Iran rattles its sabres

From an Interview of the US President by Nahum Barnea and Shimon Shiffer of Yediot Ahronot, Oval Office, January 2, 2008:

....Q Mr. President, the Israeli people are worried, first and foremost, because of the danger that Iran will acquire nuclear weapons. Can you, Mr. President, assure the Israelis that such a danger will never occur under your watch?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I can assure the people of Israel and others in the Middle East that an Iran with a nuclear weapon would be a danger to world peace. I have said so very explicitly. I believe that the -- and I believe we have put in place a system that encourages pressure on the Iranians to come up with -- to either have a choice between isolation and financial difficulty, or a rational approach to what they claim is their sovereign right, which is the ability to have nuclear power.
Now, they have been untrustworthy, they have been unwilling to be transparent and open. And so our demands are to the Iranians, not only with our voice, but the voice of the international community thus far, is, you must be transparent, you must be open, and you -- because of your failure to report programs, that you cannot be trusted with the ability to learn how to enrich. And so my message to the Israeli people is, I fully understand the threat; that we spend a lot of time on this issue; and that we will continue to exert maximum pressure through the international community to peacefully resolve this issue.

Q I'm sure you've heard the report by the American intelligence ...

...THE PRESIDENT: Actually, if you study the report carefully, it ... said that Iran had a secret program ...In the year 2003....

... But my message to the American people was, is that a non-transparent society that had a program could easily have another program. And therefore, the intensity of the effort must not decline, but must stay strong -- and the intensity of the effort being to prevent them from developing the know-how.

Secondly, there are three stages to the development of a nuclear weapon: one, materials out of which to make a weapon. That's why we've got to stop them from enriching, and that's where our focus is. Two, the ability to take materials and to make it into a warhead or a bomb. And we don't know their capacities at this point in time, but it's fairly general knowledge on how to produce a weapon out of materials. And three, rockets. Well, two of the three continue to exist. And therefore, to say a weapons program does not exist is not the complete truth. And so our focus is to prevent the one thing over which we believe the international community can have influence, which is to stop the capacity to enrich.

Thirdly, the report did say that as a result of pressures, the Iranians suspended their military program. Well, if pressures worked in the past, my hope is that pressures will work in the future. Part of the reason I'm going to the Middle East is to make it abundantly clear to nations in that part of the world that we view Iran as a threat, and that the NIE in no way lessens that threat, but in fact clarifies the threat....

..... The international response ought to be that, okay, whether or not you agree with the NIE or not, at least recognize that they had a program at one point in time, and demand that Iran explain it. We shouldn't be trying to explain why we know what we know. We ought to be focusing on the Iranians to say, you tell us why you had a program; you tell us about the -- if you want to be an international player, it's up to you to explain....

....and from DEBKAfile, January 7, 2008:

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ harassment of US warships in Strait of Hormuz carried 5 tough messages for Bush

DEBKAfile’s military and Iranian sources stress that the near-shooting incident Sunday, Jan. 6, in which 5 IRGC speedboats made threatening passes against three US Navy vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, was timed precisely by Tehran for the eve of President George W. Bush’s Middle East tour.

1. It was an “in your face” gesture by the IRGC to show the US president they were not scared by being declared a global terrorist organization, a step Bush took last year.
The elite Iranian corps was also intent on proving that Iran was the boss of the Strait of Hormuz, the crude oil outlet for Persian Gulf producers – not the US Navy.

2. A reminder that Iran is able to block the strait at will and throw the world’s oil traffic in disarray.

3. It is important for the Islamic Republic to show its neighbors on the US president’s itinerary that Iran is the region’s leading power, not the US, and that no deals or issues can be finalized without Tehran’s say-so.

4. The Iranian speedboats were also a warning to the nations hosting Bush not to risk signing any military pacts that may be directed against Iran.

5. Tehran has been all ears to pick up every nuance from the White House ahead of the Bush tour. In an interview aired by Israeli television Sunday, Bush said that Iran “was a threat and is a threat” and the US has never given up its military option.

Israeli officials have also leaked a plan to show the visiting president intelligence data to refute the US National Intelligence Estimate’s claim that Iran gave up its nuclear arms program in 2003.

Over the weekend, supreme ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s senior adviser Ali Larijani went from Cairo to Damascus to discuss the Lebanese crisis. This was meant as a signal to Washington that the problem was susceptible to diplomatic engagement. But when the Iranians heard the Bush interview, they decided to show muscle instead and launched the naval incident in the Strait of Hormuz.

6. While possibly a coincidence, the naval provocation occurred at the same time as al Qaeda’s American spokesman called on the region’s Muslim to greet the visiting US president with bombs. The two events have combined to add fuel to the climate in the region preparing to welcome President Bush.