On February 19, 2009, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general (DG) delivered to the constituent membership two periodic reports, on Iran’s nuclear program and on the progress in assessing Syria’s activities at the bombed site of al-Kibar, prior to September 2007. They both merit comments on their findings.
During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama indicated his willingness to engage with Iran over the nuclear issue without preconditions; in other statements he maintained that he would not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. The urgency of the Iranian nuclear challenge – emphasized by Iran’s steady progress not only on uranium enrichment but on missile development as well – means that the Obama administration will have to move beyond general guidelines and make a concentrated effort to consolidate its policy on Iran as...
On Tuesday, February 3, Iran successfully launched its first entirely homemade satellite. The satellite, called Omid (“hope”), was launched on a Safir 2 satellite launcher from the space center in Semnan Province, southeast of Tehran. The timing of the launch coincided with the 30th anniversary celebrations of the Islamic Revolution in Iran.
Behind the scenes in the war underway between Hamas and Israel, there is a party playing a key role that aspires to be the big winner in the fighting – Iran. As in the Second Lebanon War between Israel and Hizbollah, Iran is gaining precious time to promote the leading strategic goal of its policy in recent years: attaining nuclear weapons capability.
There are two outstanding issues on the table for the forthcoming IAEA Board of Governors meeting: the nuclear programs of Syria and Iran. The IAEA report on the Syrian issue that finally came out on November 19, 2008 gave a detailed summary of its findings but omitted two important items: the technical details of the sampled uranium particles found in the vicinity of the Syrian reactor site at Dair Alzour (or al-Kibar, as called by US reports ) and the unequivocal statement that the site housed a nuclear reactor under construction...
On Wednesday, November 12, the Iranian media reported the test launch of a new missile called the Sejil. According to Iranian defense minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, the missile is two-staged, with both stages powered by solid fuel and a range “close to 2,000 kilometers.” Iran’s state-sponsored television stations accompanied the report with pictures of the test.
September 22, 2008 marks the opening of the week-long session of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors (BOG), which is followed by the annual General Conference of this organization. Before the BOG lies the periodic report of the IAEA Director General on the “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreementג€¦ in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” distributed a week earlier. Although it is not much different from its immediate predecessor in its technical content, this is a very serious report. The...
The book includes ten analytical essays written by INSS researchers that dwell on Israel’s strategic environment in the period under review. The ongoing challenges represented by the Palestinian issue and the Iranian nuclear program are well documented, as well as developments elsewhere in the Arab and Muslim world and in Israel.
The first announcement from Iran on the morning of August 17, 2008 reported a satellite launching. Not long after, this announcement was replaced with a revised version that stressed that this was an experimental launch using the Safir-e-Omid-1 (“ambassador of hope”) satellite launcher that did not carry a real satellite. The Iranian media made do with a brief report on the launching and one television station aired a short clip of the nighttime launch, without any clips of speeches or official statements similar to...
On July 9, the Iranian media announced the launching of nine missiles of various types as part of an exercise called the Payambar-e Azam 3 (Great Prophet 3). The exercise, which began on July 8 and coincided, with an exercise by the Persian Gulf fleets of the US and British navies off the coast of Bahrain, was presented as an exercise by the naval and air forces of the Revolutionary Guards (the entity responsible for operating Iran’s long range missiles).
There are increasing signs that President Bush’s administration is having serious doubts over possible American military action against Iran. Statements on a military option by senior ranking members of the administration, including the president, are heard less frequently, and there seems to be less conviction and determination behind them. There are ten primary reasons for this.
The following essay takes as its starting point the assumption that efforts to contain the Iranian nuclear effort will fail and Iran will eventually acquire a nuclear weapons capability. This is not to suggest that this development is unavoidable. In fact, there is still a good chance that international efforts to contain the Iranian project (either diplomatic or through sanctions, or possibly even military action) might ultimately succeed, or at least keep Iran at a low level of nuclear development for a long time. However, an...
