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LAT: "United Nations nuclear inspectors have concluded that Iran has acquired the technical means to design a nuclear weapon and would require about six months to enrich uranium to the quality needed for a bomb if it decided to do so, according to officials familiar with the evidence. Evidence of advances in Iran's research is expected to emerge this week in a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.'s Vienna-based nuclear watchdog. The IAEA report provides no 'smoking gun' proof that Iran's government intends to build a nuclear weapon, said a European diplomat. But the report is likely to add pressure on the Islamic Republic, and bolster those who have called for stiffer sanctions or military strikes in an effort to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear-armed state. Iran insists its nuclear program is only for civilian purposes, and Iranian officials suggest documents buttressing the U.N. report are forged. The report cites previously undisclosed evidence indicating that Iranian scientists secretly developed nuclear technology after 2003, despite a widely publicized U.S. intelligence assessment in 2007 that Iran had halted such work four years earlier." http://t.uani.com/uQtdo5
AP: "Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Tuesday criticized the head of the U.N.'s nuclear agency as an American pawn, in the run-up to its expected release of evidence which purports to document Tehran's nuclear weapons program. Ahmadinejad also said that Iran's nuclear budget was roughly $270 million a year, in a rare official declaration of a monetary figure. He said that Iran will not withdraw from its controversial nuclear activities, which Tehran says are not geared toward weapons production. The Iranian leader seemed to be striking a defiant stance in the face of increased pressure put on Tehran from traditional adversaries like the U.S., as well as the more sympathetically-inclined China. The U.N. Security Council hopes that Tehran will suspend nuclear enrichment and start negotiations on its nuclear program - which it refuses to do... He again reiterated Iran's claim that it is not involved in making a nuclear weapon. 'They should know that if we want to remove the hand of the U.S. from the world, we do not need bombs and hardware. We work based on thoughts, culture and logic,' he said." http://t.uani.com/tou6gw
Reuters: "A U.N. nuclear watchdog report due this week is expected to show recent activity in Iran that could help in developing nuclear bombs, including intelligence about computer modelling of such weapons, Western diplomats said on Tuesday. 'There are bits and pieces of information that go up through 2010,' one Vienna-based diplomat said. If confirmed in this week's keenly awaited document by the International Atomic Energy Agency, it could stimulate new debate about a controversial U.S. intelligence assessment in 2007 that Iran had halted outright 'weaponisation' work in 2003. It would heighten Western suspicions that Iran is resolved to pursue at least some of the research and development (R&D) applicable to atom bombs, even if Tehran has made no apparent decision to actually build them, as diplomats believe." http://t.uani.com/rw8bzE
Nuclear Program & Sanctions AP: "An Iranian semi-official news agency says that a top commander in the country's Revolutionary Guard force has threatened to kill 'dozens' of American military commanders, should the U.S. kill any one of theirs. 'You also should not forget that American commanders have plenty of presence and travel in the region. If you kill any of us, we will kill dozens of you,' Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, chief of the Guards' aerospace division, was quoted by Fars agency on Tuesday as saying. Earlier last week several American neoconservatives, including retired U.S. Army general Jack Keane, urged the Obama administration to use covert action against Iran and target members of the Quds Force, the Guard's special foreign actions unit." http://t.uani.com/umSDPr
AP: "Iran needs to show 'flexibility and sincerity' over its nuclear program, China's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday, as tensions rise ahead of the release of a new report on its atomic activities by a U.N. agency. Spokesman Hong Lei said China is firmly opposed to any use of force against Iran to prevent it from acquiring an atomic weapon. 'China always holds that the Iranian nuclear issue should be properly solved through dialogue and cooperation,' Hong told a daily news briefing. 'The Iranian side should also show flexibility and sincerity,' he said." http://t.uani.com/vwyy8e
Bloomberg: "The U.K. government should put an embargo on the sale of mobile-phone software to Iran that assists in the tracking, arrest and repression of opposition activists, a senior lawmaker said. In the House of Lords today, David Alton asked why the sale of such software to Iran is allowed; what the government makes of democracy activists who say it has been used against them; and asked for an accounting of sales to Iran of such gear by Creativity Software Ltd., a British technology company which has had links to Foreign Secretary William Hague... Creativity Software this year sold a system that enables Iranian law enforcement and security forces to monitor cell phone locations, Bloomberg News reported on Oct. 31 citing three people familiar with the transaction." http://t.uani.com/vVQq0x Opinion & Analysis
Ambassador Mark Wallace in NRO: "When it comes to harsh words and denunciations from the West, Iran and Syria run neck and neck. Yet when it comes to taking meaningful action, the international community regrettably hesitates to do for Iran what it has done for Iran's junior partner. In recent months, EU member states and the Obama administration have not only been vocal in denouncing Syria's brutal treatment of protesters, but have also backed up their words with serious penalties. Specifically, the European Union sanctioned Syria's Central Bank on October 13, after deciding on September 2 to ban EU member states from importing Syrian oil. The embargo was particularly consequential, given that oil has been a major source of revenue for the Syrian regime, and 95 percent of its customers were EU members. What is puzzling is that both the Obama administration and the EU have been disinclined to impose the same penalties on Iran, even after the October 11 revelation of the regime's plot to commit terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. While punishing Syria is wholly justifiable, the same can't be said of EU member states' silence toward Syria's big brother (exemplified by their resistance to banning oil imports from Iran), or the Obama administration's reluctance to sanction Iran's Central Bank. The truth is that Iran's rulers are by all accounts just as brutal as Syria's, and just as deserving of similar sanctions. When it comes to human rights, Syria and Iran are kindred spirits. The Iranian regime tops every human-rights organization's list of abusers, and it is currently on an execution binge that has claimed more than 200 lives so far this year. Iran continues to track, spy on, and arrest political protesters and dissidents, and the U.N.'s special rapporteur on human rights in Iran recently released a report claiming that authorities conducted 446 secret executions in 2010 and 2011. The Iranian regime is notorious for prosecuting citizens for 'crimes' such as being homosexual, Christian, or a journalist, and has made a habit of publicly hanging people from construction cranes. Worst of all, Iran is an even bigger threat to the U.S. and the world than Syria. The regime is the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, is allied with al-Qaeda, and is responsible for the deaths of American and NATO troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. As mentioned, Iran has now been revealed to have plotted terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, and of course it continues to pursue nuclear weapons in defiance of international law. It is time for the Obama administration, the EU, and the rest of the free world to confront this grave threat before it is too late. Iran certainly merits the same sanctions already imposed on Syria, and now is the perfect time for them." http://t.uani.com/vLBEyA
Stephen Rademaker & Blaise Misztal in WashPost: "When the computers that control Iran's centrifuges were attacked by the Stuxnet worm beginning in 2009, the assault was widely ascribed to intelligence services intent on setting back Iran's nuclear program. More significant than the damage to Iran, however, has been the damage to Western resolve, as the United States and other countries have become more complacent about the Iranian threat. Combined with attacks targeting Iranian nuclear scientists and reports of shortages of key materials needed for centrifuges, Stuxnet has given rise to an increasingly accepted narrative that we have more time to contain Iran's nuclear ambitions than was previously thought. There's just one problem with this narrative: It is divorced from reality. This week the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Is expected to report new details on Iran's efforts to design a nuclear device. This is worrying enough, but the true measure of Iran's progress toward nuclear weapons capability is the rate at which it is producing enriched uranium. By this measure, Iran is closer than ever to a nuclear weapon and its nuclear enrichment program has not been slowed but, rather, continues to accelerate. The last IAEA inspection report, issued in September, found almost 6,000 centrifuges spinning at Iran's enrichment facility at Natanz - more than ever before - and these centrifuges were enriching faster than ever. IAEA data indicate that in the first half of 2011, Iran was able to produce an average of almost 105 kilograms of low-enriched uranium per month. While this monthly rate fell slightly in August, even that was nearly twice Iran's pre-Stuxnet production rate in 2009 - 56 kilograms per month - and 20 percent higher than its 2010 production rate of 86 kilograms per month. The trend line is clear... More troubling still has been Iran's foray into progressively highly levels of uranium enrichment. Last year Iran began converting uranium it had previously enriched to 3.5 percent to almost 20 percent, ostensibly to fuel a reactor that produces medical isotopes. That reactor annually uses just 7 kilograms of uranium enriched to 20 percent, and IAEA reports indicate that Iran has accumulated almost 50 kilograms of this. In other words, over the past year and a half Iran has produced enough of this material to run its medical reactor for seven years. Nevertheless, Iran declared in June that it intends to triple the rate at which it is producing this material and began transferring this work to a previously secret underground facility at Qom that is carved into the side of a mountain. In a series of reports, the Bipartisan Policy Center has been tracking the progress of Iran's nuclear program. We calculate that, if it chooses, Iran could produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear device in just 62 days using its existing stockpiles and current enrichment capability. And international inspectors examine Iranian facilities only about once every two months. This means that Tehran is approaching the ability to produce a bomb's worth of highly enriched uranium before the international community realizes it has happened." http://t.uani.com/vTBirL
Jeffrey Goldberg in Bloomberg: "The International Atomic Energy Agency is set to release a report today offering further proof that the Iranian regime is bent on acquiring nuclear weapons. No intelligence is entirely dispositive, but the evidence on hand about Iran's nuclear activities, even before the release of the latest report, is fairly persuasive, and the IAEA isn't known to be a den of neoconservative war-plotting. It isn't interested in giving Israel a pretext for a preemptive attack on Iran unless it has to. The question now is what Israel -- or the U.S. -- will do about it. The Israeli case for preemption is compelling, and has been for some time. The leaders of Iran are eliminationist anti-Semites; men who, for reasons of theology, view the state of the Jews as a 'cancer.' They have repeatedly called for Israel's destruction and worked to hasten that end, mainly by providing material support and training to two organizations, Hamas and Hezbollah, that specialize in the slaughter of innocent Jews. Iran's leaders are men who deny the Holocaust while promising another... Which brings us to the single most important player in this drama: President Barack Obama. He has said, repeatedly, that an Iran with nuclear weapons is unacceptable to the U.S. Many Israelis, and many Americans, think Obama is soft on such matters. But I believe, based on interviews inside and outside the White House, that he would consider using force -- missile strikes, mainly -- to stop the Iranians from crossing the nuclear threshold. Why? Four reasons: First, Iran and the U.S. have been waging a three- decade war for domination of the Middle East. If Iran goes nuclear, it will have won this war. American power in the Middle East will have been eclipsed, and Obama will look toothless. Second, every U.S. ally in the Middle East -- Israel, the Gulf countries and Turkey, especially -- fears a nuclear Iran. The president would have their complete support. Third, the president is ideologically committed to a world without nuclear weapons. If Iran gets the bomb, it will set off an arms race in the world's most volatile region. At the very least, Saudi Arabia and Turkey will seek nuclear weapons. It would mark a bitter defeat for Obama to have inadvertently overseen the greatest expansion of the nuclear arms club in recent history. Finally, the president has a deep understanding of Jewish history, and is repulsed by Iranian anti-Semitism. He doesn't want to be remembered as the president who failed to guarantee Israel's existence. This isn't to say that Obama has decided to use whatever means necessary to stop Iran. (He faces opposition in the Pentagon, for one thing, though the U.S. military has much greater capabilities than Israel.) Nor is a U.S. strike something desirable, even if done in concert with Western allies. It's far better for the Iranians to be persuaded through other means to stop their nuclear program. But numerous Israeli officials have told me that they are much less likely to recommend a preemptive strike of their own if they were reasonably sure that Obama was willing to use force. And if Iran's leaders feared there was a real chance of a U.S. attack, they might actually modify their behavior. I believe Obama would use force -- and that he should make that perfectly clear to the Iranians." http://t.uani.com/s3mDGQ |
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