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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 3-May-2018
3-May-18 World View -- Israel reveals intelligence coup on Iran's nuclear weapons program

Web Log - May, 2018

3-May-18 World View -- Israel reveals intelligence coup on Iran's nuclear weapons program

Importance of 2003 Iraq War revealed by the Iranian intelligence coup

by John J. Xenakis

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Israel reveals intelligence coup on Iran's nuclear weapons program
Importance of 2003 Iraq War revealed by the Iranian intelligence coup

Israel reveals intelligence coup on Iran's nuclear weapons program

Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu stands next to a facsimile of the intelligence archive that Mossad had taken from a Tehran warehouse in January (Times of Israel)

Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu stands next to a facsimile of the intelligence archive that Mossad had taken from a Tehran warehouse in January (Times of Israel)

Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday revealed the results of a massive intelligence coup by Israel's intelligence agency Mossad.

In February 2016, spies from Mossad discovered the top-secret location of a warehouse in Iran's capital city Tehran where thousands of documents related to Iran's past nuclear weapons developments were stored. Mossad operatives broke into the building one night in January of this year, removed half a ton of archived documents, and smuggled them back to Israel the same night. The material included 55,000 pages and another 55,000 files on 183 CDs.

The archived material was of Iran's nuclear program that began in the 1980s, and ended in 2003, when the Iraq war revealed that Saddam Hussein was not developing WMDs.

The trove of intelligence data is being used in the debate over what the Trump administration should do on May 12, when it must decide whether to abandon the nuclear deal that the West signed with Iran, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Those who favor continuing to support the JCPOA say that there's nothing in the trove of data that indicates that Iran has violated any of its obligations under the treaty, and that appears to be true.

Those who oppose continuing to support the JCPOA say that Iran lied about the extent of its nuclear weapons program that ended in 2003. In particular, they say that Iran claimed that the nuclear development was only for peaceful purposes, while the intelligence data provides extensive technical information on how Iran was developing nuclear weapons.

Those who favor continuing to support the JCPOA say nothing revealed in the intelligence haul was new, and that in fact it was known and published in a 2011 document from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Those who oppose continuing to support the JCPOA say that the 2011 IAEA document contains only a small fraction of the information that was revealed in the intelligence trove, and that furthermore Iran had not destroyed all the work in its nuclear weapons program, as it had promised.

So this is all going to be a major heated and sometimes acrimonious debate between now and May 12, when President Trump will announce the administration's decision on whether to continue to support the JCPOA.

It's also worth noting that in October 2015, Hashemi Rafsanjani, the head of Iran's Expediency Council, said in a televised interview that Iran had begun developing nuclear weapons in the 1980s during the Iran/Iraq war, and continued development for many years. Times of Israel and International Atomic Energy Commission-IAEA (PDF,2011) and Times of Israel

Importance of 2003 Iraq War revealed by the Iranian intelligence coup

Even by the extremely low to nonexistent standards of today's journalists and today's politicians, the statements made about the Iraq war on a daily basis are abysmally ignorant, saying that it was a catastrophe and the worst war in American history and other idiotic things. Actually, it's the people who opposed the Iraq war in 2003 who owe the world an apology, since they were unwilling to stop Saddam Hussein from using WMDs to kill thousands of people.

The new intelligence trove from Iran provides further evidence that NOT pursuing the Iraq war could have been a catastrophe.

We now know that the Iran had a very aggressive nuclear weapons development program that began in the 1980s during the Iran/Iraq war, at a time when Saddam Hussein was using mustard gas and other WMDs on Kurds and Iranians.

This program continued until October 2003, when Iran's Supreme Leader Seyed Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa ending all nuclear weapons development. The fatwa was issued because the American invasion of Iraq and the defeat of Saddam Hussein had ended any possibility of Iraq developing nuclear weapons. Iran had already been victimized by Saddam's WMDs, and in 2003 Saddam was refusing IAEA inspections, so without the Iraq war there was little doubt that Saddam would continue development of WMDs, and possibly nuclear weapons.

If it hadn't been for the Iraq war, then Iran would have continued nuclear weapons development, and would be a major nuclear weapons power in the Mideast today. Furthermore, since Iran has been working with North Korea, North Korea would also be a major nuclear weapons power today.

Saudi Arabia would not have simply tolerated a nuclear Iran, so it would have obtained its own nuclear weapons from Pakistan. Saddam Hussein would undoubtedly at least continued development of WMDs. So the Mideast and the world would be very different and infinitely more dangerous places today if it hadn't been for the Iraq war. Bloomberg

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 3-May-2018 3-May-18 World View -- Israel reveals intelligence coup on Iran's nuclear weapons program

Israel reveals intelligence coup on Iran's nuclear weapons program

Importance of 2003 Iraq War revealed by the Iranian intelligence coup

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 3-May-2018
3-May-18 World View -- Israel reveals intelligence coup on Iran's nuclear weapons program