Iranian President-Elect Hassan Rouhani on Monday announced several possible shifts in his country’s foreign policy’s tone, if not necessarily its substance, in his first news conference since the election.

Rouhani, described as the most moderate candidate allowed to run for the seat, won Iran’s election on Saturday in a surprising first round victory. Speaking at a gathering of foreign and domestic journalists, Rouhani made clear that his government would attempt to strike a different tone than that of his predecessor. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s eight years in office have been marked with outlandish statements from him and scorn from Iran’s Gulf neighbors and the international community alike. Rather than antagonizing the rest of the world, Rouhani told reporters his governments’s priority in foreign policy is to have “friendly, close relations with all nations in the vicinity — all fifteen of them — based on mutual respect.”

On the most contentious issue Iran faces, how and if to continue development of its nuclear program, Rouhani called for increased transparency on the Iranian government’s part. “We are ready to show greater transparency and make clear that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s actions are totally within international frameworks,” he told the press. Rouhani also expressed his hope that the current international sanctions imposed on Iran would be able to be alleviated and rolled back as part of an agreement, calling the measures “oppressive.”

Rouhani, however, denied that his government would halt the enrichment of uranium, saying “that time has passed.” The complete stopping of uranium enrichment has been a key demand from the international community to date, an ultimatum that Iran has ignored. “We have many ways of building confidence other than suspending enrichment,” Rouhani, a former nuclear negotiator for the Iranian government, said instead. In particular, Rouhani highlighted a 2005 proposal from then-President Jacques Chirac of France which would allow Iran to continue low-level uranium enrichment as the possible starting point for an agreement. That deal, Rouhani claims, was scuttled due to the United States and United Kingdom being unable to agree to its terms.

The United States for its part has offered cautious optimism in the face of Rouhani’s election. “I see it as a potentially hopeful sign,” White House Chief of Staff Dennis McDonough said on CBS’s Face the Nation this Sunday. “I think the question for us now is: If he is interested in, as he has said in his campaign events, mending his relations — Iran’s relations with the rest of the world — there’s an opportunity to do that,” he added.

Washington likewise offered its muted congratulations over the weekend, focusing on the Iranian people rather than the regime in its message. “We admire the courage of the Iranian people who went to the polls and made their voices heard in a rigidly controlled environment that sought to limit freedom of expression and assembly,” Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement released Saturday. Iranians took to the streets on Saturday in celebration once Rouhani’s victory was announced, expressing hope in the candidate’s ability to moderate Iran’s policy.

Rouhani in his press conference also indicated a willingness to meet with the United States in direct talks, noting that that certain conditions must be made before such talks could take place. It is unclear however what, if any, change in substance Rouhani will be able to bring to bear, given the system of government in place in Tehran. Under this hierarchy, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameni wields decision-making power regarding foreign relations.

Just one day before the Iranian election, Google’s security blog warned of a rise in email-based phishing campaigns targeting Iranian users. According to a company statement:

“For almost three weeks, we have detected and disrupted multiple email-based phishing campaigns aimed at compromising the accounts owned by tens of thousands of Iranian users. These campaigns, which originate from within Iran, represent a significant jump in the overall volume of phishing activity in the region. The timing and targeting of the campaigns suggest that the attacks are politically motivated in connection with the Iranian presidential election on Friday.”

Reuters notes that the company “posted a screenshot of a phishing email [seen above] purporting to be from Google administrators. The email, sent from the account ‘Email.Settings@gmail.com,’ contained a link to a fake sign-in page that asked for the user’s Gmail credentials.”

While Google did not go so far as identify the Iranian government as the source of the phishing, it does imply a connection: “Protecting our users’ accounts is one of our top priorities, so we notify targets of state-sponsored attacks and other suspicious activity, and we take other appropriate actions to limit the impact of these attacks on our users,” Google said.

The government and opposition groups alike have claimed to be the victims of cyberattacks in the lead up the election. Government forces reportedly previously engaged in cyberattacks against “enemies” of Iran and actively recruit hackers to boost its efforts.

Iran’s cyber-capabilities combined with its exclusion from global economy have led some to believe it could be one of the greater cybersecurity threats on the global stage because of its tendency for disruptive action, like the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack targeting global financial institutions last winter.

Iran blocked Google services in September 2012, relenting on Gmail access after a complaints from public officials. The government also reportedly cut off its eight million plus internet users from most virtual private networks (VPNs) in March as part of its attempt to divert internet traffic to a closed intranet system.

The deadline for House members to submit their proposed amendments to the Lower Chamber’s version of the Fiscal Year 2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed on Tuesday, leaving an avalanche of offered changes in its wake. While the House NDAA will still need to be merged with its eventual Senate counterpart in conference committee, many of its provisions will likely find themselves in the final bill.

A total of 291 amendments were sent to the House Rules Committee, which will decide on Wednesday how the floor debate will proceed and how many of these amendments will be discussed. ThinkProgress read through them all so you don’t have to, pulling out some of the amendments that would do the most to improve the bill that moves forward:

1. Repeal the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF).

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) frequently touts the fact that she was the only member of Congress to vote against the AUMF when first written in 2001. Now, twelve years later, Lee is still fighting to repeal it, but now she has President Obama’s backing — in principle. Obama has expressed an interest in revising the AUMF before it’s eventual repeal, but Lee’s amendment jumps straight to the end. If passed, it would have the AUMF repealed on Jan. 1, 2015 or when the war ends in Afghanistan, whichever comes first.

2. Set up a framework to close Gitmo.

Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) serves as the Ranking Member on the House Armed Services Committee, a position from which he has long advocated the closure of the military prision at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This year, he and several of his colleagues are attempting to insert language into the NDAA doing just that. While it’s a long shot, if it passed Smith’s amendment would add into the NDAA the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility Closure Act of 2013, which would lift the ban on transferring detainees into the U.S. for imprisonment or trial and cutting off all funding to the prison after 2014.

3. Add more oversight to the administration’s targeted killing program.

House Armed Services Committee Vice-Chair Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX) won passage in committee of his provision to have the Secretary of Defense brief his committee and its Senate counterpart every time the administration conducted a kill or capture operation outside of Afghanistan. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wants to expand that oversight even further. Under Engel’s amendment, Foreign Affairs as well as the House’s Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence would also have to receive the same briefing, increasing the members of Congress in the know.
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A New York Times/CBS News poll released on Friday found that a majority of Americans (59 percent) think that “Iran is a threat that can be contained for now” and that 58 percent of those polled said that they would support the United States taking military action against Iran “in order to prevent them from producing a nuclear weapon.”

While the first finding on containment is nothing new; the Times/CBS poll has had similar results on that question since 2003, what’s notable about this particular survey on Iran’s nuclear program is that the question on military action is incomplete. The question — “Would you favor or oppose the United States taking military action against Iran in order to prevent them from producing a nuclear weapon” — assumes that an attack would definitely prevent Iran from acquiring nukes without any consequences.

But this is a flawed assumption. There’s no way to destroy Iran’s nuclear knowledge, and it’s unlikely that a military strike would be able to destroy Iran’s entire nuclear infrastructure. An attack might also actually push the Iranians toward making the decision to build a nuclear weapon, which would mean, in effect, that a strike would only delay an Iranian nuclear weapon while absolutely convincing them of the need for one.

Iran’s nuclear program cannot be “bombed away,” a report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Federation of American Scientists concluded in April. “Given the country’s indigenous knowledge and expertise, the only long-term solution for assuring that Iran’s nuclear program remains purely peaceful is to find a mutually agreeable diplomatic solution,” the report said.

Former Israeli security officials also question the utility of military strikes. “Attacking Iran will encourage them to develop a bomb all the faster,” said former Israeli domestic security chief Yuval Diskin. Meir Dagan, the former head of Israeli intelligence, agreed. “A strike could accelerate the procurement of the bomb. … We would provide them with the legitimacy to achieve nuclear capabilities for military purposes,” he said.

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta echoed these concerns, agreeing that “bombing would at most delay [Iran's nuclear] program or derail it up to two or three years at most.”

The other problem with the New York Times/CBS News poll question on a military attack on Iran is that it seems to assume a strike will have no negative consequences. But according to a bipartisan expert report, an attack could lead to an “all out regional war” lasting “several years,” with attacks on American interests throughout the Middle East, a breakdown of the international coalition on Iran, a sharp increase in the price of oil and the “increased likelihood” of Iran becoming a nuclear weapons state.
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At 2:14 AM on Thursday, the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) passed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2014 (NDAA), a massive $638 billion bill designed to fund all military spending and chart military policy for the for the coming fiscal year. An avalanche of amendments greatly changed the original make-up Chairman Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) presented earlier this week, eventually passing the committee with a vote of 59-2. Here are some of the provisions in the bill that you should know about before it reaches the House floor:

What’s Good

1. Addresses The Military’s Sexual Assault Crisis

In the light of the multitude of scandals and damning reports of sexual assault within the ranks of the military, the HASC added several provisions to the NDAA that reforms the current military justice system. Under the new language, military commanders will be stripped of their ability to dismiss the findings of courts-martial’s juries, something that the military’s leadership has opposed. Commanders will also be unable to reduce sentences imposed on those found guilty of sexual crimes, as one general did in the case that first launched the renewed interest in the issue in February.

In addition, new minimum sentencing guidelines for sexual assault in the military were included, while also adding rape, sexual assault, or other sexual misconduct to the protected communications of service members with a Member of Congress or an Inspector General, essentially bringing protections for those who report military sexual assault in line with those for government whistleblowers.
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A former U.S. Ambassador to numerous countries throughout the Middle East is concerned that the increase in sanctions on Iran being weighed in Congress may actually hurt the ongoing efforts to confront Tehran’s nuclear program.

Part of the current U.S. strategy in forcing Iran to divulge more about and rein in its nuclear program is the use of economic sanctions. Rather than forcing a new conciliatory posture from Iran, former U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker believes a new wave of U.S.-imposed unilateral sanctions could instead have a chilling effect on efforts to diplomatically solve the standoff.

“Sanctions are easy to do, and afterwards we can tell ourselves that, ‘By God, we’ve really stuck it to them,’” Crocker said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. “But it seems to me that the more you press this regime, the more they dig in.”

In his role as a member of The Iran Project, a bipartisan expert panel examining the Iranian nuclear standoff, Crocker signed a report issued last month that stressed many of the same points as in his L.A. Times interview. “The United States should now dedicate as much energy and creativity to negotiating directly with Iran as it has to assembling a broad international coalition to pressure and isolate Iran,” the report suggested, noting that the current sanctions strategy has the potential to backfire.

Secretary of State John Kerry sought to stress a similar view to Congress in April, asking the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to delay any new sanctions push until at the very least after Iran’s upcoming presidential elections. “There’s an enormous amount of jockeying going on, with the obvious normal tension between hard-liners and people who want to make an agreement,” Kerry explained during a committee hearing. “We don’t need to spin this up at this point in time. … You need to leave us the window to try to work the diplomatic channel.”

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China and Iran have shared a position as cyber-bogeymen over the past year, but a new report from the Wall Street Journal about Iranian infiltration of U.S. energy firms shows why their cyber-assaults could pose a greater immediate threat to U.S. national security.

While China pursues aggressive cyber-espionage campaigns against major U.S. companies and news sources, Iranian-backed hackers are more overtly hostile — targeting critical infrastructure vulnerable to sabotage or engaging in disruptive economic actions, like when Iranian-backed hackers leveraged data centers to wage a massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against financial institutions.

From a strategic standpoint, the differences between the Chinese and Iranian strategies make sense. The Chinese government is interested in the long game and is a key player in the global market, while as Tom Kellerman, Vice President of cybersecurity firm Trend Micro, told the Wall Street Journal, “Iran has been successfully ostracized from global economics” so destructive cyber attacks serve “not only empower themselves but to signal to the Western world they are capable in cyberspace.” Proving that capability may be especially important to Iran because its nuclear program was the target of Stuxnet malware, reportedly jointly developed by U.S. and Israeli cyber-forces.

The more recent Iranian-backed attacks go a step further than outside disruptions like the DDoS attacks according to U.S. officials, showing that hackers penetrated the computer networks running energy companies and gained access to the software controlling oil and gas pipelines. With access to that control-system software, hackers could potentially manipulate the flow of fuel, possibly even trigger power outages — something that could have truly devastating national security implications, especially considering that about 85 percent of the energy infrastructure the Department of Defense depends on is commercially owned.

In a March worldwide threat assessment statement to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the Director of National Intelligence identified cybersecurity threats as the top threat facing the United States, specifically noting while “advanced cyber actors” like Russia or China were unlikely to launch a devastating attack on our power grid, but “less advanced but highly motivated actors could access some poorly protected U.S. networks that control core functions, such as power generation, during the next two years.”

A report on the vulnerability of the electric grid released by the offices of Congressman Edward Markey (D-MA) and Henry Waxman (D-CA) last week suggests a substantial number of those networks are poorly protected, with many only implementing mandatory cybersecurity measures from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) that are often several years behind the current cyber-threat landscape.

The latest report from the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog shows that Iran continues to process nuclear fuel, it is making sure to keep its total amount low enough to not cross Israel’s so-called “red-line.”

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, since its last report Iran has continued to disregard demands that it halt enrichment of uranium at its nuclear facilities, instead processing another 689 kilograms of the nuclear fuel to the 5 percent level. Of greater concern to the international community is the uranium Iran has processed to 20 percent, compromising an additional 44 kilograms since February.

Iran’s known enriched uranium stockpile is not currently usable in a nuclear weapon — for that it would need to be enriched to 90 percent level, making it highly-enriched. However, the technology required to produce 90 percent enriched uranium is a small step from that required to reach the 20 percent threshold. Approximately 250 kilograms of 90 percent uranium is required to create one nuclear weapon, and Tehran seems to have been careful not to reach 250 kilograms worth of 20 percent enriched uranium in its stockpile.

To keep it below that level, Iran has continued its efforts to convert some of its 20 percent stockpile into uranium gas, which are then used in constructing fuel plates. These plates are extremely difficult to process further, making them effectively out of the running for being considered part of any possible weaponization. In the latest IAEA update, Iran reported converting 58 kilograms worth of 20 percent enriched uranium into uranium oxide between the end of September and May. Thus, the IAEA reported 182 kilograms of declared material still in the form of uranium hexafloride.

The report also indicates that Iran continues its efforts to install new centrifuges into its facilities, with nearly 700 installed since the start of the year.

There are also troubling portions of the report dealing with the Agency’s concerns over the Parchin military base. To date, the IAEA has been denied access to the facility, which is suspected to have been involved with earlier regime efforts to design a trigger for a nuclear weapon. Since first requesting access, it appears a cover-up of the facility’s work has been taking place:

55. Since the Director General’s previous report, Iran has conducted further spreading, levelling and compacting of material over most of the site, a significant proportion of which it has also asphalted. There have also been indications of activity within the chamber building.

56. As previously reported, Iran has stated that the allegation of nuclear activities at the Parchin site is “baseless” and that “the recent activities claimed to be conducted in the vicinity of the location of interest to the Agency, has nothing to do with specified location by the Agency”. Iran’s explanation for the soil displacement by trucks is that it was “due to constructing the Parchin new road”.

Iran’s lack of cooperation over Parchin proved a stumbling block in Iran’s ongoing talks with the U.N. over its nuclear program. IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano warned back in December that the site could soon be cleared of any evidence that could have been uncovered. The IAEA, which has been issuing quarterly reports on Iran’s nuclear activities since 2003, still concludes though that none of Iran’s declared nuclear material has been diverted towards producing a nuclear weapon.

Israeli and U.S. intelligence agencies also still believe that Iran has not made a decision to pursue a nuclear weapon at this time. This has not precluded Congress from beginning to pursue a slew of new action against Iran in recent weeks, with bills in both the House and Senate to increase sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Several experts have questioned the wisdom of ratcheting up sanctions on Iran without end, given the still ongoing pursuit of a diplomatic solution to the stand-off.

A new report out on Monday concludes that the Obama administration should be prepared to contain a nuclear-armed Iran, rather than ignoring such a possibility in favor of its current strategy of prevention.

The Center for New American Security (CNAS) report — titled “If All Else Fails: The Challenges of Containing a Nuclear-Armed Iran” [PDF] — doesn’t advocate the Obama administration leaving its current policy of preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. It does, however, question the logic of not preparing for such an eventuality. “In the absence of a well thought-out strategy for the ‘day after’ Iran gets the bomb, strategic improvisation could produce policy responses that are ineffective or even counterproductive,” the report argues.

In response, authors Colin Kahl, Raj Pattani and Jacob Stokes develop a set of eleven policies they believe should be put into place should prevention efforts — up to and including the use of force — fail. In such an event, the White House should pursue five “key components” to achieve those goals:

• Deterrence: attempt to prevent Iranian nuclear use and aggression through credible threats of retaliation;
• Defense: deny Iran the ability to benefit from its nuclear weapons and to protect U.S. partners and allies from aggression;
• Disruption: shape a regional environment resistant to Iranian influence and to thwart and diminish Iran’s destabilizing activities;
• De-escalation: prevent Iran-related crises from spiraling to nuclear war; and
• Denuclearization: constrain Iran’s nuclear weapons program and limit broader damage to the nonproliferation regime

Having such a plan in place is necessary, the authors argue, given the possibility that even a military strike on Iran — which the Obama administration says remains on the table as a last resort to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran — may not cause Tehran to waver. “Even an operationally effective strike would not, in and of itself, permanently end Iran’s program,” Kahl, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, said in an interview with Al-Monitor. “A strike might substantially degrade Iran’s near-term capability to produce nuclear weapons, but it would almost certainly increase Tehran’s motivation to eventually acquire nuclear weapons to deter future attacks.”

Kahl’s statement tracks with previous reports’ conclusions regarding the use of force against Iran. A Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Federation of American Scientists report issued last month warned that Iran’s nuclear program cannot be “bombed away.” While Tehran still has not decided to pursue nuclear weapons, according to intelligence from the United States and Israel, U.S. and Israeli officials alike fear that a strike on Iran’s nuclear program could in fact spur them onward to produce a nuclear weapon.

Unfortunately, “containment” has all too often become synonymous with “capitulation” in the current discourse about Iran’s nuclear program, as seen during Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel’s confirmation hearings. However, even the conservative American Enterprise Institute came to the conclusion that the Obama administration should at least consider the possibility of containment. In a 2011 article, the authors noted that containment, while likely difficult, may wind up being the “least-bad choice” on Iran.

While tensions in Syria dominate headlines about the Middle East, a quiet digital battle is brewing in Iran as the June 14 presidential election approaches.

Yesterday, the Basij force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard claimed its websites were being targeted in a wave of cyberattacks:

“Due to the impending vote, elements of the global arrogance have launched a new round of cyberattacks against Basij websites, particularly Basij.ir.”

According to local Iranian news sources, the Basij.ir site was down for part of the day on Wednesday (May 1) and a spokesman for the group claimed its sites faced many attacks in the past three years. However, the Basij is more well known for being the aggressors in cyberattacks. In 2011 it launched a cyberattack against the “enemies” of Iran and has actively recruited hackers to boost its ranks.

Iran had over 8 million internet users in 2009 and online communications including social media and email was key to galvanizing and organizing opposition in the last Iranian Presidential election and the protests that followed. Since then, the regime has cracked down harder than ever on online communications with aggressive surveillance and filtering in what President Obama decried as an “Electronic Curtain” in 2012. Internet access was disrupted before the 2012 parliamentary elections and at other times Iranian authorities have blocked specific web services, such as Google.

While the regime cracked down on tools like virtual private networks (VPNs) many Iranians use to avoid government internet controls in March, hacktivists outside the country are helping provide alternatives to further keep online communications channels open. One group, ASL19 — an interdisciplinary lab named after Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that upholds the right to freedom of expression and access to information — specifically aims to “empower Iranians to communicate freely and engage in dialogue with minimal threat to personal safety.” The group reportedly helps a million Iranians a day avoid network censorship by distributing open source evasion program Psiphon.

But the regime has even been working on an internal intranet, often dubbed the “halalternet” that would be completely closed off from the larger global internet system, and is reportedly very close to being deployed on a broad scale. Chinese technology company Huawei reportedly provided the Iranian government the technological infrastructure for the intranet, and according to Reuters, attempted to sell Iranian internet providers “lawful interception” surveillance tech that they later “acquired.”