NY Times - "Cryptic Iranian note ignited urgent debate" - "3 dramatic days of diplomacy"

[TomCADem]

You have to wonder what a President John Bomb-bomb-Iran would have done. Or, would we have already been in a war with Iran by now with Iran's closely contest election never happening in the first place? Interestingly, according to the NY Times, it was the Europeans who were pushing President Obama to take action sooner. How times have changed when under Bush, you just had the U.S. dictating to the Europeans.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33029659/ns/world_news-the_new_york_times/

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PITTSBURGH - On Tuesday evening in New York, top officials of the world nuclear watchdog agency approached two of President Obama’s senior advisers to deliver the news: Iran had just sent a cryptic letter describing a small “pilot” nuclear facility that the country had never before declared.

The Americans were surprised by the letter, but they were angry about what it did not say. American intelligence had come across the hidden tunnel complex years earlier, and the advisers believed the situation was far more ominous than the Iranians were letting on.

That night, huddled in a hotel room in the Waldorf-Astoria until well into the early hours, five of Mr. Obama’s closest national security advisers, in New York for the administration’s first United Nations General Assembly, went back and forth on what they would advise their boss when they took him the news in the morning. A few hours later, in a different hotel room, they met with Mr. Obama and his senior national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, to talk strategy.

The White House essentially decided to outflank the Iranians, to present to their allies and the public what they believed was powerful evidence that there was more to the Iranian site than just some pilot program. They saw it as a chance to use this evidence to persuade other countries to support the case for stronger sanctions by showing that the Iranians were still working on a secret nuclear plan.

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European officials urged speed, saying that Mr. Obama should accuse Iran of developing the secret facility first thing Thursday morning, when he presided over the Security Council for the very first time. It would have been a stirring and confrontational moment. But White House officials countered that it was too soon; they would not have time to brief allies and the nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Mr. Obama did not want to dilute the nuclear nonproliferation resolution he was pushing through the Security Council by diverting to Iran.

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As the administration reviewed its Iran policy in April, Mr. Obama told aides at one point that if the United States entered into talks with Iran, he wanted to make sure “all the facts were on the table early, including information on this site — so that negotiations would be meaningful and transparent,” a senior administration official said.

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