Periscope

Iran: New Pressure Points

In recent weeks, Washington has been trying to turn up the heat on Iran--by way of Moscow. With President Vladimir Putin eager to impress before hosting this July's G8 summit--one former Kremlin official recently claimed that by attending, Western leaders will "demonstrate their indifference to the fate of freedom and democracy in Russia"--but unwilling to cave, it's turned into something of a chess game. Last week, U.S. Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns proposed G8 discussions over controversial conflicts near Russia's borders; the Russians counterattacked by declaring they would continue to sell arms to Iran under existing agreements. Burns mentioned the possibility of military action against Iran; top Russian Gen. Yury Baluyevsky defiantly announced Moscow "will not take part."

Meanwhile, in Washington, some neoconservative activists have urged a sharp increase in U.S. efforts to undermine Tehran and thwart its nuclear ambitions. American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael Ledeen told NEWSWEEK: "The people hate [the regime]. It's a revolution waiting to happen." But U.S. intel agencies strongly disagree, according to six sources familiar with official analyses on Iran who asked not to be identified when discussing sensitive material. For a start, the sources told NEWSWEEK, there is little evidence of unrest among Iran's ethnic Persian majority. "Hard-liners have regained control ... and the government has become more effective at repressing the nascent shoots of personal freedom that had emerged earlier in the decade," according to testimony that intel czar John Negroponte gave Congress earlier this year. A Pentagon source, one of the six, said flatly that an attempted revolution in Iran "wouldn't succeed."

Intel agencies also believe that Tehran's nuclear program is widely popular among the Iranian public, including people otherwise unsympathetic to the mullahs' policies. Finally, several of the sources agreed that intel's assessment is that if the United States were to bomb Iran, the regime could turn to anti-American terrorism, using proxies like the Lebanese group Hizbullah or a corps of "martyrs" that Tehran claims to be recruiting. The sources said that intel officials have communicated all these points directly to senior officials, though it is up to policymakers how much heed they pay.

Mark Hosenball

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