Iran's Nuclear Facility Discovered

Impressive work by U.S. intelligence agencies:

President Obama and the leaders of Britain and France will accuse Iran Friday of building a secret underground plant to manufacture nuclear fuel, saying the country has hidden the covert operation from international weapons inspectors for years, according to senior administration officials.

The revelation, which the three leaders will make before the opening of the Group of 20 economic summit here, appears bound to add urgency to the diplomatic confrontation with Iran over its suspected ambitions to build a nuclear weapons capacity. Mr. Obama, along with Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, will demand that Iran allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to conduct an immediate inspection of the facility, which is said to be 100 miles southwest of Tehran.

American officials said that they had been tracking the covert project for years, but that Mr. Obama decided to make public the American findings after Iran discovered, in recent weeks, that Western intelligence agencies had breached the secrecy surrounding the project. On Monday, Iran wrote a brief, cryptic letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency, saying that it now had a “pilot plant” under construction, whose existence it had never before revealed.

[...]

American officials, citing the sensitivity of their intelligence gathering on Iran, declined to say what kind of intelligence break — human spies, computer or telephone intercepts or overhead photography — led to their discovery. But parts of the computer networks belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard were pierced in 2007, leading to the intelligence finding that that Iranian engineers, working under Mohsen Fakrizadeh, had tried to design a nuclear weapon before the effort ended in 2003. Israel and some European intelligence agencies argue that the work resumed later.

The enrichment program appears to run on a separate track from the weapons design program, in part because the Iranians claim the enrichment is solely for the purpose of producing fuel for nuclear power plants. To construct centrifuges, Iran has had to buy specialty parts abroad, and at times in the past, American, German and Israeli intelligence agencies have intercepted shipments, in one case diverting crucial parts to American weapons labs before sending them on to Iran. It is very possible that infiltration of the supply network contributed to the discovery in Qum.

Of course it has been long suspected that the Iranians did not give up entirely upon their nuclear program after the discovery of the facility at Nantaz. But until this discovery, there was little clue as to where the program might be hidden or what it might be capable of. Apparently this facility was not yet complete, though it appears certainly to exist for the purpose of creating enough fissile material for a bomb. Also, another nugget from the article regarding Russia:

Mr. Obama had, by that point, made a giant step toward getting Russia more amenable to the idea of sanctions against Iran — something Moscow does not like — by announcing last week that he was replacing President George W. Bush’s missile defense with a version less threatening to Moscow. That issue, one administration official said, completely changed the dynamic during Mr. Obama’s meeting with Mr. Medvedev.

While it is unclear whether Mr. Obama briefed Mr. Medvedev about the Qum facility during that meeting at New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel, the two leaders nonetheless emerged with Mr. Medvedev promising, for the first time publicly, that Russia would be amenable to tougher sanctions.

And on Thursday, in Pittsburgh, Mr. Medvedev reiterated his stance. “When all instruments have been used and failed, one can use international legal sanctions,” Mr. Medvedev told students at the University of Pittsburgh. “I think we should continue to promote positive incentives for Iran and at the same time push it to make all its programs transparent and open. Should we fail in that case, we’ll consider other options.”

Certainly, the recent crackdown on Iranian dissidents in the wake of fraudulent elections hasn't helped the Iranian regime's standing in the world either. With Russia on the board, the possibility of much tougher sanctions appears very much more certain now.

Wednesday Morning Links

1. Gay marriage activists hope the Vermont legislature's decision to legalize gay marriage will provide impetus to other states to do the same. This is true at least in D.C., which voted to recognize gay marriages in other states. On the other side of the world though in Iraq, gays and lesbians find that their lives are endangered because of their sexuality.

2. Small towns, suckered by investment bankers who sold them risky municipal bond derivatives.

3. Peru's Ex-President Alberto Fujimora is convicted and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison for human rights abuses that occurred during the war against Maoist rebels Shining Path.

4. More details on the prosecutorial misconduct that undid the Ted Stevens prosecution. And McClatchy has another article on Judge Emmett Sullivan, who has "declared war" on what he sees to be a rising tide of government prosecutorial secrecy, incompetence and malfeasance.

5. Texas Republican lawmakers find themselves at odds with Gov. Rick Perry over a number of issues beyond stimulus funding. Texas Republicans are apparently not as receptive to marching orders as Congressional Republicans were during the Bush administration.

6. Former Australian government officials and academics applaud Obama's commitment to rid the world of nuclear weapons.
Anne Applebaum says there are other more important priorities that Obama should focus on, but it seems to me that getting rid of nuclear weapons never seems to be worthwhile until somebody's threatening to use one. Why wait until we reach that point?

7. Michael Gerson, being a moron again, characterizes Obama as "the most polarizing President" in history. In fact, Obama is a broadly popular President among Americans, and is most vociferously opposed by a loud minority contingent of right-wing lunatics and Republicans who think the key to electoral victory is saying no to everything Obama proposes.

8. Al Franken emerges victorious in the re-count, but Coleman signals further appeals are on the way.

9. Student loan defaults are surging, which may increase calls for a student loan "bailout."

10. American intelligence officials warn that the United States' electrical grid has been infiltrated by hackers from China and Russia who may be looking to launch cyber attacks against the United States infrastructure in the event of military conflict. I remember a 2003 Frontline special warning of this very thing, a warning that appears to be coming true.

Afternoon Links

Things worth reading:

1. An earthquake in Italy is estimated to have killed a hundred people so far, and left tens of thousands more homeless.

2. Florida: bringing back debtor's prison (sort of.)

3. Turkey: President Obama visits Turkey, calls Turkey an important ally, speaks of resolving the conflict over the Armenian genocide. Turkish PM Erdogan tells us to accept the reality of Hamas.

4. Thirty-three Iraqis die in coordinated car bombings in and around Baghdad.

5. The brain: Researchers are working on ways of "editing" memory. Scientists have also concluded that the stress of being poor alters the brains of children.

6. Secretary of Defense Gates proposes to make cuts to several big-ticket defense items. To which I say, we'll see about that.

7. President Obama aims for a world free of nuclear weapons.

8. Millions of shelter animals die, while morons buy designer "hybrid" breeds raised in appalling conditions.

9. Sports: Can Brazil's talented soccer player Marta revive women's soccer in the U.S.? Speaking of soccer, FC Dallas has stunk it up in the first three games of the season, losing all three while giving up seven goals and scoring only two. The Dallas Mavericks, as is typical in this up and down season,lost to a woeful Memphis team with less than half their win total on Friday night and then blew out similarly struggling Phoenix on Sunday. They are now one win or one Phoenix loss away from wrapping up the eight seed in the playoffs, and still-amazingly-in the hunt for the seventh seed, which they can get with some help from Utah. And the Texas Rangers open their season today with a game at home against Cleveland.

Buying Pakistan's Nukes

Bret Stephens (via Security Law Brief) proposes that we solve the problem posed by Pakistan's nukes by buying them, in exchange for an economic stimulus package of about $100 billion. Now the first thing you are probably wondering is why Pakistan would be willing to abandon its nukes in the face of the threat posed by India, a threat that prompted them to acquire the nukes in the first place. Stephens solution: extend our nuclear umbrella to include Pakistan. So...to get Pakistan to give up its nukes, we're going to aim ours (potentially) at our ally India? And we should propose this now, while India is quite justifiably upset with Pakistan over the Mumbai attacks? I appreciate Stephens' sincerity, but someone would have to be paying us to even try this.

What's Wrong with Hillary

I don't know why I'm even mildly surprised, but Hillary quite publicly refuses to repudiate the use of torture by the U.S. government:

Clinton was similarly vague about how she would handle special interrogation methods used by the CIA. She said that while she does not condone torture, so much has been kept secret that she would not know unless elected what other extreme measures interrogators are using, and therefore could not say whether she would change or continue existing policies.

"It is not clear yet exactly what this administration is or isn't doing. We're getting all kinds of mixed messages," Clinton said. "I don't think we'll know the truth until we have a new president. I think [until] you can get in there and actually bore into what's been going on, you're not going to know."

What? "Mixed messages"? I'm sorry, but we know quite clearly that the Bush administration has authorized the use of brutal techniques like water-boarding and stress positions, has refused to renounce such techniques, has authored secret legal opinions justifying them, and has only reluctantly backed away from such techniques after losing cases before the Supreme Court. If you are genuinely against torture, you would simply come out and say "I do not support the use of torture techniques such as water-boarding, stress positions" etc., etc. What are the reasons you wouldn't come out and say something like that? Either because you are genuinely not really against torture all that much, or because you don't want to say you're against torture because that's not "tough." Which is worse? I don't know, but Kevin Drum detests this sort of weasily spinning:

Politics is politics. Spin and ambiguity are part of the game. But if you can't even take a full-throated, non-weasely position against torture and abuse of prisoners in American custody, what the hell good are you?

Indeed. Who of us desires to vote a Democrat into the White House, only to find that torture continues in our name? Not I.

I like Hillary. I really do. I think she's tough, strong, intelligent and would be a hell of a President. But this sort of thing is really starting to chap my hide. I am seriously beginning to question whether or not Hillary lines up with my ideas on American foreign policy and national security enough for me to be comfortable with her as President. I hardly need to say anything about her infamous vote for the Iraq war, a vote that haunts her on the campaign trail, a vote she has yet to adequately explain. Even now she continues to hedge on Iraq, as if she's preserving some sort of maneuvering room that will permit her to keep us in the conflict longer than most Americans desire (though to be fair, all the major candidates seem to be having this problem.) Then there's her vote on the recent Iran resolution, followed shortly by her support of a proposal that would block funding of a military strike on Iran, a position which leaves people like me wondering exactly how much leeway Hillary thinks she's giving the Bush administration to act on Iran and to what purpose. It doesn't help that her list of advisers includes hawks suck as Michael O'Hanlon, defender of the surge.

Then there's the nuclear weapons kerfuffle from earlier this year, where Obama made the egregious mistake of saying he wouldn't unilaterally nuke thousands of innocent Pakistanis to kill a dozen or so terrorists, and Clinton called him out for his unseriousness in that regard, and for his willingness to waste time talking to heads of State we disagree with.

Then there's her approach to Cuba, which appears to be to continue the failed embargo approach of the last fifty years.

In contrast to that we have Barack Obama, who unabashedly and clearly repudiates the use of torture, spoke out against the war in Iraq, refused to back the Iran resolution, who thinks we should talk to our enemies, who believes it's silly to admit that we won't nuke peaceful citizens just to get to terrorists, who in fact believes we should ban nuclear weapons, who supports rapprochement with Cuba, and who employs a noted human rights activist as his most prominent foreign policy adviser.

Don't get me wrong. I don't support or oppose a candidate based solely on my foreign policy beliefs. But we are at a critical juncture in the history of our Nation, where our relationships with other powers can either be repaired and restored or where they can be broken beyond repair, where we can engage in war until it saps us of our military and economic might or we can begin the difficult road to peace and diplomacy, and where we can break with the ineffectual policies of the past to engage in a new era of world leadership. At this juncture, I think it's becoming clearer who is best suited to do all of these things, and it's not Hillary Clinton.

UPDATE: Dammit! The Hillary campaign ruins my anti-Hillary screed by revealing that Hillary was not quoted accurately by the Washington Post (check the link to Kevin Drum above for an update.) Her entire quote reveals about as unequivocal a stand against torture as you can ask for and I'm not going to over-interpret her words like Andrew Sullivan in an effort to sustain my original point (and Sullivan has his own weird problems with the Clintons anyway.) But I stand by the rest of my post, and her clear statement against torture isn't enough to change my mind about any of the rest of her foreign policy positions.

Obama: No Nukes

Barack Obama, saying what I like to hear:

Senator Barack Obama will propose on Tuesday setting a goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons in the world, saying the United States should greatly reduce its stockpiles to lower the threat of nuclear terrorism, aides say.

In a speech at DePaul University in Chicago, Mr. Obama will add his voice to a plan endorsed earlier this year by a bipartisan group of former government officials from the cold war era who say the United States must begin building a global consensus to reverse a reliance on nuclear weapons that have become “increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective.”

Mr. Obama, according to details provided by his campaign Monday, also will call for pursuing vigorous diplomatic efforts aimed at a global ban on the development, production and deployment of intermediate-range missiles.

This probably sounds radical to some people, and foreign policy "experts" I'm sure are reproaching Obama for his naivete. That's ridiculous. Nuclear weapons only provide security when everyone has them and can wound or destroy each other at any given time. That's not "security", that's insanity. And the current nuclear peace is only tenable because the major nuclear powers are at peace with one another (and yet, Russia still has thousands of nuclear weapons pointed at us, and vice versa.) As nuclear weapons spread to other smaller nations that are not in harmony with each other, the likelihood of a nuclear exchange that will be detrimental to millions (or billions) increases. Similarly, the possibility that nuclear weapons will fall into the hands of a group that cannot be deterred by the nuclear prowess of its enemies increases as well. Lastly, efforts to enact defense mechanisms against nuclear weapons will only further destabilize the current nuclear status quo. This is not a recipe for a safe or peaceful future.

Nuclear weapons are not weapons of the future. They are weapons of a sordid past, a period in which billions of humans lived in a constant, low-grade fear that an incident or combination of incidents could trigger a nuclear war that would kill them or destroy their means of survival. The means to create and produce nuclear weapons can probably never be eradicated, but the existence of nuclear weapons can. We've stewed in our complacency towards nukes long enough. It's time for them to go.

Peace in Korea?

Good news on the Korean peninsula. Both countries have announced their intentions to formally bring an end to the Korean war in a summit in which the leaders of both countries are meeting directly:

Leaders of the two Koreas ended their summit Thursday with a joint pledge to seek talks with China and the United States aimed at formally ending the 1950-53 Korean War.

They also announced that they would set up a "peace zone" around a much-disputed border in the Yellow Sea that is rich with fish and where skirmishes between the countries have broken out over the past several decades.

The summit also produced a promise that a rail line would open up between North and South. There is now no open road or rail connection between the two countries.

"This is a big triumph for South Korea," said Koh Yu Hwan, professor of political science at Dongguk University in Seoul. The South's president, Roh Moo Hyun, "discussed most of the issues he wanted to discuss, and this declaration will transform the Koreas into a postwar peace footing."

This occurs at the same time that six-party talks appear to finally be producing a substantive approach to denuclearizing North Korea. Things are looking up and there may finally be a chance for real peace for the first time since 1950.

The Deadly Threat of China

Remember kids...warmongerers will always find somebody we need to attack.

And in the interest of substance, here's an article from the most recent Atlantic Monthly on why our nuclear policy is increasing the liklihood of conflict with China. The authors' conclusions are not actually as dire as one would imagine from the title of the article, but they do present another solid argument against nuclear proliferation.