Iran's Nuclear Programme: Obama Backs Himself into a Corner

Iran’s Nuclear Programme: Scott Lucas in La Stampa (English Text)
The Latest from Iran (29 September): The Forthcoming Test?

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Last week's high tide of politics over the Iranian "secret nuclear plant" still has some unpleasant backwash today, 48 hours before the US and other "5+1" powers meet Iran in Geneva. Bret Stephens of The Wall Street Journal takes the prize for meaningless swagger with his declaration of a neo-conservative resurgence: "A view of the world that understands that American power still furnishes the margin between freedom and tyranny, and between prosperity and chaos, is starting to look better all the time. Even in France."

Meaningless because, unless Mr Stephens is ready to lead the bombers over Iran, there's precious little he can do to back up the bluster. Far more importantly, the Obama Administration may be finding that it has talked itself into a high-profile corner.

The clue is the latest White House spin to the front-line newspapers. Yesterday's New York Times gives the game away. On the surface, it proclaims, "U.S. Is Seeking a Range of Sanctions Against Iran", but the more you read, the narrower that range becomes. Officials admitted, "The United States was not likely to win support for an embargo on shipments of gasoline or other refined fuel to Iran. The European allies...view this as a 'blunt instrument' that could hurt ordinary Iranians, inflame public opinion and unite the country behind the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."

The initial flourish, offered after President Obama's statement last week, that even Moscow was in line with a tough approach has sagged limply: "Administration officials acknowledge it will be difficult to persuade Russia to agree to harsh, long-term sanctions against Iran, whatever the assurances that the Russian president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, gave last week to Mr. Obama. China, these officials say, is even less dependable, given its reliance on Iranian oil and its swelling trade ties with Iran."

So all that's really left in "the range" is the suggestion of barriers to investment in Iran's gas and petroleum industry and more restrictions on Iranian financial institutions, covered by the assurance, "The administration also is seeking to build a broader coalition of partners for sanctions so that it may still be able to act against Iran even if China and Russia were to veto harsher measures proposed in the United Nations Security Council."

And even then promise of multilateral action is further constricted today. The Wall Street Journal reports that the White House will still face numerous challenges matching its rhetoric on sanctions with real international action, said U.S. and European officials involved in the process. That makes "the U.S. Treasury -- and not the United Nations -- the main focus of the West's financial campaign against Iran for now...The Treasury has pursued dozens of unilateral sanctions against Iranian banks, government officials and defense companies in recent years in an attempt to pressure Tehran."

The US Treasury? As far as I can tell, the American effort has gone from a united international front against Iran's threat to a "coalition of one".

There's still some blowing of smokes in places like Tuesday's Washington Post with the declaration, "The Obama administration is laying plans to cut Iran's economic links to the rest of the world if talks this week over the country's nuclear ambitions founder." Once again, however, it only takes a few paragraphs to see through Sanctions' New Clothes: "The administration has limited options in unilaterally targeting Iran, largely because it wants to avoid measures so severe that they would undermine consensus among countries pressing the Iranian government."

When rhetoric finally arrives at the obstacle of action, steps mentioned include making it more difficult for foreign firms to get adequate insurance for investments in Iran. But, surprise, surprise, the US has been pursuing that effort for years, so there is nothing new in the measure. Nor is it clear how much more punishment can be meted out by the suggestion of tightening restrictions on Iranian financial institutions.

And none of this can obscure the inconvenience that, as noted in The New York Times, major investors like Russia and China are likely to keep investing and trading. Credit to Simon Tisdall of The Guardian for stating the blunt facts:

Iran provided 10% of China's crude oil needs last year; its market share is expected to grow. Chinese companies and middlemen are supplying one third of Iran's refined petroleum requirements as western companies back off. Earlier this year the China National Petroleum Corporation signed a $1.7bn investment deal with the National Iranian Oil Company. The overall Chinese energy stake in Iran is said to be worth $100bn.

Speaking before crucial nuclear talks in Geneva, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu urged the US, Britain and other UN security council members to eschew confrontation. "We believe that all sides should take more steps to ease tensions and resolve problems, not the opposite," she said. Beijing's meaning was plain. Even if it supported sanctions in principle (which it does not), it was not disposed to support measures that would harm its national economic self-interest.

It appears that the US plan was to show up at the Geneva talks with a loaded gun. An article in Sunday's Washington Times revealed:

President Obama's decision to confront Iran with evidence of a secret nuclear production site Friday was the culmination of a deliberate strategy over the past nine months to gain maximum impact from the disclosure by building up to it with other steps on the world stage.

A high-ranking administration official [said] that while the White House knew about Iran's construction of a second uranium enrichment plant before Mr. Obama took office in January, it waited to drop the bombshell until U.S. officials had conducted extensive diplomatic advance work.

Even when Iran disrupted the plan by telling the International Atomic Energy Agency of its second enrichment plant, the Administration kept a grip on the holster; indeed, by the time Obama made his statement, he was waving a pair of six-shooters.

Only one thing. If you're going to bring a gun to the table, you best make sure you've got enough bullets. And the Administration is beginning to discover, very late in the day, that it may not have even one in the chamber.

No amount of bluster, not even of Stephens-esque proportion, does not remove that difficulty. Indeed, it only bears out the ill-judged strategy of speaking loudly and carrying a very small stick.

Transcripts: Secretary of Defense Gates on CNN, ABC

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

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Robert Gates on CNN's "State of the Union"

JOHN KING: Mr. Secretary, thank you for joining us.

We learned as the week came to an end about a new underground secret Iranian nuclear bunker, and the president described it this way. “The size and configuration of this facility is inconsistent with a peaceful program.”

Tell us more about what we know, and do you have any doubt Iran was using this facility or planned to use this facility to develop nuclear weapons?

GATES: We’ve been watching the construction of this facility for quite some time, and one of the reasons that we waited to make it public was to ensure that our conclusions about its purpose were right.

This is information shared among ourselves, the British, the French, as we’ve gone along. And I think that, certainly, the intelligence people have no doubt that this is an illicit nuclear facility, if only because the Iranians kept it a secret. 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.

KING: Take me back in time. You say you’ve known about it for some time, dating back into the Bush administration. You, of course, were serving in the Bush administration. How far back?

GATES: Well, it’s hard for me to remember, but at least a couple of years we’ve been watching it.

KING: At least a couple of years. Because the former vice president, Dick Cheney, is on record as saying in the closing months of the administration, he was an advocate for possibly using military action against some of these Iranian sites. Was this one of his targets, this area we’ve just learned about?

GATES: Well, I think I’ll just let his statement speak for itself.

KING: All right. We know -- and correct me if I’m wrong, please -- that you were skeptical about that, in fact, opposed to that. You didn’t think that was the way to go. Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, has said publicly many times how skeptical he is about the military options here. I just want you to help an American out there who says, we can’t trust Ahmadinejad, this has been going on for years. We don’t think sanctions will work. Why don’t we do something about it? Explain to that person out there, whether they work in the United States Congress or whether it’s just an average American, when you look at the contingencies that you have available to you and the president has available to him, are there any good military options when it comes to these deep underground facilities?

GATES: Well, without getting into any specifics, I would just say we obviously don’t take any options off the table.

My view has been that there has been an opportunity through the use of diplomacy and economic sanctions to persuade the Iranians to change their approach to nuclear weapons.

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.

So I think, as I say, while you don’t take options off the table, I think there’s still room left for diplomacy. The P5 plus 1 [US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, China] will be meeting with Iran here shortly. The Iranians are in a very bad spot now because of this deception, in terms of all of the great powers. And there obviously is the opportunity for severe additional sanctions. And I think we have the time to make that work.

KING: I want to get to that diplomacy in just a minute, but when you shared this intelligence with others, I want to ask you specifically about the case of Israel, which you know in the past has been very skeptical about the diplomatic route. And many have thought perhaps Israel would take matters into its own hands because it is in the neighborhood. What did the Israeli government, specifically the Israeli military, say when they learned of this intelligence, about this new second facility?

GATES: Well, Israel, obviously, thinks of the Iranian nuclear program as an existential threat to Israel. We’ve obviously been in close touch with them, as our ally and friend, and continue to urge them to let this diplomatic and economic sanctions path play out.

KING: And as that goes forward, President Sarkozy was quite skeptical and he was very clear, this year, December, he wants to see progress or else we’ll see tougher sanctions. From your perspective, what sanctions would have the most teeth, would work?

GATES: Well, there are a variety of options still available, including sanctions on banking, particularly sanctions on equipment and technology for their oil and gas industry. I think there’s a pretty rich list to pick from, actually.

KING: If you look at that list, though, in some of those cases, you’ll find the suppliers, gasoline, imports, some of the equipment and technology would be China, would you not?

GATES: China’s participation is clearly important.

KING: And the early indications are they will or won’t help?

GATES: Well, I haven’t had -- I haven’t had an opportunity to talk to the president or those who were with him in Pittsburgh, so I don’t know the nature of the conversations that they had with the Chinese there, but I do have the sense that the Chinese take this pretty seriously.

KING: Let me ask you about the situation in Iran, as this diplomacy goes forward. You’re the defense secretary now. You have been the director of Central Intelligence. When you look at post- election Iran, all the talk of turmoil, reports of tension between Ahmadinejad and the clerics, Ahmadinejad and the reforms, is the water bubbling or is the water boiling in the sense that you just see trouble or do you see potential seeds of revolution?

GATES: Well, I guess I would say it’s simmering. It’s clear in the aftermath of the election, that there are some fairly deep fissures in Iranian society and politics, and probably even in the leadership. And frankly, this is one of the reasons why I think additional and especially severe economic sanctions could have some real impact, because we know that the sanctions that have already been placed on the country have had an impact. The unemployment among youth is about 40 percent. They have some real serious problems, especially with the younger people.

So I think that we are seeing some changes or some divisions in the Iranian leadership and in society that we really haven’t seen in the 30 years since the revolution.

KING: And if you think sanctions work and this is a clear violation -- they hid this from the world, they hid this from everybody, in clear violation of their commitments -- why wait? Why not slap tougher sanctions now? Why wait until the end of the year?

GATES: Well, the opportunity exists in the October 1st meeting and over the next few weeks to see if we can leverage publicizing this additional illegal facility and activity to leverage the Iranians to begin to make some concessions, to begin to abide by the U.N. Security Council resolutions.

GATES: I think we are all sensitive to the possibility of the Iranians trying to run the clock out on us. And so nobody thinks of this as an open-ended process.

KING: And so, lastly, on this point, this facility, obviously, is not on-line yet. It is under construction, not on-line. So Iran’s capability in terms of being ready to perhaps have a nuclear bomb, in the past, the public statements have been a year to three away. Is that still operational?

GATES: That would be my view.

KING: The defense secretary, Robert Gates.

We’ll be back in just a moment with another big decision facing the secretary and the president, whether to send thousands more U.S. troops into Afghanistan. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We’re back with the defense secretary, Robert Gates.

Very momentous decision. Recommendation you will have to make to the president, the president will have to make to the nation about whether to send thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of more troops into Afghanistan. I want to start with a threshold question. Do you have full confidence in the commanding general, Stanley McChrystal, on the ground in Afghanistan now?

GATES: Absolutely. I think we have in General McChrystal the very best commanding officer we could possibly have there.

KING: Does the president share that?

GATES: I believe so.

KING: And then is it a logical extension then to go on to say, if you have such full confidence, that if General McChrystal says, I need 40,000 more troops, he will get them?

GATES: I think we are in the middle of a review. The president, when he made his decisions on strategy in Afghanistan at the end of March, said that after the Afghan elections, that we would review where we are and review the strategy.

We now, in addition to that, have General McChrystal’s assessment of the situation. He found a situation in Afghanistan that is more serious than we had thought and that he had thought before going out there. So we’re in the middle of a process of evaluating, really, the decisions the president made in late March to say, have we got the strategy right? And once we confidently have the strategy right, then we’ll address the question of additional resource...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: As you know, some of your friends on Capitol Hill are saying, why wait, in the sense of because of the ominous warnings, General McChrystal sounds, in his report, among them, this: “Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near term, over the next 12 months, while Afghan security capability matures, risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.”

If the situation is that dire and he believes he needs more troops, why wait?

GATES: Well, first of all, I would like to remember -- remind people that the debate within the Bush administration over the surge took about three months, from October to December 2006.

It’s very important that we get this right and there is always a dialogue between the chiefs -- the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Centcom commander, and our commander in the field. We had the same kind of dialogue with General Odierno about the timing of pulling our combat units out of Iraq. And the conclusion of all of that was actually for General Odierno to take some additional risk. And it has proved to work very well.

So the question is, there has got to be some dialogue between the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the commander of Central Command, as well as General McChrystal, and then a discussion among the president’s national security team.

KING: You know the conversation in town,though, some, understand the surge debate, find this one rather remarkable in the sense that you now have General McChrystal, part of his report has leaked out, saying he needs more troops. Admiral Mullen has testified to Congress recently he believes we’re going to need more troops. Some see an effort to almost put the president in a box before he deals with the other issues.

If you have the military, the admiral and the generals on record saying we need more troops, does the president really have a choice to say no?

GATES: Well, I think the president always has a choice. He’s the commander-in-chief.

The reality is, do we need additional forces? How many additional forces? And to do what?

And it’s the “to do what?” that I think we need to make sure we have confidence we understand before making recommendations to the president.

KING: Help me on that point, because there’s a lot of questions about the legitimacy of the election. Did President Karzai commit fraud to the level at which he perhaps has stolen the election? The political vacuum could be months. You may have to make your decision uncertain as to the political leadership in Afghanistan unless you wait. There could be a runoff. There could be contestments (ph) and challenges. Would you prefer some sort of power-sharing arrangement to move past this vacuum?

GATES: Well, I don’t think it’s up to us to tell the Afghans how to organize their government. The reality is that you still have an election process playing out. You have both the Afghan and the international election commissions evaluating the ballots. And if they come to a conclusion that there was a real winner, then I think it has legitimacy for both the international and the national -- and the Afghan audience.

But I think, above all, what’s important is whether or not the government of Afghanistan has legitimacy in the eyes of the Afghans. All of the information that we have available to us today indicates that continues to be the case.

KING: Let’s turn to the debate back home. You try to stay of the politics, but it does influence what happens in this town. As you know, a growing number of people on Capitol Hill want a clearer exit strategy. They want benchmarks. They want to know where the end is. Some have even said -- a few, but some have said we need a time line to get U.S. troops out. And now a liberal organization that was very vocal in the Iraq political debate is urging its members to call the president, e-mail the White House and say, don’t send tens of thousands more U.S. troops to be stuck in a quagmire.

Is Afghanistan a quagmire?

GATES: I don’t think so, and I think that with a general like McChrystal, it won’t become one. I think that we are being very careful to look at this as we go along. We’ve put out metrics so that we can measure whether or not we’re making progress. And if we’re not making progress, then we’re prepared to adjust our strategy, just as we’re looking at whether adjustments are needed right now.

So I think that the notion of time lines and exit strategies and so on, frankly, I think, would all be a strategic mistake. The reality is, failure in Afghanistan would be a huge setback for the United States. Taliban and Al Qaida as far as they’re concerned, defeated one superpower. For them to be seen to defeat a second, I think would have catastrophic consequences in terms of energizing the extremist movement, Al Qaida recruitment, operations, fundraising, and so on.

I think it would be a huge setback for the United States. I think what we need is a strategy that we think can be successful and then to pursue it, and pursue it with confidence and resolution.

KING: You mentioned the history, and you’re a student of history, and you’re on the record talking about how this did become a quagmire for the Soviets, who had about 120,000 troops in Afghanistan. And you have said many times the Afghan people began to view them as occupiers, not as friends.

Where’s the line for the United States so that you don’t cross that very same line?

GATES: Well, I think the analogy of the situation with the Soviets really doesn’t hold. The Soviets’ presence in Afghanistan was condemned by virtually every country in the world. They conducted a war of terror against the Afghans. They probably killed 1 million Afghans, made 5 million of them into refugees, tried to impose an alien social and cultural change on the country.

So the situations are completely different. And I think that the -- I think the Afghans continue to see us as their ally and partner.

KING: General McChrystal, in an interview that will air on “60 Minutes” tonight, talks about the breadth and the geographic spread of the violence in Afghanistan. He says, “It’s a little more than I would have gathered.”

We’ve been at this nearly eight years. Why are we still surprised?

GATES: Well, I will tell you, I think that the strategy that the president put forward in late March is the first real strategy we have had for Afghanistan since the early 1980s. And that strategy was more about the Soviet Union than it was about Afghanistan.

KING: You served in the Bush administration. That’s a pretty broad damnation of the Bush strategy.

GATES: Well, the reality is, we were fighting a holding action. We were very deeply engaged in Iraq. I increased -- I extended the 10th Mountain Division the first month I was on this job in January of ‘07. I extended -- I put another brigade into Afghanistan in the spring of 2007. And that’s all we had to put in there. Every -- we were -- we were too stretched to do more. And I think we did not have the kind of comprehensive strategy that we have now.

KING: And if it comes to the point of sending more, this time, if the president agrees and General McChrystal gets -- maybe it’s 20,000, 30,000, or 40,000, do we have the troops now? If you needed 40,000, could you find it?

GATES: Well, I think, if the president were to decide to approve additional combat forces, they really probably could not begin to flow until some time in January.

KING: We’re about out of time. I want to ask you a couple quick questions in closing. One is, do you see any chance now, because of the delays in the political problems, that the administration will keep its promise to close Gitmo, the Guantanamo Bay detention center, in one year, as promised?

GATES: Well, I think -- I think it has proven more complicated than anticipated. I will be the first to tell you that, when the president-elect’s national security new team met in Chicago on December 7th, I was one of those who argued for a firm deadline. Because I said that’s the only way you move the bureaucracy in Washington.

And you have to extend that date, if at least you have a strong plan, showing you’re making progress in that direction, then it shouldn’t be a problem to extend it. And we’ll just see whether that has to happen or not.

KING: And lastly, you served eight presidents. What makes this one unique, or is there anything unique when it comes to these decisions of war and peace?

GATES: He is very analytical. He’s very deliberate about the way he goes through things. He wants to understand everything. He delves very deeply into these issues. I’m not going to get into comparing the different presidents. I very much enjoy working for this one.

KING: Mr. Secretary, thank for your time.

GATES: Thank you.

Robert Gates on ABC's This Week

STEPHANOPOULOS: And we begin with the secretary of defense, Robert Gates.

Welcome back to “This Week.”

GATES: Thank you.

STEPHANOPOULOS: National security was front and center all week long. Let’s begin with Afghanistan. We saw the leak of General McChrystal’s review, and he concluded that the United States has about 12 months to reverse Taliban momentum and that, without new troops, the strategy laid out by the president is likely to fail.

And I want to show what the president said back in March when he laid out that strategy. He called it “new and comprehensive.”

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: This marks the conclusion of a careful policy review. My administration has heard from our military commanders, as well as our diplomats. We’ve consulted with the Afghan and Pakistani governments, with our partners and our NATO allies, and with other donors and international organizations. We’ve also worked closely with members of Congress here at home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Now, this was clearly a carefully considered strategy. And now the president is telling us -- he told me last week that he can’t approve General McChrystal’s request until we get the strategy right. Why the second thoughts on the strategy?

GATES: I don’t think there are second thoughts so much as, you know, when he made his decisions at the end of March, he also announced that he would -- we would be reviewing the policy and the strategy after the elections...

STEPHANOPOULOS: But he said the tool was in the tactics, not the strategy.

GATES: Well, I -- I think that he -- he clearly felt that we would have to reassess where we are after the election. Now, in addition to having a flawed election in Afghanistan, we now have General McChrystal’s assessment.

When the president made his comments at -- at the end of March, his decisions, obviously, General McChrystal was not in place. We now have his assessment. He has found the situation on the ground in Afghanistan worse than he had -- than he anticipated.

And so I think what the president is now saying is, in light of the election, in light of McChrystal’s more concerning assessment of the situation on the ground, have we got the strategy right, were the decisions in -- that he made at the end of March the right ones? Do we need to make some adjustments in light of what we’ve found?

And once we’ve decided whether or not to make adjustments in the strategy, then we will consider the additional resources.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But did -- but didn’t General McChrystal take these problems of the election into account? He didn’t even deliver his report until August 30th, which was after the elections. Dennis Blair, the head of national intelligence, said back in February or March that we could foresee that there would be problems with this election.

GATES: Well, I think -- I think that the potential magnitude of the problems in the election really didn’t become apparent until the vote count began in early September. So -- so I think it was really after he submitted his -- his assessment.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So now we have a real dilemma. Does that mean that the United States is re-thinking whether it can even -- whether it can bolster President Karzai’s government, whether we have to give up on it?

GATES: Well, I -- you know, the Afghan people have gone to the polls, and we have the two election commissions -- one internal, one international -- that could still come to conclusions, even if they throw out some fraudulent ballots or a number of fraudulent ballots, that there was a clear winner.

The key is whether the Afghans believe that their government has legitimacy. And everything that I’ve seen in the intelligence and elsewhere indicates that remains the case.

STEPHANOPOULOS: It does seem, though, that you’re caught in a dilemma right now. You’ve got your commanding general on the ground who’s given you this report. He’s said that troops -- more troops are necessary or you risk failure.

That report has been endorsed by the head of Central Command, David Petraeus. Admiral Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went to Congress and said we probably need more troops.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Yet the president is saying that we need to think about the strategy right now. And it really creates the impression of a rift between the civilian leadership, you, as secretary of Defense, the president, and the uniformed military.

GATES: I don’t think that’s the case at all. I talked with -- I had an extensive conversation on the telephone with both General McChrystal and General Petraeus on -- on Wednesday. General McChrystal was very explicit in saying that he thinks this assessment, this review that’s going on right now is exactly the right thing to do. He obviously doesn’t want it to be open-ended or be a protracted kind of thing...

STEPHANOPOULOS: How long will it take?

GATES: Well, I -- you know, I -- it’s not going to take -- I think it -- it’s a matter of a few weeks. And people should remember that the debate within the Bush administration on the surge lasted three months, from October to December 2006.

So I think it’s important to make sure we’re confident that we have the right strategy in place, and then we can make the decisions on additional forces.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Yet the clock really does seem to be ticking, again, to go back to General McChrystal’s report. He says that if we don’t turn the tide in the next 12 months, we risk failure. So every week that goes by puts the soldiers who are on the ground at risk, doesn’t it?

GATES: But having the -- having the wrong strategy would put even more soldiers at risk. So I think it’s important to get the strategy right and then we can make the resources decision.

As I say, I don’t expect this to be protracted process. The reality is that, even if the president did decide to approve additional combat forces going into Afghanistan, the first forces couldn’t arrive until January.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So what are the options right now? You have said in the past that you didn’t believe what some people are recommending -- stepping up drone attacks, stepping up missile attacks, using special forces -- you don’t believe or haven’t believed in the past that that’s sufficient to contain the Taliban.

GATES: I think that most people who -- the people that I’ve talked to in the Pentagon who are the experts on counterterrorism essentially say that counterterrorism is only possible if you have the kind of intelligence that allows you to target the terrorists. And the only way you get that intelligence is by being on the ground, getting information from people like the Afghans or, in the case of Iraq, the Iraqis.

And so you can’t do this from -- from a distance or remotely, in the view of virtually all of the experts that I’ve talked to.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So if that -- if that’s not going to work, and then you have General McChrystal who said in his report that you need a full-blown counterinsurgency campaign, counterinsurgency is the answer, that certainly seems to be endorsed by General Petraeus. Is there a middle ground between those two poles?

GATES: Well, I think -- I think people are -- are, frankly, so focused on -- on the comment that -- in General McChrystal’s report about additional resources that they’re neglecting to look at the rest of what’s in his report and that -- where he talks very explicitly about the fact that -- that a preoccupation with the resources or with additional forces, if you don’t have the strategy right, is a mistake.

And -- and he, as I say, he understands this process that’s underway. But -- but what he talks about in most of that assessment is not resources, but a different way of using U.S. forces and coalition forces in Afghanistan.

It talks about accelerating the growth of the Afghan national security forces. It spends a lot of time talking about how we stay on side with the Afghan people. This is mostly what McChrystal’s assessment is about.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But it’s a resource-intensive strategy, isn’t it? He says that the troops have to probably be more lightly armed and engage more with the population. And it’s hard to ignore that stark conclusion: Success is not ensured by additional forces alone, as you point out, but continued under-resourcing will likely cause failure. Failure.

GATES: Well, that’s what we’re discussing. And how do we avoid that?

STEPHANOPOULOS: And, as you said, you hope to have this done in a few weeks and you want to avoid failure, as well, but the president has not made any -- any decision at all on resources? Has he -- has he ruled it out?

GATES: No, I haven’t even given him General McChrystal’s request for resources. I have the -- I -- I’m receiving the -- the report. I’m going to sit on it until I think -- or the president thinks -- it’s appropriate to bring that into the discussion of the national security principles.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That’s what -- General McChrystal says we have to have more troops to avoid failure. Where we’ve had a lack of clarity is on what success means in Afghanistan. You pointed out at the beginning of this year what it was, and he said we’re not -- we shouldn’t expect a Valhalla in Afghanistan.

The president’s special envoy, Richard Holbrooke, was asked for his definition of success last month, and here’s what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOLBROOKE: I would say this about defining success in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the simplest sense, the Supreme Court test for another issue, we’ll know it when we see it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Is that good enough?

GATES: Well, I think -- I think we know it when we see it, and we see it in Iraq. I think that success in Afghanistan looks a great deal like success in Iraq, in this respect, that the Afghan national security forces increasingly take the lead in protecting their own territory and going after the insurgents and protecting their own people. We withdraw to an over-watch situation and then we withdraw altogether.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Which first required a surge in Iraq.

GATES: It did require the surge. And that’s -- the issue that we will be looking at over the next several weeks -- the next couple of weeks or so -- is, do we have the right strategy?

And that includes the question of -- of, is the -- is McChrystal’s approach, in the view of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Central Command commander, the right approach? And if so, then what -- what would be the additional resources required?

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me turn to Iran. The president has put Iran on notice that they’re going to have to allow inspectors into this secret site which U.S. intelligence discovered for enriching uranium. President Ahmadinejad says that President Obama is mistaken and the United States owes Iran an apology. Is Iran going to get one?

GATES: Not a chance.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So what happens next? The president has said that this site is not configured for peaceful purposes. Now, the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate concluded -- of the U.S. government -- concluded that Iran had stopped its active nuclear weapons program in 2003. Does the president’s conclusion -- that this site is not configured for peaceful purposes -- mean that that intelligence estimate is no longer operative?

GATES: No, not necessarily. But what it does mean is that they had a covert site. They did not declare it. They didn’t -- if -- if this were a peaceful nuclear program, why didn’t they announce this site when they began to construct it? Why didn’t they allow IAEA inspectors in from the very beginning?

This -- this is part of a pattern of deception and lies on the part of the Iranians from the very beginning with respect to their nuclear program. So it’s no wonder that world leaders think that they have ulterior motives, that they have a plan to go forward with nuclear weapons. Otherwise, why would they do all this in such a deceptive manner?

STEPHANOPOULOS: U.S. intelligence had been tracking this site for quite some time before President Obama made it public. Is this the only secret site that we know of?

GATES: Well, I’m not going to -- I’m not going to get into that. I would just say that we’re watching very closely.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Does the United States government believe that Iran has an active nuclear weapons program?

GATES: I think that -- my personal opinion is that the Iranians have the intention of having nuclear weapons. I think the question of whether they have made a formal decision to -- to move toward the development of nuclear weapons is -- is in doubt.

STEPHANOPOULOS: The U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency said a couple of weeks ago that Iran is closer to what he called “breakout” capacity on developing a nuclear weapon. What does that mean exactly? And how much time -- if they do, indeed, have the intent -- how much time do we have before Iran has a nuclear weapons capacity?

GATES: Well, I think “breakout” in the -- in the ambassador’s terms means they have enriched enough uranium to a relatively low level that if they have another facility where they could enrich it more highly, that they have a -- they have enriched enough at a low level that they could, in essence, throw out all the IAEA inspectors, change the configuration of the -- of the cascades and the enrichment capability, and enrich it to a level where they could use it -- where they could make it into weapons-grade uranium.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And you say you personally have no doubt that they want weapons. Can that weapons program be stopped with sanctions?

GATES: I think that what is critical is persuading the Iranians that -- or leading them to the conclusion that their security will be diminished by trying to get nuclear weapons, rather than enhanced.

And I think that, because of the election, we see fissures in Iran that we have not seen before, not in the 30 years since the revolution. And I think that severe sanctions, if the Iranian -- that, first of all, we -- we have created a problem for the Iranians with this disclosure.

And so the first step is the meeting on October 1st with the 5+1 powers, with the Iranians, to see if they will begin to change their policy in a way that is satisfactory to -- to the great powers.

And then, if that doesn’t work, then I think you begin to move in the direction of severe sanctions. And their economic problems are difficult enough that -- that I think that severe sanctions would have the potential of -- of bringing them to change their -- their policies.

I think -- you asked me, how long do I think we have? I would say somewhere between one to three years.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me turn, finally, to Guantanamo. We have just a couple of minutes left. A major story in The Washington Post suggesting that the president’s deadline of January 22nd for closing Guantanamo will not be met, and White House officials tell me that at least some prisoners will still be in Guantanamo on January 22nd and beyond. How big a setback is that? And how long will it take to finally close Guantanamo?

GATES: When the president-elect met with his new national security team in Chicago on December 7th...

STEPHANOPOULOS: 2008.

GATES: ... last year, this issue was discussed, about closing Guantanamo and executive orders to do that and so on. And the question was, should we set a deadline? Should we pin ourselves down?

I actually was one of those who said we should, because I know enough from being around this town that, if you don’t put a deadline on something, you’ll never move the bureaucracy. But I also said, and then if we find we can’t get it done by that time but we have a good plan, then you’re in a position to say, “It’s going to take us a little longer, but we are moving in the direction of implementing the policy that the president set.” And I think that’s the position that...

STEPHANOPOULOS: That’s where we are. So the deadline of January 22nd will not be met?

GATES: It’s going to be tough.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And -- and how many prisoners will be there on January 22nd, do you know?

GATES: I don’t know the answer to that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But, as you said, it’s going to be tough and likely will not be met?

GATES: We’ll see.

STEPHANOPOULOS: One -- one other deadline question. When you were working for President Bush, you used to keep a countdown clock on your desk, counting down the number of days you had left to serve. Is that clock still there?

GATES: No, I threw the clock out. It was obviously useless.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you’re in for the long haul?

GATES: We’ll see. The president-elect and I, when we first discussed this, agreed to leave it open.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Secretary Gates, thank you very much for your time today.

GATES: Thanks a lot.

Transcript: Obama and Sarkozy Statements on Iran Nuclear Programme

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

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PRESIDENT OBAMA: Good morning. We are here to announce that yesterday in Vienna, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France presented detailed evidence to the International Atomic Energy Agency demonstrating that the Islamic Republic of Iran has been building a covert uranium enrichment facility near Qom for several years.

Earlier this week, the Iranian government presented a letter to the IAEA that made reference to a new enrichment facility, years after they had started its construction. The existence of this facility underscores Iran’s continuing unwillingness to meet its obligations under U.N. Security Council resolutions and IAEA requirements. We expect the IAEA to immediately investigate this disturbing information, and to report to the IAEA Board of Governors.

Now, Iran’s decision to build yet another nuclear facility without notifying the IAEA represents a direct challenge to the basic compact at the center of the non-proliferation regime. These rules are clear: All nations have the right to peaceful nuclear energy; those nations with nuclear weapons must move towards disarmament; those nations without nuclear weapons must forsake them. That compact has largely held for decades, keeping the world far safer and more secure. And that compact depends on all nations living up to their responsibilities.

This site deepens a growing concern that Iran is refusing to live up to those international responsibilities, including specifically revealing all nuclear-related activities. As the international community knows, this is not the first time that Iran has concealed information about its nuclear program. Iran has a right to peaceful nuclear power that meets the energy needs of its people. But the size and configuration of this facility is inconsistent with a peaceful program. Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow — endangering the global non-proliferation regime, denying its own people access to the opportunity they deserve, and threatening the stability and security of the region and the world

It is time for Iran to act immediately to restore the confidence of the international community by fulfilling its international obligations. We remain committed to serious, meaningful engagement with Iran to address the nuclear issue through the P5-plus-1 negotiations. Through this dialogue, we are committed to demonstrating that international law is not an empty promise; that obligations must be kept; and that treaties will be enforced.

And that’s why there’s a sense of urgency about the upcoming meeting on October 1st between Iran, the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, and Germany. At that meeting, Iran must be prepared to cooperate fully and comprehensively with the IAEA to take concrete steps to create confidence and transparency in its nuclear program and to demonstrate that it is committed to establishing its peaceful intentions through meaningful dialogue and concrete actions.

To put it simply: Iran must comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions and make clear it is willing to meet its responsibilities as a member of the community of nations. We have offered Iran a clear path toward greater international integration if it lives up to its obligations, and that offer stands. But the Iranian government must now demonstrate through deeds its peaceful intentions or be held accountable to international standards and international law.

I should point out that although the United Kingdom, France, and the United States made the presentation to Vienna, that Germany, a member of the P5-plus-1, and Chancellor Merkel in particular, who could not be here this morning, wished to associate herself with these remarks.

I would now like to turn to President Sarkozy of France for a brief statement.

PRESIDENT SARKOZY: (As translated.) Ladies and gentlemen, we have met yesterday for a meeting — a summit meeting of the Security Council on disarmament and nuclear disarmament. I repeated my conviction that Iran was taking the international community on a dangerous path. I have recalled all the attempts that we have made to offer a negotiated solution to the Iranian leaders without any success, which what has been revealed today is exceptional. Following the enriching plant of Natanz in 2002, it is now the Qom one which is revealed. It was designed and built over the past several years in direct violation of resolutions from the Security Council and from the IAEA. I am expecting from the IAEA an exhaustive, strict, and rigorous investigation, as President Obama just said.

We were already in a very severe confidence crisis. We are now faced with a challenge, a challenge made to the entire international communities. The six will meet with the Iranian representatives in Geneva. Everything — everything must be put on the table now.

We cannot let the Iranian leaders gain time while the motors are running. If by December there is not an in-depth change by the Iranian leaders, sanctions will have to be taken. This is for the peace and stability. Thank you.

PRIME MINISTER BROWN: America, the United Kingdom, and France are at one. Iran’s nuclear program is the most urgent proliferation challenge that the world faces today.

As President Obama and President Sarkozy have just said, the level of deception by the Iranian government, and the scale of what we believe is the breach of international commitments, will shock and anger the whole international community, and it will harden our resolve.

Confronted by the serial deception of many years, the international community has no choice today but to draw a line in the sand. On October the 1st, Iran must now engage with the international community and join the international community as a partner. If it does not do so, it will be further isolated.

And I say on behalf of the United Kingdom today, we will not let this matter rest. And we are prepared to implement further and more stringent sanctions.

Let the message that goes out to the world be absolutely clear: that Iran must abandon any military ambitions for its nuclear program. Thank you.

Iran: Obama's "Get-Tough" Move for Engagement

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

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Chris Emery reads behind and beyond the media fury and President Obama's statement on the Iran nuclear programme:

What must be emphasised is that the entire Obama policy in Iran, including the New Years message and the broad engagement strategy, was conceived with the full knowledge that the US could always bring out the "secret nuclear plant". This was the ace in the hole, which Obama always had, if he needed to inject a sense of urgency into the process of engagement.

Today's statement was not necessarily to set up an inevitable process of sanctions. Indeed, despite the strength of the President's words, there remains very little consensus on what sanctions should be adopted and almost no belief that they will be effective. Instead, this high-profile initiative by Obama was designed to get movement on engagement.

The aim is thus to counter Iran's delaying tactics by massively increasing the stakes for cooperation. The Iranians, if they have any ambitions for engagement --- and I believe they probably do --- will have to offer something extremely substantial in October. That may not be a disastrous outcome. The regime is probably not ready to make a grand bargain encompassing all the areas of mutual interest. However, they are in a position to offer a lot more transparency on the nuclear issue in return for economic carrots.

The fact that Obama has been sitting on this revelation for so long also indicates the risks that he was prepared to endure for engagement. Even now, it was left to French President Nicolas Sarkozy to talk of sanctions; Obama consistently emphasised that all offers to Tehran stand.

It will certainly shock opponents of engagement that Obama was prepared to offer so much knowing that the Iranians were building this facility. They will also now assume that all of the current US Government assessments regarding how long it will take for Iran to get the bomb, including the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, are incorrect. The immediate pressure, however, is on the International Atomic Energy Agency, especially as judgement has already been passed that the configuration of this site, and the nature of its concealment, are not consistent with a peaceful program.

If the Iranians continue to stonewall the nuclear issue then I do envisage sanctions by the United Nations Security Council around Christmas. I suspect that the Russians are now on board with that. This was probably part of the missile defence deal. That leaves the Chinese, who I doubt will apply the veto alone to block sanctions.

Yet, the point is that the engagement strategy remains in tact.

Transcript & Analysis: Obama at the UN on Nuclear Proliferation and Iran

The US, Iran, and Missile Defense: The Inside Story

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Enduring America, 17 September: "It’s a stunning if risky move. The Obama Administration is hoping to move the agenda away from specific cases such as Iran towards a wider framework encompassing all existing or aspiring nuclear powers. In the short term, that means dropping the deadline of either September or December for Tehran to give way on all demands regarding its nuclear programme."

At a historic summit at the United Nations  on Thursday, aU.S.-drafted resolution calling on nuclear weapons states to scrap their deadly arsenals was approved by the Security. After the vote, President Obama said:

The historic resolution we just adopted enshrines our shared commitment to a goal of a world without nuclear weapons. And it brings Security Council agreement on a broad framework for action to reduce nuclear dangers as we work toward that goal.

Meanwhile, as Iran continues to be test case of nuclear proliferation for many, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said that the G8 nations are giving Iran until the end of the year to commit to an end of uranium enrichment, thus avoiding new sanctions.

So the continuing manoevuring between Teheran and Moscow appears to be benefitting the Obama Administration, with Russia having no problem with a "wait and see approach" for three months.

Transcript of President Barack Obama's speech at the UN Security Council:

THE PRESIDENT: I wish to warmly welcome the distinguished heads of state and government, the General -- the Secretary General, the Director General of the IAEA, ministers and other distinguished representatives present in the Security Council chamber. Your presence is an affirmation of the importance of the subject matter to be discussed.

The Security Council summit will now begin its consideration of item two of the agenda. Members of the Council have before them document S/2009/473, which contains the text of a draft resolution prepared in the course of the Council's prior consultations. I wish to draw Council members' attention to document S/2009/463 containing a letter dated 16 September 2009 from the United States of America, transmitting a concept paper on the item under consideration. In accordance with the understanding reached earlier among members, the Security Council will take action on the draft resolution before it prior to hearing statements from the Secretary General and Council members. Accordingly, I shall put the draft resolution to the vote now. Will those in favor of the draft resolution contained in document S/2009/473 please raise their hand? The results of the voting is as follows: The draft resolution is received unanimously, 15 votes in favor. The draft resolution has been adopted unanimously as Resolution 1887 of 2009.

I want to thank again everybody who is in attendance. I wish you all good morning. In the six-plus decades that this Security Council has been in existence, only four other meetings of this nature have been convened. I called for this one so that we may address at the highest level a fundamental threat to the security of all peoples and all nations: the spread and use of nuclear weapons.

As I said yesterday, this very institution was founded at the dawn of the atomic age, in part because man's capacity to kill had to be contained. And although we averted a nuclear nightmare during the Cold War, we now face proliferation of a scope and complexity that demands new strategies and new approaches. Just one nuclear weapon exploded in a city -- be it New York or Moscow; Tokyo or Beijing; London or Paris -- could kill hundreds of thousands of people. And it would badly destabilize our security, our economies, and our very way of life.

Once more, the United Nations has a pivotal role to play in preventing this crisis. The historic resolution we just adopted enshrines our shared commitment to the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. And it brings Security Council agreement on a broad framework for action to reduce nuclear dangers as we work toward that goal. It reflects the agenda I outlined in Prague, and builds on a consensus that all nations have the right to peaceful nuclear energy; that nations with nuclear weapons have the responsibility to move toward disarmament; and those without them have the responsibility to forsake them.

Today, the Security Council endorsed a global effort to lock down all vulnerable nuclear materials within four years. The United States will host a summit next April to advance this goal and help all nations achieve it. This resolution will also help strengthen the institutions and initiatives that combat the smuggling, financing, and theft of proliferation-related materials. It calls on all states to freeze any financial assets that are being used for proliferation. And it calls for stronger safeguards to reduce the likelihood that peaceful nuclear weapons programs can be diverted to a weapons program -- that peaceful nuclear programs can be diverted to a weapons program.

The resolution we passed today will also strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. We have made it clear that the Security Council has both the authority and the responsibility to respond to violations to this treaty. We've made it clear that the Security Council has both the authority and responsibility to determine and respond as necessary when violations of this treaty threaten international peace and security.

That includes full compliance with Security Council resolutions on Iran and North Korea. Let me be clear: This is not about singling out individual nations -- it is about standing up for the rights of all nations who do live up to their responsibilities. The world must stand together. And we must demonstrate that international law is not an empty promise, and that treaties will be enforced.

The next 12 months will be absolutely critical in determining whether this resolution and our overall efforts to stop the spread and use of nuclear weapons are successful. And all nations must do their part to make this work. In America, I have promised that we will pursue a new agreement with Russia to substantially reduce our strategic warheads and launchers. We will move forward with the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and open the door to deeper cuts in our own arsenal. In January, we will call upon countries to begin negotiations on a treaty to end the production of fissile material for weapons. And the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in May will strengthen that agreement.

Now, we harbor no illusions about the difficulty of bringing about a world without nuclear weapons. We know there are plenty of cynics, and that there will be setbacks to prove their point. But there will also be days like today that push us forward -- days that tell a different story. It is the story of a world that understands that no difference or division is worth destroying all that we have built and all that we love. It is a recognition that can bring people of different nationalities and ethnicities and ideologies together. In my own country, it has brought Democrats and Republican leaders together -- leaders like George Shultz, Bill Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, who are with us here today. And it was a Republican President, Ronald Reagan, who once articulated the goal we now seek in the starkest of terms. I quote:

"A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. And no matter how great the obstacles may seem, we must never stop our efforts to reduce the weapons of war. We must never stop until all -- we must never stop at all until we see the day when nuclear arms have been banished from the face of the Earth."

That is our task. That can be our destiny. And we will leave this meeting with a renewed determination to achieve this shared goal. Thank you.

In accordance with the understanding reached among Council members, I wish to remind all speakers to limit their statements to no more than five minutes in order to enable the Council to carry on its work expeditiously. Delegations with lengthy statements are kindly requested to circulate the text in writing and to deliver a condensed version when speaking in the chamber.

I shall now invite the distinguished Secretary General, His Excellency Ban Ki-moon, to take the floor.