IRAN: Tehran won't budge on enrichment, officials say

The news surprised no one.

Over the weekend, an official close to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, ruled out any halt to its ongoing enrichment of uranium as a precondition for international talks, dashing whatever faint hopes there were for a quick resolution of the crisis over Iran's nuclear program.

Ali Akbar Velayati is a senior foreign policy adviser to Iran’s ultimate political and spiritual authority. He told state media that while Iran accepted talks over its controversial production of enriched uranium, which can be used to power an electricity plant or, if highly augmented, a nuclear weapon, “We want talks without any precondition on the enrichment issue,“ he said in remarks broadcast on state television.

As everyone knows, the United States is leading a campaign to pressure Iran to halt its uranium enrichment program. It signed off on a package of proposed incentives meant to lure Iran into giving up its drive to toward mastering the enrichment of uranium in exchange for economic and political goodies. Iran delivered its response Friday.

But anyone who was hoping for an Iranian U-turn was disappointed.

On Saturday, government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham, a loyalist to the faction of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, reiterated Iran’s longstanding position that it won’t stop producing nuclear material, a highly technical process that involves running uranium gas through spinning centrifuges.

Iran rejected a similar package of proposals in 2006 for the same reason, a move that led to three sets of relatively mild U.N. Security Council sanctions.

The U.S. and Israel have not ruled out war, and Iran too has been thumping its chest.

— Borzou Daragahi in Beirut

Photo: Ali Akbar Velayati. Credit: File photo

IRAN: Seeking spiritual advice on nuclear technology

As world powers studied Iran's response to a package of proposals meant to convince it to stop enriching uranium, a curious series of meetings took place today in Iran.

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili (pictured at left), took a trip from Tehran today to the holy city of Qom, home to some of the most powerful clerics in the Shiite Muslim faith, which is prevalent in Iran and Iraq.

That's according to the usually rather reliable Persian-language news website Tabnak, but other sources also confirmed the information.

In Qom, he visited three key Iranian clerics for closed-door meetings. They were Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi, Ayatollah Lotfullah Safi Golpayegani and Ayatollah Jaffar Sobhani.

All are staunchly pro-Islamic Republic but have been critical of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's handling of the economy. All are "marja," sources of emulation at the top of the Shiite clergy. No reporters were allowed in for photo-ops, which is unusual, and the state-controlled news outlets were mum about the sessions.

Iranian politicians often seek political and religious cover before making bold moves, in case something backfires.

Analysts say that when Iranian political leaders such as Ahmadinejad, experienced council chairman Ali Akbar Rafasanjani or parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani visit Qom to consult with the marja, it is sometimes to appease them or gain their blessing ahead of a major change in policy. Examples include Iran's 2003 decision to temporarily halt uranium enrichment or its 2006 decision to meet directly with Americans over Iraq.

Jalili is close to Ahmadinejad, whose circle has been the most strident voice arguing against halting enrichment, which the U.S. demands as a precondition for negotiations. Today, Gholam Hossein Elham, the spokesman of Ahmadinejad's government, told reporters "that nothing has changed" with regard to Iran's stance on nuclear technology, which presumably includes the hot-button issue of enrichment.

But his words shouldn't be taken too seriously. He made similar remarks when the package was first presented last month, and was largely ignored. 

Analysts offered a number of possibilities for Jalili's secretive visit:

1. To the chagrin of Ahmadinejad, powerful moderates in the government want to bend on the issue of enrichment, either by accepting the so-called "freeze-for-freeze" proposal to stop adding new uranium-enriching centrifuges, or by suspending enrichment altogether. Jalili and his camp, led by Ahmadinejad, want political backing for going up against them.
2. Ahmadinejad wants to do a U-turn and accept some kind of compromise with the West, but needs some political cover.
3. Jalili is a relative political newcomer. Unlike his well-connected predecessor, Larijani, he doesn't have the political standing to make any bold moves, and wants to improve his ties to the clergy in order to do so.

— Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran and Borzou Daragahi in Beirut

Photo credit: Islamic Republic News Agency

IRAN: Jumbo jet diplomacy versus fighter jet possibilities

First anonymous U.S. officials tell reporters they’re interested in maybe, possibly expanding the minuscule Iranian interests section in Tehran.

Then Condoleezza Rice says publicly that she believes there should be more people-to-people exchange between Iranians and Americans, even as Tehran and Washington are embroiled in a huge fight over Iran's nuclear program.

Now comes word that Manouchehr Mottaki, Iran’s foreign minister, is pushing a proposal to resume direct flights between Iran and the United States to facilitate the visits of Iranian nationals living in America and tourists who might be interested in visiting the Islamic Republic, and confirmed earlier reports that Iran would consider the expansion of its interest section.

Mottaki's remarks to a big of group of reporters in New York were summarized on the website of Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

Contacts between Iranians and the American people will be a useful step for better understanding of the two nations. Iranian academics and students have invited their American counterparts to the country to share their research and scientific achievements. By visiting Iran, the American people can acquire the truth about Iran.

IRAN: Telecom executive accused of spying for Israel is sentenced to death

Iranian authorities this week sentenced the manager of a telecommunications company to death on charges of spying for Israel.

Ali Ashtari, who sold communications and security equipment to the Iranian government, was arrested about 18 months ago on charges of "engaging in espionage for [Israel's] Mossad intelligence service," Iranian news agencies reported.

The 45-year-old allegedly confessed to the crime and asked for mercy. He told the judge he accepted a $50,000 "loan" from Israelis to get him out of financial trouble, according to news agencies. The website of an state-owned Iranian television station quoted an anonymous intelligence official alleging that Ashtari handed Israelis sensitive information about Iran's communications system and nuclear program.

He's got 20 days to appeal his capital sentence.

In Iran, it's tough to figure out who's an actual spy and who's a casualty of political infighting. The tubby, balding Ashtari hardly seems like a swashbuckling secret agent. And any foreign correspondent or geologist working in the field will quickly recognize the satellite telecommunications equipment shown in the courtroom picture as standard tools of the trade, stuff you can buy on the open market.

IRAN: American public won't allow another war, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman says

Despite constant talk of war, U.S. officials have tried to reach out to the Iranian people in an attempt to get past the animosity between Washington and Tehran.

But Iranian officials have also been on a diplomatic offensive, reaching out to ordinary people in the Middle East as well as, more modestly, to Americans.

Known for his good looks, polite manners and kindly attitude toward the media, Iran's silver-haired foreign ministry spokesman, Mohammed Ali Hosseini has emerged as a frequent public face on his government’s policies.

In a lengthy interview in his office Wednesday, he described Americans as a peace-loving people who "hate violence" and are suffering because of the mistakes of their leaders. He said he believed economic pressures, the military entanglements in Iraq and Afghanistan, and American public opinion would prevent war from breaking out between Iran and the United States. "The U.S. and the Zionist regime, thanks to the increasing economic, political, security and military crises in which they are stuck, are not logically in a position to tolerate the expenses of another massive and far-reaching crisis," Hosseini said.

He continued:

Public opinion in the world will not permit [President] Bush to exacerbate the pains and tragedies already inflicted on the nations of the region and the American people. Nowadays, the polling surveys carried out among U.S. elites, thinkers and, by and large, the American people, show they hate violence, further battles and anarchy. The surveys indicate that the Americans are seeking genuine peace, stability and security.

But he warned:

If there is a war against the Islamic Republic of Iran, it will be out of control and with unpredictable consequences. Thus, anyone with minimum rationality and political logic does not dare to step on this path.

Hosseini, 47, is a physicist by training and a career diplomat. A native of Tehran, he studied in India before joining Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs 20 years ago. He’s a family man, with a wife and three children. He sat down for an exclusive and wide-ranging interview with the Los Angeles Times about Iran’s nuclear program, U.S. relations and turmoil in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, which have became contested terrain in the Cold War between Washington and Tehran.

Some of his answers were blunt. Asked why Iran won't suspend its controversial uranium-enrichment program for a temporary period to calm world fears and bolster Iran's diplomatic standing, he replied that Iran has "so far complied completely with its international and legal commitments and that compliance accredits our diplomatic standing."

But usually he was far more expansive, explaining Iran's positions on a number of topics, including the packages of proposals and counterproposals being bandied about by Iran and world powers to get talks started on Iran's nuclear program.

LAT: Would you consider the European "freeze-for-freeze" proposal in which Iran would stop adding new uranium-enrichment centrifuges in exchange for no new sanctions during a period of negotiations? Why or why not?

MOHAMMAD ALI HOSSEINI: Both the 5+1 incentives package and the Iranian package have valuable elements in common. If we concentrate on the common ground in the two packages, we can initiate a very serious dialogue. If diplomacy can deepen and consolidate the commonalities in the packages and create a mechanism toward confidence-building talks, without a doubt, the talks will help peace and stability in the world. Otherwise the misleading and aimless preconditions are somehow wasting time and cannot lead to settle any problems. Furthermore, there is not such a thing [as freeze-for-freeze] written in the incentives package.

SYRIA: Mum's the word on nuclear inspections

Syrian authorities probably think that it's safer to ignore the big elephant in the room.

That, at least, has been their attitude toward the United Nations nuclear inspectors who arrived to investigate claims that Damascus was secretly developing nuclear facilities.

Not only did Syrian officials keep silent about the visit, the vast majority of local newspapers did not even remotely allude to it and the state-run news agency did not even acknowledge the presence of the international experts.

Others say that foreign journalists have been banned from entering or leaving Syria these days until the inspectors are out of the country.

The International Atomic Energy Agency delegation arrived in Syria on Sunday to inspect a site in the country's northeastern desert. The U.S. alleges the site housed a nuclear reactor nearing completion. Syria had dismissed U.S. accusations about the site of Al-Kibar, which was bombed by Israel in September 2007, as a disused military facility.

IRAN: Stop nukes by bombing oil wells, neocons suggest

Why attack Iran's nuclear facilities when striking their oil infrastructure would be much more effective in the scope of a US-led preventive war? Sure, oil prices might skyrocket and the world economy might collapse. But, hey, that's the price you pay for security.

Such a scenario is not a nightmare or an outtake from a remake of Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove," but part of a serious recommendation made by two neoconservatives in case sanctions fail to persuade Iran to abandon its enrichment of uranium, a process that can be used to make nuclear weapons or fuel for peaceful energy production.

In a July report titled "The Last Resort: Consequences of Preventive Military Action Against Iran," and published by the neoconservative Washington Institute for Near East Studies, scholars Patrick Clawson and Michael Eisenstadt advocate military strategies that would ultimately discourage Tehran from pursuing any future non-civilian nuclear activities:

Because the ultimate goal of prevention is to influence Tehran to change course, effective strikes against Iran's nuclear infrastructure may play an important role in affecting Iran's decision calculus. Strikes that flatten its nuclear infrastructure could have a demoralizing effect, and could influence Tehran's assessment of the cost of rebuilding. But the most effective strikes may not necessarily be against nuclear facilities. Iran is extraordinarily vulnerable to attacks on its oil export infrastructure.... The political shock of losing the oil income could cause Iran to rethink its nuclear stance—in ways that attacks on its nuclear infrastructure might not.

And if an attack on the oil facilities of a country with some of the world's largest reserves leads to a huge spike in oil prices, sends gas prices up to 10 bucks a gallon and brings economic ruin in the rest of the world, the report continues, well, so be it:

To be sure, in a tight world oil market, attacking Iran's oil infrastructure carries an obvious risk of causing world oil prices to soar and hurting consumers in the United States and other oil-importing countries.... If the choice is between higher oil prices and a Middle East with several nuclear powers, higher oil prices and reduced economic growth are not clearly the greater evil.

IRAN: Scoffing again at Western incentives

Iran is pondering a Western-made offer for Tehran to drop its nuclear enrichment program. But the state-controlled local media has already scoffed at the package of political and economic incentives presented last week by the EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana.

According to an Iranian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, authorities in Tehran have explicitly requested local newspapers to play down the new offer.

In their Monday editions, newspapers close to the hard-line party of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that the new package presented nothing important. The Persian daily Kayhan wrote on its front page: "After opening the package, it turned out that it was empty again." The newspaper was referring to an older package offered in 2006 by Western powers and rejected then by Iran.

IRAN: Package detailed for Tehran to stop nuclear enrichment

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana in Tehran today presented the Iranians with a sweetened package of economic, political and security incentives for Iran to give up its controversial program to enrich uranium.

The E.U., the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany made Iran a similar offer two years ago. Iranian officials denounced the offer as "insulting" and not worthy of a response, characterizing it as offering Iran little in exchange for halting its coveted enrichment program.

Many of those who crafted the package feel Iranians characterized it unjustly. This time around, Solana took no chances.

Appearing slightly tense and worn, he staged a showy press conference at the residence of the German ambassador to Tehran. Before the assembled reporters, he delivered an impassioned speech (DOC) urging Iranian cooperation, which was simultaneously translated into Farsi.

He said the international community was ready to stop treating Iran like a pariah and recognize Iran's right to have nuclear power, if Tehran halts its enrichment activities:

We are ready to cooperate with Iran in the development of a modern nuclear energy program based on the most modern generation of light-water reactors. We offer legally binding fuel supply guarantees, or to work together in designing a system to provide these fuel guarantees. We can help Iran with the management of nuclear waste. We can support Iranian research and development, including in the nuclear field once confidence is being restored. If we can settle the core issue, the nuclear program, the door would be open to cooperation in many other areas.

So there could be little misinterpretation, Solana handed out English and Farsi copies of both the latest package of incentives (PDF) and a letter urging cooperation (PDF) to Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki. It was signed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and by the foreign ministers of Russia, China, Great Britain, France and Germany, as well as Solana.

Immediately, analysts began comparing the 2006 package of incentives (PDF) rejected by Iran to the 2008 package (PDF) submitted today.

— Borzou Daragahi in Beirut

Photo: EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana holds a news conference at the residence of the German ambassador to Iran Saturday in Tehran.

Photo credit: Hasan Sarbakhshian / Associated Press

IRAN: Nuclear talks kick off in Tehran

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana arrived this morning in Tehran as the head of a delegation trying to defuse the international crisis over Iran's nuclear program.

The United States, Israel and Europe are alarmed by Iran's increasing mastery of the technically complicated process of teasing out isotopes from uranium ore to create enriched fissile material that can be used to either fuel an electricity plant or build a nuclear bomb.

There's been a lot of talk of war or increased sanctions if Iran doesn't halt the program, which arms control experts view as a potential cornerstone of an eventual nuclear weapons arsenal.

Prospects for a solution don't look so hot. Solana handed Iran a proposed package of incentives to halt its program similar to the one rejected by Tehran in 2006. Christina Golash, Solana's spokeswoman, was quoted on Iranian television as saying that Europe and Iran are "ready to establish a new energy relations," a possible hint of an offer to increase investment in the country's oil and gas fields.

But that's not likely to to get Iran to halt enrichment.

IRAN: Tehran takes war case against Israel to U.N.

Maybe he was just playing politics, painting himself as a hawk to take on his battered rival. Maybe he was revving up the world for war against the country of his birth.

In any case, an Israeli cabinet minister's remark calling a war against Iran "unavoidable" has had global repercussions, sending oil prices to record highs and drawing condemnation today at the United Nations and by the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Israeli Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz, in remarks published Friday, said Iran's drive to master the enrichment of uranium, a key component in creating a domestic nuclear weapon program as well as peaceful nuclear energy, guaranteed a war:

If Iran continues with its program for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The sanctions are ineffective. Attacking Iran, in order to stop its nuclear plans, will be unavoidable.

IRAN: Writer says war won't stop nuclear program

The possibility of a United States or Israeli war to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions has been an obsession among foreign policy wonks, diplomats and journalists for some time.

Many Iran experts believe such a war would be a disaster that would fail to halt Iran's nuclear program. Michael Axworthy (pictured right) is one of them.

During the 1970s, the British author and former diplomat traveled to Iran many times while his parents lived and worked there. He joined the British foreign service in 1986, serving as a head of the Iran desk from 1998 to 2000. 

Over the last eight years he's been writing books and teaching about Iran in the United Kingdom. His latest book, "A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind," was released last month. It traces the country's history from its earliest days, emphasizing its religious, intellectual and cultural traditions.

Axworthy graciously agreed to an e-mail interview about Iran and its current confrontation with the West.  "The crisis is a result of the hostility that has persisted between the U.S. and Iran since the revolution of 1979 and the hostage crisis.

"But it has its roots in the U.S.-Iran relationship earlier than that, notably in U.S. support for the regime of the Shah in the 1960s and 1970s, and the coup attempted by the British and the CIA against Prime Minister Mossadeq in 1953. The prime reason the clerical regime in Iran might want a nuclear weapon is as a deterrent to the U.S. regime-change policy."

LOS ANGELES TIMES: Is the U.S. going to launch a war against Iran?

MICHAEL AXWORTHY: I believe the costs to the U.S. of military action are too high, and that there have been  at least two effective rebellions against that idea within the U.S. system already — the most recent being the National Intelligence Report report last November, in which the U.S. intelligence community declared that Iran had not been pursuing a nuclear weapon program since 2003.

But if the U.S. and the wider international community are unable to stop the Iranian program (whether by warlike or peaceful means) then Israel could take action unilaterally.

IRAN: Khamenei binds nukes to revolution's goals

Iran's top political, religious and military authority said his country would refuse to back down on its nuclear ambitions, regardless of what the U.S. tried to do.

Supreme leader Ali Khamenei spoke today to thousands of followers as well as politicians, ambassadors and other dignitaries gathered at the south Tehran tomb of revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on the 19th anniversary of his death.

"Our nation will not back down one moment against bullying of the U.S," he said in a momentous and politically charged speech:

The U.S. and its allies are ready to transfer nuclear technology to countries with much less technological competence, but refuse to accept our rights in that regard and all the time they accuse us of pursuing a nuclear bomb. We have said over and over again that we do not want the bomb. But because we have managed to have native nuclear technology and we are not depending on them for that, they are accusing us of trying to have nuclear weapon. For them if you are technologically dependent on them in the nuclear field, they do not mind you having nuclear power. But they know that the Iranian nation has achieved nuclear technology for peaceful purposes without relying on them. That is why they are against us.

Seated in an armchair, with his white long beard and eyeglasses framing his pale face, Khamenei said the U.S. was baffled by Iran:

SYRIA: Nuclear inspectors going to Israeli strike site

Nuclear weapons inspectors are heading to Syria this month in an attempt clear up the lingering mystery about a Syrian military site bombed in an Israeli raid in September, officials announced today.

U.S. officials told lawmakers in April that the targeted site was a secret plutonium reactor being built with the help of North Korean scientists. Satellite photos suggest that Syria demolished and dismantled the site shortly after the Sept. 6, 2007, airstrike.

Today International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei told his board of governors that an inspection team was heading to Syria to inspect the site from June 22 to 24.

The embattled ElBaradei has been criticized by neoconservatives in Washington as being too soft on Iran's nuclear program. After various vague explanations, Syria has for months insisted that the site was nothing more than an unused military site. U.S. intelligence agencies presented evidence that purported to show that the site was a carefully hidden nuclear facility.

IRAN: Nuclear duel heats up over IAEA report

If the latest International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iran's nuclear program was meant to serve as a wake-up call and warning to Tehran to back away from its nuclear ambitions, it sure didn't seem to work very well.

The full IAEA report (136 KB PDF file) was distributed to the board of the United Nations nuclear inspection watchdog and promptly leaked Monday to reporters, and it was denounced by Iranian officials throughout the week.

The report contained tantalizing clues about the contents of a smuggled laptop computer allegedly containing evidence of a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program, which will be discussed this week in Vienna. 

Reaction to the report in Iran has been negative if not hostile. Even the relative liberals within Iran's circle of power have cried foul. The reformist newspaper Etemad Melli wrote in Thursday's editions that Iran shouldn't abide by IAEA suggestions that Iran hand over any document requested.

"This is not legally enforceable and no end can be imagined for it," it said.

Today, foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini spent 15 minutes of his half-hour weekly press briefing to deliver a speech about the weak and strong points of the recent IAEA report.

He said:

The recent report shows largely that Iran has not had any non-peaceful nuclear acitivities. However under the pressure of one or two Western countries (U.S. and UK or France, likely), the report has provided some stuff for the pretext-seeking countries. We should bear in mind that not a single negative point has been documented in the report against Iran's peaceful nuclear activities, but those one or two countries are seeking a pretext.

IRAN: Former German official says war imminent

An opinion piece by the former German foreign minister published today in a leading Middle East paper says that Israel is planning to attack Iran over its nuclear program.

Joschka Fischer, German's top diplomat from 1998 to 2005, is a visiting scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

[UPDATE, June 2, 3 p.m. PST: Fischer was actually a fellow at Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, not at WWICS]

He wrote a piece that appeared in today's Daily Star, an English-language  Lebanese newspaper, arguing that President Bush's recent visit to the Middle East was a precursor to a war on Iran's nuclear program:

The Middle East is drifting toward a new great confrontation in 2008. Iran must understand that without a diplomatic solution in the coming months, a dangerous military conflict is very likely to erupt. It is high time for serious negotiations to begin.

Fischer said Bush's speech during his address to the Israeli Knesset, or parliament, this month indicated a coming Israeli-U.S. attack on Iran's nuclear program:

He seemed to be planning, together with Israel, to end the Iranian nuclear program -- and to do so by military, rather than by diplomatic, means.... Although it is acknowledged in Israel that an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would involve grave and hard-to-assess risks, the choice between acceptance of an Iranian bomb and an attempt at its military destruction, with all the attendant consequences, is clear. Israel won't stand by and wait for matters to take their course.

Fischer, former leader of Germany's Green Party, was one of the key diplomats involved in assessing Iran's nuclear facilities and pressuring Tehran for a temporary halt of its uranium enrichment program from 2003 to 2005, when he left office.

His piece was the talk of the town in Beirut. It stunned some abroad, as well. Conservative blogger Don Surber writes:

I had hoped that reasonable minds would by now have resolved this situation amicably and without violence. When a lefty like Fischer doubts that can happen, I worry.

—Borzou Daragahi in Beirut

Photo: Joschka Fischer. Credit: Andrzej Barabasz / Wikimedia Commons

IRAN: Ahmadinejad loves to talk, but not to Bush

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today said he'd be delighted to meet with the president of the United States.

Just not with George W. Bush, whose term runs out in eight months.

"Except for the Zionist regime [i.e., Israel], we are ready to negotiate with any country,"  he told reporters in one of his infamous rambling news conferences today:

"Before I said I was ready to have a debate with President Bush. Now I say I am ready to hold a debate with the U.S. presidential candidate before large audiences of the world, because Bush is the outgoing president and no longer relevant."

The press-friendly president  of an increasingly press-unfriendly country also took on questions ranging from Iran's controversial nuclear program to the price of food in the capital.

IRAN: Clinton's 'obliterate' remark draws U.N. attention

Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's April 22 warning to Iranians that the U.S. could "totally obliterate" their country if they "considered" attacking Israel sparked international outrage.

But now the New York senator has one-upped even President Bush. The former Texas governor kept a pretty low profile on the global scene as he ran for president in 2000. But candidate Clinton has managed to stir up an official international incident before even stepping into the White House.

Today came word that the Islamic Republic of Iran had filed a formal letter of complaint against the former first lady for her well-publicized comment, which came in response to a question on ABC News' "Good Morning America."

IRAN: Messages of war and bombings escalate

If the medium is the message, as the Canadian scholar Marshall McLuhan put it, the Iranians couldn't possibly mistake the recent communications by the United States. 

On Tuesday, President Bush told reporters that the Israeli bombing of an alleged North Korean-designed nuclear facility in Syria was not just directed against Pyongyang and Damascus, but was also a not-so-subtle telegram to Tehran.

Answering a question about the sudden resurfacing of the Sept. 16 attack on the Syrian facility, Bush strongly suggested that the United States and Israel had Iran in mind when Syria was bombed:

SYRIA: More questions about alleged nuclear site

Professor William Beeman at the University of Minnesota passed along a note today from "a colleague with a U.S. security clearance" about the mysterious Syrian site targeted in a Sept. 6 Israeli airstrike.

The note raises more questions about the evidence shown last week by U.S. intelligence officials to lawmakers in the House and Senate. 

The author of the note pinpoints irregularities about the photographs. Beeman's source alleges that the CIA "enhanced" some of the images. For example he cites this image:

The lower part of the building, the annex, and the windows pointing south appear much sharper than the rest of the photo, suggesting that they were digitally improved.

The author points to more questions about the photographs of the Syrian site.

SYRIA: Was Damascus building a nuclear program?

So are the Syrians or the Americans bending facts about Kibar?

That's the site in the eastern deserts of Syria destroyed in an Israeli airstrike on Sept. 6. The consequences Kibar airstrike continue to unfold. Los Angeles Times Washington bureau reporter Nicole Gaouette writes today about the bipartisan skepticism of U.S. lawmakers about the timing and substance of the Bush administration's presentations (see video below) about the site last week.

The presentations to the Senate and House intelligence committees were meant to show that North Koreans were helping the Syrians build a plutonium reactor. Instead, the evidence drew unusually strong criticism.

IRAN: Considering Hillary Clinton's 'obliterate' remarks

A supporter of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has sent a note in a response to an earlier post suggesting that the presidential candidate's statement vowing to "totally obliterate" Iran if it were to launch an attack on Israel was taken out of context.

Actually, what she said Tuesday on ABC's "Good Morning America" was that she would "totally obliterate them" even if they merely "consider" launching an attack on Israel.

Here's a clip from the interview with ABC's Chris Cuomo:

Below a transcript of the entire exchange:

IRAN: Hillary's threat to "obliterate" in war reverberates

 

Better be careful what you say in the heat of a political campaign. It could have global repercussions.

Presidential contender Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's vow to "obliterate" Iran, presumably with nuclear weapons, if it attacked Israel on her watch was duly noted in the U.S.

[UPDATE: To see a video and full transcript of the comment, click here.]

Jaded American insiders shrugged off the remark as typical campaign season bluster, filed away with myriad other exaggerations and gaffes.

But it prompted shock overseas as well as headlines from Bulgaria to New Zealand.

MIDDLE EAST: Spy games

Two blockbuster Middle East espionage tales emerged from Washington today.

First, a scoop by Los Angeles Times diplomatic reporter Paul Richter and intelligence reporter Greg Miller: The CIA plans to brief key lawmakers in a closed-door session about the mysterious Syrian site that was the target of an Israeli air raid in September.

The report cites anonymous Beltway officials. Here's an excerpt: