Iran's History Makes Israel Nervous Especially If It Gets A Nuke.

Iran's Views of Jews and the U.S.

by Lawrence A. Franklin
February 17, 2015 at 5:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5222/iran-jews

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Iran's imminent nuclear breakout capability will, of course, come with insufficient notice for anyone to stop it.
With its new intercontinental ballistic missiles, Iran can deliver these nuclear warheads to every capital of Europe. It does not even have to do that. It need only threaten to, while spelling out what it wants.
Doubtless, Iran has also put the "Great Satan," the U.S., high at the top of its list.
Such a history, which reveals why most Jews of Iranian ancestry live abroad, can only intensify Israel's suspicion of any agreement reached with the current Iranian regime, which has pledged often to eliminate "the Zionist entity," the "Little Satan."

Christians and Jews are familiar with the biblical narrative of how the ancient ruler of the Persian Empire, Cyrus, granted the Jewish people their freedom after his conquest of the Babylonia in 538 B.C. His proclamation launched the most meaningful "aliyah" [going up to Israel] until modern times.[1]
The Persian ruler even contributed treasure to help finance the rebuilding of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem, which had been destroyed by the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar.
There is, however, a different narrative. When Zoroastrianism was declared the official state religion during the Sassanid Dynasty (224-651 A.D.),[2] the plight of Iran's Jews deteriorated.
This fusion of state and religion gave Zoroastrian clerics more political power than the monarchy. It also led to the enforcement of intolerant uniform rules of worship for all of Persia's citizenry.[3]
That persecution clearly shows that Iranian "Jew-Hatred" predates the birth of Islam. Professor Shaul Shaked details pre-Islamic Sassanid Era polemics against the Jews:[4] The Sassanids burned synagogues and outlawed the celebration of the day of rest, Shabbat. One Sassanid monarch, "Feroz the Wicked" (Reshi'a), had most of the Jews of Isfahan murdered [5] -- in the very city where the biblical heroine, Esther, and her cousin, Mordecai, are buried.
Later, in most of the Safavid (1502-1736) and Qajar (1781-1925) dynastic eras, the monarchs' relationship with Iran's Jews was at best problematic. After the conversion of Iran's Muslims to the Shia sect of Islam, Jews, like other non-Shia minorities in Persia, were forced to live asdhimmi (tolerated, second-class citizens).
For centuries, there were forced conversions, the closing of synagogues, and destruction of Hebrew books[6] Outward signs distinguished Jews from the rest of Iran's "loyal" citizens. Throughout the Safavid Era, Iran's Jews were forced to wear colored hats and non-matching shoes.[7] In 1588, under the Safavid Shah Abbas I, restrictive ordinances against Jews were instituted, which came to known as "Jam Abbasi Laws," severely limiting Jewish property rights and professions in which Jews could work.[8] Sometimes anti-Jewish feelings resulted in the often deadly Yud Bazi (Jew Game)[9] or Yud Khost (Jew Murder).[10] Attacks occurred: Muslim Imams whipped up their followers in anti-Jewish diatribes.

The 6th century B.C. Persian Emperor Cyrus, who granted the Jewish people their freedom, is pictured at left in the painting "Cyrus II le Grand et les Hébreux" (by Jean Fouquet, 1470-1475). The Persian Safavid ruler Shah Abbas I, pictured at right reviewing the severed heads of captured Ottoman Turkish soldiers, instituted restrictive ordinances against Jews in 1588.

It was not until the Pahlavi Dynasty (1925-1979) that Jews in Iran could live without threats from their own government. Reza Shah Pahlavi even rebuffed Hitler's attempt to target Iranian Jews;[11] and under his son, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, Jews lived in freedom.
After the establishment of the Islamic Republic, however, Reza Shah was called a "Zionist stooge,"[12] and Iranian Jews were often accused of being spies for Israel. Many of Iran's Jews emigrated to Israel, the United States, or other countries in the Free World.
Although Iran is Shia and not Sunni, the same basic anti-Jewish references in theological texts are to be found in the Koran and Hadith. Both purport to justify inveterate Jew-hatred. The most familiar texts are the Koran's condemnation of the Jews as "killers of the prophets,"[13]"all Jews are not all bad, the good ones become Muslims, The bad ones do not."[14] There are also several Hadith passages that lend theological support for virulent Jew-hatred in today's Iran. For example, the murder by strangulation of a Jewess who speaks ill of the Prophet, is justified.[15] These passages buttress more contemporary assaults on Jews by Iran's Islamic revolutionary leaders, such as those of Khomeini and Khamenei, [16] along with earlier condemnation of Jews and Israel as najis, [unclean infidels].[17]
Such a history -- which reveals why most Jews of Iranian ancestry live abroad -- can only intensify Israel's suspicion of any agreement reached with the current Iranian regime, which has pledged often to eliminate the "Zionist entity," the "Little Satan."
Iran's imminent nuclear breakout capability will, of course, come with insufficient notice for anyone to stop it.
With its new intercontinental ballistic missiles [ICBMs], Iran can deliver these nuclear warheads to every capital of Europe. It does not even have to do that. It need only threaten to, while spelling out what it wants.
Doubtless, Iran has also put the "Great Satan," the U.S., high at the top of its list.

Dr. Lawrence A. Franklin was the Iran Desk Officer for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. He also served on active duty with the U.S. Army and as a Colonel in the Air Force Reserve, where he was a Military Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Israel.

---

[1] Discovering Cyrus: The Persian Conqueror Astride the Ancient World by Reza Zarghamee. Mage Publishers, Washington D.C. 2013. p.232; and the Book of Ezra, 1:2, 6:3. According toThe History of the Jewish People: "The Aliyah of Zerubavel and the Building of the Second Temple," about 50,000 Jews from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin returned to the Jerusalem area. Mesorah Publications, N.Y. 1982. p.25.
[2] Terua: The History of Contemporary Iranian Jews: Vol. I. Center for Iranian Jewish Oral History, Beverley Hills, California. 1996. p.14.
[3] Ibid. p.14.
[4] "Zoroastrian Polemics Against Jews in the Sasanian and Early Islamic Period" by Shaul Shaked. Padyavand, Volume I, edited by Amnon Netzer. Mazda Publishers: Los Angeles. 1996. pp.75-80.
[5] Ibid. p.3.
[6] Terua. Vol. I "History of Jews in Iran:1500 to the Present" by Peyman Banooni & Sammy Simnegar. p17.
[7] New Society: Harvard College Student Middle East Journal "Jews of Iran Under Islamic Rule" by Victoria Golshani. p.1.
[8] Ibid. p.1. See also Dhimmi Status and Jewish Roles in Iranian Society by Lawrence Loeb. Salt Lake City, Utah. Gordon and Breech Science Publishers: 1976. p. 92.
[9] One Yud Bazi game during Muslim festivals in the Qajar Era featured throwing Jews into a large pit of muddy water (hauz) for the amusement of onlookers, who would then watch these poor half-drowned souls climb out of the hole.
[10] Terua. Vol. I. p. 26. "Yud Khost" simply means "Jew Death" in Persian, an unconscious historical precursor of the mid-1930s in Germany.
[11] Personal Interview of Boghrat Khorsandi by Victoria Golshani, 28 September 2000.
[12] Padyavand Vol. I. p.122. "The Events of 1978".
[13] Koran surah 2, al-Baqarah/The Cow. Verse 61b, verse 83, verse 91, surah 3 al-Imran/The Family of Imran, verse 21 are just a few of the Koranic passages that accuse the Jews of murdering Allah's prophets sent to them.
[14] Koran, surah 3, al-Imran/The Family Imran, verse 113.
[15] Hadith, Abu Dawud 3, #4349.
[16] Upon his arrival in Iran after the Islamic Revolution had succeeded in overthrowing the Shah, Khomeini made crystal clear that his sympathies lay with the Palestinian Arabs. But he also delineated between Iranian Jews and Zionist Jews -- that the former were loyal to Iran. However, following the 9 May execution of prominent Iranian Jewish businessman Habib Elghanian, the Jews of Iran began to emigrate en masse. Hundreds of Jews were executed in the first few years of the Islamic Republic under Khomeini, including a 13-year-old boy executed because he wrote a letter to relatives in Israel. Under Khamenei, the present Supreme Leader, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security constantly monitor the remaining Iranian Jews. Paydavand Vol. II. "The Events of 1979: 9 May."
[17] Terua. p. 16 and p. 22. Also, see Iran's Final Solution for Israel by Dr. Andrew Bostom and "Jihad, Najis, & Islamic Jew-Hatred", 31 January 2015.

American Nuke Negotiators Are Wimps And The Iranians Know It! Obama's Weakness Tells The World The US Is A Paper Tiger!

Iran on Nuke Talks Extension: 'Americans Surrendered to Our Might'

Tuesday, 25 Nov 2014 12:55 PM

By Joel Himelfarb

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Senior Iranian leaders are celebrating the seven-month extension of nuclear talks with the United States and five other international powers as a victory for Tehran and a U.S. "surrender" to the Islamic Republic’s military might, The Washington Free Beaconreported.

Many nuclear experts believe that the seven-month extension in the nuclear negotiations (which were due to end by Monday) will give Iran more time to continue its nuclear work and move closer to developing a bomb.

Iran’s nuclear stockpile "has continued to grow" during the nuclear talks, Greg Jones, a nuclear analyst with the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, told the Free Beacon.

Jones said Monday that Iran currently has a uranium stockpile that would "probably support the production of about four nuclear weapons" and will likely be able to produce more by the end of June 2015, when the latest extension in the nuclear talks runs out.

Iranian officials are openly ridiculing the United States and bragging that their regime’s nuclear "rights" will be recognized soon.

The "Americans have very clearly surrendered to Iran’s might, and this is obvious in their behavior in the region and in the negotiations," Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, said after the extension of the talks was announced.

If the United States ever decides to launch an attack on Iran, "our war will end by conquering Palestine," he said.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani vowed in a television interview that the country’s nuclear "centrifuges will not stop." He said Iran had won a "victory" because "nobody in the world" believes sanctions must be increased to force Tehran to halt its nuclear activities.

Rouhani said it was not a matter of whether sanctions would be lifted, but when.

Iranian government officials and senior clerics have used similar language to describe what they regard as U.S. weakness throughout the nuclear negotiations with the Western powers.

President Barack  Obama is "the weakest of U.S. presidents" and his time in the White House has been "humiliating," a top Iranian official said last month, according to a translation provided to The Free Beacon.

"Obama is the weakest of U.S. presidents, he had humiliating defeats in the region," said Ali Younesi, senior adviser to Rouhani.
"Americans witnessed their greatest defeats in Obama's era: Terrorism expanded, [the] U.S. had huge defeats under Obama [and] that is why they want to compromise with Iran," Younesi said.

Related Stories:

• Fleitz: Extending Iran Nuclear Talks Prolongs Obama Enrichment Debacle
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Israel Must Take Action Against Iran

"Loose lips sink ships" was one of the sayings during WWII to stop leaks from civilians and government officials that might be heard or sent to the enemy. Seems we need to bring that attention to those in Washington. Secrets are to be kept close to the chest and not exposed to the world!  

If the leaked news that North Korea is quickly on its way to miniaturizing nuclear technology is accurate, which seems to be possible,  Israel will have to ensure that Iran does not obtain it.  Should the mullahs in Tehran obtain the missile technology, the balance in the Middle East will shift dramatically. All of a sudden, Aba-ding-dong's threat to erase Israel becomes a definite possibility.  That would be a very bad development.

Our advice to Israel (not that they need it) is to make quick progress on the plans to stop the Iran's nuke developments. They are the only country in the world with the ability and the moral clarity to stop the mullahs. Move quickly.

Conservative Tom

Israel May Fast-Track Plans to Attack Iran

Friday, 12 Apr 2013 04:49 PM

By David A. Patten

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Analysts fear a dramatic advance in North Korea’s nuclear missile technology, revealed inadvertently during a Congressional hearing Thursday, will quickly find its way to Iran — forcing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to fast-track a long-contemplated attack against Tehran’s nuclear-enrichment facilities.

Pentagon officials are playing down a U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency assessment that North Korea probably has the ability to miniaturize a nuclear weapon and place it on an ICBM. U.S. officials say that miniaturization capability, if it exists, is untested and unreliable.

In February, North Korea detonated what is described as a “lighter, miniaturized atomic bomb.” At the time, there was speculation this could signal the Hermit Kingdom had developed a nuclear warhead that it could place on its long-range missiles. Pentagon officials, however, continued to insist North Korea was at least a year away from developing that capability.

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Jerusalem Post defense analyst Yaakov Katz, author of “Israel vs. Iran: The Shadow War,” tells Newsmax that U.S. and Israeli intelligence officials have generally agreed that it would take Iran six to 12 months to build a nuclear device once it tried to break out and enrich its material from the 20-percent to the 90-percent level required. Beyond that, intelligence experts have projected, it would then take Iran another year or two to produce a miniaturized warhead that could be installed on a missile.

Now, Katz says, the time lag between reaching nuclear capability and Iran’s ability to arm a missile with a nuclear warhead appears to have vanished. That means Thursday’s revelation could reduce Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s nonmilitary options against Iran, forcing the Jewish state to step up its timetable for attacking the Persian nation should it acquire enough enriched uranium to be a significant threat.

“If the North Koreans are much more advanced than we assumed, then that could mean that when the Iranians surge to move forward, that the whole time frame would change also,” Katz tells Newsmax. “It would mean Israel and the West would have to revisit the time frames that they’ve put in for the Iranians, and that could be much shorter now — which means your window of opportunity [to attack] is also becoming smaller.”

Experts say Israel would have to assume that any North Korean miniaturization technology would soon find its way into the hands of Iran’s mullahs. In fact, it is possible Iranian technology enabled North Korea’s push to miniaturize its warheads — the step that makes them capable of being installed on an ICBM. There is widespread agreement in the intelligence community that the two embattled nations routinely exchange technology, and sometimes military hardware as well.

“That’s no secret,” says Katz. “There’s been a lot of cooperation between the Iranians and the North Koreans.”

He adds: “Israel has always made the assessment that whatever is going on in North Korea, you have to assume it’s also … taking place in Iran. So that technical cooperation is still working.”

Obama administration officials have been downplaying the immediate threat from North Korea, even as the Pentagon rushed a THAAD missile interceptor system, which had not been scheduled to enter service until 2015, to Guam to protect American interests. It also announced it would revive the Bush-era plan to add 14 more interceptors to the missile shield that protects America’s West Coast, which it had previously canceled.

The news that one U.S. intelligence agency believes North Korea already has achieved the ability to design nuclear-missile warheads was inadvertently disclosed by GOP Rep. Doug Lamborn of Colorado on Thursday during a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee. He was reading a portion of a classified document that had been erroneously marked declassified.

That disclosure means Israeli leaders must now assume the window between the moment Iran acquires nuclear capability, and the horrific moment when it could launch an attack on a major Israeli city such as Tel Aviv, would be a matter of months or weeks rather than years, experts say.

That North Korea has helped Iran bolster its missile technology is well established. In recent years, as Iranian technology surpassed that of North Korea, the technical assistance flowed the other way as well, sources say.

According to Heritage Foundation senior research fellow Bruce Klingner: “Clearly there has been a decades-long missile relationship, and it began with a one-way sale of missiles to Iran. … Over time it became a two-way, collaborative relationship.”

Klingner adds that a collaborative relationship between the two rogue nations on nuclear technology “is beyond question,” although much more difficult to assess due to its secretive nature.

One example of that cooperation: A February 2010 diplomatic cable released by the WikiLeaks organization revealed that Iran had obtained 19 advanced North Korean missiles with a Russian design known as R-27. The R-27 was initially used aboard Soviet submarines to launch nuclear missiles. At the time, analysts predicted the acquisition of the R-27 would enable Iran to reverse-engineer a new class of missiles with greater range and payloads.

“Every once in a while, you hear reports a North Korean scientist has popped up in Iran or vice versa,” Human Events senior writer John Hayward tells Newsmax.

“We have been assuming … we’ll know the exact moment when Iran has everything it needs to make a devastating weapon,” Hayward adds. “But it seems from today’s news we don’t really have that confidence anymore. We don’t know where either Iran or North Korea really is.”

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Intelligence experts have decried the dearth of U.S. “humint,” or human intelligence, from North Korea. As for Iran, Israeli intelligence is believed to have both human and electronic intelligence sources. While North Korea’s capabilities are often opaque, Katz says intelligence officers in Israel and the West have “always been quite confident” that they will know almost immediately should Iran try to break out and enrich its uranium to be nuclear-weapons capable. And so far that has not occurred.

In his September speech to the United Nations, Netanyahu spoke of a “red line” that Iran must not be allowed to cross. He also stressed that time was already running out to rein in Iran’s nuclear activities.

“Each day, that point is getting closer,” he said. “That’s why I speak today with such a sense of urgency. And that’s why everyone should have a sense of urgency. … The relevant question is not when Iran will get the bomb. The relevant question is at what stage can we no longer stop Iran from getting the bomb.”

Thursday’s revelation hardly marked the first time national-security experts have underestimated the Hermit Kingdom’s nuclear progress. Just months before the CIA announced in January 1994 that North Korea probably had developed nuclear weapons, U.S. diplomats were negotiating with North Korea in the belief there was still time to reach an agreement.

Now, U.S. analysts appear once again to have underestimated its capabilities.

Before the DIA analysis was revealed, Michael A. Dodge of the conservative Heritage Foundation told Newsmax: “North Korea has demonstrated the basic technology to hit the U.S.; the question is whether they can miniaturize the nukes to put on the missiles. We think we have some time before they can do that, but in the past we have had a tendency to underestimate the North Korean threat.”

Hayward of Human Events doubts Israel would take action against Iran while the U.S. national security apparatus is on tenterhooks over North Korea. But he says the news that North Korea may have mastered the ability to miniaturize its nuclear weapons and put them on a ballistic missile has moved up Netanyahu’s red line for unilaterally launching an attack on Iran’s nuclear-enrichment facilities.

“He believes that ‘moderate confidence’ assessment, and he has said many times they can’t afford to take risks. That was the whole point of that speech where he drew the bomb on that piece of paper at the U.N. He was busy explaining: ‘We can’t gamble;
we can’t suppose they’re years away when they’re not. We have to stop this before it crosses a certain point.’

“And if you’ll remember, that ‘certain point’ was basically getting things that are small enough to be assembled in locations that are almost impossible to strike, and then getting them into ballistic missiles. It’s not just the missile capability. It’s the fact that once you get there, it becomes very difficult to stop the process. So I think he may see that red line being right on top of him.”

In December, North Korea launched a Unha-3 missile that placed an object into orbit. U.S. officials have estimated the range of that missile at some 6,200 miles, sufficient to threaten Guam, Hawaii, Alaska, and the U.S. West Coast. The Musudan missiles North Korea is expected to launch in coming days have a much shorter range, about 2,500 miles. But that still puts Japan and Guam well within range. The United states has 28,000 military personnel in South Korea; 40,000 in Japan; and Guam, a U.S. territory, has a population of approximately 160,000. It also hosts major U.S. Navy and Air Force bases.

In recent days the administration has responded to the North Korean threat by rushing advanced radar systems and anti-missile capabilities to the Pacific theater, and decided to beef up its missile interceptor capability on the West Coast.

Says Klingner: “I think the Obama administration’s reversal on the missile interceptor programs was the administration getting caught flat-footed apparently, supposedly by the long-standing North Korean nuclear and missile threat. … They based it on a sudden, unexpected acceleration of the Korean missile threat. Well, it was not.”

In fact, Klingner tells Newsmax, a 2001 intelligence assessment predicted that by 2015, at the current rate of progress, the United States would face an ICBM threat from North Korea.

Former U.S. ambassador to North Korea Christopher Hill, meanwhile, told Fox News on Friday that the Pentagon’s insistence that North Korea has yet to test the accuracy of its nuclear-missile technology is largely irrelevant. Whether the DIA’s projection, which is made with “moderate” rather than “high” confidence, is accurate now misses the larger point, he says.

“Sooner or later that report is going to be correct, so the same old question is, what are we going to do about it? … We’ve got to make very clear that we are not going to accept this,” Hill said.

He added that North Korea’s bellicose missile launches and nuclear-arms development must now be the No. 1 diplomatic issue between the United States and China.


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Iranians Could Wipe Israel in 24 Hours

If someone makes a statement, one must believe what they say. To not do so, is foolhardy. So it goes in the Middle East. The latest blast from Iran is that Israel could be destroyed in 24 hours.  

Anyone who does not listen to the Iranians, has their head deeply stuck in the sand. The world must listen to them and prepare for the unthinkable. Could the Iranians be further along in their nuclear ambitions than has been reported?  Or are they all bluster?

We believe the former.

Conservative Tom

IRANIAN OFFICIAL SAYS COUNTRY NEEDS ONLY ‘24 HOURS AND AN EXCUSE’ TO DESTROY ISRAEL

• Posted on October 4, 2012 at 6:38am by  Sharona Schwartz
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AP

Words from Tehran about wiping Israel off the map have been launched with abandon in recent weeks. Here’s another one for the lexicon. This time from Hojjat al-Eslam Ali Shirazi, representative for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to the Qods Force, who not only reiterated the bombastic threat but also added his own twist: that Iran can do the job in just 24 hours.

Specifically, he said all Iran needs is “24 hours and an excuse” to finish off the Jewish state. The Jerusalem Post reports on the interview:

In his first public interview in a year, reported in the Persian-language Jahan News, which is close to the regime, Shirazi said if Israel attacked Iran, the Islamic Republic would be able to turn the conflict into a war of attrition that would lead to Israel’s destruction.

“If such a war does happen, it would not be a long war, and it would benefit the entire Islamic umma [the global community of Muslims]. We have expertise in fighting wars of attrition and Israel cannot fight a war of attrition,” Shirazi said, referring to Iran’s eight-year war of attrition against Iraq.

Iran’s Qods Force is a unit of the Revolutionary Guard that aims to export the Islamic Revolution worldwide, and is reported to be active in the Middle East, Asia and South America. Last year the U.S. accused its operatives of working on a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington.

The Post reports that Khamenei tapped Shirazi last year as his personal envoy to the Qods Force:

In his interview, Shirazi said that Israel was “close to annihilation” and wanted to attack Iran as an act of desperation.

“Are our enemies intelligent, wise or foolish? They are foolish. It’s also possible that they will do this foolish thing [and attack Iran]. Why do we sometimes say this is the strongest probability? Because today the Israelis are telling us that ‘we are not the Israel of yesterday, we are getting weaker day by day and the Islamic Republic is getting stronger day by day,’” he added.

“Well, when Israel finds itself in danger of extinction, it flails around, and so it’s easy for it to do foolish things and will start a war just to sting Iran.”

Shirazi is in good company. Other statements in just the past week from Iranian leaders in the same spirit as Shirazi’s include:  President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s assertion that Israel has no historical roots in the Middle East and will be “eliminated,” Revolutionary Guard Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari saying a conflict between Iran and Israel will destroy the Jewish state – “the end of the story for them,” and Brigadier General Hossein Salami of the Revolutionary Guard saying a war will provide “a historical opportunity for the Islamic Revolution to wipe them [Israel] off the world’s geographical history.”

All this means we’re unlikely to hear such statements cease anytime soon.

Is Iran Soon To Go Nuke?

The latest report for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) indicates that the Iranians are either way ahead of plans or are bluffing their way much the same as Saddam did ten years ago. Is it a bluff? If so, it is a dangerous one.

The IAEA report makes it very clear they are concerned, especially in light of military uses of the nuclear program.  We quote: 

"51. The Agency continues to have serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear

programme, as explained in GOV/2011/65. Iran did not provide access to Parchin, as requested by the 

Agency during its two recent visits to Tehran, and  no agreement was reached with Iran on a structured 

approach to resolving all outstanding issues in connection with Iran’s nuclear programme."

This report cannot calm the feelings in Tel Aviv.  If anything, it has to make the situation even worse. Washington should also be concerned.

Scary, at best. Deadly at worst.

Conservative Tom

New IAEA report shows Iran expands nuclear enrichment at Natanz

By Laura Rozen | The Envoy – 1 hr 26 mins ago

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Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad touring Tehran's research reactor Feb. 15, 2012. (AFP/Getty)A new UN atomic watchdog agency report raises concerns about Iran's expansion of enrichment activities, as well as its continued foot-dragging in refusing to answer questions about suspected military dimensions of its nuclear program. But the new assessment also hinted at possible technical problems Iran is experiencing, nuclear experts said.

The 11-page report (.pdf), issued by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Friday, comes as the international community is considering how to respond to Iran's expressed readiness to resume negotiations on its nuclear program. It also comes on the heels of the IAEA's expression of frank disappointment over being denied a visit to the Parchin military base at the conclusion of their two-day trip to Iran this week. Agency inspectors want to determine if a building on the site was used to carry out tests of an explosive device.

The agency's latest report shows that Iran has rapidly expanded the number of centrifuges installed at its main Natanz uranium enrichment facility, reaching 9,000 today compared to 6,000 last fall. (It's not clear that all of the installed machines are operating, the agency said.) Still, the assessment offers hints that Iran is having trouble with its more advanced centrifuges. Nuclear experts speculated that because of international sanctions Iran may be having trouble procuring the steel needed for the more advanced centrifuge models.

In the meantime, nuclear experts are puzzled by aspects of Iran's behavior at a more sensitive nuclear enrichment site: the Fordow facility built deep in a mountain near Qom, which is considered less vulnerable to possible military strikes.

Among the concerns for nuclear watchdogs, Iran keeps changing its declared work plan for the facility, which Iran did not disclose until the international community detected it in 2009.

"The sheer fact they keep changing it raises questions about why it was originally built," Paul Brannan, an Iran nuclear expert with the Institute for Science and International Security, told Yahoo News in an interview Friday.

While Iran has placed the outer casings of 2,000 older-generation centrifuges at the Fordow site, according to the new IAEA report, it has not installed the actual machines. Brannan said he found that behavior "strange."

"By only installing the outer casings and not the whole machines, they may be sending a warning about what they intend to do," he said. "Either way, it's not clear whether or not they actually have the capability to install the entire machines in those numbers."

"Is it a bluff?" he continued. The Iranians "know how significant Fordow is. If they put in the two thousand machine casings, but not the actual machines, it is sending a signal."

Israel considers Iran's enrichment activities at Fordow a particular cause of alarm, because it believes the facility is less vulnerable to Israeli air strikes given its placement in a fortified bunker in a mountain.