It was British foreign minister Margaret Beckett’s first day in her post and she was taken aback by how bad-tempered the discussion had become. Lavrov had arrived late and was still furious about a speech U.S. Vice President Cheney had just made in Lithuania in which he had criticized Kremlin policies. Lavrov castigated Dr. Rice and her team using the kind of language, Minister Beckett was heard to say, that was more in line with Cold War rhetoric. At one point, Lavrov threatened to veto a security council resolution that Britain and France had drafted and which Washington supported. It was a new attempt to persuade Iran to give up its uranium enrichment program.
Despite efforts by John Sawers, the British Foreign Office political director, to calm matters, Lavrov continued to rage. At another point, he attacked Israel claiming its policies were “designed to drag us all into conflict.” Dr. Rice intervened by telling Lavrov he was “not being helpful.” During dinner the row rumbled on until Lavrov abruptly left. The next day over breakfast John Sawers sat down with senior delegates from China, France, the United States, and Germany to find a proposal to put before the foreign ministers at their lunch. It would give Iran a new trade deal with the West, security guarantees against any attack from Israel, and nuclear technology “which will only be used for non-aggressive purposes” on condition Iran would halt all production of weapons-grade uranium.
Over lunch—salmon and Californian Chablis, which the French delegation barely touched—Dr. Rice emphasized the proposal was “a major shift in our policy.” However, Margaret Beckett had been briefed that it was doubtful Iran would accept it. The meal broke up with the decision to put the matter on hold for further discussion—diplomatic-speak meaning that it had little chance of success. At a summit of Islamic heads of state in Indonesia a few days later, President Ahmadinejad said, “I will consider negotiating with anyone except Israel. It has no place on this earth.”
The Mossad agent monitoring the conference had more disturbing news. Russian officials attending the conference as “observers” had secretly offered to sell Iran technology that could help protect its nuclear secrets from international scrutiny. The equipment would include state-of-the-art security encryption technology developed by Atlas Elektronik, a Russian government-controlled defense company.
As May drew to a close, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) found themselves increasingly responding to Hamas rocket attacks on settlements. Encouragement for Hamas to continue its guerrilla warfare grew more vociferous from Tehran. A Mossad deep-cover agent in the Iranian capital sent the first details of a hitherto unknown nuclear underground site in northern Iran at Abe-e Ali. The report revealed that over three hundred Chinese and North Korean nuclear experts were working to produce a new centrifuge to enable the high-speed purification of uranium to achieve the 90 percent level required for weapons-grade. Ehud Olmert agreed with Meir Dagan that the evidence was of such great importance the Mossad chief and Nathan should fly to London, and then on to Washington.
For several hours over orange juice, coffee, and sandwiches the two men showed John Scarlett and other MI6 officers the evidence acquired from inside Iran. It included close-up photographs of the Abe-e Ali complex and two new workshops at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant. Dagan’s briefing formed a key part of a meeting of Britain’s defense chiefs after Condoleezza Rice told Prime Minister Blair that “if all else fails on the diplomatic front, we are prepared to go it alone, or with the assistance of our good friend, Israel.” An official who was at the meeting told the author, “She made it plain that going it alone meant military action.”
