TigerHawk

The New York Times has an interesting front page article this morning about the technical challenges facing Iran's nuclear program, whatever its intentions. The heart of the story is whether Iran has the capacity to initiate and maintain a cascade of 3,000 centrifuges, notwithstanding its longstanding claims that it is on the brink of doing so. The headline is very telling: "Iranian Boast Is Put To Test." The article itself explores the roots of the conclusion of the American National Intelligence Estimate, which holds that Iran is at least eight years away from building its own atomic weapon.

The Times article is not, as one might ordinarily suppose, another transparent attempt to discredit the hawks in the Bush administration (as the Oracle of 43rd Street has been doing repeatedly, probably to make amends for Judith Miller's reporting in the run-up to the Iraq war). Among other delights, it reminds the reader why the even the world's usual doves believe Iran is trying to build an atomic weapon (bold emphasis and italicized notes added):

Iran’s enrichment program, begun in 1985, was born in great secrecy and built on centrifuge plans obtained from the black market of Dr. [A.Q.] Khan [Abdul Qadeer Khan is the "father" of Pakistan's bomb and the world's most consequential nuclear blackmarketeer. - ed.]. In 2002, the covert program was exposed when an Iranian opposition group revealed the construction of the plant at Natanz. [The exposure of the covert program happened during the term of "reformist" president Mohammad Khatami. - ed.]

At first, inspectors from the international atomic agency in Vienna had wide latitude to travel through Iran in an effort to comprehend the depth and breadth of the enrichment project — and assess its true nature, whether for war or peace. They toured centrifuge factories, found a hidden centrifuge factory behind a false wall in a small electric facility in downtown Tehran and hunted for signs of weapons-grade enrichment. They visited the cavernous hall at Natanz, until recently a huge, empty basement.

By the atomic agency’s estimates, Iran could produce upwards of 100 centrifuges a month, and was stockpiling them.

Then, last February, after three years of unusual openness, Iran reacted to the growing pressure from Washington and Europe to suspend its enrichment — or face sanctions — by drastically reducing the access of international inspectors to Natanz and dozens of other atomic sites, programs and personnel.

No longer could the inspectors swab machines, scoop up bits of soil, study invoices, peek behind doors and gather seemingly innocuous clues. No longer would the Iranians let the inspectors investigate the origins of traces of highly enriched uranium or examine important documents from the Khan network. Now, the inspectors are limited to a narrow range of operations, leaving them partially blind.

The Iranians appear to have sped ahead. In interviews, diplomats and nuclear officials said recent inspector reports of rapid centrifuge mobilization and installation at Natanz show that Tehran had worked hard for the past year, even as it engaged in increasingly harsh language that some experts took as a cover for technical failings.

Meanwhile, the mainstream media has picked up on Stratfor's claim that Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad, is taking a page from its war against Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program:

A senior nuclear physicist involved in Iran's nuclear program who died under mysterious circumstances two weeks ago was killed by the Mossad, according to a report released in a U.S. website this weekend.

The website - Stratfor.com - features intelligence and security analysis by former U.S. intelligence agents.

Professor Ardashir Hosseinpour, a world authority on electromagnetism, was until recently working on uranium enrichment at the facility in Isfahan, one of the central processing sites in Iran's nuclear program.

The physicist died January 18, but news of his death only emerged six days later in two Iranian media outlets.

Here's the pertinant part of the Stratfor analysis that is driving the assassination story:

Israel ... does not care to gamble on the rationality of the Iranian regime, and does not intend to see an Iranian nuclear weapons program come to fruition.

The Israelis, therefore, have their own ways of dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat. A pre-emptive Israeli military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities is unlikely in the near future for a number of reasons that we have discussed before, including the time Israel still has before Iran reaches a technologically critical stage in its nuclear development, the strategically dispersed nature of Iran's nuclear sites and the tenuous U.S. position in Iraq. An offensive strike on Iran would still leave wide open the issue of a resolution in Iraq, which would further constrain the U.S. military position in the region.

But while the time for overt military action is likely still in the distance, Israeli covert action against Iran appears to be gaining steam.

The death of a high-level Iranian nuclear scientist, Ardeshir Hassanpour, was announced by Radio Farda and Iranian state television Jan. 25 -- a week after his death occurred. The Radio Farda report implicitly related the cause for Hassanpour's death to exposure to radioactive rays, though the details were murky. Stratfor sources close to Israeli intelligence have revealed, however, that Hassanpour was in fact a Mossad target.

Hassanpour is believed to have been one of Iran's most prized nuclear scientists. Some reports claim he was named the best scientist in the military field in Iran in 2003, that he directed and founded the center for nuclear electromagnetic studies since 2005 and that he co-founded the Nuclear Technology Center in Isfahan, where Iran's uranium-conversion facilities are located.

Decapitating a hostile nuclear program by taking out key human assets is a tactic that has proven its effectiveness over the years, particularly in the case of Iraq. In the months leading up to the 1981 Israeli airstrike on Iraq's Osirak reactor -- which was believed to be on the verge of producing plutonium for a weapons program -- at least three Iraqi nuclear scientists died under mysterious circumstances.

Yahya al-Meshad, a key figure in Iraq's nuclear program, traveled to Paris in 1980 to test fuel for the reactor; he was soon stabbed to death and was discovered by a hotel maid in his room the next morning. A prostitute who went by the name Marie Express reportedly saw the scientist the night before he died. She was then killed in a hit-and-run accident by an unknown driver who got away. After al-Meshad's death, two more Iraqi scientists were killed separately -- both by poisoning -- and a number of workers at Osirak began receiving threatening letters from a shadowy organization called the Committee to Safeguard the Islamic Revolution -- likely a Mossad front to enhance the workers' paranoia and hinder Saddam Hussein's nuclear ambitions.

Mossad's latest covert assassination campaign falls in line with Israel's psychological warfare strategy to undermine Iran's confidence in pursuing its nuclear agenda. The longer the Iranians are forced to second-guess Israel's intent to launch a pre-emptive strike, the more pliable Iran becomes in negotiating with the United States toward a political agreement on Iraq.

In related news, Hillary Clinton is refusing to rule out the use of military force against Iran.

Commentary

The press, polemicists of the left and right, and simpler politicians than Hillary Clinton (and, for that matter, George W. Bush) often characterize the options for eliminating or confining Iran's nuclear program as either "diplomacy" or "war," and the options for communicating with Iran as "direct talks without conditions," "no direct talks without concessions in advance," and "no talks at all -- they're lying weasels." The reality is far more complex. There is, however, a useful framework for analyzing that reality. It involves two basic ideas.

First, whether or not there are direct, visible talks or diplomatic relations between the United States and Iran, there is bargaining going on all the time. Force, or even the tactics of war, are the idiom in which much of that bargaining occurs. Iran's disruption of Iraq directly serves various Iranian interests, but it also creates an asset -- the prospect of "stability" in Iraq -- with which Iran can implicitly or even explicitly negotiate. Hezbollah's confrontation of Israel this summer also created an asset for Iran -- a credible threat on Israel's northern border and the destabilization of Lebanon. American carrier groups in the Persian Gulf are an asset of the United States -- it is probably the case that a single order from the White House can trigger a massive aerial assault on Iran's strategic targets with almost no remaining preparation time. Indeed, whether or not that is in fact true, the real powers in Tehran know they must act as if it were true. The deployment of that second carrier group to the Gulf was diplomacy, even if it wasn't "direct talks." It only becomes "not diplomacy" if the White House issues that order.

Second, no side in the confrontation believes that transparency improves its position. As the linked New York Times article makes clear, there has been an extraordinary amount of bluff and bluster in the disclosures around Iran's nuclear program. For years, Iran denied the program existed. Then it tremendously understated the progress and scope of the program. Once Tehran's massive projects and its ties to A.Q. Khan became clear, Iran has grossly overstated the progress it has made. Similarly, the United States refuses to say that it will not use military force against Iran, or the circumstances under which it would use military force. This is for good reason. It never makes sense early in a negotiation -- and it is still early -- to declare how high a price you are willing to pay for something. (Any American politician who reveals that he or she does not understand this basic idea is by definition incompetent to declaim on matters of national security. Hillary Clinton has repeatedly passed at least that basic test.)

Finally, Israel has been busily creating options for itself and the United States. It has been acting like the crazy uncle in the attic who might just "lose it" if Iran does not shut down its enrichment program, allowing the United States to seem like the good cop. It has been leaking "back channel" talks with Syria, the primary purpose of which would be to cut off the weapons pipeline to Iran's proxy Hezbollah. Whether it has actually assassinated any Iranians, it has rather blatantly (if deniably) claimed credit for doing so, which at a minimum will deter foreign experts from helping Iran. It has acquired U-Boats from Germany that are capable of firing missiles armed with nuclear warheads, a fact that Germany rather helpfully announced in a press release.

However much the press and the international bureaucrats would love to see "direct talks" in a five-star hotel in Geneva with press conferences and a handshake at the end, that will only happen, if it happens, when the outcome is virtually certain. The real negotiation is going on right before our eyes, and it is at once fascinating and terrifying.