Among the treasure trove to be found in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports on Iran and Syria, there are two slightly underreported elements. Inspectors stumbled upon 600 “50-litre drums” of heavy water at the Isfahan conversion facility. As for Syria, the Syrians explained traces of anthropogenic natural uranium as deriving from “domestically produced yellowcake” and “imported, but previously undeclared, commercial uranyl nitrate.”

To recap: Iran has undeclared heavy water, and Syria has undeclared commercial uranyl nitrate.

Heavy water is needed to bypass uranium enrichment if one wants to build nuclear weapons. It is not produced widely — there are only a few countries in the world that produce and sell heavy water. Uranyl Nitrate is a substance needed in the process to convert natural uranium to green salt, a precursor of UF6. In short, it is a necessary component in the enrichment process and one that NPT signatories are meant to declare to the IAEA.

Taken together, the two reports make an astounding revelation: both Iran and Syria have been procuring material for nuclear-related activities without reporting it to the IAEA. Not a shocker for readers of this blog — but certainly one more piece of incriminating evidence about the two programs both countries have worked so hard to pursue and to conceal from the rest of the world.

J.E. Dyer highlighted Iran’s new boldness all across the Middle East — and if I may weigh in, the Yemen situation looks like classic Iran: play the arsonist, then volunteer to be the fireman — for a small reward, naturally!

The spookiest bit of this latest twist of affairs is Washington’s response, as Jennifer notes. And when an official statement reads like this: “It’s our view that there can be no long-term military solution to the conflict between the Yemeni government and the Houthi rebels,” it almost looks like it came out of the EU.  Never shall there be a military solution to a conflict! A bit like saying, “There shall be no medical solution to a disease” — let the microbes and the antibodies negotiate their way to a compromise through the good offices of the United Nations. Let them receive an envoy from the EU! But no conflict. Nope.

I can picture the fear running through the spines of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as they hear Washington’s tone quickly aligning itself with the discourse of those pugnacious Eurocrats.

Hard to believe that this is not from the Onion: it is actually a “serious” interview … courtesy of the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation:

In the nuclear standoff with Iran, over the years both Europe and the U.S. have consistently pursued a multilateral strategy. Despite considerable delays and watered-down accomplishments, in early 2006 the strategy yielded a first result: the IAEA Board of Governors referred Iran to the UN Security Council for its noncompliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Soon after, to Iran’s great dismay, the council passed resolution 1696. In December 2006 and soon after in March 2007, Resolutions 1737 and 1747 were unanimously approved, introducing sanctions against Iran. But then it took an additional year to get more sanctions — and the new resolution 1803 only added a few names to the already less-than-satisfactory list of entities and individuals targeted by the sanctions. Since then, nothing more than a reaffirmation of these sanctions has made it through the Security Council.

Click here to read the rest of this COMMENTARY Web Exclusive.

Jennifer flagged the Washington Post report about the Iranian leaders’ indecision on the nuclear deal. One would only wish there were a fight inside the regime, with sensible people wanting the deal and radicals opposing it. In fact, this is the customary passion play of the Islamic Republic of Iran. One emissary appears reasonable, another gives a fiery speech, a third tries to mediate, a fourth criticizes the others, a fifth calls on the Supreme Leader to intervene, a sixth asks for time, and a seven ends up blaming the West for discord.

The result is what matters, and the result is as follows: First, the U.S. set a deadline for Iran to answer to the deal. Iran ignored the deadline. The U.S. said the deadline was not so stringent (as Abe noted yesterday). Second, the three powers involved in the negotiations agreed to the proposal. Now Iran knows it got that much and wants to negotiate more.

Iran’s game has always been to buy time. This latest dance is no different. And it looks as though Iran’s interlocutors will not behave significantly better this time either — instead of making good on their threats and ultimatums, they’ll come back with more offers, more incentives, more compromise, and more time for Iran to gain through talks.

Iran’s leadership is not divided on the end-game — getting nuclear weapons — and the fact that contradictory messages appear to come out of Tehran does not mean that there are divisions. Seeing any infighting serves the purpose of those who argue that there is a sensible, reasonable, pragmatic, down-to-earth element in the regime we can do business with.

Not so — but I would not hold my breath about anyone in Washington acknowledging that yet.

Predictably, the Vienna talks on Iran’s Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) stockpile have already stalled. Iran is using all the rules in the book and any trick on the margins to delay and gain more out of the talks. First, they dispatched a low-level delegation to the talks — something guaranteed to delay a decision even if a deal is struck in Vienna. Second, they torpedoed a critical element of the deal. According to what was supposedly agreed on already, the LEU would be enriched in Russia to higher levels (20 percent, well below weapons’ grade) but further processed into fuel rods by France before it could be delivered to Iran for use in its Tehran Research Reactor. Now Iran is saying that France cannot be relied on and cannot be part of this deal. So the Iranians are threatening to go ahead and enrich on their own up to 20 percent if no deal is reached; they are also suggesting that they want a supply of fuel while they keep their stockpile. …

To read the rest of this fascinating analusys, click here.

So is the Supreme Leader dead or not?

Ali Alfoneh weighs in as we wait to learn whether this is fact or fantasy, and reminds us that things could be even worse now:

The passing of Khamenei would represent a seismic shift in the Islamic Republic’s power equations. With no successor-designate, Khamenei’s death would unleash a huge power struggle.

Alfoneh discusses several possibilities and, you’ll be shocked, none preludes to a gentler, kinder Iran.

The death of a leader does occasionally ensure that history changes course — but dictatorships crumble in such circumstances only because their entire power structure is predicated on the charisma of the leader and the loyalty of his lieutenants. Modern authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, by contrast, even in their weirdest manifestations (such as North Korea and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq), have more staying power than the leaders themselves.

Khamenei’s death still needs to be ascertained — though in the long term, it’s in the pocket! It’s much less likely, though, that it alone could be a game changer for the better.

If President Obama gets the Nobel Peace Prize less than one year into his presidency, what can he aspire to by the time he leaves office?

If fate allows it, the seat of St Peter will be vacant — and if not, we are sure the pope will graciously resign. Short of that, one can always count on the UN secretary-general’s post to be on offer.

History repeats itself. The first time as tragedy — Jimmy Carter? — the second time as a farce.

Congratulations, Mr. President! Never was something so prestigious bestowed on someone who did so little to deserve it.

Michael Totten has rightly flagged Fareed Zakaria’s argument that Iran can be contained for its flaws. One should add two points to Michael’s argument.

First, regarding the likelihood of a massive upsurge of popular support for the regime if Iran were attacked: whether it is likely or not, it is largely irrelevant, in my view. If a military strike is successful in degrading the nuclear program, one can afford a nationalist backlash.

Second, and more important, Zakaria’s statement that “a massive outpouring of support for the Iranian regime” is likely because this is what “happens routinely when a country is attacked by foreign forces, no matter how unpopular the government” is simply inaccurate.

While Iranians are unlikely to clap while they die under foreign bombardment, there are many precedents of nationalist backlash being short-lived and eventually turning against the regime. One needs only look at Serbia in 1999 and Argentina in 1982. In both instances, an authoritarian government dragged the nation into a war propped up by nationalist revanchism — Kosovo in 1999, the Falklands in 1982. I doubt Serbs loved the 78 days of NATO aerial bombing — they are still bitter today! Similarly, Argentineans by and large still consider the Falklands to be their own. But the military defeat of their authoritarian regimes, far from enhancing those regimes’ popularity, led to their downfall. Both countries have experienced a long season of democracy since then. While differences still exist between London and Buenos Aires, and between Belgrade and NATO, the odious regimes that triggered those wars are gone. And good riddance for their citizens!

To the list of examples, one could add Iraq in 1991. As soon as the guns fell silent, Kurds in the north and Shiites in the south rose up against the hated dictator and his regime. Their failure — thanks to the American decision to stand by and let them be crushed — cemented their distrust for America 12 years later. Regardless, the point is clear: the oppressed subjects of vanquished dictators may not love the foreign victor, but neither will they forgive their oppressors. And a military defeat exposes a despotic regime to its own weakness and vulnerability like nothing else does.

If Iran’s nuclear program were to be successfully targeted by military force, Iranians may not be expected to wrap themselves up in American or Israeli flags, no doubt. But it is questionable whether they will renew their pledge to the Islamic Republic and its murderous ideology.

Back at the Guardian, Simon Tisdall attributes the brusque U-turn in Russian foreign policy on Iran to two master strokes of President Obama’s foreign policy. One is obviously the recent revelation of the Qom clandestine enrichment facility; the other is scrapping missile defense. Thus writes Tisdall:

Russia’s new-found readiness to consider the “far tougher” sanctions demanded by Gordon Brown at the UN this week is doubtless linked to this confirmation of Iranian bad faith. But it also has an evident bilateral dimension in terms of Moscow’s relations with the US.

All those who were writing off Barack Obama last week as a foreign policy lightweight may now reflect at leisure on how he has achieved two major objectives in almost as many days: Russia is back on side, for now at least, thanks to his decision to re-model European missile defence. And China is now isolated in the security council in opposing new sanctions on Iran–a position it always tries to avoid on any major issue, and which it may now find untenable.

One should never think the Russians are in the pockets when it comes to Iran—but there is no doubt that the latest revelations are a headache for those in Kremlin arguing that stopping Iran’s nuclear ambitions is not the highest (or even a high) Russian strategic priority. Still, we fail to see why missile defense is suddenly a stroke of brilliance. If the goal here was to sway Russia, exposing Qom’s clandestine facility should have been more than enough. There was no need to sacrifice Poland and the Czech Republic. Had the President exposed Qom prior to scrapping missile defense, one could argue that the Russians would have done the same. They would have expressed concern and used the same blunt words voiced by President Medvedev.

The details of the newly exposed plant are such that a Russian attempt to demur and pretend business is usual would have been met with scorn and derision by the world. The fact of the matter is, President Obama did not need to sacrifice missile defense to Russia if it wished to get Russia more determined to help on the Iran dossier. All he had to do was expose Qom.

There is no doubt that many on the Left will continue to link missile defense to some supposed grand bargain with Russia on Iran. The evidence is scant. And given what we’ve learned of Iran’s nuclear program in the last few days, it would be a shame if the U.S. President felt that he needed to sacrifice an American promise to trusted NATO allies to get the Russians on board.

Russia just announced that it will not shelve its plans to deploy tactical missiles in the Kaliningrad enclave. Obama’s reset policy is beginning to work … for Russia!

Iran’s negotiating proposal is now public. Just like its previous incarnation, it is revealing. Anyone familiar with the rhetoric of the Islamic Republic will recognize in these pages the recurrence of Iran’s central grievance—namely, the need for a new world order where Iran, as a leading member of the Non-Aligned Movement, has its proper place in the sun.

Whether Western leaders take this rhetoric seriously is now an important question. In the discussion surrounding Iran’s nuclear program, all the talk about whether Iran is or is not rational misses the point of what Iran’s regime is about and wants to achieve. Iran may not be wedded to the kind of apocalyptic politics that the rhetoric of some of its leaders frequently suggests; but it remains, at heart, a revolutionary power driven by an ideology that successfully weds Persian nationalism, Shia revivalism, Third World-ism, and revolutionary Marxist-Leninist theories. Its devastating potential always derived from this explosive combination of the subversive with the divine. Its quest for nuclear weapons is driven, at the very least, by the desire to push this agenda more aggressively and more successfully.

Its offer, with no mention of its nuclear program or its obligations under the NPT or UN Security Council Resolutions, reflects this desire to export Iran’s revolution and its underlying worldview and to shape a new world order in its image. The international community is entitled to seek a diplomatic solution to the standoff, of course. But it should not equivocate about, discount, or downplay Iran’s real intentions—for Iran, negotiations are not about Iranian concessions but about Western peaceful surrender through polite parley before a nuclear Iran can exact similar terms in much blunter ways.

Only weeks after refusing to criticize the mass-circulation tabloid Aftonbladet for its libelous “organ harvest” piece against Israel’s army, Sweden’s government has asked Stockholm’s Museum of Modern Art to remove controversial and potentially offensive art currently on display at an exhibition. The backdrop of this decision is the EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Stockholm this coming weekend.

Surely the Swedish government thinks it can get away with explaining its request on grounds of sensitivity to its guests and denying that any censorship was exercised. Still, could Sweden not voice and then explain away criticism of Aftonbladet’s story on the same grounds? After all, when a fresh row exploded, later, between Israel and the Spanish paper El Mundo on El Mundo’s editorial choice to interview Holocaust denier David Irving, Spain’s foreign minister, Miguel Moratinos, was able to criticize the choice while upholding freedom of the press.

One can do both after all—and nobody asked either Sweden’s or Spain’s government to take any action against the aforementioned papers that might jeopardize freedom of the press.

Sweden, on the other hand, has decided to be callous to Israel and oversensitive to its European colleagues. What, then, is Swedish for consistency?

According to the U.S. envoy to the IAEA, Iran is dangerously close to a nuclear bomb: “This ongoing enrichment activity . . . moves Iran closer to a dangerous and destabilizing possible breakout capacity,” he reportedly told the IAEA board.

So how close are we to an Iranian mushroom cloud?

Analysts and government officials routinely offer different time lines for an Iranian bomb—but they tend to put Iran’s breakout capacity a few years away. Iran is experiencing significant technological difficulties. And the political decision to go for the bomb might not have been made yet. It does not mean that Iran does not intend to build a nuclear arsenal over time—to the contrary. But testing a nuclear device comes with a price: Iran is a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Crossing the nuclear threshold for a rudimentary nuclear device that Iran may not yet be able to replicate or deliver will be costly and fall short of achieving the strategic goals Iran is pursuing through its nuclear program—namely, the survival of the Islamic Revolution and its rise as the regional hegemon.

Tactically, Iran may therefore prefer to wait until it has accumulated enough weapons-grade fissile material to build not one but dozens of bombs; until it can build a nuclear device that is small enough to fit into a missile warhead; and until it has perfected its ballistic-missile technology to the point where a long-range missile can accurately hit a distant target. That time line is still quite long—years, not months.

However, it is not the time line that matters for policymakers. For long before Iran has accumulated enough fissile material to build an arsenal and enough technological know-how to make it into deliverable warheads, Iran will have mastered the technology and cracked the scientific secrets needed to reach that goal. It is the difference between knowing how to ride a bicycle and owning one. The regime is closer to the former than the latter—the U.S. envoy’s statement is further evidence of that. But once the knowledge is there, it will be harder to halt the march to the real thing. Thus, this shorter time line matters more than the actual moment when Iran will break away from the NPT, build several warheads, mount them on missiles, and threaten its neighbors.

But even this time line is not the one that policymakers must rely on for their planning. Long before Iran has built its arsenal or acquired the necessary knowledge, it will have shielded dozens of clandestine installations from a possible military strike. Iran knows that military planners in Israel and the U.S. constantly update their contingency plans for a strike based on fresh intelligence. The more Iran spreads its program, the more it hides it behind an impenetrable shield of defenses and fortifications, the harder the job for those in the West tasked with devising a realistic plan of attack.

At some point, they will tell the U.S. president and the Israeli prime minister that a military strike to retard or destroy Iran’s nuclear program is no longer an option. From then onward, Iran’s run to nuclear capability is unhindered. The removal of a credible military threat from the arsenal of diplomatic tools available to the international community will considerably reduce its leverage on Iran’s regime. Whereas the nuclear clock may be still ticking slow enough to give us time, Iran’s efforts to make its program untouchable are less burdened by scientific challenges—that clock is ticking much faster. Tehran will get there long before it can threaten anyone with a deliverable nuclear weapon. Once that happens— in months, not years—the game is up.

Only weeks after Sweden’s Aftonbladet published its libelous story on Israeli soldiers and organ-harvesting, Spain’s El Mundo had its little spat with Israel today.

El Mundo is going to publish an interview with Holocaust denier David Irving this Saturday, as part of a string of articles commissioned to mark the 70th anniversary of the beginning of World War II.

The paper received a protest letter from the Israeli ambassador, and it responded in kind, mentioning freedom of speech and implying that Irving’s views (while not those of the paper) may be of public interest as long as they do not incite. The Israeli ambassador, who questioned the choice, among other things, as a blatant example of moral relativism was accused of having a Manichaean view of the world.

Surely the editor will have missed the irony of rebuking Israel’s ambassador’s lamentations that El Mundo can’t tell right from wrong and truth from lie by calling his view “Manichaean,” because it kind of proves the ambassador’s point.

Just as surely, people will surmise callousness, if not outright anti-Semitism, in the choice of giving Irving equal dignity of standing and space alongside real historians who have long exposed him for what he really is.

But it seems to me that the point is that freedom of the press is not the same as the obligation to give a platform to every crank on the planet. Editors make thousands of editorial choices on what to publish, what to downplay, what to headline, and what to leave aside many times a week. In point of fact, El Mundo’s editor, while waving the press’s freedom flag, censored the ambassador’s letter’s last, and most damning, paragraph because, presumably, it suggested that his editorial choice to publish Irving was dictated by sensationalism.

El Mundo and Aftonbladet have each in its own way crossed a line—making the outrageous legitimate, and the extreme mainstream. Each has referred to a principle it does not necessarily apply when receiving submissions from pro-Israel voices.

It remains to be seen what Irving says, of course. But that’s beside the point. An interview in a leading publication is a place in the sun. Spain’s El Mundo just gave him one.

One more line has been crossed in Europe. Don’t be surprised if the trickle soon becomes an avalanche.

Speaking of Syria, the IAEA released its progress report on Syria’s nuclear activities on Friday, alongside the much more publicized document on Iran. It should be required reading both in Washington among supporters of re-engaging Damascus and in Brussels among supporters of finalizing the frozen Association Agreement between the EU and Syria. The agreement includes a nonproliferation clause that commits Syria to “fulfill existing obligations under disarmament and non-proliferation instruments.”

The IAEA report says that

Syria has not yet provided the necessary cooperation to permit the Agency to determine the origin of the anthropogenic natural uranium particles found in samples taken at the Dair Alzour site. Syria also did not cooperate with the Agency to confirm Syria’s statements regarding the non-nuclear nature of the destroyed building on the Dair Alzour site and to determine what, if any, functional relationship existed between the Dair Alzour site and three other locations, or to substantiate Syria’s claims regarding certain procurement efforts and its alleged foreign nuclear cooperation.

Even in the bland diplomat-ese spoken and written at the IAEA, this is not exactly an endorsement of Syrian compliance.

Is this not enough, then, for the EU to backpedal on the Association Agreement and for Washington to rethink its engagement with Damascus?

The EU has come up with a brilliant idea to wrap up the spat with Israel over the Swedish “organ harvesting” blood libel recently published in its tabloid Aftonbladet. At the next foreign ministers’ meeting, apparently, a declaration will be issued condemning anti-Semitism.

Clearly, before one can comments on the initiative, one must see the text of the statement. But if we may offer a modest word of advice to the EU: Perhaps the best way to demonstrate commitment and put the controversy to rest is not just to condemn, in the usual lofty and generic terms, a prejudice that everyone in Europe loathes in the abstract. How about putting some meat to the bone by condemning Hamas for its Holocaust denial and reaffirming the EU’s firm opposition to any dialogue with the terrorist organization?

The diplomatic gathering also comes hard on the heels of Hamas’s rejection of a proposal to teach Gaza schoolchildren about the Holocaust — an obvious ploy to inculcate the youth with “a lie invented by the Zionists.”

True to form, London’s Sunday Times revealed yesterday that the release of the Lockerbie bomber might have to do with a “minor” oil deal — worth a reported 15 billion British pounds.

Her Majesty’s government has now provided an elaborate response to the accusation: yes, the government agreed to include the Lockerbie bomber in a PTA (Prisoner Transfer Agreement), which would have made Abdelbaset al-Megrahi eligible for transfer to Libya, where he would have to complete his sentence. Why would Mr. al-Megrahi want to end his life in a Libyan jail, as opposed to the Internet- and TV-equipped comfortable Scottish jailhouse that was hosting him remains a mystery. Regardless, HM’s government agreed to the inclusion of al-Megrahi into the PTA. But the final decision was up to Scotland, whose government rejected the PTA application.

Now, as we know, al-Megrahi was released on “compassionate grounds.” Still, something remains unclear. The British government wanted to release him to a Libyan jail (how long do you think he’d stay, once he arrived in Tripoli?), but the Scottish government thought the notion unbecoming. So the Scottish government rejected al-Megrahi’s inclusion in the PTA with Libya and released him instead on the aforementioned compassionate grounds.

Jack Straw, speaking this morning on CNN, said that “this debate is academic” because, clearly, it was not under his jurisdiction to release the man — it was his Scottish counterpart’s call.

Fair enough — but whose jurisdiction is it to control the international borders of the UK? Do we really believe that because the Scottish justice minister told his justice system to release al-Megrahi that British airport authorities, immigration police, and so on could not stop him at the international border?

And while we’re at it, enough with the shock about the hero’s welcome at Tripoli’s airport. Muammar Qaddafi is an Arab dictator. What’s more to add to this pity?

Over the years, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, has not been especially effective in stifling would-be nuclear proliferators. First, there was his adamant opposition to the war in Iraq — although Iraq’s history of concealment of WMD programs in the 1980s, its cat-and-mouse games with IAEA inspectors in the 90s, and its foreclosing of inspections between 1998 and 2002 might have counseled more circumspection. Then there was the embarrassing discovery of Libya’s nuclear program, which was surrendered to the U.S. by Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, not on account of the IAEA’s work, but out of Qaddafi’s fear that he could end up like his chum Saddam and out of his desire to see economic sanctions lifted. ElBaradei’s successor, the current Japanese rep to the IAEA Ambassador Yukiya Amano, is due to take office officially in December, and he will inherit three tricky files, Syria, Iran, and North Korea.

This past Friday, ElBaradei delivered what could be his last IAEA report on Iran before leaving the agency. It notes that Iran is stalling on critical and sensitive aspects of its military nuclear program, but at the same time much of the emphasis is on Iran’s recent (and belated and limited) compliance on a number of issues. The report hints at some important and potentially damning things about the military dimensions of Iran’s program, but then it goes on to shift focus and put the burden of proof on countries that have supplied critical intelligence to the agency. This last touch is somewhat ironic, given that Western governments have been pressing the agency to make its information public. As the New York Times put it last week,

To help win over Russia and China, Western powers want the IAEA to release with the report a classified summary of its inquiry into Western intelligence reports alleging Iran illicitly studied how to design a nuclear bomb, diplomats said.

A diplomat close to the IAEA said this was being considered, after a year of Iranian stonewalling that has stalled the inquiry, with Tehran dismissing the intelligence material as forgeries. But the IAEA has no evidence showing undeniably that Iran has a bomb agenda, he said, and IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei was loath to publish the summary for fear it could be used for political ends and make the agency look biased against Iran.

ElBaradei’s swan song is thus typical — diffuse, noncommittal, and befogging to the end. It praises Iran for token gestures and delicately refuses to compromise its evenhandedness by taking on the mullahs’ more serious stonewalling or countering their claims that evidence about their nuclear program is fabricated. Nevertheless, four important points emerge:

1. Iran is still not answering questions about the military dimensions of its program, which evidence in the hands of the IAEA shows cannot be denied.

2. Iran is accumulating low-enriched uranium (LEU) at a rate of approximately 2.77 kgs a day, which means it will have enough LEU for a second weapon by February 2010. At the current pace, it is producing enough LEU to yield enough weapons-grade material, once the LEU is reprocessed, to build one weapon a year.

3. Iran’s installed centrifuges currently number 8,308 — a steady increase in machinery (though not in active machines) over the past few months.

4. Iran refuses to apply the revised code of its safeguards agreement with regard to designs of new facilities and modifications of existing ones. (Iran is required to provide speedy communication of such plans to the agency.) This is especially worrisome when it comes to the power plant scheduled to be built in Darkhovin, the designs of which IAEA inspectors have not seen.

The good news is that ElBaradei is about to be replaced. The bad news is that the foot draggers in the international community will seize upon his last report to delay further any concerted strategy to deal with Iran. And the appetite for joint U.S.-European action or the like is even lower here in Western Europe than it is in Washington.

Back in July, I expressed deep skepticism at the apparent intention of the U.S. to adopt nuclear deterrence as a response to a nuclear Iran—if its engagement policy fails to persuade the regime.

Further proof that the idea of deterrence through the extension of the nuclear umbrella to U.S. allies in the region is a non-starter emerged in the past few days, when Egypt, one of America’s closest allies in the region, dismissed the idea out of hand. As NTI reported yesterday, a number of recent statements by Egyptian officials (including by President Hosni Mubarak during his visit to the White House last week) have made it clear that they are not interested in a nuclear umbrella for three reasons: They will not defer their national security to foreign troops—that means that if a nuclear umbrella is needed, they’ll develop their own. They do not want Iran to go nuclear—they prefer prevention. And they loathe the underlying idea of the U.S. proposal because it “would imply an implicit acceptance that there is a regional nuclear power—we do not accept that either”—among other reasons, because it would challenge Egypt’s status as a regional power.

So good luck to engagement. When that fails, the administration will quickly discover that everyone in the region prefers bombing to deterrence.

Sweden’s government refused to intervene on the matter of Aftonbladet’s libelous article on grounds of press freedom: they will not tell papers what to do, they will not punish them for doing the wrong thing.

Freedom of the press is not absolute in Europe, but still, we’d appreciate Sweden’s commitment to such lofty principles if it were consistent with past behavior. Not so. As pointed out by CiFWatch, a new blog recently launched to monitor the London Guardian’s worst excesses against Israel, Sweden moved to shut down an electronic publication of its far-Right party back in 2006, in the midst of the Danish-cartoons furor.

What might explain the difference? Could it be that Israel and its supporters abroad might express their anger, at most, by sending letters and taking a few demonstrative diplomatic steps, while those protesting the Danish cartoons burned the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Syria and killed more than a few people around the globe?

Back at Harry’s Place, the ever vigilant British blog offers some background to the Swedish organ-trafficking story. Aftonbladet, it turns out, was not even that original in its libelous allegations against Israel. The sordid tale of Jews and Zionists trafficking in organs is the theme of both the 2006 Turkish box-office success Valley of the Wolves and of a 2004 Iranian TV series.

Any wonder where Aftonbladet’s sources got their idea?

A few weeks after a German intelligence report indicated that Iran never stopped its clandestine nuclear-weapons program, a new article suggests that Iran did in fact stop in 2003, echoing the infamous December 2007 National Intelligence Estimate’s findings.

Clearly, we are not in a position to determine which is correct — Iran either did or didn’t stop in 2003.

What is clear though is that the NIE was wrong, at least if one believes these leaked reports. According to the Times of London’s latest revelation, Iran stopped its weaponization program in 2003 “because its strides had far outpaced the enrichment program.” In other words, the decision to suspend the program had nothing to do with pressure from America’s invasion of Iraq. It also had nothing to do with the much fabled secret negotiations between the U.S. and Iran that were ongoing in Paris at the time. Rather, it had to do with the simple fact that Iran had finished the weaponization part of the program before it had completed the other two elements — perfecting the delivery systems and mastering the enrichment process.

If the German report is correct, Iran never stopped. And if the Times is correct — Iran never stopped.

Others, I am sure, will comment on this aspect, but one issue should be raised for the scrutiny of those who put either too much or too little reliance on the intelligence community. The NIE crucially failed to answer a simple question about Iran’s nuclear program, one that was factual, not political: it never revealed what it believed was the cause of the suspension. By omitting a crucial piece of information, the NIE left policymakers and opinion leaders guessing — and we know the result.

This string of reports should also have implications for the Obama administration. If all that is missing for Iran to acquire the bomb is an order from the Supreme Leader, as the Times report suggests, then it is time to reaffirm a commitment to prevention at all costs — and to recognize that there is no time left for engagement.

Speaking to reporters about Iran’s nuclear program, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton appeared to talk tough in the wake of Iran’s foot-dragging on American overtures:

We want Iran to calculate what I think is a fair assessment … that if the U.S. extends a defense umbrella over the region, if we do even more to support the military capacity of those in the Gulf, it’s unlikely that Iran will be any stronger or safer because they won’t be able to intimidate and dominate as they apparently believe they can once they have a nuclear weapon.

Maybe. But then again, maybe not. Tough as it may sound, this statement is the clearest statement to date, as much as I can tell, from a senior administration official, that if engagement fails, America will not switch to other preventative measures but will instead resort to establishing a credible deterrence posture.

From the safe distance of America’s eastern seaboard, deterrence may appear safe. If you happen to be a monarch ruling over a small statelet in the Persian Gulf, and every morning when you open your palace windows (well, when your servants open them for you), you see Iran across the Gulf, deterrence may not be as reliable. After all, if Iran chooses to, say, instigate a Shiite uprising or a coup in Bahrein and thus manages to topple the monarchy there, will America’s public support U.S. direct intervention? Before Secretary Clinton can get to a TV studio to make the case for sovereignty, stability, legitimacy, and all the rest of it, before CENTCOM can deploy, an army of pundits will be on CNN and al-Jazeera reminding us that the Sunni monarchy there is not exactly the expression of the will of the people; that the newly installed regime should be recognized as the authentic expression of the Bahreini nation; and that a small island-state and its not-so-democratic monarch do not deserve the shedding of American blood or the risks of a nuclear showdown with Iran. Before you know it, someone will be asking for America’s Fifth Fleet at Juffair base in Bahrein to pack up their bags and relocate.

Of course, this will be done politely, and over time. But the bottom line should be clear: Containment comes with a price, which during the Cold War — when our nemesis was a nuclear-armed Soviet Union — meant recognizing clearly delimited spheres of influence in Europe and clashing occasionally in areas where the fragile balance between the two blocs was constantly under challenge.

Far-fetched?

According to an AFP newsflash, a prominent Iranian cleric has condemned China’s “handling” of the ethnic unrest in Xinjiang. Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi was quoted as saying that “It is true that the Chinese government and its people have close economic and political ties with us and other Islamic countries, but this is no reason for them to horribly suppress our Muslim brothers and sisters.” Shirazi went on to say that “We strongly condemn this suppression and urge all Muslims of the world to demand in one voice that the Chinese government end this situation and punish the criminals.” AFP reported that “Shirazi also took a dig at Iranian officials for remaining ’silent’ over the unrest in the Chinese province of Xinjiang.”

So let’s play name change.

Put “Western leaders” in place of “Grand Ayatollah Shirazi”; put “Iran” in place of “Chinese Government” and you see why the above is ironic. Iran, ever so sensitive to others meddling in its own internal affairs, does not seem so sensitive of other ruthless dictators’ complaints over foreign nations meddling in their affairs. And truth be told, while Western leaders bend over backwards not to be seen as “meddling” in internal Iranian affairs — as if such meddling were flat wrong — Iran has been meddling in the internal affairs of other nations for a very long time. Not exactly in a constructive fashion either.

Whether it’s Lebanon or Gaza, Iraq or Afghanistan, Latin America or North African countries, Iran is acting like an imperial power, bent on expanding its influence while undermining others. We should meddle more, not less, especially given Iran’s aggressive behavior in meddling into affairs that bear on Western strategic interests.

And then there is the issue of commercial ties. Ayatollah Shirazi does not seem particularly deterred by Iran’s thriving economic relation with China in his criticism of China. Can Western countries do the same — criticize Iran without fear for their commercial interests?