Could Obama do better on Iran?
Lee Smith argues that the Obama administration could
negotiate a better nuclear deal with Iran... if Obama wanted to.
An argument commonly made by critics of the White House is
that Iranian negotiators have run circles around the Americans. It is
easy to think so, but the reality is that Iran, despite its worthy
history as a great civilization, to say nothing of its chess masters and
master carpet weavers, has not cornered the market on cunning. For
every wheeler-dealer at the Iranian bazaar, America produces a dozen
corporate lawyers. The Obama administration isn’t getting outhustled. If
it wanted to negotiate a tougher deal, it surely could. It just doesn’t
want to.
The Iranians understand that they’re pushing against an
open door—across a threshold that happens to lead to the rest of the
Middle East, where Tehran’s men are busy empire-building. Tehran, as the
clerical regime likes to boast, now controls four Arab
capitals—Baghdad, Beirut, Sanaa, and Damascus. Iran’s holdings in Syria
may at present be the most threatening. Last week came reports that Iran
was building missile sites in Syria.
...
The issue isn’t just the nuclear deal. Sure, you can’t
have a meaningful agreement to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program if
it’s moving material to another country. But you also can’t have a
meaningful agreement if the administration doesn’t push for one. As
we’ve seen repeatedly over the last year, the White House refuses to
call the Iranians to account. That means we have a big problem. If Iran
is determined to have the bomb, and this administration is very clearly
less determined to stop them from acquiring and dispersing the equipment
and material it takes to build a bomb, then Iran’s growing Middle East
empire will be a nuclear one.
Maybe there are enough votes in the new Republican Senate
to pass more meaningful sanctions legislation. They had better act fast,
because the fact is we’re soon going to reach the point when sanctions
will be largely irrelevant. Sanctions will be an empty threat against an
Iranian empire under a nuclear umbrella.
I don't believe the Obama administration is constitutionally capable of negotiating hard against a Muslim government. It's not in their kishkes.
Shabbat Shalom everyone!
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, P 5+1, Syrian nuclear program
State Dept: Iranian construction of light water nuclear reactors allowed
The State Department says that
Iranian construction of light water nuclear reactors is allowed under both the UN resolutions and the JPOA (the interim agreement). This is from Adam Kredo.
“We are aware of the announcement and are reviewing the details,”
said the official, who was not authorized to speak on record. However,
“in general, the construction of light water nuclear reactors is not
prohibited by U.N. Security Council resolutions, nor does it violate the
JPOA,” the official said.
The United States remains committed to ensuring the “peaceful” nature
of Iran’s nuclear program, which continues to progress in part as talks
continue through July 1.
“We have been clear in saying that the purpose of the negotiations
with Iran is to ensure that Iran’s nuclear program remains exclusively
for civilian, peaceful purposes,” the official said. “The talks that we
have been engaged in for months involve a specific set of issues
relative to closing off all possible pathways to Iran acquiring a
nuclear bomb. That remains our focus.”
In an email, the Israel Project points out that the JPOA is a total failure:
Diplomatically, new infrastructure gives the Iranians more leverage in negotiations. The more they have, the more they have to bargain with. The JPOA was supposed to freeze the Iranian program to prevent them from improving their position as talks proceeded. It failed. Instead the Iranians spent the last year building up their nuclear program - and their leverage - across all areas:
* Uranium - The JPOA allows unlimited enrichment from 0% to 3.5%, which is about 60% of the effort needed to get to weapons grade levels. Every day they've got 9,000 centrifuges spilling and building up their stockpile. The only caveat is they have to convert the newly enriched gas into oxide, a process that would take them a couple of weeks to reverse.
* Plutonium - The JPOA allows unlimited work on Iran's Arak plutonium factory as long as the Iranians don't touch the reactor at the site, and unlimited work on reactor parts off-site.
* Ballistic missiles - The JPOA allows unlimited work on ballistic missiles.
And now...
* Physical infrastructure - The JPOA allows allowed unlimited construction of full-blown nuclear reactors.
Kredo points out that Iran has now admitted that it is working on ballistic missiles.
Iran also has admitted to building advanced missile sites in Syria—where
it is fighting on behalf of embattled Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad—and has been accused in recent days of also building a
clandestine nuclear facility there.
That story would be
here.
Kredo goes on to add that Rohani is just embarrassing the Obama administration.
“Rouhani went out of his way to humiliate the Obama administration,”
said one senior foreign policy hand who works on the issue. “He picked
the day when negotiations were starting again and his declaration is the
literal definition of building new nuclear technology.”
“And instead of fighting back, the White House is again rolling over
and letting themselves be slapped around,” the source said. “They’ll do
anything—anything—to get a deal with Iran.”
What could go wrong?
Labels: Arak heavy water production plant, Barack Hussein Obama, Bushehr, Iranian nuclear threat, P 5+1, plutonium, Syrian nuclear program
Iran building nuke plant in Syria; State Dept: What difference does it make?
Sunday's Der Spiegel had a massive expose on the continuing efforts of Bashar al-Assad to build a nuclear weapons plant, which included evidence that
Iran is constructing such a plant for Syria in Qusayr, less than two kilometers from Syria's border with Lebanon. The issue came up in the State Department's Monday daily briefing. Disturbingly, spokeswoman Marie Harf said that the United States did not plan to raise the issue in the Iranian nuclear talks, claiming that those talks only deal with Iran's nuclear capabilities and not with Syria's.
According to findings of Western intelligence agencies, however, the
situation is much more explosive than previously assumed. Based on
documents that SPIEGEL has in its possession, the agencies are convinced
that Assad is continuing in his efforts to build the bomb.
Analysts say that the Syrian atomic weapon program has continued in a
secret, underground location. According to information they have
obtained, approximately 8,000 fuel rods are stored there. Furthermore, a
new reactor or an enrichment facility has very likely been built at the
site -- a development of incalculable geopolitical consequences.
Some of the uranium was apparently hidden for an extended period at
Marj as-Sultan near Damascus, a site that the IAEA likewise views with
suspicion. Satellite images from December 2012 and February 2013 show
suspicious activity at Marj as-Sultan. The facility, located not far
from a Syrian army base, had become the focal point of heavy fighting
with rebels. Government troops had to quickly move everything of value.
They did so, as intelligence officials have been able to reconstruct,
with the help of Hezbollah, the radical Shiite "Party of God" based in
Lebanon. The well-armed militia, which is largely financed by Iran, is
fighting alongside Assad's troops.
...
Intelligence agency findings indicate that the material was moved to a
well-hidden underground location just west of the city of Qusayr, not
even two kilometers from the border with Lebanon. They managed the move
just in time. Marj as-Sultan ultimately did fall to the rebels, but has
since been retaken by government troops.
Since then, experts have been keeping a close eye on the site outside
of Qusayr, one which they had largely ignored before, believing it to
be a conventional Hezbollah weapons depot. Analysts compared earlier
satellite images and carefully noted even the slightest of changes.
Soon, it became clear to them that they had happened upon an extremely
disconcerting discovery.
According to intelligence agency analysis, construction of the
facility began back in 2009. The work, their findings suggest, was
disguised from the very beginning, with excavated sand being disposed of
at various sites, apparently to make it more difficult for observers
from above to tell how deeply they were digging. Furthermore, the
entrances to the facility were guarded by the military, which turned out
to be a necessary precaution. In the spring of 2013, the region around
Qusayr saw heavy fighting. But the area surrounding the project in the
mines was held, despite heavy losses suffered by elite Hezbollah units
stationed there.
The most recent satellite images show six structures: a guard house
and five sheds, three of which conceal entrances to the facility below.
The site also has special access to the power grid, connected to the
nearby city of Blosah. A particularly suspicious detail is the deep well
which connects the facility with Zaita Lake, four kilometers away. Such
a connection is unnecessary for a conventional weapons cache, but it is
essential for a nuclear facility.
But the clearest proof that it is a nuclear facility comes from radio
traffic recently intercepted by a network of spies. A voice identified
as belonging to a high-ranking Hezbollah functionary can be heard
referring to the "atomic factory" and mentions Qusayr. The Hezbollah man
is clearly familiar with the site. And he frequently provides telephone
updates to a particularly important man: Ibrahim Othman, the head of
the Syrian Atomic Energy Commission.
The Hezbollah functionary mostly uses a codename for the facility:
"Zamzam," a word that almost all Muslims know. According to tradition,
Zamzam is the well God created in the desert for Abraham's wife and
their son Ishmael. The well can be found in Mecca and is one of the
sites visited by pilgrims making the Hajj. Those who don't revere Zamzam
are not considered to be true Muslims.
...
But the new development also comes at an uncomfortable time for the
US government. Despite all official denials, Washington is currently
operating in the region more-or-less in concert with Assad in the fight
against the Islamist terrorist militia Islamic State. Furthermore,
following the well-monitored and largely efficient destruction of Syrian
chemical weapons, the US, Britain and France all believed that Assad's
ability to wage unconventional warfare had been eliminated. The possible
development of a Syrian atomic weapon, should it be confirmed, would
necessarily lead to a new assessment of the situation.
The discovery presents a particularly difficult dilemma to Israel.
The country has, to be sure, continued to bomb Hezbollah supply lines,
but it apparently knew nothing of a possible new nuclear facility.
Israeli leaders would be faced with the impossible decision between
ignoring Zamzam or undertaking an extremely risky attack against a
facility built deep underground. In contrast to 2007, bunker buster
bombs would be required, with unforeseeable consequences for the
environment. It would be an irresponsible decision, but one which
Israeli hardliners could ultimately make.
The international monitors in Vienna also don't look good, with IAEA
boss Yukiya Amano having been deceived by Assad. In September 2014, the
Japanese national urged "Syria to cooperate fully with the agency in
connection with all unresolved issues." He hasn't yet received a reply. A
sanction of last resort would be that of expelling Syria from the IAEA,
an unlikely step given that Moscow continues to protect Assad, in the
IAEA as in the United Nations.
Read the whole thing.
But what's really astounding here is the State Department reaction. This is from the transcript of Monday's briefing:
QUESTION: Yeah. The German weekly Der Spiegel reported last week that
President Bashar Assad has rebuilt Syria’s nuclear weapons
infrastructure with help from Iran and North Korea.
MS. HARF: We’ve --
QUESTION: Can you confirm these reports?
MS. HARF: We’ve seen those reports, are seeking more information, certainly cannot confirm them.
...
QUESTION: On the Spiegel story, you said you’re seeking – who are you
seeking more – I mean, you know – you should know this area better than
anybody --
MS. HARF: Yes.
QUESTION: -- certainly better than a German, although highly respected, news magazine.
MS. HARF: I would agree with you that we probably have information they don’t.
QUESTION: So who are you seeking information from or are you --
MS. HARF: Seeking internally or from our partners to see what more we
can – if we can cooperate this, but again, not sure we can.
QUESTION: Is that – well, you couldn’t corroborate it because of
intelligence reasons or because the story’s false and you want to leave
it out there?
MS. HARF: We don’t know yet. We just saw the reports and we’re looking into it.
QUESTION: Will you discuss this issue with the Iranians in the upcoming talks?
MS. HARF: No. The upcoming talks are about the Iranian nuclear program.
QUESTION: Yeah, but if they are helping the --
MS. HARF: Yes, but we don’t discuss other issues with them at those talks, as you all know.
QUESTION: But if they are --
MS. HARF: Let’s move on to North Korea and let’s --
QUESTION: But if they are helping the Assad regime to build a nuclear facility --
Face, palm, whack!
Labels: al-Kibar, Bashar al-Assad, Iranian nuclear threat, Syrian nuclear program, US State Department
Obama's best friend forever denied use of base for Foley-Sotloff rescue - was an Israeli base used?
From a lengthy Wall Street Journal article that I received by email on the failed July 3 attempt to
rescue US hostages James Foley and Steven Sotloff from ISIS (Hat Tip:
Dan F). The two were both subsequently beheaded, with videos posted online.
The U.S. hoped to launch the raid from a base in Turkey that would give easy
access to Raqqa. But the Turks, worried about their own hostages, were wary,
U.S. officials said, so the U.S. sent the team to another country in the region
for final preparations.
Shifting the operation didn't delay matters, said one of the military
officials, although the distance to Raqqa increased. A senior Turkish official
denied that the U.S. approached Ankara seeking a base in the country. The
ultimate host country agreed on the condition the U.S. not reveal its
identity.
Gee, I wonder what country was the 'ultimate host country.' There are only two possibilities really: Israel or Jordan.
Incirlik (Turkey's air base) to Raqqa is 458.3 kilometers by land.
One base that might have been used is Jordan's al-Muwaffaq air base, which is
east of Amman. I could not find out how far away that air base is (Amman is 526 kilometers away), but flying from Jordan would have required taking a roundabout route or crossing substantial Syrian and/or Lebanese territory.
Among Israeli air bases, Ramat David is 671.5 kilometers from Raqqa by land, Palmachim is 778.9 kilometers from Raqqa by land, Hatzor is 799 kilometers from Raqqa by land, and Hatzerim is 854.4 kilometers from Raqqa by land. But the advantage of using an Israeli base is that you go straight out over the Mediterranean until you reach the Syrian coastline and then fly along the Euphrates (see the bottom left map)... as Israel did when it destroyed Assad's nuclear capability at
al-Kibar.
Hmmm.
Labels: al-Kibar, Barack Hussein Obama, ISIS, kidnapping, murder, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Syria, Syrian nuclear program
Israeli boots on the ground in Iran?
You might recall that when Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel was here in April, an
arms deal with Israel was announced. One element of the deal was up to eight V-22 Ospreys, an aircraft that can land like a helicopter
and carry two dozen special operations forces with their gear over long
distances at aircraft speeds. At the time, we were told it would be used for search and rescue missions in case Israeli pilots bombing Iranian nuclear facilities were shot down. But USA Today reports that
there's more to it than that (Hat Tip:
Lance K).
The Osprey "is the ideal platform for sending Israeli special forces
into Iran," says Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA analyst now at the
Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy.
The
aircraft could help solve Israel's inability to breach Iran's uranium
enrichment facility buried under a granite mountain at Fordow. It might
be impregnable to even the heaviest conventional bunker-busting
munitions in the U.S. arsenal, Pollack said. Israeli military planners
have been brainstorming how to conduct an effective operation, Pollack
said, citing conversations with senior Israeli military officers.
"One of the possibilities is (Israel) would use special forces to assault the Fordow facility and blow it up," Pollack said.
...
Other parts of the arms package include Boeing's KC-135
"Stratotanker," which can refuel Ospreys and other aircraft while
airborne and extend the tilt-rotor aircraft's 426-mile range almost
indefinitely. The deal also includes anti-radiation missiles that are
used to target air defense systems, and advanced radars for Israel's
fleet of F-15 fighter jets, according to a Defense Department press
release.
That equipment would increase Israel's capabilities
against Iran, said Ely Karmon, a senior research scholar at the
Institute for Counter-Terrorism at The Interdisciplinary Center in
Herzliya, Israel.
The refueling equipment would extend the reach
of Israeli special forces, which could be used against Iran as they were
in Israel's attack on a Syrian nuclear facility under construction in
2007, Karmon said.
In the 2007 attack, at least one Israeli team
was on the ground to provide laser targeting of sophisticated air
munitions, Karmon said. "The same would be done for Iranian sites."
Hmmm.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: al-Kibar, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, Syrian nuclear program
What we can learn from Israel's bombing of Syria's nuclear reactor
Elliott Abrams, who was in charge of the Middle East at the National Security Council when it happened, has an insider's look at how Israel destroyed Syria's al-Kibar nuclear reactor. It's a long piece and I urge you to
read the whole thing.
Here are his lessons from the incident, and afterward I will give you mine:
First, good “process” and good policy are related but distinct. In
the end what counts is output, not input: the foreign policy we adopt,
not the proposals that are advanced. And that output depends, when it
comes to foreign policy, mostly on one man: the president. That’s the
second lesson. Advisers advise; the president decides. All the books
about how rival bureaucracies or powerful lobbies determine policy are
off the mark; the simpler and truer conclusion is that at any given
moment our foreign policy reflects the views of the president.
Finally, this incident is a reminder that there is no substitute for
military strength and the will to use it. Think of how much more
dangerous to the entire region the Syrian civil war would be today if
Assad had a nuclear reactor, and even perhaps nuclear weapons, in hand.
Israel was right to bomb that reactor before construction was completed,
and President Bush was right to support its decision to do so. Israel
was also right in rejecting fears that the incident would lead to a
larger war and in believing that it, and the United States, would be
better off after this assertion of leadership and determination. That
lesson must be on the minds of Israeli, and American, leaders in 2013.
If only Ariel Sharon had the guts to do the same to Iran in 2003 before its program got quite so far off the ground....
Every argument made in this piece about Syria could be made about Iran - indeed has been made about Iran. We would have been better off not going to the UN or the IAEA, but rather taking care of Iran's nuclear capability a long time ago when the cost would not have been so potentially high.
The way that Condi Clueless (in particular) and Bob Gates were able to influence President Bush to put the 'Palestinians' ahead of dealing with Syria, shows how much influence people in those positions can have and why it's so important that Chuck Hagel be defeated (even if John FN Kerry is already in).
And as much as I don't like him, in this case, Olmert definitely did the right thing. There's a lesson there for Netanyahu: Have courage and do what needs to be done.
Labels: al-Kibar, Binyamin Netanyahu, Condoleeza Rice, Ehud K. Olmert, Elliott Abrams, George W. Bush, IAEA, Iranian nuclear threat, Robert Gates, Syrian nuclear program, United Nations Security Council
Great news: Syria has enough uranium for 5 nukes
Israel may have destroyed Syria's nuclear reactor (pictured) five years ago, but the Assad regime still has enough unenriched uranium for five nuclear weapons, according to a report in the
Financial Times of London.
David Albright, the head of the US-based Institute for Science and International Security
think-tank, and a leading expert on the Iranian nuclear programme, said
there were legitimate concerns about a uranium stockpile in Syria.
“There are real worries about what has happened to the uranium that
Syria was planning to put into the Al-Kibar reactor shortly before the
reactor was destroyed in 2007,” he said. “There’s no question that, as
Syria gets engulfed in civil war, the whereabouts of this uranium is
worrying governments. There is evidence to suggest this issue has been
raised by one government directly with the IAEA.”
An IAEA inspection team visited the destroyed Al-Kibar site in May
2008 and only found traces of uranium. This merely added to the mystery
of where the 50 tonnes of uranium, if it exists, might be. Such a
stockpile would be enough, according to experts, to provide weapons
grade fuel for five atomic devices.
...
Some
government officials have raised concerns that Iran, which is closely
allied to the Syrian regime and urgently needs uranium for its nuclear
programme, might be trying to seize such a stockpile.
These officials’ fears have been triggered by signs of movement at
what they allege is a secret uranium conversion facility that the Syrian
regime built at the town of Marj al-Sultan near Damascus.
Three satellite pictures of the Marj al-Sultan site taken in October,
November and December of 2012 and shown to the FT, and displayed here
above and on the left, appear to show the gradual clearance of a large
orchard there, for no apparent reason.
Whether the uranium is at the site is unclear, the officials
conceded. But they said: “Syria is almost certainly in possession of
good quality uranium of the type that Iran has been trying to acquire on
the international market for years. It would certainly be possible to
transfer this from Syria to Iran by air.”
Were that to happen – and Iran were to attempt to build another
secret uranium plant – such a stockpile could be a “vital resource”, the
officials argued, and possibly be used to build a bomb.
And lest you think it would be so easy to shoot down a plane flying uranium from Syria to Iran, recall that Syria uses
commercial flights on Syrian Airlines for that purpose.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Iranian nuclear threat, Iranian-Syrian axis, Syrian nuclear program, uranium
Bob Gates gets it wrong again
Elliott Abrams explodes the myth that Bob Gates (the only cabinet secretary from the Bush administration to serve under Obama and last seen calling Israel an
ungrateful ally) doesn't hate Israel. In fact, Gates does hate Israel, with a passion. That passion led him to
strongly oppose the Israeli attack on Syria's al-Kibar nuclear reactor in 2007 (imagine where the world would be today if Syria were a nuclear power) (Hat Tip:
Sunlight).
In fact an important incident from the George W. Bush administration
suggests that whether or not Gates is hostile to Israel, his judgment is
badly flawed when it comes to evaluating the risks Israel faces and the
likely results of Israeli action to address those risks.
In the spring of 2007, Israeli intelligence brought to
Washington proof that the Assad regime in Syria was building a nuclear
reactor along the Euphrates—with North Korean help. This reactor was a
copy of the Yongbyon reactor the North Koreans had built, and was part
of a Syrian nuclear weapons program. U.S. intelligence quickly confirmed
these findings, and the question now was what to do about it all.
Covert options were quickly determined to be
impractical, leaving two paths: A military strike by the United States
or Israel, or diplomatic action in the United Nations and the IAEA.
President Bush actually settled on the diplomatic option, but
immediately acceded to Israel's decision to attack the reactor once we,
the United States, decided we would not. Israel viewed a Syrian nuclear
program as an existential threat and believed that if the issue were
taken to the U.N. it would be mired there forever. (I tell this story in
full in my book Tested By Zion: The Bush Administration and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, out in December.)
Secretary Gates was strongly opposed to an American or
an Israeli strike. He argued that a strike would provoke a new Middle
East war, for surely the Syrians would strike back. The Israelis argued
that if we all kept our mouths shut the Syrians would avoid humiliation
by pretending nothing had happened: If asked, they would say there was
no reactor and there was no bombing. Gates, a former CIA director,
dismissed this argument—and Israel's claims to understand the Assad
regime's psychology pretty well—as an obvious effort to manipulate the
United States. He also argued that if Israel balked at Bush's preference
for the U.N./IAEA route, we should not only refuse to accept their
decision but should use all our leverage to back them down. It was time
to reassess our entire relationship with Israel. They should be told our
political support and our military aid was on the line.
But President Bush accepted Israeli prime minister Ehud
Olmert's decision to bomb the reactor because he believed the words he
had often spoken: Israel had a right to defend itself. Gates's desire to
put the whole bilateral relationship on the line got zero traction in
the Oval Office.
We all know the end of this story: In September 2007
Israel bombed the reactor and destroyed it, and the Syrian regime in
response … did absolutely nothing, precisely as the Israelis had
predicted.
So when Gates predicts gloom and doom resulting from an Israeli or American attack on Iran... ignore him.
Labels: Robert Gates, Syrian nuclear program
How Israel bombed Syria's al-Kibar nuclear reactor and kept it secret
In a continuing effort to convince the world that Israel cannot possibly take out Iran's nuclear program, the New Yorker publishes an account by David Makovsky (well, at least it's not Seymour Hersh!) that claims to set out in detail
how Israel bombed Syria's reactor and kept it secret.
Unfortunately, since I do not subscribe to the New Yorker, and no one who does has posted the full article on line as of this writing, I am working from an abstract (linked above) and from two summaries that have been posted in the Israeli media by
Arutz Sheva and
YNet, respectively. YNet's summary doesn't add anything beyond the abstract. Here's a bit of the abstract from the New Yorker.
In March, 2007, agents from the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, made a daring raid into the Vienna home of Ibrahim Othman, the head of the Syrian Atomic Energy Commission.
...
The information the Mossad operatives recovered was damning: roughly three dozen color photographs taken from inside the building, indicating that it was a top-secret Syrian plutonium nuclear reactor. The photographs showed workers from North Korea at the site, and the reactor, from the inside, had many of the same engineering elements as the North Korean reactor in Yongbyon.
...
Five years later, Israeli officials continue to not discuss the Al Kibar affair on the record. In the days after the discovery of the Syrian site, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert began hosting important meetings at his official residence, on Balfour Street. In April, the White House was informed about the discovery. The Bush Administration felt that it didn’t have enough evidence to justify a preëmptive strike, and so the Israelis began preparations for an attack on their own. The I.D.F., the Mossad, and the Foreign Ministry all favored a low-signature attack on the reactor. Just before midnight on September 5, 2007, four F-15s and four F-16s took off from Israeli Air Force bases. Using standard electronic scrambling tools, the Israelis blinded Syria’s air-defense system. Sometime between 12:40 and 12:53 A.M., the pilots indicated that seventeen tons of explosives had been dropped on their target.
And in case you're wondering why this is being published now (other than the fact that it was five years ago last week)....
The pressing question today is whether the lessons of that success can be applied to Iran. The situation in Iran differs fundamentally from the Syrian case. Experts have pointed to the risk of civilian casualties and prolonged retaliation. What’s more, a key Iranian site lies deep underground outside the holy city of Qom, and it is strongly fortified; an attack on it would run a higher risk of failure.
Well, yes, we're not likely to have the smashing success we had in Syria. But the Syrians didn't retaliate? Why not? And why are we so sure that Iran will retaliate (effectively)?
Arutz Sheva adds:
Immediately after the strike on Syria, the Assad regime’s official government news agency SANA reported that Israeli jets had violated Syrian air space and that “Air defense units confronted them and forced them to leave after they dropped some ammunition in deserted areas without causing any human or material damage.”
Israel denied it had bombed the site but since has gradually taken responsibility for the pre-emptive attack.
More than two years ago, Der Spiegel reported that American intelligence agents as early as 2004 picked up unusual conversations between Syria and North Korea. The information as related to Israel, and the IDF set up antenna aimed at Al Kibar.
In 2006, Israeli agents in London were able to install a program on a Syrian official's computer and collected information on construction plans and photographs showing pipes that led to a pumping station at the Euphrates.
One of the photos indentified North Korean nuclear scientists. The following years, Der Spiegel reported, an Iranian general defected to the CIA and revealed that Iran was funding a top-secret project in Syrian in coordination with North Korea.
I am willing to accept that we are unlikely to have the smashing success in Iran that we had in Syria (although the EMP, if it's as described, would be at least as successful in stopping Iran's program, although it would cause a lot more collateral damage than the Syrian raid caused).
On the other hand, no one else seems to be willing to take any action to stop Iran or at least to slow it down. If Iran is allowed to continue to the point of developing a bomb - or even a
breakout capability as has been discussed in earlier posts - that's a game changer. If God forbid that happens, Israel may be unable to act and the rest of the world may be all the more unwilling to act. So how can we sit on our hands and do nothing?
Labels: al-Kibar, Ehud K. Olmert, George W. Bush, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, Syrian nuclear program
Abrams: Olmert defied Bush when he bombed Syria's al-Khibar reactor
Oh dear me. The chemistry between George W. Bush and
Ehud K. Olmert was far more positive than the negative vibes between Binyamin Netanyahu and Barack Hussein Obama. And yet, in an interview with the JPost, former Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams reports that Olmert
defied Bush's desire for negotiations by bombing the al-Khibar reactor on his own.
Abrams, asked about the recent comptroller report chastising the government for a haphazard decision-making process, said that Bush was provided with impeccable options, policy papers and intelligence.
"We took it all to the president – covert options, military options, diplomatic options – and he chose the wrong option," said Abrams, who at the time was the deputy national security advisor in the White House. "It is a mistake to believe that the process itself will provide you with the right answer."
Wednesday's State Comptroller's report was highly critical of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for not fully empowering his National Security Council as mandated by law, and for a sloppy, informal decision making process leading up to the Mavi Marmara incident.
Abrams, however, used the Syrian nuclear facility issue as an illustration to demonstrate that what is more important than thorough preparation and a good process is the right people making the right decisions. He also said that some of the best White House meetings were informal ones where no notes were taken.
According to Abrams, his preferred option in the summer of 2007 when intelligence information emerged that the Syrians were constructing a nuclear facility was for Israel to take it out, in order for Jerusalem to rebuild its deterrence capability following the Second Lebanon War a year earlier.
Vice president Dick Cheney argued for the US to bomb the facility itself, Abrams said, to rebuild America's deterrence capability.
...
But the option Bush chose, some six weeks before Israel acted, was the one preferred by secretary of state Condoleezza Rice: make the existence of the facility public and then go to the IAEA and UN and build an international consensus to get the Syrians to close the facility.
Abrams said he though the idea was "absurd," and that Syrian President Bashar Assad would defy the IAEA and not do anything.
When Bush informed Olmert of the decision in July 2007, Abrams recalled, Olmert said that the strategy was not acceptable to Israel. It was clear to everyone that from that point on there would be no sharing of plans, and that "Israel would let us know afterward," he said.
It kind of makes you wonder why we haven't done the same thing with Iran, doesn't it? Maybe because Olmert could be confident that he could disagree with Bush without destroying the relationship, while Netanyahu has to deal with the egomaniac currently in office in Washington.
By the way, the picture at the top of this post was taken at Massada, and I believe it was taken in 2008, that is after the al-Khibar raid. On the other hand, Annapolis took place about two months after al-Khibar and I cannot help but wonder whether Israel's agreement to attend that conference was somehow connected to Bush's agreement not to make a big fuss over al-Khibar. Hmmm.
One final thought. Imagine how different things would be today if Syria were a nuclear power. Probably the one thing Olmert did right during his term.
Labels: al-Kibar, Ehud K. Olmert, George W. Bush, Syrian nuclear program
IAEA: Iran triples higher enriched uranium since November
The apparently straight-shooting IAEA chairman Yukiya Amano (whose predecessor spent years covering for Iran) is making it very difficult for President Obama and other world leaders not to confront the reality of a nuclear Iran. Amano reports that Iran has
tripled its production of higher enriched uranium, and expresses concern for the military dimensions of Iran's nuclear program.
Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, also told the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors about the lack of progress in two rounds of talks between the Vienna-based UN agency and Tehran this year.
...
During meetings in the Iranian capital in January and February, Iranian officials stonewalled the IAEA's requests for access to a military site seen as central to its investigation into the nature of the Islamic state's nuclear activity.
"The agency continues to have serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear programme," Amano told the closed-door meeting, according to a copy of his speech.
The IAEA "is unable to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities," he added.
...
Since the IAEA's previous report in November, Amano said Iran has tripled monthly production of uranium refined to a fissile concentration of 20 percent - well above the level usually needed to run nuclear power plants.
Though indicated by the IAEA's confidential report last month, it was the first time Amano spoke in public about this rapid increase in Iran's enrichment activities, which has stoked Western and Israeli suspicions about Tehran's nuclear agenda.
Despite intensive discussions with Iran, Amano said, there had been no agreement on a "structured approach" to resolve outstanding issues with its nuclear programme during the talks held in January and February.
Iran "did not address the agency's concerns in a substantive manner," Amano said.
Making clear, however, that he would keep trying to engage Iran on the issue, he added: "Regarding future steps, the agency will continue to address the Iran nuclear issue through dialogue and in a constructive spirit."
The agency also reported that Syria is using its 'delicate situation' as an excuse for not complying with IAEA requests.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: IAEA, Iranian nuclear threat, Syrian nuclear program, Yukia Amano
The best (only?) way to stop nuclear proliferation is nuclear
Evelyn Gordon argues that the best and most effective way to stop nuclear proliferation is
military.
In fact, Syria and Iraq are the only two countries where military action has ever been tried to halt a nuclear program. And so far, both are nuke-free. Moreover, in both cases, military action spared the world a nightmare. The current unrest in Syria would create a real danger of terrorist groups obtaining nuclear materiel had Israel not destroyed Syria’s reactor in 2007. And by bombing Iraq’s reactor in 1981, Israel made it possible for a U.S.-led coalition to go to war to reverse Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait – an invasion that, had it gone unchecked, would have destabilized the entire vital oil-producing Gulf region, but which the world would have had to swallow had Iraq had nukes by then.
By contrast, consider the track record in places where military action wasn’t tried, like Pakistan and North Korea. Both not only have the bomb, but have merrily proliferated ever since to some of the world’s worst regimes. And in Pakistan’s case, there’s the added fear that radical Islamists will someday take over the unstable country, along with its nukes.
In fact, nonmilitary sanctions have never persuaded any country to abandon a nuclear program: The few countries that have scrapped such programs did so not in response to sanctions, but to domestic developments (regime change in South Africa) or to fear of military action (Libya after the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003).
So far, the same is proving true in Iran, where years of nonmilitary sanctions have slowed its nuclear development, but have utterly failed to halt it, or to alter its leaders’ determination to pursue it. That confronts America with a stark choice: stick to nonmilitary methods that have never succeeded in the past until Iran becomes the next North Korea, or switch to military methods, which have worked in the past.
For if history is any guide, there is no third option.
Someone had better call Barack Obama. And Ron Paul.
Labels: Iranian nuclear threat, Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, Syrian nuclear program
Breaking: AP reports on another 'suspicious [nuclear] site' in Syria
AP is reporting that the IAEA has discovered a
'suspicious' site in northwestern Syria. Pakistan is also involved.
U.N. investigators have identified a previously unknown complex in Syria that bolsters suspicions that the Syrian government worked with A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, to acquire technology that could make nuclear arms.
The buildings in northwest Syria closely match the design of a uranium enrichment plant provided to Libya when Moammar Gadhafi was trying to build nuclear weapons under Khan's guidance, officials told The Associated Press.
The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency also has obtained correspondence between Khan and a Syrian government official, Muhidin Issa, who proposed scientific cooperation and a visit to Khan's laboratories following Pakistan's successful nuclear test in 1998.
The complex, in the city of Al-Hasakah, now appears to be a cotton-spinning plant, and investigators have found no sign that it was ever used for nuclear production. But given that Israeli warplanes destroyed a suspected plutonium production reactor in Syria in 2007, the unlikely coincidence in design suggests Syria may have been pursuing two routes to an atomic bomb: uranium as well as plutonium.
Details of the Syria-Khan connection were provided to the AP by a senior diplomat with knowledge of IAEA investigations and a former U.N. investigator. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The Syrian government did not respond to a request for comment.
...
IAEA investigators homed in on the Al-Hasakah facility after an intensive analysis of satellite imagery in the Middle East, sparked by a belief that Khan had an additional government customer, which had not yet come to light. They identified the site, the largest industrial complex in Al-Hasakah, after a 2006 report in a Kuwaiti newspaper claimed Syria had a secret nuclear program in the city.
Satellite imagery of the Al-Hasakah complex revealed striking similarities to plans for a uranium enrichment facility that were seized during a Swiss investigation related to Khan. The Swiss were looking into the Tinner family — Urs Tinner, his brother Marco and their father, Friedrich — who are suspected of playing a crucial role in Khan's smuggling network.
Another set of the same plans was turned over to the IAEA after Libya abandoned its nuclear program. Libya told the IAEA it had ordered 10,000 gas centrifuges from Khan, most of which it intended for a facility that was to be built according to the plans. Centrifuges are used to enrich uranium in the weapons-making process.
The investigator said the layout of the Al-Hasakah facility matches the plans used in Libya almost exactly, with a large building surrounded by three smaller workshops in the same configurations. Investigators were struck that even the parking lots had similarities, with a covered area to shield cars from the sun.
But the investigator said he had seen no evidence that centrifuges were ever installed there. The Hasakah Spinning Co. has a website that shows photos of manufacturing equipment inside the facility and brags about its prices.
The IAEA asked to visit the site more than two years ago. But it has not pressed the issue, focusing its efforts on the bombed site.
By the way, this is not one of the three sites to which the IAEA was
denied access by the Syrians in 2008.
Read the whole thing.
I wonder how many more nuclear facilities there are in this region that have not yet come to light. Hmmm.
Labels: IAEA, Pakistan, Syrian nuclear program
IAEA presents 'devastating' report on Syria to Security Council
The International Atomic Energy Agency has presented the United Nations Security Council with a 'devastating' report on Syrian attempts to develop nuclear weapons. And it feels like deja vu all over again. The Security Council would take action but
China and Russia are opposed.
The International Atomic Energy Agency board of governors voted in June to report Syria to the council, rebuking it for stonewalling an agency probe into the Dair Alzour complex, bombed by Israel in 2007 [pictured above. CiJ].
Western countries said Thursday's closed-door briefing by Neville Whiting, head of the IAEA safeguards department dealing with Syria and Iran, had made clear that Syria had a secret nuclear plant. They said the council should pursue the issue, but suggested it might not discuss it again before September.
Russia and China, allies of Damascus who can veto any council action, queried whether the council should be involved, as the Syrian complex no longer exists.
US intelligence reports have said the complex was a nascent, North Korean-designed reactor intended to produce plutonium for atomic weaponry, before Israeli warplanes reduced it to rubble. Syria has said it was a non-nuclear military facility.
British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant told reporters Whiting had given a "devastating briefing ... from which you could only draw one conclusion -- that Syria did have at Dair Alzour a clandestine nuclear plant."
Damascus had "tried to conceal the purpose of that plant ... misled the IAEA about what the purpose was and ... failed to cooperate effectively with the IAEA in following up the questions that the IAEA put to them," he said.
Read the whole thing.
This is highly relevant despite the fact that the al-Kibar reactor has been destroyed, allegedly by Israel. The reason it is still relevant, which the article does not mention, is that Syria has
three other sites that they are refusing to allow the IAEA to examine.
What could go wrong?
Labels: al-Kibar, China, IAEA, Russia, Syria, Syrian nuclear program, UN Security Council
Syria had three other nuclear sites
Those of you with good memories may recall that back in 2008 when the IAEA went to inspect the remnants of the al-Kibar nuclear plant, which was allegedly destroyed by Israel, they wanted to look at
three other sites.
I'm sure this report issued by the IAEA is
just a coincidence.
The suspected Syrian nuclear facility in Deir al-Zor was linked to three other facilities in the country, London-based Al-Hayat reported quoting excerpts from an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report released Sunday.
The report did not give details on the facilities or on their locations.
Well, we do know that one of them is
right outside of Damascus.
Hmmm.
Labels: al-Kibar, Bashar al-Assad, Damascus, IAEA, Syrian nuclear program
Back to the Cold War?
Barack Obama has managed to re-set relations with Russia
right back to the Cold War.
"Russia is against any UN Security Council resolution on Syria," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich told journalists at a briefing in Moscow.
"We do not believe the Syrian issue is a subject for consideration by the Security Council, let alone the adoption of some kind of resolution," Lukashevich said.
Britain, France, Germany and Portugal have floated a new draft resolution condemning Syria as the United States and its allies seek to raise the pressure on President Bashar Assad's government to end its violent crackdown on protesters.
Lukashevich stopped short of saying Russia would use its veto power as a permanent UN Security Council member to doom any Syria resolution if it comes to a vote.
Some diplomats have said they thought Moscow could be persuaded to abstain, as it did in a March vote on the resolution that authorized military intervention in Libya.
But Lukashevich said that even a discussion in the Security Council could increase tension in Syria, and that any resolution criticizing Damascus would amount to tacit support of "armed extremists" opposing the government.
"This does not fit the role of the United Nations," he said.
China was expected to join Russia in voting against a draft resolution at the 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency rebuking the Arab state for three years of stonewalling of a probe into a site bombed by Israel in 2007.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Chinese veto, Russian veto, Syria, Syrian nuclear program, Syrian uprising, United Nations Security Council
Claim: Mossad raided London hotel of Syrian official
London's Daily Telegraph reports on the 2006 Mossad raid on a Kensington hotel in London in which agents downloaded the contents of a hard drive from a Syrian nuclear official's laptop, and implanted a trojan horse to monitor his work. The computer and its contents were valuable enough to leave the target - who was originally to have been killed - alive. The computer had important information about Syria's
al-Kibar nuclear reactor, which was destroyed - allegedly by the IAF - in September 2007 (Hat Tip:
Zvi S).
The operation began when Israeli intelligence picked up an online booking for a senior Syrian nuclear official at a hotel in Kensington, west London, in late 2006, according to the Israeli authors of the book Israel vs Iran: the Shadow War.
Mossad then dispatched three undercover teams to Britain including a team of "spotters" who were sent to Heathrow airport to identify the official as he flew in from Damascus under a false name. A second team booked into his hotel, while a third monitored his movements and any visitors.
The agents included members of the Kidon [Spear] division, Mossad's hit squad, and the Neviot [Springs] division, which specialises in breaking into houses, embassies and hotel rooms to install bugging devices.
The first day of the official's trip was apparently devoted to a series of meetings at the Syrian embassy in Belgrave Square but the following day he went shopping before his return to the airport.
The Kidon team followed him closely from shop to shop while the Neviot agents broke into his room and found his laptop. A computer expert took 15 minutes to download the hard drive and install trojan software that allowed Israel to monitor every keystroke he made.
When the computer material was examined at Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv, officials found photographs and blueprints for a plutonium reactor at Al Kibar near Deir el-Zor, a remote desert town 80 miles from Syria's border with Iraq.
...
In August 2007 Israel apparently sent a special forces team into Syria to collect soil samples near the reactor, then at around 1am on September 5 2007 Israeli fighter bombers attacked the facility in a raid into Syrian airspace that destroyed the plant.
The ramifications of the al-Kibar raid
continue to plague Syria.
Satellite images and other information indicate Syria was building a covert atomic reactor when Israel bombed the site in 2007, a former senior UN nuclear inspector said on Tuesday.
Olli Heinonen, who stepped down as deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 2010, made his remarks at a time when some argue that Damascus may soon be referred to the UN Security Council over the issue.
Now a senior fellow at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, he said "satellite imagery, procurement, and infrastructure information tend to point (in the) direction that the destroyed building at Dair Alzour was, indeed, a nuclear reactor at an advanced state of construction".
In an email to Reuters, he said, however, that Syria had not "engaged in any substantial discussion" about Dair Alzour.
...
Western diplomats expect the Vienna-based IAEA to use stronger language in its next quarterly report on Syria which is due later this month, possibly by saying it believes the facility was a reactor under construction.
The United States and its European allies are expected to seize on this finding to push for a decision at the June 6-10 meeting of the IAEA's governing board to send the file to the U.N. Security Council -- a move last used against Iran in 2006.
The move would reflect growing frustration in the West over Syria's stonewalling of an IAEA probe into Dair Alzour, which US intelligence reports said was a nascent North Korean-designed reactor intended to make bomb fuel.
If only Brother Mohamed were still in charge at the IAEA.... Heh.
Labels: al-Kibar, Mossad, Syrian nuclear program
Confirmed: IAEA admits Israel destroyed Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007
The IAEA has confirmed for the first time that the Syrian facility that was destroyed by Israeli warplanes in 2007 was a
nuclear reactor.
The head of the UN atomic watchdog, Yukiya Amano, on Thursday said for the first time that Syria tried in the past to secretly build a nuclear reactor, which was destroyed by Israeli warplanes five years ago, The Associated Press reported.
Syria denies that the building which was bombed actually contained any nuclear facilities.
For over two years, Syria has refused IAEA follow-up access to the remains of a complex that was being built at Dair Alzour in the Syrian desert when Israel bombed it to rubble in 2007.
The IAEA carried out an agreed inspection of another Syrian plant earlier in April as part of a long-stalled probe into suspected covert nuclear activity.
"The inspection is being conducted as planned," an official of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said, giving no further detail.
The way things are going right now, a Western coalition may thank Israel in the not too distant future for destroying that plant. Just like George Bush and Dick Cheney thanked Israel in 1991 for destroying Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981.
Labels: al-Kibar, IAEA, Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, Osirak, Syrian nuclear program, Yukia Amano
Satellite photos show another nuclear site outside Damascus
Satellite images released on Wednesday by the Institute for Science and International Security show that Syria may be building
another nuclear reactor outside of Damascus.
The photos show heightened activity and the pouring of a concrete foundation around the site near Marj as Sultan, outside Damascus, shortly after a May 2008 request for inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
"The facility’s operational status is unknown. However, there is suspicion that Syria may have emptied the buildings prior to mid-2008 and taken steps to disguise previous activities at the site," the ISIS report said.
"Laying down a new foundation could be an attempt to defeat the environmental sampling that IAEA inspectors would likely carry out to see if uranium was present in the event of a visit to these suspect sites."
Citing the IAEA and the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, ISIS said the Marj as Sultan facility was one of three sites that were "functionally related" to the bombed reactor at Dair Alzour, in the east of the country.
Syria has snubbed a request by the UN nuclear watchdog for prompt access to a number of sites, and could come under heightened scrutiny at the Vienna-based IAEA's meeting next month, diplomats told AFP last week.
I'd say it's quite likely that Syria has one or more nuclear facilities that Israel has not yet destroyed.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Bashar al-Assad, Damascus, Syrian nuclear program
How's that engagement going Barack?
The Obama administration is trying out its new '
engagement' with Syria.
The US condemned Syria on Saturday for the secret trial of a young blogger on "spurious" spy charges and appealed for her immediate release.
Tal al-Mallohi was taken into custody in December 2009. Her blog, known for poetry and social commentary, focused mostly on the suffering of Palestinians. It was not clear whether al-Mallohi's arrest was connected to the blog.
Arutz Sheva has a slightly
different version.
The United States on Saturday demanded that Syria release a blogger who was jailed on suspicion of spying against the regime. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley demanded that Damascus free Tal Al-Mallouhi, saying that the accusations against her were “false and without basis.” She was arrested in December 2009, after the army accused her of helping agents of a foreign country attack a Syrian army officer.
I wonder if
this is the attack they have in mind. It would be kind of ironic for the Syrians to be accusing a pro-'Palestinian' blogger of helping Israel, wouldn't it?
But in any event, the Obama administration's pleas are likely to fall on deaf ears.
How's that engagement going Barack?
Labels: Syrian nuclear program, Syrian repression, US ambassador to Syria
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