_Newsweek_’s Mark Hosenball, who also wrote the Bolton/Cuba story referenced in “my last post”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/index.php?id=516, has “another piece”:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7369510/site/newsweek/ about the MEK/NCRI’s role in revealing Iran’s nuclear programs. (See also “ACW 24 October 2004”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/index.php?id=259)

Most of you probably know that the NCRI announced in August 2002 that Iran had secret nuclear facilities at Arak and Natanz. The USFG had no official reaction at the time, but the IAEA’s investigation of Tehran’s nuclear programs began shortly afterwards.

Now, the NCRI was largely correct in that instance. (I say “largely” because its August 2002 announcement referred to Natanz as a facility for “nuclear fuel production,” which could imply something other than uranium enrichment.) Since then, however, it is often said that this group’s revelations gave Western intelligence agencies their first clue about the facilities in question.

Indeed, Hosenball points out, Bush told reporters 16 March that the facilities were “discovered, not because of their compliance with the IAEA or NPT, but because a dissident group pointed it out to the world.”

But it seems that some in the IC have taken issue with the implication that they knew nothing about Arak and Natanz:

bq. Intelligence sources tell NEWSWEEK, however, that while the council’s revelation may have been new to the public, U.S. agencies had reported the same information to policymakers, in classified form, well before the resistance group went public with it.

U.S. officials have said much the same thing in public on at least two occasions. First, former SecState Powell said during a “March 2003 interview”:http://tokyo.usembassy.gov/e/p/tp-20030311a3.html that the US had shared intelligence with the IAEA. Second, Presidential Medal of Freedom Winner George Tenet “said almost a year later that”:http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/02/05/tenet.transcript.ap/ “It is flat wrong to say that we were surprised by reports from the Iranian opposition.”

Another issue concerns the NCRI’s track record for accuracy. News from this group is often good for getting right-wingers to show their “O” face and belittle the EU3’s diplomacy with Tehran, but it’s probably good that we’re not banking on these exiles for too much intel.

For example, IAEA inspectors visited another site that the NCRI ID’d as a secret nuclear facility. ElBaradei reported this past November that the inspectors …

bq. … visited three locations at an industrial complex in Kolahdouz in western Tehran that had been mentioned in open source reports as relevant to enrichment activities. While no work was seen at those locations that could be directly linked to uranium enrichment, environmental samples were taken. The results did not reveal any indications of activities involving the use of nuclear material.

Additionally, an IAEA official told me 5 April that no subsequent NCRI reports have led the agency to any smoking guns.

Moreover, “ElBaradei thinks”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005_03/ElBaradei.asp the IAEA needs more information, which suggests that the NCRI isn’t helping all that much.

To be fair, the NCRI _was_ right once and the IAEA is continuing to follow up on at least some of the group’s information. But the point is that we have the agency there to verify the exiles’ claims. Of course, that didn’t much matter with Iraq …

At least some Iranian officials appear somewhat skeptical of the “Bush administration’s limited incentives”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/index.php?id=475 for Tehran to comply with the EU3’s negotiating demands.

Senior Iranian negotiator Sirus Naseri told Iranian state television 15 March:

bq. As far as America is concerned, we said: Ms Rice, are you prepared to shut down two of your power plants if we supply you with pistachios? We said that we would supply them with a three year stock of pistachios. However, we will supply their pistachios lorry by lorry because they said things would have to be taken step by step and when we see any progress, we will reward them with more pistachios. This is how ridiculous the situation is.

Mmmmmmmm….pistachios. I bet they next offer a fruit basket…

*Jeffrey’s 2 cents:* ACW reader AM sends word that Iranian pistacho merchants have been reluctant to include their product in a barter deal for Bushehr:

A high-powered delegation of Russian nuclear industry officials is traveling to Tehran this week to negotiate details of how Iran will pay for nuclear reactor construction contracts worth a total of $1 billion. … [Russian officials] are proposing to be paid by a combination of cash and Iranian barter goods. Sources in Tehran say about $700 million is to be paid to Moscow in cash, and $300 million in Iranian barter goods.

[snip]

At the same time, the Iranians have come up with a high-powered product of their own. Presented for the first time at the WorldFood-97 exhibition in Moscow last week, the Iranian wonder product reportedly does one thing nuclear energy cannot – it revives flagging male sexual potency. It’s the pistachio nut prepared with saffron.

“Iranians don’t suffer from impotence,” said Mohammed Karimiapour, director of Arian Milan, one of Iran’s leading exporters of pistachios. “But for centuries, Iran’s shahs have used saffron with their pistachios to cure this ill. In the northern countries of Europe, the saffron pistachio is now being advertised for this purpose. I’ve seen the case studies and letters that have poured in.”

[snip]

In the much larger barter deal now in planning, Iranian merchants are competing hard for inclusion of their products. But Mr. Karimiapour says the pistachio traders are holding back. Because of this year’s supply shortage and rising prices, most of the Iranians believe they can do better selling directly for hard currency, rather than accept the barter terms and currency controls that will be overseen by the Iranian Central Bank.

But Mr. Karimiapour is confident about the future of Iran’s pistachio trade in Russia. He’s also taken a long, hard look at the American competition. “They are rounder, with less taste than our nuts. Also, they can’t offer what we can for the Russian man.”

“They are rounder, with less taste than our nuts.” AWESOME.

In case you don’t believe me: John Helmer, “Iranian Nuclear Trade With Russia Goes Nuts; Pistachios Marketed For Sexual Potency,” _Journal of Commerce_ (June 11, 1997) 7B.

Will someone in the press please, for the love of God, notice that Bush’s description of Washington’s Iran diplomacy does not constitute anything anyone could reasonably call “success”?

Bush told an audience on Friday that:

bq. we [the US and the Europeans] worked together on the issue of Iran, to make sure that we speak with one voice to the Iranian regime, that they should abandon any ambitions for nuclear weapons for the sake of peace in the world. I am pleased that we are speaking with one voice with our European friends.

Persuading other countries to take the courageous “Iranian nukes bad” stance does not a diplomatic triumph make. And who, exactly, was on the “Bombs for Tehran” bandwagon that W so successfully derailed?

Good thing the adults are in charge…

Note to SecState Rice:

“Making token gestures”:http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2005&m=March&x=20050311173446xlrenneF1.122683e-02&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html to support the EU3-Iran negotiations is only a really, really, weak beginning of a coherent Iran policy.

Look, Iran is being asked to do something that’s not legally required (i.e. give up its fuel cycle), so we have to provide serious incentives. I don’t think the WTO and aircraft parts incentives are going to cut it. Iranian officials, as well as “experts who have recently spoken”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27108-2005Mar11?language=printer with said officials, seem to agree.

Let’s be clear: Washington needs to make it clear that a satisfactory EU-Iran agreement on the fuel cycle issue would be sufficient to keep the US from overthrowing the government in Tehran. The US still hasn’t done that.

For example, Rice would not say during her confirmation hearings that a verifiable fuel cycle agreement would get the US to do, well, anything. Instead, she listed other concerns (terrorism, human rights, etc.) that the administration also wants resolved. During her subsequent trip to Europe, Rice refused on several occasions to answer direct questions about whether the US has a policy of regime change.

Contrast that with Powell’s 10 December statement that “U.S. policy is not to advocate regime change in Iran.”

Now, maybe something is happening behind the scenes. I certainly hope so. But I fear that the charaterization of the US strategy “in the NYT”:http://nytimes.com/2005/03/11/politics/11iran.html?pagewanted=all is accurate.

Some officials in the Bush administration… see the president’s decision to dangle what amount to modest American economic incentives as part of an effort to speed along the negotiating process so that Iran’s intentions become clear.

At that point, in the view of hawks on the issue inside the White House and the Pentagon, the Europeans will be bound to take the issue to the Security Council. These officials would only speak anonymously because such delicate negotiations hang in the balance.

Notice that this US schtick _really_ looks like the same bad-faith diplomacy from the Iraq debacle. Even if the US gets its UNSC referral, it is far from certain that anything will happen if others think we aren’t serious about the process this time around.

Of course, then the US could well say “the UN sucks, we’ll do our own thing.” Then we could likely be facing a choice between another war or welcoming the next major nuclear-armed non-NATO ally.

Strong work.