This article titled “Iranian attack on America and allies increasingly likely – intelligence chief” was written by Julian Borger, diplomatic editor, for The Guardian on Tuesday 31st January 2012 20.08 UTC

The head of US intelligence has warned that there is an increasing likelihood that Iran could carry out attacks in America or against US and allied targets around the world.

The warning from the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, reflects rapidly rising tensions over Iran’s nuclear programme after the US and EU announced embargoes on the Iranian oil trade in the past few weeks, Israel leaked details of its preparation for a possible conflict and both the west and Iran boosted their military readiness in the Gulf.

The US plans to send a third aircraft carrier to the region in March, while Iran’s military has threatened to block the entrance to the Gulf in the strait of Hormuz and is planning to hold naval exercises there in the next few weeks involving a host of new weapons.

Presenting his annual “worldwide threat assessment” to Congress, Clapper said an alleged plot to blow up the Saudi ambassador in Washington last year, which the US blamed on the Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, “shows that some Iranian officials – probably including the supreme leader Ali Khamenei – have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived US actions that threaten the regime.”

Clapper added: “Iran’s willingness to sponsor future attacks in the US or against our interests abroad probably will be shaped by Tehran’s evaluation of the costs it bears for the plot against the ambassador as well as Iranian leaders’ perceptions of US threats against the regime.”

Western officials say that in the past year there has been a notable increase in activity around the world by suspected members of Iran’s Quds force, the external operations arm of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which they say could reflect positioning of units capable of carrying out reprisal attacks against western and Israeli targets if Iran was itself attacked. “There have been a lot of reports recently of IRGC activity abroad,” one western official said. “There is a great deal of worry about the IRGC carrying out covert and deniable actions. But they may be overestimating how much they can hide their role. The US and others are very concerned about this.

“In this situation, there is a risk of miscalculation,” the official added, “or of rogue elements operating independently.”

US officials say that the alleged Washington bomb plot showed a new recklessness by an increasingly embattled Iranian regime. An Iranian-American was charged last October with planning to blow up the Saudi ambassador to the US while he ate at his favourite Washington restaurant, potentially killing many Americans at the same time.

The US has claimed authorisation for the attack came from the highest levels of the regime, but Clapper’s remarks marked the first time Washington has openly blamed the supreme leader.

However, a western official cautioned that there was no evidence a final decision had been taken to go ahead with the attack. “Our understanding is that this was at the stage of operational planning. The order was for everything to be put in place. There was not, as far as I know, a green light,” the official said.

In recent days, both the Thai and Azeri governments made a number of arrests of suspects allegedly linked to Iranian intelligence who are accused of planning to kill Israel diplomats and a rabbi. One possibility, western governments believe, is that the plots were intended as reprisals for a string of murders in Tehran of Iranian scientists linked to the country’s nuclear programme. Iran has blamed Mossad for the killings, an accusation that many western officials think is plausible.

After an Iranian threat last month to close the strait of Hormuz in response to oil sanctions, the US has deployed two aircraft carriers, the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Carl Vinson, in the region. A thirdis scheduled to head to the Gulf in March.

John Pike, a military analyst and the head of the GlobalSecurity.org thinktank said: “That almost never happens. They seldom even have two.”

He added that a fourth carrier, the USS John Stennis, was sailing away from the area but at a slow pace and could be back within a few days.

Tensions have been stoked further by leaked details of Israeli military preparations and cabinet deliberations on whether to strike Iran in the next few months, in an effort to set back its nuclear programme by a few years. Western officials confess they are unsure to what extent such reports represent an Israeli bluff to force urgent action by the US and its European allies, but say they do take the Israeli threats seriously.

One possibility is that Israel could launch air strikes at the height of the US presidential election campaign, on the grounds that the Obama administration would have to mute any politically risky criticism of a longstanding US ally.

Some observers believe the planned European and US oil embargoes, due to come into effect five months from now with potentially severe implications for the Iranian economy, along with a military build-up in the region, could themselves raise the risk of miscalculation on all sides.

“I don’t think they are playing Iran anything like as well as they think they are,” said Richard Dalton, a former British ambassador to Tehran. “The oil embargo tends to give those elements in Iran who want to have maximal defences, including nuclear defences, added weight to their arguments. Also they are poking Iran with a sharp stick but this is not accompanied by a new negotiating incentives.”

In a strikingly critical report, an influential Israeli thinktank, the Institute for National Security Studies, warned that the Israeli leadership could be rushing into a decision to attack without properly thinking of the implications. The authors said that Israeli society should “not assume that decision makers will automatically make correct choices based on a rational of an attack’s cost effectiveness”.

“Past experience has proven that such an in-depth discussion does not always take place,” the report said. It questioned whether a nuclear Iran was really an existential threat to Israel and warned that unilateral action would alienate the US and other Israeli allies.

“The image – not the first of its kind – will be of an Israel unilaterally violating the rules of the international game and launching a military campaign without legitimacy from the security council. This might increase Israel’s isolation as well contribute to its delegitimisation.”

Iran insists its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes. The west and Israel allege it is intended to give Iran at least the capacity to make a bomb, but Clapper conceded in his remarks : “We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.”

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This article titled “America warns Iran that blocking oil route will ‘not be tolerated’” was written by Paul Harris in New York, for guardian.co.uk on Wednesday 28th December 2011 18.35 UTC

Tensions between the United States and Iran have dangerously ratcheted up as naval officials with America’s Fifth Fleet warned any attempt by Iran to close a strategically vital oil route through the Strait of Hormuz would “not be tolerated”.

The news heightens a sense of growing crisis in the Persian Gulf after two days of threats by senior Iranian figures that they might shut down the important trade route in response to any future international sanctions against the country’s oil exports.

“Anyone who threatens to disrupt freedom of navigation in an international strait is clearly outside the community of nations: any disruption will not be tolerated,” US Fifth Fleet spokeswoman Lt Rebecca Rebarich told the Associated Press. She added that the US Navy was “…always ready to counter malevolent actions to ensure freedom of navigation.”

The Fifth Fleet is based in the tiny Gulf state of Bahrain and commands a huge flotilla of American naval might, including air craft carriers.

That US response came shortly after the head of the Iranian Navy warned that the country could easily close the Strait of Hormuz if it desired to do so.

“Closing the Strait of Hormuz is very easy for Iranian naval forces… it will be easier than drinking a glass of water,” Admiral Habibollah Sayyari told the state-run Press TV channel. However, he did add that Iran currently had no plans to carry out the act.

But the war of words theoretically raises the prospect of a naval conflict in the Gulf between Iran and the United States. Sayyari’s statement came just a day after Iran’s vice president, Mohamed Reza Rahimi, also threatened to use force to shut the waterway and cut off a flow of oil that many see as vital for the world economy.

They also come as Iran is conducting large naval exercises in the region in what many analysts see as a show of force. The war games stretch over a large area of the Gulf, including the Strait of Hormuz, and could easily bring Iranian ships and submarines into close proximity with US forces.

Iran is reacting to what it says is an unfair campaign to punish it for its domestic nuclear programme, which it claims is peaceful but which many believe is actually aimed at creating a weapon.

The US Congress has passed a bill banning dealings with the Iran Central Bank which President Barack Obama has said he will sign. If that happens the new US law could hit foreign companies that deal with Iran’s central bank in order to buy oil, striking a blow at a commodity that makes up about 80% of its foreign revenues and is vital for the functioning of the Iranian economy.

The oil markets are already jittery about the latest developments. As the oil price ticked up in the face of the bellicose comments Saudi officials said that they would release more oil in the event of any crisis to make up for a loss of Iranian crude. That effort seemed to help calm oil traders’ fears.

The current rising tensions are also merely the latest in a series of serious spats between Iran and Western nations. Earlier this month Iran captured an unmanned US spy drone, broadcasting pictures of the downed craft that created headlines around the world and represented a major intelligence coup. In November violent crowds in Tehran stormed the British embassy and ransacked offices and residences. That led to the closure of the embassy and the expulsion of Iranian diplomats from Britain.

Iranian media has carried detailed reports of how it might act to close the Strait, deploying a mix of ships, submarines, missiles and torpedoes. Few experts believe that any Iranian force could stand up to the US military but any form of armed conflict would likely trigger a global diplomatic and economic crisis.

It would also play out against a backdrop of concerted Israeli efforts to warn against Iran’s nuclear programme, which the nation believes represents a threat to its existence. Isreali military and political figures have
consistently threatened that armed strikes against Iran might be needed to stop the development of an Iranian nuclear bomb.

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President Obama said yesterday that his administration asked Iran to return our top secret drone. Shockingly, Iran said no. Iran gave a similar answer when Obama asked them to stop trying to make nuclear weapons. In fact, he’s still asking them.

This is so horrible. We will suffer the fallout from this for many years to come. China and Russia will now have their own version of this craft in a very short time.

This article titled “Iran faces new wave of sanctions over nuclear programme” was written by Chris McGreal in Washington and Julian Borger, for The Guardian on Monday 21st November 2011 19.44 UTC

The US and Britain are leading a new wave of international sanctions targeting Iran’s banks and oil industry following the International Atomic Energy Agency’s report earlier this month that said Tehran worked for many years to develop nuclear weapons and may still be doing so.

Britain has used counter-terrorism powers to order its financial sector to cut all ties with Iranian banks in an attempt to undermine funding of the nuclear programme. The US announced measures intended to limit Tehran’s ability to refine its own fuel as well as targeting Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ financial interests.

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, wrote to European leaders as well as the US and Japan calling for “unprecedented” sanctions against Iran, including a halt to buying its oil.

But the measures are expected to have a limited impact in the face of resistance from China and Russia to strengthening global sanctions against Iran through the United Nations security council.

Britain went the furthest by, for the first time, cutting an entire country’s banking system off from London’s financial sector. It said that Iranian banks “play a crucial role in providing financial services to individuals and entities within Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes”.

The foreign secretary, William Hague, said the measures are part of increasing pressure on Iran to engage with the IAEA and foreign governments about its nuclear programme.

“The IAEA’s report last week provided further credible and detailed evidence about the possible military dimensions of the Iranian nuclear programme,” he said. “Today we have responded resolutely by introducing a set of new sanctions that prohibit all business with Iranian banks.

“We have consistently made clear that until Iran engages meaningfully, it will find itself under increasing pressure from the international community. The swift and decisive action today co-ordinated with key international partners is a strong signal of determination to intensify this pressure.”

British diplomats said the Iranian central bank plays a direct role in procuring equipment for its nuclear programme and added that the sanctions were also intended to punish Tehran for its refusal to compromise over its enrichment of uranium, which can produce reactor fuel or fissile material for a bomb, despite a series of UN security council sanctions calling on it to do so. They said that denying Iran access to the international financial hub in London would raise the cost and hassle for the Iranians of doing business with the rest of the world.

Canada took a similar step against Iran’s central bank.

In Washington, President Obama said additional US sanctions are intended to discourage business with Iran’s petrochemical industry, which traditionally has produced plastics and similar products but has increasingly been used to refine petrol because international sanctions have hit Tehran’s refineries.

“New sanctions target for the first time Iran’s petrochemical sector, prohibiting the provision of goods, services and technology to this sector and authorising penalties against any person or entity that engages in such activity,” Obama said. “They expand energy sanctions, making it more difficult for Iran to operate, maintain, and modernise its oil and gas sector.

“As long as Iran continues down this dangerous path, the United States will continue to find ways, both in concert with our partners and through our own actions, to isolate and increase the pressure upon the Iranian regime.”

Washington designated Iran a territory of “primary money-laundering concern” in the expectation that it will discourage foreign banks from doing business with Iranian financial institutions.

However, Washington continues to avoid directly targeting Iran’s central bank because if Tehran is unable to carry through financial transactions necessary to sell its oil, that could force the cost of petroleum up and hit the US economy.

The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, called the measures a “significant ratcheting-up of pressure” on Iran and said other countries will follow in the days ahead.

In his letter, Sarkozy said that Iran’s nuclear programme represents a “serious and urgent threat to peace”. He called for a halt to purchasing Iranian oil and for the assets of Iran’s central bank to be frozen. EU foreign ministers are also expected to consider further measures at a meeting on 1 December.

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Source: CBS
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday condemned Iran and called for tougher sanctions after a recently-discovered plan to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States.

From the AP:

The alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States may be an act of war against the U.S., the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Wednesday.

“It may be,” Sen. Carl Levin, a Democrat, told reporters when asked whether he considers the alleged scheme to be an act of war. “But I’d want to see what the implications of that characterization are before I use it.”

At the least, Levin said, the alleged plan was “a damn serious threat to the United States.” He said that either way, there should be a serious response by the U.S., but he declined to say what that response might be.

I really would like to know what planet these people live on. How could the Iranian plot be considered anything but an act of war? Iran was plotting to assassinate foreign diplomats on US soil. If that’s not an act of war I don’t know what is. The US response should be airstrikes on the HQ of the Revolutionary Guards in Iran. Those bastards are behind the weapons smuggling into Iraq and Afghanistan as well.

This article titled “Alleged Iran plot could have been trigger for war in Middle East” was written by Julian Borger, for The Guardian on Tuesday 11th October 2011 22.55 UTC

Whoever was behind the Washington plot was ready to start a war in the Middle East. The region is already on the brink of conflict over Iran’s nuclear programme, with Israel increasingly twitchy over the progress Tehran is making towards a capacity to make nuclear weapons.

Leaked US State Department cables also make clear that the Saudi king, Abdullah, has repeatedly urged the US to “cut off the head of the snake” and attack Iran.

Against that backdrop, the assassination of the Saudi ambassador in Washington, with mass American casualties and perhaps an attack on the Israeli embassy too, would have ensured that the region went up in flames.

The US accuses the Quds Force (QF), the external operations wing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, of being behind the plot. Given the hierarchy of the Iranian regime, such a huge undertaking would have required a direct order from the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who personally controls the QF.

Khamenei’s involvement would be surprising, to say the least. Throughout his tenure – since the death of the Islamic republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei in 1989 – he has shown himself to be highly cautious and devoted to entrenching the power of the clerical regime.

Meir Javendafar, an Iranian-Israeli, said: “Khamenei’s first priority is regime stability, and then a distant second, safeguarding the nuclear programme.”

One speculative explanation circulating on Tuesday night was that Khamenei feels so threatened by internal opposition that he would provoke a foreign attack to allow himself to strengthen his grip on the country. But the opposition Green movement is currently in abeyance, and the nuclear programme is advancing steadily with little threat of concerted international action, or much global support for an Israeli strike.

The plot is also out of character for the QF. The unit is well-funded and has considerable freedom of action abroad. It is suspected of involvement in the bombing of a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in 1994, the funding and arming of Hezbollah in Lebanon, of Shia militias in Iraq, and even the Taliban in Afghanistan. In 2008, the head of the QF, Kassim Suleimani sent the US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus a message in which he said, according to Petraeus, that he controlled Iranian foreign policy in the region.

However, to extend those operations to US territory would represent a significant leap in scope and ambitions. The way the plot was conducted would also suggest that the ruthlessly efficiently QF had lost its touch, being clumsy enough to transfer money from accounts under its control directly to US bank accounts.

Robert Baer, a former CIA agent with long experience of observing the QF, said: “This stinks to holy hell. The Quds Force are very good. They don’t sit down with people they don’t know and make a plot. They use proxies and they are professional about it. If Kassim Suleimani was coming after you or me, we would be dead. This is totally uncharacteristic of them.”

Another possibility is that this is a rogue operation, perhaps organised by a faction inside the QF, without the Supreme Leader’s blessing. There is an argument that it suited the purposes of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who recently lost a bloodless power struggle with Khamenei.

If the attack succeeded, it would set in train events dramatic enough to turn the rigid, dusty hierarchy of the clerical republic on its head, giving Ahmadinejad the chance to seize the advantage.

Or the plotters could be fanatics inside the military establishment, bent on bringing the Revolutionary Guard to the top of the regime pyramid, beginning an open race to develop a nuclear weapon and confronting Israel directly.

“If this is a bunch of crazies, then anything is possible,” Baer said.

All such possibilities are speculative. They would fundamentally reshape the Islamic Republic, and yet – for Iran experts – they are scarcely any more far-fetched that the idea that the Iranian establishment was behind a plot as brazen and reckless as this.

The thwarting of the plot almost certainly averted a conflict, but regional tension will escalate nevertheless. Any remote hope of resumed nuclear talks is dead for now. More sanctions and UN Security Council resolutions will be on the table instead.

Conceivably, that could break Khamenei’s will to press on with the nuclear programme, and produce a compromise deal that defuses the threat of conflict.

Or it could just as plausibly convince him to accelerate the programme, persuaded that the regime’s enemies are closing in. In that case, this extraordinary plot could yet succeed in sparking a new conflict in a very fragile region.

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This article titled “Obama urged to accept Iranian nuclear offer” was written by Julian Borger, for guardian.co.uk on Monday 10th October 2011 12.13 UTC

There is a growing chorus of approval among US experts for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s offer of a new uranium deal. So far the enthusiasm has failed to catch on inside the Obama administration or among the rest of the six-nation group that handles nuclear negotiations with Iran. But that could change as the months go by and the Iranian government builds up its stockpile of low enriched and medium (20%) enriched uranium.

Ahmadinejad made this latest offer in the press, first with an interview with the Washington Post in mid-September, and then with the New York Times a week or so later. The essence of the deal, the Iranian president told the Times’ Nicholas Kristof, was: “If they give us the 20% enriched uranium this very week, we will cease the domestic enrichment of uranium of up to 20 percent this very week.”

The offer is a variant on a series of proposals and counter-proposals on the supply of fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR), for the production of medical isotopes. The first version involved Iran shipping out of its low enriched uranium (LEU) in return for the 20% enriched uranium required for the TRR. Ahmadinejad seemed to back the deal but it crashed on the reefs of internal Iranian politics. It resurfaced in May 2010 in a proposal brokered by Turkey and Brazil which was rejected by the West when it became clear that Iran intended to continue making 20% uranium at home. This was crucial as mastery of 20% uranium production is said to be 90% of the way to making weapons-grade (90% enriched) uranium in terms of technical difficulty.

In this latest reincarnation of the proposal, Ahmadinejad is saying Iran will stop 20% production. For that reason, the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, argued that it would be wise to pursue the deal, on a temporary trial basis:

To test out Ahmadinejad’s offer, the United States could suggest that it would arrange the sale of two-year’s worth of TRR fuel in exchange for a two-year halt to any production of uranium enriched over five percent. TRR targets for medical isotope production could also be offered for sale to increase interest in the deal.

The idea has been seconded by Ali Faez and Charles Ferguson of the Federation of American Scientists, who suggest supplying Iran with 50 kg of fuel for the TRR unconditionally. They argue it would be seen as a humanitarian people-to-people gesture, helping 850,000 Iranian cancer patients receive treatment, with the strategic benefit of removing “Iran’s rationale for refining uranium to more than 3.5 percent”.

Faez and Ferguson wave away the risk that Ahmadinejad might not have the regime’s full backing for this gambit, as proved to be the case two years ago. They say Ahmadinejad has “repeated the offer often enough, and with confirmation from the foreign minister, that it must have the backing of the Iranian political elite, including Khamenei.”

That argument is debatable. Some Ahmadinejad watchers counter that he says lots of things without the Supreme Leader’s backing. The bigger problem is that it easier for academics to take these kind of gambles than leaders. Obama is in election mode and all foreign policy decisions are being subjected to a sniff test by his political advisors. Giving Ahmadinejad the benefit of the doubt once more will not sit well in a presidential debate against his eventual Republican challenger.

The rest of the 5+1 group (the P5 and Germany) have had little to say about the offer, holding fire until there is internal cohesion among the six, but if Iran continues to increase 20% U production at the present rate, and Israel shows signs of contemplating military action once more, desperation may take the upper hand and the Obama administration will be under increasingly heavy international pressure to take the risk.

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This article titled “Iran to free US hikers jailed for spying” was written by Saeed Kamali Dehghan, for The Guardian on Wednesday 14th September 2011 00.20 UTC

Iran has moved to reduce tensions with the international community by pledging to release two Americans held in the country and offering fresh nuclear talks ahead of President Ahmadinejad’s visit to the United Nations in New York next week.

The two Americans sentenced to eight years in jail for espionage and illegally crossing the border are to be released on bail of $500,000 (£316,000), their lawyer said on Tuesday.

News of the deal came after Ahmadinejad revealed that Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal would be allowed to return home in the next few days.

In reaction to Iran’s pledge, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said: “We are encouraged by what the Iranian government has said.

“We obviously hope that we will see a positive outcome.”

The hikers’ families said they were “overjoyed” the men may soon be released. They saidthey had no details but that the news was “a huge relief” and that they were looking forward to a reunion.

The men, both now 29, were arrested by Iranian security officials in July 2009 along with a friend, Sarah Shourd, 33, after walking across an unmarked border between Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan. Shourd – who became engaged to Bauer while in jail – was released last September on health grounds and for the same bail sum.

“The families of these two Americans and the Swiss embassy which hosts the US interests section in Tehran have been informed of this issue and Bauer and Fattal can leave Iran similar to Sarah Shourd,” the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

Iran’s judiciary has a history of asking for large amounts of money as bail. For prisoners who leave Iran after securing the bail, it means buying freedom.

Ahmadinejad appears to be crediting himself for their expected release ahead of his attendance at the UN general assembly meeting this month. The Washington Post quoted him as saying Bauer and Fattal had been granted a “unilateral pardon”.

“I am helping to arrange for their release in a couple of days so they will be able to return home,” he said in an interview in Tehran. “This is of course going to be a unilateral humanitarian gesture.”

An Iranian court in August sentenced the two men each to three years for illegally entering Iran and a further five years for spying for the US. Their lawyer lodged an appeal against the sentences, and Amnesty International said the conviction made a “mockery of justice”.

The court’s verdict was at odds with earlier comments made by Iranian foreign ministry officials who said before the trial that the pair would be freed. The contrast highlighted a growing rift between Iran’s judiciary, which is close to the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Ahmadinejad’s government.

It is not clear why Iran has finally decided to grant them apparent clemency, but international pressure and Iran’s isolation in the region may have been factors.

A deal may have been struck for the lifting of a travel ban on Fereidoun Abbasi-Davani, the head of Iran’s atomic energy agency.

The offer to release the Americans comes two days after Iran’s nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili said Iran was ready to resume nuclear talks with the EU.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, said on Monday that he was “increasingly concerned” over Iran’s nuclear activities, which the west worries might have military dimensions. Iran insists it wants nuclear energy for producing electricity.

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