Iran Plans Large-Scale War Games

Iranian media reported Tehran would conduct a large-scale defensive military exercise next month, coinciding with what Tehran officials now say is a deadline for the West to respond to its counter-offer to a nuclear-fuel deal.
The commander of Iran's ground forces, Brig. Gen. Ahmad-Reza Pourdastan, said the drill would be conducted by Iran's army, in conjunction with some units of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in order to improve "defensive capabilities," Press TV, the English-language, state-run media outlet reported Sunday.

The report follows comments by Iran's foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Saturday, challenging Western nations to decide by the end of this month on counter-proposals Tehran has floated to an internationally brokered nuclear-fuel deal. In the counter-proposals, Iran has said it would agree to swap the bulk of its low-enriched uranium for higher enriched uranium, but in small batches and on Iranian soil.

Iranian officials have also named Turkey as a possible venue to swap the fuel. Iran has separately suggested it would be willing to simply buy enriched uranium from a third party.

The U.S. and Western allies have dismissed the counter proposals outright. In the Fall, negotiators from Iran, the U.S., France, Russia and the International Atomic Energy Agency hammered out a proposed deal in which Iran would agree to ship out the bulk of its uranium to Russia, where it would be further enriched and shipped back for use in a medical research reactor. But Iranian officials refused to endorse the deal, despite a U.S.-imposed, year-end deadline for Tehran to show progress in talks.

The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama has said it would push for new sanctions against Iran early this year if it didn't respond positively to the nuclear-fuel deal. Israeli officials, meanwhile, have suggested they would strike militarily if they thought Iran was nearing nuclear-weapons capability.

Last week in Honolulu, National Security Council Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said Mr. Obama has "begun talking to our friends and allies to consider the next step in this process."

The U.S. is expected to push for United Nations-backed sanctions, despite uncertain support from Security Council members Russia and China. Washington is also consulting allies who might be willing to back sanctions outside the U.N., including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Arab support would help further isolate Iran from some of its closest trading partners. While Iran and its Arab neighbors along the Persian Gulf have long had testy relations, Tehran depend on Arab Gulf states for significant trade--in particular on the U.A.E.'s Dubai, a regional re-export hub.

Not all Arab neighbors are onboard with Washington's sanction plans. In a heavily attended security conference in Manama early last month, Bahrain's foreign minister said further Iranian sanctions wouldn't be fair.

"I think the people of Iran have had enough," Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa said to delegates, including Mr. Mottaki and top U.S. diplomats and military officials. Bahrain is a staunch American ally, hosting the U.S. Fifth Fleet.

Recent Iranian domestic unrest raises fresh challenges for the Obama administration in crafting any new sanctions. Officials must weigh measures that are tough enough to bite the regime, but not too tough to enflame popular anger and shore up domestic support for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The original, IAEA-backed fuel proposal was embraced by Washington because it was seen as a first step in a longer negotiating process over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Iran says it is pursuing peaceful energy, but many officials in the West suspect it's building weapons. The deal would have removed enough fissile material to delay the manufacture of any weapon for at least a short while.

Mr. Mottaki, on Saturday, said Iran would go ahead and produce and enrich its own fuel for the medical reactor, if Western powers didn't agree to either swap the fuel or sell it enriched uranium.

The U.S. has rejected any proposal other than the one hammered out with the IAEA.

"The IAEA has a balanced proposal on the table that would fulfill Iran's own request for fuel and has the backing of the international community," said Mike Hammer, a spokesman for the National Security Council, in an emailed statement.