Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs

 

By Sreeram Chaulia
The contention of a senior Russian diplomat, Vladimir Voronkov, that Iran is presently incapable of developing nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them has reopened an international Pandora's box.
The comments by Voronkov, head of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Department of European Cooperation, cast doubts on, if not contradict, Israel's assessment that Iran is rapidly gaining nuclear-weapons capability in the guise of "peaceful" electricity generation.
Russia's word has a notable significance on the matter because it enjoys unparalleled access to Iran's nuclear facilities. Russian

engineers working for a Russian company are building Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor and are in daily touch with Iranian ground realities. Voronkov buttressed his claim by adding, "This information is confirmed by all the services responsible for the collection and analysis of information."
If Moscow's combined intelligence agencies are in agreement that Iran does not have nuclear-weapons capability, it calls for serious rethinking about whether the "crisis" built up over Tehran going nuclear was nothing but a bogey to roll back its rise as the impresario of a Shi'ite resurgence in the Middle East.
Long before the George W Bush administration began trumpeting the Iranian nuclear threat theory to the level of an international headache, Israel was gravely worried that a nuclear-armed Tehran could neutralize Tel Aviv's regional lead in unconventional weaponry. As an undeclared nuclear weapons power since the 1960s, Israel has been watching its volatile neighborhood like a jealous hawk for any signs of other states acquiring the ultimate deterrent.
In 1981, former Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin ordered Operation Opera, a surreptitious air strike to bomb and damage Iraq's Osirak reactor before it could be loaded with nuclear fuel and possibly used for weapons production. At that time, Iraqi president Saddam Hussein pleaded the exact line that Iran's political leadership is purveying today - that Osirak was part and parcel of Baghdad's legal and "entirely peaceful" civilian nuclear program.
In September 2007, Israel did a redux of Osirak by aerially bombarding Syria's partially built nuclear reactor near the Turkish border which was allegedly a joint venture with the government of North Korea. Planning for this strike happened in early 2007, when the head of Israeli intelligence, Meir Dagan, presented Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with "evidence" that Syria was seeking to buy a nuclear weapon from North Korea to give Tel Aviv a "devastating surprise".
Compared to the Osirak incident, Israel's Syria attack is shrouded in greater mist and speculation. One theory is that the Syrian reactor was only partially constructed and that it was years away from churning out anything threatening to Israel. The New York Times cited an American official that the action was a warning from Israel to Iran rather than a pre-emptive strike to decapitate Syria's barely existent plutonium infrastructure. The fact that Syria and Iran are close allies holding out against Israeli and American designs in the Middle East makes this interpretation plausible.
Israel started sounding alarm bells about Iran's nuclear program in 1991, but these fell on deaf years in Washington for a long time. From the mid-1990s, Israeli strategists were issuing dire predictions that Iran is just "a few years away" from acquiring a nuclear weapon. While the Bill Clinton administration did not buy this threat perception, Israel found empathy in the succeeding George W Bush White House and Pentagon. With many of the neo-conservatives hailing from Jewish backgrounds, or attached to the special US-Israel relationship, it became relatively easy for the US to push Iranian nuclear weapons to the top of the stockpile of pressing global issues.
Before the US military campaign in Iraq got bogged down in fierce anti-colonial resistance and sectarian violence, it was common to hear neo-cons in the US and Israel reach shrill pitch about the impending disaster of Iran going nuclear. Sensing a window of opportunity to fulfill their dream of forcible "regime change" in Tehran, the neo-cons used Iranian nukes as the casus belli. The US intelligence community was cowed by its political bosses to concur that Iran posed a serious world threat.
But as the war in Iraq dragged on and drained American troop morale and public enthusiasm, internal rifts cropped up within the US over plunging into a second war before the first was won. The 2005 National Intelligence Estimate, a comprehensive report based on consensus among various American spy agencies, projected that Iran is "about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon". This revised figure was double the previous conjecture of a five-year distance between Tehran and the atom bomb. It poured cold water on war-mongering rhetoric by downplaying the urgency of the "Iranian nuke crisis", which had been highlighted by Israel as a ticking time bomb that must be defused by all means.
Adding another twist to the empirical debate about whether or not Iran has nuclear weapons is the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations' nuclear watchdog organization. In June 2008, IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei cast a new stone into already rippled waters by opining, "It would need at least six months to one year to reach the point where we would wake up one morning to an Iran with a nuclear weapon." In November this year, a routine IAEA update based on inspections recorded that Iran had already produced enough low-enriched uranium to build a single atomic bomb.
Israel and the neo-cons, whose influence in US policymaking has gradually declined, jumped at this neutral view and again sharpened their knives. Talk that Bush would bow out of power by waging war on Iran mounted in step with the IAEA's revelations. The seesaw drama about Iran's possession or lack of nuclear weapons was always integrally linked to Israeli and US war-making intentions.
Unfortunately for ElBaradei, who is on record that he will resign if Iran is physically attacked, his public candor about Tehran's imprecise and opaque disclosures has played into the hands of those itching for a military solution.
The latest Russian pronouncements are antidotes to the Israeli scare tactics. But like all previous assessments, Moscow's words can also be questioned for their veracity. Among the permanent members of the UN Security Council, Russia is strategically the closest to Iran and a staunch opponent of using force on Tehran. With rumors abounding that Israel could "do Osirak 3" on Iran at any moment, the Russian release could be timed to protect a friend.
Russian and US representatives are also meeting in Moscow to sort out a spat over Washington's proposed stationing of anti-missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. Voronkov specifically mentioned Iranian delivery systems (read missiles) in his announcement, a likely message for Washington which is portraying the Iranian missile threat as the raison d'etre for militarizing eastern Europe.
However, it bears reminder that even Russia and China acquiesced in three rounds of UN economic sanctions against Iran for refusing to suspend its nuclear activities. As Tehran plays hide-and-seek with the IAEA and European Union interlocutors, the "Iranian nukes" cover story is set to dominate international headlines. US president-elect Barack Obama's remark that a nuclear Iran is "unacceptable" keeps the door open for speculation about the technical status quo of Tehran's weapons program.
The military decapitation option might not be taken off the table by Israel, despite Obama's inauguration next month in Washington. With the smog around Iranian nukes showing little sign of clearing, a dangerous informational confusion persists in which war could still break out.
Sreeram Chaulia is a researcher on international affairs at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in New York.
(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs

Nuclear Engineering International

 

No change on Iran

Introducing the report on Iran, ElBaradei said: “There remain a number of outstanding issues, relevant to the alleged studies and associated questions identified in my last report to the Board, which give rise to concerns and need to be clarified in order to exclude the existence of possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme. Regrettably, the agency has not been able to make substantive progress on these issues... I also still regret the fact that the agency has not been able to share with Iran documentation [related to the alleged studies] provided by member states. I call upon the member states concerned to authorise the agency to do so.”

The report said that Iran has continued to feed UF₆ into the 3000-machine IR-1 unit (Unit A24), and five cascades of Unit A26, at the Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP). Installation and testing of the 13 remaining cascades of Unit A26 is continuing. Preparatory installation work at Units A25, A27 and A28 continues. As of 7 November, the total amount of UF₆ fed into the cascades since the beginning of operations in February 2007 was 9750kg, and Iran is estimated to have produced approximately 630kg of low enriched UF₆. All nuclear material at FEP, as well as all installed cascades, “remain under agency containment and surveillance.”

In September, the agency conducted a physical inventory verification (PIV) at the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP), the results of which are pending. Between 25 August and 28 October, Iran had fed approximately 31kg of UF₆ into the 10-machine IR-2 cascade and the single IR-1, IR-2 and IR-3 centrifuges. All nuclear material at PFEP, as well as the cascade area also remains under agency containment. “To date, the results of the environmental samples taken at FEP and PFEP2, and the operating records for FEP3, indicate that the plants have been operating as declared” (less than 5.0% U-235 enrichment). Since March 2007, 20 unannounced inspections have been conducted at FEP.

On reprocessing, the agency has continued to monitor the use and construction of hot cells at the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) and the molybdenum, iodine and xenon radioisotope production (MIX) facility through inspections and design information verification (DIV) and there are no indications of ongoing reprocessing related activities at those facilities.

In August, the IAEA conducted a PIV at the Fuel Manufacturing Plant (FMP), the results of which are consistent with the declaration made by Iran. An inspection in October revealed no major changes in the construction status of FMP since May.

As of 3 November 2008, approximately 33t of uranium in the form of UF₆ had been produced at the Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF) since the last PIV in March. This brings the total amount of UF₆ produced at the facility since March 2004 to 348t, all of which remains under agency containment. The UCF was shut down in August for a routine maintenance and restarted operation in October.

Using satellite imagery, the IAEA has continued to monitor the status of the Heavy Water Production Plant, which appears to be in operational condition. Satellite imagery is also being used to monitor construction of the Iran Nuclear Research Reactor (IR-40) since Iran, in March 2007, suspended implementation of arrangements concerning the early provision of design information. Because of this, the agency was not permitted to carry out the DIV scheduled for October. However, it has confirmed that construction of the reactor is continuing. The IAEA requested in December 2007, but has not yet received, preliminary design information for the nuclear power plant that is to be built in Darkhovin.

Outstanding issues

A number of outstanding issues remain relating to the “alleged studies,” based on US intelligence data, which indicate weapons development, although Iran has insisted that they are forgeries. Moreover, the USA refuses to allow the agency to give copies of these studies to Iran, but still expects Iran to give detailed answers to the charges. The report says the agency currently has no information — apart from the uranium metal document (an issue dealt with in earlier reports) — “on the actual design or manufacture by Iran of nuclear material components of a nuclear weapon or of certain other key components, such as initiators, or on related nuclear physics studies. Nor has the agency detected the actual use of nuclear material in connection with the alleged studies.” However this issue is stalling any further progress and the agency asked Iran to cooperate in supplying the requested information.

“Iran needs to provide the agency with substantive information to support its statements and provide access to relevant documentation and individuals in this regard. Unless Iran provides such transparency, and implements the Additional Protocol, the agency will not be able to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran.”

Dependence on intelligence information for its investigations does not sit well with the IAEA. Opening the board meeting, ElBaradei had raised the issue of satellite imagery as a tool to assess claims of undeclared nuclear activities. He noted: “It is of course unfortunate that the agency, like the United Nations as a whole, does not have an independent satellite capability, as was proposed some years ago by France. As that is unlikely to change any time soon, we will continue to make use of available commercial and member state satellite imagery. But I should stress that, because the agency cannot verify the authenticity of such imagery, we rely on it only as an auxiliary source to corroborate other information …(and) this may mean that the agency’s assessments in some cases are inconclusive.”

After the meeting, Iran’s Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani said the IAEA should set a deadline for the USA to present evidence for its claims about Iran's nuclear programme. He told reporters on the sidelines of the Nuclear Power Plants, the Environment, and Sustainable Development conference in Tehran (see panel), that the IAEA should take the issue off its agenda if those countries that want Iran to halt its uranium enrichment programme cannot prove their allegations. He said the latest report was “ambiguous”, and criticised IAEA officials for allowing the intelligence services of certain countries to have undue influence over its activities.

Moscow’s mediation

Moscow has stressed the need for Iran to ensure full cooperation with the IAEA at a meeting in Moscow between Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergey Ryabkov, and the Iranian ambassador to Russia, Mahmud Reza Sajjadi. At the same time, Russian officials said that US president-elect Barack Obama will have to normalise relations with Iran to reach an agreement over the disputed nuclear programme, reiterating opposition to any further sanctions. Russia is hoping that “the new administration understands that there is no alternative to the political process and dialogue at all levels,” said Ryabkov in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Moscow. Asked if Obama would have to normalise ties with Iran to reach a nuclear agreement, he replied: “Yes, absolutely.”

Pressure for a US policy change is also coming from inside the USA. A panel of American diplomats and other experts have advised Obama against any further economic and military threats. “An attack would almost certainly fail,” while coercing Iran with economic sanctions has very little chance of success, the experts said in a report to a conference on the future of US-Iran policy. “Threats are not cowing Iran and the current regime in Tehran is not in imminent peril,” according to the report.

Far more likely to succeed, according to former US ambassadors Thomas Pickering and James Dobbins, Columbia University scholar Gary Sick and 17 other experts, is to “open the door to direct, unconditional and comprehensive negotiations at the senior diplomatic level.”

Author Info:

Judith Perera is Editor of McCloskey NuclearBusiness

Nuclear Engineering International

Are Key Obama Advisors in Tune with Neocon Hawks Who Want to Attack Iran? | ForeignPolicy | AlterNet

 

A familiar coalition of hawks, hardliners, and neoconservatives expects Barack Obama's proposed talks with Iran to fail -- and they're already proposing an escalating set of measures instead. Some are meant to occur alongside any future talks. These include steps to enhance coordination with Israel, tougher sanctions against Iran, and a region-wide military buildup of U.S. strike forces, including the prepositioning of military supplies within striking distance of that country.

Once the future negotiations break down, as they are convinced will happen, they propose that Washington quickly escalate to war-like measures, including a U.S. Navy-enforced embargo on Iranian fuel imports and a blockade of that country's oil exports. Finally, of course, comes the strategic military attack against the Islamic Republic of Iran that so many of them have wanted for so long.

It's tempting to dismiss the hawks now as twice-removed from power: first, figures like John Bolton, Paul Wolfowitz, and Douglas Feith were purged from top posts in the Bush administration after 2004; then the election of Barack Obama and the announcement Monday of his centrist, realist-minded team of establishment foreign policy gurus seemed to nail the doors to power shut for the neocons, who have bitterly criticized the president-elect's plans to talk with Iran, withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq, and abandon the reckless Global War on Terrorism rhetoric of the Bush era.

"Kinetic Action" Against Iran

When it comes to Iran, however, it's far too early to dismiss the hawks. To be sure, they are now plying their trade from outside the corridors of power, but they have more friends inside the Obama camp than most people realize. Several top advisers to Obama -- including Tony Lake, UN Ambassador-designate Susan Rice, Tom Daschle, and Dennis Ross, along with leading Democratic hawks like Richard Holbrooke, close to Vice-President-elect Joe Biden or Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton -- have made common cause with war-minded think-tank hawks at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and other hardline institutes.

Last spring, Tony Lake and Susan Rice, for example, took part in a WINEP "2008 Presidential Task Force" study which resulted in a report entitled, "Strengthening the Partnership: How to Deepen U.S.-Israel Cooperation on the Iranian Nuclear Challenge." The Institute, part of the Washington-based Israel lobby, was founded in coordination with the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and has been vigorously supporting a confrontation with Iran. The task force report, issued in June, was overseen by four WINEP heavyweights: Robert Satloff, WINEP's executive director, Patrick Clawson, its chief Iran analyst, David Makovsky, a senior fellow, and Dennis Ross, an adviser to Obama who is also a WINEP fellow.

Endorsed by both Lake and Rice, the report opted for an alarmist view of Iran's nuclear program and proposed that the next president set up a formal U.S.-Israeli mechanism for coordinating policy toward Iran (including any future need for "preventive military action"). It drew attention to Israeli fears that "the United States may be reconciling itself to the idea of 'living with an Iranian nuclear bomb,'" and it raised the spurious fear that Iran plans to arm terrorist groups with nuclear weapons.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with consultations between the United States and Israel. But the WINEP report is clearly predisposed to the idea that the United States ought to give undue weight to Israel's inflated concerns about Iran. And it ignores or dismisses a number of facts: that Iran has no nuclear weapon, that Iran has not enriched uranium to weapons grade, that Iran may not have the know-how to actually construct a weapon even if, sometime in the future, it does manage to acquire bomb-grade material, and that Iran has no known mechanism for delivering such a weapon.

WINEP is correct that the United States must communicate closely with Israel about Iran. Practically speaking, however, a U.S.-Israeli dialogue over Iran's "nuclear challenge" will have to focus on matters entirely different from those in WINEP's agenda. First, the United States must make it crystal clear to Israel that under no circumstances will it tolerate or support a unilateral Israeli attack against Iran. Second, Washington must make it clear that if Israel were indeed to carry out such an attack, the United States would condemn it, refuse to widen the war by coming to Israel's aid, and suspend all military aid to the Jewish state. And third, Israel must get the message that, even given the extreme and unlikely possibility that the United States deems it necessary to go to war with Iran, there would be no role for Israel.

Just as in the wars against Iraq in 1990-1991 and 2003-2008, the United States hardly needs Israeli aid, which would be both superfluous and inflammatory. Dennis Ross and others at WINEP, however, would strongly disagree that Israel is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Ross, who served as Middle East envoy for George H.W. Bush and then Bill Clinton, was also a key participant in a September 2008 task force chaired by two former senators, Daniel Coats (R.-Ind.) and Chuck Robb (D.-Va.), and led by Michael Makovsky, brother of WINEP's David Makovsky, who served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in the heyday of the Pentagon neocons from 2002-2006. Robb, incidentally, had already served as the neocons' channel into the 2006 Iraq Study Group, chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Representative Lee Hamilton. According to Bob Woodward's latest book, The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008, it was Robb who insisted that the Baker-Hamilton task force include an option for a "surge" in Iraq.

The report of the Coats-Robb task force -- "Meeting the Challenge: U.S. Policy Toward Iranian Nuclear Development" -- went far beyond the WINEP task force report that Lake and Rice signed off on. It concluded that any negotiations with Iran were unlikely to succeed and should, in any case, be short-lived. As the report put the matter, "It must be clear that any U.S.-Iranian talks will not be open-ended, but will be limited to a pre-determined time period so that Tehran does not try to 'run out the clock.'"

Anticipating the failure of the talks, the task force (including Ross) urged "prepositioning military assets," coupled with a "show of force" in the region. This would be followed almost immediately by a blockade of Iranian gasoline imports and oil exports, meant to paralyze Iran's economy, followed by what they call, vaguely, "kinetic action."

That "kinetic action" -- a U.S. assault on Iran -- should, in fact, be massive, suggested the Coats-Robb report. Besides hitting dozens of sites alleged to be part of Iran's nuclear research program, the attacks would target Iranian air defense and missile sites, communications systems, Revolutionary Guard facilities, key parts of Iran's military-industrial complex, munitions storage facilities, airfields, aircraft facilities, and all of Iran's naval facilities. Eventually, they say, the United States would also have to attack Iran's ground forces, electric power plants and electrical grids, bridges, and "manufacturing plants, including steel, autos, buses, etc."

This is, of course, a hair-raising scenario. Such an attack on a country that had committed no act of war against the United States or any of its allies would cause countless casualties, virtually destroy Iran's economy and infrastructure, and wreak havoc throughout the region. That such a high-level group of luminaries should even propose steps like these -- and mean it -- can only be described as lunacy. That an important adviser to President-elect Obama would sign on to such a report should be shocking, though it has received next to no attention.

Palling Around with the Neocons

At a November 6 forum at WINEP, Patrick Clawson, the erudite, neoconservative strategist who serves as the organization's deputy director for research, laid out the institute's view of how to talk to Iran in the Obama era. Doing so, he said, is critically important, but only to show the rest of the world that the United States has taken the last step for peace -- before, of course, attacking. Then, and only then, will the United States have the legitimacy it needs to launch military action against Iran.

"What we've got to do is to show the world that we're making a big deal of engaging the Iranians," he said, tossing a bone to the new administration. "I'd throw everything, including the kitchen sink, into it." He advocates this approach only because he believes it won't work. "The principal target with these offers [to Iran] is not Iran," he adds. "The principal target of these offers is American public opinion and world public opinion."

The Coats-Robb report, Meeting the Challenge," was written by one of the hardest of Washington's neoconservative hardliners, Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute. Rubin, who spent most of the years since 9/11 either working for AEI or, before and during the war in Iraq, for the Wolfowitz-Feith team at the Pentagon, recently penned a report for the Institute entitled: "Can A Nuclear Iran Be Deterred or Contained?" Not surprisingly, he believes the answer to be a resounding "no," although he does suggest that any effort to contain a nuclear Iran would certainly require permanent U.S. bases spread widely in the region, including in Iraq:

"If U.S. forces are to contain the Islamic Republic, they will require basing not only in GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries, but also in Afghanistan, Iraq, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. Without a sizeable regional presence, the Pentagon will not be able to maintain the predeployed resources and equipment necessary to contain Iran, and Washington will signal its lack of commitment to every ally in the region. Because containment is as much psychological as physical, basing will be its backbone."

The Coats-Robb report was issued by a little-known group called the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC). That organization, too, turns out to be interwoven with WINEP, not least because its foreign policy director is Michael Makovsky. Perhaps the most troubling participant in the Bipartisan Policy Center is Barack Obama's minence grise and one of his most important advisers during the campaign, Tom Daschle, who is slated to be his secretary of health and human services. So far, Daschle has not repudiated BPC's provocative report.

Ross, along with Richard Holbrooke, recently made appearances amid another collection of superhawks who came together to found a new organization, United Against Nuclear Iran. UANI is led by Mark Wallace, the husband of Nicole Wallace, a key member of Senator John McCain's campaign team. Among UANI's leadership team are Ross and Holbrooke, along with such hardliners as Jim Woolsey, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Fouad Ajami, the Arab-American scholar who is a principal theorist on Middle East policy for the neoconservative movement.

UANI is primarily a propaganda outfit. Its mission, it says, is to "inform the public about the nature of the Iranian regime, including its desire and intent to possess nuclear weapons, as well as Iran's role as a state sponsor of global terrorism, and a major violator of human rights at home and abroad" and to "heighten awareness nationally and internationally about the danger that a nuclear-armed Iran poses to the region and the world."

Barack Obama has, of course, repeatedly declared his intention to embark on a different path by opening talks with Iran. He's insisted that diplomacy, not military action, will be at the core of his approach to Tehran. During the election campaign, however, he also stated no less repeatedly that he will not take the threat of military action "off the table."

Organizations like WINEP, AIPAC, AEI, BPC, and UANI see it as their mission to push the United States toward a showdown with Iran. Don't sell them short. Those who believe that such a confrontation would be inconceivable under President Obama ought to ask Tony Lake, Susan Rice, Dennis Ross, Tom Daschle, and Richard Holbrooke whether they agree -- and, if so, why they're still palling around with neoconservative hardliners.

See more stories tagged with: iran, neocons, tom daschle, richard holbrooke, dennis ross, susan rice, tony lake

Robert Dreyfuss, an independent journalist in Alexandria, Virginia, is a contributing editor at the Nation magazine, whose website hosts his The Dreyfuss Report, and has written frequently for Rolling Stone, The American Prospect, Mother Jones, and the Washington Monthly. He is the author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam.

Are Key Obama Advisors in Tune with Neocon Hawks Who Want to Attack Iran? | ForeignPolicy | AlterNet

Think-tank comments on Iran worry Israel | Iran news | Jerusalem Post

 

Israeli officials expressed concern Wednesday about some of the recommendations in a report top American experts have prepared on Middle East policy for the Obama administration, including expanding engagement with Iran and possible responses should Teheran acquire nuclear capabilities.

US President-elect Barack Obama.
Photo: AP

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The report, drafted by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution, will be a major focus of the latter's Saban Center for Middle East Policy forum this weekend for top US and Israeli officials, as Washington heavy hitters try to play a role in shaping the policies of the next administration.

Foreign Ministry officials weren't thrilled about the report's recommendations, but downplayed its significance.

"We have nothing to be afraid of," one official said, refuting those who expressed fear that this report would become Obama's diplomatic road map. "Obama is surrounding himself with people who we know - from Hillary Clinton, to Rahm Emanuel, to James Jones. There is no reason to panic.

"It could be that the new administration's policy will be different from the Bush administration's; in fact, it will be a little different. But that doesn't mean it will be against Israel."

The official remarked that the report would likely be passed around by Obama subordinates, along with many other similar documents being prepared over the transition period. It was unrealistic, he said, to think Obama is going to internalize this report's findings and make them his own policies.

Still, the Saban gathering draws together international figures of the highest order and leading thinkers and experts on Middle East issues. US President George W. Bush is set to give his valedictory speech on the region at the weekend event, being held in Washington.

Despite Bush's presence, the report is blunt in assessing that current US policies toward Iran have "failed." Instead, the report calls for direct engagement with Iran, to begin at a low level as soon as possible.

Though it acknowledges that diplomacy is not a cure-all, it considers diplomacy more likely than other options - including a military attack and regime change - to productively manage Iran's nuclear ambitions.

A separate chapter on Iran estimates that the country won't be capable of producing a credible nuclear weapons option for another two to three years, during which increased sanctions alongside engaged diplomacy are advocated.

But, it adds, "If diplomacy or force fails to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, a declared US nuclear umbrella for the region or parts of it should be a key mechanism for deterring Iran, reassuring Israel, and incorporating our other allies into an effective regional balance."

Martin Indyk, who heads the Saban Center and co-wrote the report's introductory section - though he didn't author the chapters dealing with specific countries - explained the latter recommendation as potentially helping to synchronize the American and Israeli time frames on Iran.

Speaking to the press after the report was unveiled on Tuesday, Indyk said that the US and Israel have different deadlines for dealing with the threat of a nuclear Iran, because Israel sees the issue as an existential one while the US sees room to maneuver, even if Tehran did acquire some nuclear capabilities.

By the US providing security guarantees, such as a nuclear umbrella, he argued, it could reassure Jerusalem and "buy more time" for diplomacy to work.

Indyk also backed US support for Israeli-Syrian negotiations that are already under way through a third party, Turkey.

He suggested that they could strengthen the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian peace process, since a price for an agreement would be Syria cutting its ties to radical Islamic parties and Iran, whose influence the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority also wants to see diminish as part of its effort to tame Hamas.

In its chapter on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the report contends that Hamas needs to be brought back into a Palestinian national unity government to try to reshape its current role as a spoiler.

The report doesn't push the US to recognize Hamas, but suggests mediation by the Arab countries between the rival Palestinian parties.

Indyk also said the current Annapolis process could continue to provide a good framework for moving forward on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

Richard Haass, president of CFR and the co-author of the introduction, agreed that there were positive aspects of Bush's policies that shouldn't be thrown out in the new administration's haste to turn the page.

"It's important that the administration not start with an ABB approach - anything but Bush," he said.

Think-tank comments on Iran worry Israel | Iran news | Jerusalem Post