Iran Sees Israeli Cyberattack as Nuclear Terrorism

Officials blame Mossad for blackout

Seemingly timed to disrupt ongoing P5+1 nuclear talks in Vienna, a cyberattack against Natanz has caused a power failure and forced the Iranian uranium enrichment facility to temporarily stop operating.

Israeli officials have not commented directly yet, but Israeli public radio reported that this cyberattack was the work of Mossad. That was how Iran figured it too, calling it an act of “nuclear terrorism.”

This is not the first attempt at cyber sabotage of Iran’s nuclear program. There were no casualties but Iran reported severe damage to the site. Iranian officials say they may retaliate.

While such sabotage acts are nominally meant to curb Iran’s advancement of its civilian program, in the past they’ve had the opposite effect, and retaliation often involves Iran escalating its program, replacing broken equipment with more and better equipment, and ending up with an even bigger enrichment enterprise.

The most likely way to get Iran to scale back enrichment would be diplomatically, at the Vienna talks, but after this latest incident, it is likely Iran’s parliament will order more increases in operations.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.