Obama authorised Olympic Games a series of cyberattacks on Iran

There is a long article here on Obama's cyberattacks on Iran sometimes in cooperation with Israel. Given the U.S. doctrine of pre-emptive war as justified self defense Iran would be justified in attacking the U.S. (or Israel) since it has already ample evidence of actual and no doubt planned attacks against the country. U.S. actions make it clear that the only way of protecting oneself against the U.S. and its allies is by having a retaliatory force that would endanger U.S. security. No doubt China has taken this lesson to heart. China is also expanding its own cyber weaponry.

The attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities were named Olympic Games. They were started under Bush but as with many Bush policies were carried on and even expanded under Obama..

The program was carried on even after a disastrous accident in which the malicious program Stuxnet escaped outside of its intended target area worldwide. Stuxnet could then be analyzed by experts around the world and the secret was in fact out.

Iranians had been mystified by their malfunctioning centrifuges. The program made them spin too fast and self destruct. Iranians thought they were defective. Stuxnet a worm was produced jointly by Israel and the U.S.A. While the worm may have set back the Iranian progress in enriching uranium for over a year it sets a terrible precedent. Yet there seems no action by the UN or any US. allies to criticize or prevent further development of such activities.

The most that Iran is doing so far is perhaps trying to develop weapons production ability. It is not at all clear that they have decided as yet to actually try to produce weapons. However, given the action of the U.S. and Israel it would seem tempting for them to do so. What else could protect it from U.S and Israeli attack?

A more recent development is an attack on Iranian officials' computers by Flame which rather than damaging equipment simply collects information. It is a spy cyber weapon and really involves nothing new. Although the code seems old U.S. officials say it was not part of Olympic Games. However the original target of the Flame was Iran though again it seems to have escaped and spread to many other places. For more see this article.

U.S. House passes new red line bill on Iran

Even as a second round of talks with Iran is slated about its nuclear program the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that threatens an attack when Iran obtains " nuclear weapons capability."

The present U.S. policy is that Iran should not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. At present U.S. intelligence believes that Iran has no nuclear weapons program. The new red line that Iran cannot cross is that even the capability to produce nuclear weapons is unacceptable. "Nuclear weapons capability" is undefined and by some interpretations could already apply to Iran.

The vote on the bill passed overwhelmingly by 401-11. In spite of denials by both U.S. military and intelligence officials hawks continue to claim that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.

That Iran simply has the capability of building nuclear weapons is itself a reasonable ground for a preventative attack according to the new hawkish doctrine.. However, there would be no imminent threat and any attack would not be self defense but a war of aggression. This means nothing to U.S. policy makers since they believe they determine the rules on such issues.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson who was formerly chief of staff for Colin Powell said: “This resolution reads like the same sheet of music that got us into the Iraq war, and could be the precursor for a war with Iran….it’s effectively a thinly-disguised effort to bless war.” Ironically, the U.S. resolution would provide Iran a good reason for an attack on the U.S. since it is an imminent threat to Iran. For more see this article.

Margolis: Americans manufacture another nuclear crisis.

Margolis makes some good points but for the short term at least the crisis seems to have cooled down a bit. Iran has agreed to let UN inspectors into the Qum plant. As Margolis points out there is another reason than simply hiding a nuclear weapons program that could lead Iran to hide a facility and that is that Israel or the US regularly threatens to bomb such sites unless Iran does what the US wants! Margolis might be quite right. If the US would stop trying to promote regime change in Iran in order to produce a pro-Western government and promise not to attack then there may be the possibility of agreement. Israel also of late has toned down its rhetoric. Of course some still insist that Iran is just stalling for time and an attack is ultimately inevitable it is just a question of when but that strain is not front and center at present.


Americans manufacture another nuclear crisis
By ERIC MARGOLIS
NEW YORK -- The U.S., Britain and France staged a bravura performance of political theatre last week by claiming to have just "discovered" a secret Iran uranium enrichment plant near Qum. On cue, a carefully orchestrated media blitz trumpeted warnings of the alleged Iranian nuclear threat and "long-ranged missiles."
In reality, the Qum plant was detected by U.S. spy satellites over two years ago, and was known to the intelligence community. Iran claimed the plant will not begin enriching uranium for peaceful power for another 540 days. UN nuclear rules, to which Iran adheres, calls for 180 days notice.
UN nuclear watchdogs say Iran should have revealed the plant earlier. Iran alerted the UN last week and said it would invite inspectors.
The reluctance of Iran to reveal its nuclear sites is magnified by constant threats of attack against them by Israel and the U.S. Iran also recalls Iraq, where many of the UN "nuclear inspectors" were likely spies for CIA or Israel's Mossad. This may explain some of Iran's secretive behaviour. The U.S., Britain, France and Israel have been even less forthcoming about their nuclear secrets.
Iran's test of some useless short ranged missiles, and an inaccurate 2,000-km medium ranged Shahab-3, provoked more hysteria. In a choice example of media scaremongering, the Globe and Mail printed a picture of a 1960s vintage SAM-2 anti-aircraft missile being launched, with a caption of Prime Minister Stephen Harper warning of the "grave threat" Iran posed to "international peace and security."
Welcome to Iraq deja vu, and another phony crisis. U.S. intelligence and UN inspectors say Iran has no nuclear weapons and certainly no nuclear warheads and is only enriching uranium to 5%. Nuclear weapons require 95%. Iran's nuclear facilities are under constant UN inspection and U.S. surveillance.
The U.S., its allies, and Israel insist Iran is secretly developing nuclear warheads. They demand Tehran prove a negative: That is has no nuclear weapons. Iraq was also put to the same impossible test.
Israel is deeply alarmed by Iran's challenge to its Mideast nuclear monopoly. Chances of an Israeli attack on Iran are growing weekly, though the U.S. is still restraining Israel.
The contrived uproar about the Qum plant was a ploy to intensify pressure on Iran to cease nuclear enrichment -- though it has every right to do so under international agreements. More pressure will be applied at this week's meeting near Geneva between the Western powers and Iran.
Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, poured fuel on the fire, again questioning the Holocaust and staging the ostentatious launch of missiles with little military value.
Why did Ahmadinejad antagonize the West and act belligerent when he should be taking a very low profile? Why would Iran face devastating Israeli or U.S. attack to keep enriching uranium when it can import such fuel from Russia?
Civilian nuclear power has become the keystone of Iranian national pride. As noted in my new book, American Raj, Iran's leadership insists the West has denied the Muslim world modern technology and tries to keep it backwards and subservient. Tehran believes it can withstand all western sanctions.
Iran appears to be very slowly developing a "breakout" capability to produce a small number of nuclear weapons on short notice -- for defensive purposes. Iraq's invasion of Iran cost Iran one million casualties. Iran demands the same right of nuclear self defence enjoyed by neighbours Israel, India and Pakistan.
Real solution
What Iran really wants is an end to 30-years of U.S. efforts to overthrow its Islamic regime. The U.S. is still waging economic warfare against Iran and trying to overthrow the Tehran government. Like North Korea, Iran wants explicit guarantees from Washington that this siege warfare will stop and relations with the U.S. will be normalized.
As Flynt and Hillary Leverett conclude in their excellent, must-read Sept. 29 New York Times article, detente with Iran will be bitterly opposed by "those who attach value to failed policies that have damaged America's interests in the Middle East ... "
eric.margolis@sunmedia.ca

Official says Iran accepts proposals of P5 plus 1 states

This is from antiwar.com.
Already this thaw in the cold war against Iran may have caused a fall in oil prices. Given Iran's acceptance of talks, the escalating preparations for an attack by Israel may be wound down temporarily.
Happy fourth of July to U.S. readers.


Official Says Iran Accepts P5+1 Talks Proposal
by Gareth Porter
A senior Iranian official reportedly told members of the Iranian parliament Monday that Iran has agreed to freeze its enrichment program for six weeks and begin negotiations with the P5+1 group of states as early as next week, according to reports of that decision by the Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA) and by a Farsi-language website in Iran.
Remarks by Iranian Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki and a top adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Tuesday also seemed to indicate that decision to accept a "freeze for freeze" proposal from the P5+1 to begin at least preliminary negotiations.
The P5+1 consists of the permanent members of the UN Security Council – the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia – and Germany.
The apparent Iranian decision comes in the wake of an atmosphere of heightened threat of attack on Iran by Israel created by a series of moves by Israeli and US officials in recent days.
The head of Iran's atomic energy agency, Gholam-Reza Aghazadeh, told members of the Majlis energy committee Monday that Iran has agreed to start the talks, according to the Farsi-language Iranian website Fararou. It said "informed sources" had specified that Iran had accepted a six-week freeze on any expansion of enrichment as a condition on such negotiations, as proposed by European Union foreign affairs chief Javier Solana.
The P5+1 proposal also offers to suspend further progress in advancing UN sanctions against Iran. It does not address sanctions organized outside the UN Security Council framework, however.
ISNA reported in a brief item on Monday that an Iranian parliamentary energy committee member, whom it did not name, had declared that Iran "has agreed to start talks with 5+1 countries group". It added that the talks "will begin next week".
Although ISNA did not report that the official had said Iran would freeze its nuclear activities, in the sense of foregoing any increase in centrifuges, it implied as much by reporting that the P5+1 proposal delivered by Solana Jun. 14 "required Iran to suspend nuclear activities in exchange for a set of economic and security incentives".
The news further quoted unnamed "Iranian officials" as saying that "common points of the two packages can be a launching pad to start talks".
The Farsi-language website Fararou identified the member of the committee who had quoted Aghazadeh as informing committee members that Iranian authorities had agreed to negotiate with the 5+1 group as Seyed Admad Hosseini. It was Hosseini who was quoted as telling reporters that the talks should start next week.
Fararou also provided additional details on the Aghazadeh's briefing. It said the secretary of the Majlis energy committee, Moayyed Hosseini, told its reporter that the Aghazadeh had pointed to "positive aspects" of the negotiations with the P5+1, "including the fact that the west was accepting Iran's possession of 3,000 centrifuges."
That comment suggested that Tehran will present the "freeze for freeze" proposal as a concession to Iran's right to enrich uranium.
The committee secretary was quoted by Fararou as stating flatly that the proposal for a six-week freeze on enrichment "has been accepted by Tehran".

Iranian Nuclear Pledges Complicate Bush UN strategy.

Note that the situation is a bit similar to Iraq where the US was unwilling to wait for inspectors to determine if Iraq had WMD. Here the US may be unwilling to wait to see if Iran answers satisfactorily remaining questions about its nuclear program. The US is never embarassed by going against the UN or the IAEA. No one seems to notice that the US has been in violation against is obligations under international nuclear treaties for years.

Iranian Nuclear Pledges Complicate President Bush's U.N. Strategy
By Thomas Omestad
Posted September 5, 2007
As diplomats prepare for meetings at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna next week, new pledges by Iran to answer unresolved questions about its once clandestine nuclear program are complicating the Bush administration's strategy of ratcheting up pressure on Tehran.


U.S. diplomats have seized on the confirmation provided by an IAEA report finalized last week that Iran is continuing to enrich uranium and to build what would be a plutonium-making heavy-water reactor—in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions, as well as those of the IAEA's own board. However, the same report declared that Iran had made "a significant step forward" by agreeing to a work plan for addressing remaining issues about its nuclear facilities and capabilities. IAEA officials suggest that if Iran carries out its promises, outstanding questions could be answered by the end of this year.

Iran welcomed the report, contending that it showed U.S. accusations that it is pursuing nuclear weapons were groundless.

That reaction was perhaps predictable. More worrying for the administration, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, in interviews with the New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel, hailed the Iranian agreement as unprecedented and worthy of giving Iran the limited time it prescribes to show its peaceful intentions. He sounded a loud note of skepticism about President Bush's current approach: gathering support for a third, tougher round of U.N. sanctions.

Not surprisingly, administration officials poured doubt on the newly proffered cooperation from Tehran. "For the most part, Iran has made only promises," said Gregory Schulte, the U.S. ambassador to the IAEA. In Washington, officials insisted the centerpiece of the report was that it verified that Iran's defiance was continuing.

But the administration has good reason to be concerned. With many countries questioning the quality of U.S. intelligence on weapons of mass destruction, the administration has used the periodic IAEA reports on Iran as key sources of documentation for raising global concern about Iranian nuclear intentions.

And with Russia and China still devoted skeptics of employing sanctions against Iran, the report, coupled with ElBaradei's pleas for patience, could well blunt any rapid moves at the Security Council for further sanctions.

It isn't the first time the Bush administration has fumed over ElBaradei's actions. Before the Iraq war, he concluded that he had no evidence to back the U.S. claim that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear weapons program. (ElBaradei's conclusion was subsequently borne out by postwar investigation.) The administration initially opposed his renomination as director general of the IAEA, then relented.

Opponents of a quick resort to more penalties against Iran are also likely to focus on the report's finding that the rate at which Iran is adding cascades of centrifuges—the linked machines that concentrate uranium either to the lower levels needed for nuclear power plants or to higher levels for bombs—has slowed in recent months. With some 2,000 centrifuges running as of August 19, the number recently in operation has failed to meet the expectations of western analysts.

The slower rate of growth, according to a report by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, may reflect problems in mastering the task of running cascades in parallel. But Iran may also be playing politics, probing whether particular gestures can ease tensions that have been building up over its program.

Some western diplomats grudgingly agree with the judgment of ISIS: "Iran's leadership may have decided to slow work to overcome technical problems in order to forestall negative reactions that would lend support for further sanctions by the U.N. Security Council, Europe, or Japan."

From the Bush administration's standpoint, next week's discussions in Vienna are not likely to resolve much of anything.

John Bolton: We must attack Iran before it gets the bomb

This is typical Bolton but no doubt Cheney and perhaps Bush as well feel the same way. Of course the Israelis are cheering for Bolton. Fortunately, he is no longer US ambassador to the UN. He has nothing but contempt for the UN although he would be happy to use it for US policy aims if he could.

We must attack Iran before it gets the bomb
By Toby Harnden in Washington
Last Updated: 7:48pm BST 16/05/2007


A nuclear Iran would be as dangerous as “Hitler marching into the Rhineland” in 1936 and should be prevented by Western military strikes if necessary, according to a leading hawk who recently left the Bush administration.





John Bolton, who still has close links to the Bush administration, told The Daily Telegraph that the European Union had to "get more serious" about Iran and recognise that its diplomatic attempts to halt Iran's enrichment programme had failed.

Iran has "clearly mastered the enrichment technology now...they're not stopping, they're making progress and our time is limited", he said. Economic sanctions "with pain" had to be the next step, followed by attempting to overthrow the theocratic regime and, ultimately, military action to destroy nuclear sites.

Mr Bolton's stark warning appeared to be borne out yesterday by leaks about an inspection by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of Iran's main nuclear installation at Natanz on Sunday.

The experts found that Iran's scientists were operating 1,312 centrifuges, the machines used to enrich uranium. If Iran can install 3,000, it will need about one year to produce enough weapons grade uranium for one nuclear bomb.

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Experts had judged that Iran would need perhaps two years to master the technical feat of enriching uranium using centrifuges - and then another two years to produce enough material to build a weapon.

But the IAEA found that Iran has already managed to enrich uranium to the four per cent purity needed for power stations. Weapons-grade uranium must reach a threshold of 84 per cent purity.

Mohammed ElBaradei, the IAEA's head, said the West's goal of halting the enrichment programme had been "overtaken by events". Iran had probably mastered this process and "the focus now should be to stop them from going to industrial scale production".

Mr Bolton said: "It's been conclusively proven Iran is not going to be talked out of its nuclear programme. So to stop them from doing it, we have to massively increase the pressure.

"If we can't get enough other countries to come along with us to do that, then we've got to go with regime change by bolstering opposition groups and the like, because that's the circumstance most likely for an Iranian government to decide that it's safer not to pursue nuclear weapons than to continue to do so. And if all else fails, if the choice is between a nuclear-capable Iran and the use of force, then I think we need to look at the use of force."

President George W Bush privately refers to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has pledged to wipe Israel "off the map", as a 21st Century Adolf Hitler and Mr Bolton, who remains a close ally of Vice President Dick Cheney, said the Iranian leader presented a similar threat.

"If the choice is them continuing [towards a nuclear bomb] or the use of force, I think you're at a Hitler marching into the Rhineland point. If you don't stop it then, the future is in his hands, not in your hands, just as the future decisions on their nuclear programme would be in Iran's hands, not ours."

But Mr Bolton conceded that military action had many disadvantages and might not succeed. "It's very risky for the price of oil, risky because you could, let's say, take out their enrichment capabilities at Natanz, and they may have enrichment capabilities elsewhere you don't know about."

Such a strike would only be a "last option" after economic sanctions and attempts to foment a popular revolution had failed but the risks of using military force, he indicated, would be less than those of tolerating a nuclear Iran. "Imagine what it would be like with a nuclear Iran. Imagine the influence Iran could have over the entire region. It's already pushing its influence in Iraq through the financing of terrorist groups like Hamas and Hizbollah."

Although he praised Tony Blair for his support of America over the Iraq war, he criticised the Prime Minister, who is due to visit Washington today to bid farewell to Mr Bush, for persisting with supporting EU attempts to negotiate with Iran that were "doomed to fail".

"Blair just didn't focus on it as much as [Jack] Straw [former Foreign Secretary] did, and it was very much a Foreign Office thing because they wanted to show their European credentials, wanted to work with the Germans and the French to show 'we'll solve Iran in a way differently than those cowboy Americans solved Iraq'."

Mr Bolton, a leading advocate of the Iraq war, insisted that it had been right to overthrow Saddam Hussein and that the later failures did not mean that military action against rogue states should not be contemplated again.

"The regime itself was the threat and we dealt with the threat. Now, what we did after that didn't work out so well. That doesn't say to me, therefore you don't take out regimes that are problematic.

"It says, in the case of Iraq, and a lot of this I have to say we've learned through the benefit of hindsight, was that we should've given responsibility back to Iraqis more quickly."

The Bush administration has moved some distance away from the hawkish views of Mr Bolton and Mr Cheney, which were dominant in the president's first term, towards the more traditional diplomatic approach favoured by the State Department.

But his is still a highly influential voice and Mr Bush remains adamant that he will not allow Iran to become armed with nuclear weapons.

The Pentagon has drawn up contingency plans for military action and some senior White House officials share Mr Bolton's thinking.