Iran crosses red line, can enrich uranium up to 20pc grade

[Peter Presland]

Here's a sober analysis of the latest moves in Iran's uranium enrichment saga from Asia Times

Its only real problems - and they are BIG ones, TWO elephants in the room in fact - are that it appears to assume:

1. that the US actually wants a deal that leaves the Iranian government unchanged, and
2. Israel and its Zionist Crazies have no real bearing on the matter - since Israel is not mentioned at all.

Worth a read nonetheless because it contains some interesting angles:

It is possible that by giving the go-ahead for the production of 20% enriched uranium, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has sufficiently jolted the other side to rethink its approach on the nuclear fuel-swap deal.

On the surface, Iran's decision has raised alarm bells in the West and has provoked a strong response from United States President Barack Obama, who has warned that his administration is "developing a significant regime of sanctions" to impose on Iran.

Even Moscow has expressed its displeasure, in the form of a statement by a Foreign Ministry official, which said, "We are disappointed with the Iranian step, which did not allow diplomats to agree on mutually acceptable ways for the fulfillment of the
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi

It is possible that by giving the go-ahead for the production of 20% enriched uranium, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has sufficiently jolted the other side to rethink its approach on the nuclear fuel-swap deal.

On the surface, Iran's decision has raised alarm bells in the West and has provoked a strong response from United States President Barack Obama, who has warned that his administration is "developing a significant regime of sanctions" to impose on Iran.

Even Moscow has expressed its displeasure, in the form of a statement by a Foreign Ministry official, which said, "We are disappointed with the Iranian step, which did not allow diplomats to agree on mutually acceptable ways for the fulfillment of the
IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] proposal of higher-enriched uranium fuel production for the Tehran research reactor outside Iran."

Under a proposal put forward by the IAEA last year, Iran would hand over its low-enriched uranium (LEU) to be further processed in another country before being returned for use at the Tehran reactor. On February 2, after much flip-flopping, Iran said it was now ready to send its LEU abroad. Then, on February 7, Iran announced it would itself begin enriching uranium to 20%, while saying it was still open to discussing the original proposal.

This has heightened concerns that Iran aims to build nuclear weapons, something it has consistently denied.

However, not all hope is lost for the IAEA-proposed deal, and there are emerging signs of growing activity on both sides to come to some sort of mutually satisfactory agreement.

On Iran's part, various officials from the Atomic Energy Organization (AEO) to the Foreign Ministry have repeatedly stated that Iran is still open to the swap deal. Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the AEO, told the Tehran daily Iran that the government was willing to suspend production of 20% uranium if there were an exchange "without preconditions" of Iran's 3.5% LEU in return for nuclear fuel rods. According to Salehi, Iran's LEU could be "sealed and put under the custody" of the IAEA until it received the fuel it needed for the medical research reactor.

The news from Washington on the other hand indicates that the US is now working on a new proposal aimed at salvaging the nuclear deal that was unveiled last October in Geneva. This focuses on procuring medical isotopes for Iran from the international market. An administration official told the Washington Post, "Rather than operate a reactor, this would be a more cost-effective and efficient approach."

Not everyone agrees with that assessment, however, and some US nuclear experts have openly admitted that Iran's home production of key ingredients (eg technetium 99) would be less costly and more efficient. (See Dangerous steps in Iran's nuclear dance Asia Times Online, February 9, 2010).

That aside, the problem with the US's new approach is that it apparently seeks to make the reactor redundant by the promise of delivering the reactor's net products. That will not wash with the Iranians, who have had an earful of unfulfilled promises over the past 30 years.

Instead, what may work to everyone's advantage is a "mixed approach", whereby the fuel swap under set timelines and delivery of medical isotopes to Iran would be the central elements of an agreement according to which Iran would refrain from engaging in enrichment activities deemed "highly dangerous" by the West.

"It's Iran's version of nuclear brinksmanship," said a Tehran foreign policy expert. "The message from Tehran is clear: take our counter-proposal seriously or face the consequence of Iran taking a giant step closer to the 'nuclear-capable' threshold ... There is cause for a pause on the part of Washington and London in their unreasonable rejection of Iran's proposal."

If a deal is worked out and a modified version of the IAEA proposal accepted, it would represent a unique victory for Iran's nuclear diplomacy, combining "soft" and "hard" power to elicit a favorable response from the "Iran Six" nations, ie the US, France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany. These countries have engaged in nuclear negotiations with Iran over the past several years.

Also, if there were a breakthrough, it would frustrate some of the hardline voices in Iran that argue in favor of Iran "deepening its nuclear capability". To silence such voices and to agree to limit Iran's enrichment activities to low levels (below 5%), Iran's top decision-makers would have to show that they had struck the right bargain without selling themselves short.

As Iran celebrates the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution on Thursday, with people expected to take to the streets in their thousands across the country - although some will be protesting against the current government - there are rays of hope that the dark clouds of a more intensified nuclear crisis may be disappearing.

Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) . For his Wikipedia entry, click here. His latest book, Reading In Iran Foreign Policy After September 11 (BookSurge Publishing , October 23, 2008) is now available.

[Magda Hassan]

Mmmmmm...

Is Iran Running a Bluff?
Did Robert Gibbs let the cat out of the bag?
By Pat Buchanan

February 16, 2010 "Creators" -- Last week, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the world that Iran, unable to get fuel rods from the West for its U.S.-built reactor, which makes medical isotopes, had begun to enrich its own uranium to 20 percent.

From his perch in the West Wing, Gibbs scoffed:

"He (Ahmadinejad) says many things, and many of them turn out to be untrue. We do not believe they have the capability to enrich to the degree to which they now say they are enriching."

But wait a minute. If Iran does not "have the capability" to enrich to 20 percent for fuel rods, how can Iran enrich to 90 percent for a bomb?

What was Gibbs implying?

Is he confirming reports that Iran's centrifuges are breaking down or have been sabotaged? Is he saying that impurities, such as molybdenum, in the feed stock of Iran's centrifuges at Natanz are damaging the centrifuges and contaminating the uranium?

What explains Gibbs' confidence? Perhaps this.

According to a report last week by David Albright and Christina Walrond of the Institute for Science and International Security, "Iran's problems in its centrifuge programme are greater than expected. ... Iran is unlikely to deploy enough gas centrifuges to make enriched uranium for commercial nuclear power reactors (Iran's stated nuclear goal) for a long time, if ever, particularly if (U.N.) sanctions remain in force."

Thus, ISIS is saying Iran cannot make usable fuel for the nuclear power plant it is building, and Gibbs is saying Iran lacks the capability to make fuel rods for its research reactor.

Which suggests Iran's vaunted nuclear program is a busted flush.

ISIS insists, however, that Iran may still be able to build a bomb. Yet, to do that, Iran would have to divert nearly all of its low-enriched uranium at Natanz, now under U.N. watch, to a new cascade of centrifuges, enrich that to 90 percent, then explode a nuclear device.

Should Iran do that, however, it would have burned up all its bomb-grade uranium and lack enough low-enriched uranium for a second test. And Tehran would be facing a stunned and shaken Israel with hundreds of nukes and an America with thousands, without a single nuke of its own.

Is Iran running a bluff? And if Gibbs and Albright are right, how long can Iran keep up this pretense of rapid nuclear progress?

Which brings us to the declaration by Ahmadinejad on the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, which produced this headline in The New York Times: "Iran Boasts of Capacity to Make Bomb Fuel."

Accurate as far as it went, this headline was so incomplete as to mislead.

For here is what Ahmadinejad said in full:

"When we say that we don't build nuclear bombs, it means that we won't do so because we don't believe in having it. ... The Iranian nation is brave enough that if one day we wanted to build nuclear bombs, we would announce it publicly without being afraid of you.

"Right now in Natanz we have the capability to enrich to more than 20 percent and to more than 80 percent, but because we don't need to, we won't do so."

On Friday, Ahmadinejad sounded like Ronald Reagan: "We believe that not only the Middle East but the whole world should be free of nuclear weapons, because we see such weapons as inhumane."

Now, if as Albright suggests, Tehran cannot produce fuel for nuclear power plants, and if, as Gibbs suggests, Iran is not capable of enriching to 20 percent for fuel for its research reactor, is Ahmadinejad, in renouncing the bomb, making a virtue of necessity?

After all, if you can't build them, denounce them as inhumane.

Last December, however, The Times of London reported it had a secret document, which "intelligence agencies" dated to early 2007, proving that Iran was working on the final component of a "neutron initiator," the trigger for an atom bomb.

If true, this would leave egg all over the faces of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies whose December 2007 consensus was that Iran stopped seeking a bomb in 2003.

The Times credited an "Asian intelligence service" for having ably assisted with its story.

U.S. intelligence, however, has not confirmed the authenticity of the document, and Iran calls it a transparent forgery. When former CIA man Phil Giraldi sounded out ex-colleagues still in the trade, they, too, called the Times' document a forgery.

Shades of Saddam seeking yellowcake from Niger.

Are the folks who lied us into war on Iraq, to strip it of weapons it did not have, now trying to lie us into war on Iran, to strip it of weapons it does not have?

Maybe the Senate should find out before voting sanctions that will put us on the road to such a war, which would fill up all the empty beds at Walter Reed.

Patrick Buchanan is the author of the book "Churchill, Hitler and 'The Unnecessary War." To find out more about Patrick Buchanan, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at http://www.creators.com.
http://www.creators.com/opinion/pat-buchanan.html

[David Guyatt]

re the folks who lied us into war on Iraq, to strip it of weapons it did not have, now trying to lie us into war on Iran, to strip it of weapons it does not have?

Mmmmmm.

[David Guyatt]

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61O33X20100225

Syria and Iran defy Clinton in show of unity
Khaled Yacoub Oweis
DAMASCUS
Thu Feb 25, 2010 8:27am EST



DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Syria and Iran put on a show of unity and defied Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday, dismissing her call on Damascus to loosen its decades-long alliance with Tehran.

WORLD

President Bashar al-Assad and his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad signed a bilateral deal to remove travel visas and attended a Muslim ceremony in the Syrian capital.

Ahmadinejad's visit came a day after Clinton said the United States was asking Syria "to begin to move away from the relationship with Iran," and to stop supporting the Lebanese Shi'ite movement Hezbollah, which is also backed by Iran.

"We must have understood Clinton wrong because of bad translation or our limited understanding, so we signed the agreement to cancel the visas," Assad said.

"I find it strange that they (Americans) talk about Middle East stability and peace and the other beautiful principles and call for two countries to move away from each other," he added.

Ahmadinejad told a joint news conference: "Clinton said we should maintain a distance. I say there is no distance between Iran and Syria."

He added: "We have the same goals, same interests and same enemies. Our circle of cooperation is expanding day after day."

Support for Hezbollah forms the linchpin of the Syrian-Iranian alliance, formed 30 years ago despite ideological differences between the ruling hierarchy in the two countries.

Diplomats in Damascus said Syrian support for the group has been a main sticking point in the rapprochement between Syria and the United States, which started shortly after President Barack Obama took office in January 2009.

NUCLEAR DISPUTE

Assad backed Iran in its nuclear dispute with the West and said Western moves to exert pressure on Tehran constituted "neo-colonization."

The United States, along with other United Nations Security Council members and Germany, is discussing possible fresh sanctions on Iran because of suspicions it is seeking to build a nuclear weapon, which it strongly denies.

Relations between Syria and Iran improved after the 1979 Iranian revolution that brought Shi'ite clergy to power. Alone among Arab countries, Syria, whose ruling hierarchy is secular, supported Iran during the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iran war.

But their alliance is being tested by Syrian moves to seek a peace deal with Israel and the possibility of an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Iran did not hide its displeasure at Syria's participation in a 2007 U.S.-supervised Middle East peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland that it attended with Israel, prompting Syrian officials to emphasize that Syria was a sovereign country and not a proxy of Iran.

Syrian officials have also made it clear that while Syria is against any Israeli attack on Iran, Syria's struggle with Israel does not mean it would be party to any hostilities between Tehran and the Jewish state.

Clinton told Senate members this week that Syria's ties with Iran were "deeply troubling" to Washington and Syria must stop helping arm Hezbollah, an accusation Syria denies.

She urged Syria to resume peace talks with Israel, saying Washington would consider doing anything that could resolve the stalemate between them. Indirect talks between the two, under Turkish mediation, broke down two years ago.

Diplomats said U.S. envoy George Mitchell raised the issue of Syrian backing for Hezbollah during a meeting with Assad last month. Obama has since nominated an ambassador to Damascus after a five-year absence and Undersecretary of State William Burns, the architect of a deal that rehabilitated Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi, visited Damascus this month.

(my italics)