Knowing When to Hold 'Em

I confess that yesterday's grandiose announcement of Iran's undeclared nuclear facility initially left me a bit puzzled. Today I learned why, and as usual, turned to Laura Rozen to help alleviate my confusion:

Late Thursday night, two hours after it sent out President Barack Obama’s Friday schedule, the White House told reporters it was adding another event – a statement that he would give in the morning. Amid all the hoopla of the G-20 economic summit in Pittsburgh, there was scant indication the announcement would be dramatic.

But behind the scenes, the Obama administration was furiously preparing for a major public intelligence disclosure that it had not planned to make: that the U.S. had known for years about a previously undisclosed clandestine nuclear enrichment facility Iran has been building since 2005 in a mountain near Qom.

Interviews with administration and international officials, diplomats, non-proliferation and Iran experts suggest the administration had no plans to announce its suspicions before beginning international talks with Iran next week. But its hand was forced after learning some time during the week of a letter Iran had sent the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency in Vienna acknowledging construction of a previously undisclosed facility.

[...]

In the meantime, a hurried round of briefings took place in Europe, Washington and New York. On Wednesday, intelligence officials from the U.S., Britain and France briefed IAEA officials in Vienna on what they knew about the Qom facility. That same day, in New York, Obama briefed Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. Then on Thursdays, intelligence officials briefed congressional leadership in Washington, while Chinese president Hu Jintao was informed in New York.

This seems like the correct response to what was from the get-go sort of a non-crisis. As I said yesterday, the Bush administration was well aware of this facility's development, and even they refused to act on it. Turning this story into a huge hoopla - as some administration critics will insist upon - can only serve to bolster Iran's position on the nuclear matter. It offers the Islamic Republic a bargaining chip of little value to stall with, and ultimately give up as a 'concession' in negotiations.

I believe Presidents Bush and Obama both handled this information properly. Once President Obama had his hands tied by the IAEA (a frustrating rant for another day), he was left with little option but to go public and leverage what he could out of it vis-à-vis China and Russia. Bush's ability to hold his hand on the intelligence gave Obama a useful tool with which to pressure Beijing and Moscow.

Again, just a friendly note of caution to Obama's critics: make a big deal out of this, and so will Tehran. If you must point fingers, start with the toothless NPT.