Today, despite faulty parts, cyber-missiles, ‘severe hot weather’, and international sanctions, Iranian engineers have finally started loading fuel into the core of the Bushehr power plant with the view to producing nuclear energy by the new year.
Tehran claims it needs the power to meet a growing demand for energy, but the West remains convinced that this is a merely cover for the production of nuclear weapons.
The defiance of Iran only grows stronger in the face of international outrage. Veiled, and failed, attempts from the West to prevent today’s step towards nuclear capability, simply add to the prestige and kudos surrounding Ahmedinejad and his cheeky disregard for international condemnation.
Rather than fretting over the inevitable, the West should turn its attention to other smaller, impressionable states considering the advantages of nuclear capability, and cajole them away from the nuclear arms race.
Like all vices, vehement banning of them only makes them appear more glamorous. If nuclear weapons weren’t so cool and dangerous, governments would not be so keen to get their hands on them.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Stuxnet Cyber-Missile: the hidden face of modern warfare.
The Stuxnet worm is malign software designed to infect and disrupt industrial-control systems.
The unusual complexity involved in its creation suggests it is the work of a team of well-funded experts, most probably with the backing of a national government.
The worm, transmitted via USB memory stick, is specially designed to target a particular configuration of a particular type of industrial-control system. So while traces of the virus were found in Indonesia, India, and the US, 60% of the computers attacked were in
Iran.
The ability to home-in on a specific target gives the virus the title ‘cyber-missile’. Computer warfare is specific, deniable, and very difficult to trace.
The limitation of such warfare is that it only delays progress. A cyber attack takes weeks to recover from, a physical attack takes years.
Also in the nature of a cyber attack is its ambiguity: it can be hard to tell whether an attack has been successful, or indeed, has happened at all.
The Iranian Telecommunications Minister, Reza Taqipour, admitted the virus had infected computers at the power plant in Bushehr, but that it had not caused ‘serious damage to governmental systems’.
Speculators think the real target may have been the centrifuges at the nuclear refinery at Natanz.
Regardless, the Stuxnet virus has shown the capabilities of the West to disrupt Iran’s controversial nuclear programme without exerting physical force.
The Nuclear Chief (and Vice President) denied the delay in the opening of Iran’s first nuclear power plant was due to Stuxnet. He placed the blame on a ‘small leak’ instead.
But the veracity of ministerial statements is often harder to trace than even the most complex of cyber-missiles.
Researchers at Symantec speculate the origin of Stuxnet to be Israel, due to obscure references hidden in the soft-ware coding.
For example, a reference to the date May 9, 1979, which was the day on which a prominent Iranian Jew, Habib Elghanian, was executed by the new Islamic government shortly after the revolution.
Although others say this explanation bares all the hallmarks of a pseudo-Nostrodamus conspiracy theory. Why would the authors of such a sophisticated virus leave clues and allow it to attract such attention?
N.B.
Faulty parts (by James Blitz of the Financial Times 22/07/2010)
Perhaps the best-known of the alleged attempts to sabotage Iran’s nuclear programme came in 2006, when power supplies at the enrichment facility in Natanz blew up.
The blast destroyed no fewer than 50 centrifuges. Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, then head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation, said later that the equipment had been “manipulated”.
There have been other examples. A Swiss company that provided Iran with spare parts for its enrichment programme is reported to have been persuaded by the CIA to introduce defective elements. In 2004, the New York Times reported that inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency stumbled upon vacuum pumps at Natanz that had been cleverly damaged so they did not work properly.
In June 2008, an Iranian businessman was sentenced to death for allegedly supplying defective equipment to the nuclear programme. No details were given of what the equipment was. But an Iranian counter-intelligence official said the incident did irreversible damage.
The unusual complexity involved in its creation suggests it is the work of a team of well-funded experts, most probably with the backing of a national government.
The worm, transmitted via USB memory stick, is specially designed to target a particular configuration of a particular type of industrial-control system. So while traces of the virus were found in Indonesia, India, and the US, 60% of the computers attacked were in
Iran.
The ability to home-in on a specific target gives the virus the title ‘cyber-missile’. Computer warfare is specific, deniable, and very difficult to trace.
The limitation of such warfare is that it only delays progress. A cyber attack takes weeks to recover from, a physical attack takes years.
Also in the nature of a cyber attack is its ambiguity: it can be hard to tell whether an attack has been successful, or indeed, has happened at all.
The Iranian Telecommunications Minister, Reza Taqipour, admitted the virus had infected computers at the power plant in Bushehr, but that it had not caused ‘serious damage to governmental systems’.
Speculators think the real target may have been the centrifuges at the nuclear refinery at Natanz.
Regardless, the Stuxnet virus has shown the capabilities of the West to disrupt Iran’s controversial nuclear programme without exerting physical force.
The Nuclear Chief (and Vice President) denied the delay in the opening of Iran’s first nuclear power plant was due to Stuxnet. He placed the blame on a ‘small leak’ instead.
But the veracity of ministerial statements is often harder to trace than even the most complex of cyber-missiles.
Researchers at Symantec speculate the origin of Stuxnet to be Israel, due to obscure references hidden in the soft-ware coding.
For example, a reference to the date May 9, 1979, which was the day on which a prominent Iranian Jew, Habib Elghanian, was executed by the new Islamic government shortly after the revolution.
Although others say this explanation bares all the hallmarks of a pseudo-Nostrodamus conspiracy theory. Why would the authors of such a sophisticated virus leave clues and allow it to attract such attention?
N.B.
Faulty parts (by James Blitz of the Financial Times 22/07/2010)
Perhaps the best-known of the alleged attempts to sabotage Iran’s nuclear programme came in 2006, when power supplies at the enrichment facility in Natanz blew up.
The blast destroyed no fewer than 50 centrifuges. Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, then head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation, said later that the equipment had been “manipulated”.
There have been other examples. A Swiss company that provided Iran with spare parts for its enrichment programme is reported to have been persuaded by the CIA to introduce defective elements. In 2004, the New York Times reported that inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency stumbled upon vacuum pumps at Natanz that had been cleverly damaged so they did not work properly.
In June 2008, an Iranian businessman was sentenced to death for allegedly supplying defective equipment to the nuclear programme. No details were given of what the equipment was. But an Iranian counter-intelligence official said the incident did irreversible damage.
Germans Arrested in Iran
Two German reporters have been arrested at the office of Houtan Kian, the lawyer of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, while trying to interview the son of the condemned woman.
Tehran alleges that the Germans entered the country on tourist visas, without the correct permit to carry out journalistic work in Iran.
The German Foreign Ministry has not commented on the identities of the journalists, although it is speculated that they may be working freelance for Bild am Sonntag, a mass-circulated tabloid-style Sunday newspaper.
Report of the arrest came from Mina Ahadi, founder of the German-based International Committee Against Stoning, who had set up the meeting and was acting as an interpreter over the phone from Germany. She was on the phone when the arrests happened.
Neither Mr Kian nor Mr Ghaderzadeh, Ashtiani’s son, has been heard from since the arrests.
It is likely that Iran will use the journalists to gain political concessions from Germany, in the same way they manipulated the release of the French student Clotilde Reiss. Relations between the two countries are frosty due to dispute over Iranian nuclear capability and ongoing international condemnation of the sentencing to death by stoning of Ashtiani.
These latest arrests are further proof that Iran is actively trying to censor foreign media reporting from the country.
Recently, Iranian-Canadian journalist Hossein Derakhshan was sentenced to 19 and half years of prison. Hossein Ronaghi Maleki, another journalist and a blogger was also sentenced to 15 years last week.
In July the El Pais correspondent, Angeles Espinosa, was detained after interviewing the son of Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri, who was critical of the current regime. On Monday Tehran cancelled Espinosa’s residency permit and ordered her to leave the country within two weeks.
Such heavy-handed censorship is always a mark of paranoia and guilt on the half of the ruling authority.
Tehran alleges that the Germans entered the country on tourist visas, without the correct permit to carry out journalistic work in Iran.
The German Foreign Ministry has not commented on the identities of the journalists, although it is speculated that they may be working freelance for Bild am Sonntag, a mass-circulated tabloid-style Sunday newspaper.
Report of the arrest came from Mina Ahadi, founder of the German-based International Committee Against Stoning, who had set up the meeting and was acting as an interpreter over the phone from Germany. She was on the phone when the arrests happened.
Neither Mr Kian nor Mr Ghaderzadeh, Ashtiani’s son, has been heard from since the arrests.
It is likely that Iran will use the journalists to gain political concessions from Germany, in the same way they manipulated the release of the French student Clotilde Reiss. Relations between the two countries are frosty due to dispute over Iranian nuclear capability and ongoing international condemnation of the sentencing to death by stoning of Ashtiani.
These latest arrests are further proof that Iran is actively trying to censor foreign media reporting from the country.
Recently, Iranian-Canadian journalist Hossein Derakhshan was sentenced to 19 and half years of prison. Hossein Ronaghi Maleki, another journalist and a blogger was also sentenced to 15 years last week.
In July the El Pais correspondent, Angeles Espinosa, was detained after interviewing the son of Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri, who was critical of the current regime. On Monday Tehran cancelled Espinosa’s residency permit and ordered her to leave the country within two weeks.
Such heavy-handed censorship is always a mark of paranoia and guilt on the half of the ruling authority.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Visit to Lebanon amid Testing Times
Wednesday 13th October heralds the arrival of the provocative Iranian Chief Executive on his first official visit to Lebanon.
In recent months Ahmadinejad has showed his tireless dedication to butting into world affairs: stealing the limelight at the UN last month, writing to the Pope, wooing Cuba, bitching about the Americans with Syria, and now this week visiting Lebanon just as sectarian grudges are on the verge of erupting.
Regretfully over the weekend Sheikh Nasrallah rebuffed the rumours that the Iranian President would make use of Lebanon’s geographic proximity to his nation’s archenemy in order to hurl stones across the border.
Instead he will officially open ‘Iran Garden’ on a hilltop overlooking Israeli farmland. It will stand as a blatant display of the Iranian money pumped into the area via Hezbollah in the aftermath of the 2006 conflict between Israel and the militia.
It may not be as photo-opportunistic as stone-throwing, but an Iranian flag fluttering over a children’s playground is certainly a more enduring and galling provocation to Israel and the world.
Lebanese politics are at a very sensitive and complicated stage and the US State Department believes Iran is “actively undermining Lebanon’s sovereignty” through its patronage of Hezbollah.
And yet August’s hold on $100million of military aid to Lebanon has widened the arsenal-shaped gap between the national army and the militia. As Nasrallah explained, “Hezbollah does not trust the Lebanese government’s bureaucracy. And the Iranians paid in cash.” This is why the militia is Lebanon’s strongest armed force.
What is more, the solid new houses and Iranian-financed tarmac roads in South Lebanon will offer secure firing positions and efficient routes to militia strongholds should any fighting break out.
And break out they might.
The results of the UN tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri are likely to arrive this month, and most people can already guess what they’ll say. Should members of Hezbollah be indicted, violence between the Shiite force and Hariri’s mainly Sunni allies would be agonizingly predictable; with the added frisson of potentially dragging Syria and Iran into the fray.
Equally, should Israel or the US choose to strike the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities, Hezbollah would, apparently, have no option but to consider military retaliation on its patron’s behalf.
All we can do for now is hold our breath and see what developments Wednesday brings.
In recent months Ahmadinejad has showed his tireless dedication to butting into world affairs: stealing the limelight at the UN last month, writing to the Pope, wooing Cuba, bitching about the Americans with Syria, and now this week visiting Lebanon just as sectarian grudges are on the verge of erupting.
Regretfully over the weekend Sheikh Nasrallah rebuffed the rumours that the Iranian President would make use of Lebanon’s geographic proximity to his nation’s archenemy in order to hurl stones across the border.
Instead he will officially open ‘Iran Garden’ on a hilltop overlooking Israeli farmland. It will stand as a blatant display of the Iranian money pumped into the area via Hezbollah in the aftermath of the 2006 conflict between Israel and the militia.
It may not be as photo-opportunistic as stone-throwing, but an Iranian flag fluttering over a children’s playground is certainly a more enduring and galling provocation to Israel and the world.
Lebanese politics are at a very sensitive and complicated stage and the US State Department believes Iran is “actively undermining Lebanon’s sovereignty” through its patronage of Hezbollah.
And yet August’s hold on $100million of military aid to Lebanon has widened the arsenal-shaped gap between the national army and the militia. As Nasrallah explained, “Hezbollah does not trust the Lebanese government’s bureaucracy. And the Iranians paid in cash.” This is why the militia is Lebanon’s strongest armed force.
What is more, the solid new houses and Iranian-financed tarmac roads in South Lebanon will offer secure firing positions and efficient routes to militia strongholds should any fighting break out.
And break out they might.
The results of the UN tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri are likely to arrive this month, and most people can already guess what they’ll say. Should members of Hezbollah be indicted, violence between the Shiite force and Hariri’s mainly Sunni allies would be agonizingly predictable; with the added frisson of potentially dragging Syria and Iran into the fray.
Equally, should Israel or the US choose to strike the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities, Hezbollah would, apparently, have no option but to consider military retaliation on its patron’s behalf.
All we can do for now is hold our breath and see what developments Wednesday brings.
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