Month: October 2010

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 4th, 2010:

New York Times: Though details are not available, William Yong writes that Iranian authorities have arrested an unspecified number of “nuclear spies” in connection with the Stuxnet virus infecting computers at Iran’s nuclear operations. In his announcement, Iranian intelligence minister Heydar Moslehi said: “The intelligence Ministry is aware of a range of activities being carried out against the Islamic Republic by enemy spy services.” Separately, the head of Iran’s state-run information technology company hopes to clear the virus out of Iranian systems in the next “one to two months.”

Washington Post: Former peace process negotiator and State Department advisor Aaron David Miller lays out “Five Myths about Middle East Peace.” The Wilson Center public policy scholar attempts to debunk the myth that Arab-Israel peace is critical to securing U.S. interests in the Middle East with an anti-linkage argument: White “[i]t would help [regional issues… Arab-Israeli peace] will not stop Iran from acquiring enough fissile material to make a nuclear weapon.” Writing on her Commentary blog, neocon and reverse-linkage crusader Jennifer Rubin gets Miller’s name wrong and gives him a back-handed complement in her select reading of his analysis. But Think Progress’s Matt Duss dissents, writing that “no one has ever claimed that Arab-Israeli peace would do any of these things,” but rather peace will “make addressing those problems easier, by sealing up a well of resentment from which demagogues and violent extremists have for decades drawn freely and profitably.”

National Journal: At the magazine’s National Security blog, editor Richard Sia poses a question: “Will Saber Rattling And Sanctions Work Against Iran?” Steven Metz of the Strategic Studies Institute of the Army War College, responds, “No, of course not.” But of a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, he writes: “It is hard to imagine a greater strategic folly.” Metz lists a myriad of disastrous likely consequences of such a strike, and argues for Soviet-style containment of a nuclear Iran. “There is absolutely no evidence that a nuclear armed Iran would undertake conventional aggression,” he writes. “However repulsive the Iranian regime, there is no evidence that it is suicidal.” He writes that in a cost-benefit analysis, the costs of attacking Iran are too high for the U.S.: [A]s the United States develops its approach, the the focus must remain on AMERICAN national interests (Are you listening, Senator Lieberman?).”

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 1st, 2010:

Weekly Standard: On the Standard’s blog, Jamie Fly, the foreign policy programs director of the neoconservative Foreign Policy Initiative, warns that Russia’s decision to deny Iran S-300 anti-aircraft missiles could change at any time. Fly picks up on a post from Foreign Policy’s The Cable blog and another from Max Boot at Commentary, and writes: “The problem is, this “bold” decision is not a final decision. Nothing in Medvedev’s announcement cancels the 2007 contract and, as [FP blogger Josh] Rogin notes, the ban could be lifted at any time.” Fly adds that if the deal goes through, Israel might be tempted to bomb Iranian nuclear sites before the hardware is in place, “given that nuclear facilities protected by the S-300 system would be much more difficult to attack.”

Reuters: Olli Heinonen, former chief inspector at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and current Harvard senior fellow, says in an interview that Iranian nuclear progress is “slow but steady.” While ”the clock is ticking…there is still time for a negotiated solution.” He believes only the Iranians themselves know why they are developing this capacity, but attribute it to “complex” Iranian desires for ”prestige,” “security” and to be a “regional player.” As for the Stuxnet virus attacking computers in Iran, he’s not convinced it was directly targeted to sabotage that country’s nuclear program.

Politico: Laura Rozen blogs about the Symantec computer security firm’s report (.pdf) on the Stuxnet worm and two markers that may, or may not, point the virus’s code to Israeli origins. One refers to an Old Testament story (see yesterday’s Daily Talking Points); the other comes from the Symantec report: a “‘do not infect’ marker” in the code that reads “19790509.” The report suggests that the date of May, 9, 1979 might be significant since it was just after Iran’s Islamic Revolution and the date of the execution of a prominent Iranian Jewish figure. While Israeli intelligence expert Yossi Melman thinks Israel, the U.S., or both are behind the attack, he believes “Israeli intelligence would not leave such clumsy clues.” Rozen herself wonders if the code is a “false flag” to mislead about the source of the attack or “a meaningful tea leaf as to the possible origin of the worm.”