U.S. Justice Department says terror threat could excuse abusive interrogation

Letters obtained by the New York Times  indicate the U.S. Justice Department has told Congress that U.S. intelligence agencies trying to stop terrorist attacks may use interrogation practices that go beyond the bounds of international law. The JURIST legal blog explores.

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How to Make Deals with Devils

In an op-ed for The Washington Post, former Pentagon official and president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations Leslie H. Gelb writes that dealing with bad guys is part of the “foreign policy business,” and outlines how to make deals with devils. A real issue: not whether to talk to “Bad Guys”, but how?

“Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman knew well about the sins of the Soviet Union, but they cooperated with the monstrous Joseph Stalin against an even bigger monster, Adolf Hitler. (Winston Churchill was similarly unsentimental: ‘If Hitler invaded Hell,’ he reportedly said, ‘I would at least make a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.’) President Richard M. Nixon was well aware of the tens of millions killed by Mao Zedong but figured that dealing with the Chinese leader would give him leverage against Moscow. Even Reagan married his condemnation of the Soviets with an all-out effort to negotiate far-reaching arms control agreements with them.”

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German Spies Caught Reading Journalist’s E-Mails

German broadcaster Deutsche Welle reports on allegations that Germany’s foreign intelligence service BND spied on the email correspondence of Susanne Koelbl, a journalist at the Hamburg-based weekly Der Spiegel. The intelligence agency has admitted to, and apologized for the incident.

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Das Reich des Hasses: Wurzeln der saudi-arabischen Terrorideologie

Hatred’s Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports New Global Terrorism, von Dore Gold

Eine Buchbesprechung von Dr. Hans-Peter Raddatz

Seit dem 11. September, der neuen Zündstufe globalen Islamterrors, dauert die Flut der Veröffentlichungen über Islam und Islamismus sowie die Rolle des Westens im Konflikt mit dieser erweiterten Gewaltdimension ungebrochen an. Die charismatische Gestalt des Usama bin Ladin, die Stoßtruppaktion in Afghanistan und der Irakkrieg haben die Gründe und Hintergründe des islamischen Terrors indes nicht wirklich erhellen können, sondern die Spekulationen eher noch weiter angeheizt.

Unter den neueren Publikationen zu dieser schwierigen Thematik scheint eine Darstellung besonderes Furore gemacht zu haben. Gemeint ist Hatred’s Kingdom - übersetzt: Königreich des Hasses - ein Buch, das nicht nur seines provokanten Titels wegen den Weg in die Bestsellerliste der New York Times gefunden hat.

Autor des gefragten Werks ist Dore Gold, Israels ehemaliger UNO-Botschafter und außenpolitischer Berater des Ministerpräsidenten - also immerhin jemand mit Zugang zu Einsichten und Materialien, die über den einschlägigen Durchschnitt hinausgehen. Mit seiner Überschrift will Gold jene wahhabitische Islamform kennzeichnen, die der saudischen Monarchie als Herrschaftsideologie dient und in den letzten zwei Jahrzehnten durch eine wachsende Gewaltbereitschaft aufgefallen ist. Immer häufiger tritt Saudi-Arabien seither als Finanzier und Drahtzieher von Terrorgruppen und -aktionen auf, wobei nicht zuletzt drei Viertel der Attentäter des 11. September aus diesem Land kamen und sich auf den Koran beriefen. So stellt Gold den Wahhabismus, seine Geschichte und Entwicklung, ins Zentrum seiner Darstellung, und es lohnt sich, sie mitzuverfolgen.

Das saudische Königreich führt sich auf einen Loyalitätsvertrag zurück, den 1744 der Dynastiegründer Muh. Ibn Sa’ud und der Islamreformer Ibn Abdul-Wahhab abschlossen, um sich über die Wahrung der islamischen Glaubensordnung gegenseitig Schutz und Legitimation zuzusichern. Nach diversen Anläufen und zum Teil blutigen Kämpfen gegen Osmanen, Schiiten und später die Briten gelang es der Saudi-Dynastie schließlich, sich ab 1932 in der bis heute geltenden Form zu etablieren. Der wahhabitische Islam stützt sich auf eine extrem orthodoxe Tradition, die einen strengen Monotheismaus vertritt, und jede Abweichung unnachgiebig verfolgt.

Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts hatte sich die Wahhabiten-Bewegung mit den sogenannten “Hidjra-Brüdern” verbunden, die wie einst ihr Prophet nun in einen erneuerten Glauben hinausgehen und alle Götzendiener, vor allem die westlichen Eindringlinge, bekämpfen wollten. In Ägypten war parallel dazu eine weitere große Reformbewegung entstanden, aus der sich unter wahhabitischem Einfluß die bekannte Muslimbruderschaft bildete - bis heute die mit Abstand größte Einzelbewegung des Islam. Indem sie ein Wechselspiel aus sanften, offenen Sozialgruppen und harten, verdeckten Terrorkadern betreibt, bekämpft diese Gemeinschaft die aus ihrer Sicht unislamischen Regime und breitet sich zugleich in den wichtigen Ländern des Westens aus. Mit der Ideologie und Finanzkraft des saudischen Wahhabismus konnte sie eine wirkungsvolle Allianz eingehen, aus der schlagkräftige Terrorgruppen wie der ägyptische Djihad, die palästinensische Hamas und die globale Al-Qa’ida hervorgingen, die ihrerseits schließlich die USA zum Handeln zwang.

Gold versteht es - und darin liegt die Stärke des Buches - diesen nicht ganz einfachen Ablauf in plausiblen Stufen vor dem Leser zu entfalten. Dabei greift er im Überbau des Islam ein wenig zu kurz, wenn er sich mit der bekannten, nicht weniger ungeprüften Komfortfloskel der “Toleranz” begnügt, der zufolge “der Islam nicht das Problem” ist. Die historische Realität zeigt vielmehr, daß die scheinbare Toleranz des Islam - aktuell und historisch - nicht die große Masse der Nichtmuslime, sondern allenfalls deren Eliten betrifft, soweit deren Macht den Muslimen nutzbar gemacht werden kann. Ähnlich geht es dem Begriff des Djihad. Gold sieht zwar, daß die modernen Islamisten den Kampf praktizieren und Nichtmuslime ständig bedrohen oder sogar töten, führt dies jedoch auf den grassierenden Wahhabismus als pervertierte, zeitbedingte Sonderform des Islam und nicht auf dessen koranisch-historische Verhaltensstrukturen zurück. Während ihm also die Einordnung in den Gesamtkontext eher fehlt, bietet er eine Fülle von Zitaten an, die die Unmittelbarkeit der Ideologie verdeutlichen. So nimmt z.B. Abdullah Azzam, Schöpfer des weltweiten Djihad und Mentor des Usama bin Ladin, kein Blatt vor den Mund:

“Diejenigen, die glauben, daß Islam gedeihen und ohne Kampf und Blut siegen kann, haben keine Ahnung von der Natur dieser Religion!”

Detailliert schildert der Autor, wie sich der saudische Herrschaftsverbund aus Königsfamilie und Imamschaft über die 80er und 90er Jahre schrittweise radikalisiert und dabei von den USA als Führungsmacht abgekoppelt hat. Immer entschiedener schaltet sich die Islamische Weltliga, eine 1962 gegründete Organisation, in die islamweite Verbreitung des wahhabitischen Islam ein. Ihre wichtigsten Arme sind dabei die World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) und die International Islamic Relief Organisation (IIRO), die mit ihren sozialen und humanitären Fassaden als perfekte Tarnsysteme für die weltweite Versorgung der Kontaktstellen mit Propaganda, Logistik und Finanzen genutzt werden. Während sie nach außen das in den 90er Jahren abkühlende Verhältnis zu den USA verbal zu wahren suchen, bauen die Saudis nach innen ihr Netz von Terrorzellen, Moscheen und diversen Organisationen global aus. In den Jahren 1995/96 schwenkt auch Usama bin Ladin wieder in die Kooperation mit der saudischen Führung ein, nachdem deren Aggressivität gegenüber dem Westen sich seinen Standards angenähert hat. Beide Seiten haben eingesehen, daß sie in der - noch verdeckten - Bündelung von Terrorexpertise und Kapital ihre Erfolgschance sowohl in komplexen Projekten wie der Zerstörung des World Trade Center als auch im Zukunftskampf gegen den Westen überhaupt verbessern können.

Allerdings läßt Gold die Beiträge nur ahnen, welche die US-Regierungen und Geheimdienste zu dieser Entwicklung geleistet haben. Kontakte zu führenden Saudi-Familien und Terrorfinanziers sowie die Kooperation mit zahlreichen Extremisten ließen sie zu stillen Teilnehmern am islamischen Radikalisierungsprozeß werden, so daß sie auch die Ausbreitung der Terrorgruppen im eigenen Lande viel zu lange duldeten. Exakt das gleiche Phänomen läßt sich auch im deutschen “Dialog” erkennen, der unbeirrt mit Vertretern aus dem saudischen Gewaltumfeld geführt wird. In diesem Sinne konnten die “Friedensmärsche” vor und während des Irakkrieges nicht nur als Demonstration gegen die USA und Israel, sondern vor allem als Parteinahme für den terrorbereiten und frauenfeindlichen Islamismus saudischer Prägung dienen. Wie ungleich sich dabei der Blick durch die Dialogbrillen gestaltet, faßt Mekka-Scheich Ahmad Siami für die islamische Meinungsherrschaft zusammen:

“Dieser Papst, der Kopf der Katholischen Kirche, und diejenigen, die ihm im Ruf nach der Einheit der Religionen folgen, sind die Nachkommen der spanischen Inquisitoren, die die Muslime höchst abscheulich folterten … Sie sind die Abkömmlinge der Kreuzfahrer im islamischen Osten, die zahllose Muslime töteten und deren Frauen gefangennahmen. Sie sind die Täter der Massenmorde von Bosnien-Herzegowina, Kosovo, Indonesien und Tschetschenien … Können wir von diesen mörderischen Wölfen Mitleid erwarten?”

Mit den islamistischen Terrorpredigern wächst eine paranoide und zugleich totalitäre Herausforderung heran, deren Sprengkraft für die westlichen Demokratien kaum überschätzt werden kann. Oft versagen jedoch deren Prüfmechanismen schon bei ihren eigenen “Verantwortlichen”. Viele von ihnen verkennen die Wurzeln des islamischen Radikalismus umso bereitwilliger, je überzeugender dessen Vertreter ihnen die Zuckerbrotformeln von der “Religion des Friedens” oder auch finanzielle Zuwendungen verabfolgen. Sie könnten also selbst zu dem “Problem” werden, das der Islam in ihren Augen nicht ist. Dennoch sind sie vor Allahs Korrekturpeitsche keineswegs sicher, wie sie der einflußreiche Mekka-Scheich Ghazawi beschreibt:

“Der Terror, d.h. die Erzeugung von Entsetzen, die nach islamischem Gesetz erlaubt ist, besteht in der Einschüchterung der Feiglinge und Heuchler, der Säkularisten und Abweichler, die nach Allahs Gesetz zu bestrafen sind … Der Begriff “Terror”, den die (westlichen) Medien verwenden, entspricht dem Djihad für Allah, und Djihad ist die Spitze des Islam”.

In Europa, wo die großen Parteien bzw. Kommission und Ministerrat die Institutionen der Politik, des Rechts und der Medien bereits weitgehend vereinnahmt haben, hat das islamische Politsystem unter dem Schutz der Religionsfreiheit bislang eine nähere Prüfung verhindern können, wie auch der sorglose Umgang mit dem EU-Beitritt der Türkei zeigt.

Golds Buch macht freilich deutlich, dass an diesem Punkt das “Königreich des Hasses” und seine aggressive Ideologie einen neuen Spaltungsvorgang verstärken könnte, der Europa zunehmend von Amerika trennt.

Mit freundlicher Genehmigung von Dr. Hans-Peter Raddatz.

Contemporary Global Anti-Semitism

New forms of anti-Semitism are emerging around the world, promoting prejudice against Jews by attacking Israeli policy and Zionism, a US State Department report provided to the United States Congress concludes.

New anti-Semitism was not confined to the Middle East and Muslim communities says the report by the Office of the Special Envoy for Monitoring Anti-Semitism. It cites frequent requests to the United Nations to commission investigations of reports of alleged atrocities and other human rights violations by Israel whose policy was sometimes likened to the Nazis. At the same time, the report to the US Congress notes a failure to pay attention to regimes guilty of grave violations.

The report singles out Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a Holocaust denier whose government practices official anti-Semitism against its Jewish minority, and the Syrian government as routinely demonizing Jews.

In Belarus, state enterprises produced and distributed anti-Semitic material, and in Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez publicly demonized Israel and used stereotypes about Jewish financial influence and control, the report says. Government media in Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Egypt had become “vehicles for anti-Semitic discourse.”

The US report praises the work of the Stephen Roth Institute at Tel Aviv University, whose annual report cited as “the most comprehensive, global statistical analysis of anti-Semitic incidents” in the world.

The full US State Department report can be viewed here.

Gespräch mit Joachim Gauck über den Umgang der Medien mit Stasi-Vergangenheit

Im Gespräch mit der Süddeutschen Zeitung bedauert der Gründer der Stasi-Akten-Behörde Joachim Gauck, dass die Berliner Zeitung nicht genug getan hat, um die Stasi-Fälle in der Redaktion aufzuklären.

“Es gibt schon eine interessante Diskrepanz zwischen dem Aufklärungseifer der Medien, wenn es um die politischen und privaten Verstrickungen von Prominenten geht - und dem sehr beredten Schweigen, wenn es darum ging, im eigenen Hause Klarheit herzustellen. In der ganzen Breite der Zeitungs- und Fernsehlandschaft hat in den Jahren nach 1989 eine gewisse Sorglosigkeit gewaltet. Erst wenn andere Medien das Thema öffentlich gemacht haben, entstand Verlegenheit.”

Vollständiges Gespräch lesen.

Understanding the New Arab Cold War

“As Arab summits go, the recent one in Damascus surely rates as the lowest ever,” writes Dr. Eran Lerman, former deputy chief of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) strategic intelligence planning and currently director of American Jewish Committee (AJC) Israel/Middle East office. Lerman describes the lack of serious participation in the summit as a sign that the Iran-Syria connection is creating a “cold war” among Arab nations.

by Dr. Eran Lerman

As Arab summits go, the recent one in Damascus surely rates as the lowest ever. In fact, despite the attendance of a few leaders from the Gulf States and the Maghreb, it could barely be dignified by the elevated term “summit,” given that the key figures in Arab affairs - President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah II of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, President Massoud Barzani of the Kurdistan regional government in Iraq, and even the prime minister of what the Syrians condescendingly call “sisterly Lebanon” - made their absence conspicuously obvious.

(External meddling has created the sad limbo in which there is no president of Lebanon at the present-which is precisely the reason why the host, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, is in the doghouse as far as the Saudis and the Egyptians are concerned.)

The Saudis - backed, as Syria loudly complained, by a firm American position - have gone so far as to express their anger in two distinctive ways:

- They were represented at the summit by the lowest-ranking official they could send without avoiding the gathering altogether - their ambassador to the Arab League institutions in Cairo;

- They scheduled a major speech by His Majesty for the very moment when other TV stations in the region carried live Bashar al-Assad’s opening statement.

To those familiar with the intricacies of the regional game, these were telling signs of conflict. There were others. This week, the Lebanese government under Fuad Siniora made open its allegations of Syrian complicity in the bitterly fought Fatah al-Islam insurgency in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon last year. The Arab media is rife with accusations of conspiracy and destabilization campaigns on both sides. Much of the U.S. vice president’s visit had to do with these escalating tensions; and so, too, does the recent outbreak of fighting in Basra, and the ongoing crisis in Gaza. A new cognitive map of the Middle East is emerging, which in some ways is entirely different and in other ways reminiscent of past rivalries.

For students of regional politics in the 1970s, Malcolm Kerr’s The Arab Cold War was an essential part of their education; written wisely and with a touch of refreshing irony, it chronicled the manner in which Gamal Abdel Nasser’s ambitions, and the fears of the monarchies and other regimes he sought to destabilize, gradually became intertwined with the broader global conflict of the time. Soon, the ironies made way for bitter tragedies, with the bloodthirsty coup in Iraq in 1958 being the harbinger of things to come.

By the 1990s, all this was history-as was the Soviet Union; but while many good people hoped that peace would now be made inevitable by the New World Order, other conflicts soon emerged to fill the void. Kerr himself, as Fouad Ajami touchingly tells us in The Dream Palace of the Arabs, fell to an assassin, as did several of the leading figures of his beloved American University of Beirut. (His son went on to become a star of American college basketball, far from the turmoil that claimed his father’s life.)

A new breed of killers came on the scene, driven by a fanatical perversion of religion - modern revolutionary Islamist totalitarianism, somewhat ridiculously referred to as “fundamentalism” - making some of the iniquities of the Cold War era look trivial by comparison.

It took the rise of Iran as a focal point for these movements to turn the post-Cold War crisis in the region into something that closely resembles the dynamics of the old Cold War - but with Tehran and the ambitions of the Islamic Revolution now playing the role once reserved for the Soviets as the revisionist challenger of the existing order. Offering a vision of the future radically different from that of the West - regimented, released from the lusts and moral depravities of free societies, and with the “stain” of Israel expunged from the map-Iran and her allies are openly challenging not only the “Zionist entity” and the “Great Satan,” but the entire regional power structure; and would do so much more vehemently and dangerously would a nuclear umbrella be shielding them.

Now, as the Damascus fiasco surely shows, the existing order has decided to fight back-perhaps sending a signal to those in the West who seriously think about a “grand bargain” with the likes of Iran’s leader Ali Khamene’i (who stands over the head of President Mahmoud Ahamadinejad, who shows no interest in accommodating the opinions of the world). Such a “détente” bargain, if it is to include a historic concession by Iran on the nuclear front-and unless backed by a very robust alternative course of action, if Iran refuses to come to terms - would almost by necessity carry a terrible price tag: the abandonment of the Gulf regimes, and the Arab monarchies and pro-Western regimes, to their sad fate at the hands of Iran’s proxies. (Israel, too, would face bitter realities, but is better equipped to handle them.)

This goes a long way toward explaining the decision of the Saudis, Jordanians, and belatedly, the Egyptians to take a sharp stand that would make the stark choices obvious to all-in Washington and beyond. In 1977, to thwart a U.S.-Soviet grand bargain (the Declaration of October 1, that year, which also riled the Israeli government and American Jewish opinion), Sadat came to Jerusalem. In 2008, to send a similar message, his successor did not come to Damascus.

Not everyone in the area reads from this sheet of music. There is growing suspicion that the smaller Gulf states are frightened enough to hedge their bets and make nice with Tehran. The Palestinians, torn right down the middle, are looking at both confrontation and reconciliation as viable options in an impossible situation. But overall, the dynamics of the new Arab Cold War are the dominant regional reality.

This goes a long way toward explaining two strange, almost absurd, developments on the Palestinian front:

1. The talks between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are picking up momentum and, indeed, are beginning to ignite internal tensions within Olmert’s coalition. There may be an air of futility about these talks-they are, at best, aimed at a “shelf” agreement that can only be implemented when Hamas no longer controls Gaza. And yet they are necessary (and so are the Israeli gestures, in terms of reduced security measures in the West Bank, which Defense Minister Ehud Barak approved in time for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s visit) as part of the overall alignment of forces on the anti-Iranian side of the new Cold War;

2. Meanwhile, the reduction of violence on the Gaza front-utilizing the profound impact that recent Israeli operations have had on the local Hamas leadership-serves the short-term purposes of the anti-Iranian alliance. (While publicly defiant, and committed to being the ones to fire the last missile, Hamas leaders cannot ignore the effects that even a limited two-day, one-brigade IDF incursion had on their forces and their people.) But this development opens up dangerous long-term questions, insofar as it takes the Palestinian issue off the public boil just when Assad and the Iranians would have wanted it to dominate the Damascus discussions (and indeed, Iran’s proxy, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, did fire a large but luckily unsuccessful salvo on the summit.)

A tahdi’a or “calm” between Israel and Hamas has yet to be (indirectly) negotiated and agreed upon, and so also the fate of abducted soldier Gilad Shalit; but at least, given the Damascus framework, Egyptian efforts to obtain both of these goals may (now) be read in the context of their work to subvert Iran’s interests rather than as gestures of conciliatory intent toward Tehran and its local allies.

Reprinted with kindly permission of The American Jewish Committee.

Iran “central banker of terrorism”

At a hearing of the United States Senate’s Finance Committee, a senior official in the US Treasury Department has called Iran “the central banker of terrorism”.

Outlining some of what Iran is known to be doing to support anti-American and anti-Israeli fighters, the under-secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Stuart Levey, said Iran “uses its global financial ties and its state-owned banks to pursue its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and to fund terrorism.”

He also told lawmakers that Iran used front companies and “cut-outs” to “engage in ostensibly innocent transactions that are actually related to its nuclear missile programs.”

“We have seen Iran’s banks request other financial institutions take their names off of transactions when processing them in the international financial system. This practice, which is even used by the central bank of Iran, is intended to evade the controls put in place by responsible financial institutions and has the effect of threatening to involve those financial institutions in transactions that they would never engage in if they knew who or what was really involved,” Levey said.

Levey heads the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which is responsible for tracking money being filtered into terrorist groups. In all, since June 2005, the OFAC has identified 51 entities and 12 individuals as proliferators of weapons of mass destruction, of whom 36 entities and 11 individuals were tied to Iran, nine entities and one individual were tied to North Korea and three entities were tied to Syria. Levey told senators that efforts to cut off money to Al Qaeda had shown success - especially in the last 18 months. He cited senior al-Qaeda leaders’ complaints that they had suicide bombers ready to go but no money to finance operations.

Click here to read the full statement.

CIA director believes Iran still pursuing nuclear bomb

The director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Michael V. Hayden, has said that he believes Iran is still pursuing nuclear weapons, even though a US intelligence report had reached a different assessment last year.

Asked on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ whether he thought Iran was trying to develop a nuclear weapon, Hayden answered “yes,” adding that his assessment was not based on “court-of-law stuff. . . . This is Mike Hayden looking at the body of evidence.”

He said his conviction stemmed largely from Iran’s willingness to endure international sanctions rather than comply with demands for nuclear inspections and abandon its efforts to develop technologies that can produce fissile material.

“Why would the Iranians be willing to pay the international tariff they appear willing to pay for what they’re doing now if they did not have, at a minimum … the desire to keep the option open to develop a nuclear weapon and, perhaps even more so, that they’ve already decided to do that?” he said.

A report last December by the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), also signed off by the CIA, concluded that Iran had suspended its nuclear weapons work in 2003, soon after the United States invaded Iraq, and appeared not to have restarted it. Hayden is the latest senior Bush administration official to question the findings of the NIE.

Iran’s Global Ambition

 

by Michael Rubin

While the United States has focused its attention on Iranian activities in the greater Middle East, Iran has worked assiduously to expand its influence in Latin America and Africa. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s outreach in both areas has been deliberate and generously funded. He has made significant strides in Latin America, helping to embolden the anti-American bloc of Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua. In Africa, he is forging strong ties as well. The United States ignores these developments at its peril, and efforts need to be undertaken to reverse Iran’s recent gains.

Both before and after the Islamic Revolution, Iran has aspired to be a regional power. Prior to 1979, Washington supported Tehran’s ambitions - after all, the shah provided a bulwark against both communist and radical Arab nationalism. Following the Islamic Revolution, however, U.S. officials viewed Iranian visions of grandeur warily.

This wariness has grown as the Islamic Republic pursues nuclear technology in contravention to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty safeguards agreement and multiple United Nations (UN) Security Council resolutions.

In addition, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has played an increasingly destabilizing role in Iran’s immediate neighborhood. But while U.S. officials scramble to devise a strategy to contain, deter, and perhaps roll back Iranian influence in the greater Middle East, Ahmadinejad’s government and the IRGC, flush with cash and overconfident with recent success, now aspire to be worldwide players.

Compartmentalized U.S. State Department and Defense Department officers focus on Iranian influence in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, the Persian Gulf states, and the Palestinian Authority, but a broader perspective that spans country desks suggests that the Islamic Republic now seeks to become a global power. Under Ahmadinejad, Iranian officials have pursued a coordinated diplomatic, economic, and military strategy to expand their influence in Latin America and Africa. They have found success not only in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia, but also in Senegal, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. These new alliances will together challenge U.S. interests in these states and in the wider region, especially if Tehran pursues an inkblot strategy to expand its influence to other regional states.

Latin America: Challenging the Monroe Doctrine

There has long been an Iranian presence in Latin America. Some time ago, Hezbollah established itself at the point where Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina meet. Terrorists linked to Iran bombed the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and a Jewish community center in the same city in 1994. In 2006, Argentine prosecutors issued warrants for former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and seven others on charges of ordering and masterminding the 1994 attack. The Hezbollah presence in the region has remained a source of concern for policymakers to the present.

Only under Ahmadinejad, though, has the Iranian government pursued a sustained effort to reach out to Latin American countries. Using hundreds of millions - if not billions - of dollars in aid and assistance, Ahmadinejad has worked to create an anti-American bloc with Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua. While Ahmadinejad’s first priority may be to solidify diplomatic support among third-world countries, his baitin - and the subsequent baiting by his allies - of Washington and his efforts to further destabilize the neighborhood suggest that he now seeks a permanent Iranian presence on the U.S. doorstep.

The cornerstone of Ahmadinejad’s Latin America policy is the formation of an anti-American axis with Venezuela, a goal driven as much by Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez as it is by the Iranian leader. During a July 2006 visit to Tehran, Chávez told a Tehran University crowd, “We have to save humankind and put an end to the U.S. empire.” The two met again just two months later during the Non-Aligned Movement conference in Havana. When Chávez again visited Tehran - just a year after his first visit - supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei granted him an audience, an honor bestowed only upon political figures the Iranian leadership deems its closest partners.

At the time, Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki quipped that “Hugo Chávez is becoming - or rather has already become - a household name in Iran and perhaps the region, thanks to his frequent trips to the Islamic Republic.” Ahmadinejad and Chávez used the visit to declare an “Axis of Unity” against the United States.

Shuttle diplomacy has gone both ways. Just two months after fêting Chávez in Tehran, Ahmadinejad visited him in Caracas. “Together we are surely growing stronger, and in truth no one can defeat us,” he told the Venezuelan press. Standing beside Chávez during a trip to Tehran just four months later - Chávez’s fourth visit to the Iranian capital in just two years - Ahmadinejad declared, “The peoples of Iran and Venezuela will stand shoulder to shoulder with the disadvantaged nations of the world in spite of the opposition of World Imperialism,” which is Ahmadinejad’s moniker for the United States.

Whereas Iran plies poorer countries with aid on condition that they alter their stances toward the United States, both Iran and Venezuela are oil rich, and so the relationship is more cooperative. Certainly, Tehran appreciates Chávez’s diplomatic interventions. Indeed, had Venezuela been victorious in its efforts to win a UN Security Council seat in 2006, it is doubtful that Washington or its European allies would have achieved the symbolic victory of unanimous Security Council resolutions sanctioning Iran’s nuclear program.

Both leaders use their mutual embrace to overcome international isolation and sanctions. During his July 2007 visit to Tehran, Chávez presented Ahmadinejad with an Airbus A340-200 as a sign of friendship at a time when many Western countries looked askance at exporting modern aircraft to the Islamic Republic for fear that a plane might be cannibalized for spare parts in support of Iran’s aging military fleet. Such cooperation has made moot the efforts of U.S. secretary of state Condoleezza Rice to offer such concessions in order to entice greater Iranian compliance toward its international commitments. For example, just months after she agreed that U.S. companies could export spare aircraft parts to Iran, Ahmadinejad announced the commencement of scheduled passenger flights between Tehran and Caracas.

Both leaders have also used their solidarity to support the other against domestic criticism. On opening two Iranian factories in Caracas, Chávez lauded the “achievements made after the Islamic Revolution,” contrasting them sharply with life under the shah - comments that meant little to the Venezuelan audience but helped Ahmadinejad deflect domestic criticism of his management of Iran’s failing economy. Ahmadinejad, for his part, parroted Chávez’s anti-American rhetoric to the Venezuelan audience, supporting the populist president’s contention that Venezuelan ills derive from U.S. plots rather than economic mismanagement. More bizarre have been reports - clearly false - that “entire native tribes” in Venezuela have converted to Shia Islam. Such propaganda, however, plays well to clerical constituencies in Iran that may feel that their president’s adventurism runs contrary to more immediate Iranian regional interests.

Increased trade has augmented the diplomatic embrace. As Chávez moved to nationalize Western oil facilities in Venezuela, the Venezuelan state oil firm PDVSA announced a $4 billion joint Iran-Venezuela oil production project in east-central Venezuela. In April 2007, Mottaki bragged that bilateral trade between Venezuela and the Islamic Republic would soon total $18 billion, which, even if an exaggeration, is nevertheless a sign of Iranian strategy to pursue soft power influence. Several recent visitors to Caracas have commented on the number of Iranians in the city’s hotels.

Cuba, of course, has been part of the Iranian-Venezuelan embrace, although Cuban leader Fidel Castro’s illness and the communist island nation’s poverty may have dampened its utility as a primary player. Besides hosting the Non-Aligned Movement meeting in 2006, however, Havana has joined Tehran and Caracas in efforts to form a joint shipping line - an asset that, given the disorganization of U.S. and European sanctions enforcement, might help each country bypass certain sanctions. Not every shipping company, for example, may be as compliant with Tehran’s sensitivities as one operated by Cubans and Venezuelans. There have already been reports - refuted by the Venezuelan ambassador in Tehran - that Venezuela has enabled Iranian scientists to conduct some nuclear work in the South American state, out of the view of international inspectors.

Both Tehran and Caracas have used their petrodollar windfall to encourage states in Latin America and Africa to embark upon confrontational policies toward the United States. Perhaps the primary beneficiaries in Latin America have been Nicaragua and Bolivia. Just days after Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega’s inauguration, Ahmadinejad reveled in the former socialist revolutionary’s return to power. “The two nations share identical ideals” and a common enemy in the United States, Ahmadinejad said. Ortega endorsed “strong bonds” between the “two nations and [their] revolutions.” Iran’s embassy in Managua is now the largest diplomatic mission in the city. Ortega returned Ahmadinejad’s visit within months of taking office, traveling to Tehran on a jet lent by Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi. In Tehran, Ahmadinejad spoke of growing Iranian-Nicaraguan ties as the cornerstones of “an order based on justice, peace and brotherhood.” In a subsequent session with Ortega, Khamenei spoke of their mutual antipathy toward the United States.

Venezuela might be able to stand on its own, but Nicaragua cannot. The Islamic Republic’s embrace of Nicaragua came with strings attached. Storm-ravaged and unfriendly to investors, Nicaragua gained a needed cash infusion. In the months after Ortega’s visit to the Islamic Republic, the two countries signed a number of trade accords, and Tehran agreed to finance a $350 million Nicaraguan port. After the announcement of these deals, Ortega called the United States “a terrorist nation” and later endorsed the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. Alluding to this program, Ahmadinejad even offered to transfer “up-to-date experiences and knowledge to Nicaragua.” One seasoned Nicaraguan ambassador, slightly embarrassed by Ortega’s pro-Iranian rhetoric, told an interlocutor that not only Tehran but also Caracas had made aid to Nicaragua contingent upon Managua’s frequent statements of support for Tehran. Regardless of whether Nicaragua is motivated by Venezuelan cash or ideological antipathy toward the United States, an isolated Tehran gains an ally with “identical and common political views.”

Bolivia, too, has become an important Iranian ally. Under the leadership of Juan Evo Morales, La Paz has welcomed alliance with Tehran. As with Nicaragua, Bolivia gets aid - upwards of $1.1 billion in “industrial cooperation” - and Iran gets a diplomatic ally. On September 4, 2007, amid international efforts to augment sanctions against the Islamic Republic, Bolivian foreign minister David Choquehuanca Céspedes endorsed “Iran’s nuclear rights” and called for international support for the Islamic Republic’s position. Tehran rewarded Bolivia with the opening of an embassy in La Paz, certainly a sign that Tehran no longer saw the landlocked South American country as peripheral to its interests.

There is nothing wrong with countries engaging with other countries. Tehran could argue that they have as much interest in strong relations with Latin America as Washington has with the Persian Gulf emirates or newly independent Central Asian or Caucasian republics. But it would be dangerous to dismiss Iranian outreach as altruistic and irrelevant to U.S. national security concerns.

The Islamic Republic’s state broadcasting authority has in recent months established partnerships with its Bolivian and Nicaraguan counterparts, not only to help these countries expand their own messaging, but also to have a platform for Iranian-sponsored broadcasts “for all of Latin America.” The idea that Ahmadinejad might see Latin America as a beachhead from which to conduct an aggressive strategy against the United States and its allies gained further credence when, earlier this month, Colombian forces raided a Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) encampment and seized a computer whose files referenced FARC plans to purchase fifty kilograms of uranium, raising concern among some U.S. officials that the purchase may have been facilitated with Iranian money and offices.

Africa: Iran’s Next Frontier

With successive U.S. administrations and European governments effectively ignoring Africa, Tehran sees its fifty-two countries as diplomatic easy picking. On January 29, 2008, Mottaki declared that this year would mark a “milestone in Iran-Africa ties.” Three days later, while attending the Africa Union summit in Addis Ababa, Mottaki announced that Iran would soon host a summit of African foreign ministers in Tehran.

The traditional pattern in which Iranian actions fail to live up to diplomatic rhetoric also appears to be changing in Africa, with Tehran developing strong partnerships with a number of states. The Islamic Republic has forged particularly strong ties with Senegal, once a Cold War ally of the United States but now quietly turning into West Africa’s Venezuela. President Abdoulaye Wade has traveled twice to Tehran to meet with Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, first in 2006 and again in 2008. During his most recent visit, he provided a backdrop for Khamenei to declare that developing unity between Islamic countries like Senegal and Iran can weaken “the great powers” like the United States. It would be a mistake to dismiss this as a rhetorical flourish: on January 27, 2008, a week after Senegalese foreign minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio announced that he, too, would visit Tehran, Minister of Armed Forces Becaye Diop met with his Iranian counterpart to discuss expanding bilateral defense ties between the two states.

Senior Iranian officials have returned the visits. On July 22, 2007, judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi and government spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham - among the closest confidantes of Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, respectively - departed for Dakar, where they met Wade and Senegalese prime minister Cheikh Hadjibou Soumaré. Shahroudi declared, “We believe it is our duty to expand ties with Islamic countries and use the capabilities and potentials [sic] of Muslim states to help the growth and spread of Islam.” On March 12, 2008, Ahmadinejad left for a visit to the West African state.

While the Iranian leadership might be most interested in expanding a Muslim bloc - especially one that might supplant the influence of Sunni Arab states - the Senegalese leadership seems most interested in immediate economic benefits. “Energy, Oil Prospecting, Industry: Senegal Benefits from Iranian Solutions,” a headline in the official government newspaper declared after Wade’s first visit to Tehran. After the reciprocal Iranian visit, Wade announced that Iran would build an oil refinery, a chemical plant, and an $80 million car assembly plant in the West African nation. Within weeks, Samuel Sarr, Senegal’s energy minister, visited Tehran and returned with a pledge that Iran would supply Senegal with oil for a year and purchase a 34 percent stake in Senegal’s oil refinery. Such aid probably came with strings attached. On November 25, 2007, during the third meeting of the Iran-Senegal joint economic commission, Wade endorsed Iran’s nuclear program.

Senegal is not alone among those countries Tehran is cultivating. While Iranian officials trumpet Islam during meetings with Muslim officials, the Islamic Republic is willing to embrace any African state - Muslim or not - that finds itself estranged from the West in general and the United States in particular. Here, Sudan and Zimbabwe especially have been beneficiaries. Both European governments and Washington have sought to isolate Sudan for what many international human rights groups deem genocide in Darfur. As the international community sought to tighten diplomatic sanctions on Khartoum, Ahmadinejad moved to embrace Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir. Ahmadinejad was forthright: Iranian-Sudanese ties should be built around the understanding that both governments would defend each other in international settings. Just this month, Iran’s defense minister visited Khartoum and called the African state “the cornerstone” of the Islamic Republic’s Africa policies.

Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s longtime president, has been as poisonous for his country as Bashir has been for Sudan. Mugabe’s government demonizes racial and ethnic minorities, and his economic policies have forced the breadbasket of southern Africa to face famine. But as the international community has isolated Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe, Tehran has reached out to fill the gap. Iranian politicians may speak of their commitment to social justice, but their crass indifference to social issues and public health and well-being are on display as they work to transform Africa’s most brutal dictatorship into a pillar of Iranian influence in Africa. Mottaki initiated outreach to Zimbabwe on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in 2006. The two countries pledged uniformity of policy. At a Tehran press conference in November of that year, Mugabe said, “Iran and Zimbabwe think alike and have been described [as belonging to] the ‘Axis of Evil.’ . . . Those countries that think alike should come together.” In subsequent days, the two countries signed deals to boost energy cooperation, restart Zimbabwe’s defunct oil refinery, and underwrite agricultural policies that have left the southern African nation on the brink of famine. The Iranian ambassador in Harare pledged to help Mugabe repel sanctions.

South Africa has become another Iranian regional ally. Grateful for the Islamic Republic’s opposition to apartheid, the two countries formally reestablished relations in 1994. While subsequent bilateral rhetoric was always warm, in recent years, Tehran has used oil and trade to develop its ties with Pretoria. The Iranian strategy is deliberate. “South Africa is a key member of the Non-Aligned Movement, a bloc of developing countries that has resisted the efforts to force Tehran to halt uranium enrichment,” explained a commentary in Iran’s official English-language newspaper.

Having failed to get Venezuela onto the UN Security Council, the Iranian government has been anxious to exploit South Africa’s rotating membership and its presence on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) board of governors. In February 2007, for example, Ali Larijani, then the nuclear negotiator for Iran, traveled to South Africa to meet with President Thabo Mbeki. The strategy has paid dividends. Despite the February 2008 IAEA report that found that the Islamic Republic continued to enrich uranium in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty safeguards agreement and two UN Security Council resolutions, the South African government has used its rotating membership on the UN Security Council to advocate against any further sanctions.

Iranian officials have been just as energetic in cultivating smaller African states. In September 2007, interim Iranian oil minister Gholam-Hossein Nozari pledged cooperation to exploit Uganda’s newfound oil field, and two months later, the Export Development Bank of Iran pledged $1 million to underwrite microfinance in Uganda. In November, Mottaki also announced an initiative to expand relations with Malawi after that country’s president endorsed Iran’s right to pursue nuclear technology. The same month, Mottaki welcomed the Côte d’Ivoire foreign minister to Tehran - again, after the West African nation’s ambassador threw his country’s support behind Iran in the dispute with the UN Security Council over Iran’s nuclear program. Indeed, while the Iranian government spreads millions of dollars around Africa, its aid appears conditional upon support. In recent weeks, the Iranian government has used declarations by the leaders of Lesotho, Mauritania, Mali, and Namibia to bolster support for its nuclear program.

Conclusion

Iran will remain at the forefront of U.S. concern well into the next administration. The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, a joint product of the sixteen organizations comprising the U.S. intelligence community, undercut both a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear defiance and the ability of the Bush administration to constrain Iran’s program through unilateral action. The January 6, 2008, confrontation in the Strait of Hormuz between U.S. warships and IRGC speedboats only underscored the tension.

Absent a diplomatic solution or the prospect of a viable military option, many in Washington embrace containment and deterrence as plan B. For example, General John Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command until March 2007, said, “I believe we have the power to deter Iran, should it become nuclear. . . . There are ways to live with a nuclear Iran.” Containing Iran, however, is easier said than done.

Throughout his administration’s second term, Bush has struggled to convince regional allies that his commitments to them are solid. As a result, regional U.S. allies like Egypt, Kuwait, Azerbaijan, and Turkey now seek separate accommodation with Iran.

But even as dozens of diplomats, intelligence analysts, and military officers focus on how to counter Iranian strategy in the region and enhance U.S. public diplomacy, the Iranian challenge has grown far broader. The United States has a compartmentalized strategy; Iran has a global strategy that Washington has been unable to counter: for every three trips Ahmadinejad takes to Latin America, Bush takes one.

The chances for long-term Iranian success may be doubtful - Latin American and African countries may welcome Iranian aid and take advantage of Tehran’s soft power with the same enthusiasm with which they sometimes divert U.S. Agency for International Development and World Bank assistance, but any ideological solidarity will be far more limited to each country’s immediate leadership. Still, Ahmadinejad’s outreach to Latin America and Africa can do damage. The Islamic Republic is not an altruistic power. Its aid is conditional, and sometimes these conditions run counter to U.S. interests. At the very least, Tehran’s newfound allies in Latin America and Africa provide needed diplomatic solace and enable Iranian authorities to launder dual use goods and, in theory, outsource suspect weapons research. More worrisome, the Islamic Republic might use its new havens to destabilize neighboring states - indeed, Tehran may be cooperating with Caracas to undermine Álvaro Uribe’s administration in Colombia - or as launching pads for terrorism against U.S. interests. The Pentagon may have strengthened its facilities in the Persian Gulf, but Iran and its proxies may find U.S. interests in places like Cancun and the Caribbean more vulnerable. Just as in 1972 the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine outsourced a terrorist attack on Israel’s main airport to the Japanese Red Army, IRGC planners may find their African and Latin American allies compliant in their desire to lash out at U.S. interests, especially if cooperation comes with further financial reward. The 1994 Buenos Aires bombing already demonstrates Tehran’s willingness to attack soft targets half a world away.

If the Bush administration and its successor continue to ignore Iran’s growing global ambitions and do not implement a strategy to reverse Ahmadinejad’s recent gains, Washington may find that Iran, not the United States, holds the upper hand in a high-stakes game of deterrence.

About the author: Michael Rubin is a resident scholar in foreign and defense policy studies at The American Enterprise Institute (AEI). His major research area is the Middle East, with special focus on Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Kurdish society. He also writes frequently on transformative diplomacy and governance issues. In addition to his work at AEI, several times each month, Rubin travels to military bases across the United States and Europe to instruct senior U.S. Army and Marine officers deploying to Iraq and Kuwait on issues relating to regional state history and politics, Shiism, the theological basis of extremism, and strategy.

Reprinted with kindly permission of The American Institute.

China concern over U.S. nuclear parts mistake in Taiwan

The Pentagon has revealed that U.S. defense officials mistakenly shipped nuclear weapons parts to Taiwan in 2006. Taiwan returned the parts last week and U.S. officials advised China of the error but Beijing has expressed “serious concern” over the incident.

The Financial Times says it is the second major recent failing of U.S. nuclear safeguards, following an incident last year in which a bomber carried nuclear weapons across the United States.

Read full story.

The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran and Its Aftermath

An important discussion of the U.S. National Intelligence Report (NIE) report and its aftermath by three Israeli intelligence experts: Aharon Ze’evi Farkash, former Head of Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Military Intelligence; Yaakov Amidror, former Head of Research and Assessment, IDF Military Intelligence; and Yossi Kuperwasser, former Head of Research and Assessment, IDF Military Intelligence.

Between 2003 and 2005, the Iranians refrained from any nuclear activity under the influence of the impression created by America’s pre-emptive policies in the region, which served as the main instrument that enabled the Europeans to force Iran to postpone uranium conversion and enrichment. But when the Iranians realized in 2005 that there was no actual threat, they decided to start conversion and then enrichment. As a result, the Iranians already have prepared enough uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6) for more than ten atomic bombs.

The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran and its Aftermath: A Roundtable of Israeli Experts - Jerusalem Council for Public Affairs, March-April 2008

The opening sentence of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of November 2007 stated: “We judge with high confidence that in Fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.” This conclusion put the U.S. intelligence community at odds with Israel, which believes that Iran only engaged in a temporary halt in 2003, and since that time the Iranian nuclear weapons program had been resumed.

Israel is not alone in disagreeing with the conclusion of the NIE. Already in December, just after the NIE’s release, Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported London’s response with the headline: “Britain: Iran ‘Hoodwinked’ CIA Over Nuclear Plans,” stating that Britain’s intelligence chiefs had “grave doubts that Iran…mothballed its nuclear weapons program.”

It was in the context of the Western detection of its nuclear program and the Iraq War that led Iran to halt its nuclear program across the board in 2003, with the exception of its surface-to-surface missile program. But prior to that freeze, Iran had been developing a military nuclear capability under a broad civilian cover for fifteen years.

The Iranian ballistic missile program is part of the Iranian nuclear weapons program; Iran does not have a civilian space program and it is doubtful that it would develop ballistic missiles with a range of thousands of kilometers in order to carry conventional warheads alone.

Between 2003 and 2005, the Iranians refrained from any nuclear activity under the influence of the impression created by America’s pre-emptive policies in the region, which served as the main instrument that enabled the Europeans to force Iran to postpone uranium conversion and enrichment. But when the Iranians realized in 2005 that there was no actual threat behind their fears of U.S. pre-emption, they decided to start conversion and then enrichment. As a result, the Iranians already have prepared enough uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6) for more than ten atomic bombs.

Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror: The NIE - More Confusion than Clarity

The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of November 2007, entitled Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities, has created more confusion than clarity. To many observers who heard news reports when it was first released, it appeared that the U.S. intelligence community had concluded that there was no longer any nuclear threat from Iran.

That impression was fostered by the opening sentence of the report: “We judge with high confidence that in Fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.” Moving beyond the NIE’s first sentence, however, there are other conclusions that seem to suggest the very opposite.

It might be suggested that the seemingly contradictory statements in the NIE are due to the fact that it is a product of sixteen different agencies that belong to the U.S. intelligence community. But this would be too simple an explanation. There must have been a consensus of those drafting the report that caused them to lead with the idea that in 2003 Iran was no longer developing nuclear weapons. This conclusion put the U.S. intelligence community at odds with Israel, whose defense minister, Ehud Barak, stated openly that Iran only engaged in a temporary halt in 2003, and since that time the Iranian nuclear weapons program had been resumed.

It was not the first time that the U.S. and Israel disagreed over their assessments about Iran. In 1995, I was the head of the Research and Assessment Division of IDF Military Intelligence and we found the first signs that the Iranians were going nuclear. In those days, we thought the most important action that we could take was to brief our counterparts in Washington and convince them that this was a danger soon to be faced by the entire Free World. It was not easy to convince them that this subject should be on the table. We sought to do so at a meeting in Washington where a very well-known ambassador represented the U.S. side and I tried to convince the Americans that the Iranians had indeed decided to go nuclear.

At the end of our discussions, the U.S. side gave us the impression that they were thinking to themselves: “After we Americans finish off Iraq as an enemy of the State of Israel, then you Israelis are going to build a new threat because you cannot live without such a threat.” During my more than four years as the head of the Assessment Division, this was one of my great failures. It took American experts another two years, until 1997, for the American intelligence community to understand that the Iranians were going nuclear.

Today, Israel is not alone in disagreeing with the conclusion of the NIE. Already in December, just after the NIE’s release, Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported London’s response with the headline: “Britain: Iran ‘Hoodwinked’ CIA Over Nuclear Plans,” stating that Britain’s intelligence chiefs had “grave doubts that Iran…mothballed its nuclear weapons program.”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel also went out of their way to state that Iran still remained a danger and pressure had to be kept up over its nuclear program.

Even officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who were traditionally more forgiving about Iranian behavior than the U.S., expressed doubts about the NIE right after it was released. One official stated: “We don’t buy the American analysis 100 percent. We are not that generous with Iran.”

While we are dealing only with the public version of the NIE, we understand that there is no fundamental difference between this version and the unpublished version. For this reason, it is very important that the NIE be carefully analyzed. There is no argument about the civilian side: Iranian enrichment efforts continue. But what we need to focus upon are Iran’s purely military capabilities. We believe that this report of the U.S. intelligence community was a huge mistake from both a methodological and professional point of view. I would not have permitted such a report to be issued by Israeli Military Intelligence while containing such holes in its arguments.

It is noteworthy how Admiral Mike McConnell, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, tried to correct the impression created by the NIE in his remarks to the Senate Intelligence Committee in February 2008: “The only thing they’ve halted was nuclear weapons design, which is probably the least significant part of the program.”

For a detailed look at the NIE, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Aharon Ze’evi Farkash, who served as head of Israeli Military Intelligence from 2001 to 2006, offers his own insights into the evolution of the Iranian nuclear program.

Maj.-Gen. (res.) Aharon Ze’evi Farkash: No Evidence that Iran Did Not Renew Nuclear Weaponization Work

In August 2002, Iran understood that the Western countries - the U.S., the EU-3 (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom), and Israel - had obtained hard information that Iran was conducting a clandestine nuclear weapons program. Shortly thereafter, in March 2003, the regional environment quickly became dominated by the outbreak of the Iraq War and the downfall of Saddam Hussein. By July 2003, the Iranians opened negotiations with the EU-3, which sought to halt the Iranian nuclear program. At the end of the same year, Qaddafi stopped Libya’s nuclear military plans.

It was in the context of the Western detection of its nuclear program and the Iraq War that led Iran to halt its nuclear program across the board in 2003, with the exception of its surface-to-surface missile program. But prior to that freeze, Iran was developing a military nuclear capability under a broad civilian cover. The participants were the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) and the Iranian Ministry of Defense (MOD).

A nuclear weapons program is comprised of three key elements:

- A delivery system, requiring the development of surface-to-surface missiles.

- The accumulation of fissile material through uranium enrichment and plutonium production.

- Weaponization - preparing a warhead from the fissile material and fitting it into a missile.

Several of these elements in the Iranian nuclear program were in fact soon resumed.

At the beginning of 2003, the Iranians were concentrating all their efforts on the centrifuge program at their facility in Natanz, where they had managed to build a cascade with 164 centrifuges. Today, they have reached a capacity of 3,000 centrifuges. If parts of the nuclear weapons program were restarted, there is every reason to believe that all parts were reactivated as well. Indeed, Iran’s development of surface-to-surface missiles had never ceased, even when uranium enrichment had been temporarily halted.

At the same time, the Iranians were busy with procurement activities, with a focus on obtaining all the materials and components needed for uranium enrichment. At the beginning of 2004, we know that Iran was attempting to procure fast high voltage switches suitable for a nuclear weapons system. The Iranian Ministry of Defense was also supervising the mining of uranium in southeast Iran.

According to information provided by the Iranian opposition, Lavizan was one of the sites that dealt with Iran’s weaponization program, and the IAEA requested to visit Lavizan in September-October 2003. By March 2004, the Lavizan facility had disappeared; it had been dismantled. When Iran renewed its nuclear enrichment program in January 2005, there is no evidence that they did not renew the work of the weaponization group at the same time.

Developing the Missiles to Deliver a Nuclear Payload

Together with developing a nuclear weapon, Iran has been developing an appropriate long-range delivery system. Its Shihab 3 missile can carry a warhead of approximately 700 kilograms over a distance of 1,300-1,500 kilometers. These missiles are under the command of the Revolutionary Guard, not the Iranian military. The Revolutionary Guard reports to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and it is not under the authority of President Ahmadinejad. Iranian missile exercises showed that the missiles are aimed at both Tel Aviv and Riyadh.

Iran is continuing to develop even longer-range missiles with a range of 3,500-5,000 kilometers that could reach all of Europe (perhaps with the exception of Portugal), while those with a range of 6,000-10,000 kilometers could reach the east coast of the U.S. The original missile technology was delivered to the Iranians by North Korea, and the Iranians have made substantial efforts to improve their range. As we know, the Iranian ballistic missile program is part of the Iranian nuclear weapons program; Iran does not have a civilian space program and it is doubtful that it would develop ballistic missiles with a range of thousands of kilometers in order to carry conventional warheads alone.

European Reaction to the Iranian Missile Threat

As Director of IDF Military Intelligence, I briefed leaders in Europe about Iran’s nuclear military plans and met personally with decision-makers in Italy, France, the UK, and other European countries over a period of six months. Most of the European leaders understood the data about Iran’s nuclear plans, but their response was not encouraging.

The Europeans said they did not understand why Israel was trying to scare them with a nuclear military threat since they had lived with such a threat during the Cold War. They were also of the opinion that, in the end, if Iran did achieve a nuclear military capability, the U.S. and Israel would solve the problem, and I believe this remains their attitude today.

What Does the NIE Say?

The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate summary report says that in 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program, but the NIE’s headline finding is written in such a way that guarantees that its other conclusions will be misunderstood.

In Paragraph C, the NIE summary states that Iran made significant progress in 2007 installing centrifuges at Natanz. Based upon this finding, Israeli military intelligence estimates that late 2009 is the earliest possible date that Iran will be technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium for a weapon.

Paragraph D of the NIE says that Iranian entities are continuing to develop a range of technical capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons if a decision is made to do so. Thus, Iran’s continuing civilian uranium enrichment program could produce enough fissile materials by the end of 2009 or 2010.

Paragraph F of the NIE notes: We assess that Iran probably would use covert facilities rather than its declared nuclear sites for the production of highly enriched uranium for a weapon.

Finally, Paragraph H of the NIE states: We assess that Iran has the scientific, technical, and industrial capacity to produce nuclear weapons if it decides to do so.

All of this means that the Iranians will have enough fissile material no later than 2010 and that if they decide to build a nuclear military plant, no one can promise that we or the Americans will know about it, if they indeed actually did halt their nuclear weapons program in 2003. It would be a mistake to conclude that Iranian nuclear weapons ambitions have been halted on the basis of reading the first sentence of the NIE alone.

In my view, any distinction between Iranian military and civilian nuclear programs is artificial. The enrichment of uranium, critical to both civilian and military uses, is continuing. Once they have enough enriched uranium, they will be 3-6 months away from building a nuclear bomb if they decide to do so.

Pressure on Iran Dissipates after the NIE

After the NIE report was released, the declaration that Tehran had halted its nuclear weapons program was reported by all of the world’s major media without any contradicting information. Soon thereafter, Russia and Iran reached agreement on a schedule to complete the plutonium-based nuclear facility in Bushehr.

This was followed by an announcement that China and Iran had signed a $2.3 billion economic agreement related to energy that had been on hold for more than half a year. Prior to this, China had come to join the economic pressure on Iran. In addition, Ahmadinejad formally visited Riyadh, and a new Egyptian-Iranian relationship began to develop for the first time since Sadat’s assassination.

The NIE has clearly weakened international support for tougher sanctions against Iran, and it closes off any military option for the Bush administration. The NIE has sent a signal to Tehran that the danger of external sanctions has ended. Furthermore, the NIE has weakened Turkey and the moderate Sunni countries in the region that were seeking to build a coalition against Iran. So, ironically, the NIE opens the way for Iran to achieve its military nuclear ambitions without any interference.

Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser: The NIE, A Very Poor Intelligence Product

The main problem with the NIE is the phrasing of its message. It’s a very poor intelligence product because it is not only a matter of what you say but also how you say it and what you don’t say.

One of the major issues that arise from the report is its admission that the Iranians had a nuclear weaponization project for fifteen years, from the end of the 1980s until 2003. How far did the Iranians go in those fifteen years?

How many obstacles do they still face? By saying that if the Iranians have the ability to enrich uranium, they can have a bomb within a very short period of time, the NIE actually alludes to the idea that the Iranians have already gone a very long way in the context of weaponization. So why doesn’t the NIE say so explicitly? The first thing an intelligence organization has to know is to ask the right questions, but this question is not asked, nor is it answered.

Furthermore, it is a totally wrong approach to make this differentiation between the military and the civilian parts of the Iranian nuclear program. It’s all one program. Part of it can be justified by civilian needs, so the Iranians do it under civilian cover. Part of it cannot be justified by civilian needs, but it is all part of the same program, and the part of the program that is designated to develop the fissile material is ongoing.

Between 2003 and 2005, the Iranians refrained from any nuclear activity. They were under the influence of the impression created by America’s pre-emptive policies in the region in Iraq and Afghanistan, which served as the main instrument that enabled the Europeans to force Iran to make a deal and to postpone uranium conversion and enrichment. But when the Iranians realized in 2005 that there was no actual threat behind their fears of U.S. pre-emption, they decided to take the risk and start conversion and then enrichment.

In other words, once the U.S. appeared to be entangled in Iraq, a situation to which the Iranians themselves made no small contribution, Tehran could return to vigorously advancing its nuclear program. The fact is that Iran has moved forward with conversion. As a result, the Iranians already have prepared, through the conversion process, enough uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6) for more than ten atomic bombs.

Iran has moved forward with enrichment too. There is a debate in the NIE report over where exactly the Iranians are in their enrichment R&D. Some claim that maybe they have not yet reached the point where they can really perform enrichment in a robust way and not worry about failing. But there’s no doubt that they have spent at least two years on R&D.

If we believe the NIE judgment about their technical capabilities, then the Iranians are not far away from the point where they will have the ability to produce an ample supply of enriched uranium in order to make a bomb. Bearing in mind that they probably have everything else they need to proceed, the Iranians will be able to do whatever is still needed to finish their weaponization activities without being worried about a military move. Only such a military move can really stop them right now. So we see the harsh repercussions of the very poor work that the American intelligence agencies have done.

* * *

About the authors

Maj.-Gen. (res.) Aharon Ze’evi Farkash served as Director of IDF Military Intelligence from 2001 to 2006. He previously served as Head of the Technology and Logistics Division, and as Deputy Head of the IDF Planning Division.

Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror, Program Director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and Vice President of the Lander Institute in Jerusalem, is former commander of the IDF’s National Defense College and the IDF Staff and Command College. He is also the former head of the Research and Assessment Division of Military Intelligence, with special responsibility for preparing the National Intelligence Assessment. In addition, he served as the military secretary of the Minister of Defense.

Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser served in a number of senior roles in the IDF, most recently as head of the Research and Assessment Division of Military Intelligence. Previously, he was the senior intelligence officer of the IDF Central Command.

What France Does Best

In the last issue of The American: A Magazine of Ideas, military and intelligence insiders Reuel Marc Gerecht and Gary J. Schmitt offer commentary on the French approach to counterterrorism:

“France is the world’s most sophisticated practitioner of counterterrorism. The U.S. can learn from her experience. Counterterrorism, like espionage and covert action, isn’t a spectator sport. The more a country practices, the better it gets. France has become the most accomplished counterterrorist practitioner in Europe. Whereas September 11, 2001, was a shock to the American counterterrorist establishment, it wasn’t a révolution des mentalités in Paris. Two waves of terrorist attacks, the first in the mid-1980s and the second in the mid-1990s, have made France acutely aware of both state-supported Middle Eastern terrorism and freelancing but organized Islamic extremists.”

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Made in Israel – Highlights der israelischen Sicherheitsindustrie

Der Heimatschutz hat in Israel schon vor der Staatsgründung höchste Priorität besessen. Israelische Sicherheitssysteme wurden für ein Land entwickelt, dass ständig um seine Existenz zu kämpfen und wachsam gegenüber andauernden Bedrohungen zu sein gezwungen gewesen ist. Aus dieser einzigartigen Perspektive heraus hat die israelische Sicherheitsindustrie eine beispiellose Fachkompetenz und eine weltweite Reputation in der Entwicklung von Spitzenprodukten erlangt.

Die Ereignisse des 11. September 2001 haben die globale Perspektive auf den Terrorismus verändert. Überall auf der Welt suchen Länder nun nach Mitteln, um der Bedrohung durch den Terrorismus zu begegnen, und viele der nötigen Technologien können von Israels Sicherheits- und Heimatschutzindustrie geliefert werden. Hunderte von israelischen Unternehmen bieten ausgeklügelte Sicherheitslösungen an - von automatischen Spracherkennungssystemen und Fernsensoren bis hin zu Videolokalisierung, Frühwarngeräten und taktischen Bildbearbeitungssystemen.

Gegenwärtig arbeiten in Israel 25 000 Menschen in 450 sicherheits- und heimatschutzbezogenen Unternehmen, von denen mehr als 300 ins Ausland exportieren. Die Exporte im nichtmilitärischen Bereich beliefen sich dabei im Jahr 2005 auf eine Milliarde Dollar und zwei Milliarden Dollar im IT-Sektor.

Über die Jahre hat sich Israel bei der Landesverteidigung auf seine eigenen Ressourcen verlassen müssen. Für ein kleines Land mit einer Bevölkerung von etwa sieben Millionen Menschen hat es eine unverhältnismäßig große Zahl von militärischen Projekten entwickelt und hergestellt, darunter Satelliten, die Kampfflugzeuge Kfir und Lavi, den Merkava-Panzer, die Maschinenpistole Uzi sowie die Sturmgewehre Galil und Tavor u.v.m.

Die israelische Sicherheits- und Heimatschutzindustrie umfasst ein weites Spektrum von Unternehmen. Dazu gehören große Rüstungsfirmen wie Elbit, Tadiran, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), RAFAEL, Elisra, ELTA und Israel Military Industries (IMI), aber auch Unternehmen aus der Telekommunikationsbranche wie Motorola, Comverse, Nice, Verint, Mer Group, Ness TSG u.a.

Einige Firmen haben sich allein auf die Entwicklung und Herstellung von Sicherheitsprodukten in Bereichen wie Eingangskontrolle oder Körperschutz spezialisiert. Einige der weltbekannten Unternehmen in diesem Zusammenhang sind ISDS, Magal Security Systems, Plasan Sas und Rabintex.

Zu den Kernbereichen der Branche gehören: Luft- und Seefahrt-Sicherheit, CBRN-Bereitschaft, Kommando- und Kontrollsysteme, Terrorismusbekämpfung, Krisen- und Notfallmanagement, Infrastrukturschutz, internationale Veranstaltungen, IT-Sicherheit und Betrugsbekämpfung, Körperschutz, öffentliche Aufmerksamkeit und Bereitschaft, Dienstleistungsanbieter.

Israelische Sicherheitsunternehmen sind in allen Regionen der Welt aktiv und bieten Lösungen und Technologien für staatliche und private Abnehmer. Die folgenden Beispiele veranschaulichen die globale Präsenz:

- Mehr als ein Dutzend israelischer Unternehmen waren bei der Sicherung der Olympischen Spiele in Athen beteiligt.

- Gegenwärtig sind israelische Unternehmen in Grenzschutzprojekte v.a. in den USA, Asien und Lateinamerika involviert.

- Israelische Schutzeinrichtungen für Fahrzeuge, Gebäude und Personen werden von den internationalen Truppen und Organisationen im Irak und anderen Konfliktzonen verwendet.

- Die Infrastruktur des Buckingham Palace, des Vatikan und des Eiffelturms werden mit israelischer Technologie gesichert; ebenso die Flughäfen JFK in New York, Heathrow in London, Hannover, Tel Aviv und Singapur u.a.

Ausführliche Informationen zur israelischen Sicherheitsindustrie findet man unter folgendem Link.

© The Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute