By Robert Dreyfuss
A series of revelations suggest that the U.S. and Israel are engaged in a cyber war with Iran. If true, any hope of progress in talks over Iran’s nuclear program could be jeopardized.
On June 21, Iran’s intelligence minister, Heydar Moslehi, announced that Iran had detected what he called a “massive cyber attack” against Iran’s nuclear facilities planned by “America and the Zionist regime (Israel) along with the [British spy agency] MI6.”
Moslehi may or may not have been making this up, but based on recent history and a striking series of revelations from U.S. national security officials in leaks to theNew York Times, the Washington Post and in a new book, Confront and Conceal by David E. Sanger, the Iranian official has plausibility on his side.
More importantly, the Iranian charges suggest that a long-running cyberwar campaign against Iran by the United States and Israel has the potential to fatally undermine the already difficult negotiations between Iran and the so-called P5+1 world powers over Iran’s nuclear research and uranium enrichment plans. “Obama [is] prepared to let half-baked schemes undermine any chance he might have had, at least in theory, to pursue serious diplomacy with Iran,” wrote Flynt Leverett and Hilary Mann Leverett, both former officials at the National Security Council under George W. Bush, who’ve criticized Obama’s approach toward Iran.
In the worst case, in fact, the U.S.-led cyberwar effort – which, analysts in Washington say, is a form of offensive, undeclared warfare – could drastically heighten tensions between Iran and the United States even to the point of open conflict.
Read the full 2 page story at The Diplomat