SYDNEY, Dec 13, (Agencies): Australia is at odds with its major security ally the United States over Iran, saying it is not a “rogue state” and its nuclear weapons programme is for deterrence, not attack, according to US cables released by WikiLeaks. The documents, published in the Sydney Morning Herald on Monday, also reveal that Australia’s top security organisation believes Tehran sees a “grand bargain” with the United States as its best way to ensure national security. But the Office of National Assessments (ONA) shared Washington’s fears that Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons could lead to conventional or nuclear war, noting a conflict between Israel and Iran was the greatest challenge to Middle East stability.

Capabilities
The ONA was also concerned that nuclear proliferation in the Middle East may drive Southeast Asian nations to pursue their own nuclear capabilities.
“It’s a mistake to think of Iran as a ‘rogue state’,” then ONA chief Peter Varghese told the United States in a briefing, according to the 2008 US diplomatic cables from Canberra.
The cables said the ONA sought a balanced view of Tehran as a sophisticated diplomatic player rather than one liable to behave impulsively or irrationally.
WikiLeaks has provoked fury in Washington with its publications of secret US cables and has vowed to make public details of the 250,000 secret US documents it had obtained.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is under arrest in Britain over sexual assault charges in Sweden.
A US diplomatic cable from Canberra in 2008 said the ONA believed Tehran’s desire to develop nuclear weapons was probably driven by a desire to deter Israel and the United States from attack rather than to launch a Middle East strike.

Laws
“ONA viewed Tehran’s nuclear program within the paradigm of ‘the laws of deterrence’, noting that Iran’s ability to produce a weapon may be ‘enough’ to meet its security objectives,’’ the US embassy reported to Washington.
“Nevertheless, Australian intelligence viewed Tehran’s pursuit of full self-sufficiency in the nuclear fuel cycle, long-standing covert weapons program, and continued work on delivery systems as strong indicators that Tehran’s preferred end state included a nuclear arsenal.”
The ONA believed “Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons as inevitable” and the Australian government was concerned that such a move could see nuclear proliferation in Southeast Asia.
A US embassy report in March 2009 told Washington that Australia was “concerned about the potential for renewed nuclear proliferation in the Middle East driving Southeast Asian states to abandon the (nuclear non-proliferation treaty) and pursue their own nuclear capabilities, which could introduce a direct threat to the Australian homeland”.
But Australian intelligence analysts believe “that 20 years of hostility (towards Washington) and associated rhetoric aside, (Tehran) regime attitudes “have fairly shallow roots”.
“The most effective means by which Tehran could ensure its national security would be a strategic relationship with the US via some ‘grand bargain’,” said Australia’s security agency.

Strike
Australian intelligence agencies fear Israel may launch a military strike on Iran to knock out its nuclear facilities, which they said could lead to nuclear war, leaked US diplomatic cables showed Monday.
Secret cables from the US embassy in Canberra, provided exclusively to The Sydney Morning Herald by whistleblowing website WikiLeaks, reveal that Australian officials raised the issue with their allies on several occasions.
“The AIC’s (Australian intelligence community’s) leading concerns with respect to Iran’s nuclear ambitions centre on understanding the timeframe of a possible weapons capability, and working with the United States to prevent Israel from independently launching uncoordinated military strikes against Iran,” an embassy official wrote to Washington in March 2009.
“They are immediately concerned that Iran’s pursuit of nuclear capabilities would lead to a conventional war — or even nuclear exchange — in the Middle East involving the United States that would draw Australia into a conflict.”
Another cable sent four months earlier reported on Australian concerns about a unilateral Israeli military strike against Iran and “the likelihood of an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear facilities”.
The leaked letters also reveal that Australian intelligence agencies see Iran’s nuclear ambitions as a strategy to deter foreign attacks and argue it would be wrong to view Iran as a “rogue state”, the newspaper said.

The cables were prompted by a US initiative to solicit responses to Washington possibly engaging Tehran in a security dialogue, and concluded that Australia would likely not object to the United States if it chose to do so.
The correspondence shows that the Australian government, under both former prime minister Kevin Rudd and his successor Julia Gillard, is generally supportive of Israel.
But they say that Rudd’s previous strong condemnation of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had prompted Tehran to take retaliatory measures against the Australian Embassy in Iran. The newspaper did not detail these measures but said they made it harder for officials to conduct day-to-day business.
According to one cable, Rudd told Israeli ambassador to Australia Yuval Rotem that Ahmadinejad was a “loathsome individual on every level”, adding that his anti-Semitism “turns my stomach”.

Negotiations
Leaked US embassy cables show American diplomats were concerned that Switzerland’s unilateral efforts in nuclear negotiations with Iran had sent a “wrong message” and undercut international pressure on the Islamic republic.
The cables obtained by WikiLeaks and published Sunday by German magazine Der Spiegel reveal US displeasure at what was perceived as unhelpful Swiss interference in the delicate nuclear issue.
A 2008 cable apparently written by the then US ambassador in Bern, Peter R. Coneway, said that the so-called “Swiss Plan” backed by Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey seemed mainly aimed at raising her own profile.

The cable, marked “confidential,” describes Washington’s relationship with Switzerland as “correct and cordial,” noting that the country’s long tradition of neutrality has been helpful when the Swiss acted as intermediaries in diplomatic disputes.
But the document says that since Switzerland represents American consular interests in Tehran — including on several occasions when US citizens were detained in Iran — attempts by senior Swiss diplomats to open separate negotiations with the country on the nuclear issue had undermined international efforts.
“The foreign ministry has pursued its own ‘Swiss Plan,’ which has on several occasions sent the wrong message to Iran given the Swiss protecting power mandate for the US,” the cable said.
“While many Swiss clearly understand and take seriously the threat that Iran’s dangerous nuclear program represents to our mutual interests, FM Calmy-Rey has apparently seen in this dispute an opportunity to raise her own profile,” it adds.
The cable said that the Swiss Plan, along with Calmy-Rey’s visit to Tehran in March 2008 to secure a natural gas contract for Swiss firm EGL, “have surely given Iran some reason to believe that it can continue to resist pressure to meet its international obligations.”
A Swiss Foreign Ministry spokesman declined to immediately comment on the cables.
Their release comes days after Switzerland hosted a third round of talks in Geneva between Iran and six world powers aimed at resolving concerns about its nuclear program. The UN Security Council has imposed sanctions on Iran in an effort to make the country stop uranium enrichment, which Iran insists it is doing only for civilian purposes.

Sodomy
Meanwhile, Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim Monday moved to stem the impact on his sodomy trial of US cables released by WikiLeaks claiming he had sex with a male aide in a honey trap set by enemies.
Anwar’s lawyer Sankara Nair told AFP he will file a complaint with the court hearing Anwar’s sodomy case over articles in the local media which could affect the former deputy premier’s ongoing trial.
Most newspapers in the country carried the allegations on their front page with influential Malay daily Utusan running a headline stating: “Singapore spy agency verifies sodomy act”.
“Clearly it’s a case of sub-judice, it’s hearsay and conjecture, intelligence reports are not based on facts generally, they are based on rumours and I have served in the security services before so I know that the last thing you do is to trust such a report,” said Nair.
“The judge must call up the newspapers and ask them to explain why they wrote the piece and to show their proof. If they can’t do this then they will be cited for contempt,” he added.
“If this is not sinister then it is totally unethical reporting. I have advised my client to file a lawsuit against these papers as well.”

The leaked US state department cables from November 2008 were given to Australia’s Fairfax media group, which reported Sunday the Australian and Singapore intelligence agencies’ assessment of Anwar’s ongoing case.
“The Australians said that Singapore’s intelligence services and (former prime minister) Lee Kuan Yew have told ONA (Office of National Assessments) in their exchanges that opposition leader Anwar ‘did indeed commit the acts for which he is currently indicted’,” the cable read.
“ONA assessed, and their Singapore counterparts concurred, ‘it was a set-up job and he probably knew that, but walked into it anyway’,” according to the cable.
Prosecution
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who angered Washington by releasing secret cables, said in a documentary on Sunday he faced prosecution by the United States and was disappointed with how Swedish justice had been abused.
Assange has been remanded in custody in Britain after a European arrest warrant was issued by Sweden, which wants to question Assange about allegations made by two women of sexual crimes. He has denied the allegations.
“I came to Sweden as a refugee publisher involved with an extraordinary publishing fight with the Pentagon, where people were being detained and there is an attempt to prosecute me for espionage,” Assange said in an interview in the documentary, aired on Swedish public television.
“So I am unhappy and disappointed with how the Swedish justice system has been abused,” the 39-year-old Australian added in the documentary, which was made before his arrest.
Assange faces a fresh British hearing on Dec14. His Swedish lawyer has said he will fight extradition to Sweden.

Meanwhile, the former deputy to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is vowing to launch a rival site soon that he says will be more transparent than the original.
Dubbed “Openleaks” (www.openleaks.org) and run by Assange’s former number two at WikiLeaks Daniel Domscheit-Berg, the site has no content on it at the moment apart from a logo and the message “Coming soon!”
In an interview with the OWNI technology website, Domscheit-Berg declined to go into the details of his dispute with Wikileaks but suggested it had strayed from its mission.
“In these last months, the organisation has not been open any more, it lost its open-source promise,” he said, adding that Openleaks plans to provide the means for leaked information to be published, without itself being a publisher.
US and other authorities have cracked down on WikiLeaks and Assange since the site started publishing thousands of confidential US diplomatic cables that have embarrassed the United States and other parties around the world.
Assange, a 39-year-old Australian who founded WikiLeaks in 2006, is in policy custody in Britain after a European arrest warrant was issued by Sweden, which wants to question him about allegations of sexual crimes. He denies the allegations.
Domscheit-Berg, who was previously involved with German hacker group the Chaos Computer Club, said Openleaks would begin trials in early 2011 and turn to bigger media later. It currently has 10 members.
“We are already drowning in applications,” he said.