majority to make a strike on Iran. In other words, the government would not want to take such responsibility and the prime minister would not want to take it alone either.

5. Israel acknowledged that, despite intensification of nuclear bomb developments in Iran, the country will not construct it in late 2012.

Melman says that there will be no strike until November 4. What will happen after the US elections is uncertain.

An attack on Iranian nuclear facilities in the next 2 months is still possible. There are facts proving the idea.

1. In his New Year speech for the Likud Party (Rosh Hashanah), former head of the parliamentary commission for foreign affairs and defenses Tzachi Hanegbi said that the prime minister would need to make a hard decision in the following 50 days and expressed hope that it would be the right one. He reminded that there would be a price to pay for attacking Iran. But if Israel neglects the Iranian nuclear bomb, there will still be a price to pay. Hanegbi reminded that Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion had warned against allowing Israeli opponents to obtain weapons of mass destruction. Hanegbi is a notable figure in Israel. He was one of the most authoritative politicians of Likud for years, but he joined the Kadima Party of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. He returned to Likud and became a close associate of Netanyahu. Hanegbi is also notable for speaking for an attack on Iran.

2. Israel continues expanding the Iron Dome air defense system, setting anti-air systems in various parts of the country.

3. Before the autumn holidays, Israeli state structures held an off-schedule session, opening 16 coordination points for the structures. They have been filled. Moreover, candidates for coordinators were selected without a start of open contests for the positions.

4. Outraged by leakage of information from the government, Netanyahu ordered all ministers to be checked with truth verifier machines to find the leaker.

5. US intelligence services started drills on prevention of attacks on Israel and Jewish community leaders, should Israel attack Iranian nuclear facilities.

Thus, the facts speaking for an attack on Iran are just as convincing as the contrary facts. The current Israeli government will most likely stick with the crossroad. Hanegbi was doubtlessly right when he said that any decision will need a very high price to be paid by Israel and primarily by its citizens.

 

Former Ambassador: Israel Alone Again, As Usual – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

Zalman Shoval

Flash 90

Israelis need to get used to the idea that they are alone when it comes to dealing with Iran – and that they should not expect that the U.S. will fight Israel’s battles for it. In an interview with Arutz Sheva, former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Zalman Shoval said that Israeli and U.S. interests diverged when it came to Iran. “We need to get used to the fact that, as usual, we are alone,” he said.

The current situation, he said, was reminiscent of the situation before the Six Day War, when Israel received no support from the U.S. – and indeed, was told point-blank by the Johnson administration that if Israel took the initiative and actively attacked Egypt, it would have to suffer the consequences itself, despite the fact that Egypt committed an act of war by closing off the Straits of Tiran.

The U.S., he said, will stand behind Israel if it appears necessary – if Israel, for example, appears to be losing – but when it comes to decisions on how to defend itself, Israel should not expect the U.S. to make recommendations.

The U.S. interest in the events in the Midldle East surrounding Iran go far beyond Israel’s concerns over a nuclear-armed Iran, Shoval said. Until the election, the question of how an Israeli attack will affect his campaign is the number one interest of U.S. President Barack H. Obama, but Obama finally seems to have decided that he needs to take care of America’s economy, Shoval said – and if reelected, that domestic agenda will be far more important to him than a nuclear Iran.

With that, he added, the U.S. understands that it must act to prevent Iran from going nuclear – not necessarily to save Israel, but to save its strategic position in the world, and in the Middle East in particular Eventually the U.S. will act, he said – but by the time the U.S. is ready to move, it may be too late. “The U.S. wants to put off the confrontation for a year or two, but every delay gives the Iranians another advantage,” Shoval said.

In the end, he added, it will be up to Israel to decide what is best for its interests. “Of course, we must do this in a way that does not dismiss or disdain our friendship with the U.S.,” he added.

Obama and Netanyahu shadowbox on Iran ahead of final round Sept 28.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis September 11, 2012, 8:49 AM (GMT+02:00)

At odds – but still talking

The wrangling over Iran between the offices of the US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Monday, has been reduced essentially to a battle for the agenda of their meeting in New York on Sept. 28: Netanyahu will be pressing for a US commitment to military action if Iran crosses still-to-be-agreed red lines, while the White House rejects red lines – or any other commitment for action – as neither necessary nor useful.
Israel’s latest rebuttal came Monday, Sept. 10 from former Military Intelligence chief, Amos Yadlin, who argued that even without agreed red lines, Israel was quite capable of coping with its enemies without the United States.

The sparring appeared to have reached a point of no return, leaving Obama and Netanyahu nothing more to discuss. However, just the opposite is true. For both leaders their upcoming tête-à-tête is vital. It is the US president’s last chance to prevent an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program before he faces the American voter on Nov. 6, while the prime minister will not forego any opportunity to harness the US to this attack. He needs to prove – not just to the anti-war camp ranged against him at home, but also to assure the military – which has been falsely reported as against an attack – that he bent over backward to procure US backing.
Netanyahu does not feel that even if he fails to talk Obama around (more likely than not), he has lost American support; he counts on the US Congress to line up behind Israel’s case for cutting down a nuclear Iran which is sworn to destroy the Jewish state, as well as sections of the US public and media and some of he president’s Jewish backers, including contributors to his campaign chest.
Those are only some of the reasons why the last-ditch US-Israeli summit cannot be avoided and indeed may be pivotal – both for their participants’ personal political destinies,and for the Middle East at large.
debkafile’s Washington and political sources disclose that their dialogue will have two levels according to current planning:

1. In New York, Obama and Netanyahu will try and negotiate a common framework;
2. At the Pentagon in Washington, defense chiefs Leon Panetta and Ehud Barak will be standing by to render any agreements reached in New York into practical, detailed plans which would then be referred back to the two leaders for endorsement.

The heated dispute between US and Israeli officials over “red lines” was therefore no more than sparring over each of the leaders’ starting-points for their New York dialogue and therefore their agenda and final understandings. Behind the clash of swords, US and Israeli diplomats are working hard to negotiate an agreed starting point. They are putting just as much effort into preventing the row deteriorating into a total rupture before Sept. 28.

Netanyahu discussed another red line Monday when he interviewed President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem, their first meeting in three months. Although the Israeli presidency is a largely titular function, Peres has elected himself senior spokesman for the opponents of an Israeli military operation against Iran.

While their advisers sought to establish agreed lines between them ahead of Netanyahu’s meeting with Obama, debkafile reports that the confrontation between the two Israeli politicians ended inconclusively, because Peres kept on demanding that the prime minister bend to the will of the White House.

Canadians in Iran faced ‘very real’ threat, officials warn – The Globe and Mail.