TEHRAN, Iran, Jan 8, (Agencies): An Iranian newspaper quotes a senior commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as saying that Tehran’s leadership has decided to order the closure of the strategic Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Arabian Gulf if the country’s oil exports are blocked.
Khorasan daily reported Sunday that Ali Ashraf Nouri says the strategic decision has been made by Iran’s top authorities.
Iranian politicians have made the threat in the past, but this is the strongest statement yet that a closure of the strait is official policy.
The US has recently enacted new sanctions targeting Iran’s central bank and its ability to sell petroleum abroad over Tehran’s nuclear program. Washington says Tehran is trying to develop weapons, while Iran denies the charges.
Meanwhile, in Washington, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says Iran is laying the groundwork for making nuclear weapons someday, but is not yet building a bomb and called for continued diplomatic and economic pressure to persuade Tehran not to take that step.
As he has previously, Panetta cautioned against a unilateral strike by Israel against Iran’s nuclear facilities, saying the action could trigger Iranian retaliation against US forces in the region.
“We have common cause here” with Israel, he said. “And the better approach is for us to work together.”
Panetta’s remarks on CBS’ Face the Nation, which were taped Friday and aired Sunday, reflect the long-held view of the Obama administration that Iran is not yet committed to building a nuclear arsenal, only to creating the industrial and scientific capacity to allow one if its leaders to decide to take that final step.
The comments suggest the White House’s assessment of Iran’s nuclear strategy has not changed in recent months, despite warnings from advocates of military action that time is running out to prevent Tehran from becoming a nuclear-armed state.
Several Republican candidates have called for a tougher line against Iran, saying they believe it is committed to building the bomb. “If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon,” said Mitt Romney. “And if you elect Mitt Romney, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.”
Strike
Rick Santorum has said that the US should plan a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities and “say to them that if you do not open up those facilities and close them down, we will close them down for you.”
Iran has opened two dozen of its facilities to international inspectors, but has refused in defiance of the UN Security Council to suspend its uranium enrichment.
A leading hardline Iranian newspaper reported Sunday that Iran has begun uranium enrichment at a new underground site well protected from possible airstrikes.
Kayhan daily, which is close to Iran’s ruling clerics, said scientists have begun injecting uranium gas into sophisticated centrifuges at the Fordo facility near the holy city of Qom.
In a talk at a Brookings Institution forum in December, Panetta said an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would “at best” delay Iran’s nuclear program by one or two years. Among the unintended consequences, he said, would be an increase in international support for Iran and the likelihood of Iranian retaliation against US forces and bases in the Mideast.
Panetta did not discuss the issue directly on Sunday’s “Face the Nation.” But Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, appearing with the defense secretary, said that he wanted the Iranians to believe that a US military strike could wipe out their nuclear program.
“I absolutely want them to believe that’s the case,” he said.
Panetta did not rule out launching a pre-emptive strike.
“But the responsible thing to do right now is to keep putting diplomatic and economic pressure on them to force them to do the right thing,” he said. “And to make sure that they do not make the decision to proceed with the development of a nuclear weapon.”
Panetta said if Iran started developing a weapon, the US would act. “I think they need to know that — that if they take that step — that they’re going to get stopped.”
Dempsey also said that Iran has the military power to block the Strait of Hormuz “for a period of time” if it decides to do so, but that the US would take action to reopen them. “We can defeat that,” he said.
An Iranian newspaper on Sunday quoted a senior commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as saying that Tehran’s leadership has decided to order the closure of the strait if the country’s oil exports are blocked.
Khorasan daily reported that Ali Ashraf Nouri said the strategic decision has been made by Iran’s top authorities.
Iranian politicians have made the threat in the past, but this is the strongest statement yet that a closure of the strait is official policy.
Panetta said closing the strait would draw a US military response. “We made very clear that the United States will not tolerate the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz,” he said. “That’s another red line for us and ... we will respond to them.”
A number of experts say Iran is unlikely to close the strait, through which Gulf oil flows, because the action could hurt Iran as much as the West.
Enriching
Meanwhile, Iran will in the “near future” start enriching uranium deep inside a mountain, a senior official said, a move likely to further antagonise Western powers which suspect Tehran is seeking nuclear weapons capability.
A decision by the Islamic Republic to conduct sensitive atomic activities at an underground site — offering better protection against any enemy attacks — could complicate diplomatic efforts to resolve the long-running row peacefully.
Iran has said for months that it is preparing to move its highest-grade uranium refinement work to Fordow, a facility near the Shiite Muslim holy city of Qom in central Iran, from its main enrichment plant at Natanz.
The United States and its allies say Iran is trying to build bombs, but Tehran insists its nuclear programme is aimed at generating power and for medical purposes.
“The Fordow nuclear enrichment plant will be operational in the near future,” the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, said.
Uranium refined to purity levels of both 3.5 percent and 20 percent can be produced at the site, he added in comments carried by Iran’s Kayhan newspaper on Sunday.
One Western official said with the start-up of Fordow, Iran would send a political signal to show it will not bow to international demands to suspend uranium enrichment, activity which can have both civilian and military uses.
The West has imposed increasingly tight economic sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear programme, culminating with a new law signed on New Year’s Eve by US President Barack Obama aimed at preventing buyers from paying for Iranian oil.
“I would see it as another escalatory step on the Iranian side,” the official, who declined to be named, said.
As the sanctions pressure mounts on the major oil producer, Iran has called for fresh talks on its nuclear programme with the permanent members of the Security Council and Germany (P5+1), which have been stalled for a year.
Western powers have repeatedly made clear they are also ready for renewed diplomacy, but stress that Iran must show it is willing to engage in meaningful discussions and start addressing growing international concerns about its work.
“They have to demonstrate they are going to be serious,” the Western official said, speaking prior to Iran’s latest announcement on Fordow’s planned inauguration.
Diplomats in Vienna, home to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog, told Reuters on Friday that Iran was believed to have begun feeding uranium gas into centrifuges in Fordow in late December as part of final preparations to use the machines for enrichment.
Installed
The centrifuges and other equipment needed to start enrichment were installed at Fordow last year.
Iran is already refining uranium to a fissile purity of 20 percent — far more than the 3.5 percent level usually required to power nuclear energy plants — above ground at Natanz.
The country said last year it would move this higher-grade enrichment to Fordow, which like other Iranian nuclear sites is regularly inspected by the IAEA, and also sharply boost output capacity.
The United States and Israel, Iran’s arch foes, have not ruled out strikes against the Islamic state if diplomacy fails to resolve the dispute.
Iran disclosed the existence of Fordow to the IAEA only in September 2009 after learning that Western intelligence agencies had detected it.
Tehran says it will use 20 percent-enriched uranium to convert into fuel for a research reactor making isotopes to treat cancer patients, but Western officials say they doubt that the country has the technical capability to do that.
In addition, they say, Fordow’s capacity — a maximum of 3,000 centrifuges — is too small to produce the fuel needed for nuclear power plants, but ideal for yielding smaller amounts of high-enriched product typical of a nuclear weapons programme.
Centrifuges spin at supersonic speeds, which enriches uranium by increasing the concentration of fissile isotopes.
Nuclear bombs require uranium enriched to 90 percent, but Western experts say much of the effort required to get there is already achieved once it reaches 20 percent purity, shortening the time needed for any nuclear weapons “break-out”.
They give different estimates of how quickly Iran could assemble a nuclear weapon if it decides to do so — ranging from as little as six months to a year or more.