WASHINGTON – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed a treasuretrove of secrets on Monday about Iran’s hidden nuclear activities. But itwould be a waste of this extraordinary intelligence to use it as a pretextfor American withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. Much better to use itas a pressure tool to squeeze Tehran. The Israeli intelligence coup shouldopen the way for a much smarter US campaign to isolate Iran and tighten thedeal — and bring Europe, Russia and China along in a common push for abetter agreement. This approach would keep the international communitytogether and avoid handing Iran the propaganda victory that unilateral USwithdrawal would provide.The bold Mossad operation to grab the files in Tehran in January has caughtthe Iranians red-handed. Now let them squirm awhile, as the internationalcommunity sifts the evidence of Iranian deception. Acting through theInternational Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the world should demand answersabout the issues framed by the harvest of secrets: Why did Iran repeatedlylie about its past nuclear activities? How did it shape its programme ofdeception? What stronger provisions are needed to make the 2015 agreementreal and binding?
Sceptics have argued that the captured Iranian documents only confirm whatthe US concluded in a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate — that Iran hadan aggressive bombmaking programme that it halted in 2003. “I didn’t seeanything [in the new documents] not covered in the unclassified KJs [KeyJudgments] from the 2007 NIE,” argued Thomas Fingar, who as chairman of theNational Intelligence Council oversaw estimate.
The sceptics are right that, despite Netanyahu’s theatrical presentation,the documents aren’t a smoking gun that shows Iranian violation of thenuclear agreement. But they do provide a ton of new information aboutIranian lying, cheating and deception. Above all, they shatter SupremeLeader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s claim that Iran has never pursued nuclearweapons. Sorry, Mr. Leader, but the documents show otherwise. Rarely have aleader’s lies to his people and the world been clearer.
The Israelis made off with a veritable encyclopaedia of secrets that theIranians had stashed in big, refrigerator-like safes in a warehouse in theShorabad district of Tehran in 2017. Netanyahu said the haul includes50,000 pages in notebooks and folders, and 50,000 more files contained on183 CDs. The sample he showed Monday night included blueprints, charts,spreadsheets and simulation results. US and Israeli officials familiar withthe documents say there’s far more Netanyahu didn’t disclose — revealingIranian research sites, key scientific and technical personnel, and otherinformation that should allow much better insight into the Iranian nucleareffort — and make it easier to strengthen and enforce the 2015 agreement.
The hottest items Netanyahu revealed were the 2003 quotes from top Iranianofficials about how they intended to continue secret work after theofficial program, called “Project Amad,” was stopped. “Work would be splitinto two parts: covert and overt [dual use],” said a document citing ordersfrom Ali Shamkhani, who was then minister of defence. “The general aim isto announce the closure of Project Amad. . . . Special activities will becarried out under the title of scientific know-how developments,” saidMohsen Fakrizadeh, a physicist who ran the Amad effort and now heads theDefence Ministry’s Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research.Fakrizadeh is a key figure in any Iranian bombmaking effort, past orfuture, because he appears to have led Iran’s research into building aso-called neutron initiator to trigger the nuclear explosion.
President Trump’s challenge is to use Iran’s new vulnerability, now thatits secrets have been exposed, to get the tougher deal he wants. Theproblem with Trump’s strategy has been that it’s not clear what he intendsto do, after withdrawing from the 2015 deal, to get a better one —assuming, that is, that he doesn’t plan to go to war against Iran. Now,Trump has a plausible rationale for working through the IAEA to hold Iranaccountable, while gaining global support for curbing Iran’s missileprograms and regional meddling.
Trump’s choice on May 12 is clearer now: If he scuttles the deal, he risksisolating the United States, rather than Iran. If he instead uses Israel’sintelligence windfall to fuel a global pressure campaign, he may actuallyhave a pathway for getting a better, longer-lasting and more enforceableagreement. Thanks to Israeli intelligence, Trump just got lucky on Iran.But will he be smart?— Courtesy: The Washington Post