Iran Conducts Second Day of Missle Tests

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last month even signed a joint letter to the Iranian foreign minister offering the deal, though the administration has refused thus far to allow a senior U.S. official to join other foreign officials in talks in Tehran.

"This government is working hard to make sure that the diplomatic and economic approach to dealing with Iran -- and trying to get the Iranian government to change its policies -- is the strategy and is the approach that continues to dominate," Gates said. "At this point, I'm comfortable that that remains the case."

Iran has responded with cryptic and somewhat encouraging comments, though it has continued to work on its nuclear program. Javier Solana, the European Union foreign policy chief and main Western interlocutor on Iran's nuclear program, is expected to meet with Iranian officials next week.

Burns said the United States and other nations are working on "an intense public diplomacy campaign to explain what we're offering directly. . . .We want the Iranian people to see clearly how serious we are about reconciliation and helping them to develop their full potential, but also who's responsible for Iran's isolation."

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack noted that in recent years, Iran has conducted similar exercises, including missile tests. But analysts said the tests, along with Iranian rhetoric, are meant as highly symbolic warning to Israel and the United States.

"We warn the enemies who intend to threaten us with military exercises and empty psychological operations that our hand will always be on the trigger and our missiles will always be ready to launch," Revolutionary Guards air force commander Hossein Salami said yesterday, according to the official IRNA news agency.

The Iranian naval games, dubbed the "The Great Prophet 3," are taking place at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic Persian Gulf waterway that handles about 40 percent of the world's oil. U.S. and British warships are also conducting exercises in the Persian Gulf.

The nine missiles tested by Iran included the Shahab-3, which has a conventional warhead weighing one ton and which Iran says has a range of about 1,200 miles -- sufficient to strike Israel and other U.S.-linked targets. John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a defense consulting group, said that missile, which has been adapted from an old North Korean model, clearly is being refined to deliver nuclear weapons.

"If they are not developing nuclear weapon for this missile, why are they continuing to test it? It is worthless otherwise," he said. "They are still working on a delivery system, which is a major piece of the puzzle of the nuclear program."

Peter D. Zimmerman, a nuclear physicist who was formerly chief scientist for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that the missile's accuracy is poor and that it could miss its target altogether. A missile with a nuclear warhead, by contrast, would not need to be accurate, since it would destroy an area far beyond its range of accuracy.

The administration's military options narrowed dramatically earlier this year when a national intelligence estimate concluded that Iran had halted work on a nuclear weapon in 2003. The NIE made it much more difficult for the administration to argue to allies that Iran poses an imminent threat, setting back diplomatic efforts for several months.

Still, in recent weeks, the administration has persuaded other countries to ratchet up economic pressure on Iran.

The European Union last month brought sanctions against Bank Melli, Iran's largest bank. The soaring price of oil has cushioned the blow for Iran, which is the world's fourth-largest oil producer, but Burns noted that "inflation is running at 25 percent and food and housing costs are skyrocketing." Iran must also import about half of its refined oil products, which experts say could be a tempting target or future sanctions.

Israeli officials have warned that in the meantime Iran continues to build up a supply of low-enriched uranium, so that by the end of next year Tehran could have enough material to convert into highly enriched uranium to fuel a nuclear weapon.

"Israel's preference has been to solve this peacefully," said Israel's U.S. ambassador, Sallai Meridor. "For that to have a chance, it will take a dramatic increase in the economic and diplomatic pressure on Iran."