Reviving Iran nuclear deal not a question of who goes first, U.S. official says

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-usa-nuclear/reviving-iran-nuclear-deal-not-a-question-of-who-goes-first-u-s-official-says-idUSKBN2BI36U

By Arshad Mohammed

4 MIN READ

(Reuters) - Who might take the first step to resume compliance with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal is not an issue for the United States, a U.S. official said on Friday, suggesting greater flexibility on the part of Washington.

“That’s not the issue, who goes first,” the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

“Like, we are going to go at 8, they are going to go at 10? Or they go at 8, we go at 10? That’s not the issue,” the official said. “The issue is do we agree on what steps are going to be taken mutually.”

The Biden administration has been seeking to engage Iran in talks about both sides resuming compliance with the deal, under which U.S. and other economic sanctions on Tehran were removed in return for curbs on Iran’s nuclear program to make it harder to develop a nuclear weapon -- an ambition Tehran denies.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, withdrew from the deal in 2018 and reimposed U.S. sanctions, prompting Iran, after waiting more than a year, to violate some of the pact’s nuclear restrictions in retaliation.

The United States and Iran have yet to agree even to meet about reviving the deal and are communicating indirectly via European nations, Western officials have said.

The odds of their making progress to revive the deal before Iran holds a presidential election in June have dwindled after Tehran opted to take a tougher stance before returning to talks, officials have said.

In a speech on Sunday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said Washington must ease sanctions before Tehran would resume compliance.

The U.S. official sought to dispel what he said was an erroneous view that the United States insists on Iran’s full compliance before Washington would take any steps to resume its own commitments.

He also said it was not the U.S. stance that Tehran must take a first step to comply before Washington would take a step.

“It is absolutely not our position that Iran has to come into full compliance before we do anything,” the official said.

“As for, if we agree on mutual steps, like we’ll do X, they do Y, the issue of sequence will not be the issue. I don’t know who would go first. I mean we could – it could be simultaneous,” he said. “There’s a thousand iterations but ... I can tell you now, if this breaks down, it’s not going to be because of that.”

He added: “We will be pragmatic about that.”

Writing in Foreign Affairs magazine last year when he was a presidential candidate, Biden said: “Tehran must return to strict compliance with the deal. If it does so, I would rejoin the agreement.”

That language, echoed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other officials since Biden took office on Jan. 20, has been widely taken to mean Iran had to make the first move to comply.

The U.S. official, however, disputed this.

“It doesn’t say when,” the official said. “It is not a statement about sequence.”

Robert Einhorn, a nonproliferation expert at the Brookings Institution think tank, said he had not understood Biden’s Foreign Affairs article to mean Iran necessarily had to go first, “although it could certainly be read that way.”

“Several other formulations administration officials have used -- such as ‘the U.S. will return to compliance if Iran does the same’ -- seem quite neutral on sequence and don’t suggest to me that Iran must go first,” Einhorn said.

Six European Ambassadors to Iran on the U.N.'s Attitude towards Tehran's Nuclear Program

Former European ambassadors to Iran Richard Dalton, Steen Hohwü-Christensen, Paul von Maltzahn, Guillaume Metten, François Nicoullaud, and Roberto Toscano write in the Los Angeles Times today that "it is unacceptable that the talks [with Iran on nuclear development] have been deadlocked for such a long time." Though the U.S. and Europe are authorized by the U.N. to use "coercive measures in case of 'threats to the peace,'" such threats are not so easily defined. Technically, "nothing in international law or in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty forbids the enrichment of uranium," for example, nor do we have proof that Iran is actually building nuclear weapons. "We often hear that Iran's ill-will, its refusal to negotiate seriously, left our countries no other choice but to drag it to the Security Council in 2006," but they point out that Tehran readily agreed to thorough and even invasive inspections. This was ignored by the U.S. and Europe who seem to fear offering "the Iranian regime an opening that could help it restore its internal and international legitimacy." The authors suggest that "the five permanent members of the Security Council and Germany should certainly keep the focus on matters of political and human rights, but they should also try harder to solve a frustrating and still urgent proliferation problem. By doing so, we would reduce a serious source of tension in a region that longs more than ever for tranquility."

latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-ambassadors-iran-20110609,0,1965058.story

latimes.com

Op-Ed

Nuclear proliferation: Engaging Iran

A period of uncertainty in the Arab world and the Middle East offers an opportunity to reconsider the West's position on Iran and restart negotiations over its nuclear program.

June 9, 2011

advertisement
This piece was written by six former ambassadors to Iran from European countries: Richard Dalton (United Kingdom), Steen Hohwü-Christensen (Sweden), Paul von Maltzahn (Germany), Guillaume Metten (Belgium), François Nicoullaud (France) and Roberto Toscano (Italy)

As ambassadors to Iran during the last decade, we have all followed closely the development of the nuclear crisis between Iran and the international community. It is unacceptable that the talks have been deadlocked for such a long time.

The Arab world and the Middle East are entering a new epoch in which no country is immune from change. This includes the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is facing the disaffection of a significant part of its population. Such a period of uncertainty offers opportunities for reconsidering the West's established position on the Iranian nuclear question.

In terms of international law, the position of Europe and the United States is perhaps less assured than is generally believed. Basically, it is embodied in a set of resolutions adopted by the U.N. Security Council authorizing coercive measures in case of "threats to the peace."

But what constitutes the threat? Is it the enrichment of uranium in Iranian centrifuges? This is certainly a sensitive activity, by a sensitive country, in a highly sensitive region. The concerns expressed by the international community are legitimate, and Iran has a moral duty, as well as a political need, to answer them.

In principle, however, nothing in international law or in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty forbids the enrichment of uranium. Besides Iran, several other countries, parties or not to the treaty, enrich uranium without being accused of "threatening the peace." And in Iran, this activity is submitted to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. These inspections, it is true, are constrained by a safeguards agreement dating from the 1970s. But it is also true that the IAEA has never uncovered in Iran any attempted diversion of nuclear material to military use.

Is the threat to the peace, then, that Iran is actively attempting to build a nuclear weapon? For at least three years, the United States intelligence community has discounted this hypothesis. The U.S. director of national intelligence, James Clapper, testified in February to Congress: "We continue to assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons.... We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.... We continue to judge that Iran's nuclear decision-making is guided by a cost-benefit approach, which offers the international community opportunities to influence Tehran."

Today, a majority of experts, even in Israel, seems to view Iran as striving to become a "threshold country," technically able to produce a nuclear weapon but abstaining from doing so for the present. Again, nothing in international law or in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty forbids such an ambition. Like Iran, several other countries are on their way to or have already reached such a threshold but have committed not to acquire nuclear weapons. Nobody seems to bother them.

We often hear that Iran's ill-will, its refusal to negotiate seriously, left our countries no other choice but to drag it to the Security Council in 2006. Here also, things are not quite that clear.

Let us remember that in 2005 Iran was ready to discuss a ceiling limit for the number of its centrifuges and to maintain its rate of enrichment far below the high levels necessary for weapons. Tehran also expressed its readiness to put into force the additional protocol that it had signed with the IAEA allowing intrusive inspections throughout Iran, even in non-declared sites. But at that time, the Europeans and the Americans wanted to compel Iran to forsake its enrichment program entirely.

Today, Iranians assume that this is still the goal of Europe and America, and that it is for this reason that the Security Council insists on suspension of all Iranian enrichment activities. But the goal of "zero centrifuges operating in Iran, permanently or temporarily," is unrealistic, and it has heavily contributed to the present standoff.

Of course, a dilemma lingers in the minds of most of our leaders. Why offer the Iranian regime an opening that could help it restore its internal and international legitimacy? Should we not wait for a more palatable successor before making a new overture?

This is a legitimate question, but we should not overestimate the influence of a nuclear negotiation on internal developments in Iran. Ronald Reagan used to call the Soviet Union the "evil empire," but that did not stop him from negotiating intensely with Mikhail Gorbachev on nuclear disarmament. Should we blame him for having slowed down the course of history?

The five permanent members of the Security Council and Germany should certainly keep the focus on matters of political and human rights, but they should also try harder to solve a frustrating and still urgent proliferation problem. By doing so, we would reduce a serious source of tension in a region that longs more than ever for tranquility.

The failure of the last round of negotiations in Istanbul at the end of January and the last disappointing exchange of letters between the parties show only too well that the current deadlock will be difficult to break. On the process, the more discreet and technical negotiations are, the better chance they will have to progress. And on the substance, we already know that any solution will have to build on the quality of the inspection system of the IAEA.

Either we trust IAEA's ability to supervise all its member states, including Iran, or we do not. And if the answer is that we do not, then we must ask why, if the organization is effective only with its most virtuous members, we should continue to maintain it.

The next step should be for the two sides in this conflict to ask the IAEA what additional tools it needs to monitor the Iranian nuclear program fully and provide credible assurances that all the activities connected with it are purely peaceful in intent. The agency's answer would offer a basis for the next round of pragmatic negotiations with Iran.

Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times

Vice PM: Strike on Iran could be necessary

Haaretz
Published 22:26

Vice Prime Minister and Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon says the civilized world must take joint action to avert the Iranian nuclear threat.

Vice Prime Minister and Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon says the civilized world must take joint action to avert the Iranian nuclear threat, including a pre-emptive strike if necessary.

The former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff made the statement Monday in an interview with Russia's Interfax news agency ahead of a visit to Moscow.

Ya'alon wouldn't discuss who might deal the strike, saying the entire world, not just Israel, must be concerned about the danger posed by a nuclear-armed Iran.

Ya'alon's spokesman Ofer Harel told The Associated Press later Monday that the minister was repeating Israel's position that all options are on the table and not calling for anybody to attack Iran.

Iran has insisted its nuclear program is peaceful, but the U.S., Israel and many others believe it is cover for developing atomic weapons.

Iran flatly denied this claim recently, with Iran's nuclear envoy saying it would be a "strategic mistake" to build atom bombs.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), also insisted during a public debate that sanctions and the Stuxnet computer virus had failed to slow the Islamic Republic's disputed nuclear program.

"Please be assured that none of the sanctions have affected our nuclear activities ... 100 percent sure," he said.

Western analysts say increasingly tough sanctions on Iran as well as Stuxnet and possible other sabotage have delayed Iran's nuclear progress, even though they say the country now has enough low-enriched uranium for two bombs if refined more.

Nuclear Watchdog Details Concerns In Iran, Syria

NPR
by MIKE SHUSTER
May 25, 2011

The International Atomic Energy Agency has released troubling new reports on the nuclear activities of Iran and Syria.

The Iran report indicates the production of enriched uranium there is increasing and raises more questions about Iran's possible research into the military applications of nuclear technology.

In the Syria report, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog has reached the conclusion that Syria was very likely building a clandestine nuclear reactor when Israel bombed the site in 2007.

Iran: Uranium Enrichment Increasing

Iran's production of low-enriched uranium is on the rise, and though the facility at Natanz is far from full capacity, it is producing more per month now than in the past.

Iran's enrichment activities were hampered by breakdowns and by a computer attack last year caused by what's come to be known as the Stuxnet worm.

But the IAEA report suggests Iran has surmounted those difficulties, says David Albright, director of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.

"Iran's increase in its low-enriched uranium output by 30 percent since last summer shows ... that it's getting Natanz to work better, and shows that probably any leftover effect from Stuxnet has been reduced."

Related NPR Stories

Inside The United States' Secret Sabotage Of Iran
U.S. success with covert efforts like cyberattacks is making Iran's leaders nervous, analysts say.
U.N. Watchdog Says Syria Was Trying To Build Nuclear Reactor
April 28, 2011
The IAEA report does confirm that Iran has not diverted any of its known uranium stocks from civilian to military uses.

The report focuses some attention on the gas centrifuges that are used to manufacture enriched uranium. Since Iran started its enrichment about four years ago, it has used only first-generation centrifuges obtained from Pakistan.

Centrifuge technology has improved since then, and Iranian leaders have boasted that they intend to install new, far more efficient centrifuges in the future. But the IAEA has found no actual evidence that Iran has installed the newer technology.

Open Questions About Weapons Development

There are also ongoing questions about research Iran has done on aspects of nuclear weapons technology. The agency has pressed Iran for years to clear up questions about its military nuclear research. Iran has left many unanswered.

One concerns experiments with a neutron generator and uranium deuteride — this is what might be called a trigger for a nuclear explosion. The agency believes Iranian scientists worked on this particular piece of technology for as many as four years, perhaps longer, says Albright.

"This particular piece is important because it doesn't have any other uses that really are legitimate or credible," Albright says. "And it also shows that Iran is working on fairly sophisticated components of a nuclear weapon. I mean there's a much simpler way to do it. If you want to perhaps do it more secretly, you may want to go this route of uranium deuteride neutron initiator."

The agency's report does not assert that Iran is currently engaged in this work — only that the agency suspects it did the work before and may have continued it in some capacity.

On Wednesday, the head of Iran's atomic energy agency said simply that the IAEA's questions are based on fabricated documents.


EnlargeDigitalGlobe/Getty Images
This site in Syria was bombed by Israeli jets more than three years ago because it was suspected to be a nuclear reactor. It is now showing new construction.
Syria Stalls IAEA Investigation

On Syria, the agency says it's reached the conclusion that a facility under construction there that was bombed by Israel more than three years ago was "very likely a nuclear reactor, similar to one in North Korea."

The IAEA has been stymied for several years in its investigation of this incident. Syria allowed one inspection of the site, after the rubble was removed. There are three other locations in Syria believed to be related to this site, but Syria has not permitted agency inspectors to visit those.

The investigation has reached a dead end, says Albright.

"The IAEA has been under pressure," he says. "They can't let this slide. It's bad for the credibility of the IAEA if Syria gets away with it."

State Department spokesman Mark Toner indicated the U.S. wants to see this discussed by the IAEA in an upcoming meeting of its board of governors.

"The attempt by Syria to construct a clandestine nuclear reactor site is obviously a matter of concern, and we fully expect that the IAEA board will address this issue when it meets, I believe, next week," Toner says.

There's an expectation that the U.S. will urge that Syria be referred to the U.N. Security Council for possible economic sanctions.

Remarks by National Security Advisor Tom Donilon

At the Washington Institute for Near East Policy
As Prepared for Delivery

May 12, 2011

Thank you for this opportunity to speak at the Washington Institute at such an important moment in the history of the Middle East.

Since its founding in 1985, this organization has played a key role in America's understanding of this region. I know firsthand what remarkable scholars you've assembled here over the years and have been fortunate to work with many of them, inside and outside of government. Indeed, we've hired several into this Administration, so thank you for nurturing such great talent.

I want to thank Rob Satloff for his invitation and kind introduction. Rob offered me the chance to either give this speech or to have a conversation with him on stage. Knowing that Rob is the Dick Cavett of think tank heads, I opted for the speech.

I would like to begin this evening with a few reflections on the operation last week against Osama bin Laden.

Nearly two years ago-on May 26, 2009-President Obama called Director Panetta and me into the Oval Office. Bin Ladin's trail had gone cold. The President told us in no uncertain terms to expand and redouble the effort to find him, and to make it the intelligence community's top priority.
Dedicated professionals painstakingly scrutinized thousands of pieces of information until we found a man we believed was bin Laden's trusted courier and began to track his movements.

In the months leading up to the raid, we combed the intelligence, worked over the options, and met regularly with the President on the way ahead. As that process culminated -- having served three presidents -- I was struck by how quintessentially presidential this decision was.

On Thursday night, the 28th at around 7:00, the President left the Situation Room, where he had received his final briefing on the various courses of action. In that room, the President had received divided counsel from his team, and told us that he would make a decision soon.

The President stood up, walked out of the Situation Room, and walked across the colonnade, past the Rose Garden, into the residence. This decision was his - and his alone - to make.

And then the next morning at about 20 minutes after 8:00, he asked am few of us to come to the Diplomatic Room and told us "It's a go." That's what strikes me now: that we ask our presidents alone to make these exceedingly difficult decisions. And at the end of the day, 300 million Americans were looking to him to make the right decision.

We all know the outcome, but let me make five observations about the operation, all the hard work leading up to it, and what we see as some of the consequences.

First, the decision-making process was truly emblematic of President Obama. It was intensely rigorous-he challenged assumptions and pushed on the analysis and the intelligence to make sure we actually knew what we thought we knew. We held more than two dozen interagency meetings and the President personally chaired five meetings in the White House Situation Room in the six weeks leading up to the operation on Sunday, May 1. When it came time to decide, there were a number of options available, but the President chose to launch the raid for three main reasons: he wanted to limit the risk to innocent civilians-which, by the way, we did. He wanted to be able to prove we found who we were looking for. And he wanted to be able exploit any intelligence found at the scene, which I'll say more about in a moment. One more comment on the process - our team was able to maintain absolute operational security. Through months of work - not a single leak. It is a tribute to the team, the President's leadership of the process, and was key to the success of the operation.

Second, the Special Forces who carried out this operation performed brilliantly. Our view was that there was about a 50-50 chance that if we launched this operation we'd get bin Laden, but what gave the President the confidence to go ahead with the operation was his 100% faith in the abilities of these warriors who have conducted literally thousands of such missions. As the President said when he met with them last Friday at Fort Campbell, they are the greatest small fighting force in the history of the world.
This was also one of the great achievements in the history of the intelligence community. It was a success that was years in the making-across three U.S. Administrations-which is why the President's first two phone calls once our helicopters were out of harm's way were to Presidents Bush and Clinton.

Third, as a result of this raid, we now have the single largest trove of intelligence ever collected from a senior terrorist leader. The intelligence community says it is equivalent to a small college library worth of material. It is remarkable: Based on what we know now, we have tens of thousands of video and photo files, and millions of pages of text. One fact is already clear from this intelligence: Osama bin Laden was not simply a marginalized or symbolic figurehead. He remained an operational commander of al Qaeda-a man directly involved in strategy, operations, propaganda and personnel. That is why the President's decision to pursue the assault option mattered so much. In that compound in Abbottabad, we got more than Osama Bin Ladin.

Which leads me to my fourth point: As of early 2010, we assessed that al-Qaeda was at its weakest point since 2001. The successful assault on bin Laden's compound is a strong blow and important milestone on the way to al Qaeda's strategic defeat. But al Qaeda suffers additional fundamental challenges: The Arab Spring narrative presents al-Qaeda with a potent ideological challenge. For its entire existence, al-Qaeda's message has been that violence is the only path forward. It has never had an affirmative program - it could not have been further removed from and relevant to those who came to Tahrir Square in January.

Fifth and finally, our action sent a powerful message for America's friends and adversaries: we do what we say we will do. It is a message of persistence, determination, and dedication. No matter the obstacles, the United States does what it says it is going to do. Across presidencies and parties. And the United States has the capabilities to do so. These capabilities and this message were on full display a week ago Sunday. That is an important message that resonates across our other strategic interests.
The quiet and determined pursuit of bin Laden is not the only example of how President Obama matches his words with action.

This is also the case with respect to Iran.

President Obama has long understood the regional and international consequences of Iran becoming a nuclear weapons' state. That is why we are committed to preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. From his first days in office, he has made clear to Iran that it has a choice: it can act to restore the confidence of the international community in the purposes of its nuclear program by fully complying with the IAEA and UN Security Council resolutions, or it can continue to shirk its international obligations, which will only increase its isolation and the consequences for the regime. There is no escaping or evading that choice.

Already, Iran is facing sanctions that are far more comprehensive than ever before, As a result it finds it hard to do business with any reputable bank internationally; to conduct transactions in Euros or dollars; to acquire insurance for its shipping; to gain new capital investment or technology infusions in its antiquated oil and natural gas infrastructure-and it has found in that critical sector, alone, close to $60 billion in projects have been put on hold or discontinued. Other sectors are clearly being affected as well. Leading multinational corporations understand the risk of doing business with Iran - and are choosing to no longer do so. These are companies you've heard of: Shell, Toyota, Kia, Repsol, Deutsche Bank, UBS, and Credit Suisse, to name just a few. The impact is real.

Unless and until Iran complies with its obligations under the NPT and all relevant UN Security Council resolutions, we will continue to ratchet up the pressure. As the President has said: "Iran can prove that its intentions are peaceful. It can meet its obligations under the NPT and achieve the security and prosperity worthy of a great nation. It can have confidence in the Iranian people and allow their rights to flourish. For Iranians are heirs to a remarkable history."

Like all NPT Parties, Iran has the right to peaceful nuclear energy. But it also has a responsibility to fulfill its obligations. There is no alternative to doing so.

That is why -- even with all the events unfolding in the Middle East -- we remain focused on ensuring that Iran does not acquire nuclear weapons.

But as you all well know, the Iranian regime's nuclear program is part of a larger pattern of destabilizing activities throughout the region: In Iraq-where, as our former commander General Odierno said last summer, "they continue to be involved in violence specifically directed at U.S. forces"; in Syria, where it has helped the Asad regime suppress pro-democracy demonstrations; and in Lebanon, where it continues to arm Hizballah.

So make no mistake, we have no illusions about the Iranian regime's regional ambitions. We know that they will try to exploit this period of tumult and will remain vigilant. But we must also remember that Iran has many weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

Iran's model, like al Qaeda's, lacks a vision relevant to our times. It is a model that could not be more out of step with the sentiments of the Arab Spring. This model has the following characteristics:

First: A corrupt, mismanaged and isolated economy that offers the younger generation little hope for a better future. It is an economy increasingly working for the security services like the IRGC and elites, and not for the people of Iran.

Second: The denial of the basic human rights of freedom of expression - the very liberties people across the Middle East are prepared to risk their lives to claim.

Third: a political leadership focused on preserving its reign at all costs, including by unleashing violence against its own citizens, rather than enabling its citizens to flourish.

Fourth: The pursuit of policies that have worked to make a great civilization and people an isolated state, increasingly unable to carry on basic interactions with the rest of the world.

So it's no surprise, then, that Iran's world view bears little or no resemblance to the movements afoot in the streets of Tunis and Cairo, Benghazi, Deraa.

Iranian leaders' attempts to declare themselves the inspiration for these demonstrators are belied by their clear hypocrisy: demanding justice for others while crushing their own peoples' demands.

Our observation is that since the elections in 2009, the regime has been heavily focused internally -on silencing dissent and preserving itself. And as you might expect, we now see fissures developing among the ruling class-a dispute that has nothing to do with meeting the needs and aspirations of the Iranian people. It also reflects a fundamental question: whether Iran has the confidence to engage with the outside world-a prospect that has been offered and that is in the overwhelming interest of its people. As the President has said to Iran's leaders: "we know what you're against, now tell us what you're for."

Externally, Iran's destabilizing activities are backfiring by uniting its neighbors in the Gulf against their activities-this was something I heard often when I visited the Gulf last month.

This is something Arab leaders are saying not just in private but in public as well. The Gulf Cooperation Council recently said it was "deeply worried about continuing Iranian meddling" and accused Tehran of fueling sectarianism.

I want to be clear: the door to diplomacy remains open to Iran. But that diplomacy must be meaningful and not a tactical attempt to ward off further sanctions.

These choices remain available to the Iranian government. In the meantime, America and our partners will keep the pressure on by continuing our current sanctions efforts and seeking new lines of activity to target.

We will continue the hard work of building a regional security architecture, maintaining a strong military presence, equipping our friends with early warning and missile defense systems-including our phased, adaptive approach.

We do all these things because they are profoundly in our national interest. And we do them because America stands by its friends and allies.

And in this region we have no closer friend and ally than the state of Israel.

The U.S.-Israel relationship is a close friendship, rooted in shared values and cultural common ground. But it has also evolved into a multilayered strategic partnership, to advance shared interests and counter common threats.

Our commitment to Israel's security is unshakeable. We understand the threats that Israel faces. We have to understand them, because those who threaten Israel also threaten us.

This starts at the strategic level, where our nations have worked together from the certainties of the cold war to the uncertainties of the Arab Spring to forge a conception of the strategic landscape. We have differed at times about the exact contours of the landscape, but through sustained and very open dialogue we have enriched each others' understanding of the security challenges we both face.

We have shared our best thinking about the most effective ways to match our resources to the requirements that flowed from our strategic worldview. At the highest level, there are regular meetings and phone calls between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu. They will meet again next week at the White House.

We also conduct these discussions through an array of channels: The strategic dialogue, the Joint Political-Military Group, and many more. These channels have been ongoing and have proved their worth at every level of our governments.

The enduring relationships our senior leaders have forged with their Israeli counterparts have produced a rock-solid foundation of trust between the Pentagon and the Israeli Ministry of Defense. In 2010 alone, there were nearly 200 senior-level DoD visitors to Israel; and Israeli defense officials visit us just as often.

Our multi-layered dialogue has produced concrete steps that enhance Israel's security. While some are focused on noise and distraction, we are focused on fundamentals. And let me say this as plainly as I can -- the fundamentals of this security relationship are stronger than they have ever been.

Everyone in this room knows that we are committed to maintaining Israel's qualitative military edge and back that commitment with about $3 billion of foreign military financing every year, regardless of the budget environment. This has helped Israel secure its future in a tough neighborhood. At the same time, we have made our own best technology available, such as the Joint Strike Fighter and sophisticated standoff weapons, so that Israel can defend against evolving threats.

For more than two decades, the United States has also been working to improve the protection of Israel's population from the very real and urgent threat of rockets and missiles by partnering with Israel to develop an extensive missile defense architecture. We cooperate across the continuum of development, deployment, and operation of these systems. Our financial and technological support was essential to the Arrow and David's Sling systems to defend against long and short-range ballistic missiles.

A recent example of the President's commitment to protect Israel from the scourge of rockets and missiles is our support for Iron Dome- an advanced short-range rocket defense system that has recently been deployed. During the 2008 presidential campaign, then Senator Obama visited Sderot, where he saw firsthand the damage from waves of rocket attacks. So, last year, the President requested that Congress provide Israel with an additional $205 million, on top of the FMF support Israel already receives, for the production of Iron Dome. Throughout its development, the U.S. cooperated closely with Israel, and the additional funding for Iron Dome requested by the President will allow the IDF to deploy additional systems throughout Israel in the years to come.

Already Iron Dome has proven its worth by intercepting 8 out of 9 rockets fired at Beersheva and Ashkelon in one day.

We are proud to stand by this project. It is imperative that we do so, because there can be no peace without security. The relationship between peace and security is both intricate and reciprocal. There will not be peace until Israel is secure, but Israel can never be fully secure in the absence of a credible peace.

That is why from day one, President Obama has been committed to a process that can lead to two states-a Jewish State of Israel and a Palestinian state-living side by side in peace and security.

An enduring two state solution can only be achieved through negotiations. There are no short-cuts. But no one should take comfort in the status quo. As we have learned in the Middle East, the status quo is never static. There are demographic and technological clocks that keep ticking. There is a new generation of leaders who will emerge in the region as a result of the changes that are now taking place. And it is in everyone's interest that they see that peace is possible.

Across the Middle East this is a time of unprecedented transformation and uncertainty. I know there are those who see the specter of new threats and great risks on the horizon. We understand that view. Even without its leader, al Qaeda continues to plot the death of innocents. Iran retains its nuclear ambitions and destabilizing activities. And Israel and America continue to confront a range of daunting threats. We will remain ever vigilant to these challenges.

But this is also a time of great opportunity for America and its allies.

Our Administration came to office determined to restore American prestige, authority and influence. This means not just charting a bold course but following it. Not just setting difficult goals; but having the persistence and determination to achieve them. Not just saying what we intend to do; but doing it. On the threat from al Qaeda and Iran and on Israel's security, we are doing just that. Thank you.

Interview With James Jones; Interview With Senators Cornyn, Warner CNN

Aired April 3, 2011


Full Text here


CROWLEY: And isn't this in the end all about Iran? Isn't the president's Middle East policy and how he's dealing with these separate nations really with one eye on Iran most of the time?




JONES: I think -- Candy, I think you really asked a good question here. I think there are three -- three major pillars here. One is what's going on in North Africa and the Gulf and this uprising of popular opinion, and people who want a better life for themselves and want to be governed differently, in different countries.



Second, we shouldn't forget that the Middle East peace process is always at the center of this issue. There is no cause and effect relationship here, but if you really want to change the momentum where Iran is not quite as happy as it right now, because there are a lot of things that are going on with the Iranian government, you are probably reasonably happy with.



CROWLEY: Like for instance?



JONES: Chaos.



CROWLEY: Chaos helps Iran.



JONES: Trying to -- first of all, Iran is a little bit off -- it's flying under the radar right now, because you know you don't hear too much about their nuclear program, because everybody is focused elsewhere. But you can bet that Iran is affecting virtually everything and trying to play in every one of these countries where we're having some -- some difficulty. Even though under the banner of democracy and change, Iran is going to be -- is out there agitating things.



JONES: So the Middle East peace process, if there was any progress that could be made between the Palestinians and Israelis, would be a huge set back for Iran.



And to your question accounts Iran is the big shadow here, on the whole region, from Yemen to Egypt to Tunisia to Libya, and it's a factor that we should not -- we should not take our eye off of.



CROWLEY: Are we -- has the president been tough enough on Iran? Do you approve of the way he's been handling Iran?



JONES: Well, I -- as you know, I served in the administration for better part of two years.



CROWLEY: But you haven't been totally thinking that we -- you have suggested perhaps we've turned one too many cheeks in Iran.



JONES: Well, you get to that point where -- we got to the point I think in the middle part of last week, where the Iranian regime showed itself for what it is. The fact they walked away from Istanbul you know was a huge -- for me, a huge moment that said, look, this is the way these guys are. They're not serious. And we really do have to pay attention to their nuclear program. And while you leave the door open, I'm not terribly optimistic they will walk through it.



And all of the trouble going on in the region right now, has allowed them to slide under the radar. But I know for sure that the administration is not taking its eye off Iran in the long-term.



CROWLEY: Would you like to see policy a little tougher on Iran?



JONES: I think we -- I think they deserve to be treated with the firmness that their direction seems to be taking them. Yes, I think we should be very concerned. A nuclear capable Iran, nuclear weapons capable Iran is very dangerous. It would cause a -- certainly cause a nuclear arms race in the Gulf. And, third, I'm afraid that they would not hesitate to export that technology to their surrogates. And that would be very dangerous.

The Larger Game in the Middle East: Iran

NYtimes
April 2, 2011
By DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON — On a Tuesday afternoon in mid-March in the White House Situation Room, as President Obama heard the arguments of his security advisers about the pros and cons of using military force in Libya, the conversation soon veered into the impact in a far more strategically vital place: Iran.

The mullahs in Tehran, noted Thomas E. Donilon, the national security adviser, were watching Mr. Obama’s every move in the Arab world. They would interpret a failure to back up his declaration that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi had “lost the legitimacy to lead” as a sign of weakness — and perhaps as a signal that Mr. Obama was equally unwilling to back up his vow never to allow Iran to gain the ability to build a nuclear weapon.

“It shouldn’t be overstated that this was the deciding factor, or even a principal factor” in the decision to intervene in Libya, Benjamin J. Rhodes, a senior aide who joined in the meeting, said last week. But, he added, the effect on Iran was always included in the discussion. In this case, he said, “the ability to apply this kind of force in the region this quickly — even as we deal with other military deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan — combined with the nature of this broad coalition sends a very strong message to Iran about our capabilities, militarily and diplomatically.”

That afternoon in the Situation Room vividly demonstrates a rarely stated fact about the administration’s responses to the uprisings sweeping the region: The Obama team holds no illusions about Colonel Qaddafi’s long-term importance. Libya is a sideshow. Containing Iran’s power remains their central goal in the Middle East. Every decision — from Libya to Yemen to Bahrain to Syria — is being examined under the prism of how it will affect what was, until mid-January, the dominating calculus in the Obama administration’s regional strategy: how to slow Iran’s nuclear progress, and speed the arrival of opportunities for a successful uprising there.

In fact, the Iran debate makes every such chess move in the region more complicated. At the end of this era of upheaval, which the White House considers as sweeping as the changes that transformed Europe after the Berlin Wall fell, success or failure may well be judged by the question of whether Iran realizes its ambitions to become the region’s most powerful force.

Last week, the decisions being made at the White House were about how firmly to back the protesters being shot in the streets in Syria and Yemen, or being beaten in Bahrain. For each of those, White House aides were performing a mostly silent calculation about whether the Iranians would benefit, or at least feel more breathing room.

Only two and a half months ago, things seemed very different. In January, American officials were fairly confident that they had cornered Iran: new sanctions were biting, the Russians were cutting off sophisticated weaponry that Iran wanted to ward off any Israeli or American attack, and a deviously complex computer worm, called Stuxnet, was wreaking havoc with the Iranian effort to enrich uranium.

But that changed with the arrival of the Arab Spring. Suddenly the Arab authoritarians who had spent the last two years plotting with Washington to squeeze the Iranians — “Cut off the head of the snake,” King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia was famously quoted as advising in the WikiLeaks cables — became more worried about their own streets than the Iranian centrifuges spinning out nuclear fuel at Natanz. And American and European citizens became distracted, even as oil at $108 a barrel undercut many of the sanctions that the White House had hoped would convince Iranian citizens that the nuclear program was not worth its rising cost.

So when the White House sees the region through a Persian lens, what does it look like?

THE LIBYA LESSON

Mr. Obama argued, in his speech on Monday night, that Libya presented a special case — an urgent moral responsibility to protect Libyans being hunted down by the Qaddafi forces and a moment of opportunity to make a difference with what the president called “unique” American capabilities. (Translation: a multitude of technologies, like Tomahawk missiles, reconnaissance and electronic jamming.) Those are the same capabilities that would be critical in any attack on Iranian nuclear sites. The administration’s top officials knew that a demonstration of that ability would not be lost on Iran. But it is anyone’s guess how Iran would react.

“You could argue it either way,” said one official who was involved in the Libya debate and spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Maybe it would encourage them to do what they have failed to do for years: come to the negotiating table. But you could also argue that it would play to the hard-liners, who say the only real protection against America and Israel is getting a bomb, and getting it fast.”

But at least in public, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates told members of Congress not to expect that Iran’s nuclear program would accelerate much because of the attack on Libya — or that Iran’s security forces would crack down even more vigorously on the protest movements they have all but strangled. “My view is that, in terms of what they want to try and achieve in their nuclear program, they’re going about as fast as they can,” he said on Thursday. “And it’s hard for me to imagine that regime being much harder than it already is.”

THE ARAB ALLY CARD

The problem gets more complex when dealing with Arab allies who have little compunction about shooting protesters in the streets, even as they seek to undermine Iran. Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are the prime examples. The Saudis see Iran as the biggest threat to their own regional ambitions, and have cooperated in many American-led efforts to hem in Tehran. Yet relations between Washington and Riyadh have rarely been as strained: To King Abdullah, President Obama’s decision to abandon President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt was a sign of weakness, and a warning that he might throw the Saudi leadership under the bus if democracy demonstrations took root there.

Perhaps that explains why there was barely a peep from the White House when the Saudis rolled troops into neighboring Bahrain to help put down the Shiite-majority protests there. Much as Mr. Obama wants to see the aspirations of democracy protesters fulfilled, and urged steps toward reform in Bahrain, he has no desire to see the toppling of the government that hosts the Fifth Fleet, right across the Persian Gulf from Iran.

THE SYRIAN PUZZLE

For years the United States has tried in vain to peel Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, away from Iran and to reconcile with Israel. It fears that if his government collapses, chaos will reign, making Syria unpredictable as well as dangerous. It’s a reasonable fear. But in recent weeks the White House has concluded that it has much less to lose than the Iranians do if Mr. Assad is swept away. And, as some in Mr. Obama’s war council have noted, if protesters succeed in Syria, Iran could be next.

ISRAEL’S OPTIONS

All the Arab turmoil has left many Israelis convinced that America and its Arab allies are too distracted to credibly threaten that they will stop the Iranian nuclear ambitions at all costs, even though Mr. Donilon has pledged that “we will not take our eye off the ball.” Inside Israel, a debate has resumed about how long the Israelis can afford to put off dealing with the problem themselves, fed by fears that Iran’s reaction to the region’s turmoil might be a race for the bomb. That could lead to the worst outcome for Mr. Obama — a war between Iran and Israel — and that consideration alone makes the case for the administration to see little room for error in handling the main act.

U.S. Updates Iran Assessment

Arms Control Association
Peter Crail

Iran is keeping open the option of developing nuclear weapons eventually, but it is not clear that Tehran will decide to do so, U.S. intelligence officials told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Feb. 16. The briefing, which was part of an annual intelligence community overview of threats to the United States, coincided with a long-delayed formal update of a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran’s nuclear program. Intelligence officials held briefings on the revised judgments with administration officials and members of Congress in February.
Unlike the 2007 NIE, in which the intelligence community prepared a public summary of “key judgments,” an unclassified summary of the updated assessment is not expected. Many of the key conclusions from the 2007 assessment were reiterated in a Feb. 16 written statement by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to the Senate panel.
Clapper said that Iran is keeping open the option of developing nuclear weapons through the pursuit of various nuclear capabilities but that the intelligence community did not know if Iran eventually would decide to build nuclear weapons.
He also said that the advancement of Iran’s nuclear capabilities strengthened the intelligence community’s assessment that Tehran has the capacity to produce nuclear weapons eventually, “making the central issue the political will to do so.”
Moreover, Iran’s decision-making on the nuclear issue “is guided by a cost-benefit approach, which offers the international community opportunities to influence Tehran,” Clapper said.
Among Iran’s nuclear capabilities, Clapper specifically cited Iran’s advances in uranium enrichment. Uranium can be enriched to low levels commonly used in nuclear power reactors or to high levels for potential use in nuclear weapons. Clapper said that the intelligence community judges that Iran “is technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium [HEU] for a weapon in the next few years, if it chooses to do so.”
The 2007 NIE said that Iran would be technically capable of producing HEU between 2010 and 2015, although it noted that the Department of State’s intelligence bureau judged that Iran was unlikely to do so before 2013 due to technical and programmatic hurdles.
One central judgment from the 2007 NIE that Clapper’s statement did not address was the intelligence community’s assessment of Iran’s nuclear warhead development and covert uranium-conversion and -enrichment activities. In 2007 the intelligence community judged “with high confidence” that Iran suspended such efforts in the fall of 2003 and concluded “with moderate confidence” that Iran maintained that halt through mid-2007. (See ACT, January/February 2008.)
Statements from senior intelligence officials over the past year have suggested that Iran has engaged in research on nuclear weapons designs at least since the 2007 NIE. “I think they continue to work on designs in that area,” CIA Director Leon Panetta told ABC’s This Week June 27.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has sought explanations from Iran regarding the agency’s “concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or current activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile,” according to a February 2010 IAEA report. (See ACT, March 2010.) Those concerns stem from intelligence information provided to the agency over the past several years, including digital documentation reportedly smuggled out of Iran. Tehran has rejected much of that information as forgeries and has not cooperated with the IAEA probe.
The public disclosure of a previously secret uranium-enrichment plant under construction near the city of Qom in September 2009 also raised questions about Iran’s renewed pursuit of covert enrichment facilities. U.S. intelligence officials said at that time that although the facility had been under construction since 2006, it was not until early 2009 that the intelligence community was able to determine that the site was a uranium-enrichment facility. (See ACT, October 2009.)
Although the new assessment is a more formal update of the previous intelligence judgment, policymakers have likely received revised intelligence assessments of Iran’s capabilities in various forms for some time. “I expect that numerous judgments have been flowing all along over the last couple of years from the intelligence agencies to the policymakers with regard to this topic,” Paul Pillar, former CIA national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia, said at a Nov. 22 briefing hosted by the Arms Control Association.
Negotiations Hit Roadblock
The updated intelligence assessment followed an inconclusive Jan. 21-22 meeting between the “P5+1”—the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and Germany—and Iran on Iran’s nuclear program. The parties did not arrive at any substantive agreement during the two-day meet in Istanbul, nor did they agree to further talks.
In a Jan. 22 statement, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton, who represents the P5+1, expressed disappointment with the outcome. “We had hoped to embark on a discussion of practical ways forward,” she said, noting that the six countries went to Istanbul “with specific practical proposals which would build trust.”
Those proposals included an updated version of a nuclear fuel swap arrangement first put forward by the United States in 2009 and additional transparency measures to improve IAEA monitoring of Iran’s nuclear program. (See ACT, November 2009.)
P5+1 diplomats said that the updated fuel swap offer entailed removing a larger amount of low-enriched uranium (LEU) from Iran than the 1,200 kilograms initially proposed. Iran has produced about an additional 1,400 kilograms of 4 percent LEU since the original offer. The new proposal also would remove Iran’s smaller reserves of 20 percent-enriched uranium and halt any further enrichment at that level, which Iran initiated in February 2010.
Diplomats also indicated that the transparency measures proposed were consistent with those sought by the IAEA.
Ashton said that rather than discussing these proposals, Tehran established two preconditions for any progress: recognition of Iran’s claimed right to enrich uranium and the lifting of international sanctions.
With regard to enrichment, she reiterated the P5+1’s recognition of Iran’s right to civil nuclear energy, stressing that it was Iran’s responsibility to demonstrate that such a program is exclusively peaceful.
The nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, of which Iran is a member, recognizes a state’s “inalienable right” to a peaceful nuclear energy program as long as non-nuclear-weapon state members abide by their commitment not to pursue nuclear weapons. The treaty does not reference specific nuclear activities such as enrichment.
Ashton noted that the conditions for lifting international sanctions are specified in the UN resolutions and that “those do not exist today.” She indicated in particular that the removal of sanctions would accompany the re-establishment of international confidence in the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear activities.
Although the P5+1 have rejected Iran’s preconditions, they stated their willingness to continue to engage in negotiations over the proposals they forwarded.
Iran also indicated that it was open to further talks. Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili told reporters Jan. 22, “We are still prepared for further negotiations with the P5+1, based on common issues.”
Jalili’s willingness to engage in further discussions appeared to contradict claims by other key Iranian officials that the Istanbul talks might present the final opportunity for negotiations. Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s envoy to the IAEA, told reporters in France Jan. 12 that “the Istanbul meeting might be the last chance for the West to return to talks,” because Iran would install its own fuel rods in the Tehran Research Reactor rather than import them as part of the proposed fuel swap.
However, Iran is not believed to be capable of safely producing fuel plates for the reactor in the near future. Former IAEA Deputy Director-General for Safeguards Olli Heinonen said during the Nov. 22 briefing that Iran still needed one to two years to manufacture the reactor fuel safely.

Iran's Natanz nuclear facility recovered quickly from Stuxnet cyberattack

By Joby Warrick

Washington Post Foreign Service

Wednesday, February 16, 2011; 12:00 AM

VIENNA - In an underground chamber near the Iranian city of Natanz, a network of surveillance cameras offers the outside world a rare glimpse into Iran's largest nuclear facility. The cameras were installed by U.N. inspectors to keep tabs on Iran's nuclear progress, but last year they recorded something unexpected: workers hauling away crate after crate of broken equipment.
In a six-month period between late 2009 and last spring, U.N. officials watched in amazement as Iran dismantled more than 10 percent of the Natanz plant's 9,000 centrifuge machines used to enrich uranium. Then, just as remarkably, hundreds of new machines arrived at the plant to replace the ones that were lost.
The story told by the video footage is a shorthand recounting of the most significant cyberattack to date on a nuclear installation. Records of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear watchdog, show Iran struggling to cope with a major equipment failure just at the time its main uranium enrichment plant was under attack by a computer worm known as Stuxnet, according to Europe-based diplomats familiar with the records.
But the IAEA's files also show a feverish - and apparently successful - effort by Iranian scientists to contain the damage and replace broken parts, even while constrained by international sanctions banning Iran from purchasing nuclear equipment. An IAEA report due for release this month is expected to show steady or even slightly elevated production rates at the Natanz enrichment plant over the past year.
"They have been able to quickly replace broken machines," said a Western diplomat with access to confidential IAEA reports. Despite the setbacks, "the Iranians appeared to be working hard to maintain a constant, stable output" of low-enriched uranium, said the official, who like other diplomats interviewed for this article insisted on anonymity to discuss the results of the U.N. watchdog's data collection.
The IAEA's findings, combined with new analysis of the Stuxnet worm by independent experts, offer a mixed portrait of the mysterious cyberattack that briefly shut down parts of Iran's nuclear infrastructure last year. The new reports shed light on the design of the worm and how it spread through a string of Iranian companies before invading the control systems of Iran's most sensitive nuclear installations.
But they also put a spotlight on the effectiveness of the attack in curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions. A draft report by Washington-based nuclear experts concludes that the net impact was relatively minor.
"While it has delayed the Iranian centrifuge program at the Natanz plant in 2010 and contributed to slowing its expansion, it did not stop it or even delay the continued buildup of low-enriched uranium," the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) said in the draft, a copy of which was provided to The Washington Post.

The worm's effect
The ISIS report acknowledges that the worm may have undercut Iran's nuclear program in ways that cannot be easily quantified. While scientists were able to replace the broken centrifuge machines this time, Iran is thought to have finite supplies of certain kinds of high-tech metals needed to make the machines, ISIS concluded. In addition, the worm almost certainly exacted a psychological toll, as Iran's leaders discovered that their most sensitive nuclear facility had been penetrated by a computer worm whose designers possessed highly detailed knowledge of Natanz's centrifuges and how they are interconnected, said David Albright, a co-author of the report.
"If nothing else, it hit their confidence," said Albright, ISIS's president, "and it will make them feel more vulnerable in the future."
The creator of the Stuxnet computer malware remains unknown. Many computer security experts suspect that U.S. and Israeli intelligence operatives were behind the cyberattack, but government officials in the United States and Israel have acknowledged only that Iran's nuclear program appears to have suffered technical setbacks in recent months.
While Israel's government has previously said Iran was on the brink of acquiring a bomb, the country's outgoing intelligence chief estimated last month that the Islamic republic could not have a bomb before 2015. Other intelligence agencies have said Iran could obtain nuclear weapons in less than a year if it kicks out U.N. inspectors and launches a crash program. Iran denies it is seeking to build a nuclear weapon.
Stuxnet was discovered this summer by computer security companies that eventually documented its spread to tens of thousands of computers on three continents. While the worm appears to spread easily, an analysis of its coding revealed that it was harmless to most systems.
The computer security firm Symantec, which authored several detailed studies of the malware, found that Stuxnet was designed to target types of computers known as programmable logic controllers, or PLCs, used in certain kinds of industrial processes.
Moreover, the worm activates itself only when it detects the precise array of equipment that exists in Iran's uranium-enrichment plant at Natanz. The underground plant contains thousands of centrifuges, machines that spin at supersonic speeds to create low-enriched uranium, which is used to make fuel for nuclear power plants. With further processing, the machines can produce the highly enriched uranium used in nuclear bombs.
Stuxnet followed a circuitous route to Natanz, according to an analysis by Symantec. Initially it targeted computer systems at five Iranian companies with no direct ties to Iran's nuclear program. Then it spread, computer to computer, until it landed in the centrifuge plant.
Once inside the enrichment plant, Stuxnet essentially hijacked the plant's control system, causing the centrifuges to spin so rapidly that they began to break. At the same time, the malware fed false signals to the plant's computer system so the operators thought the machines were working normally, Symantec's experts found.
ISIS and Symantec analysts concluded that the Natanz facility was attacked twice by the worm, once in late 2009 and again in the spring. By autumn, when Iranian officials confirmed the attack, the damage was so severe that the plant had to be briefly shut down.
"An electronic war has been launched against Iran," said Mahmoud Liaii, director of the Information Technology Council of the Ministry of Industries and Mines.
As the attack was underway, IAEA inspectors were able to gauge its effectiveness by counting the carcasses of damaged centrifuges being hauled out of the facility. Under an agreement with the Tehran government, the watchdog agency is allowed to operate a network of surveillance cameras aimed at each of the plant's portals, to guard against possible nuclear cheating by Iran. Any equipment that passes through the doors is captured on video, and IAEA inspectors arrive later to eyeball each item.

Machines leaving plant
Iran's centrifuges are notoriously unreliable, but over a few months last year the flow of broken machines leaving the plant spiked, far beyond normal levels. Two European diplomats with access to the agency's files put the number at 900 to 1,000.
IAEA inspectors who examined the machines could not ascertain why the centrifuges had failed. Iranian officials told the agency they were replacing machines that had been idled for several months and needed refurbishing. Whatever the reason, the plant's managers worked frantically to replace each piece of equipment they removed, the two European diplomats confirmed.
"They were determined that the IAEA's reports would not show any drop in production," one of the diplomats said.
While U.S. officials declined to comment on the major equipment failure at Natanz, the speed of Iran's apparent recovery from its technical setbacks did not go unnoticed. "They have overcome some of the obstacles, in some cases through sheer application of resources," said U.S. Ambassador Glyn Davies, Washington's representative to the IAEA in Vienna. "There's clearly a very substantial political commitment."
Still far from clear is whether Iran has truly beaten the malware. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a November statement acknowledging the attack, said the worm had been quickly contained and eliminated. But independent analysts are not as sure.
Albright and other nuclear experts discounted news reports suggesting that the worm posed a serious safety threat to Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant. But the ISIS and Symantec reports noted that parts of the malware's operating code appeared to be unfinished, and Stuxnet has been updated with new instructions at least once since its release.
IAEA inspectors were unable to determine whether Iran's efforts to erase the worm from its equipment had succeeded, raising the possibility of subsequent attacks.
Albright said it was possible that the Natanz facility could become infected a second time, since so many computers in Iran - an estimated 60,000 or more - are known to have been affected. But he questioned whether the worm's limited success so far justifies the use of a tactic that will probably provoke retaliation.
"Stuxnet is now a model code for all to copy and modify to attack other industrial facilities," Albright wrote in the ISIS report. "Its discovery likely increased the risk of similar cyberattacks against the United States and its allies."

Iran Uses Force Against Protests as Region Erupts

NYtimes
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR and ALAN COWELL


Published: February 14, 2011


Hundreds of riot police officers in Iran beat protesters and fired tear gas Monday to contain the most significant street protests since the end of the 2009 uprising there, as security forces around the region moved — sometimes brutally — to prevent new unrest in sympathy with the opposition victory in Egypt.




The size of the protests in Iran was unclear. Witness accounts and news reports from inside the country suggested that perhaps 20,000 to 30,000 demonstrators in several cities defied strong warnings and took to the streets.




The unrest was an acute embarrassment for Iranian leaders, who had sought to portray the toppling of two secular rulers, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, as a triumph of popular support for Islam in the Arab world. They had refused permission to Iranian opposition groups seeking to march in solidarity with the Egyptians, and warned journalists and photographers based in the country, with success, not to report on the protests.



Iranian demonstrators portrayed the Arab insurrections as a different kind of triumph. “Mubarak, Ben Ali, now it’s time for Sayyid Ali!” Iranian protesters chanted in Persian on videos posted online that appeared to be from Tehran, referring to the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.



The Iranian authorities have shown that they will not hesitate to crush demonstrations with deadly force. Other governments across the Middle East and the Persian Gulf also moved aggressively to stamp out protests on Monday.



In Egypt, the army stuck to its promise not to attack demonstrators, but the death toll during the protests leading to Mr. Mubarak’s downfall reached about 300 people, according to the United Nations and human rights organizations. Most fatalities appeared to have occurred when pro-government thugs attacked demonstrators.



On Monday, the police in Bahrain fired rubber bullets and tear gas into crowds of peaceful protesters from the Shiite majority population. So much tear gas was fired that the officers themselves vomited. In Yemen, hundreds of student protesters clashed with pro-government forces in the fourth straight day of protests.



In the central Iranian city of Isfahan, many demonstrators were arrested after security forces clashed with them, reports said, and sporadic messages from inside Iran indicated that there had also been protests in Shiraz, Mashhad and Rasht.



Numbers were hard to assess, given government threats against journalists who tried to cover the protests. Aliakbar Mousavi Khoeini, a former member of Parliament now living in exile in the United States, said that 20,000 to 30,000 people had taken part across the country.



Ayatollah Khamenei and the Iranian establishment have tried to depict the Arab movements as a long-awaited echo of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, though Islamist parties had a low profile in both the Egyptian and Tunisian uprisings. The Iranian opposition has painted the Arab protests as an echo of its own anti-government movement in 2009, when citizens demanded basic rights like freedom of assembly and freedom of speech after the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.



Mehdi Karroubi, an opposition leader, said in an interview last week that the opposition had decided to organize a day of demonstrations to underscore the double standard of the government in lauding protesters in Arab countries while suppressing those at home. Mr. Karroubi has been put under house arrest, with outside communication links severed, opposition reports said, as has Mir Hussein Moussavi, the other main opposition leader.



The Fars news agency, a semiofficial service linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, indirectly confirmed the protests by saying an unspecified number of demonstrators had been arrested. It called participants “hypocrites, monarchists, ruffians and seditionists” and ridiculed them for not chanting slogans about Egypt, the nominal reason for the protests.



The authorities’ tactics on Monday indicated that they were resolved to stifle unrest — starting with the refusal to issue a permit for a nationwide demonstration. Reports that did emerge suggested that security forces had tried to prevent people from gathering by blocking the access routes to main squares in major cities and closing train stations in Tehran.



The crackdown came as the protests flared in Yemen and Bahrain. While those outbreaks were reported in some official Iranian state news media, which had also covered the 18-day Egyptian uprising selectively, there was no immediate mention of the clashes in Tehran and elsewhere on such state broadcasters as the English-language Press TV in Tehran.



Iran’s Islamic government gradually stamped out the 2009 protests through the shooting of demonstrators, mass trials, torture, lengthy jail sentences and even executions of those taking part.



Reports from inside Iran on Monday were harvested from a special Facebook page set up for the day called 25 Bahman, Twitter feeds, telephone calls and opposition Web sites.



They indicated that one tactic for sympathizers hoping to avoid a beating at the hands of the police was to drive to the demonstrations, with huge traffic jams reported in Tehran. Security forces on motorcycles tried to run down protesters, witnesses said.



Callers to the BBC Persian service television program called “Your Turn” said demonstrators had tried to gather in small knots until the police turned up in force, at which point they would run into traffic to seek refuge with strangers who opened their car doors.



“It has not turned into a big demonstration mostly because they never managed to arrive at the main squares,” said Pooneh Ghoddosi, the program’s host.



Cellular telephone service was shut off around the main squares and the Internet slowed to a crawl, activists said. Echoing tactics in Egypt and Tunisia, sympathizers outside Iran set up the 25 Bahman Facebook page — named for Monday’s date on the Iranian calendar — to collect videos, eyewitness accounts and any information.



Twitter feeds informed demonstrators to gather quickly at a certain intersection, then disperse rapidly. One video showed them burning a government poster as the chant against Ayatollah Khamenei rang out.



The authorities had made no secret of their resolve to stop the demonstrators. “The conspirators are nothing but corpses,” Hossein Hamadani, a top commander of the Revolutionary Guards, said last week in comments published by the official IRNA news agency. “Any incitement will be dealt with severely.”



Monday’s clashes erupted as the Turkish president, Abdullah Gul, was in Iran. Speaking at a news conference alongside President Ahmadinejad, he said, “We see that sometimes when the leaders and heads of countries do not pay attention to the nations’ demands, the people themselves take action to achieve their demands.”



A Reuters report said he did not refer directly to Iran. “In this age of communication, in an age where everybody is aware of each other, the demands and desires of the people are very realistic,” he said in a response to a question about events in the Middle East.



In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said, “We wish the opposition and the brave people in the streets across cities in Iran the same opportunity that they saw their Egyptian counterparts seize in the last week.”

Interview Hillary Rodham Clinton February 14, 2011 Aljazeera

February 14, 2011

QUESTION: Madam Secretary, first of all, thank you for talking to Al Jazeera at the State Department. As you know, the Egyptian army, the supreme council of the armed forces in Egypt, have announced certain steps following the success of the revolution, as many Egyptians call it. And yet there is still some skepticism among many Egyptians that these measures are not enough. Where do you stand on that?




SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I think that where we stand is with the Egyptian people. We want to be a good partner and friend as they make this transition. Three weeks ago, no one would have guessed that so much could have happened that would have been so responsive to the needs and aspirations that we heard coming from Tahrir Square. And now, like so many kinds of movements for change, the hard work of actually putting into place the steps that are necessary must be pursued, and it needs to be pursued as expeditiously as possible with as broad and inclusive a group of Egyptians involved. But we’re just at the beginning of the transition.



QUESTION: What would you say is the most positive step that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has announced so far?



SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I think that first of all, the role that the army played during the last weeks as a guarantor of the Egyptian state, as a institution that was well-respected by the Egyptian people, was absolutely essential. Contrast what happened in Egypt with what is going on today in Iran where, once again, the Iranian Government is lashing out, using violence against people who are expressing the same desires as we heard from Egypt.



So I have a lot of sympathy for what has already occurred in Egypt, but I have a sense of realism about what it’s going to take to move forward. So far, what the supreme council has announced is in keeping with what they announced they would be doing, and in response to the desires of the Egyptian people and their demands. But I think everyone has to recognize that this transition where you have to rewrite a constitution, you have to pass new laws, you have to help form political parties – there’s a long to-do list, and everybody needs to be sort of focused on the task at hand. And that’s going to take an enormous amount of energy from everybody involved.



QUESTION: But you would have – one would have thought that because of the last three weeks of protests in Egypt, because of the discontent over about two decades about the issue of the state of emergency, that the first thing the army would do is to respond to the demands of young people and a lot of other Egyptians that it be lifted immediately. They haven’t done that yet. How do you – what would you counsel them to do?



SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, it’s not for me to counsel them. This is an Egyptian process that must be directed and defined by the Egyptian people. One of the demands, which we have supported for a long time, is to lift the emergency decree. There has been an announcement that that will be done, and we hope that it will be.



QUESTION: How soon would you want to see that happen, though?



SECRETARY CLINTON: I’m not going to substitute my judgment sitting here in the very beautiful comfort of the State Department for what is going on in Egypt right now. I think it’s important that the United States and others who wish to see a positive outcome of this struggle by the Egyptian people to achieve their own democracy be supportive, but don’t pretend that we know more than what the people in Egypt know. And we want to see changes. We’ve been for that for many years, both publicly and privately. But now, thankfully, the future really is in the hands of Egyptians themselves.



QUESTION: Madam Secretary, I’m sure you’re aware of this. A lot of people in the Arab world, particularly in Egypt, listening to you now, especially those people who thought that the U.S. had sat on the fence before Mubarak fell, whether you agree with that description or not – they all say the U.S. Government is doing it again – when they’re asked to make a clear choice, a clear decision whether they support the army or the demonstrators, the U.S. Government is sitting on the fence again.



SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I have to obviously object to that characterization. We were consistent and clear. We were against violence. We communicated that many times over and over again to every level in the Egyptian Government, and in particular to the army. We were in favor of the universal human rights of the Egyptian people, and we have long been in support of that and pushed the government to take reforms that would realize that. And we were in favor of political change. But I think it is inappropriate for us to do more than say what we have always said. We have said repeatedly the emergency law needs to be lifted. But now, this is a process that is being worked on by Egyptians.



The Mubarak era is over. There is a new effort that is just beginning, and I think it is an – it’s important that the United States be seen as supporting the transition to democracy, and that is where we stand. We are strongly in favor of it. We want to see it as soon as it can come. But we are also conscious that at many points in history, this incredible movement for change can be hijacked by external or internal forces that do not follow through on the promises made, do not realize the aspirations of the Egyptian people. So our goal is to keep our eye on the outcome. Let us get to democracy that will, once and for all, meet the needs of the Egyptian people and give Egypt a chance to serve as a model for the entire region that needs desperately to see that.



QUESTION: Now, what would you say to assuage the concerns of many Egyptians who say that this was supposed to be a revolution to actually get rid of military rule which has ruled Egypt for 30 years, and now they see that it is the army – at least for the foreseeable future – that is managing the affairs of the country and we have concerns about that? What would you say to them that they do not necessarily have to be concerned?



SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, that they need to keep up their political involvement and the real strength of their movement to get the changes necessary. I mean, those changes have been promised now. They need to be delivered on. And there needs to be broad-based inclusive representation going forward. So, different groups within Egyptian society have to step forward to take responsibility toward working in a unified way to achieve the goals that have all been set.



It is not going to work merely to stand on the outside and say, “We don’t like this and we don’t like that.” We now have the chance for broad-based participation. People need to step forward and make their views known and be part of getting this process moving so that all these timelines and these milestones about ending the emergency law, reforming the constitution, getting the laws for political parties, preparing for the elections – there’s a big effort. As big an effort as went into bringing us to this point will be replicated in achieving the outcomes that we seek.



QUESTION: And yet to many of these people, there are just – quoted to you – the fact that Egypt continues to be run by the army for the foreseeable future, the fact that even the civilian side of the government in Egypt was actually inherited from the Mubarak regime – many of them are described as his cronies. How concerned are you about that being either the reality or the perception?



SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, again, it is the opportunity to work through what exists now. What is the alternative? There was very – there are very good ideas being floated around about what could be the next step. But it is not for the United States, it is not for any other government, it is not for the media, it is not for those outside to dictate to the Egyptian people how they intend to proceed. There are some excellent conversations going on. We know that there is an effort to try to coalesce around certain ways forward that the opposition can all support. That’s what should happen.



But let’s take a little perspective here. It’s been less than three weeks, or just barely three weeks, and revolutions in and of themselves don’t produce the outcome that is sought. It is: Okay, now that you’ve achieved the goal of changing the government, what happens next? That is where Egypt is, and that is what the Egyptian people have to lead us through.



QUESTION: My time is up. I was wondering if there is time for one more question --



SECRETARY CLINTON: (Laughter.) Sure.



QUESTION: -- just broad-based, if I may. Thank you very much, Madam Secretary.



The United States has invested in the Egyptian army, it has invested in cooperation with the Egyptian army for 30 years. Given what the situation is in Egypt and given that the role it is playing – the role the army is playing in Egyptian politics today, would you say that the U.S. investment in the Egyptian army has been a success story?



SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, history will have to judge that, but I think that the relationships that developed over all those years between the leadership of the United States military and leadership of the Egyptian military made it possible for there to be continuing communications. It was a message that was delivered from many different sources – do not use violence against your own people – that was very readily received. It’s not like the United States had to tell the Egyptian military. They wanted to defend the Egyptian people, and I think they performed in an extraordinary way.



Contrast it to Iran, where the government has turned against the people. They’re more than happy to talk about look at what’s going on in Egypt, but when their opposition, when their young people try to express themselves, they come down with brutality. They have a record of such abuse and excess. Contrast that with the Egyptian military. I would bet on the process that the Egyptian military has announced going forward as being a pathway to a different future, whereas I look with such dismay at what Iran continues to do and just feel – my heart goes out to the Iranian people.



QUESTION: And yet the Egyptian army is accused of having – or it’s the Egyptian security forces are accused of having killed more Egyptians than the Iranian army Iranians.



SECRETARY CLINTON: Oh, I don’t think there’s any basis for that. I think that – as some of the leading protesters in Egypt themselves said, any loss of life is deeply regrettable, and certainly under those circumstances. But given what has been accomplished and the great opportunity for the Egyptian people now, it is something that Egyptians themselves say, “We now have it in our hands.” The Iranian people cannot say that.



QUESTION: Madam Secretary, thank you so much.



SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you.