Israel Matzav

Hillary: We messed up

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted on Monday that the Obama administration's efforts to 'engage' Iran have been an abysmal failure.

The accumulating evidence of Iran's nuclear momentum emerges as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton conceded Monday that the White House has little to show for nearly a year of diplomatic engagement with Iran over its nuclear ambitions. "I don't think anyone can doubt that our outreach has produced very little in terms of any kind of a positive response from the Iranians," Clinton told reporters.

Very little is an understatement. The IAEA reports that Iran is now capable of producing a nuclear weapon pretty much on their own.

Iranian scientists must still rely on outsiders for certain components and materials, such as high-strength metals used in making advanced centrifuges and longer-range missiles. But the remaining technical gaps are shrinking, according to an internal memo drafted by top Iran analysts at the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog. Excerpts from the never-published draft were leaked to a nonprofit group in October.

"Iran has sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable implosion nuclear device," the memo states.

Iran may also have the capacity to make 'heavy water' by itself.

In late October, IAEA inspectors who visited Iran for a first look at the secret plant also made a surprise discovery of 600 barrels of heavy water, a toxic liquid used in making plutonium, during a routine visit to one of Iran's lesser-known nuclear facilities near the city of Isfahan.

A recent IAEA report called on Iran to "provide information on the origin" of the heavy water.

"It was a complete surprise," said a European diplomat who agreed to talk about the internal debate on the condition of anonymity. "We assumed that the Iranians had purchased it from elsewhere, but no one really knew. No one believes they could have made it at the existing plant" -- a small facility at Khonab that has been mostly idle since it opened three years ago.

In a closed-door session of the IAEA governing board on Thanksgiving, the head of one of the Northern European delegations asked the chief Iranian nuclear official, Ali Akbar Salehi, to explain how Iran had acquired such a quantity of heavy water.

"We made it," Salehi reportedly shot back, according to two diplomats in the room.

Read the whole thing. 'Engagement' has been an abysmal failure but it doesn't get all of the blame. Some of the blame goes to the ridiculous 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, which tied President Bush's hands during his last year in office. Of course, many of the people who were involved in that report are now connected to the Obama administration in advisory or other capacities.

When the history of this era is written, students will marvel at how the West stood on the sidelines and watched Iran develop nuclear weapons - and did nothing about it.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:14 PM