NPR news reader: An Iranian news agency says today that a senior official has made another provocative announcement. The official proclaims Iran is about to install homemade nuclear fuel in a research reactor.
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David Ignatius was interviewed on NPR this morning. The picture he drew of escalations in the run-up to what appears to be imminent war was grim.
NPR: All this talk comes during a week in which Israelis have been targeted and in some cases injured in several countries: India, Thailand, the Republic of Georgia. Israel is blaming Iran.
David Ignatius: What's striking from the evidence that we have -- and obviously it's fragmentary -- is that this is not a highly professional operation that Iran is running. The attack in India was botched in the sense that it wounded the wife of an Israeli defense official there and infuriated the Indians who are an important oil customer of Iran. The attack that's alleged to have been attempted in Tblisi -- in Georgia -- was against somebody who was employed by the Israeli embassy and it didn't work. The incident in Bangkok involving grenades is a kind of crazy, amateurish story of a guy blowing his own legs off. So if these allegations are true, they tell you that Iran is willing to take more risks to retaliate against Israel for what it perceives to have been Israeli covert actions in Iran. But they're not carrying these attacks out with a high level of skill.
NPR: Now -- we're getting into areas where there's less and less evidence and so we have to speak carefully. But a number of Iranian scientists have been assassinated. It's not clear who is doing it. But, of course, the Iranians have blame the US, they've blamed Israel. Is it possible to see some of these attacks as an effort ot respond?
David Ignatius: We, because of the MO -- the modus operandi -- in the Indian and Georgian attacks, where a bomb was affixed to a car, which is the same MO that allegedly was used in the attacks on Iranian scientists in Teheran, it does look like a direct response. As you say, we don't know who's been killing those scientists in Teheran. But I think it's safe to say that what we're looking at is a kind of shadow war, a "dirty war," involving intelligence services and operatives. Again, we speculating here, but this sort of tit-for-tat warfare is a sideshow to the real issue which is the Iranian nuclear program. I would think in Israel there would be a desire to focus on the main issue -- which is stopping the program.
NPR: That leads to another question, then. The Israelis are said to discussing the possibility of an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. If Israelis are being attacked in various countries, and the Israelis immediately and loudly blame this on Iran, do such attacks at some point give Israel a casus belli -- a reason to attack, a reason to go to war?
David Ignatius: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is said not to have made the decision yet about whether to strike, with a bombing assault, on the Iranian nuclear program. But it's one more thing that pushes these two countries towards the sort of situation where you would see the cracl-up -- where you'd see actual military action.
NPR: So you're suggesting that, if in fact we have two countries that are targeting each other's nationals -- which we can't prove, certainly -- it could increase the risk of war for any reason. Accidental war!
David Ignatius: Graham Allison, who is a professor at Harvard University, has spoken about the confrontation over Iran's nuclear program as "the Cuban missile crisis in slow motion." Actions like the ones we're seeing -- assassinations in different capitols -- add to the momentum. The motion speeds up. The risk of an accidental, unplanned series of events that cascades into war is greater. ...NPR
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The New York Times chimes in with a report updated this afternoon.
Besieged by international sanctions over the Iranian nuclear program including a planned oil embargo by Europe, Iran warned its six largest European buyers on Wednesday that it might strike first by immediately cutting them off from Iranian oil.
Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency said the warning was conveyed to the ambassadors of Italy, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Greece and Portugal in separate meetings at the Foreign Ministry in Tehran. Officials said an earlier report by Press TV, Iran’s state-financed satellite broadcaster, that Iran had already cut supplies to the six countries was inaccurate — but not before word of the Press TV report sent a brief shudder through the global oil market, sending prices up slightly.
“Iran warns Europe it will find other customers for its oil,” the Islamic Republic News Agency said. “European people should know that if Iran changes destinations of the oil it gives to them, the responsibility will rest with the European governments themselves.” ...NYT
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A new Times update focuses on the divisions and tensions within Iran in its response to more aggressive sanctions.
... The intentions of Iran’s divided leadership are notoriously difficult to divine, and even as Mr. Ahmadinejad declared defiantly that “the era of bullying nations has passed,” another Iranian official said Tehran was ready for new talks on the nuclear issue. ...
... The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, confirmed on Wednesday that she had received a reply from a top Iranian official responding to her invitation to negotiations over the future of its nuclear program. Iran’s Al Alam television said the country had offered to “hold new talks over its nuclear program in a constructive way.”
American officials reacted with caution to the reported offer to talk and said they saw little substance in either the oil threat or Mr. Ahmadinejad’s announcement that Iran had new centrifuges able to enrich uranium more quickly. The Iranian president was shown on live television overseeing the loading of what was described as an Iranian-made fuel rod into a research reactor and declaring that “the arrogant powers cannot monopolize nuclear technology. ..."...NYT
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An NPR correspondent in Thailand describes the hamfisted bombing attempt by an Iranian agentin Bangkok mentioned by Ignatius in the interview, above.
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And The Hill reports on Iran's latest efforts to negotiate with the UN.
Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator said in a letter that the country welcomes resuming negotiations on its nuclear program.
The letter from chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili said Iran wants to resume the talks with the permanent U.N. Security Council nations — the United States, England, France, Russia and China — plus Germany, according to the semi-official FARS News Agency.
The letter was sent just before Iran announced it had advanced its nuclear program, which included the production of homegrown nuclear fuel rods and an underground uranium enrichment site getting online. ...The Hill
