Archive for the 'Iran' Category

It is extremely difficult to earn a PhD in Engineering.  While PhDs in other disciplines read hundreds of books, perform research and author and verbally defend dissertations, engineering is still a cut above and a category apart from other fields.  To earn a PhD in engineering most often means not only the above, but additionally four to five years in graduate school, along with complicated research and most often computer modeling.  A typical PhD candidate might write the source code, debug and validate a computer code consisting of 100,000 lines of FORTRAN and/or C++ for the purpose of modeling some esoteric problem that possibly only he and his thesis advisor knows about and understands.  The investment in time and resources (monetary) often create circumstances in which it is not worthwhile for U.S. students to go this far with their education.  The pay that a BS or MS graduate in engineering can earn over four or five years, modified by the time value of money, has decreased the number of students in the U.S. seeking advanced degrees in engineering.  Of course, this creates the need for other PhD candidates to fill the gap in order to keep programs open.

Enter the foreign student.  It has for some time been recognized that foreign students are comprising an increasing fraction of the PhD students in U.S. universities.  In fact, universities themselves are aware of the problem and know that it is important, along with the U.S. government, to track such students and be aware of their intentions (will they stay in the U.S. or return to their homeland?).  The “sensitive” disciplines are: nuclear technology, cyberterrorism, chemical and explosives technology (munitions), and biological terrorism, with nuclear technology being the most sensitive.

But this alleged knowledge of who is earning advanced degrees in the U.S. has not held in abatement the increasing number of foreign students in sensitive disciplines, many from surprising countries.  According to a study entitled “The Importance of Foreign Ph.D. Students to U.S. Science,” the authors point out that concerning the sensitive fields of nuclear and organic chemistry, chemical and nuclear engineering, bacteriology, biochemistry, biotechnology research, microbiology and neuroscience, and atomic, chemical, molecular and nuclear physics, approximately 10% of the degrees awarded in these areas were awarded to students from 26 countries that are on the State Department “watch” list as being state sponsors of terrorism, including Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, Malaysia, Egypt and Jordan.

Jordan is ostensibly an ally in the global war on terror.  In fact, the newly released “Militant Ideology Atlas” from the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point notes that the most influential jihadist cleric in the world today, al-Maqdisi, resides in Jordan.  Also, we have covered the Iranian push for nuclear weapons technology.  In further demonstration of the Iranian duplicity in claiming that the pursuit of nuclear technology is for peaceful purposes, CNN, the Telegraph, UPI and the Strategy Page are all covering the Iranian weapons exchange for Somalian uranium that was recently exposed by the IAEA.

Development in U.S. nuclear forensics technology includes, in part, signature methods to ascertain the origin and history of radioactive materials.  For example, materials irradiated in reactors have trace constituents that are informative of the original target composition, reactor type and irradiation history.

For my readers who have written before to complain that the prose on this web site that “issues forth from my pen” (e.g., concerning snipers) informs the enemy of our weaknesses and vulnerabilities, they should consider the fact that (in this instance) Iran already knows U.S. vulnerabilities and forensic capabilities, and is attempting to exploit them by purchasing uranium from Somalia.  In the future, when a nuclear device explodes in a U.S. city or somewhere in the Middle East, presumably Israel, if the uranium was deemed to be originally from Somalia, Iran has a alibi, or at least, so they think.

Pointing out U.S. vulnerabilities is the honest thing to do, and ignoring them the dangerous and unethical thing.  Henceforth, when we observe developments in nuclear technology, chemical and biological warfare capabilities, and the other myriad things that can cause mass injury and death to American citizens, we should keep in the forefront of our thinking: “The U.S. has possibly aided the enemy by training him to kill us.”

There is much confusion over the recently released International Atomic Energy Agency (hereafter, IAEA) report on the Iranian nuclear program.  The International Herald Tribune is reporting that the “International Atomic Energy Agency experts have found unexplained plutonium and highly enriched uranium traces in a nuclear waste facility in Iran and have asked Tehran for details, an IAEA report said Tuesday.”  Reuters is reporting that “IAEA inspectors detected bits of plutonium in samples of particles of highly enriched uranium (HEU) taken earlier from containers at the Karaj atomic waste facility near Tehran.”

To gain clarity on these issues, one needs access to documents and analysis other than main stream media reports and disjointed accounts of the situation.  The IAEA has a page devoted to formal statements on Iran.  The story begins long ago, but it is necessary to go back at least to January of 2006 to understand the November report.

In January of 2006, IAEA inspectors found some high enriched Uranium particles at locations where Iran has declared that centrifuge components had been manufactured, used and/or stored.  In the same report, the IAEA said “in order to clarify differences between findings by the Agency and statements made by Iran, a number of plutonium discs were brought by the Agency back to to Vienna for further analysis to determine the exact isotopic composition of the plutonium.  The Agency’s analysis showed, in particular, that the Pu-240 content measured on eight of the discs was significantly lower than the Pu-240 content of the solution from which the plutonium deposited on the discs was said to have originated.”

In a report on August 31, 2006, the IAEA reiterated the complaint (lodged in earlier reports) that Iran had refused to cooperate in ascertaining the origin of the high enriched uranium particles found and discussed in the February report.  The IAEA also confirmed the laboratory results of the sample, stating that “Analysis of the environmental samples taken from equipment at a technical university in January 2006, referred to in paragraph 25 of GOV/2006/27, showed a small number of particles of natural and high enriched uranium.”

The IAEA prepares reports for board review prior to meetings, and the board decides on release of the reports to the public as one of the functions of the meeting.  The November 14, 2006 report (GOV/2006/64) has not been formally released yet, but Vital Perspective has obtained the report and has posted a link to it.  In this report the IAEA divulges that the test results had been communicated to Iran: “Under cover of the Agency’s letter of 16 October 2006 … Iran was provided with a detailed assessment of the results of further analysis of the samples taken from the containers at Karaj, and was requested to provide further clarification of the presence of the HEU particles and clarification of an additional finding of plutonium in the samples.  On 13 November 2006, Iran provided a response to that request, which the Agency is currently assessing.”

Iran’s reponse is nothing but a subterfuge.  Nothing technical, detailed, meaningful or substantive is contained in the response.  Further, there is technical falsehood contained in the response.  From the Reuters article cited above, Iran has included this in their reponse: “the HEU could have come from spent fuel from a Tehran light-water research reactor.”

The IAEA has found a plutonium ‘vector’ (i.e., isotopic composition) on certain components that is different from the alleged source.  They have also found highly enriched uranium particles, leading to significant concerns over the enrichment process.  As we have discussed before, highly enriched uranium does not come from spent fuel.  Low enriched uranium (5% or lower) is used to fuel and operate commercial light water reactors, but highly enriched uranium (>> 90%) is used for only two purposes: Naval reactors (Submarines and Aircraft Carriers), for which Iran does not have the technology, and nuclear weapons.  HEU has these two purposes, and no more.  HEU comes from the enrichment process, not from spent fuel.

Finally, we have covered the issue of Iran’s heavy water reactor and the fact that the alleged medical use of heavy water is a lie.  Heavy water will be used, upon completion of Iran’s reactor, to create plutonium for nuclear weapons.

Despite the hyperventilating media reports, the discovery of HEU particles and plutonium is nothing new.  There is no need for a new discovery.  The old ones – and the test results, and Iran’s refusal to come clean about them – is enough.

The Royal Institute of International Affairs (also known as the Chatham House) in Britain recently released a report essentially charging that the U.S.-led war in Iraq has strengthened Iran.

The United States, with Coalition support, has eliminated two of Iran’s regional rival governments — the Taliban in Afghanistan in November 2001 and Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq in April 2003 — but has failed to replace either with coherent and stable political structures. The outbreak of conflict on two fronts in June –July 2006 between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza, and Israel and Hizbullah in Lebanon has added to the regional dimensions of this instability.

Consequently, Iran has moved to fill the regional void with an apparent ease that has disturbed both regional players and the United States and its European allies. Iran is one of the most significant and powerful states in the region and its influence spreads well beyond its critical location at the nexus of the Middle East, Turkey, the Caucasus, Central Asia and South Asia.

This influence has a variety of forms but all can be turned against the US presence in Iraq with relative ease, and almost certainly would heighten US casualties to the point where a continued presence might not be tenable. Sources in Iraq are already warning that the major cities (including Basra and Baghdad) have witnessed a rise in the activities of Iranian paramilitary units and the recent bout of violence and instability in Basra is now considered to be a small display of what would happen if Iran itself was targeted.

This is certainly an unintended consequence, but for the purpose of precision in our analysis, it should be made clear that this is not directly a function of the global war on terror.  Rather, if Iran has becomed stronger as a result of the broader war, it is a function of the strategy the U.S. has chosen to implement the war.  As we have previously discussed, the conduct of the war has been marked by brilliant command decision juxtaposed with lurching and stumbling.  The initial ground campaign was magnificent, but it bypassed large urban areas leaving huge numbers of Mujahideen alive to fight another day.  The force size was perfect for the initial ground campaign and woefully inadequate for the maintenance of security.  The U.S. troops too quickly transitioned from conventional operations to counterinsurgency, and rather than share the risk with the Iraqi people, they reflexively cloistered on well-gaurded bases and stayed there the more that IEDs became the primary means of warring against them.  As a result, the homes, schools and streets became more dangerous, and the high level of danger brought more power to those who can cause the danger and inflict the pain.

But the things directly under our control at the present cause us to have no excuse for any further strengthening of Iran.  One such instance of having no excuse is the State Department.  In a jaw-dropping example of the reticence at the State Department, the U.S. has just yesterday approved the sale of aircraft parts to Iran, and has given us this reasoning for its support.

“Our recommendation is consistent with the US government’s commitment to promote international safety-of-flight standards and ensure the safety of all aviation passengers, including the citizens of Iran,” the State Department said.

The US Federal Aviation Administration recommended immediate overhaul of US-made engines on certain Airbus planes, some of which are used by Iran Air, the statement said, and the US Departments of Commerce and State reported to Congress their recommendations to allow the sale.

“Therefore, despite our grave concerns regarding the Iranian regime’s activities, we believe this decision is consistent with our commitment to support the Iranian people and to use US sanctions to target the regime, not the Iranian people.”

To set this in context, imagine for a moment that it is 1944, and the State Department is proudly waltzing onto stage to announce that we have just approved the sale of U.S. steel manufacturing and fabrication technology to Germany because we care about the people.

Until and unless the State Department is coerced into actually contributing to the global war on terror (that is, on behalf of the U.S., we are constrained to mention), we are fighting with one hand tied behind our back.

This little nuggert from an article otherwise focused on Iranian funding of the violence in Iraq:

“You see them enabling all comers,

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has gone on record stating the obvious, i.e., that Iraq will need troop presence for some protracted period of time to protect against aggression from its neighbors (and it is presumed he is speaking mainly of Iran).

“The American presence has always prevented any kind of foreign invasion to Iraq,” Talabani said.

“That’s one of the main reasons why we think that we need an American presence, even symbolical, in the country to prevent our neighbors attacking us,” he said at a forum at the Woodrow Wilson Center, a Washington think thank (sic).

Talabani also said Baghdad could not “further tolerate” neighbors’ interference in its internal affairs.

“I think that our neighbors must understand that our patience is limited,” he said, refusing to single out countries but adding “we mean all of them.”

Iraq shares borders with Syria, Iran, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

Asked if there was concern over aggression from Turkey, Talabani said: “I don’t think there is any danger for invasion by Turkey to Iraq.”

But as soon as he said this, dissenting voices began to howl back at this proposal, including specifically Sunni clerics and generally the Shia.  It is no mistake that Talabani, a Kurdish politician who has reached out to the Sunni in an attempt at reconciliation, has made these statements.  The Kurds and the Sunni population know exactly what the Shia majority is capable of given the recent revenge killings by Shia death squads.

I’ll go out on a limb and say that if the U.S. doesn’t have a strong military presence in Iraq for the foreseeable future, U.S. deaths will have been in vain.  Our operation in Iraq will amount to nothing more than the overthrow of the Sunni strongman so that Iran could then wield its influence.  That is, we will have done Iran’s work for them at the expense of U.S. lives.

Threats Watch picked up an interesting study done at Stanford entitled An Uncertain Ceasefire Takes Hold in Lebanon.  The salient quote is:

International sources—the news departments of CNN, ABC, and CBS, et cetera—widely agree that Iran feeds Hezbollah upwards of $250 million in direct funding annually. This may be an overestimation, but the low-end estimate of the Center for Strategic and International Studies places Iranian aid to Hezbollah at a quite considerable $50 million annually. Even according to this most conservative figure, Iran spends, as a fraction of GDP, nearly three times as much arming Hezbollah as the United States spends arming the Marine Corps under the 2005 Navy budget. This astonishing comparison exposes the hopelessness of disarming Hezbollah with a strategy that does not include Iran.

This is interesting on several levels.  First, it shows the commitment that Iran has to the spread of its influence around the region.  As I have pointed out before, Iran sees itself at the head of a new regional Caliphate.  This amount of money is not trivial, especially for a country that is widely acknowledged to be in some degree of economic trouble in spite of its oil revenue stream.

But second — and most interesting — is that this amount is not truly spent “arming” Hizballah.  To be sure, a significant fraction of this is used directly for armaments and munitions.  But a significant fraction is also spent as largesse in southern Lebanon … schools, medical care, welfare for the high numbers of unemployed, etc. … leading in no small part to the political influence of Iran, via Hizballah, in Lebanon.

Paralleling a theme in my posts on Iran, the study does come to the correct conclusion.  We will not win in a battle to disarm Hizballah, the Shia militia in Iraq, or anywhere else where Iran has influence, unless and until we muzzle Iran — politically, militarily, or both.

We have worked hard to defang the Sunni extremists (al Qaeda, Taliban), but sooner or later we will have to face off the Shia extremists.  If it is later, the costs will be higher.

From the Gulf News:

A major Sunni group is holding talks with the Iraqi government over disarming of the Shiite militia belonging to Moqtada Al Sadr, Iraqi political sources said.

Adnan Al Dulaimi, head of the Iraqi Accordance Front who is holding the talks with the government, has also called for the government to resign if it fails to handle the issue of disarming Shiite militias, like the Mehdi Army, which is led by Al Sadr.

Sunni locations in Baghdad, such as Saydiya, Hurriya and Doura, are witnessing attacks by men in black clothes, believed to be members of the Mehdi Army.

Al Dulaimi, in direct contact with the Americans, asked them to disperse a special military force in Hurriya to put an end to the Mehdi Army attacks.

Sources in the Iraqi Accordance Front are negotiating with Iraq Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki to chalk out procedures to disarm militias and deter the Mehdi Army in Baghdad.

“Al Maliki is ready to take additional … procedures against the Mehdi Army. But apparently is under pressure from religious Shiite leaders to stop …taking serious measures in this respect,” said a source in the Front.

The same sources told Gulf News there is an Iraqi-American military plan to tackle the Mehdi Army, which attacks Sunni locations, carries out abductions, tortures and killing.

However, Al Maliki seems reluctant to implement the plan. Also, the contacts between the Iraqi Accordance Front and the Shiite coalition headed by Abdul Aziz Al Hakim has reached a dead end, after the Shiite coalition and Al Sadr refused to admit the responsibility of some of their members in killing tens of Iraqis daily.

“Al Maliki wants to conduct a political dialogue with the Al Sadr group. He wants to be backed by religious Shiite leaders to resolve the Mehdi dossier peacefully,” Abbas Al Bayati, a Member of Parliament, told Gulf News.

However, sources in Meshaan Al Jubouri’s group, a Sunni Member in Parliament, told Gulf News Al Maliki’s plans to rid the Ministry of Interior of Al Sadr elements is greatly criticised by religious leaders in Najaf and Karbala.

I have made the point that the degree to which the U.S. wins the war in Iraq is a linear function of the degree to which we disarm and muzzle both the Shia militia and their proximate leaders, Iran.

Rewind … repeat.  I say again.  If we do not disarm the Shia militias and muzzle Iran, we will lose the war.  Period.  No amount of reconstruction and good will can change this axiom.

Iran has designs on a regional Caliphate, and has positioned special operations forces in Iraq.  These troops, along with the Shia in Iraq, could pose more than just a theoretical threat later down the road.  If desired, they could cut or at least cripple the U.S. lines of supply in Iraq.

In Iran’s Iraq Strategy and Iran Muscles in on Iraq, as well as my posts in the Iran category, I outline what I believe to be Iran’s strategy for Iraq.  The peace cannot be won with al Qaeda by any amount of politics.  The same can be said for the Sunni diehards in al Anbar, as well as those Sunni fighters filtering into the Baghdad area.  I have long held that one key to the security of Baghdad is peace in the Sunni triangle.  If the peace was secured in the Sunni triangle, there would be few Sunni insurgents left to wreak violence in and around Baghdad.

The Shia militia are perhaps even more important than the Sunni or even al Qaeda, and whether peace can be won by political means is a salient question.  I hold that peace can be won with the Shia, but only if their power broker — Iran — has been muzzled.  The Shia in Iraq will seek peace and stability if they see Iran on the ropes, politically and militarily.

Leaving behind the question of the propriety of the war in Iraq for a moment and thinking critically about unintended consequences of our presence in Iraq, there is a sobering and statement in Time, July 24, 2006, by Joe Klein (The Iran Factor):

The U.S. “has been Iran’s very best friend,” a diplomat from a predominantly Sunni nation told me recently.  “You have eliminated its enemies, the Taliban and Saddam Hussein.  You have even reduced yourselves as a threat to Iran because you have spent so much blood and treasure in Iraq.”

The Shia in Iraq are closely connected to Iran as I have pointed out in my posts, but there is very interesting and troubling assessment of Iranian and Iraqi Shia capabilities that was published on July 21, 2206, by Patrick Lang in the Christian Science Monitor, entitled The vulnerable line of supply to U.S. troops in Iraq.  In it, he observes:

American troops all over central and northern Iraq are supplied with fuel, food, and ammunition by truck convoy from a supply base hundreds of miles away in Kuwait. All but a small amount of our soldiers’ supplies come into the country over roads that pass through the Shiite-dominated south of Iraq.

Until now the Shiite Arabs of Iraq have been told by their leaders to leave American forces alone. But an escalation of tensions between Iran and the US could change that overnight. Moreover, the ever-increasing violence of the civil war in Iraq can change the alignment of forces there unexpectedly.

Southern Iraq is thoroughly infiltrated by Iranian special operations forces working with Shiite militias, such as Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigades. Hostilities between Iran and the United States or a change in attitude toward US forces on the part of the Baghdad government could quickly turn the supply roads into a “shooting gallery” 400 to 800 miles long.

At present, the convoys of trucks supplying our forces in Iraq are driven by civilians – either South Asians or Turks. If the route is indeed turned into a shooting gallery, these civilian truck drivers would not persist or would require a heavier escort by the US military.

It might then be necessary to “fight” the trucks through ambushes on the roads. This is a daunting possibility. Trucks loaded with supplies are defenseless against many armaments, such as rocket-propelled grenades, small arms, and improvised explosive devices. A long, linear target such as a convoy of trucks is very hard to defend against irregulars operating in and around their own towns.

The volume of “throughput” would probably be seriously lessened in such a situation. A reduction in supplies would inevitably affect operational capability. This might lead to a downward spiral of potential against the insurgents and the militias. This would be very dangerous for our forces.

Final victory in Iraq will be a function of the degree to which we muzzle Iran.  In the mean time, let’s hope that this assessment exaggerates the danger Iran poses, but I fear that it is spot on.  This is made darker still with the newfound respect the U.S. military has for the Iranian military.

The U.S. is in an intricate dance with Pakistan, balancing concerns over a potentially unstable regime armed with nuclear weapons with the need for access to troubled provinces as well as A. Q. Khan, the father of the nuclear program in Pakistan.  This dance must end at some point, and the Taliban must be defeated while information is also mined concerning the Iranian nuclear program.

Since the intense pressure in 2001 on Pakistan to take sides in the GWOT, the U.S. has been in a tricky and tenuous dance with Musharraf.  Pakistan is armed with nuclear weapons, and the father of this program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, is widely regarded as a hero in Pakistan for putting Pakistan on even ground with India.

Pakistan also has strong elements of radical Islam in its intelligence services, but Musharraf has claimed that its nuclear weapons are under strict custody and will not fall into the wrong hands.  But the U.S. administration has taken the position that Musharraf, while weak in his handling of the radical elements in Pakistan, is better than the alternative should a coup topple his government.

It was a made-for-main-stream-media confession that Musharraf gave recently concerning their nuclear proliferation:

Musharraf claims he only suspected that Khan was passing secrets to Iran and North Korea until the then CIA director George Tenet confronted him with proof at the United Nations in 2003.

“(Tenet) passed me some papers. It was a centrifuge design with all its numbers and signatures of Pakistan. It was the most embarrassing moment,

The contention between the House Intelligence Committee and the national intelligence community continues, while Condoleezza Rice continues to believe (falsely) that Russia will support sanctions.  Meanwhile, Iran continues its push to go nuclear.

The U.S. intelligence community still suffers from the Clinton administration’s stripping it thread-bare of human intelligence resources.  There is a woeful dearth of reliable and trustworthy information concerning the precise state of affairs of the Iranian nuclear enrichment program.  Even so, the U.S. intelligence community is sticking to its guns by refusing to revise the timeline for a nuclear Iran, in a showdown with the House Intelligence Committee.  At the same time, Israel’s foreign minister Tzipi Livni said on Sunday that the world may have as little as a few months to avoid a nuclear Iran, and called for sanctions.

Elsewhere we learn that the EU is capitulating and Condoleezza Rice actually believes that Russia and China will support the U.S. as it pertains to U.N. sanctions.  Of course, this is false.  As Dick Morris reported on FNC a few nights ago, and has reported elsewhere, Russia is practicing regional energy hegemony, and needs the natural gas supply from Iran to effect this control over energy.  Neither Russia nor China will support sanctions, and it is mystifying that Rice believes so.

Finally, we learn that:

Another of the U.S. officials said intel reports show Iran was experiencing significant problems with gyroscopes it has been trying to install on missiles that could deliver Iranian bombs to targets in the region and even further. 

In the total absence of consideration of a nuclear program, Iran is pursuing missile technology that it does not need to defend itself from any sort of regional aggression.

Prior:

• Iran’s Highly Enriched Uranium from Spent Fuel? Not Hardly
• Iran’s Heavy Water Reactor
• Highly Enriched Uranium Found in Iran