That Associated Press story displaying a graph alleged to be part of an Iranian computer simulation of a nuclear explosion — likely leaked by Israel with the intention of reinforcing the media narrative of covert Iranian work on nuclear weapons – raises serious questions about the International Atomic [...]]]>
That Associated Press story displaying a graph alleged to be part of an Iranian computer simulation of a nuclear explosion — likely leaked by Israel with the intention of reinforcing the media narrative of covert Iranian work on nuclear weapons – raises serious questions about the International Atomic Energy Association’s (IAEA) claim that it has credible evidence of such modeling work by Iran.
The graph of the relationship between energy and power shown in the AP story has now been revealed to contain absurdly large errors indicating its fraudulence.
Those revelations indicate, in turn, that the IAEA based its publication of detailed allegations of nuclear weapons-related Iranian computer modeling on evidence that should have been rejected as having no credibility.
Former senior IAEA inspector Robert Kelley, who has challenged the accuracy of IAEA reporting on Iran, told Lobe Log in an e-mail that “It’s clear the graph has nothing to do with a nuclear bomb.”
“The pretty, symmetrical bell shaped curve at the bottom is not typical of a nuclear explosion but of some more idealized natural phenomena or mathematical equation,” he said. “Clearly it is a student example of how to perform integrals to which someone has attached some meaningless numbers.”
Nuclear physicists Yousaf Butt and Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress also pointed out that the graph depicted by AP is not only so rudimentary and crude that it could have been done by an undergraduate student, but is based on a fundamental error of mind-numbing proportions.
The graph shown in the AP story plots two curves, one of energy versus time, the other of power output versus time. But Butt and Dalnoki-Veress noted that the two curves are inconsistent. The peak level of power shown in the graph, they said, is nearly a million times too high.
After a quick look at the graph, the head of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Cal State Sacramento, Dr. Hossein Partovi, observed, “[T]he total energy is more than four orders of magnitude (forty thousand times) smaller than the total integrated power that it must equal!” Essentially, the mismatch between the level of total energy and total power on the graph is “more than four orders of magnitude”, which Partovi explained means that the level of energy is 40,000 times too small in relation to the level of power.
One alert reader of the account of the debunking of the graph at the Mondoweiss blog cited further evidence supporting Kelley’s observation that the graph shown by AP was based on an another graph that had nothing to do with nuclear explosions.
The reader noted that the notation “kT” shown after “energy” on the right hand scale of the graph does not stand for “kilotons” as Jahn suggested, but “Boltzmann constant” (k) multiplied by temperature (T). The unit of tons, on the other hand, is always abbreviated with a lower case “t”, he pointed out, so kilotons would be denoted as “kt”.
The reader also stated that the “kT” product is used in physics as a scaling factor for energy values in molecular-scale systems, such as a microsecond laser pulse.
The evidence thus suggests that someone took a graph related to an entirely different problem and made changes to show a computer simulation of a 50 kiloton explosion. The dotted line on the graph leads the eye directly to the number 50 on the right-hand energy scale, which would lead most viewers to believe that it is the result of modeling a 50 kiloton nuclear explosion.
The graph was obviously not done by a real Iranian scientist — much less someone working in a top secret nuclear weapons research program — but by an amateur trying to simulate a graph that would be viewed, at least by non-specialists, as something a scientist might have drawn.
Although AP reporter George Jahn wrote that officials who provided the diagram did so “only on condition that they and their country not be named”, the country behind the graph is not much of a mystery.
Blogger Richard Silverstein has reported that a “highly-placed Israeli source” told him the diagram “was stolen by the Mossad from an Iranian computer” using one of the various malware programs deployed against Iran.
Whether one chooses to rely on Silverstein’s reporting or not, it is clear that the graph is part of a longer stream of suspicious documents supposedly obtained by Israeli intelligence from inside Iran’s nuclear program and then given to the IAEA over the past few years.
Former IAEA Secretary General Mohammed ElBaradei refers in his memoirs to documents provided by Israel in 2009 “purportedly showing that Iran had continued with nuclear weapons studies until at least 2007.” ElBaradei adds that the Agency’s “technical experts” had “raised numerous questions about the documents’ authenticity”, and suggested that US intelligence “did not buy the “evidence” put forward by Israel” in its 2007 National Intelligence Estimate.
Jahn’s story indicates that this and similar graphs were the basis for the IAEA’s publishing charges by two unnamed states that Iran had done computer modeling that the agency said could only have been about nuclear weapons.
Jahn cites a “senior diplomat who is considered neutral on the issue” as confirming that the graph accompanying his story was one of “a series of Iranian computer-generated models provided to the IAEA by the intelligences services of member nations.”
Those “computer generated models” were discussed in the November 2011 report, which referred to “[i]nformation provided to the Agency by two Member States relating to modelling [sic] studies alleged to have been conducted in 2008 and 2009 by Iran….” The unnamed member states were alleging that the Iranian studies “involved the modelling [sic] of spherical geometries, consisting of components of the core of an HEU nuclear device subjected to shock compression, for their neutronic behaviour at high density, and a determination of the subsequent nuclear explosive yield.”
Nothing in that description of the alleged modeling is documented by the type of graph shown by the AP story.
The IAEA report concludes by saying, “The information also identifies models said to have been used in those studies and the results of these calculations, which the Agency has seen.”
In other words, the only evidence that the IAEA had actually seen was the graphs of the alleged computer modeling, of which the graph shown in the AP story is alleged to be an example. But the fact that data on that graph has been credibly shown to be off by four orders of magnitude suggests that the Israeli claim of Iranian computer modeling of “components of the core of an HEU nuclear device subjected to shock compression” was completely fabricated.
Former IAEA Inspector Kelley also told Lobe Log that “We can only hope that the claim that the IAEA has relied on this crude hoax is false. Otherwise their credibility has been shattered.”
- Gareth Porter, an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy, received the UK-based Gellhorn Prize for journalism for 2011 for articles on the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
]]>Write Kelsey Davenport, Daryl G. Kimball, and Greg Thielmann at Arms Control Now:
Taken together, the IAEA report findings provide further troubling evidence that Iran is continuing to pursue sensitive nuclear fuel-cycle activities in violation of UN Security Council resolutions and is slowly enhancing its nuclear weapons breakout potential.
[...]]]>
Write Kelsey Davenport, Daryl G. Kimball, and Greg Thielmann at Arms Control Now:
Taken together, the IAEA report findings provide further troubling evidence that Iran is continuing to pursue sensitive nuclear fuel-cycle activities in violation of UN Security Council resolutions and is slowly enhancing its nuclear weapons breakout potential.
However, Iran remains years, not months away from having a workable nuclear arsenal if it were to choose to pursue that capability. Given this reality, it is clear that new and more energetic diplomatic efforts are necessary to reduce the risk of a nuclear-armed Iran.
How should the diplomatic process — regarded as the most effective and sustainable way of countering Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions — proceed?
The overall goal for U.S. and P5+1 negotiators must be to halt the most significant proliferation risk, which is Iran’s accumulation of 20% enriched uranium. Their efforts should focus on limiting—not permanently suspending—Iran’s enrichment to normal power reactor-grade levels (3.5%), and limit its stockpiles to actual nuclear power needs, while securing more intrusive IAEA inspections to ensure that Iran has halted previous weapons-related experiments, all in exchange for a phased rollback of international sanctions on Iran.
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Two must-read analyses of the Iran portion from last night’s final presidential debate are brought to us by TIME’s Tony Karon and the Arms Control Association’s Greg Thielmann. (This TPM headline also sums up the entire debate quite nicely: “Romney’s Final Debate Message: I’ll Be A Better Obama”.)
Two must-read analyses of the Iran portion from last night’s final presidential debate are brought to us by TIME’s Tony Karon and the Arms Control Association’s Greg Thielmann. (This TPM headline also sums up the entire debate quite nicely: “Romney’s Final Debate Message: I’ll Be A Better Obama”.)
Karon writes that regardless of who wins the 2012 presidential election, the United States will consider direct talks with Iran:
“It is essential for us to understand what our mission is in Iran,” Romney said in Monday’s foreign policy debate, “and that is to dissuade Iran from having a nuclear weapon through peaceful and diplomatic means.” His leverage of choice: “crippling sanctions” with the threat of military action as a last resort should Iran cross a red line toward developing “nuclear-weapons capability.” That’s broadly the same policy the Obama Administration has followed. Asked to differentiate himself, in the debate, Romney didn’t even raise the ambiguous question of where to draw the red line. (Obama sets his red line for action at Iran moving to acquire a nuclear weapon; Romney uses the phrase nuclear-weapons capability – although it’s not exactly clear whether this means the capability to build nuclear weapons, which Iran perhaps already has in latent form, or the capability to rapidly assemble and deploy nuclear warheads atop missiles.) Instead Romney simply insisted he’d have imposed tighter sanctions sooner.
But inflexibility from both sides may prevent a peaceful resolution to the Iran-US impasse:
While he may be open to a genuine compromise, Khamenei can’t be seen to surrender on “nuclear rights” for which Iran has fought and suffered growing isolation over the past decade, notes University of Hawaii Iran scholar Farideh Farhi. “With the draconian economic measures imposed on Iran in the past year, the [domestic] political terrain makes quite impossible the acceptance of a deal that does not bring about some immediate, palpable, even if small, relaxation of the sanctions regime,” says Farhi. Imagining sanctions as an alternative to military action may be misleading, she argues, because Khamenei believes their purpose is regime change, and mounting economic pain could prompt the regime to become more reckless in its effort to break out of the noose.
(Interestingly, Romney previously dodged questions about meeting directly with Iran, but Benjamin Armbruster reports that Paul Ryan was on network morning shows today saying that Romney would engage in bilateral talks without preconditions [from the Iranians?]).
Thielmann, a former senior State Department intelligence analyst, meanwhile clarifies the candidates’ positions on Iran:
Obama concluded last night that: “There is a deal to be had, and that is that [the Iranians] abide by the rules that have already been established. They convince the international community they are not pursuing a nuclear [weapons] program. There are inspections that are very intrusive. But over time, what they can do is regain credibility. In the meantime, though, we’re not going to let up the pressure until we have clear evidence that that takes place.” At the same time, he warned that “the clock is ticking” and that he would not allow negotiations “to go on forever.”
For his part, Governor Romney appeared to tack away during the debate from his previous posture on Iran. Earlier, he had followed the lead of Israel’s prime minister, appearing more skeptical that any acceptable compromise could be reached with the current regime in Tehran and more willing to imply that unilateral military action would be taken sooner rather than later. Last night, Romney’s martial alarm was barely audible. Yet his avowed interest in diplomacy was belied by his call for treating Iran’s diplomats “as the pariahs they are.” It is difficult to negotiate constructively with those you are simultaneously labeling “pariahs.”
Both candidates appeared united in making one point about Iran policy options. Whatever the consequences of exercising the military option, they each signaled willingness ultimately to launch a preventive attack against Iran. This in spite of a near consensus among experts that, short of invasion and occupation, such an attack would not prevent but would bring about a nuclear-armed Iran.
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I’ve been meaning to write about this report on the multifold human costs of militarily striking Iran’s nuclear facilities and am happy to find that it’s already been noted by Golnaz Esfandiari as well as Gordon Lubold, among others. (Marsha Cohen’s well-read Lobe Log post on [...]]]>
I’ve been meaning to write about this report on the multifold human costs of militarily striking Iran’s nuclear facilities and am happy to find that it’s already been noted by Golnaz Esfandiari as well as Gordon Lubold, among others. (Marsha Cohen’s well-read Lobe Log post on the same topic was the closest thing to such a study that I’ve come across so far.) “The Ayatollah’s Nuclear Gamble” is sponsored by Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics and was authored by Khosrow B. Semnani, an Iranian-American engineer by training and philanthropist. It will be featured this week at a joint event by the Woodrow Wilson Center and the Iran Task Force at the Atlantic Council. With the study Semnani endeavors to scientifically prove something which seems obvious: attacking nuclear facilities in Iran could have devastating effects on possibly hundreds of thousands of Iranians who would be exposed to highly toxic chemical plumes and even radioactive fallout. Case studies were conducted on the Iranian cities of Isfahan, Natanz, Arak, and Bushehr. In Isfahan, a military strike on the nuclear facility there “could be compared to the 1984 Bhopal industrial accident at the Union Carbide plant in India”:
In that accident, the release of 42 metric tons (47 U.S. tons) of methyl isocyanate turned the city of Bhopal into a gas chamber. Estimates of deaths have ranged from 3,800 to 15,000. The casualties went well beyond the fatalities: More than 500,000 victims received compensation for exposure to fumes.
The environmental consequences would also be wide-ranging:
With the high likelihood of soluble uranium compounds permeating into the groundwater, strikes would wreak havoc on Isfahan’s environmental resources and agriculture. The Markazi water basin, one of six main catchment areas, which covers half the country (52%), provides slightly less than one-third of Iran’s total renewable water (29%) (Figure 26). According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the groundwater discharge in the basin from approximately 155,000 wells, 22,000 channels and 13,500 springs is the primary water source for agricultural and residential uses.106 It is almost certain that the contamination of groundwater as a result of strikes would damage this important fresh-water source.
The report also touches on the unintended consequences of militarily striking Iran, such as a “short or prolonged regional war” and explains, as reputable analysts have, why the Israeli strike on Iraq’s Osirak facility is a “false analogy”:
The Osirak analogy is the fantasy that there will be no blowback from strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities. It discounts the complexity, severity, scale, consequences, and casualties such an operation would entail. Iran’s nuclear program is not an empty shell, nor is it a single remote target. The facilities in Iran are fully operational, they contain thousands of personnel, they are located near major population centers, they are heavily constructed and fortified, and thus difficult to destroy. They contain tons of highly toxic chemical and radioactive material. To grasp the political and psychological impact of the strikes, what our estimates suggest is that the potential civilian casualties Iran would suffer as a result of a strike — in the first day — could exceed the 6,731 Palestinians and 1,083 Israeli’s reported killed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the past decade. The total number of fatalities in the 1981 Osirak raid was 10 Iraqis and one French civilian, Damien Chaussepied.
According to Greg Thielmann of the Arms Control Association, the report makes a “valuable contribution to “colorizing” the bloodless discussions of the “military option.” Thielmann, who formerly worked on assessments of ballistic missile threats at the State Department’s intelligence bureau, told Lobe Log that he had not seen “a more serious look at the medical consequences for the Iranian population” than provided by this report.
While Thielmann calls the report an “impressive effort”, he also offered criticism. “I take strong exception to the author’s introductory assertion that diplomacy with the Islamic Republic “requires a willful act of self-deception,” and that regime change is the only way to achieve an acceptable resolution to the challenges of Iran’s nuclear program,” he said.
Thielmann was also “surprised” that the strike scenario analyzed in the study includes the Bushehr facility, “which is of much less proliferation concern than the other nuclear facilities mentioned, and which, because of the extensive use of Russian personnel in operating the reactor there, would carry high political costs to attack. ”
“Such an attack would also violate Additional Protocol I of the 1949 Geneva Conventions,” said Thielmann, who provided the following excerpt from Article 56 of the 1977 Additional Protocol I:
1. Works and installations containing dangerous forces, namely dams, dykes and nuclear electrical generating stations, shall not be made the object of attack, even where these objects are military objectives, if such attack may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe losses among the civilian population. Other military objectives located at or in the vicinity of these works or installations shall not be made the object of attack if such attack may cause the release of dangerous forces from the works or installations and consequent severe losses among the civilian population.
It will be interesting to see whether the report gets mainstream media attention following the Wilson Center event and if it will spark further examination of this integral — but otherwise barely mentioned — aspect of using the “military option” on Iran.
]]>The Arms Control Association’s Greg Thielmann notes that there was a decrease in Iran’s stockpile of 20 percent-enriched uranium, as indicated by the latest International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) report about Iran’s nuclear program, but did you know that? The P5+1 has heavily focused on Iran’s highly-enriched stockpile [...]]]>
The Arms Control Association’s Greg Thielmann notes that there was a decrease in Iran’s stockpile of 20 percent-enriched uranium, as indicated by the latest International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) report about Iran’s nuclear program, but did you know that? The P5+1 has heavily focused on Iran’s highly-enriched stockpile because it poses “a much more rapid “breakout” option for Iran” and yet the reduction, as well as “the absence of evident progress by Iran on expanding the number of its advanced centrifuges in operation”, says Thielmann, has been under-reported in mainstream press:
]]>The IAEA confirmed in January that Iran had begun producing 20 percent enriched uranium at the deep underground (and less vulnerable) facility at Fordow. Former IAEA Safeguards Department chief Olli Heinonen noted then that: “At current production rates, Iran can expect to have a stock of 20 percent enriched uranium of around 250 kg by the end of 2012…”
Yet, the IAEA’s latest report counted only 91.4 kg in the UF6 stockpile at this level, lower than the 101 kg reported by the agency in May. This decrease is explained by Iran’s continuing withdrawal of 20 percent enriched UF6 for conversion into U3O8 in the form of metallic fuel plates for use in the ageing Tehran Research Reactor (TRR), which makes medical isotopes.
In spite of the growth in the gross amount of 20% enriched uranium produced during the latest quarter, Iran was no closer to being able to achieve sufficient weapons grade uranium for a bomb. Importantly, uranium in the form of fuel plates cannot easily be converted back into the gaseous form required for further enrichment. Even though still enriched to 20 percent, it is essentially no longer available for diversion into a military program.
An equally important detail from the IAEA report is the absence of evident progress by Iran on expanding the number of its advanced centrifuges in operation. More advanced centrifuges could enrich much more efficiently than the older IR-1 model now installed at both the underground fuel enrichment facilities at Fordow and Natanz. The more advanced IR-2 and IR-4 centrifuges are still limited to the three cascades that have been in operation for some time at the above-ground Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant at Natanz.
Laura Rozen clears up the cloud of confusion over Ehud Barak’s comments last week implying that a new U.S. intelligence assessment on Iran that shares Israel’s assessment of Iran’s nuclear program had been released:
Several American former officials told Al-Monitor Thursday that they believed what Israeli officials may [...]]]>
Laura Rozen clears up the cloud of confusion over Ehud Barak’s comments last week implying that a new U.S. intelligence assessment on Iran that shares Israel’s assessment of Iran’s nuclear program had been released:
]]>Several American former officials told Al-Monitor Thursday that they believed what Israeli officials may have been briefed on is not an NIE, but a smaller, more focused report on certain aspects of Iran’s nuclear program.
Non-proliferation analysts speculated that the new U.S. report could focus on one of the categories of continuing research activities listed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in its November 2011 report on Iran.
However, “carrying on scattered research activities does not amount to a full-fledged restart of an integrated weapons program,” Greg Thielmann, a former US intelligence analyst and senior fellow at the Arms Control Association, wrote in an ACA Iran Nuclear Threat Assessment brief (.pdf).
Now, from my perspective as a former mid-level official in the U.S. intelligence community and the Department of State, I believe the Bush administration did not provide an accurate picture to the American people of the military threat posed by Iraq. Some of the fault lies with the performance of the intelligence community, but most of it lies with the way senior officials misused the information they were provided.
Thielmann was set to retire in 4 months but resigned early from the Bush administration in protest over the politicization of intelligence. In 2009, he told CBS News that responsibility for the U.S.’s unjust war on Iraq was shared by all but that
The main problem was that the senior administration officials have what I call faith-based intelligence. They knew what they wanted the intelligence to show.
Thielmann is currently a fellow at the ACA, an anti-nuclear proliferation non-profit organization where he focuses, among other things, on Iran. (Read my interview with ACA executive director Daryl Kimball here.)
Now, while the Obama administration is making a visible effort to handle its Iran intelligence more carefully, the same cannot be said about the handling of widely available official information about Iran’s nuclear program by many U.S. broadcast media outlets. In the clip above, CNN’s Jonathan Mann fails to mention Thielmann’s important background or Israel’s widely suspected though undeclared nuclear weapons arsenal, but does offer ample alarmism about Iran’s nuclear activities even though the Israeli official statements he bases it on actually counter it. After Thielmann says that recent acknowledgement by Israeli military officials that Iran has not decided to make a nuclear weapon and is a rational actor coincide with U.S. military intelligence assessments, Mann voices his own confused interpretation:
I wonder if we could parse, though, exactly what [Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz] is saying. What he said is that the Iranians are moving step-by-step to get to a place where they could build a nuclear weapon, which is to say, I would assume, that they’re going to continue to violate their understandings with the International Atomic Energy Agency, they’re going to continue to enrich uranium beyond the point that they need for any civilian purpose. They’re going to get so close, that people in Israel would inevitably be nervous about them taking that one last step. It sounds like he’s saying they’re doing everything but tightening the last screw and he thinks they’re going to make a decision in the future, in his mind, that they won’t do it, but they’ll make that decision in some time to come.
Thielmann politely responds that Mann is going “a little beyond what [Gantz is] saying” and while Iran is certainly acquiring more of the “ingredients” for a nuclear weapon
…it’s not fair to say that they’re anywhere near a turn of a screw away from a weapon and in fact that is exactly what the objective of the current round of negotiations is, to take a step which would halt the accumulation of this enriched uranium and reverse it.
After more than 162,000 dead Iraqi men, women and children, thousands of dead U.S. soldiers and what could be an eternity of blowback from a pretentious U.S. war, isn’t it also fair to say that we and especially news media should try to avoid “faith-based intelligence” interpretations?
]]>Notwithstanding the insinuations of strategic missile defense proponents, no long-range [...]]]>
Notwithstanding the insinuations of strategic missile defense proponents, no long-range ballistic missiles have been observed or flight-tested in Iran. The medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) continues to be the premier weapon in the Iranian inventory. Iran is still flight-testing (for the seventh time in February 2011), but not yet deploying, the two-stage solid-fueled Sejjil 2 MRBM, which would be the most likely delivery vehicle if Iran were eventually to field a nuclear warhead. With its 2200 km range, this system would be able to target Israel and other Middle Eastern countries from Iran’s interior.
Iran’s long range ballistic missile threat has been exaggerated for many years, starting with the Rumsfeld Commission’s warning in 1998 that Iran, et al, would be able to flight-test an intercontinental-range ballistic missile (ICBM) in about five years. The U.S. intelligence community appeared to validate this concern in its 1999 National Intelligence Estimate, judging that Iran could test an ICBM within “a few years,” assigning an “even to likely” chance that it would test an ICBM by 2010. Nearly two years past the marker set then by the intelligence community for the appearance of a 5500+ km. range Iranian ICBMs, nothing is in sight.
Read more.
]]>Commentary: While most of the U.S. celebrated the release of the remaining two U.S. hikers imprisoned in Iran after they illegally entered the country, American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael Rubin was perturbed. After quoting a book by Matthew [...]]]>
Commentary: While most of the U.S. celebrated the release of the remaining two U.S. hikers imprisoned in Iran after they illegally entered the country, American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael Rubin was perturbed. After quoting a book by Matthew Levitt about Hamas in 2006, Rubin suggests the 1 million that secured Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal’s freedom will be used to fund terrorism. While offering no evidence about how the Iranian judiciary will make use of the bail money, Rubin claims the hikers’ release will lead to the death of innocents:
- It may be good to have our hostages home, but to celebrate their release is unfortunate without acknowledging the death sentences those who paid the bail just signed on innocent civilians elsewhere.
Rubin also suggests it’s unlikely that the hikers entered Iran accidentally as they claimed they did.
Pajama’s Media: The Foundation for Defense of Democracies Michael Ledeen vehemently criticizes the Obama administration for refusing to address “reality” as he sees it.
Ledeen calls Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan a “totally unsuitable partner” after quoting Barry Rubin’s gross mischaracterization of the Israeli attack against the Turkish Gaza-bound aid flotilla which resulted in the death of 9 passengers (1 of whom was a U.S. citizen) and Erdogan’s attempts to build diplomatic channels with regional Mideast players. He criticizes Obama’s refusal to force the Syrian president from power and uses NATO’s intervention in Libya as justification for something that he has been arguing for years: U.S. covert or open support for Iranian groups which want regime change. (As a side note, Ledeen and some other neoconservatives have argued against supporting the Mujahideen-e-khalq (MEK) which speaks volumes about the nature of that organization and those who support it.)
Despite U.S. refusal to speak directly to the Islamic Republic and rounds of sanctions which have strangled its economy, Ledeen claims the U.S. treats its most “dangerous enemies” (i.e. Iran) as “potential allies who have temporarily gone astray.” Ledeen continues to lament the fact that the U.S. has not called for “regime change” in Iran.
True to his neoconservative ideology which favors military force over diplomacy with enemies, Ledeen claims the U.S. shouldn’t resist war with Iran because it’s “already under way, and it’s no accident.” He argues against the proposed direct line to Iran to prevent accidental military conflict because it “offers them a golden opportunity to deceive us.”
Considering Ledeen’s constant alarmist claims about the Iranian government, nothing seems to scare him more than direct communication between the U.S. and Iran. That’s why it’s so important for those who don’t favor war.
Arms Control Association: At an Arm Control Association (ACA) press conference Mark Fitzpatrick, Admiral Joe Sestak and Greg Thielmann argued that there is still time for diplomacy with Iran because an Iranian nuclear power arsenal is “neither imminent nor inevitable.”
Mark Fitzpatrick, Director of the Nonproliferation and Disarmament Program at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London says sanctions against Iran have an aim which is not being executed properly:
- The whole point of sanctions is to persuade Iran to come back to the negotiating table. But how would we know when they’re ready to come back to the negotiating table if we’re not talking with them, if we’re not having some kind of a private, very quiet discussions?
Fitzpatrick adds:
- I think engagement will be absolutely crucial to any peaceful solution. Sanctions alone are not going to dissuade Iran because of the sense of national will. You don’t want to bow to pressure but if you are engaged in something where there’s a positive outcome, it’s more possible.
ACA senior fellow Greg Thielmann argued for direct negotiation with Iran without preconditions because any other approach is “counterproductive:”
- We’re under an environment here where the formidable diplomatic resources of the United States are basically banned from having any contact with Iranian diplomats except on very limited special occasions. This is cutting us off from a source of information about diplomatic opportunities about what is going on in Iran.
The panelists continued discussion at the highest levels of the U.S. military emphasizing that military conflict with Iran is the least favorable outcome because of the massive blowback it would result in. According to former three star admiral Sestak:
- …a military strike whether it’s by land or air against Iran would make the aftermath of the Iraqi invasion look like a cakewalk with regard to the impact on the United States’ national security.
Christian Science Monitor: Ralph Langner who discovered the Stuxnet virus which made headlines after it affected several Iranian organizations says the creators have opened a Pandora’s box of cyber warfare:
- It raises, for one, the question of how to apply cyberwar as a political decision. Is the US really willing to take down the power grid of another nation when that might mainly affect civilians? Could or should military contractors, instead of soldiers, wage cyberwar? What happens when cyberweapons dealers start selling sophisticated cyberweapons to terrorists? There is also the manner in which Stuxnet was used – which could be considered a textbook example of a “just war” approach. It didn’t kill anyone. That’s a good thing. But I am afraid this is only a short term view. In the long run it has opened Pandora’s box.
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) is spending his time back home with constituents to argue for an increased military budget — and exaggerating the threat from Iran’s nuclear program to do it.
To be sure, Iran’s program is a concern for Western governments. But Inhofe, speaking to constituents [...]]]>
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) is spending his time back home with constituents to argue for an increased military budget — and exaggerating the threat from Iran’s nuclear program to do it.
To be sure, Iran’s program is a concern for Western governments. But Inhofe, speaking to constituents in Oklahoma City takes his bona fides as a member of the Armed Services Committee and gives a misleading account of current U.S. estimates about Iran’s potential capabilities. Inhofe said:
- We know – and it is not even classified for me to tell you today – that Iran will have the capability of delivering a weapon of mass destruction to western Europe and the eastern United States by 2015. I see that as the most imminent threat to this country right now. So that is a problem we are going to have deal with.
This represents neither the official declassified opinion of the U.S. government nor that of a non-proliferation expert contacted by ThinkProgress.
Contrary to Inhofe’s statement, Michael Elleman, a missile defense expert at the Institute for Strategic and International Studies (ISIS), explained the U.S. Defense Department’s position in a blog post earlier this year:
- The April 2010 Department of Defense report to Congress said, “With sufficient foreign assistance, Iran could probably develop and test an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching the United States by 2015.” The key words are “develop and test.” The report does not say Iran will have an operational ICBM by 2015. Iran could conduct a preliminary, proof-of-concept test of a missile capable of reaching the United States in 2015.
At the time of the report, Jeffery Lewis at the Arms Control Wonk blog also took note of the specific language — omitted by Inhofe — that “sufficient foreign assistance” would be needed for Iran to make anything near these moves by 2015.
Indeed, Iran isn’t even working yet on such a weapon: “There is no evidence to suggest that Iran is actively developing an ocean-spanning, intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching America’s east coast,” wrote ISIS’s Elleman. Even if they did, “Iran is unlikely to field an operational ICBM before 2020.”
This assessment was corroborated by Greg Thielmann, a senior fellow at the Arms Control Association who served as director of the State Department’s Strategic, Proliferation and Military Affairs Office. Theilmann told ThinkProgress, Iran “has never tested a medium-range weapon that can hit Western Europe let alone hit the United States.” He said ICBM development is a separate issue from development of a working nuclear warhead small enough to fit atop a missile: “There are serious doubts about 2015 for a nuclear warhead as well.” He went on:
- It’s putting those things together that makes me confident that Iran can’t pose a threat to the United States by 2015. I think that’s using things loosely and not qualifying them properly for the Senator to say we know that or we can be sure of that.
Theilmann said he’d prefer that when politicians quote dates produced by policy professionals, they use the same qualifiers and caveats the experts use. “In order to use that 2015 date, one has to start using all the qualifiers that all the professionals use.” But that’s not always compatible with politics: “Their job is to raise alarms and scare people about it, I’m afraid.”
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