via USIP

Iran has mixed feelings and conflicting interests in the Syrian crisis. Tehran has a strategic interest in opposing chemical weapons due to its own horrific experience during the 1980-1988 war with Iraq. For years, President Saddam Hussein’s military used chemical weapons that killed thousands of Iranian soldiers. So [...]]]> by Alireza Nader

via USIP

Iran has mixed feelings and conflicting interests in the Syrian crisis. Tehran has a strategic interest in opposing chemical weapons due to its own horrific experience during the 1980-1988 war with Iraq. For years, President Saddam Hussein’s military used chemical weapons that killed thousands of Iranian soldiers. So Iran actually shares interests with the United States, European nations and the Arab League in opposing any use of chemical weapons.

But the Islamic Republic also has compelling reasons to continue supporting Damascus. The Syrian regime is Iran’s closest ally in the Middle East and the geographic link to its Hezbollah partners in Lebanon. As a result, Tehran vehemently opposes U.S. intervention or any action that might change the military balance against President Bashar Assad.

The Iran-Syria alliance is more than a marriage of convenience. Tehran and Damascus have common geopolitical, security, and economic interests. Syria was one of only two Arab nations (the other being Libya) to support Iran’s fight against Saddam Hussein, and it was an important conduit for weapons to an isolated Iran. Furthermore, Hafez Assad, Bashar’s father, allowed Iran to help create Hezbollah, the Shiite political movement in Lebanon. Its militia, trained by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, has been an effective tool against Syria’s archenemy, Israel.

Relations between Tehran and Damascus have been rocky at times. Hafez Assad clashed with Hezbollah in Lebanon and was wary of too much Iranian involvement in his neighborhood. But his death in 2000 reinvigorated the Iran-Syria alliance. Bashar Assad has been much more enthusiastic about Iranian support, especially since Hezbollah’s “victorious” 2006 conflict with Israel.

In the last decade, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have trained, equipped, and at times even directed Syria’s security and military forces. Hundreds of thousands of Iranian pilgrims and tourists visited Syria before its civil war, and Iranian companies made significant investments in the Syrian economy.

Fundamentalist figures within the Guards view Syria as the “front line” of Iranian resistance against Israel and the United States. Without Syria, Iran would not be able to supply Hezbollah effectively, limiting its ability to help its ally in the event of a war with Israel. Hezbollah wields thousands of rockets able to strike Israel, providing Iran deterrence against Israel — especially if Tel Aviv chose to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. A weakened Hezbollah would directly impact Iran’s national security. Syria’s loss could also tip the balance in Iran’s rivalry with Saudi Arabia, making the Wahhabi kingdom one of the most influential powers in the Middle East.

In the run up to a U.S. decision on military action against Syria, Iranian leaders appeared divided.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and hardline lawmakers reacted with alarm to possible U.S. strikes against the Assad regime. And Revolutionary Guards commanders threatened to retaliate against U.S. interests. The hardliners clearly viewed the Assad regime as an asset worth defending as of September 2013.

But President Hassan Rouhani, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani adopted a more critical line on Syria. “We believe that the government in Syria has made grave mistakes that have, unfortunately, paved the way for the situation in the country to be abused,” Zarif told a local publication in September 2013.

Rafsanjani, still an influential political figure, reportedly said that the Syrian government gassed its own people. This was a clear breach of official Iranian policy, which has blamed the predominantly Sunni rebels. Rafsanjani’s words suggested that he viewed unconditional support for Assad as a losing strategy. His remark also earned a rebuke from Khamenei, who warned Iranian officials against crossing the “principles and red lines” of the Islamic Republic. Khamenei’s message may have been intended for Rouhani’s government, which is closely aligned with Rafsanjani and seems to increasingly view the Syrian regime as a liability.

Regardless, a significant section of Iran’s political elite could be amenable to engaging the United States on Syria. Both sides have a common interest: preventing Sunni extremists from coming to power in Damascus. Iran and the United States also prefer a negotiated settlement over military intervention to solve the crisis. Tehran might need to be included in a settlement given its influence in Syria. Negotiating with Iran on Syria could ultimately help America’s greater goal of a diplomatic breakthrough, not only on Syria but Tehran’s nuclear program as well.

– Alireza Nader is a senior international policy analyst at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation.

*Read Alireza Nader’s chapter on the Revolutionary Guards in “The Iran Primer”

Photo Credits: Bashar Assad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei via Leader.ir, Syria graphic via Khamenei.ir Facebook

by Farideh Farhi

Much about various Iranian and non-Iranian narratives and reporting on the assassination of General Hassan Shateri (aka Khoshnevis) is unclear or contradictory. Let’s just say that reports cannot even agree on the date he died on. So I leave it to others to practice the art of speculation [...]]]> via Lobe Log

by Farideh Farhi

Much about various Iranian and non-Iranian narratives and reporting on the assassination of General Hassan Shateri (aka Khoshnevis) is unclear or contradictory. Let’s just say that reports cannot even agree on the date he died on. So I leave it to others to practice the art of speculation regarding when and where he was killed and by whom, and what his “real” mission was.

But I do want to point out — and I am surprised that it has not been picked up by the English-language reporters – that if Shateri was indeed Khoshnevis, he was not unknown to the Treasury Department. In fact, Meir Javedanfar does not need “to assume“ that this person had “close contact” with Hezbollah. Hessam Khoshnevis and the organization he headed in Lebanon — the Iranian Committee for the Reconstruction of Lebanon (ICRL) — features in the Treasury department’s 2010 list of individuals and entities sanctioned precisely because of the connection to Hezbollah.

The 2010 Treasury Fact Sheet reports the sanctioning of “The Iranian Committee for the Reconstruction of Lebanon (ICRL) and its director, Hessam Khoshnevis, for providing financial, material, and technological support to Hizballah…. Treasury also today designated ICRL director, Hessam Khoshnevis for providing technical support to Hizballah’s reconstruction efforts in Lebanon and to the expansion of the terrorist group’s private communications network. Khoshnevis also operates as President Ahmadinejad’s personal representative in Lebanon.”

A picture of Khoshnevis with a Lebanese man reportedly signing a reconstruction deal can be found here. (Fars News has a whole series on Iranian figures meeting with a variety of officials in Lebanon and visiting construction sites.)

So the Treasury will now have one less person on its sanctions list (and I suppose one more to add soon), provided that the Iranian press and devilish Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) folks are not leading us astray by making us think that Hassan Shateri is Hessam Khoshnevis or…

Reporting on Iran and its activities outside the country has become quite interesting. Since it is hard to do investigative journalism, many of us have developed a habit of sifting through obscure and not-so-obscure websites in an effort to find information regarding what is “really” happening inside the country. What is not said in public but perhaps said in smaller gatherings (and selectively reported only by particular websites) is taken at face value as being the real Iran or real Iran policy, particularly if what is said confirms our own pre-existing suspicions. The words of someone who may not even be in position to know what Iran’s covert operations consist of are taken as confirmation of what Tehran is really doing simply because it confirms what we already assume or even believe.

Just take a look at the sourcing for the possibility of the Mughniyeh-type secret work Shateri aka Khoshnevis was really doing. The source is one sentence uttered by a mid-rank cleric named Alireza Panahian who is among the students of Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi. By all accounts he is a hard-line preacher and has no official capacity. True, his Wikipedia page says he is an “influential” cleric but doesn’t explain why that is so. He certainly talks a lot and derides anyone accused of “sedition” or “deviation” — in other words, political competitors. According to his own account, he took a trip to Beirut a couple of years ago and did indeed meet Khoshnevis. Let us say he was even a good friend of Khoshnevis (although Panahian is younger and unlike Khoshnevis, there is no evidence that he was anything but a child during the Iran-Iraq War). Does it even make sense to assume that such a clever operator in Lebanon (who even fooled the Treasury department into thinking that his work includes offering technical and material support to Hezbollah’s reconstruction projects) would share his secret activities with a Panahian-type preacher?

Look, there should be no doubt that the IRGC has extensive operational links in Syria and with Hezbollah. The IRGC was present in Syria before the uprising and there is no evidence to suggest that links have been reduced. Nor should there be a surprise that efforts continue in order to transfer arms to Hezbollah via Syria even if the extent of success given the Syrian turmoil is unknown, at least to me. Along the same lines, we should not find ourselves surprised at the thought that Russian advisers have been deployed in Syria with new surface-to-air systems and upgrades for old systems, which Moscow has supplied since the uprising.

We also know for a fact that the only links that have been ruptured in Iran-Syria relations since the uprising are the economic links created by yearly trips taken by tens, and perhaps even hundreds of thousands, of religious pilgrims (many of whom travelled by bus via Turkey so a decrease in Turkey’s Iranian tourists can confirm this reduction). This by implication means that the number of Iranians who facilitated trips to Syria has also been reduced. That’s about it, as far as knowing goes. Meanwhile, there is really no need to assert secret evidence of other openly-acknowledged links and cooperation with either the Assad regime or Hezbollah. Tehran does not hide its alliance with Hezbollah and the Syrian government. It even calls it an axis of resistance and boasts about it.

The questions that remain unanswered regard whether there is evidence that events inside Syria have led to a significant operational transformation in terms of Iranian support for the Syrian regime; whether the survival of Assad’s regime up until now would have been possible without such an increase in support; whether the pursuit of a different strategy on the part of Tehran would have led or will lead to a better outcome than what we have today or hope to have tomorrow; and if so, whether something could have been done or could be done now by other players to convince Tehran to pursue a different approach.

Sometimes focusing on the trees makes you miss the forest.

Photo: General Hassan Shateri

As the Iranian leadership prepares to engage in negotiations with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany (P5+1), the conversation inside Iran has moved beyond the nuclear issue to include a debate about the utility of or need for engaging in direct talks, even relations, with [...]]]> via Lobe Log

As the Iranian leadership prepares to engage in negotiations with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany (P5+1), the conversation inside Iran has moved beyond the nuclear issue to include a debate about the utility of or need for engaging in direct talks, even relations, with the United States.

Public discussions about relations with the US have historically been taboo in Iran. To be sure, there have always been individuals who have brought up the idea, but they have either been severely chastised publicly or quickly silenced or ignored. The current conversation is distinguished by its breadth as well the clear positioning of the two sides on the issue.

On one side are the hard-liners who continue to tout the value of a “resistance economy” – a term coined by the Leader Ali Khamenei — in the face of US-led sanctions. On the other side is an increasing number of people from across the political spectrum, including some conservatives, who are calling for bilateral talks.

The idea of direct talks with the US was openly put forth last Spring by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, former president and current chair of the Expediency council, through a couple of interviews. He insisted that Iran “can now fully negotiate with the United States based on equal conditions and mutual respect.” Rafsanjani also conceded that the current obsession with Iran’s nuclear program is not the US’ main problem, arguing against those who “think that Iran’s problems [with the West] will be solved through backing down on the nuclear issue.” At the same time, he called for proactive interaction with the world, and for understanding that after recent transformations in the Middle East, “the Americans… are trying to find “new models that can articulate coexistence and cooperation in the region and which the people [of the region] also like better.” Rafsanjani added that the current situation of “not talking and not having relations with America is not sustainable…The meaning of talks is not that we capitulate to them. If they accept our position or we accept their positions, it’s done.”

In Rafsanjani’s worldview, negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program are merely part of a process that will eventually address other sources of conflict with the US in the region.

Rafsanjani is no longer the lone public voice in favor of direct talks. In fact, as the conversation over talks with the US has picked up, he has remained relatively quiet. Instead, Iranian newspapers and the public fora are witnessing a relatively robust conversation. Last week, for instance, hundreds of people filled an overcrowded university auditorium in the provincial capital of Yasuj, a small city of about 100,000 people, to listen to a public debate between two former members of the Parliament over whether direct talks and relations with the US present opportunity or threats.

On one side stood Mostafa Kavakabian who said

…whatever Islamic Iran is wrestling with in [terms of] sanctions, the nuclear energy issue, multiple resolutions [against Iran] in [international] organizations, human rights violations from the point of view of the West, the issue of Israel and international terrorism is the result of lack of logical relationship, with the maintenance of our country’s principles, with America.

Sattar Hedayatkhah on the other hand argued that “relations with America under the current conditions means backtracking from 34 years of resistance against the demands and sanctions of the global arrogance.”

In recent weeks the hard-line position has been articulated by individuals as varied as the head of the Basij militia forces, Mohammadreza Naqdi, who called sanctions a means for unlocking Iran’s “latent potential” by encouraging domestic industry and ingenuity, and the leader’s representative in the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), cleric Ali Saeedi, who said that Washington’s proposals for direct talks are a ploy to trick Tehran into capitulating over its nuclear program.

Standing in the midst of this contentious conversation is Leader Khamenei, who, as everyone acknowledges, will be the ultimate decision-maker on the issue of talks with the US. During the past couple of years he has articulated his mistrust of the Obama Administration’s intentions in no uncertain terms and since the bungled October 2009 negotiations over the transfer of enriched uranium out of Iran — when Iran negotiator Saeed Jalili met with US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns for the P5+1 side of the meeting — has not allowed bilateral contact at the level of principals between Iran and the US.

Yet the concern regarding a potentially changed position on his part has been sufficient enough for the publication of an op-ed in the hard-line Kayhan Daily warning against the “conspiracy” of “worn-out revolutionaries” to force the Leader “to drink from the poison chalice of backing down, abandoning his revolutionary positions, and talking to the US.”  The opinion piece goes on to say that

…by offering wrong analyses and relating all of the country’s problems to external sanctions, [worn-out revolutionaries] want to make the social atmosphere inflamed and insecure and agitate public sentiments so that the exalted Leader is forced to give in to their demands in order to protect the country’s interests and revolution’s gains.

The idea of drinking poison is an allusion to Revolution-founder Ruhollah Khomeini’s famous speech wherein he grudgingly accepted the ceasefire with Iraq in 1988 and refered to it as poison chalice from which he had to drink. Hard-liners in Iran continue to believe that it was the moderate leaders of the time such as Rafsanjani who convinced Khomeini to take the bitter poison, while conveniently omitting the fact that the current Leader Khamenei was at the time very much on Rafsanjani’s side. This time around it is the “worn-out revolutionaries” who, in the mind of the hard-liners, despite being conservative and acting as key political advisors to Khamenei or holding key positions in office, are suspected of pressuring him to accede to talks.

Basirat, a hard-line website affiliated with the IRGC’s political bureau, has taken a different tact and instead of denouncing pressures on Khamenei, has published a list of “Imam” Khamenei’s statements which insist on long-standing enmity with the US. Presumably, the intended purpose is to make it as hard as possible for him to back away from those statements.

The hard-liners face a predicament, which is essentially this: Having elevated Khamenei’s role to the level of an all-knowing Imam-like leader, they have few options but to remain quiet and submit to his leadership if he makes a decision in favor of direct talks. Hence their prior moves to portray any attempt at talks as capitulation at worst, or unnecessarily taking a bitter pill at best.

It is in this context that one has to consider Khamenei’s potential decision over the issue of direct talks. Whether he will eventually agree to them is not at all clear at this point and in fact is probably quite unlikely, unless the US position on Iran’s nuclear program is publicly clarified to include allowance for limited enrichment inside Iran.

In other words, while Khamenei may eventually assent to direct talks, the path to that position requires some sort of agreement on the nuclear standoff — even if only a limited one — within the P5+1 frame and not the other way around.

The reality is that US pressure on Iran has helped create an environment in which many are calling for a strategic, even incrementally implemented, shift of direction in Iran’s foreign policy regarding the so-called “America question.” But this call for a shift can only become dominant if there are some assurances that corresponding, and again, even incrementally implemented shifts, are also in the works in the US regarding the “Iran question.

- Farideh Farhi is an independent researcher and an affiliate graduate faculty member in political science and international relations at the University of Hawaii-Manoa. A version of this article appeared on IPS News. 

Commentary magazine’s Jonathan Tobin warns the Obama Administration that it should not chalk up Iranian hyperinflation (the rial fell to 35,000:1 against the US dollar this week) and the outbreak of bazaar protests over the situation as a sign of success in forcing the Islamic Republic to abandon its [...]]]> via Lobe Log

Commentary magazine’s Jonathan Tobin warns the Obama Administration that it should not chalk up Iranian hyperinflation (the rial fell to 35,000:1 against the US dollar this week) and the outbreak of bazaar protests over the situation as a sign of success in forcing the Islamic Republic to abandon its nuclear program. While the Obama Administration was quick to cite the foreign exchange collapse as proof that its policy of sanctions is forcing Iran to negotiate, Tobin suggests that further punitive economic measures should be taken (against the energy sector, increasingly dominated by the IRGC) and that the US should adopt a clear “red line” regarding the use of force against Iran:

There are things that can be done to heighten the Islamists’ problems in Iran. Sanctions must be increased and more stringently enforced. After all, though ordinary Iranians are suffering, the amount of oil income flowing into the country is still enough to support the needs of the government, the military and the nuclear program.

Just as important would be the demonstration of Western resolve that has been lacking in recent years. In 2009, President Obama’s relative silence about the violence in Tehran discouraged protesters and assured the ayatollahs that they had nothing to fear from the United States. That set the stage for the last three years of failed diplomacy because Iran’s leaders have never believed that the president meant what he said about preventing them from going nuclear.

If Washington continues to soft pedal its Iran policy and places its hopes on domestic unrest producing a change in policy, the only result will be to perpetuate the current stalemate. Like Assad, the ayatollahs have no plans to give up power.

Michael Rubin also wrote in Commentary that while “Iranians are not fools: they recognize the result of the regime’s gross economic mismanagement”, the damage to the rial is not going to force Iran to make greater compromises because “IRGC veterans” are running the show.

The US Treasury Department asserts that the sanctions against the IRGC are effective, yet according to some reports, the IRGC has found ways to use them to its advantage and to the disadvantage of traditional merchants like those who went out onto the streets today.

On Monday the Wall Street Journal published a breathless article about Iran sending troops to bolster Syria. Quite a bit of the piece is a re-write of a previous story based on anonymous sources and speculation about Iranian hostages in Syria, some of whom are reportedly retired members of [...]]]> via Lobe Log

On Monday the Wall Street Journal published a breathless article about Iran sending troops to bolster Syria. Quite a bit of the piece is a re-write of a previous story based on anonymous sources and speculation about Iranian hostages in Syria, some of whom are reportedly retired members of Iranian Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC). But the part of the more recent story that created the sensational headline is really based on one quote that is attributed to an IRGC commander in the Qazvin Province. Reportedly, “General” Salar Abnoush, commander of the IRGC’s Saheb al-Amr unit, told volunteer trainees in a speech on Monday that “Today we are involved in fighting every aspect of a war, a military one in Syria and a cultural one as well.” According to WSJ reporter Farnaz Fassihi, “A commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, appeared to offer Iran’s first open acknowledgment of its military involvement in Syria.”

This news is of course spectacular enough to be picked up by almost everyone interested in the Syrian conflict. Haaretz already has a blog up wondering “Why Iran is suddenly admitting to sending troops to Syria?”

Sitting in Honolulu I have no way of knowing whether Iran is actually sending troops to Syria or not. But how a story based on a rather suspicious or at least not verified source makes headlines is worth examining because it reveals much about the hysteria of news reporting regarding Iran, as well as the flimsiness of the sources used in reporting about the country and its policies.

So where did Fassihi pick up the quote from the commander from one of Iran’s 31 provinces – tellingly the WSJ does not tell us that he is a provincial commander – who Fassihi has chosen to elevate to the rank of a general? (I have no idea if he is a general or not since Fassihi’s source only says that he is the commander of the Qazvin unit.) Did she pick it up from any of Iran’s major news agencies or newspapers? The answer is no. I happen to know because I also noticed a rather short entry on August 27^th in the Baztab website, which is conservative but critical of Iran’s direction since the 2009 election. The piece is very short (less than 120 words) and titled: “The Strange Words of IRGC’s Qazvin Commander: Iran is Involved in Military Dimension of the Fighting in Syria.” Fassihi must have relied on this short entry because Baztab does not provide a link and I am unable to find the original source of the news, which is the Daneshjoo News Agency. This is something Fassihi seems to coyly acknowledge as well by stating, “The comments, reported by the Daneshjoo news agency, which is run by regime-aligned students, couldn’t be independently verified.”

So what is the context and who is this guy anyway? Is he even in a position to know Iran’s involvement in Syria?

The context is a speech he gave at Imam Khomeini International University, which is located in Qazvin. What Fassihi quotes is indeed one line of this very short report. In the rest of the report, Abnoush reportedly states that the student Basij is “arming students as much as possible in the ideological arena” and focuses on how the curriculum can be strengthened by hiring faculty that can neutralize the “doubts that have been created by the enemy.” The report ends by him saying that “Unfortunately students enter the university with love but because of the enemy’s cultural maneuvers they become discouraged in the University.”

As far as I am concerned, given the assault that is currently being waged against Iranian universities and faculties, particularly in the humanities and social sciences, for not being Islamic and committed enough, these statements are very troublesome and painful to read. But regarding Syria, should we just assume that this guy knows what he is talking about regarding Iran’s military involvement? Even more basically, can we assume that he was quoted correctly and not out of context when the source is inaccessible? Shouldn’t there be a bit more diligence involved in checking sources or can reporting basics be ignored if the subject is Iran? Perhaps we should just speculate, as Haaretz does, about whether the Islamic Republic’s leadership is using a provincial commander to signal that it’s upping “the ante as the first foreign country to go further than supporting one of the sides in Syria with arms and guidance, but also with its own soldier”.

Or, should we listen to the public words of Iran’s defense minister, Ahmad Vahidi, ironically quoted in the same WSJ article, that “Syria is managing this situation very well on its own but if the government can’t resolve the crisis on its own, then based on their request we will fulfill our mutual defense-security pact.” In other words, there are no Iranian troops in Syria yet.

The National Review Online: The American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Rubin attempts to compare Muammar Qaddafi’s “last stand” with a similar scenario involving an imaginary nuclear-armed Iran. Rubin claims successive U.S. administration policies of “traditional deterrence” have [...]]]> News and views relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for Aug. 25 – Sept. 4

The National Review Online: The American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Rubin attempts to compare Muammar Qaddafi’s “last stand” with a similar scenario involving an imaginary nuclear-armed Iran. Rubin claims successive U.S. administration policies of “traditional deterrence” have been guided by the generally accepted notion that the Iranian leadership is not suicidal and would therefore not use nuclear weapons if they acquired them. But Rubin argues this assumption is wrong because:

When considering Iran’s nuclear weapons, however, the character of the regime is less important than the ideology of those who would have custody, command, and control of the nuclear arsenal.

Rubin then says the Iranian Revolutionary Guard are unpredictable when it comes to using nuclear weapons. He writes this while admitting that the “Revolutionary Guards remain effectively a big black box to the American analytical and academic communities.”

As an afterthought Rubin adds:

Still, no matter how extreme they may be, the future custodians of an Iranian nuclear device may not be suicidal — so long as the regime’s grip is secure.

But wait, there is still something for us to be alarmed about! “No Iranian leader,” says Rubin, “can bet on stability.” So if the “regime collapse is inevitable, assumptions that the regime will act to moderate its own behavior become moot.”

Agence France-Press (AFP): The Iranian Students’ News Agency quotes Iran nuclear chief Fereydoun Abbasi Davani saying that Iran will give the IAEA “full supervision” of its nuclear sites for 5 years if all UN sanctions are lifted. AFP writer Mohammad Davari notes that Abbasi Davani did not elaborate on when the offer was made to the IAEA or what he meant by “full supervision.” Abbasi Davani, who survived an assassination attempt on November 29, also complained about a rise in Western attempts to sabotage Iran’s nuclear power program.

The Jerusalem Post: Barry Rubin, an Israel-based American Middle East expert closely affiliated with the U.S. Israel lobby describes the Arab Spring through an Israeli lens. Rubin predicts that the corrosive effects of the Arab revolutions will weaken Arab states while Israel “will continue to advance economically and militarily.” Iran’s alleged hegemonic ambitions will be impeded by the Sunni Islam bent of the Arab democracy movements. Rubin adds that the Iranian nuclear “threat” isn’t all that threatening considering it’s slow-moving progress:

Moreover, Iran is taking far longer to get nuclear weapons than expected due to technical and other problems. The regime also faces potential internal revolt. Of course, Iran is a legitimate Israeli concern but the threat today is far less than it was expected to be several years ago. The likelihood of Israel attacking Iran’s nuclear installation has also dropped sharply.

The Washington Post: Former Israeli ambassador to the United States Sallai Meridor inadvertently makes a good case for why Iran would want to acquire nuclear weapon capacity while arguing that Iran should be watched more carefully:

While the world might be looking elsewhere, the Iranians have boosted the production of enriched uranium, upgraded the level of enrichment closer to weapons-grade and are reportedly moving essential production aspects to a well-protected underground facility. To the mullahs, who face growing uncertainties and are trying to draw their own lessons from events around them, what could better protect them and enhance their clout than the possession of a nuclear bomb?