What is Iran up to?

I think you are exactly right.

I would only add that for regional balance -- even though Israel is not a member of the NPT -- it would be good if they opened up their nuclear WEAPONS program for further scrutiny.

Iran is obviously trying to reach a nuclear weapons capability -- not necessarily make nuclear weapons.

A good way to encourage them to make nuclear weapons in the future would be to launch a military strike.

Aside from the nuclear issue you claim above:

"already undermined by the repercussions of the fraudulent election this past summer"

The election was not fraudulent.

Before the election there was a poll (pdf) by Terror Free Tomorrow that predicted a clear majority for Ahmadinejad.

In between not one bit of convincing evidence that the Iran election was really fraud has come to light. No poll-worker, nor anyone else came forward with real hard evidence.

Now, after the election, there is this recent poll by PIPA done in Iran which has as results:

/quote/
Most Iranians express acceptance of the outcome of the Presidential election. Eighty-one percent say they consider Ahmadinejad to be Iran's legitimate president, and 62 percent say they have a lot of confidence in the declared election results, while 21 percent say they have some confidence. Just 13 percent say they do not have much confidence or no confidence in the results. In general, eight in 10 (81%) say they are satisfied with the process by which authorities are elected, but only half that number (40%) say they are very satisfied.
/endquote/

Now as the above polls are facts and there has come no evidence for fraud at all, but some screaming and riots of those who lost, how can you claim that election in Iran was fraudulent?

You seem to believe something about Iran that 80% of all Iranians do NOT believe.

Another point to add is this new site is near the holy city of Qum, so any bombing of the site that either produced collateral damage or fallout would certainly have an even greater impact in terms of inflaming the Islamic world.

Here is the most important point, one that Professor Walt conveniently leaves out; From the LA Times Story:

"Reporting from Washington - U.S. intelligence officials said today that they have known about a newly disclosed Iranian nuclear facility for several years -- possibly as early as 2006 -- and that its dimensions and design all but rule out any civilian nuclear purpose."

Walt:

If we want to stop an Iranian bomb (as opposed to halting its nuclear enrichment activities), we are going to have to convince Iran that it doesn't need a nuclear deterrent to be safe...Persuading Tehran that they don't need a deterrent requires taking the threat of force, regime change, and the like off the table, instead of ratcheting the threat level up. I'm not saying that this approach will work; I'm saying that threatening preventive war won't. And actually launching a preventive war is likely to make things much worse.

I still don't see what possible argument or guarantees Iran would ever accept from us that would stop them from creating a nuclear bomb. Either we do nothing, we try to persuade them through sanctions, or we bomb them. Those are the only three options that exist in the real world. Pick your favorite, but don't try to tell us that promising really earnestly to take "the threat of force, regime change, and the like off the table" will appease them. Only an idiot would be persuaded by something like that.

What Walt can't quite bring himself to say is that he believes the only possible outcome is to let Iran get the bomb and hope deterance works. He just doesn't seem to have the intellectual honesty to say it explicitly.

Then we have gems like

If nuclear material is already present there (despite what Iran now says), then it is a clear violation of the agreements that Iran's government has repeatedly claimed it is upholding, and thus casts even more doubt on its credibility.

Great, but "credibility" is irrelevent to the Walt plan. Iran needs no creidibility because Walt doesn't think we should do anything to stop them from having a bomb.

Along the same lines, Walt says this is the "money quote"

The real purpose of negotiations, in my view, is to build a system of monitoring and inspections that will (1) provide maximum early warning of a potential future Iranian decision to "break out;" and (2) insure the maximum possible interval between that moment and the moment where Iran could actually have a bomb..

Why is this the money quote? If Walt doesn't believe in sanctions (see his previous blog posts) and doesn't believe in any use of force ever, what would Walt want us to do if we found out Iran was about to build a warhead?

Nothing

Dave 123 has it mostly right in writing that Professor Walt's recommendation on what to do about Iran's intention to build nukes is to do "NOTHING". Other blioggers also foresee such a U.S. policy. They shrug and console themselves by betting on "deterrence" as the way to treat the problem.
But there's a problem within that probelm. It is that the terms aof deterrence will have to be defined. We will have to say what we will do under what circumstance. And that, fellow bloggers, mightz prove to contain political dynamite of nuclear proportion. So maybe doing NOTHING is the most facile way to go. After all, we mnust have learned by now that facing up to a totally voluntarist dictator just simply oughtn't to politicall correct. It's jus tuttut.

Stephen there are several articles over at Huff Po that reported that Iran had not gotten wind that Obama was going to spill the beans but that Obama came out with this announcement after they were told that Iran had sent the IAEA their announcement that they had been building this facility. That Obama and team were trying to say that the Iranian government had not been abiding by rules.

Now Huff Po has an article up saying Iran has said yes no problems to the inspections

Gene44 on Sun writes:
>...Hitting Qom one of the holy places for the Shi'ites >would plut the Iranian people against Israel although the >people have been in the dark about these facilities also....
Quite. But nothing so numinous is needed. The Israelis
could simply claim to be employing a drastic sanction when preventing Iran from exporting its oil. That would not be all that hard to do: bomb the Kharg Island and Abadam oil terminals, plus a small handful of strategic pumping stations of the Iranian pipeline network. To be sure, in time the damage would be repaired (probably, as usual, with the help of Texans) which might remind Ahmedinajad that he could once again have to repair a bombing if he didn't shape up. It might also sweeten the
ayatollahs toward the people who helped Iran out of s situation that confronted them with total economic collapse.
There's no assuming that sanctions need be enforced by peacefukl diplomacy exclusively: and there's no need to cite Clausewitz when asserting that diplomacy may have a violent, but repairable, extension.

I just want to remind everybody that the Persian invented the chess game; therefore any newcomer cannot outsmart them in that field. They are very clever at the diplomatic gamesmanship and the law is on their side. Having said that, Iran behavior is conformity to the post September 11 world. Before accusing Iran of any wrong doing, it is important to put into perspective the US bellicose behavior while the neocons were in power. The new paradigm might is right was the modus operandi. North Korea was under the threat of airstrike while the IAEA had inspectors on the ground and all the facilities under the safeguard agreement, the US put pressure on them relentlessly and they were cornered. They left the agency in conformity with the law and acquired the ultimate weapon. Now the West wants to negotiate with them so to prevent the spread of the weapon. No one now is talking about military action against NK; the Iranians were taking note and realized that acquiring this weapon is a security guaranty that any treaty would confer. Having said that again, I am not insinuating that they are building one. They would be foolish not to do so to guarantee their survival.
The mainstream media never mention that Iran is in full compliance with the NPT why? I read articles and books that Professor Walt authored, I am a bit disappointed to see that the professor is repeating the line of the mainstream media when he writes.” the REVELATION that Iran has been building a second nuclear enrichment facility". Had the western intelligence agencies had unshackle evidence that the Iranians were doing something remotely wrong in this site, it would have made it to the mainstream media before M. Amhadinedjad came to the UN. As we speak no intelligence agencies know with certainty that Iran possess the bomb. The Iranians notified the IAEA of the new enrichment site in Qom within the prescribe deadline (180 days before introducing any nuclear material in the facility) the West want to create a hype before the schedule round of negotiation of October 1st and said they discover a new site. All I can say at this point is “this round of negotiation is doom to failed “chronique d’une mort annoncee”.