[It looks as if the MOSSAD have begun knocking off the top Iranians linked to their nuclear program. NICE!

I must admit, that in some ways, the Western world is surprising me more and more with its clandestine responses to overt threats. The Western world doesn’t talk about what its doing… it just goes out and starts doing it. This includes the CIA, MI6, etc. The West, for all its overt pronouncements, has a very cunning side to it. Its pretty common knowledge that the CIA is hunting Arab terrorists across the world. So maybe these Arabs are nowhere nearly in as strong a position as one thinks. Jan]

MORNING INTELLIGENCE BRIEF
02.02.2007

Geopolitical Diary: Israeli Covert Operations in Iran

French President Jacques Chirac started quite the uproar with his apparent faux pas made public on Thursday in which he downplayed the Iranian nuclear threat. Chirac says he thought he was speaking off the record when, during an interview with The New York Times, International Herald Tribune and Le Nouvel Observateur, he said an Iranian nuclear weapon would not be much of a threat because “Tehran would be razed to the ground” if it ever tried to deploy such a device.

Chirac’s comments (which were quickly retracted) directly undermine the West’s stance on Iran — and they do not reflect the official French position, which was summed up Thursday in a statement from the Elysee Palace that read “France, with the international community, cannot accept the prospect of Iran with a nuclear weapon.”

But despite the commotion, Chirac’s statements are not all that far off the mark. It might be tempting to write off the Iranians or North Koreans as “axis of evil” regimes that are just crazy enough to cook off a nuke, but Tehran — like all rational actors — knows the implications and the utility of a nuclear program. A nuclear-capable Iran would primarily use its nuclear program, not to turn Israel into a radioactive wasteland, but for deterrent value to safeguard the clerical regime from possible U.S or Israeli intervention. Israel, however, does not care to gamble on the rationality of the Iranian regime, and does not intend to see an Iranian nuclear weapons program come to fruition.

The Israelis, therefore, have their own ways of dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat. A pre-emptive Israeli military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities is unlikely in the near future for a number of reasons that we have discussed before, including the time Israel still has before Iran reaches a technologically critical stage in its nuclear development, the strategically dispersed nature of Iran’s nuclear sites and the tenuous U.S. position in Iraq. An offensive strike on Iran would still leave wide open the issue of a resolution in Iraq, which would further constrain the U.S. military position in the region.

But while the time for overt military action is likely still in the distance, Israeli covert action against Iran appears to be gaining steam.

The death of a high-level Iranian nuclear scientist, Ardeshir Hassanpour, was announced by Radio Farda and Iranian state television Jan. 25 — a week after his death occurred. The Radio Farda report implicitly related the cause for Hassanpour’s death to exposure to radioactive rays, though the details were murky. Stratfor sources close to Israeli intelligence have revealed, however, that Hassanpour was in fact a Mossad target.

Hassanpour is believed to have been one of Iran’s most prized nuclear scientists. Some reports claim he was named the best scientist in the military field in Iran in 2003, that he directed and founded the center for nuclear electromagnetic studies since 2005 and that he co-founded the Nuclear Technology Center in Isfahan, where Iran’s uranium-conversion facilities are located.

Decapitating a hostile nuclear program by taking out key human assets is a tactic that has proven its effectiveness over the years, particularly in the case of Iraq. In the months leading up to the 1981 Israeli airstrike on Iraq’s Osirak reactor — which was believed to be on the verge of producing plutonium for a weapons program — at least three Iraqi nuclear scientists died under mysterious circumstances.

Yahya al-Meshad, a key figure in Iraq’s nuclear program, traveled to Paris in 1980 to test fuel for the reactor; he was soon stabbed to death and was discovered by a hotel maid in his room the next morning. A prostitute who went by the name Marie Express reportedly saw the scientist the night before he died. She was then killed in a hit-and-run accident by an unknown driver who got away. After al-Meshad’s death, two more Iraqi scientists were killed separately — both by poisoning — and a number of workers at Osirak began receiving threatening letters from a shadowy organization called the Committee to Safeguard the Islamic Revolution — likely a Mossad front to enhance the workers’ paranoia and hinder Saddam Hussein’s nuclear ambitions.

Mossad’s latest covert assassination campaign falls in line with Israel’s psychological warfare strategy to undermine Iran’s confidence in pursuing its nuclear agenda. The longer the Iranians are forced to second-guess Israel’s intent to launch a pre-emptive strike, the more pliable Iran becomes in negotiating with the United States toward a political agreement on Iraq.

Tehran wants, ideally, to secure a Shiite buffer zone in Iraq while also reaching the point of no return in its nuclear program; but the Iranian regime must move carefully on the nuclear issue to avoid inviting airstrikes on its soil. Israel and the United States are betting for now that Iran’s concerns over Iraq will override its pursuit of nuclear power — which, however, leaves Tehran in a prime position to use the nuclear controversy as a major bargaining tool in extracting concessions from the United States over Iraq. But things do not always go as planned, and Israel appears to be setting the stage for Plan B.

Situation Reports

1248 GMT — PAKISTAN — Militants that witnesses described as pro-Taliban cut the throat of an Afghan refugee Feb. 2, accusing the man of spying for the United States in Pakistan’s North Waziristan region. The militants left a note on the body that read, “American spy, Gafoor Tani.”

1240 GMT — ETHIOPIA, ERITREA — Ethiopia thwarted an Eritrean-backed attack targeting the African Union summit attended by about 40 heads of state earlier in the week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopian police said Feb. 2. Eritrea has denied the accusation. Relations between the two countries, which already were strained over a border dispute, have deteriorated further since Ethiopia sent troops to aid Somalia’s interim government against rival Islamists who the United States and United Nations say were backed by Eritrea.

1234 GMT — IRAN — Iran has started to lay pipes and electric cables for an underground uranium enrichment plant, a diplomat accredited to the International Atomic Energy Agency told The Associated Press on Feb. 2. The unnamed diplomat said Iran has enlisted hundreds of laborers and technicians to move forward quickly with the program at the Natanz underground facility. The current work is preliminary, the source said.

1228 GMT — CHINA — China’s main stock indices suffered another drop Feb. 2. The Shanghai Composite Index dropped 112.22 points, or 4.03 percent, to 2,673.21. The Shenzhen Composite Index dropped 18.45 points, or 2.8 percent, to 640.87. The Shanghai and Shenzhen 300 index of leading companies slid 97.17 points, or 4.06 percent, to 2,298.00. China’s stock market saw a 5 percent slide Jan. 31, caused by worries over stock overvaluation.

1220 GMT — THAILAND — The New Year’s Eve blasts in Bangkok, Thailand, could have links to the Muslim separatist insurgency in the south, Thai investigators said Feb. 2. The head of the Department of Special Investigation, Sunai Manomai-udom, told a local television station that one suspect caught on security cameras was also wanted in connection with attacks in the south. The man, he said, could be involved with a previously unknown group called PYNSS. Until now, the Thai government had denied that the explosions had any links to the violence in the south, insisting that police or military connected to ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra were responsible.

1213 GMT — UNITED STATES, ISRAEL, PALESTINIAN NATIONAL AUTHORITY — U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet in Washington on Feb. 2 with Middle East Quartet principals U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, European foreign policy adviser Javier Solana and EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner to discuss ways to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The same day, fighting between Hamas and Fatah escalated across the Gaza strip as Hamas seized key security buildings and shot rockets and mortars at President Mahmoud Abbas’ offices. The clashes ended a three-day-old cease-fire between the factions.

Source: Stratfor.com