Things Stux for Iranian Nuclear

'Stuxnet virus set back Iran’s nuclear program by 2 years'
By YAAKOV KATZ JPost
12/15/2010 05:15

Top German computer consultant tells 'Post' virus was as effective as military strike, a huge success; expert speculates IDF creator of virus.

The Stuxnet virus, which has attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities and which Israel is suspected of creating, has set back the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program by two years, a top German computer consultant who was one of the first experts to analyze the program’s code told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

“It will take two years for Iran to get back on track,” Langer said in a telephone interview from his office in Hamburg, Germany. “This was nearly as effective as a military strike, but even better since there are no fatalities and no full-blown war. From a military perspective, this was a huge success.”

Langer spoke to the Post amid news reports that the virus was still infecting Iran’s computer systems at its main uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and its reactor at Bushehr.

Last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog, said that Iran had suspended work at its nuclear-field production facilities, likely a result of the Stuxnet virus.

According to Langer, Iran’s best move would be to throw out all of the computers that have been infected by the worm, which he said was the most “advanced and aggressive malware in history.” But, he said, even once all of the computers were thrown out, Iran would have to ensure that computers used by outside contractors were also clean of Stuxnet.

“It is extremely difficult to clean up installations from Stuxnet, and we know that Iran is no good in IT [information technology] security, and they are just beginning to learn what this all means,” he said. “Just to get their systems running again they have to get rid of the virus, and this will take time, and then they need to replace the equipment, and they have to rebuild the centrifuges at Natanz and possibly buy a new turbine for Bushehr.”

Widespread speculation has named Israel’s Military Intelligence Unit 8200, known for its advanced Signal Intelligence (SIGINT) capabilities, as the possible creator of the software, as well as the United States.

Langer said that in his opinion at least two countries – possibly Israel and the United States – were behind Stuxnet.

Israel has traditionally declined comment on its suspected involvement in the Stuxnet virus, but senior IDF officers recently confirmed that Iran had encountered significant technological difficulties with its centrifuges at the Natanz enrichment facility.

“We can say that it must have taken several years to develop, and we arrived at this conclusion through code analysis, since the code on the control systems is 15,000 lines of code, and this is a huge amount,” Langer said.

“This piece of evidence led us to conclude that this is not by a hacker,” he continued. “It had to be a country, and we can also conclude that even one nation-state would not have been able to do this on its own.”

Eric Byres, a computer security expert who runs a website called Tofino Security, which provides solutions for industrial companies with Stuxnet-related problems, told the Post on Tuesday that the number of Iranians visiting his site had jumped tremendously in recent weeks – a likely indication that the virus is still causing great disarray at Iranian nuclear facilities.

“What caught our attention was that last year we maybe had one or two people from Iran trying to access the secure areas on our site,” Byres said. “Iran was never on the map for us, and all of a sudden we are now getting massive numbers of people going to our website, and people who we can identify as being from Iran.”


Byres said that some people openly identified themselves as Iranian when asking for permission to log onto his website, while others were impersonating employees of industries with which he frequently works.

“There are a large number of people trying to access the secure areas directly from Iran and other people who are putting together fake identities,” he said. “We are talking about hundreds. It could be people who are curious about what is going on, but we are such a specialized site that it would only make sense that these are people who are involved in control systems.”

A Sober Assessment of Iranian Nuclear Intentions

Endgame for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran?

The Iranian president has promised a 'telling blow' against world leaders. But, says Con Coughlin, his recent nuclear posturing is an attempt to shore up his increasingly perilous position at home.

By Con Coughlin Telegraph
Published: 6:11AM GMT 09 Feb 2010

First came the announcement that Iran had successfully launched a space probe carrying two turtles, a hamster and a worm. Then its nuclear scientists announced that they would maintain their defiance of the West by ratcheting up the country's controversial uranium enrichment programme. Finally this was followed by yesterday's announcement from the Iranian Defence Ministry that it will shortly begin production of "advanced" unmanned drones that are capable of carrying out "assaults with high precision" against neighbouring states.

Every year since 1979, millions of Iranians have celebrated Dahe-ye Fajr, the 10 days of dawn, by proclaiming their loyalty to the Islamic revolution. The festival marks the period between the triumphant return of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the revolution's founding father, from exile in Paris on February 1, 1979 and the establishment of the Islamic republic 10 days later. The festivities range from commemorative services held at Khomeini's mausoleum in Tehran's southern suburbs to political rallies proclaiming the revolution's achievements.

But this year the government of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has used the festivities as a platform to issue a succession of headline-grabbing pronouncements. And just to make sure no one misunderstands Mr Ahmadinejad's intentions, the Iranian president has publicly warned that he will mark the 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution this Thursday by delivering a "telling blow" to the world's leading powers, a message that hardly serves to reassure Western concerns about Iran's future intentions.

Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, yesterday responded by warning that the West should punish Tehran's latest act of defiance on its nuclear programme by toughening up the international sanctions regime, while in London the Foreign Office described Tehran's decision to start enriching uranium to 20 per cent, as opposed to the current level of 3.5 per cent, as a "matter of serious concern".

Iran's current level of enrichment only produces uranium that can be used in nuclear power stations. But by enriching uranium to 20 per cent Iran will be taking a significant step towards producing the highly enriched uranium that is used to make atom bombs. In addition, Iran has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna that it intends to build another 10 uranium enrichment plants.

But before Western governments become too alarmed by Tehran's provocative stance, the regime's recent announcements need to be examined within the context of the country's deepening political turmoil, which many of Mr Ahmadinejad's political opponents confidently predict will surface again during Thursday's climax to this year's anniversary celebrations.

Ever since Mr Ahmadinejad was proclaimed the victor in last summer's hotly disputed presidential election contest, his regime has been besieged by angry protesters who claim his victory was rigged, and that his hardline conservative supporters are denying the Iranian people their proper democratic rights.

In the past the regime has been able to suppress anti-government protests through the highly effective expedient of relying on the brute force of the Revolutionary Guards, the guardians of the Islamic revolution. In both 1999 and 2003, the last time that the regime was seriously challenged by pro-democracy protesters, the demonstrations quickly subsided after the guards broke into student dormitories at Tehran University and hurled protesters to their deaths through the windows.

Similar tactics have been used to crush Iran's pro-reform Green movement, which materialised in the immediate aftermath of last June's elections after Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the former Iranian prime minister who championed the interests of the reform movement, claimed he had been denied victory by widespread ballot-rigging. Iranian human rights activists claim that up to 500 people have been killed since the elections, a number that is set to rise after the regime last month announced it had begun executing political prisoners accused of participating in last year's protests.

But despite being the victims of the most repressive measures experienced in Iran since the heady days of the 1979 revolution, the Green movement shows no sign of dying down, much to the consternation of Mr Ahmadinejad and his supporters.

Part of the explanation for this is the fact that today's opposition movement has a far broader base than its predecessors. Previous anti-government protests drew heavily on student campuses for their support, whereas today's Green movement has the backing of Iran's prosperous middle classes – the bazaaris – who are as much outraged by Mr Ahmadinejad's woeful mismanagement of the Iranian economy as they are critical of his uncompromising political agenda.

As a consequence, it is no understatement to say that Iran is currently experiencing its most turbulent spell of political instability since Khomeini's triumphant return from exile in Paris. And, just as happened in 1979, the governing regime is deeply concerned about the outcome.

Certainly the regime is rattled by the Green movement's resilience, and the mounting confidence demonstrated by the protest movement in its attacks on government targets. Last weekend, Iranian dissidents briefly managed to post footage of a Revolutionary Guards' truck that was blown up in Marand, close to the border with Azerbaijan, as it was transporting tear gas, riot batons and shock grenades for use at Thursday's anticipated anti-government demonstrations. (Iran's ever-vigilant internet police have since blocked the link.)

There are also suggestions that the regime is resorting to increasingly desperate tactics to silence its critics, including staging the assassinations of prominent figures in an attempt to incriminate the West on charges of foul play. The murder last month of Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, a prominent Iranian nuclear scientist, who was killed by a car bomb as he left his house for work, was originally seized on by the government as evidence of Western attempts to destabilise the country. Iran's foreign ministry claimed it had uncovered "signs of evil by the Zionist regime, America and their mercenaries".

But four weeks later a very different picture is starting to emerge, with opposition activists claiming that the government was responsible for the death of Dr Ali-Mohammadi, who was a prominent supporter of the reform movement and may have been about to defect to the West and reveal embarrassing details about Iran's clandestine nuclear project.

Nothing is more guaranteed to rally support for Iran's beleaguered government than the suggestion that foreign powers are trying to deny the country the right to develop nuclear technology, and by blaming the West for the scientist's murder the regime would have hoped to arouse the country's deep-rooted nationalist instincts, while at the same time disposing of a high profile opponent.

Mr Ahmadinejad is certainly not reticent about playing the nuclear card to counter opposition complaints about his government. On various occasions since he first became president in 2005 he has made threatening noises about Iran's nuclear ambitions to bring his domestic critics into line, and the regime's most recent announcements regarding uranium enrichment should be seen in this context.

The fact that Iran has neither the technical expertise nor the financial resources to expand its enrichment programme to the level outlined by its scientists at the weekend is of little concern to Mr Ahmadinejad. By making the issue the centrepiece of his agenda to celebrate the Islamic revolution's anniversary, the Iranian president is calculating that national support for the country's nuclear programme will outstrip that for the protest movement.
All of which makes Iran's recent nuclear posturing something of a challenge for Western policymakers. If Iran is serious about raising its uranium enrichment capability to a higher level, that will be further evidence that it has no intention of negotiating a peaceful resolution of its nuclear programme with the West. But if the West overplays its hand by implementing crippling sanctions against Iran in response, then it might rally support in the country behind Mr Ahmadinejad's regime, thereby denying the pro-reform movement the opportunity to challenge the legitimacy of the hardline conservatives.

For the moment, the best policy the West could adopt would be to refrain from any decisive course of action until the outcome of the current political turmoil becomes clearer. For all Mr Ahmadinejad's bluster, Iran today is facing the most critical moment since the 1979 revolution, and it will be the Iranian people, not the West, who will ultimately decide the country's fate.

'Khomeini's Ghost' by Con Coughlin is available from Telegraph Books for £8.99 plus 99p postage and packing. The first 100 copies ordered will be signed by the author. Please call 0844 871 1514 or go to books.telegraph.co.uk

Iran 'planning 10 new uranium enrichment sites'

Iran 'planning 10 new uranium enrichment sites'

BBC

Iran's government has approved plans to build 10 new uranium enrichment plants, according to state TV.
The government told the Iranian nuclear agency to begin work on five sites, with five more to be located over the next two months, the report said.

It comes days after the UN nuclear watchdog rebuked Iran for covering up a uranium enrichment plant.
Western powers say Iran is trying to develop nuclear arms. Iran says its nuclear programme is peaceful.
On Friday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) passed a resolution that was heavily critical of Iran for covering up a uranium enrichment plant near the town of Qom.

Earlier on Sunday it was reported that the Iranian parliament had urged President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government to reduce co-operation with the IAEA.

"As long as Iran has friends like Russia and China, Iran can afford to be dismissive."

An interesting synopsis of why the US policy towards Iran is failing. I have bulleted the points made by the author. The entire article follows the outline:

China and Iran

• Washington has done little to pull the world economy out of the doldrums. That task -- performed by the U.S. in recent recessions -- has fallen willy-nilly to China. History repeatedly shows that such economic clout sooner or later translates into diplomatic power.
• Chinese oil companies have committed an estimated $120 billion dollars -- so far -- to Iran's energy industry.
• Iran, with the second largest oil as well as gas reserves in the world, looms large in the strategic plans of Beijing.
• Chinese oil corporations have already started shipping gasoline to Iran to fill the gap caused by a stoppage of supplies from British and Indian companies anticipating Washington's possible move.
• Iran's national oil corporation has also invited its Chinese counterparts to participate in a $42.8 billion project to construct seven oil refineries and a 1,000 mile trans-Iran pipeline that will facilitate pumping petroleum to China. The Chinese want to import Iran's petroleum and natural gas through pipelines across Central Asia, thus circumventing sea routes vulnerable to U.S. naval interdiction.

Russia and Iran

• Russia is far more concerned with the actual threat posed by some of Pakistan's estimated 75 nuclear weapons falling into militant Islamist hands than with the theoretical one from Tehran.
• A sub-structure of pipelines and economic alliances between hydrocarbon-rich Russia, Iran, and energy-hungry China is now being forged.
• Russia is making serious money from its dealings with Iran.

The US and Iran

• Iranians watched the Bush administration invade neighboring Iraq and overthrow its president, Saddam Hussein, on trumped-up charges involving his supposed program to produce weapons of mass destruction.
• Bush authorized a clandestine CIA program with a budget of $400 million to destabilize the Iranian regime.
• Insecure regimes seek security in nuclear arms. History shows that joining the nuclear club has, in fact, proven an effective strategy for survival. Israel and North Korea provide striking examples of this.
• Israel has acquired an arsenal of 80 to 200 nuclear weapons.
• Once North Korea tested its first atomic bomb in October 2006, the Bush administration softened its stance towards it.
• North Korea got its name removed from the Bush State Department's list of nations that support international terrorism.
• Under eight years of George Bush the United States effectively went broke while Chinese and Russian wealth and influence exploded.

_____________________

October 29, 2009

Why Obama’s Iran Policy Will Fail

Dilip Hiro: The Administration Remains Stuck in Bush Mode in a Changed World

CBS

While the tone of the Obama administration is different from that of its predecessor, and some of its foreign policies diverge from those of George W. Bush, at their core both administrations subscribe to the same doctrine: Whatever the White House perceives as a threat -- whether it be Iran, North Korea, or the proliferation of long-range missiles -- must be viewed as such by Moscow and Beijing.

In addition, by the evidence available, Barack Obama has not drawn the right conclusion from his predecessor's failed Iran policy. A paradigm of sticks-and-carrots simply is not going to work in the case of the Islamic Republic. Here, a lesson is readily available, if only the Obama White House were willing to consider Iran's recent history. It is unrealistic to expect that a regime which fought Saddam Hussein's Iraq (then backed by the United States) to a standstill in a bloody eight-year war in the 1980s, unaided by any foreign power, and has for 30 years withstood the consequences of U.S.-imposed economic sanctions will be alarmed by Washington's fresh threats of "crippling sanctions."

Most important, the Obama administration is ignoring the altered international order that has emerged in the wake of the global financial crisis triggered by Wall Street's excesses. While its stimulus package, funded by taxpayers and foreign borrowing, has arrested the decline in the nation's gross domestic product, Washington has done little to pull the world economy out of the doldrums. That task -- performed by the U.S. in recent recessions -- has fallen willy-nilly to China. History repeatedly shows that such economic clout sooner or later translates into diplomatic power.

Backed by more than $2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, the state-owned Chinese oil corporations have been locking up hydrocarbon resources as far away as Brazil. Not surprisingly, Iran, with the second largest oil as well as gas reserves in the world, looms large in the strategic plans of Beijing. The Chinese want to import Iran's petroleum and natural gas through pipelines across Central Asia, thus circumventing sea routes vulnerable to U.S. naval interdiction. As this is an integral part of China's energy security policy, little wonder that Chinese oil companies have committed an estimated $120 billion dollars -- so far -- to Iran's energy industry.

During a recent meeting with Iran's first vice president, Muhammad Reza Rahimi, in Beijing, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao stressed the importance of cooperation between the two countries when it comes to hydrocarbons and trade (at $29 billion a year, and rising), as well as "greater coordination in international affairs." Little wonder, then, that China has already moved to neutralize any sanctions that the United States -- backed by Britain, France and Germany -- might impose on Iran without United Nations authorization.
Foremost among these would be a ban on the export of gasoline to Iran, whose oil refining capacity falls significantly short of domestic demand. Chinese oil corporations have already started shipping gasoline to Iran to fill the gap caused by a stoppage of supplies from British and Indian companies anticipating Washington's possible move. Between June and August 2009, China signed $8 billion worth of contracts with Iran to help expand two existing Iranian oil refineries to produce more gasoline domestically and to help develop the gigantic South Pars natural gas field. Iran's national oil corporation has also invited its Chinese counterparts to participate in a $42.8 billion project to construct seven oil refineries and a 1,000 mile trans-Iran pipeline that will facilitate pumping petroleum to China.

Tehran and Moscow

When it comes to Russia, Tehran and Moscow have a long history of close relations, going back to Tsarist times. During that period and the subsequent Soviet era, the two states shared the inland Caspian Sea. Now, as two of the five littoral states of the Caspian, Iran and Russia still share a common fluvial border.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, relations between the Islamic Republic and Russia warmed. Defying pressures from both the Clinton and Bush administrations, Russia's state-owned nuclear power company continued building a civilian nuclear power plant near the Iranian port city of Bushehr. It is scheduled to begin generating electricity next year.

As for nuclear threats, the Kremlin's perspective varies from Washington's. It is far more concerned with the actual threat posed by some of Pakistan's estimated 75 nuclear weapons falling into militant Islamist hands than with the theoretical one from Tehran. Significantly, it was during his recent trip to Beijing to conclude ambitious hydrocarbon agreements with China that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said, "If we speak about some kind of sanctions [on Iran] now, before we take concrete steps, we will fail to create favorable conditions for negotiations. That is why we consider such talk premature."

The negotiations that Putin mentioned are now ongoing between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (the U.S., Britain, China, France, and Russia) as well as Germany. According to Western sources, the agenda of the talks is initially to center on a "freeze for freeze"agreement. Iran would suspend its nuclear enrichment program in exchange for the U.N. Security Council not strengthening its present nominal economic sanctions. If these reports are accurate, then the chances of a major breakthrough may be slim indeed.

At the heart of this issue lies Iran's potential ability to enrich uranium to a level usable as fuel for a nuclear weapon. This, in turn, is linked to the way Iran's leaders view national security. As a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran is, in fact, entitled to enrich uranium. The key point is the degree of enrichment: 5% enriched uranium for use as fuel in an electricity generating plant (called low enriched uranium, LEU); 20% enriched for use as feedstock for producing medical isotopes (categorized as medium enriched uranium, MEU); and 90%-plus for bomb-grade fuel (known as high enriched uranium, HEU).

So far, what Iran has produced at its Natanz nuclear plant is LEU. At the Iran-Six Powers meeting in Geneva on October 1st, Iran agreed in principle to send three-quarters of its present stock of 1,600 kilograms (3,500 pounds) of LEU to Russia to be enriched into MEU and shipped back to its existing Tehran Research Reactor to produce medical isotopes. If this agreement is fleshed out and finalized by all the parties under the aegis of the International Atomic Energy Agency, then the proportion of Iran's LEU with a potential of being turned into HEU would diminish dramatically.

When it comes to the nuclear conundrum, what distinguishes China and Russia from the U.S. is that they have conferred unconditional diplomatic recognition and acceptance on the Islamic Republic of Iran. So their is far more concerned with the actual threat posed by some of Pakistan's estimated 75 nuclear weapons falling into militant Islamist hands than with the theoretical one from Tehran.. Indeed, a sub-structure of pipelines and economic alliances between hydrocarbon-rich Russia, Iran, and energy-hungry China is now being forged. In other words, the foundation is being laid for the emergence of a Russia-Iran-China diplomatic triad in the not-too-distant future, while Washington remains stuck in an old groove of imposing "punishing"sanctions against Tehran for its nuclear program.

Tehran and Washington

There is, of course, a deep and painful legacy of animosity and ill-feeling between the 30-year-old Islamic Republic of Iran and the U.S. Iran was an early victim of Washington's subversive activities when the six-year-old CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Muhammad Mussadiq in 1953. That scar on Iran's body politic has not healed yet. Half a century later, the Iranians watched the Bush administration invade neighboring Iraq and overthrow its president, Saddam Hussein, on trumped-up charges involving his supposed program to produce weapons of mass destruction.

Iran's leaders know that during his second term in office -- as Seymour Hersh revealed in the New Yorker -- Bush authorized a clandestine CIA program with a budget of $400 million to destabilize the Iranian regime. They are also aware that the CIA has focused on stoking disaffection among Sunni ethnic minorities in Shiite-ruled Iran. These include ethnic Arabs in the oil-rich province of Khuzistan adjoining Iraq, and ethnic Baluchis in Sistan-Baluchistan Province abutting the Pakistani province of Baluchistan.

Little wonder that Tehran pointed an accusing finger at the U.S. for the recent assassination of six commanders of its Revolutionary Guard Corps in Sistan-Baluchistan by two suicide bombers belonging to Jundallah (the Army of Allah), an extremist Sunni organization. As yet, there is no sign, overt or covert, that President Obama has canceled or repudiated his predecessor's program to destabilize the Iranian regime.

Insecure regimes seek security in nuclear arms. History shows that joining the nuclear club has, in fact, proven an effective strategy for survival. Israel and North Korea provide striking examples of this.

Unsure of Western military assistance in a conventional war with Arab nations, and of its ability to maintain its traditional armed superiority over its Arab adversaries, Israel's leaders embarked on a nuclear weapons program in the mid-1950s. They succeeded in their project a decade later. Since then Israel has acquired an arsenal of 80 to 200 nuclear weapons.

In the North Korean case, once the country had tested its first atomic bomb in October 2006, the Bush administration softened its stance towards it. In the bargaining that followed, North Korea got its name removed from the State Department's list of nations that support international terrorism. In the on-again-off-again bilateral negotiations that followed, the Pyongyang regime as an official nuclear state has been seeking a guarantee against attack or subversion by the United States.

Without saying so publicly, Iran's leaders want a similar guarantee from the U.S. Conversely, unless Washington ends its clandestine program to destabilize the Iranian state, and caps it with an offer of diplomatic acceptance and normal relations, there is no prospect of Tehran abandoning its right to enrich uranium. On the other hand, the continuation of a policy of destabilization, coupled with ongoing threats of "crippling"sanctions and military strikes (whether by the Pentagon or Israel), can only drive the Iranians toward a nuclear breakout capability.

During George W. Bush's eight-year presidency, the U.S. position in the world underwent a sea change. From the Clinton administration, Bush had inherited a legacy of 92 months of continuous economic prosperity, a budget in surplus, and the transformation of the U.N. Security Council into a handmaiden of the State Department. What he passed on to Barack Obama was the Great Recession in a world where America's popularity had hit rock bottom and its economic strength was visibly ebbing. All this paved the way for the economic and political rise of China, as well as the strengthening of Russia as an energy giant capable of extending its influence in Europe and challenging American dominance in the Middle East.

In this new environment expecting the leaders of Iran, backed by China and Russia, to do the bidding of Washington means placing a bet on the inconceivable.

A nuclear Iran only has to prove its program is peaceful to satisfy Russia.

Iran tells Obama, 'no thanks.' Russia says stealth technology is dead. Obama shucks and jives.

The Obama administration is getting ready to kill the proposed US missile-defense system scheduled for Poland and Czech Republic. Obama thinks this will please the Petit Prince Putin.

Got it.

Russia support for Iran is the problem with Iran, yet this naive, least American President, cannot see what is happening to US security.

So baby, what's the score? Iran: 1, Russia:1, Obama -2. And the US? Big problems ahead.

________________________________


Iran snubs Barack Obama's nuclear talks

Iran has dealt a blow to one of President Barack Obama's most ambitious diplomatic initiatives by dismissing demands to put its nuclear programme at the heart of direct talks with the United States.

By Adrian Blomfield in Jerusalem
Published: 7:02PM BST 13 Sep 2009 telegraph

Less than 48 hours after Washington and its allies reluctantly accepted an offer of face-to-face negotiations from Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, insisted that the topic of greatest interest to the West would not be on the table.

"From the Iranian nation's viewpoint, the nuclear case is closed," he told Britain's ambassador to Tehran, Simon Gass. "Having peaceful nuclear technology is Iran's lawful and definite right and Iranians will not negotiate with anyone over their undeniable rights."

In a rambling five-page document presented to western diplomats last week, Iran proposed negotiations on a wide array of economic and regional security issues but made no mention of its nuclear activities.

After responding with initial coolness, the United States defied expectations by taking up the offer to negotiate directly for the first time since Mr Obama came to power. The US president had promised during his election campaign to hold unconditional talks with Iran.

The decision initially appeared as though it could be vindicated after Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, said he would not rule out discussing the nuclear issue, "should the conditions be right".

Despite opposition from American conservatives, the prospect of the first substantive negotiations between Washington and Tehran since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 suddenly seemed a realistic possibility.

But in his meeting with Mr Gass, who was presenting his credentials as Britain's ambassador, Mr Ahmadinejad scotched the hopes his foreign minister had raised.

He also indicated that the prospect of negotiations had made him no less combative by breaking with protocol to upbraid Britain.

"The Iranian people will never allow anybody to interfere in the country's internal affairs, and I hope the British government will repair its past mistakes," he told Mr Gass.

Iran will also come under the spotlight of human rights activists, some of whom have criticized Mr Obama for seeking direct talks with the regime, when a show trial for over 100 people accused of taking part in opposition protests after June's disputed election begins a new session.

Despite the intransigence it has encountered, the United States argues that it has no choice but to engage with Tehran.
Last month, international weapons inspectors concluded that Iran now had the capacity to produce one nuclear weapon if it were to further purify its existing stockpile of lowly enriched uranium, making the need for negotiations even more pressing.
Iran insists that its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful in intent and maintains that it has as the right to develop the technology to generate electricity.

Obama to pay off N. Korea and bestow legitimacy to Iran.

The Obama Administration has decided to fulfill a campaign promise and will enter into direct talks with Iran and North Korea. On a regional basis North Korea should be a greater concern to China, South Korea and Japan than the United States but as a source of supply for nuclear contraband, North Korea is an American problem.

The talks will boil down to terms of the payoff. We will try and convince them to start using hundred dollar bills printed in the USA instead of them printing their own.

Think of it as a stimulus bill. Certainly The NORKS are at least as deserving as ACORN. The payoff will work for awhile.

________

I have no idea why we are talking to Iran. Iran is being protected from further meaningful sanctions by Venezuela, China, Russia and some NATO members. Iran's nuclear program is nothing more than a mullah protection program. There is nothing positive to offer them that they will accept.

For old time's sake we may as well appoint Jimmy Carter as special envoy.

The only reason for Iran to talk is to buy more time to develop their nuclear program and get Washington to try and restrain Israel.

If the US is serious about the threat of nuclear proliferation and wants to actually do something about it , it needs to continue developing and deploying missile defense systems.

Doing so will have the added benefit of giving some pause to the duopoly of nuclear enablers, China and Russia. Talking with the present regime in Iran is pointless and naive.

_______________


September 12, 2009
U.S. to Accept Iran’s Proposal to Hold Face-to-Face Talks

By MARK LANDLER and DAVID E. SANGER

NY Times

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Friday that the United States would accept Iran’s offer to meet, fulfilling President Obama’s pledge to hold unconditional talks despite the Iranian government’s insistence that it would not negotiate over the future of its nuclear program.

The decision to engage directly with Iran would put a senior representative of the Obama administration at the bargaining table, along with emissaries from five other nations, for the first time since Mr. Obama took office.

The decision is bound to raise protests from conservatives who contend that unconditional talks are naïve, and from human rights groups that say the United States should not legitimize an Iranian government that appears to have manipulated its presidential election in June and crushed protests after the vote.

In advance of Friday’s announcement, senior administration officials said that their offer to negotiate directly with the Iranians, for what could turn into the first substantive talks since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, was, as a senior official had earlier put it, a “bona fide offer.”

But at the same time, officials said their expectations were extremely low. They also said their willingness to proceed was based in part on a recognition that some form of talks had to take place before the United States could make a case for imposing far stronger sanctions on Iran.

“We’ll be looking to see if they are willing to engage seriously on these issues,” said a State Department spokesman, Philip J. Crowley. “If we have talks, we will plan to bring up the nuclear issue.”

The talks would also include Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany, which in the past have negotiated with Iran without the presence of an American representative, except for one meeting at the end of the administration of President George W. Bush.

During his first term, talks with unfriendly countries like North Korea and Iran were usually rejected out of hand in the hope of speeding their collapse. That loosened in Mr. Bush’s second term, but even then agreements to talk were usually under highly restricted conditions.

The result was a stalemate — one that Mr. Obama argued during last year’s presidential campaign was a huge mistake, in part because Iran was producing nuclear material while the standoff dragged on.

The United Nations Security Council has issued several rounds of sanctions against Iran for failing to comply with resolutions demanding it stop enriching uranium. It has called on Tehran to answer questions from international arms inspectors about documents that suggest that the country worked in the past on a nuclear weapons design.

Iran’s government insists that its efforts are aimed at the peaceful generation of electricity, and has charged that the documents were Western forgeries.

Iran made its offer to meet in a five-page letter delivered to several nations on Wednesday. Titled “Cooperation, Peace and Justice,” it touched on political, social and economic themes, called for reform of the United Nations and a Middle East peace settlement, and for universal nuclear disarmament.

But the letter said nothing about Iran’s nuclear program, and as recently as this week President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed never to halt the fuel production, saying Iran would not relinquish its fundamental rights.

Administration officials were dismissive of the letter, saying that it rehashed past statements and offers. But they said they would consider the offer to meet, and they spent less than 48 hours studying its contents before deciding to tell Iran that the United States would join its negotiating partners in talks.

It is unclear where the discussions will take place, but the most likely American representative is William J. Burns, the under secretary of state for political affairs, who is leading the diplomatic effort.

The first announcement of the decision was made Friday in Brussels by Javier Solana, the foreign policy chief of the European Union, who acts as an intermediary for the six countries.

Hours earlier, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, Susan E. Rice, appeared to take a softer line on Iran, saying the administration would not impose “artificial deadlines” on Iran.

It was difficult to judge Mr. Obama’s outreach to Iran because, she said, “the elections and their aftermath have added a layer of complexity to assessing the overtures and offers of diplomatic engagement.”

Some administration officials argued that Mr. Obama’s overtures, which included a videotaped New Year’s greeting and at least one letter to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, had thrown the Iranian leadership off balance. They thought that for the first time in recent history, the United States had Iran on the defensive, rather than the other way around.

Russia and China have expressed deep reservations about imposing additional sanctions on Iran. On Thursday, the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, expressed opposition to additional sanctions.

On Friday, Mr. Crowley also said the United States would be willing to hold direct talks with North Korea over its nuclear program, within the context of existing six-party negotiations.

“We are prepared to meet with North Korea,” he said. “When it’ll happen, where it’ll happen, we’ll have to wait and see.”

Mossad says Saudi Arabia will ignore Israeli overflights to Iranian nuclear facilities

Sirens sound across Israel in 'doomsday' drill June 03, 2009

On ABC Biden said, "If the Netanyahu government decides to take a course of action different than the one being pursued now, that is their sovereign right to do that. That is not our choice."

Asked by Stephanopoulos whether the US would stand in the way of an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities by denying "over-flight rights in Iraq," Biden said " I'm not going to speculate, George, on those issues, other than to say Israel has a right to determine what's in its interests, and we have a right and we will determine what's in our interests."

CIA Director Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen had reportedly visited Israel in recent months and expressed their strong opposition to a military strike on Iran.

What is going on?

____________________________

July 5, 2009
Saudis give nod to Israeli raid on Iran
Uzi Mahnaimi in Tel Aviv and Sarah Baxter Times on Line

The head of Mossad, Israel’s overseas intelligence service, has assured Benjamin Netanyahu, its prime minister, that Saudi Arabia would turn a blind eye to Israeli jets flying over the kingdom during any future raid on Iran’s nuclear sites.

Earlier this year Meir Dagan, Mossad’s director since 2002, held secret talks with Saudi officials to discuss the possibility.

The Israeli press has already carried unconfirmed reports that high-ranking officials, including Ehud Olmert, the former prime minister, held meetings with Saudi colleagues. The reports were denied by Saudi officials.

“The Saudis have tacitly agreed to the Israeli air force flying through their airspace on a mission which is supposed to be in the common interests of both Israel and Saudi Arabia,” a diplomatic source said last week.

Although the countries have no formal diplomatic relations, an Israeli defence source confirmed that Mossad maintained “working relations” with the Saudis.

John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations who recently visited the Gulf, said it was “entirely logical” for the Israelis to use Saudi airspace.

Bolton, who has talked to several Arab leaders, added: “None of them would say anything about it publicly but they would certainly acquiesce in an overflight if the Israelis didn’t trumpet it as a big success.”

Arab states would condemn a raid when they spoke at the UN but would be privately relieved to see the threat of an Iranian bomb removed, he said.

Referring to the Israeli attack on an alleged Syrian nuclear facility in 2007, Bolton added: “To this day, the Israelis haven’t admitted the specifics but there’s one less nuclear facility in Syria . . .”

Recent developments have underscored concerns among moderate Sunni Arab states about the stability of the repressive Shi’ite regime in Tehran and have increased fears that it may emerge as a belligerent nuclear power.

“The Saudis are very concerned about an Iranian nuclear bomb, even more than the Israelis,” said a former head of research in Israeli intelligence.

The Israeli air force has been training for a possible attack on Iran’s nuclear site at Natanz in the centre of the country and other locations for four years.

A Political Coup in Washington.

This is really a stunning development. I cannot recall anything of such magnitude.

Here is the entire report It is not a long read. Go to the last page and read the conclusions between the estimates. According to this report, one can only conclude that there is no immediate urgent need for the US or anyone else to attack Iranian nuclear facilities. Obviously that could change at a later date. So what has been going on in Washington?


US spies give shock verdict on Iran threat


Intelligence agencies say Tehran halted weapons programme in 2003

Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Tuesday December 4, 2007
The Guardian

US intelligence agencies undercut the White House yesterday by disclosing for the first time that Iran has not been pursuing a nuclear weapons development programme for the past four years. The secret report, which was declassified yesterday and published, marked a significant shift from previous estimates. "Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons programme suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005," it said.
Article continues

The disclosure makes it harder for President George Bush, to justify a military strike against Iran before he leaves office next year. It also makes it more difficult to persuade Russia and China to join the US, Britain and France in imposing a new round of sanctions on Tehran.

Bush and vice-president Dick Cheney have been claiming without equivocation that Tehran is bent on achieving a nuclear weapon, with the president warning in October of the risk of a third world war. They were briefed on the national intelligence estimate (NIE) on Wednesday.

The White House national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, at a press conference yesterday, denied there were echoes of the intelligence failure over Iraq's phantom weapons of mass destruction. He said that Iran was "one of a handful of the hardest intelligence targets going" and the new intelligence had only arrived in the past few months. As soon as it did, both the president and Congress had been briefed. He warned that there would be a tendency now to think "the problem is less bad than we thought, let's relax. Our view is that would be a mistake."

The NIE, which pulls together the work of the 16 American intelligence agencies, is entitled Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities. It concluded: "We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003 Tehran halted its nuclear weapons programme." It had not been restarted as of the middle of this year.

In a startling admission from an administration that regularly portrays Iran as the biggest threat to the Middle East and the world, the NIE said: "We do not know whether [Iran] currently intends to develop nuclear weapons." That contradicts the assessment two years ago that baldly stated that Tehran was "determined to develop nuclear weapons".

The British government, which is planning to discuss the report with its US counterparts during the next few days, has also repeatedly said it suspects President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government of seeking a nuclear weapons capability. It will claim that the weapons halt shows that diplomacy - in particular the threat of sanctions - can work.

The weapons halt roughly coincided with a visit by British, French and German foreign ministers to Tehran in October 2003.

The Iranian government has insisted throughout that it is only pursuing a civilian nuclear programme.

Although a halt to the nuclear weapons programme is significant, the NIE is far from a clean bill of health for Iran. Tehran is pushing ahead with its uranium enrichment programme, which has only limited civilian use and could be quickly converted to nuclear military use. The NIE warned that Iran could secure a nuclear weapon by 2010. The US state department's intelligence and research office, one of the agencies involved, said the more likely timescale would be 2013. All the agencies concede that Iran may not have enough enriched uranium until after 2015.

The White House will continue to try to intensify international pressure on Iran. Russia and China, two of the permanent members of the UN security council, have scuppered attempts by the US over the past six months to impose tough new sanctions on Iran.

The decision to publish the NIE is aimed at trying to recover the public credibility lost when the agencies wrongly claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in the years leading up to 2003.