Stuxnet May Be A Natural Outgrowth Of The Anti-Iran Program Started By Bush

I've written before that Obama used the threat of an Israeli attack on Iranian reactors to get China to agree to sanctions.

Well, if Obama can use that possibility to pressure China--who is to say that Israel itself cannot use that same prospect to provide a reason to other countries, including the US, to help stop Iran?

There are reports now that the CIA and M16 are helping the Mossad to sabotage Iran's nuclear program:

US and UK intelligence services are cooperating with the Mossad to sabotage Teheran’s nuclear program in exchange for Israel agreeing not to launch a military strike on Iran, the French weekly Le Canard enchaîné reported on Thursday, quoting French intelligence sources.

Acts of sabotage carried out in the past year in Iran were conducted by Israel with the help of the CIA and MI6, the sources said.

The sabotage included, according to the report, the introduction of the Stuxnet computer virus into 30,000 computers in Iran’s nuclear reactors and explosions in October in which 18 Iranian technicians were killed at a factory in the Zagros mountains that manufactured Shihab missiles.

The idea that Israel is getting help makes sense, according to a FoxNews article--assuming that in fact Stuxnet is in fact a product of Israel--because of the wide range of knowledge necessary to allow the Stuxnet worm to bring the Iranian nuclear program to a grinding halt:

Langer argues that no single Western intelligence agency had the skills to pull this off alone. The most likely answer, he says, is that a consortium of intelligence agencies worked together to build the cyber bomb. And he says the most likely confederates are the United States, because it has the technical skills to make the virus, Germany, because reverse-engineering Siemen’s product would have taken years without it, and Russia, because of its familiarity with both the Iranian nuclear plant and Siemen’s systems.

Based on the blog of French Journalist Vincent Jauvert, the cooperation with both the CIA and M16 should not be surprising--Stuxnet appears to be a natural outgrowth of the US policy that started with President Bush:

Beyond assumptions Stuxnet, a certainty for all services Western lead a secret war against the very active Iranian nuclear program. Since the discovery of Natanz in 2002, is for them a priority mission. In his latest book, journalist Bob Woodward reveals the list of covert operations sponsored by the Bush administration and ongoing. They are ranked in order of importance. The actions of the CIA to "stop or impede" the nuclear activities of the Islamic Republic came second, just behind the operations against Al Qaeda. Same thing in British MI6. October 28, his boss, Sir John Sawers, left his legendary reserve just to talk about Iran. The spymaster caused a stir by publicly declaring that it was necessary "to conduct joint operations of intelligence services to make it more difficult [in Tehran] the development of nuclear weapons."

On behalf of this historic mission is the sacred union of all the secret agents. Even in Israel. "The Iranian case has caused a cultural revolution within the Aman [military intelligence] and the Mossad, said the journalist Ronen Bergman, who is preparing a book on the secret of the Mossad. Their leaders have agreed to cooperate fully with foreign services, friends or not, unlike the traditional doctrine that emphasizes the work solo. " In France, too, the prevailing cordial. "The Iranian nuclear issue is one of the few subjects with terrorism, about which there is no squabble between the DGSE, the DRM and the DCRI, but otherwise exemplary coordination at the highest level, " explains the expert Francois Heisbourg, following these sensitive issues. [translated using Google Translate]

Jauvert also ties in Germany's BND, which fits according to the FoxNews article above.

I've read that now it will be 3 years before Iran acquires nuclear capabilities.
Let's hope that prediction is overly optimistic.

Hat tip: Israel Matzav

Technorati Tag: Stuxnet.