Obama Welcome Wagon Diplomatic Dialog Hot Tamale Wagon Pulls into Iran
For an Extended Stay during a Long Stalling Period between Hot Tamales
While Iran’s Submerged Moles Develop small Deterrent Nuke Arsenal
February 19, 2012
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Begin Excerpt from DEBKAfile Special Report
US gets Barak to backtrack and deny Iran has reached nuclear point of no-return
DEBKAfile Special Report
February 16, 2012, 1:59 PM (GMT+02:00)
By suddenly stating, contrary to all informed estimates, that Iran’s nuclear arms program has not yet reached the point of no return, Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak implied that Israel was in no hurry to strike its nuclear facilities, a message for which Washington has been angling for months.
In a Kol Israel interview from Turkey, Thursday, Feb. 16, the defense minister’s pronouncement contradicted every reliable evaluation, including those of Military Intelligence Chief Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi on Feb. 2 and his predecessor Amos Yadlin who wrote on Jan. 26 that Iran had passed the point of no return four or five years ago. But his words were a perfect fit for the recent assertions by US President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta that Israel had not yet made up its mind to attack Iran.
Kochavi’s information was detailed: He reported that Iran had amassed 10 kilos of 20-percent enriched uranium and four tons of uranium enriched to 3.5 percent. In his view, nothing remains to stop Iran building a bomb but a decision by its ruler. Once taken, Iran’s nuclear program could produce its first bomb or warhead by the end of this year or early 2013 and four or five by 2015.
The defense minister backtracked on a second issue: While noting that Iran was scattering or burying its nuclear facilities to “impede a surgical strike,” he avoided his previous estimate that no more than three to six months were left before all those facilities had been hidden in what he himself called “zones of immunity.”
Before these changes in outlook, Barak was indirectly criticized by Obama administration officials for underlining the mortal threat to Israel of a nuclear Iran. One official complained, “Israelis are looking at the problem too narrowly.”
The defense minister also toed the Washington line on the show Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad put on Wednesday by inserting a home-made 20 percent grade nuclear fuel rod in a research reactor in Tehran. Listing its nuclear successes, the Iranians also claimed they had installed 3,000 fourth generation centrifuges in Natanz to speed up enrichment to 20 percent.
The US State Department spokesperson dismissed Iran’s claims as “not terribly new and not terribly impressive” – implying there was no cause for rushing into military action.
Barak put it this way: “They are describing a situation that is better and more advanced than the one they are in, in order to create a feeling among all the players that the point of no return is already behind them, which is not true.”
debkafile’s military and intelligence sources recall that, when two years ago, Ahmadinejad and other Iranian officials boasted they were on the way to self-production of nuclear rods and ending their reliance on Russia, American and Israeli insiders belittled the claim. Two years on, Iran has indeed made the leap and is also advancing rapidly on the plutonium-based weapons track.
If Iran can supply all the nuclear fuel rods for fueling the Bushehr reactor, which is now running on recycled fuel rods from Russia, it will be able to use these rods to produce plutonium for nuclear bombs or warheads.
Why the defense minister suddenly changed course is unclear. It is also hard to know if Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu okayed his radical departure from Israel’s information strategy on the nuclear Iran issue.
What is apparent, debkafile’s sources report, is that the change of tune coincides with the reports circulating in Washington and Jerusalem that the US and Iran have agreed to resume nuclear talks shortly.
Those sources point to an article in the New York Times by Dennis Ross, President Obama’s former senior adviser on Iran, entitled “Iran is ready to talk.” Ross is too experienced to go out on a limb and make this sort of statement without being sure of his facts.
Begin Excerpt from Jerusalem Post vis REUTERS
iran offers ‘new initiatives’ for talks with powers
By REUTERS02/16/2012 23:20
Iran‘s Jalili asks EU for new talks as soon as possible; France says letter “ambiguous” but may be new opening.
By REUTERS
VIENNA – Iran, facing sanctions that could cripple its oil exports, has told world powers it wants to resume long-stalled talks with “new initiatives”, and France said it might be open to addressing suspicions about its nuclear program.
Iran‘s president vowed no retreat from its nuclear program on Wednesday but state television announced the proposal to re-launch talks after a year’s hiatus
Iranian chief negotiator Saeed Jalili’s letter said he would have “new initiatives” but did not spell them out. He made one reference to “Iran’s nuclear issue”, without spelling out whether Tehran was prepared to negotiate on it.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said that while the letter was “ambiguous” it seemed to signal “the start of opening up from Iran” with respect to discussing its nuclear activity.
A Feb. 20-21 visit to Iran by top UN nuclear watchdog officials would help determine whether Tehran was serious about tackling international concerns, Juppe told reporters.
The UN team, led by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s chief inspector, will again try to extract Iranian explanations, after three years of stonewalling, for an IAEA investigation driven by intelligence reports that suggest Tehran has researched sophisticated ways to build atomic bombs.
Jalili’s letter was a reply to one from Ashton in October in which she said the big powers could meet with Iran within weeks if it was ready to “engage seriously in meaningful discussions”.
Jalili said he welcomed an earlier statement by Ashton on respecting Iran’s right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy.
“(A) constructive and positive attitude towards the Islamic Republic of Iran’s new initiatives in this round of talks could open positive perspective for our negotiation,” Jalili said in the brief English-language letter.
“Therefore…I propose to resume our talks in order to take fundamental steps for sustainable cooperation in the earliest possibility in a mutually agreed venue and time.”
Jalili urged a focus “on a spectrum of various issues” to lay groundwork for “constructive, forward-looking cooperation”.
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