Philip Weiss writes: Here’s some high level intrigue, with the stakes being no less than Our Next War.

You might have seen the bombshell piece by Foreign Policy editor David Rothkopf, “A Truly Credible Military Threat To Iran,” saying that Obama and the Israelis are at last getting on the same page for a surgical strike on Iran that would only last a couple of hours and bring regional benefits to everyone.

The article was a bombshell because it seemed the first real evidence of joint military planning. But it has apparently mislanded, and led to a clash inside the Israeli embassy between Michael Oren and his former deputy, Baruch Bina, and in turn led Israeli P.M. Netanyahu to dismiss Bina.

Here’s the story as I understand it.

Rothkopf’s piece electrified D.C. because it had the kind of detailed, nuanced language that usually accompanies a well-sourced and authoritative account. And indeed, Rothkopf is a Washington insider. He is the former roommate of Israeli ambassador Michael Oren.

The money graf:

Indeed, according to a source close to the discussions, the action that participants currently see as most likely is a joint U.S.-Israeli surgical strike targeting Iranian enrichment facilities. The strike might take only “a couple of hours” in the best case and only would involve a “day or two” overall, the source said, and would be conducted by air, using primarily bombers and drone support. Advocates for this approach argue that not only is it likely to be more politically palatable in the United States but, were it to be successful — meaning knocking out enrichment facilities, setting the Iranian nuclear program back many years, and doing so without civilian casualties — it would have regionwide benefits.

Of course we Americans would be doing the heavy lifting:

While this approach would limit the negative costs associated with more protracted interventions, it could not be conducted by the Israelis acting alone.

And here’s the rosy neocon vision. A joint strike, Rothkopf wrote, would have a

“transformative outcome: saving Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, reanimating the peace process, securing the Gulf, sending an unequivocal message to Russia and China, and assuring American ascendancy in the region for a decade to come.”

Rothkopf’s article first made headlines in Israel as a piece of investigative journalism, but doubts ensued. “A Truly Credible Threat” was soon being retailed as an opinion piece. It slid off the front page of the Times of Israel; and even Foreign Policy seemed eager to let the scoop disappear. Comments on the piece were turned off.

What happened? [Continue reading…]

The Guardian reports: Six global powers will launch a new diplomatic push after the US elections aimed at defusing the Iranian nuclear crisis in the next few months and avoiding the eruption of a new Middle East conflict next year.

A “reformulated” proposal will offer limited relief from existing sanctions and other incentives for Iran to limit the level of enrichment of its uranium stockpile. A new attempt will be made to sequence the steps required to reach a deal to overcome the mutual distrust that helped sink previous rounds of negotiations, where each side appeared to wait for the other to make the first major concession.

“We recognise that the Iranians need something more with which they can sell a deal at home, and we will expect real change on the other side. It is about getting the sequencing right. That is what this next round will be about,” a European official said.

“If Iran is prepared to do enough, sanctions will be on the table,” another western diplomat said. “It shouldn’t expect the [the six-power group] to blink first – but if it’s ready to take genuine steps we’re ready to respond. This could include sanctions relief – but only for the right moves by Iran. Sanctions are biting in Tehran and we’re not going to lift them without making solid progress on our concerns.”

If the step-by-step approach fails there could be an attempt to “go big” with an ambitious, comprehensive settlement that would allow Iran to continue producing uranium at low levels (under 5%) of enrichment but under stricter international monitoring and controls. [Continue reading…]

Tony Karon writes: Have some members of the Obama Administration been quaffing a ten-year-old jug of Kool Aid left in a White House basement fridge by Bush Administration officials? That’s certainly an impression conveyed by one unnamed source briefing Foreign Policy magazine’s David Rothkopf on talks between the Administration and the Israeli government. According to Rothkopf’s sources, Washington is now considering plans for a limited U.S.-Israeli raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities, a strike so “surgical” that it could be over in a matter of hours. This ostensible military cakewalk would, according to “one advocate” cited by Rothkopf have a “transformative outcome: saving Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, reanimating the peace process, securing the Gulf, sending an unequivocal message to Russia and China, and assuring American ascendancy in the region for a decade to come.”

Both the language and the thinking in that quote are reminiscent of the giddiest fantasies of the Bush Administration’s Iraq-war zealots. It appears that for some, at least, the failure of the Iraq invasion to transform the Middle East and assure “American ascendancy” simply requires a shock-and-awe do-over.

Rothkopf’s piece on the ostensible emergence of a war-lite option on Iran begins from the premise that President Obama is vulnerable to political attacks from Mitt Romney over his handling of Iran, and might benefit from letting it be known that he’s considering a “surgical strike” on Iran — a scenario ostensibly more believable because it supposedly requires less of a military commitment. “It may be that the easiest way for the Obama team to defuse Romney’s critique on Iran is simply to communicate better what options they are in fact considering,” Rothkopf writes. “It’s not the size of the threatened attack, but the likelihood that it will actually be made, that makes a military threat a useful diplomatic tool. And perhaps a political one, too.”

But that assumes Obama faces a major political problem on Iran — an assumption unlikely to be shared by the president’s reelection team at this stage: In most mainstream campaign analyses, being branded “soft on Iran” doesn’t rank particularly prominently among the many reasons why Obama might lose his reelection bid, even if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had once hoped to leverage campaign concerns to press Obama towards Israel’s positions on Iran. [Continue reading…]

The Washington Post reports: Iran is ratcheting up pressure on the U.N. agency responsible for overseeing the country’s nuclear program, accusing its inspectors of engaging in spying and sabotage and threatening to restrict U.N. access to Iranian nuclear facilities.

So strident has been Iran’s criticism of the International Atomic Energy Agency in recent weeks that some Western officials fear that the country is preparing to officially downgrade its cooperation with the nuclear watchdog. The Vienna-based agency is the only international body allowed to routinely visit Iran’s most sensitive nuclear installations.

The IAEA’s notoriously troubled relations with the Islamic Republic deteriorated sharply last month after Iran reported attacks by alleged saboteurs on electrical grids serving its two uranium-enrichment plants. Since then, Iranian officials have alleged the agency was directly involved in the attacks, accusations leveled in private meetings as well as in public statements, according to Western diplomats and government officials briefed on the exchanges.

IAEA officials initially rejected the allegations as absurd. Since then, the agency’s internal assessments have been unable to confirm that the attacks occurred at all, according to two European diplomats privy to the internal review.

Iran’s nuclear facilities are known to have been targeted by saboteurs in the past, notably in a series of covert cyberattacks attributed to the United States and Israel. But the lack of supporting evidence for any IAEA involvement in recent sabotage has under­scored concerns that Iran is seeking a pretext for curtailing cooperation with U.N. inspectors, the diplomats said. [Continue reading…]

The New York Times reports: With harsh economic sanctions contributing to the first major protests in Iran in three years, Iranian officials have begun to describe what they call a “nine-step plan” to defuse the nuclear crisis with the West by gradually suspending the production of the uranium that would be easiest for them to convert into a nuclear weapon.

But the plan requires so many concessions by the West, starting with the dismantling of all the sanctions that are blocking oil sales and setting off the collapse of the Iranian currency, that American officials have dismissed it as unworkable. Nonetheless, Iranian officials used their visit to the United Nations last week to attempt to drum up support, indicating that the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is finally feeling the pressure.

“Within the intelligence community, I think it’s fair to say that there is split opinion about whether the upper level of the regime is getting seriously worried,” one senior intelligence official said when asked why the Iranians appeared to be backing away from their earlier stand that nothing would stop them from producing more medium-enriched uranium, which can be turned into bomb fuel in a matter of months.

“He’s erratic, and we’ve seen him walk up to the edge of deals before and walk away,” the official said, referring to Ayatollah Khamenei.

The Iranian plan is based on a proposal made to European officials in July. It essentially calls for a step-by-step dismantling of the sanctions while the Iranians end work at one of two sites where they are enriching what is known as “20 percent uranium.” Only when the Iranians reach step No. 9 — after all the sanctions are gone and badly depressed oil revenues have begun to flow again — would there be a “suspension” of the medium-enriched uranium production at the deep underground site called Fordow. [Continue reading…]

Ali Gharib writes: Now is the autumn of Iranian discontent. And who can blame them? Over the past week, the value of Iran’s Rial fell 40 percent against the dollar.

The economic woes drove Iranians into the streets of Tehran yesterday, where they reportedly clashed with riot police during a few modestly-sized and — best as I can tell — relatively isolated protests. The largest, and perhaps most significant, were in Iran’s famed bazaar, which shut down as protesters moved through, and outside the Bank of Iran. At the former locale, the shopkeepers’ closures ostensibly protected their stalls from demonstrators, but that doesn’t seem to be how the story actually played out.

The latest protests seem unlikely to be the spark that brings down the Islamic Republic. Instead, they focused on the government’s mismanagement of the economy — a realm, unlike foreign affairs and the nuclear program, where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad actually has power to enact policies. But the showing could be a harbinger of what’s to come as Iranians go to the polls next year.

Many analysts and media accounts speculated that the bazaaris had a hand in organizing the protests, a notion confirmed by a source in Tehran who normally keeps abreast of opposition goings-on by social media. The source found out about the protests late, remarking: “This time it’s the bazaar, no need for Facebook or e-mail.” [Continue reading…]

Tony Karon writes: For Iran’s citizens, who have seen the prices of many basic foodstuffs more than double since last year, and who are struggling to access even life-saving medicines, the effect of the sanctions is more than mere “collateral damage.” The sanctions are, as U.S. officials like to point out, designed to put Iran’s economy in a “chokehold”, in the hope that one of the effects will be that the resultant economic pain rouses them to defy and challenge the regime, forcing it to rethink its nuclear program in order to win Iran’s release from the stranglehold of sanctions that are fomenting rebellion. While official statements might insist that innocent Iranians are not the target of that “chokehold,” an unnamed senior U.S. intelligence officer showed no such squeamishness when explaining the sanctions strategy to the Washington Post earlier this year. “In addition to the direct pressure sanctions exert on the regime’s ability to finance its priorities,” the official said, “another option here is that they will create hate and discontent at the street level so that the Iranian leaders realize that they need to change their ways.”

Advocates of that line of thinking may have seen Wednesday’s protests as vindication — but it may not be that simple. While President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad eagerly concurs that it is Western sanctions that are behind the economic chaos in Iran, his political opponents — loyalists of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatullah Ali Khamenei — actually blame Ahmadinejad’s mismanagement of the economy for the precipitous currency collapse. That sentiment appears to have been shared by many on the streets in the series of small demonstrations around Tehran on Wednesday: Most of the protesters’ rage appears to have been directed at Ahmadinejad, who was accused of failing to take measures necessary to protect Iranian living standards. After all, the Iranian economy isn’t exactly on the verge of collapse, and the regime is believed to have a foreign currency reserve of some $100 billion. Indeed, the fact that it is still sending billions in aid to prop up the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad — another sore point with protesters on Wednesday — underscores the fact that is not exactly bankrupt, yet.

So, even if sanctions are fueling the economic pain that is prompting Iranians to return to streets in protest, the expectation that such demonstrations will prompt Iran’s leaders to surrender a nuclear program that has been among their long-term priorities requires a considerable leap of faith. ”It would be optimistic at best to hope that the deteriorating economic circumstances will spur Iran’s leaders to shift their nuclear stance,” said Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy last month. “They do not seem to know or care much about the country’s economic situation — their own income has been hurt only a little, if at all, and they appear unconcerned about the prospect of popular unrest given their past success at repressing opposition. For now, they are likely to stay the course on both domestic economic policy and the nuclear issue.” [Continue reading…]

Peter Beaumont writes: The continuing currency crisis in Iran, which has seen the rial go into freefall, has been cited, with some celebration in certain quarters, as proving that US-led sanctions are “working” against Tehran. Increasingly shut out from international banking and struggling to sell its oil, Iran has been forced to sell more cheaply while buying raw materials at a higher cash price. This, in turn, has led to currency speculation that the government has done nothing to halt, and to sharp devaluation.

But what does “sanctions are working” actually mean? Some hawks have read it as the possible beginning of the end for Iran’s nuclear programme and the collapse of the clerical regime. For others, including those anxious to avoid conflict over Iran, it has been seized on as a suggestion that the crisis might be resolved through negotiation and non-military pressure.

The reality is that the political, economic and social impact of sanctions can produce very different results from those allegedly desired, more often than not hurting ordinary people. And there is a third scenario, in which sanctions might actually make the confrontation with Iran more dangerous still.

The increasing popularity of economic sanctions, as Britain’s former ambassador to the UN, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, has observed, is due to the perception that no other tool exists “between words and military action if you want to bring pressure upon a government”.

When three academics – Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Jeffrey Scott and Kimberly Ann Elliott – examined the history of sanctions between 1914 and 1990, in Economic Sanctions Reconsidered they determined that out of 115 cases that they looked at, only a third had seen any measure of success. The US political scientist Robert Pape has challenged even this measure, claiming that of the 40, only five can be determined genuine successes for sanctions. [Continue reading…]

As Iran’s currency crisis escalates, Ali Chenar has spoken to people in and around the bazaar in Tehran.

Many merchants in the bazaar had already shut down their stores since Monday, claiming that they do not know what prices they should be charging their customers. The sudden fall in the rial’s value has brought it to a level unthinkable only a week ago.

“The problem is that the exchange rate always sends a signal about market stability and government reliability,” said Muhammad, an economic activist. He adds, “With the rial in freefall, many believe that the situation is simply out of control.”

He explains the dilemma faced by the merchants. “Many in the bazaar save in dollars and need hard currency to import the products they sell. If the products are produced domestically then they need hard currency to import the material needed in the production process. The machinery and other services cost too, and usually we have to pay companies who use the [open-market] dollar-rial exchange rate to estimate their costs.”

Babak, a graduate student, is worried about his upcoming sabbatical trip abroad. “With the hard currency rising so fast, I am not sure if I can afford it anymore.” He also cannot wait much longer to make a decision — the deadline to apply for a visa is fast approaching.

Businesses face similar decisions about whether to renew their orders and sell their inventories. Mahmoud, an apprentice in the bazaar, wants people to know that “we would like to work, but how can you work when you do not know what will happen tomorrow.”

Ahmad Reza, a dealer in Persian rugs, is mad at the government. “They ruined everything. They wasted all the revenues generated by oil and now they are not supplying the market with hard currency…. Every day, something new happens: one day it is sanctions; the next, new banking regulations. The authorities always need to be greased with some extra cash.” The challenge of keeping his business going is making him infuriated. “Some days, I just want to go to the Sahara and just yell. I do not know why I come to this store anymore.”

Hamid, a social science teacher who lives near the bazaar just south of central Tehran, believes that the “bazaaris have always been unhappy and frustrated. Almost every government has found ways to interfere with them and to tell them what to do.” What is different now “is that Ahmadinejad has become more vulnerable.” Hamid observes that criticizing his administration is no longer equivalent to opposing the regime as a whole. On his way home, he saw people had set fire to garbage and other flammables. “Bazaaris usually hate governments, but I think they hate the current administration the most.”

Alireza Nader writes: Iran’s response to Israeli or U.S. air strikes is likely to feature unconventional tactics that would not necessarily lead to battlefield successes, such as defeat of the U.S. Fifth Fleet. But its strategy could theoretically achieve an overall political and psychological victory.

The Islamic Republic’s reaction would incorporate lessons learned from the eight-year Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s and the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 — two of the defining conflicts of the late 20th century. The Gulf War was the longest and deadliest modern Middle East conflict. And Hezbollah, with aid and arms from Iran, fought the longest modern war with Israel. Iran would almost certainly also factor in past U.S. military operations in the region.

Despite their boasting, Iranian leaders are well aware that they cannot defeat the U.S. military in a face-to-face conflict. But as Hezbollah’s 2006 war with Israel demonstrated, battlefield losses (or draws) can be turned into psychological victories. The Islamic Republic has devoted substantial information and media resources to fight a psychological war (jang e ravani). Hezbollah was able to withstand the Israeli military and shoot missiles into Israeli cities throughout the conflict — and thus convince many Arabs that it had won.

Iran could again try to claim a victory simply by withstanding an assault and retaining much of its nuclear know-how and technology, even if it sustained significant losses. But Israel and the United States have also learned from the 2006 Hezbollah war. Regardless, any war with Iran could be long, costly and ultimately unsuccessful in eliminating Iran’s nuclear drive. [Continue reading…]

Tony Karon enumerates the looming issues: 1. Despite Netanyahu’s Retreat, Avoiding War with Iran Will Get Harder

For all of his summer saber rattling and efforts to pressure the Obama Administration into stating imminent red lines for war with Iran, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu effectively retreated at the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday. Despite the familiar apocalyptic rhetoric, Netanyahu took care to signal Israel’s cooperation with the Obama Administration on the issue. More important, he drew his own red line — somewhat confusingly, given the much lampooned graphic on which he relied — at Iran possessing a sufficient stockpile of 20% enriched uranium to reprocess into one bomb’s worth of highly enriched uranium. At present rates of enrichment, he claimed, that point would be reached next spring or summer. Leave aside the considerable body of expert opinion that holds that the U.S. would have a lot more time than Netanyahu suggests to respond to an overt move by Iran to build nuclear weapons, the Israeli leader nonetheless once again wound forward his doomsday alarm clock, setting it to ring sometime early next year.

That seemed to take off the table the threat of an Israeli strike over U.S. objections before November’s election. But the occupant of the Oval Office early next year may face a more acute crisis: sanctions have not so far changed Iran’s nuclear calculations, and such concessions as Iran has offered by way of capping its nuclear work are not ones that the Obama Administration has been ready to accept as a basis for easing sanctions. Iran doesn’t trust the U.S. any more than the U.S. trusts Iran, and Tehran believes the real purpose of the sanctions is to create economic chaos in the hope of provoking an uprising against the regime. Such suspicions will have been heightened by Friday’s U.S. decision to remove the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, an exile armed group that fought for Saddam Hussein against Iran in the 1980s and which is widely reviled even among leaders of the opposition Green Movement, from the U.S. list of terrorist organizations.

And Netanyahu has given notice that he’ll be loudly banging the drum for action by springtime unless, as remains unlikely, Iran effectively throws in the towel on the nuclear standoff before then. Whether it’s President Obama or a President Romney, the White House early next year may face a stark choice between continuing a policy that escalates toward confrontation or trying to avoid one by taking the political risk of initiating a new diplomatic effort with Iran that goes beyond the current nuclear talks. [Continue reading…]

Reuters reports: Israel’s “go-it-alone” option to attack Iran’s nuclear sites has set the Middle East on edge and unsettled its main ally at the height of a U.S. presidential election campaign.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exudes impatience, saying Tehran is barely a year from a “red line” for atomic capacity. Many fellow Israelis, however, fear a unilateral strike, lacking U.S. forces, would fail against such a large and distant enemy.

But what if, even without Washington, Israel were not alone?

Azerbaijan, the oil-rich ex-Soviet republic on Iran’s far northern border, has, say local sources with knowledge of its military policy, explored with Israel how Azeri air bases and spy drones might help Israeli jets pull off a long-range attack.

That is a far cry from the massive firepower and diplomatic cover that Netanyahu wants from Washington. But, by addressing key weaknesses in any Israeli war plan – notably on refueling, reconnaissance and rescuing crews – such an alliance might tilt Israeli thinking on the feasibility of acting without U.S. help.

It could also have violent side-effects more widely and many doubt Azeri President Ilham Aliyev would risk harming the energy industry on which his wealth depends, or provoking Islamists who dream of toppling his dynasty, in pursuit of favor from Israel.

Yet despite official denials by Azerbaijan and Israel, two Azeri former military officers with links to serving personnel and two Russian intelligence sources all told Reuters that Azerbaijan and Israel have been looking at how Azeri bases and intelligence could serve in a possible strike on Iran. [Continue reading…]

When Mark Perry broke this story in March this year, the White House swiftly denied that the administration had leaked any such information and at least one commentator in Israel dismissed its plausibility. An Azerbaijani diplomat also described the story as “fiction.” The denials followed the same tack: to try and cast as much doubt on the messenger as the message — which suggested then (and now, since the sources are different) that the story is not baseless.

FAREED ZAKARIA: You have indicated that you think that the Israeli prime minister’s threats toward Iran are ones you don’t take very seriously. But I was wondering how seriously you take the rhetoric of the president of the United States. President Obama said at the United Nations that he was determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Do you regard that as a bluff?

PRESIDENT MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD, IRAN (through translator): You set forth two or three questions here. I have never used the word bluff. When we say we do not take it seriously, we mean that it impacts — it does not impact our policies in the slightest. Iran is a vast country. It’s a great country. Let’s assume a few terrorists come and assassinate some of our officials. Will the country be damaged? No. A couple of bombs would be set to explode. Will the country be destroyed? No. We see the Zionist regime at the same level of the bombers and criminals and the terrorists. And even if they do something — even if they do something, hypothetically, it will not affect us fundamentally. But vis-a-vis the expressions of the president of the United States, because I do not wish to speak in any way about anything that may be interpreted as meddling or interfering in America’s domestic or electoral affairs — but perhaps myself — compared to everyone else in the world, I am perhaps much more keen than anyone else not only that there will be no more production of nuclear bombs around the world, that even those that exist today would be eliminated.

ZAKARIA: If there were an Israeli strike on Iran, there are other senior Iranians who have said things that are much more forceful about how Iran would respond. And they seem to take it very seriously. The head of the Revolutionary Guard, Mohammed Ali Jafri, said that in response to Israeli strike, Iran would strike back with missiles. And I think he says nothing will remain of Israeli. I don’t think any spot would remain safe. Is that also your view of what the nature of Iranian retaliation would be?

AHMADINEJAD (through translator): I — understand this: that Iranians never start a war unprovoked, never start a war, period. But if they are attacked, they defend themselves very well, quite well. And no one throughout her history has been able to gain and come out on top from an attack on Iran.

ZAKARIA: President Ahmadinejad, you said in a couple of your interviews that you don’t really think much is going to happen on the negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program, until after the American election. What do you think will happen after the elections? Do you expect that at that point there will be a new proposal from the major powers? Or do you think Iran will present another proposal?

AHMADINEJAD (through translator): As you touched upon, yes, during a couple of interviews, yes, I did speak of this. I think, at the end of the day, that the decision making vis-a-vis Iran’s nuclear issue with Five Plus One is a very important decision. And it is one of the most — and one of the most important players in the Five Plus One equation is America. But we have seen during many years that as we approach the United States presidential elections, no important decisions are made. Also keep it in mind that certainly following the election, certainly the atmosphere will be much more stable. And important decisions can be made and announced. We have set forth proposals. We are holding dialogue. And, as of late, Mr. Jalili and Ms. Ashton have had productive talks. And we do hope to be able to take some steps forward.

* * *

ZAKARIA: Mr. President, let me ask you a question about human life. You spoke a great deal while you were here in New York about the value you place on human life. Every life is important, you say. The government of Syria has, by all accounts, killed about 20,000 people. About 250,000 Syrians, men, women and children, have fled the country. And 1.2 million Syrians have been displaced within the country. Why will you not call on Bashar al-Assad to resign and leave the presidency of Syria?

AHMADINEJAD (through translator): Do you think that if we do such a thing, the problem will be resolved?

ZAKARIA: If you say that you care about human life, you should take a moral stand.

AHMADINEJAD (through translator): Yes, but do you think that if we make the request that you ask, the problem will be resolved? Not so. The problem of Syria is very complicated. And it requires a just and the right solution. And I’m truly sorry and saddened not only in Syria, but anywhere in the world, from any side, where there are people losing their lives. The opposition members, the Syrian Army, they’re all from Syria. They’re all the people of Syria. Why should they be killed? There can be two proposals and solutions for Syria. One is that of warfare. But there is also a second way of thinking, a national understanding. And I do believe that if both sides sit and reach an understanding on a free election, a national understanding on a free election, and follow — and become subservient to the choice of the people, every — all sides should accept the wish of the Syrian people. Therefore, we are standing up a contact group. And I do hope that they will have their first meeting and gathering here in New York City. Thereby, we can succeed in bringing both sides closer together, so they can reach an agreement for a political process. In my opinion, Syria has no military solution. And I think it is amply clear. I think my opinion is amply clear about Syria. I’ve said it 50 plus times thus far. We are on the side of the people. Everywhere we’re on the side of the people.

ZAKARIA: But the people are getting killed by the government. You keep saying you’re on the side of the people, and yet you support a government that is massacring its people.

AHMADINEJAD (through translator): You mean that we should then enter the scene and provide arms, like other countries have, in order to — for the battling groups, in order for the war to continue? Is that your opinion?

ZAKARIA: No, my opinion is you should ask the Syrian government — for the president to step down, since he is presiding over a mass massacre.

AHMADINEJAD (through translator): Well, we make all kinds of requests. We have announced it officially. Do you think with our request, things will come to an end?

ZAKARIA: You mentioned the contact group that you believe could be a path to a negotiated or diplomatic solution. And this is a group that is meant to be — include Egypt, Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia. But at the first meeting of the group, Saudi Arabia refused to attend and let it be known that the reason they would not attend is they will not sit down with Iran in the same room. How do you get over that obstacle?

AHMADINEJAD (through translator): This I hear from you for the first time.

ZAKARIA: I can tell you it based on my reporting. It’s true. You know it is a fact they didn’t attend the meeting.

AHMADINEJAD (through translator): This is something — what they have announced officially is that they have said that our minister of foreign affairs is ill.

(Rush transcript provided by CNN.)

William J Broad writes: Advocates of airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities have long held that the attacks would delay an atom bomb for years and perhaps even buy Israel enough time to topple the Iranian government. In public statements, the Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, has said that an attack would leave Iran’s nuclear program reeling, if not destroyed. The blow, he declared recently, would set back the Iranian effort “for a long time.”

Quite the opposite, say a surprising number of scholars and military and arms-control experts. In reports, talks, articles and interviews, they argue that a strike could actually lead to Iran’s speeding up its efforts, ensuring the realization of a bomb and hastening its arrival.

“An attack would increase the likelihood,” Scott D. Sagan, a political scientist at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, said of an Iranian weapon.

The George W. Bush administration, it turns out, reached an even stronger conclusion in secret and rejected bombing as counterproductive.

The view among Mr. Bush’s top advisers, recalled Michael V. Hayden, then director of the Central Intelligence Agency, was that a strike “would drive them to do what we were trying to prevent.”

Those who warn against attacking Iran say that such a move would free officials in Tehran of many constraints. An attack, for instance, would all but certainly lead to the expulsion of international inspectors, which, in turn, would allow the government to undo hundreds of monitoring devices and safeguards, including seals on underground storage units. Further, an Iran permitted to present itself to the world as the victim of an attack would receive sympathy and perhaps vital imports from nations that once backed trade bans. The thinking also goes that a strike would allow Iran to further direct its economy to military ends.

Perhaps most notably, an attack could unite what is now a fractious state, these analysts say, and build an atmosphere of mobilizing rage. As the foreign ministers of Sweden and Finland wrote earlier this year, “It’s difficult to see a single action more likely to drive Iran into taking the final decision.”

History, the analysts say, demonstrates that airstrikes and military threats often result in unbending resolve among the beleaguered to do whatever it takes to acquire nuclear arms. [Continue reading…]

Mark Perry writes: While no one in the Barack Obama administration knows whether Israel will strike Iran’s nuclear program, America’s war planners are preparing for a wide array of potential Israeli military options — while also trying to limit the chances of the United States being drawn into a potentially bloody conflict in the Persian Gulf.

“U.S.-Israeli intelligence sharing on Iran has been extraordinary and unprecedented,” a senior Pentagon war planner told me. “But when it comes to actually attacking Iran, what Israel won’t tell us is what they plan to do, or how they plan to do it. It’s their most closely guarded secret.” Israel’s refusal to share its plans has persisted despite repeated requests from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, a senior Pentagon civilian said.

The result is that, at a time of escalating public debate in both the United States and Israel around the possibility of an armed strike on Iran, high-level Pentagon war planners have had to “fly blind” in sketching out what Israel might do — and the challenges its actions will pose for the U.S. military. “What we do is a kind of reverse engineering,” the senior planner said. “We take a look at their [Israeli] assets and capabilities, put ourselves in their shoes and ask how we would act if we had what they have. So while we’re guessing, we have a pretty good idea of what they can and can’t do.”

According to several high-level U.S. military and civilian intelligence sources, U.S. Central Command and Pentagon war planners have concluded that there are at least three possible Israeli attack options, including a daring and extremely risky special operations raid on Iran’s nuclear facility at Fordow — an “Iranian Entebbe” they call it, after Israel’s 1976 commando rescue of Israeli hostages held in Uganda. In that scenario, Israeli commandos would storm the complex, which houses many of Iran’s centrifuges; remove as much enriched uranium as they found or could carry; and plant explosives to destroy the facility on their way out. [Continue reading…]

Tony Karon writes: “Israel is in discussions with the United States over this issue and I am confident that we can chart a path forward together,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his United Nations speech on Thursday, referring to the question of Iran’s nuclear program, to which he devoted almost all of his remarks. The Israeli prime minister broke from his recent habit of tacitly, but obviously, criticizing President Barack Obama‘s handling of Iran by hailing his achievements in putting together the most comprehensive sanctions package ever faced by any nation. Netanyahu also emphasized that the two governments are working together in pursuit of the common objective of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, a message the White House was happy to affirm via National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor, who said that the U.S. and Israel “will continue our close consultation and cooperation toward achieving that [shared] goal.”

Although Netanyahu also maintained that sanctions have failed to stop Iran’s program and that time was running out, the Israeli leader has clearly dialed things down from his previous habit of presenting Obama — to the delight of the Romney campaign — as naive and feckless in the face of a grave and gathering danger. Netanyahu may have, at one point, hoped to pressure Obama into taking a tougher stand, but the White House had resisted Israeli demands that it state stronger “red lines” on Iran, with Netanyahu finding himself increasingly isolated at home in his threat to take unilateral military action, and sharply criticized even by President Shimon Peres for appearing to interfere in U.S. electoral politics. Other Israeli commentators had been more blunt, warning that Netanyahu was recklessly gambling on a Romney victory, which appeared, they said, to be increasingly unlikely. [Continue reading…]