Iran's Nukes: Did Gates Just Complicate the Obama Position?

Transcripts: Secretary of Defense Gates on CNN, ABC
Iran’s Nuclear Program: Gary Sick on the US Approach after the “Secret Plant”
Iran’s “Secret” Nuclear Plant: Israel Jumps In
The Latest from Iran (27 September): Is There a Compromise Brewing?

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UPDATE 2035 GMT: The Los Angeles Times summarises Gates' appearance on ABC's This Week: noting that the unemployment rate is 40% among Iran's young people, he asserted that past economic sanctions "are having an impact" and said severe additional sanctions "would have the potential to bringing them to change their policies". The article also notes Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on CBS's Face the Nation: "World powers have learned more about how to effectively use sanctions in their recent effort to halt the nuclear and missile programs of North Korea."

Threatening to punish Iran's young people? Crippling the economic life of "ordinary" Iranians? I stand by my assessment below --- if Tehran does not make concessions at the 5+1 meeting, can the Obama Administration really cross the line of harsh across-the-board sanctions? And will that be a precipice not only for Iran's people but for the White House strategy, bringing confrontation rather than solution?

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had a major set-piece interview on CNN today. While the most prominent issue will be US strategy in Afghanistan, he also spoke at least on Iran's nuclear programme. And while I can see his tactical path --- balancing tough talk on the "secret second plant" with the maintenance of a diplomatic track --- I think he may have cluttered it with excessive rhetoric.



Gates laid the criticism on thick and without reservation: "Certainly the intelligence people have no doubt that....this is an illicit nuclear facility, if only … because the Iranians kept it a secret.”

That conveniently throws out the complexity of Iran's position under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. (Tehran is relying on the provision of the NPT that it only needs to give six months' notice before uranium is placed in a plant.) And then Gates pushed his boat out, without supporting evidence, on the allegation of military intent: “If they wanted it for peaceful nuclear purposes, there's no reason to put it so deep underground, no reason to be deceptive about it, keep it a … secret for a protracted period of time.” (That ignores the perfectly logical explanation that Iran, wanting to protect enrichment capacity, would put a plant underground as protection against an airstrike. Its first plant, Natanz, is in open air.)

Gates at least did emphasize diplomatic efforts even though, in the standard sop to domestic hard-line opinion, he would not explicitly rule out military action:

The reality is, there is no military option that does anything more than buy time. The estimates are one to three years or so. And the only way you end up not having a nuclear-capable Iran is for the Iranian government to decide that their security is diminished by having those weapons, as opposed to strengthened. And so I think, as I say, while you don't take options off the table, I think there's still room left for diplomacy.

So what's the problem with this balance between tough talk and a maintenance of engagement? If the rhetoric does not bring Iranian concessions but, to the contrary, pushes Tehran into resistance (and, at least for some inside Iran, justify that resistance), then the Obama Administration will find that its balance between pressure and engagement is more rather than less precarious. A good section of US domestic opinion will be baying for, at the least, a wide range of punishing economic sanctions, while the objective of Iran's cooperation on issues such as Afghanistan will be harder to meet.

Iran's Nuclear Program: Gary Sick on the US Approach after the "Secret Plant"

NEW Iran’s Nukes: Did Gates Just Complicate the Obama Position?
Iran’s “Secret” Nuclear Plant: Israel Jumps In
The Latest from Iran (27 September): Is There a Compromise Brewing?

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Gary Sick, a former official in the Carter and Reagan Administration and one of the sharpest analysts of US-Iranian relations, works through the possibilities for American strategy and tactics after Iran's revelation of its second enrichment facility. Playing devil's advocate, I would argue that the Obama Administration already had "calculations" --- since it knew of the facility --- before Tehran's declaration to the International Atomic Energy Agency. What changed was Washington's decision to go high-profile, with President Obama's public statements, on the claims of the threat posed by the second plant.

That, to me, bears out Sick's caution: "The risk for the P5+1 [US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, China] negotiators is that they will be so filled with righteous indignation that they will overplay their hand" at the talks with Iran in Geneva on 1 October. And it points to an absence in Sick's evaluation: there is still no sign that Russia and China are on-board with a US-led pressure campaign against Tehran; their position is better characterised as wait-and-see.

Iran's Nuke-Talks Game-Changer

The discovery and announcement of a second Iranian uranium enrichment facility – apparently on a Revolutionary Guards base near the holy city of Qom – has changed everybody’s calculations.

For the Obama administration, it provides them the kind of leverage against Iran that previously seemed to be lacking in the run up to the October 1 start of negotiations between Iran and the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany (the P5+1). The revelation of the new site brings closer than ever before the possibility that Russia, certainly, and perhaps even China, might lend their support (or at least tacitly acquiesce) to a new round of sanctions. That will make the threat of real consequences for Iran’s defiance of the United Nations Security Council much more credible and strengthen the hand of the western negotiators.

Iran, in turn, will arrive at the meeting red-faced but almost certainly not apologetic. Iran will claim that it had no obligation to announce the site until 180 days before introducing nuclear material. They notified the IAEA of that position in 2007 on the grounds that the original agreement was not ratified by the Iranian majles (parliament). Members of the IAEA will dispute this, since changes to the Safeguards Agreement are technical and do not normally require ratification.

The legal technicalities, however, are less important than the politics, and Iran will clearly be on the defensive in a way that has not been true for a long time.

Iran lied about this site. Very probably it was never intended to become public. Building a small enrichment facility in an underground chamber on a Revolutionary Guards base with no notification to any international authority, at a time when Iran was under intense pressure to respond to Security Council requests for more inspections, was clearly intended to avoid scrutiny.

Does that mean that Iran was prepared to proceed covertly with a nuclear weapon? Yes and no. If you start with the conviction, as I do, that Iran was and is determined to develop a nuclear capability that would permit it to “break out” and build a nuclear weapon if and when a decision was taken by Iran’s highest authorities, probably in response to a direct military threat to Iran by another nuclear power, then the creation of this site would serve two logical purposes.

First, it would disperse Iran’s enrichment capabilities, making it much more difficult for an enemy to destroy its nuclear program with a single strike. If the facility was unknown to the enemy, it would provide an immediate fall back capability in the event the enrichment site at Natanz was destroyed or severely damaged. It was very likely a component of Iran’s post-strike Plan B and assumed that any internal opposition to a nuclear weapon would have been removed by the military attack. As such, this facility would very likely be intended to produce a nuclear weapon.

The ambiguities of Iran’s position, which have always been present, would be amplified enormously by the existence of such a facility. The mere existence of such an undeclared site would be a constant worry for the non-proliferation community and a constant temptation to some in Iran to jump-start a weapons program. At a minimum, the availability of a covert enrichment site could shorten considerably the expected time from Iran’s moment of decision until the actual production of a weapon, since it could be launched without the knowledge of the IAEA inspectors.

The second key point, which is no less important, is that the site was apparently discovered by intelligence long before Iran made its announcement. That has to be an alarming and hugely unwelcome fact from Iran’s perspective. At a minimum, it pulls the rug out from under any Plan B, and Iran has to wonder about what western intelligence may know about any other covert activities that may exist or that might be undertaken in the future.

Both of these considerations serve to strengthen the hand of the P5+1 and to weaken Iran’s position.

The risk for the P5+1 negotiators is that they will be so filled with righteous indignation that they will overplay their hand. The purpose of the negotiations, after all, is not simply to posture, to issue impossible demands, and thereby justify moving to sanctions. Iran is plagued by political divisions at home, and this latest revelation undercuts their international arguments. But that is no guarantee that they will simply roll over and comply with whatever is demanded of them.

All of the factors that were well known before this latest discovery remain true. Sanctions have not worked after fifteen years of trying, and sanctions alone are almost certainly not going to get Iran to abandon its basic nuclear program. Sanctions are and always have been more useful as a threat or a trading card than as an effective tool in practice. Iran clearly dislikes the sanctions that are in place now, and they are anxious to avoid more in the future. So there is room for discussion. But there is no evidence whatsoever that if increased sanctions are actually applied Iran will dismantle its enrichment program. Instead, they will escalate. The reality today is the same as before: the end game of sharply increased sanctions is war.

In my view, the objective of these negotiations has also not changed. We want Iran to stop its nuclear growth and agree to much more intrusive inspections. The west should be willing to pay a price for such concessions, perhaps in the form of conditional removal of sanctions, freezing United Nations Security Council action on Iran in the interim, and inviting greater inclusion by Iran in regional affairs as Iran implements concrete steps of confidence-building. That is not easy, but neither is it an unreachable goal.

The negotiators going into the October 1 meetings are starting with a much better hand than most of them anticipated. Will they play their hand as cleverly as they have managed the pre-negotiation period?

The Latest from Iran (26 September): The False Flag of the Nuke Issue

NEW Iran: The "Die Zeit" Article on Opposition and Change
NEW Iran Video: Ahmadinejad Interview on CNN’s Larry King
Iran's Nuclear Programme: The US State Department Line
Video: Ahmadinejad Interview with Time Magazine
Transcript: Obama and Sarkozy Statements on Iran Nuclear Programme
Iran: Obama’s “Get-Tough” Move for Engagement
Iran: Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad, and the Multi-Sided Chess Match
The Latest from Iran (25 September): The Nuclear Distraction

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2140 GMT: We've now posted an English translation of the Die Zeit article, with its explosive rumours of significant change in the Iranian system.

2005 GMT: Rouydad carries an explosive story, from an inside source, that the Ministry of Guidance and Culture has created a five-person committee to create and spread disinformation, including the claim of a meeting between billionaire George Soros and former President Mohammad Khatami as part of the "velvet revolution". The committee allegedly includes the head of a news agency, an expert on the Internet, a television presenter, and an intelligence official. Millions of dollars are being devoted to the effort.

1955 GMT: President Ahmadinejad has returned from New York with an upbeat political assessment of his "satisfactory" and "successful" stay in the US. He has emphasised the need for change in the management of the United Nations, including the Security Council. No mention, however, of the nuclear issue.

1925 GMT: Report that activist and Mehdi Karroubi supporter Housein Mahdavi has been arrested in Khoramabad.

1730 GMT: Today's "Velvet Revolution" Showcase. It comes courtesy of the Supreme Leader's Advisor For Military Affairs, Major General Seyed Yahiya Rahim Safavi, who said on Saturday, "The (enemies') soft war is aimed at changing the (Iranian nation's) culture, views, values, national beliefs and belief in values. Soft warfare is a complicated type of political, cultural, information operations launched by the world powers to create favorable changes in the target countries."

1715 GMT: The Wall Street Journal, snarling for a confrontation with Iran, inadvertently exposes the weakness in the dramatic presentation of the second enrichment facility:

"Let's also not forget the boost Iran got in late 2007, when a U.S. national intelligence estimate concluded that Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and kept it frozen. The U.S. spy agencies reached this dubious conclusion while apparently knowing about the site near Qom."

Probably for the chest-thumpers at the WSJ is that the conclusion is not dubious at all (see the State Department's defense of it in a separate entry). Even if the second facility had taken in shipments of uranium, which is not alleged even by the US Government, even if high-grade centrifuges had been installed, which is not established, even if those centrifuges had begun enriching uranium, which is not claimed anywhere, that would not establish a direct link with a resumed nuclear weapons program. It would merely establish that Iran now had some quantity of enriched uranium which might or might not be for military rather than civilian purposes.

However, the WSJ's railing do not have to be logical to show the problems for the Obama Administration's strategy. Opponents will now claim that the 2nd enrichment facility shows that all intelligence assessments from 2007 must be thrown out and will put by default the faith-based assertion that Iran is hell-bent on the Bomb and beyond diplomacy.

1650 GMT: The Institute for Science and International Security has posted images "of two possible locations of the gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facility under construction near Qom, Iran. Both are tunnel facilities located within military compounds approximately 30-40 kilometers away."

1620 GMT: Just to follow up on the biggest of rumours (see 1400 GMT) for change in the Iranian system, with the five-person committee to replace the Supreme Leader and the replacement of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with Tehran Mayor Qalibaf. I've read the Die Zeit piece, and it reads like rumour, Chinese whispers, and wishful thinking rather than hard information on any plan from Hashemi Rafsanjani or another source.

1600 GMT: The Grand Rafsanjani Plan? While the details of Hashemi Rafsanjani's purported political compromise are in the category of rumour, its existence is verified by the number of politicians and clerics asking for its consideration. Reformist MP Darius Ghanbari has called for "more efforts...to achieve...consensus and a calm atmosphere" and said, "Hashemi has all these features to bring the sides together", although "this will be achieved only when conditions that allow the rebuilding of trust to eliminate extremism and hatred." Another MP has called on Parliament's National Security Commission to act on the lines set out by Rafsanjani's 14 July Friday Prayer speech as the "best solution for an exit from the current situation".

1445 GMT: Not-So-Dramatic Breaking News. Iran's chief official for the nuclear programme, Ali Akbar Salehi, says Tehran will allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect the second uranium enrichment facility.

Look for the media to play this up as an important development. It's not. The logical strategy for Iran is to draw out the process of negotiation over access, appearing to be receptive to international demands for inspection while defending sovereignty and political position. That's why Salehi "didn't specify when inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency could visit the site" and said "the timing will be worked out with the U.N. watchdog".

1410 GMT: The Battle Among the Experts. Ayande News Agency has revealed the bitter division in the Assembly of Experts. Hussein Ka'abi criticised Ayatollah Ali Mohammad Dastgheib, who has been prominent in his condemnation of the "illegitimate" Ahmadinejad Government and the brutal suppression of post-election dissent, and started a petition amongst the members of the Assembly for Dastgheib's dismissal. It is claimed that the Supreme Leader rejected the petition.

1405 GMT: Political activist Maysam Roudak was detained on Tuesday. She was previously arrested in September 2007, charged with acting against national security, and then bailed for $50,000.

1400 GMT: Noting the Even More Intriguing Rumour. This morning (0455 GMT) we wrote about the unconfirmed story that Hashemi Rafsanjani is trying to bring a political resolution through the intervention of the Expediency Council, which he chairs.

Even that pales, however, before the stunning claims in the German Die Zeit. The scenario is that a new system of "Supreme Leaders" with set terms would replace the current overall Supreme Leader with office for life and, more specifically, that the current Mayor of Tehran, Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, would replace Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as President.

We're looking for the original German article, but a Farsi summary is available via Deutsche Welle.

0930 GMT: Nonsense and War Talk. The "analysis" of the Iran in many of today's newspapers is simply awful. The Guardian of London's "Q and A Guide" bluntly informs, "[This] shows Iran has not been telling the truth about its nuclear activities," omitting little points such as Tehran's declaration to the International Atomic Energy Agency on Monday and the differing interpretations of its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The journalist, Ian Black, blithely assures, "It seems unlikely that a revelation of such importance would have been made without rigorous checking of sources." Which sounds good unless you realise that Black's next paragraph, "It is known that two years ago the US managed to penetrate Iranian computer systems," refers to the highly suspect American claim of a magic Iranian laptop, supposedly obtained from a defector, which has yet to be seen by the IAEA.

All of this might be harmless if ludicrous, were it not for the inconvenience that it aids and abets talk of War, War, War. In The Wall Street Journal, Anthony Cordesman, exalted by the US media as a top military expert, explains, "Israel must consider not just whether to proceed with a strike against Iran—but how", and kindly offers his "Iran Attack Plan". And the BBC's flagship radio programme, Today, having just heard from the British Foreign Minister, David Miliband, that diplomacy must be pursued, immediately turned to Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, who declared, well, no, the military option should be prepared.

0505 GMT: The Iranian (State) Line. Press TV frames President Ahmadinejad's political strategy, which is to downplay any dispute and offer on the surface an accommodation over the second enrichment facility: "Ahmadinejad: 2nd nuclear site open for inspection". It summarises the President's New York press conference, which was delayed yesterday, and features his stance that Iran is within the law (which we picked up in Friday updates): "According to the IAEA rules, countries must inform the Agency 6 months ahead of the gas injection in their uranium enrichment plants. We have done it 18 months ahead and this should be appreciated not condemned."

0455 GMT: And, if you're not caught up with the "secret nuclear plant", what are the internal developments in Iran? To be honest, in the last 48 hours, all parties have caught breath and assessed their positions. The most intriguing possibility is that Hashemi Rafsanjani is trying to seize the initiative by setting up the Expediency Council as the proposer and arbiter of a political settlement. The Council is a different body from the clerical Assembly of Experts, which Rafsanjani also heads: its official function in the Iranian system is to rule in disputes between the Parliament and the Guardian Council, but it works primarily as an advisory body to the Supreme Leader.

At this point, the story is still rumour, but it is prominent in Internet chatter. Our readers offer a useful introduction in their comments on yesterday's updates.

0420 GMT: A "false flag" ship is one that disguises its true origin by sailing under the colours of another country. The parallel for Iran today is a near-hysterical situation in which an issue far removed from the critical questions of the post-election conflict suddenly becomes the primary, and even the sole, criterion by which Tehran is judged.

The "Western" media run headlong, escorted and often led by a Government agency, towards a finish line of the most dramatic and damning tale. The Times of London turns itself into Boys' Own Intelligence Journal, "How secrecy over Iran's Qom nuclear facility was finally blown away".

The New York Times gets closer to the immediate politics in its opening paragraph, "On Tuesday evening in New York, top officials of the world nuclear watchdog agency approached two of President Obama’s senior advisers to deliver the news: Iran had just sent a cryptic letter describing a small “pilot” nuclear facility that the country had never before declared." Then, however, it takes the US Government's bait, substituting supposed anguish and hurt for Washington's balancing of "engagement" and pressure on Tehran (see Chris Emery's analysis, which is far beyond anything in mainstream media this morning), "The Americans were surprised by the letter, but they were angry about what it did not say. American intelligence had come across the hidden tunnel complex years earlier, and the advisers believed the situation was far more ominous than the Iranians were letting on."

CNN, meanwhile, hits a new low in its spiralling coverage of Iran, falling into the Iranian President's own public-relations campaign by putting him on The Larry King Show, which usually devotes itself to interviewing Hollywood celebrities, participants in headline crime stories, or anyone loosely connected with Michael Jackson. Ahmadinejad's far-from-stunning revelation? ""We simply didn't expect President Obama to say something that was baseless."

None of this hyperbole and alarm, fuelled by the US Government's need to put pressure on Tehran before talks begin in Geneva on 1 October, comes close to the complexity of the politics on the uranium enrichment facility near Qom. None of it appreciates what an EA correspondent points out:

Let's hold our horses on this one. The International Atomic Energy Agency has to certify that the plant is not new and that Iran has been working in it for years. Right now there is complete discordance between the Iranian and Western versions of events on this, but both curiously point out to one key factor: no enrichment is happening right now in the Qom installation, and construction is still in progress.

But all of the hyperbole and alarm replaces any consideration of and even attention to the internal developments in Iran.

Video: Ahmadinejad Interview with Time Magazine

Latest Iran Video: Ahmadinejad Interview on CNN’s Larry King
The Latest from Iran (25 September): The Nuclear Distraction

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Doing his rounds of US media, including talks with NBC, The Washington Post, and Newsweek, Iran's President Ahmadinejad spoke with Time staff just after The New York Times "revelation" of the "secret nuclear plant" but before President Obama's statement.

The Latest from Iran (25 September): The Nuclear Distraction

NEW Video: Ahmadinejad Interview with Time Magazine
NEW Transcript: Obama and Sarkozy Statements on Iran Nuclear Programme
NEW Iran: Obama's "Get-Tough" Move for Engagement
Iran: Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad, and the Multi-Sided Chess Match
Latest Video: Full Speech of Ahmadinejad at UN General Assembly
Iran: English Text of Letters between Mousavi and Montazeri (13 and 22 September)

1835 GMT: Report that Azar Mansouri, deputy head of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, has been arrested after an interview with Norooz.

1735 GMT: Is Iran's "Secret Nuclear Plant" Legal? The quick soundbite for Time from its interview with President Ahmadinejad is ""This does not mean we must inform Mr. Obama's administration of every facility that we have."

However, Ahmadinejad may have a point, one which is relevant to the current case. Iran notified the IAEA on Monday that it was constructing a new pilot enrichment plant. If Tehran has not put nuclear material into this facility, Iran is in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty's Comprehensive Full Scope Safeguards Agreement, which requires it to a six-month notification period before nuclear material is put in the facility. (Iran withdrew from the more Subsidiary Agreement 3.1, which requires more detailed and timely notification, after the International Atomic Energy Agency referred Iran's nuclear program to the U.N. Security Council.

So the case to prosecute Iran under the Non-Proliferation Treaty is not clear-cut. Of course, the US can and will rely upon the U.N. Security Council resolutions demanding that Iran cease all enrichment. Whether other countries (China, Russia) take the same line remains to be seen.

1730 GMT: President Ahmadinejad may have backed out of an encounter with the New York media, but he did give a one-on-one video interview to Time magazine. We've posted in a separate entry.

1700 GMT: President Ahmadinejad has replaced his New York press conference with an interview with Press TV.

1500 GMT: We've just posted Chris Emery's shrewd analysis of the politics of the US revelation of the "secret nuclear plant" and the Obama statement: "This high-profile initiative by Obama was designed to get movement on engagement."

1425 GMT: Amidst the continuing chatter on the Obama statement --- no additional information, just the theme of "He was Really Tough" --- news services drop in this interesting twist "Ahmadinejad cancels his 5 pm EST (2100 GMT) speech in NYC [New York City]".

1245 GMT: The Obama Line. The President has just made his statement on the Iran "secret nuclear plant". The message? This demonstrates Iran's "continuing unwillingness" to meets its "international obligations" on development of nuclear capability. This showed the "urgency" of resolution at talks with Iran on 1 October in Geneva.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has backed this up by saying "everything must be put on the table", and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has proclaimed this "the most urgent problem" of today.

This feels more and more like a scripted play. The "West" has known for some time that Iran was constructing a second uranium enrichment plant but had not announced this to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Tehran figured out that the US had learned of the plant and was preparing a big setpiece, ahead of the 1 October talks, to reveal the Iranian duplicity. So Iran went to the IAEA on Monday to put its plans above-board. This, however, was  not going to deflect the US-UK-France scheme to put Iran on the defensive in advance of the first direct discussions between Washington and Tehran.

1220 GMT: By the way, there was a Friday Prayer address today. After the drama of recent weeks, this one, by hard-line Government supporter and head of the Guardian Council Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, went almost unnoticed.

Nothing much new here. Jannati talks about triumph over "the enemy" through the political, military, and regional power of Iran and invokes the Holy Defense of the 1980-1988 war against Iraq. Like the Supreme Leader, he portrayed the demonstrations of Qods Day and Eid-ul-Fitr as Iranian support for the world's oppressed, and he condemned the tragedy of the assassination of the Kurdestan member of the Assembly of Experts.

1210 GMT: And Here's You Obama Administration  Line. A "senior Administration source" uses one of the reliable channels (i.e. will put out the message as presented, will not look behind or beyond it), ABC's Jake Tapper: "[Obama] to express 'great and increasing doubts about the strictly peaceful nature' of Iran's nuclear program"

1200 GMT: NBC's Ann Curry nails the politics on the "secret nuclear plant" story, and she only needs 1 Tweet to do it: "Remember the US and Iran about to negotiate. The West has an interest in increasing the pressure now."

1145 GMT: The Iran State Line. Press TV, in an article posted this morning, does not address the "secret nuclear plant" story but refers to French and British allegations of an Iranian nuclear progamme, made during the exchanges at the United Nations this week, as "totally baseless and untrue". The Iranian UN mission added that remarks by French President Nicolas Sarkozy were a "futile attempt aimed to cover up [French] non-compliance with its international disarmament obligations".

1050 GMT: So the story of Iran's "secret nuclear plant" (which isn't secret, since Tehran informed the International Atomic Agency of the construction of the uranium enrichment facility on Monday) is going to dominate the news cycle, as every US and many international outlets rush lemming-like to the tale and President Obama makes a statement at 1230 GMT.

If only someone takes a step back to note this comment from CNN's Fareed Zakaria, made after President Ahmadinejad's UN speech: "Ahmadinejad has been on a campaign over the last few weeks to change the subject. His great fear was that he would come to New York and the subject would be the Iranian regime and his massive repression of the Iranian democracy movement, the street protests, all the allegations being made by Iranians of what is happening in Iran --- rape, torture, abuse. What he wanted to do was to talk about anything but that."

0900 GMT: Ahmadinejad's Useful US Idiots. I was going to write the following analysis for Saturday, but events prompt me to offer a preview:

Ahmadinejad was on verge of major mis-step by playing New York trip as sign that all now resolved at home. 'West', however, played into his hands by raising Iran (and Ahmadinejad) to iconic threat on nuke issue. And Netanyahu gives kiss of death to opposition by praising their supposed aim of regime change. So the President gets to do his aggressive defend-Iran thing, getting more legitimacy out of West than he has many of his own people.

Five minutes after jotting this down, I read the Administration's latest strategic masterpiece in The New York Times, courtesy of David Sanger (who seems to have no recognition that he is a messenger-boy);

President Obama and the leaders of Britain and France will accuse Iran Friday of building a secret underground plant to manufacture nuclear fuel, saying it has hidden the covert operation for years from international weapons inspectors, according to senior administration officials.

Well done, guys. Instead of keeping your mouths shut and letting Ahmadinejad return to political complications at home, you've given him the ideal platform to pose as defender of Iranian sovereignty. And watch how your PR stick, wielded just before talks with Iran on 1 October, is turned into a stick by the President, his allies, and his supportive State media to bash "foreign-directed" reformists and the Green movement at home.

Idiots.

0650 GMT: Catching up, indeed. Even though the EA roadtrip was less than 72 hours, there appears to be a month's worth of incidents to consider. Forget the Ahmadinejad sideshow in New York; the events in and around the Assembly of Experts offer a plethora of possibilities. We've attempted an analysis,
"Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad, and the Multi-Sided Chess Match", this morning.

Of course, state media features Ayatollah Khamenei's address to the Assembly of Experts, but it also keeps playing up President Ahmadinejad's defiance of the "West", from his warning against sanctions to his explanation that "Down with the US" refers to the "ugly behavior" of the American Government.