Last week, Britain, France and the US decided to announce to the world that they knew Iran was hiding a secret nuclear facility in Iran's holy city of Qom.
The information was developed during the Bush Administration.
It was three years ago that American intelligence agents began picking up signs that someone was tunnelling into the side of a mountain in the desert outside the holy city of Qom.
But according to The Politico, President Obama had no plans to make the announce when he did
But behind the scenes, the Obama administration was furiously preparing for a major public intelligence disclosure that it had not planned to make: that the U.S. had known for years about a previously undisclosed clandestine nuclear enrichment facility Iran has been building since 2005 in a mountain near Qom.
Interviews with administration and international officials, diplomats, non-proliferation and Iran experts suggest the administration had no plans to announce its suspicions before beginning international talks with Iran next week. But its hand was forced after learning some time during the week of a letter Iran had sent the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency in Vienna acknowledging construction of a previously undisclosed facility.
And it appears that Iran wrote this letter because it found out that the US knew about the facility at Qom.
Last week, as Tehran finally woke up to the knowledge that the plant’s security had been breached, it rushed to declare its existence to the IAEA, hoping to pre-empt other reports and prove its openness and co-operation.
Now that the information is out in the open, Britain, France and the US are talking tough.
The allies will demand that Iran prove to the increasingly skeptical group that its intentions with its various sites are peaceful and energy-related, as Iran claims, and not for weapons development, as the West believes, the official said Saturday.
These nations now agree that they are less inclined to listen to suspect arguments or incomplete evidence — viewing it as a stall tactic, the official said.
Right. But they've known about this for three years. And in those three years they hesitated in imposing more sanctions and instead engaged in "good faith" negotiations as if they didn't know that Iran was hiding this facility. And even now, for all their new found outrage
But beyond the timeframe of "weeks" for coming clean on Qom, the allies will not give Iran a specific deadline to provide the information about its overall program, the official said.
And President Obama is still proceeding with plans to talk to Iran.
Iran is not fooled by all the saber rattling
Consider:
- The "allies" have known that Iran's been lying about and trying to conceal the existence of this site for 3 years.
- Despite having this information, the December 2007 NIE in its unclassified "key judgements" report said "We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons
program1; we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is
keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons." This assessment that was released to the public was not only wrong, it was intentionally misleading. - Iran had to have noticed that missing from the group of people announcing Iran's "newly discovered" facility were Germany, Russia and China.
- President Obama has not canceled his meeting with Ahmadinejad.
Because of what they see with their eyes, not only is Iran unfazed by the West's indignation, it remains provocative.
Iran reported Monday that it successfully test-fired its most advanced and powerful medium-range missiles as part of war games it said were intended to deter the country's enemies.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps tested the Shahab-3 and Sejil missiles in the third phase of a two-day exercise called The Great Prophet IV, state-run news media reported. The missiles are believed to be capable of striking Israel, U.S. military targets in the Middle East and parts of southeastern Europe.
Just last week, President Obama announced that he would cancel plans for a missile shield that would protect Eastern Europe from just such an attack from Iran. This pleased the Russians but did not please the Eastern European countries that would have benefited from plan. The speculation is that this would encourage Russia to align against Iran.
So how's that going?
When asked about Iran and sanctions by NBCs Andrea Mitchell, President Medvedev said
Iran as a state has a right to its own peaceful nuclear program. This is our clear position.
That is what I said to Barack Obama yesterday. I do not believe sanctions are the best way to achieve results. Sanctions were used on a number of occasions against Iran but we have doubts about the results. Nevertheless when all instruments have been used and failed, one can use international legal sanctions.
So, no help there.
The President is hoping that inclusion in the international community is a motivating factor for Iran; that he can convince them that by dropping the nuclear weapons program Iran will get what he perceives they want. And he is probably right that this is what the people of Iran want.
But evidence suggests that this is not what the Iranian leadership wants.
Evidence suggests that Iran's leadership is motivated by
a) the destruction of Israel
b) domination of the Middle East and the Persian Gulf
c) and even, possibly, an apocalyptic return of the 12th Imam
Everything they have done suggests that they need to hold the West off long enough to develop a nuclear weapon with which they become untouchable because they then hold the key to destroying everything the West needs from the Middle East and North Africa: oil.
President Obama is also under the impression that Russia does not want a rogue nuclear nation like Iran around.
But everything Russia has done suggests just the opposite. Russia is helping Iran build it's nuclear facilities. Russia is selling weapons and anti-aircraft defense system to Iran.
Russia has nothing to assure us that their motivations in this regard are friendly to the United States.
So too with China. They also are helping Iran with nuclear and missile technology. Has anyone stopped to think that their motivation may be ascendancy over the US rather than being good global neighbors?
And what was the motivation for publishing an NIE that told us everything was fine with Iran when the authors knew it was untrue?
