Minggu, 23 Juni 2019

US launched cyberattacks on Iran after drone downing - Aljazeera.com

The United States military launched cyberattacks against Iranian missile control systems and a spy network on Thursday after Tehran downed an American surveillance drone, US officials have said.

US President Donald Trump ordered a retaliatory military attack against Iran after the drone shootdown but then called it off, saying the response would not be "proportionate" and instead pledged new sanctions on the country.

But after the drone's downing, Trump secretly authorised US Cyber Command to carry out a retaliatory cyber attack on Iran, two officials told the Associated Press news agency on Saturday.

A third official confirmed the broad outlines of the attack. All spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly about the operation.

US media outlets Yahoo News and The Washington Post also reported the cyberattacks. 

The cyberattacks - a contingency plan developed over weeks amid escalating tensions - disabled Iranian computer systems that controlled its rocket and missile launchers, the officials said.

The officials said the US targeted the computers of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) after Washington blamed Iran for two recent mine attacks on oil tankers.

There was no immediate reaction on Sunday morning in Iran to the US claims. Iran has hardened and disconnected much of its infrastructure from the internet after the Stuxnet computer virus, widely believed to be a joint US-Israeli creation, disrupted thousands of Iranian centrifuges in the late 2000s.

"As a matter of policy and for operational security, we do not discuss cyberspace operations, intelligence or planning," US Defense Department spokesperson Heather Babb told AFP news agency.

Cyberwars

In recent weeks, hackers believed to be working for the Iranian government have targeted US government agencies, sending waves of spear-phishing emails, representatives of cybersecurity companies CrowdStrike and FireEye - which regularly track such activity - told AP. 

This new campaign appears to have started shortly after the Trump administration imposed sanctions on the Iranian petrochemical sector this month.

It was not known if any of the hackers managed to gain access to the targeted networks with the emails, which typically mimic legitimate emails but contain malicious software.

"Both sides are desperate to know what the other side is thinking," said John Hultquist, director of intelligence analysis at FireEye told AP.

"You can absolutely expect the regime to be leveraging every tool they have available to reduce the uncertainty about what's going to happen next, about what the US's next move will be."

CrowdStrike shared images of the spear-phishing emails with the AP.

US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Christopher C Krebs said the agency has been working with the intelligence community and cybersecurity partners to monitor Iranian cyber activity and ensure the US and its allies are safe.

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"What might start as an account compromise, where you think you might just lose data, can quickly become a situation where you've lost your whole network," Krebs said.

The National Security Agency (NSA) would not discuss Iranian cyber actions specifically, but said in a statement to the AP on Friday that "there have been serious issues with malicious Iranian cyber actions in the past".

"In these times of heightened tensions, it is appropriate for everyone to be alert to signs of Iranian aggression in cyberspace and ensure appropriate defences are in place," the NSA said.

Escalating tensions

Tensions are high between the US and Iran once again following Trump's move more than one year ago to leave a multinational accord curbing Iran's nuclear ambition.

His administration has instead imposed a robust slate of punitive economic sanctions designed to choke off Iranian oil sales and cripple its economy. 

On Saturday, Trump said the US would put "major" new sanctions on Iran next week. He said they would be announced on Monday. 

Tehran said it shot down the US drone on Thursday after it violated Iranian airspace - something Washington denies.

Meanwhile, Iran has denied responsibility for the tanker attacks, and a top military official on Saturday pledged to "set fire to the interests of America and its allies" if the US attacks.

Iran to 'confront any threat', as Trump warns of 'obliteration'

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https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/06/trump-approved-cyber-attacks-iran-drone-downing-190623054423929.html

2019-06-23 06:59:00Z
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Sabtu, 22 Juni 2019

US vows 'major' new sanctions against Iran - Aljazeera.com

US President Donald Trump has vowed to impose fresh sanctions on Iran and said military action was still "on the table" as tensions continued to seethe in the Gulf following the downing of an unmanned US drone by Iranian forces.

Trump's threat on Saturday came as Tehran warned Washington that "one bullet towards Iran" would cause its interests across the Middle East to go up in flames.

Frictions between the US and Iran have been at fever pitch since Thursday when Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) downed a US surveillance drone.

Washington claims the incident happened in international airspace, but Tehran said the drone was shot down over its territory. Trump said the US planned retaliatory attacks on Iran, but he called them off because 150 people could have been killed. 

Speaking in Washington, DC, before heading to the US presidential retreat at Camp David, where he said he would deliberate on Iran, Trump said the US government intended to pile up economic pressure against Tehran.

"We are putting additional sanctions on Iran," Trump told reporters. "In some cases we are going slowly, but in other cases we are moving rapidly." 

Iran to 'confront any threat', as Trump warns of 'obliteration' (3:17)

Military action was "always on the table," he said, but added that he was open to quickly reaching a deal with Iran that he said would bolster the country's flagging economy.

"We will call it 'Let's make Iran great again,'" Trump said.

He also said "we very much appreciate" a decision by the IRGC not to shoot down a US spy plane carrying more than 30 people.

Later on Saturday, Trump said the new US sanctions will be announced on Monday.

"We are putting major additional Sanctions on Iran on Monday," Trump tweeted, while adding: "I look forward to the day that Sanctions come off Iran, and they become a productive and prosperous nation again - The sooner the better!"

Iran US tensions

Protesters hold signs spelling out 'No War' outside the White House [Jacquelyn Martin/ AP]

'Powder keg'

Al Jazeera's John Hendren, reporting from Washington, DC, said Trump's comments appear to be aimed at defusing the festering frictions.

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"Let's make Iran great again does not sound very bellicose. It's a different tune for Trump to be singing. There is a sense of relief here in the US that we are not in the middle of a major conflict."

Worries about a confrontation between Iran and the US have mounted despite Trump saying he has no appetite for war.

Tehran has also said it is not seeking a war but has warned of a "crushing" response if attacked.

"Firing one bullet towards Iran will set fire to the interests of America and its allies" in the region, armed forces general staff spokesman Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi told the Tasnim news agency.

"If the enemy - especially America and its allies in the region - make the military mistake of shooting the powder keg on which America's interests lie, the region will be set on fire," Shekarchi warned.

Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, published a map on Twitter with detailed coordinates which he said showed the drone was flying over the Islamic Republic's territorial waters.

But a Pentagon spokeswoman, Commander Rebecca Rebarich, said on Saturday: "We stand by where we said the aircraft was operating in international airspace."

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Iran's Foreign Ministry summoned a United Arab Emirates envoy on Saturday because the UAE allowed the drone to be launched from a US military base on its territory, the Fars news agency reported.

A day earlier, Iran also summoned Swiss Ambassador Markus Leitner to hear its protest over the alleged drone violation. Switzerland looks after US interests in Iran. Tehran and Washington have had no diplomatic relations since 1979.

Call for diplomacy

Tensions in the region began to worsen significantly when Trump pulled out of a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six powers and reimposed sanctions on the country. The sanctions had been lifted under the pact in return for Tehran curbing its nuclear programme.

The US and its ally Saudi Arabia have also blamed Iran for attacks on two oil tankers last week in the Gulf of Oman and on four tankers off the United Arab Emirates on May 12.

Both incidents happened near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a major conduit for global oil supplies.

Iran has denied any involvement in those incidents, but world powers are calling for calm and sending in envoys for talks to try to lower the temperature of a dispute that is already helping push up the price of oil.

Britain's Foreign Office said Middle East minister Andrew Murrison would visit Tehran on Sunday to raise concerns about "Iran's regional conduct and its threat to cease complying with the nuclear deal."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel also called for a political resolution of the crisis, adding: "That is what we are working on."

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Iran has threatened to breach the deal if the European signatories to the agreement fail to salvage it by shielding Tehran from US sanctions.

"The Europeans will not be given more time beyond July 8 to save the deal," said Abbas Mousavi, spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry, referring to Iran's deadline of 60 days that Tehran announced in May.

Separately, Iran has executed a former contract employee for the aerospace organisation of the Ministry of Defence on charges of spying for the US Central Intelligence Agency, the IRIB news agency reported on Saturday.

Jalal Hajizavar was convicted by a military court after an investigation which discovered documents and spying equipment at his home, the report said.

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https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/06/vows-major-sanctions-iran-190622195442933.html

2019-06-22 21:14:00Z
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US unveils economic portion of Middle East peace plan - Aljazeera.com

US economic plan for Middle East peace process

  • A global investment fund of $50bn, which will cover 179 infrastructure and business projects
  • The US is hoping the wealthy Arab Gulf states will finance most of the $50bn
  • Of the total, $28bn will go to the occupied Palestinian territories of West Bank and Gaza Strip
  • Jordan's economy will receive $7.5bn, Egypt $9bn, and Lebanon $6bn 
  • $15bn of the total would come from grants, $25bn in subsidised loans, and $11bn from private capital
  • $5bn transportation corridor to connect the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip

The United States has revealed a proposal to create a $50bn global investment fund for the Palestinians and neighbouring Arab states, designed to be the economic engine of the long-awaited US Middle East peace plan.

The plan was posted on the White House website on Saturday, two days before a US-led workshop in Bahrain where the economic portion of the so-called "deal of the century" is set to be discussed.

The Manama conference is taking place despite opposition from the Palestinians, who will not attend.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday rejected the economic plan and the US peace effort, which is led by US President Donald Trump's senior adviser Jared Kushner.

"The economic situation should not be discussed before the political one," Abbas said on Saturday. "As long as there is no political solution, we do not deal with any economic solution."

'Less controversial'

Speaking to Reuters News Agency, Kushner, who is also Trump's son-in-law, said the economy first approach was "necessary" to break away from the political side, as it would be "less controversial".

"Let's let people study it, give feedback," he said. "Let's try to finalise if we can all agree on what that could look like in the event of a peace agreement."

Fundamental political issues such as the occupation of Palestinian territories, the right of return for refugees and their descendants (of which roughly five million live in refugee camps in neighbouring Arab countries) and border sovereignty were not mentioned in the plan.

Instead, the economic scheme included 179 infrastructure and business projects, a billion-dollar investment to build up the Palestinians' tourism sector, and a five-billion-dollar transportation corridor to connect the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

More than half of the $50bn would be spent in the economically troubled Palestinian territories over 10 years while the rest would be split between Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan, according to the plan.

Some of the projects would take place in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, where investments could benefit Palestinians living in adjacent Gaza, a crowded and impoverished coastal enclave blockaded by Israel and Egypt for 12 years.

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According to Kushner, the 10-year plan "would create a million jobs in the West Bank and Gaza".

"It would take their unemployment rate from about 30 percent to the single digits," he said. "It would reduce their poverty rate by half, if it's implemented correctly."

His comments drew the ire of Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) executive committee.

"First, lift the siege of Gaza, stop the Israeli theft of our land, resources and funds, give us our freedom of movement and control over our borders, airspace, territorial waters etc," she said in a post on Twitter.

"Then, watch us build a vibrant prosperous economy as a free and sovereign people."

Ali Abunimah, the co-founder of Electronic Intifada, told Al Jazeera Kushner's plan is "an effort to buy Palestine for peanuts and give Palestinians nothing in exchange."

"The basic issue of Israeli military occupation, colonisation and apartheid is really the elephant in the room," Abunimah said. 

"The Trump administration and other US officials in charge of this so-called peace process actively support all the things that destroy the Palestinian economy, that plunge millions of Palestinians in poverty and prevent Palestinians from thriving."

"According to the World Bank, Israeli military restrictions on Palestinian businesses and agriculture reduce Palestinian economy by 35 percent," Abunimah continued. "Palestinians don’t need Jared Kushner’s charity. What they need is liberation."

In Gaza, Hamas official Ismail Rudwan also rejected Kushner's proposals.

"We reject the 'deal of the century' and all its dimensions, the economic, the political and the security dimensions," Rudwan told Reuters.

"The issue of our Palestinian people is a nationalistic issue, it is the issue of a people who are seeking to be free from occupation. Palestine isn't for sale, and it is not an issue for bargaining. Palestine is a sacred land and there is no option for the occupation, except to leave," he said.

Regional tensions

Several Gulf Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, will also participate in the Bahrain workshop. Their presence, some US officials say privately, appears intended in part to curry favour with Trump as he takes a hard line against Iran, those countries' regional regional rival.

The Trump administration also hopes that the wealthy Gulf states and private investors would foot much of the bill.

The White House said it decided against inviting the Israeli government because the Palestinian Authority would not be there, making do instead with a small Israeli business delegation.

In recent days, tensions between the US and Iran have sky-rocketed, after Iranian forces shot down an unmanned US drone last Thursday.

According to President Trump, he had called off a military response on three Iranian targets at the last minute.

Countries across the world appealed for de-escalation, with Russia accusing the US of deliberately stoking tensions with Iran and pushing the situation "to the brink of war". 

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https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/06/unveils-economic-portion-middle-east-peace-plan-190622162812890.html

2019-06-22 19:52:00Z
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US-Iran: Trump announces 'major' sanctions amid tensions - BBC News

The US will impose "major" additional sanctions on Iran in a bid to prevent the country obtaining nuclear weapons, President Donald Trump says.

He said economic pressure would be maintained unless the leadership in Tehran changed course.

"We're putting additional sanctions on," he told reporters. "In [some] cases we are moving rapidly."

It comes after Iran announced it would exceed internationally agreed limits on its nuclear programme.

The limit on its stockpile of enriched uranium was set under a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. In return, relevant sanctions were lifted, allowing Iran to resume oil exports - the government's main source of revenue.

But the US pulled out of the deal last year and reinstated sanctions. This triggered an economic meltdown in Iran, pushing the value of its currency to record lows and driving away foreign investors.

Iran has responded by scaling back its commitments under the nuclear deal.

"If Iran wants to become a prosperous nation... it's OK with me," Mr Trump said. "But they're never going to do it if they think in five or six years they're going to have nuclear weapons."

"Let's make Iran great again," he added, echoing his campaign slogan from the 2016 presidential election.

In a later tweet, Mr Trump said the "major additional sanctions" would come into force on Monday.

How have US sanctions hit Iran?

The reinstatement of US sanctions last year - particularly those imposed on the energy, shipping and financial sectors - caused foreign investment to dry up and hit oil exports.

The sanctions bar US companies from trading with Iran, but also with foreign firms or countries that are dealing with Iran.

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This has led to shortages of imported goods and products that are made with raw materials from abroad, most notably babies' nappies.

The plunging value of the rial has also affected the cost of locally produced staples such as meat and eggs, which have soared in price.

Iran has responded to the economic pressure by violating some of the nuclear deal's commitments. It has also accused European countries of failing to live up to their promises of protecting Iran's economy from US sanctions.

What is the bigger picture?

President Trump's announcement that additional sanctions will be imposed on Iran comes at a time of escalating tensions between the two countries.

On Thursday, an unmanned US drone was shot down by Iranian forces in the Gulf.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said the drone's downing was a "clear message" to the US that Iran's borders were "our red line".

But US military officials maintain the drone was in international airspace over the Strait of Hormuz at the time.

Amir Ali Hajizadeh, a high-ranking officer in the IRGC, said another military aircraft, carrying 35 passengers, had been flying close to the drone. "We could have shot down that one too, but we did not," he said.

The shooting down of the drone followed accusations by the US that Iran had attacked two oil tankers with mines just outside the Strait of Hormuz.

Mr Trump has said he does not want war with Iran, but warned it it would face "obliteration" if conflict broke out.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48732672

2019-06-22 17:52:49Z
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Trump Announces New Iran Sanctions, Saying Iran Cannot Have Nuclear Weapon - NPR

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President Donald Trump speaks to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House Saturday before boarding Marine One for the trip to Camp David in Maryland. Susan Walsh/AP hide caption

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Susan Walsh/AP

President Trump says he is imposing new sanctions on Iran.

"We're moving forward with additional sanctions on Iran," the president said, speaking to reporters Saturday outside the White House. "Some of them are in place. As you know, we have about as strong a sanction grouping as you could possibly have on any country, but we're putting additional sanctions on."

He did not offer specifics on those sanctions, but suggested sanctions could be lifted in the future.

"We're not going to have Iran have a nuclear weapon," Trump said. "And when they agree to that, they are going to have a wealthy country, they're going to be so happy, and I'm going to be their best friend."

Trump last year withdrew the U.S. from a deal brokered by President Obama that lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange for abandoning its nuclear weapons program. Since then, Trump has attempted to use an economic tactic called "maximum pressure," in other words, reimposing sanctions. On Thursday, Iran hit a U.S. surveillance drone, days after the U.S. accused Iran of hitting two foreign-owned oil tankers traveling in the Strait of Hormuz.

In his comments, the president also defended his decision Thursday to cancel a strike on Iran after he says he learned the strike would kill 150 people. The strike was intended to retaliate for Iran shooting down the American drone, The New York Times first reported.

"I didn't like the idea of them knowingly shooting down an unmanned drone and then we kill 150 people," Trump elaborated Saturday.

"I don't want to kill 150 Iranians," he continued.

Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Iran is suffering under soaring inflation, high unemployment, and the departure of educated citizens and capital.

"The Iranian economy is really deteriorating as a result of these sanctions and I don't see how they're going to be able to reverse it absent some type of an eventual accommodation or negotiation with the United States," Sadjadpour told NPR's Scott Simon on Weekend Edition.

Sadjadpour estimated that, "We will continue to see this escalatory cycle. It may be that Iran tries to wait out the Trump presidency, hoping that by November of 2020 a more moderate Democrat will be elected."

Congressional leaders have pushed for more input into U.S. strategy.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Friday that leading lawmakers had met with the president after they learned about his decision to initiate, then cancel, a strike on Iran.

"Democratic Leaders emphasized that hostilities must not be initiated without the approval of Congress," Pelosi said in a statement. "We have no illusions about the dangerous conduct of the Iranian regime. This is a dangerous, high-tension situation that requires a strong, smart and strategic approach."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., wrote that he appreciated the president's "desire to be measured and thoughtful when it comes to Iranian provocations." He said he hoped that if Iran follows through on its threat to restart nuclear enrichment, the U.S. "will make this a Red Line."

Trump told reporters Saturday that American oil and gas production is so large that the U.S. no longer depends on the Strait of Hormuz for oil transport. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said the U.S. will keep the shipping routes open in the Gulf of Oman, and Trump said that is mainly to the benefit of China, Japan, Indonesia, and other countries.

"We're doing them a very big service by keeping the Straits open, but this is not about the Straits, this is about, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon," Trump said.

Reporters asked the president whether he had confidence in his National Security Advisor, John Bolton. "Yeah, I do." Trump said. "Because I have John Bolton, who I would definitely say is a hawk, and I have other people that are on the other side of the equation, and ultimately I make the decisions, so it doesn't matter."

The question came after Fox host Tucker Carlson accused Bolton of "demented" logic in advocating invading Iraq.

"John Bolton is a kind of bureaucratic tapeworm. Try as you might, you can't expel him," Carlson said. "His life really is Washington in a nutshell, blunder into obvious catastrophes again and again, refuse to admit blame, and then demand more of the same."

Trump, however, said, "John Bolton is doing a good job."

Trump also expanded on plans of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to arrest and deport thousands of migrant families across the country.

He called ICE "a group of very, very good law enforcement people going by the law, going by the rules, going by our court system, and taking people out of our country who came into our country illegally."

The president praised Mexico for its role in stemming illegal immigration.

"I want to thank Mexico. So far, Mexico has been really good. They made an agreement, probably, not probably, because of tariffs, but they made an agreement and so far, they've really honored the agreement," he said.

Earlier in June, Trump had threatened to impose tariffs unless Mexico agreed to tighten its border and reduce the flow of migrants crossing illegally into the U.S. NPR's Carrie Kahn reported that the mission will be difficult.

"Mexico has very limited resources," Kahn said. "And this new government has cut its budgets for the immigration and refugee programs under the president's new austerity program. So it's going to be tough to take even more asylum seekers."

In response, Mexico agreed to deploy its National Guard and to keep more Central American migrants.

On another topic, the president on Saturday again rebuffed a claim by advice columnist E. Jean Carroll that Trump sexually assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid '90s.

"It's a totally false accusation," Trump said. "I have absolutely no idea who she is."

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https://www.npr.org/2019/06/22/735029924/trump-we-re-moving-forward-with-additional-sanctions-on-iran

2019-06-22 17:39:00Z
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Trump: Let's make Iran great again - CNN

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9azO-IZcCw

2019-06-22 17:06:53Z
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Facing Intensifying Confrontation With Iran, Trump Has Few Appealing Options - The New York Times

President Trump’s last-minute decision to pull back from a retaliatory strike on Iran underscored the absence of appealing options available to him as Tehran races toward its next big challenge to the United States: building up and further enriching its stockpile of nuclear fuel.

Two weeks of flare-ups over the attacks on oil tankers and the downing of an American surveillance drone, administration officials said, have overshadowed a larger, more complex and fast-intensifying showdown over containing Iran’s nuclear program.

In meetings in the White House Situation Room in recent days, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo contended that the potential for Iran to move closer to being able to build a nuclear weapon was the primary threat from Tehran, one participant said, a position echoed by Mr. Trump on Twitter on Friday. Left unsaid was that Iran’s moves to bolster its nuclear fuel program stemmed in substantial part from the president’s decision last year to pull out of the 2015 international accord, while insisting that Tehran abide by the strict limits that agreement imposed on its nuclear activities. Mr. Trump has long asserted that the deal would eventually let Iran restart its nuclear program and did too little to curb its support for terrorism.

Now, with the immediate crisis over the drone abating, Mr. Trump has dispatched envoys to the Middle East to consult with allies as he and his national security team appear focused on a two-tier strategy for confronting the nuclear issue. First, they intend to maintain and intensify the sanctions the United States has used to squeeze Iran’s economy, chiefly by choking off its ability to sell oil to the world.

During White House deliberations, Mr. Pompeo and others made the case that Tehran’s lashing out in the Persian Gulf was in direct response to the sanctions. He and Mr. Trump are telling allies and members of Congress that Iran’s leaders will eventually no longer be able to tolerate the devastating economic and domestic political costs, perhaps forcing them to agree to a new nuclear accord tougher than the one they negotiated with President Barack Obama.

At the same time, administration officials have signaled that they continue to weigh more aggressive options, including military strikes and cyberattacks. Those options could come into play if Iran does not buckle under economic pressure or follows through on the warning it issued on Monday: that it would breach the 2015 accord’s limits on how much low-enriched nuclear fuel it can hold, and that it was pointedly leaving open the possibility of further enriching the fuel, edging it closer to the purity necessary to build a bomb.

Mr. Trump’s hawkish national security adviser, John R. Bolton, arrived in Israel on Saturday for a previously scheduled meeting with his Israeli and Russian counterparts to discuss what the White House calls “regional security.”

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CreditFayez Nureldine/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

While there he will meet with the head of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission and other officials who, during the Obama administration, repeatedly ordered practice bombings to simulate taking out Iran’s nuclear facilities. Israel stopped short of bombing but, a decade ago, joined the United States in conducting a sophisticated cyberattack against Iran’s major enrichment site.

As Iran vows to gradually kick its nuclear production back into gear, both options are being revisited, officials say, in case Iran carries through its declared nuclear plans. This coming week it is likely to have amassed more than 660 pounds of low-enriched uranium, the limit set in the 2015 pact.

The marginal move over the limits “might not be a big deal,’’ said Philip H. Gordon, a former State Department official now at the Council on Foreign Relations, “but exiting the nuclear deal is a big deal because it’s a slippery slope toward not having any of those constraints at all.”

But stopping those activities, with a military attack or the kind of complicated online sabotage that the United States and Israel conducted a decade ago, would carry huge risks. And this time, the element of surprise would be gone.

The State Department’s Iran coordinator, Brian Hook, is also in the gulf, trying to coordinate a response — and perhaps an opening for talks with Tehran — with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain, all among Iran’s greatest rivals. The State Department did not say whether he would go to Oman, which acted as the back channel for opening nuclear negotiations during the Obama administration.

Missing from any coalition, at least for now, are the Europeans, the Chinese and the Russians, all of whom participated in those negotiations and say that Mr. Trump created the current crisis by abandoning a nuclear accord that was working, even if imperfectly.

“Trump thinks that if he just turns the oil spigot off the Iranians, and bring crude oil revenue to near zero, the Iranians will fold negotiate a new deal,” one European official who was deeply involved in negotiating the agreement said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid alienating the administration. “It won’t work.”

Some leading members of Congress and current and former diplomats say the bet that sanctions will drive the Iranians to the negotiating table — and force them into a more restrictive deal than they gave Mr. Obama — is a fantasy.

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CreditAtta Kenare/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“The question is how do the Iranians react now,” said Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee. “Will they give up or act much more aggressively to get out of this dilemma? What we are seeing is that they act more aggressively.”

Iran, he said, is practiced at both tolerating international isolation and carrying out asymmetric warfare — finding targets it can hit despite having far less traditional military ability than the United States — and can be expected to ramp up counterpressure before the loss of oil revenue completely cripples it.

Two weeks ago Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, rejected any negotiation with the United States.

“Khamenei has made it clear in his speeches: He sees an American plot to weaken Iran and lure it into negotiations,” said Suzanne Maloney, an Iran expert at the Brookings Institution. “And so after a long waiting period, they are choosing this moment to escalate, so far in a carefully calibrated way. But they have many more options.”

In fact, while Iran is weaker economically than it was a year ago, it has developed skills it did not possess during the last major nuclear crisis. It can strike ships with more precision and shoot planes out of the air. It now has a major cyber corps, which over the last seven years has paralyzed American banks, infiltrated a dam in the New York suburbs and attacked a Las Vegas casino.

These abilities have altered the risk calculations, making the problem Mr. Trump faces with Iran even more vexing than those that confronted President George W. Bush or Mr. Obama.

The least-fraught course for the United States is to bank on sanctions eventually working. Under tighter sanctions, Iran’s economy has contracted sharply and inflation is running at 50 percent.

But sanctions themselves are not a solution; they are a means to getting a country to change its behavior. Sometimes nations resist: Decades of sanctions against Cuba failed to have the intended effect. In Iran’s case, its old logic — that it could wait out the Trump administration — has been replaced by a new theory, that the United States will relent only when it begins to suffer as well.

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CreditHasan Sarbakhshian/Associated Press

The Europeans and Russians have talked about setting up a barter system to avoid American-imposed sanctions and keep Iran complying with the deal, but so far those efforts have come to naught.

The test may be how far the Iranians go in breaking free of the current nuclear limits. If they hover just above the ceilings set in the 2015 pact, but do not race to return to where they were a few years ago, their defiance may not blossom into a crisis. If the Iranians aggressively increase the size and potency of their fuel stockpile, Mr. Reed said, the administration might “make a case the nuclear threat has grown enough that we have to act.”

If he cannot make progress by relying on sanctions, Mr. Trump will almost certainly find himself being pressured, perhaps by Saudi Arabia or Israel, to “solve” the nuclear problem by taking out Iran’s facilities.

In the first year of the Trump administration, Lt. General H.R. McMaster, the president’s second national security adviser, ordered that the plans to do so be updated. But the Iranians have not been sitting still, either.

To reduce its vulnerability to airstrikes, Iran has built mazes of underground bunkers, tunnels and compounds to house many of its nuclear facilities — especially those involved in making nuclear fuel, the main hurdle to building an atom bomb.

At Natanz, the primary uranium enrichment site, the desert around the facility has been ringed with antiaircraft guns. In 2007, satellite images showed Iran building a tunnel complex nearby, suggesting new precautions to shield from aerial strikes.

Similarly, Iran has sought to harden its sprawling nuclear complex at Isfahan, where uranium ore is turned into a gas that can be spun to produce enriched uranium.

If they are attacked, the Iranians appear to have the capacity to respond, including militias and proxies near the gates of American bases in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Image
CreditMichael Reynolds/EPA, via Shutterstock

A decade ago, facing the same dilemma about Natanz that Mr. Trump faces now, the Obama administration, along with Israel, stepped up a covert operation, known as Olympic Games. The attack on Iran’s centrifuges used computer code that sped up and slowed down their nuclear centrifuges until they spun out of control.

The Iranians did not see it coming. They spent more than a year trying to determine why their centrifuges were exploding, and spreading radioactive material inside the plant’s giant underground enrichment hall. They learned the answer when the code was accidentally released.

While the National Security Agency and United States Cyber Command have looked at other cyberoptions — including Nitro Zeus, a plan to shut down the country’s power grid and communications systems in the opening days of a war — they concluded the effects on Iran’s population could be huge. Narrower, stealthy attacks would be difficult, because the Iranians are now looking for a second wave.

More worrisome, the Iranians have built their own online corps, and have been increasingly effective breaching American banks and power systems, and have even experimented, in small ways, with influence operations during the midterm elections, the government reported.

Mr. Trump’s other option would be to reverse course, as he did with North Korea, and move from threats to a diplomatic embrace. He has regularly telegraphed his desire to open a channel for negotiation, and many countries and politicians have volunteered to act as intermediaries, most recently Prime Minister Abe of Japan, whose entreaties were rejected by Iran’s supreme leader.

But Iran is not like North Korea. There is not one power center, no figure like Kim Jong-un to meet. The military and the clerics have a role. The 2015 agreement was negotiated between Secretary of State John Kerry and Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, over a period of years; President Obama never met President Hassan Rouhani.

Moreover, the Iranians have said that Mr. Trump must first re-enter the old deal before negotiating a new one. Mr. Trump has refused, and Mr. Pompeo has said that to come to an accord, the Iranians must comply with his demands for 12 huge changes in their behavior, like ceasing support of terrorism and giving up all things nuclear.

“I can imagine talks,” Mr. Gordon said. “What’s harder to imagine is the deal would come anywhere close to what the Trump administration says is an absolute minimum.”

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/22/world/middleeast/trump-iran.html

2019-06-22 16:12:58Z
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