President Barack Obama’s charge that Iran is constructing a secret nuclear fuel facility brought years of confrontation over Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program to a new crisis point Friday as he joined with the leaders of Britain and France to warn that international patience is waning fast.
“Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow,” Obama said. He condemned what he described as a “covert uranium enrichment facility” that Western intelligence discovered years ago and has since been covertly monitoring.
He called for Iran to allow international inspectors to “immediately investigate” the construction beneath the mountains near the city of Qom.
He said he would not rule out military action if the Iranians refuse.
In an appearance outside the Group of 20 conference in Pittsburgh, Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy outlined intelligence that Brown said would “shock and anger the whole international community, and it will harden our resolve” to force Iran to change its path.
No contrition from Iran
Iran’s stubborn and charismatic leader, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, offered no contrition, asserting that the facility is a legal and proper attempt to provide nuclear energy for his people.
“We have no fears,” he said at a New York news conference in which he welcomed inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. In response to Obama’s description of the facility as designed to produce weapons-grade uranium, Ahmadinejad said, “I don’t think Mr. Obama is a nuclear expert.”
The announcement Friday capped a week of action in which Iran and the United States maneuvered to reveal the information on their own terms.
The CIA, along with its British and French counterparts, spent the summer compiling a dossier of information on the Iranian facility that administration officials said they had not yet decided how and when to reveal. Their hand was forced, they said, by a letter the Iranian government sent to the IAEA in Vienna on Monday.
U.S. officials said they thought the letter came after the Iranians learned of the Western intelligence and decided to pre-empt disclosures about the site.
The revelations came in the run-up to the first international talks about Iran’s nuclear program in more than a year.
The three leaders apparently hope that new evidence of Iran’s deception will lessen reservations by the two other Security Council members — Russia and China — about tightening economic sanctions.
Administration officials pointed to a sharply worded Russian statement Friday that Iran “must cooperate with this investigation.”
Force not ruled out
Obama’s words Friday were less dramatic than Brown’s or Sarkozy’s strong comments.
“We have offered Iran a clear path toward greater international integration if it lives up to its obligations, and that offer stands,” the U.S. president said. “But the Iranian government must now demonstrate through deeds its peaceful intentions or be held accountable to international standards and international law.”
Obama still was stern-faced and grim, and the confrontation provided him with an opportunity to project toughness and success on the world stage.
Asked about the prospect of using military force to stop Iran from getting the bomb, he said, “With respect to the military, I’ve always said that we do not rule out any options when it comes to U.S. security interests, but I will also re-emphasize that my preferred course of action is to resolve this in a diplomatic fashion. It’s up to the Iranians to respond.”
Obama’s detractors have long called him naive for his willingness to engage adversaries diplomatically.
Republicans have described as weakness his decision to change the deployment of a missile shield for Eastern Europe, and critics have already chastised him for taking the time to weigh a decision on sending troops to Afghanistan.
The announcement also provided a boost for the CIA at a time when the agency is facing harsh attacks — and possible prosecution — for detainee interrogations.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
