IAEA voices 'serious concerns' about possible military dimensions to Iran nuclear program UN nuclear watchdog chief Yukiya

Amano tells IAEA's 35-nation board of governors about the lack of progress in two rounds of talks between the Vienna-based UN agency and Tehran this year. By Reuters Iran has tripled its monthly production of higher-grade enriched uranium and the UN nuclear watchdog has "serious concerns" about possible military dimensions to Tehran's atomic activities, the agency's chief said on Monday. Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, also told the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors about the lack of progress in two rounds of talks between the Vienna-based UN agency and Tehran this year. International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Yukiya Amano during an IAEA board of governors meeting at the UN atomic agency headquarters in Vienna on March 5, 2012. Photo by: AFP U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were to meet shortly in Washington to discuss Iran, deeply at odds over the timing for possible last-resort military action against Iran's nuclear program. Even though Obama offered assurances of stiffened U.S. resolve against Iran before the White House meeting, the two allies remained far apart over explicit nuclear "red lines" that Tehran should not be allowed to cross. Iran denies suspicions that it is covertly seeking nuclear weapons capability, in part by coordinating efforts to process uranium, test high explosives and revamp a ballistic missile cone to accommodate a nuclear warhead. But its refusal to curb sensitive atomic work that can have both civilian and military applications has drawn increasingly tough UN and Western sanctions against the major oil producer.

During the meetings in the Iranian capital in January and February, Iranian officials stonewalled the IAEA's requests for access to a military site seen as central to its investigation into the nature of the Islamic state's nuclear activity. "The agency continues to have serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program," Amano told the closed-door meeting, according to a copy of his speech. The IAEA "is unable to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities," he added. A report by the IAEA to member states last month said Iran was significantly stepping up uranium enrichment, a finding that sent oil prices higher on fears that tensions between Tehran and the West could boil over into military conflict. Since the IAEA's previous report in November, Amano said Iran has tripled monthly production of uranium refined to a fissile concentration of 20 percent well above the level usually needed to run nuclear power plants. Though indicated by the IAEA's confidential report last month, it was the first time Amano spoke in public about this rapid increase in Iran's enrichment activities, which has stoked Western and Israeli suspicions about Tehran's nuclear agenda. The Islamic Republic says the more highly refined uranium will replenish the dwindling special fuel stocks of a Tehran reactor that produces medicinal isotopes. But 20 percent enrichment, experts say, also represents most of the technical effort needed to attain the 90 percent threshold required for nuclear explosions. Much of this work is carried out deep inside a mountain at Iran's underground Fordow facility to better shield it against military strikes, and further expansion is planned. Despite intensive discussions with Iran, Amano said, there had been no agreement on a "structured approach" to resolve outstanding issues with its nuclear program during the talks held in January and February. Iran "did not address the agency's concerns in a substantive manner," Amano said. Making clear, however, that he would keep trying to engage Iran on the issue, he added: "Regarding future steps, the agency will continue to address the Iran nuclear issue through dialogue and in a constructive spirit.

Netanyahu, in the role of his life, confronts Obama on Iran In his self-styled Churchil This was pure, unadulterated, one hundred percent proof Benjamin Netanyahu: solidly in his element, before his kind of crowd, delivering the Churchillian speech he was meant for, in the role that fate has thrust upon him. This was not Munich, because President Obama, even for Netanyahu, is no longer Neville Chamberlain. And it wasnt the War Speech, because the guns are still silent. So this was The Lights are Going Out speech, broadcast from London to the United States on October 16, 1938, in which Churchill exhorted America to banish from all our lives the fear which already darkens the sunlight to hundreds of millions of men. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu waves after addressing the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, Monday, March 5, 2012.

Photo by: AP Thus, there were no Palestinians, no peace process, no 1967 borders and no settlements to freeze in Netanyahus succinct and rousing speech at the AIPAC Annual Conference last night. There were no weights on his feet, no obstacles in his way, no lip service for the prime minister to pay to a nave president who believes that Israeli concessions will make the slightest difference. For once, at long last, there was only nuclear-crazed Iran, of which he has been warning, a juxtaposed Holocaust, to which he has been comparing, an admiring Jewish audience, to which he has been preaching, and a bottom line that couldnt be clearer: Weve waited for diplomacy to work. Weve waited for sanctions to work. None of us can afford to wait much longer. So this was Netanyahus response to President Obamas request to give him more time: not much longer. Israel wont attack now, but it wont adhere to Obamas timetable either. Israel will give the international community a few more months to achieve the kind of dramatic breakthrough that Netanyahu made crystal clear he does not believe in. Then the Jewish state will not allow those seeking our destruction to possess the means to achieve that goal, no ifs or buts about it.

So if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, as the prime minister said yesterday in another context is it really a duck? Has Netanyahu crossed the Rubicon? Has he now resigned himself to war, as he surely sounded last night, or is he still raising the stakes and ratcheting up the pressure on Obama to act forcefully and swiftly in order to prevent the conflagration that Netanyahu is threatening to unleash? One needs to know the exact details of the exchange between Obama and Netanyahu at the White House yesterday, especially in their one on one meeting, in order to know the answers to these questions, though this, of course, did not prevent the analysts and commentators from debating that very subject last night. For his part, Netanyahu disturbingly displayed his ever-growing antipathy to such commentators who dont toe the party line and happen to disagree with his views by comparing them, in some convoluted way, to War Department officials who refused to bomb Auschwitz in 1944. In Netanyahus new war mode, perhaps, there is no more room for dissent or criticism, a position no doubt shared by many of the listeners in his audience and by most of his colleagues back home. Netanyahu will find no such fault, obviously, with Republican presidential hopefuls Romney, Santorum and Gingrich who will address the conference today by videolink, no doubt to quarrel with Obama, signifying the unprecedented and potentially harmful position that both Israel, in general, and the standoff, with Iran, in particular, have taken in this election campaign. The White House will certainly be seeking and probably finding signs of what they will interpret as collusion between Netanyahu and his close Republican friends, further complicating the already complex relationship between the two leaders which overshadows, not for better but for worse, the dangerous predicament that both countries seem headed for. Are Obama and Netanyahu playing good cop, bad cop, as some would suggest, or are their public differences a true reflection of their ongoing adversarial relationship? And even if Netanyahu is just posturing, is he not entrapping himself in his own words, allowing his rhetorical flourishes to establish facts on the ground that may ultimately cause unintended consequences? The answer to these questions will become apparent in the next few months which, if anything, now seem certain to make Obamas forecast that they will be difficult seem like the understatement of the year.

Netanyahus dangerous Holocaust analogy Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may go into history not as another Winston Churchill, but rather as another George W. Bush. By Carlo Strenger There are obvious points of consensus in the Free World: the Iranian regime is not nice; in fact its pretty horrid, both to its own people and in its support of violent actors in the Middle East. A nuclear Iran is bad, very bad; not just for Israel, but for the Middle East, and the world as a whole. I dont envy Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak: they need to make fateful decisions under a high degree of uncertainty: the problem, as the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once said, is that life can only be understood backward, but needs to be lived forward. Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Photo by: Olivier Fitoussi It has been argued that Netanyahu's and Baraks real goal in threatening that Israel will strike Iran on its own is to push U.S. President Barack Obama to either initiate such a strike when it is under U.S. control, or to force the U.S. in joining Israel when Iran retaliates by attacking Israeli cities with rockets. If this will indeed be the case, and if this will topple the regime in Iran, Netanyahu will, as he dreams, go into history as Israels Winston Churchill who saved the world from a nuclear Iran. If, instead, the attack will set back Irans nuclear ambitions for a short time only, if the Israel Air Force will incur heavy losses, and if Israel will suffer severe damages from Iranian rocket attacks, Israel's deterrence will actually be lowered. In addition, the Middle East might be set the Middle East ablaze and the world economy sent into a tailspin. Given the high level of uncertainty, it may well be wise to keep room for maneuvering. But, as Aluf Benn has pointed out, Netanyahus Auschwitz analogy at AIPAC narrowed his own options. Because if indeed Iran is Nazi Germany, if a

nuclear Iran is a repeat of Auschwitz, and not bombing Iran is like not bombing the railways to Auschwitz, there is indeed no way to justify any course of action other than attacking Iran. Does Netanyahu actually believe that a nuclear Iran may be the end of Israel and endanger the Jewish peoples existence? Peter Beinart has pointed out in a thoughtful essay, that there is almost complete consensus between those who, beyond doubt are experts on the matter (including current Mossad Chief Tamir Pardo, former chiefs Meir Dagan and Efraim Halevy; former commander of the IAF and IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz) that while a nuclear Iran is bad and dangerous, it is not an existential threat either for Israel, and certainly not to the Jewish people. This is also what I hear, off the record, from central members of Israels security establishment. Given that, like Beinart, I am not a military expert, I need to base whatever I say on their assessment. This raises the question why Netanyahu keeps returning to the Holocaust analogy; why, for years, he keeps telling the world that the next Holocaust is around the corner; that the Chamberlains of 2012 are about to close their eyes, whereas he, the Churchill of our era, fearlessly looks at the facts as they are. Because, if the consensus of Israels security establishment that a nuclear Iran bad as it may be - is not an existential threat to Israel is correct, then Netanyahu (who, presumably, has access to all the information these experts have) is saying something that isnt true. It cannot be denied that the Holocaust theme has served Netanyahu well politically. As many commentators have pointed out, Netanyahu has succeeded in reframing political discourse on the Middle East: this visit to the U.S. was the first in a long time in which the Palestinian issue was completely off the table. Nobody even raised the question of settlement construction or the old question how to bring Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiation table. Instead of being on the defensive on the Palestinian issue, Netanyahu is now on the offensive on Iran. By invoking the allied powers failure to disrupt the Nazis sending millions to concentration camps in 1944, he is reminding the Free World of a horrible mistake, and demanding that this mistake not be repeated. But Netanyahus short-term political advantage may well turn into a pyrrhic victory highly detrimental to Israels long-term interests: a few years ago Netanyahus current security advisor Yaakov Amidror argued in a conference at Tel Aviv University that he was against attacking Iran, because such an attack would not prevent Iran from going nuclear in the long run. In fact, he claimed, it would

pretty much force Irans future leadership to build the bomb, and, at some point, to redress the humiliation of having been attacked by Israel. If Amidrors argument is correct, Netanyahu may go into history not as another Churchill, but as another George W. Bush. Like Bush before the invasion of Iraq, Netanyahu is twisting the facts to make his case; and like Bush he may drag Israel into a war that may take an exorbitant toll on Israel and the world economy, without preventing Iran from going nuclear in the long run.