ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: DEBKAfile
21August2010 12:45pmEDT
GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: The Obama administration and Netanyahu government greeted the start-up of Iran's first nuclear reactor at Bushehr with extraordinary meekness, given the grim military and strategic hazards it represents for the region and Israel in particular. Yet nary a squeak of protest came from Washington or Jerusalem when Russian technicians began loading 162 rods of 82 tons of fuel into Iran's nuclear reactor - a process that will take two weeks - Saturday, Aug. 21 - notwithstanding US-led sanctions, Israel's military preparations and international diplomatic posturing.
Indeed, the State Department said Saturday after the event that Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant has "no proliferation threat" - a statement that was completely beside the point.
When US, Russian and Israeli steps in recent weeks are put together, a clear picture emerges of Moscow consenting to join UN Security Council sanctions against Iran, which Washington and Jerusalem depicted as a historic achievement. The price they paid for Russian consent was prohibitive: President Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu allowed Vladimir Putin jump the Iranian nuclear drive miles forward toward a capacity for producing weapons-grade plutonium. (Moscow claims the rods will be returned, but Iran's capacity for deception and concealment is well documented.)
