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By Shoshana Bryen
 WASHINGTON, D.C., Sept. 1—The latest IAEA report on Iran has a short summary:
Iran keeps its nuclear material neat and tidy
Iran has not suspended enrichment as required by the UN Security Council
Iran is not cooperating with the IAEA
No surprises, but an oddity. Mention is made in the body of the report of the "alleged green salt project." The IAEA appears to have shown Iran evidence of such a project and suggests a problem with Iranian honesty regarding both the project's existence and Iran's intentions. Noting its own inability to get answers, the report says:
"With respect to the letter with handwritten annotations which was part of the documentation related to the alleged green salt project, Iran has confirmed the existence of the underlying letter, has shown the original to the Agency and has provided the Agency with a copy of it. The existence of this original demonstrates a direct link between the relevant documentation and Iran. As already requested of Iran, the Agency needs to see further related correspondence and to have access to the individuals named in the letter."
This is not a small matter. "Green salt" is uranium tetrafluoride, which can be used to make fuel for a nuclear reactor or fissile material for a bomb. According to American sources, in 2004 the CIA came into possession of an Iranian laptop computer with data on tests for high explosives, a design for a missile re-entry vehicle and a diagram of a green-salt production line. Time magazine wrote at the time, "Separately, those areas of research could imply fairly benign intentions. But if an Iranian military agency has been coordinating all the research, the U.S. assessment is 'you're talking about a nuclear-tipped missile,' says a senior official with access to the intelligence reports."
Five long and unsatisfactory years later, during which Iran has presumably been working away on the "alleged" green salt project, the IAEA proposes the following:
"The Agency believes that it has provided Iran with sufficient access...to enable Iran to respond substantively to questions...However, the Director General urges Member States which have provided documentation to the Agency to work out new modalities with the Agency so that it could share further documentation with Iran, as appropriate, since the Agency's inability to do so is rendering it difficult for the Agency to progress further in its verification process."
In other words, because the IAEA has failed to get the Iranians to cooperate, or even acknowledge the evidence in front of it, the United States (the "Member State") should share more ("new modalities") of its intelligence information, so the IAEA can share it with Iran.
The IAEA summary includes two final points:
*Iran must cooperate
*
The Director General will continue to report
The first is risible; the second, sadly, is likely true.
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WASHINGTON, D.C., Sept. 2—(In response to the preceding), Jon asked, "So if Iran does not comply, what are you suggesting be done?"
Ron had an answer. "Israel should direct its efforts towards defensive missiles."
JINSA advocates missile defense as an essential part of an appropriate - and moral - response to the threat of nuclear or non-nuclear missiles, not only for Israel but also for the United States and for our allies. Iran is not the only problem; North Korea, Syria and Pakistan are countries of concern. We were pleased when President Obama told the Russian president that Iran's provocative behavior determined that we would continue our plans to put missile defense radars in Poland and the Czech Republic. On the other hand, both serious cuts in missile defense programs in the Defense Department budget and recent hints that the Central European sites may be bargaining chips in U.S.-Russian relations are causes for concern.
Steve wrote, "Your article reminded me of the Toshiba case - the illegal transfer of sensitive technology to the Soviet Union in the 1980s. When we went to the Japanese government with hard evidence, they said they wanted photos. We said it was a little difficult to take pictures inside a building that was a secure facility. Luckily we were dealing with the Japanese and they admitted what they were doing. In the case of Iran it is hopeless, like the IAEA (which contributed in many profound ways to the first Iraq war) - a litany of failure wrapped in a style of dissembling."
The IAEA seeks to share additional U.S. intelligence information with the Iranian regime - in effect blaming American restrictions for its own inability to make Iran come clean. Can the IAEA really think we are so naïve as to further compromise American intelligence sources and methods and thus further enable Iran to hide and disguise its programs? Well, the publication of U.S. interrogation techniques and the attempt to prosecute CIA personnel certainly have given al Qaeda and other terrorists insights into American capabilities and red lines, enabling them to better compensate and train.
Ken raised another issue. "The real problem with Iran is not its nuclear program, but its radical, Islamist, jihadi, "revolutionary" regime installed by Jimmy Carter with the cooperation of France 30 years ago, and allowed to remain in power by the U.S., despite the American hostages, the attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets in Buenos Aires and the establishment of Iranian terror satraps in Syria, Lebanon and Gaza, along with sleeper cells seeded throughout the world, including the U.S. ... [William Ralph] Inge advised, 'It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion.'"
We would add the apocryphal (?) story of Henry Kissinger at a biblical zoo, observing a lion lie down with a lamb - possible, said the zookeeper, if you brought in a new lamb often enough. And Winston Churchill likened appeasement to feeding a crocodile hoping it would eat you last.
Animal analogies aside, the IAEA has demonstrated beyond a doubt that keeping Iran from completing its plans for nuclear weapons capability is beyond the purview of the agency and the UN, and can only be done with consensus in the West to stop appeasing the Iranian regime. We currently see no such consensus.
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