Global Security Newswire

U.S. President Barack Obama could formally pursue nuclear talks with Iran's supreme leader before the Middle Eastern state holds its presidential election in June, the Boston Globe reported today (see GSN, March 10).

The United States and several European nations have expressed concern that Iran is developing weapon-usable nuclear capabilities, but Tehran has said its atomic program would only produce civilian energy.

Undersecretary of State William Burns and State Department adviser on Iran Dennis Ross have consulted with nonproliferation analysts and other Western governments on how to best engage Tehran, and a letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appears to have emerged as the administration's favored method of outreach, said two high-level European diplomats involved in the consultations. Such a letter would mark a U.S. president's first official message to a leader of Iran since the country's 1979 Islamic revolution.

Obama has ruled out establishing a diplomatic interests section in Tehran -- a proposal his predecessor considered -- and would instead pursue negotiations with an Iranian official with the power to make concessions, the diplomats said. Washington would seek to prevent Iran from using talks as a stalling tactic as it continues to expand its disputed nuclear work, they added.

One expert challenged critics who have argued that reaching out to Tehran before the election would bolster hard-line incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's prospects at the polls.

"It is a good idea to send the message that they are engaging a government and not an individual," said National Iranian American Council head Trita Parsi. "If you wait, and it looks like you are waiting in the hopes that Ahmadinejad will lose, what happens if he doesn't?"

Another analyst cautioned Washington against targeting a critical communication at an unelected political authority.

"It would send a message that we are going to wheel and deal with the powers that be rather than deal with those elected by the Iranian people," said Ahmad Sadri, a professor at Lake Forest College in Illinois (Farah Stockman, Boston Globe, March 11).

Iran has not acquired the weapon-grade uranium it would need for a nuclear bomb, U.S. National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair told lawmakers yesterday. Nor has Tehran chosen yet to pursue the material, he said.

"The overall situation -- and the intelligence community agrees on this -- (is) that Iran has not decided to press forward ... to have a nuclear weapon on top of a ballistic missile," Blair told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"Our current estimate is that the minimum time at which Iran could technically produce the amount of highly enriched uranium for a single weapon is 2010 to 2015," Blair said, noting that Tehran could obtain the material sooner within the date range by reviving an alleged nuclear weapons program it was said to have suspended in 2003 (Peter Finn, Washington Post, March 11).

Still, Iran is "holding open that option" to develop a nuclear weapon, said Defense Intelligence Agency chief Lt. Gen. Michael Maples. A recent Safir rocket launch conducted by the Iranians "does advance their knowledge and their ability to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile," he said during the hearing (see GSN, Feb. 4).

Blair added, though, that Iran's missile advances are unlikely to "prejudice the nuclear weapons decision one way or another."

"I believe those are separate decisions. The same missiles can launch vehicles into space, they can launch warheads, either conventional or nuclear, onto land targets. And Iran is pursuing those for those multiple purposes. Whether they develop a nuclear weapon, which could then be put in that warhead, I believe, is a separate decision which Iran has not made yet," Blair said in presenting the U.S. intelligence community's annual threat assessment.

Israel has judged Iran's nuclear program to pose a greater, more immediate threat, he noted.

"The Israelis are far more concerned about it, and they take more of a worst-case approach to these things from their point of view," he said (Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire, Feb. 11).

"Reaching a military-grade nuclear capability is a question of synchronizing its strategy with the production of a nuclear bomb," Israeli military intelligence chief Gen. Amos Yadlin said recently, according to a spokesman. "Iran continues to stockpile hundreds of kilograms of low-level enriched uranium and hopes to use the dialogue with the West to buy the time it requires in order to move towards an ability to manufacture a nuclear bomb" (Finn, Washington Post).

While Iran might halt its disputed nuclear efforts in response to a mix of "credible" benefits and "threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressures ... it is difficult to specify what such a combination might be," Agence France-Presse quoted Blair as saying (Agence France-Presse I/Google News, March 10).

The U.N. Security Council's sanctions panel has said that Iran breached international sanctions imposed over its nuclear program when it attempted to export weapons to Syria, Ynetnews reported. The Syria-bound weapons delivery was halted in Cyprus in January.

"The launching of the weapons' ship from Iran to Syria constitutes a major violation of U.N. sanctions," French Ambassador to the United Nations Jean Maurice Ripert said (Yitzhak Benhorin, Ynetnews, March 10).

Iran's top military officer said Obama was as "warmongering" as his predecessor, George W. Bush, Reuters reported yesterday.

"We cannot claim that the (U.S.) Democrats are not warmongering like the Republicans. They are just as warmongering and mischievous, and they would like to do that (attack Iran)," Maj. Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi said.

"But they are unable to do that and there is no way to stage an attack against Iran. America is not able to incur the cost of attacking Iran," he added (Hashem Kalantari, Reuters, March 10).

Meanwhile, Tehran yesterday said its Bushehr nuclear power plant would begin running at half-capacity on Aug. 22, AFP reported.

"By the end of the Iranian month of Mordad (Aug. 22), 500 megawatts of the 1,000 megawatt Bushehr nuclear plant will be transmitted to the national grid," Iranian Energy Minister Parviz Fattah said. "The remaining 500 megawatts will be transmitted in the second half of the (Iranian) year."

A Russian state-owned firm involved in the plant's construction has not specified a launch date (Farhad Pouladi, Agence France-Presse II/Google News, March 10).