Yes, They’re Sleazy, but Not Originals

The second season of “Jersey Shore,” which takes place in Miami, is even more popular than the first, and “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” is returning on Sunday for a fifth season, carrying in tow a spinoff about publicists, “The Spin Crowd.”

There is no need to panic.

Reality shows that exalt indolent, loud-mouthed exhibitionists may seem like almost biblical retribution for our materialistic, celebrity-obsessed age. But actually, these kinds of series are an extension of a time-honored form of entertainment, one that reaches back to the era of landed gentry, debutantes and social seasons in places like Newport, R.I., or the French Riviera.

More than a century ago, ordinary people avidly followed the follies of the idle rich in the society pages and passenger lists of liners like the Atlantic or the Mauretania. (The maiden voyage of the Titanic was a style story — until it hit the iceberg.)

There were celebrities back then too, and their claims to fame were not so much nobler than those of Kim Kardashian or even Mike, a k a the Situation, of “Jersey Shore.” Women and men made news by spending money frivolously or having grand weddings with millionaires or titled Europeans; they became infamous in lurid sex scandals and even murder cases, as when Harry K. Thaw killed the architect Stanford White in 1906 out of jealousy over White’s affair with his model-actress wife, Evelyn Nesbit.

News judgment, even then, skewed toward entertainment. The New York Herald was the first American newspaper to use the wireless telegraph in 1899 — inventor Guglielmo Marconi was invited to New York to report not the conclusion of the Dreyfus affair or the start of the second Boer war, but the results of a high-society sailing regatta, America’s Cup.

Celebrities of yore wore more clothes and had better manners, but then, as now, they went to a lot of parties and were often famous for being famous.

Television merely invades the process and broadens the social pool. “Jersey Shore” is often condemned, at least by many New Jersey residents, for hitting a new low by elevating the riffraff of tanning salons and sleazy nightclubs. But it’s important to remember that “Jersey Shore” is on MTV, a youth-oriented cable channel that has a hortative streak: series like “Teen Mom” and “If You Really Knew Me” carry a strong “don’t try this at home” message.

So, in a way, does “Jersey Shore.” The antics of Snooki, Ronnie, Vinny and the other housemates are a reality show version of a children’s poem in Gelett Burgess’s “Goops and How to Be Them,” first published in 1900:

The Goops they lick their fingers

and the Goops they lick their knives

They spill their broth on the tablecloth

Oh, they lead disgusting lives!

Bad behavior serves as a warning but succeeds as entertainment.

When they first appeared, the cast members of “Jersey Shore” were a Bart Simpson-ish tonic after the bland chic and relentless blond perfection of “The Hills.” They are loud, vulgar, salon-tanned and gym-bulked numbskulls who drink, brawl, belch and use foul language. This season the housemates have taken on a semblance of work in a Miami ice cream parlor — but it’s a silly gimmick. Their vocation is vacation.

And they have become so entrenched in the vernacular that even President ObamaJacqueline Kennedy’s pillbox hat. mentioned Snooki in a recent speech. She has smoothed down her “pouf” this season, but for a lingering moment that retro hairstyle was a cultural artifact like

Reality shows are staged, scripted and heavily edited, but for some reason there is still a frisson of authenticity behind the artifice: real people seem to have more staying power than established celebrities who are cast in reality shows.

The amateurs who turn into semi-professional actors on “The Bachelorette” keep finding an audience. Dina Lohan, the mother of Lindsay, and Denise Richards, the ex-wife of Charlie Sheen, bombed on their reality shows, mostly because they turned out to be deadly dull, unwilling or unable to tap into their inner sitcom personas, as Ozzy Osbourne did so successfully in his pioneering reality show, “The Osbournes.”

And so, however improbably, have the Kardashians. The women of the family have molded their exotic beauty and blank personalities to fit into comic soap operas, including the spinoff “Kourtney and Khloé Take Miami.”

They deliver dialogue that is so deliciously inane that no “As the World Turns” writer would dare type it. “We have, like, a great relationship,” Kim tells Jonathan Cheban, a publicist-confidant, explaining why she and the football star Reggie Bush broke up. “We just kind of realized it’s not working.”

In Sunday’s season premiere a newly single Kim won’t let people into her new house — a huge and impersonal faux-Mediterranean villa — for fear of scratches or stains. “I’ve worked so hard for this,” she tells her stepfather, Bruce Jenner.

It’s a laughable statement — she is the high priestess of red carpet parasites — except that Kim did make a go of doing almost nothing. She began as a national joke, mocked for having an odalisque figure but no visible talent, and has transformed herself into an international brand and tabloid fixture. Now she is also an executive producer of “The Spin Crowd.”

And that show, about Hollywood bottom-feeders, makes the “Jersey Shore” crowd seem reserved. Jonathan runs his company, Command PR, based on the “Swimming With Sharks” school of management — bullying a young new associate to have collagen lip injections, haranguing female assistants to look even more slutty — if that’s imaginable.

There’s nothing new about coaxing celebrities to promote products; the actress Lillian Russell endorsed Coca-Cola at the turn of the last century. But Jonathan has to persuade a Hollywood hunk to be a spokesman for a line of self-tanning lotions for men.

And the surrealism of show business is what makes this a marketable reality show.

“That sounds sort of in the makeup-world kind of deal — that’s not really me,” Mario Lopez, a host of “Extra,” tells Jonathan. “So I don’t know if it’s really true or authentic to what I am about.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/arts/television/20reality.html?ref=arts

Lilly Moves Closer to Approval to Market Cymbalta for Chronic Pain

A federal panel on Thursday voted narrowly to recommend allowing Eli Lilly to market its blockbuster antidepressant Cymbalta for some chronic pain conditions like lower back ailments that affect millions of Americans.

The scientific advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration voted 8-6 in favor of expanding approved uses of Cymbalta. If approved by the agency, the drug would compete with Tylenol, aspirin and other anti-inflammatory drugs, and opioids like codeine and morphine.

F.D.A. officials at the meeting assured the panel they would draft warnings against the overuse of Cymbalta for pain, if they did finally approve a label change. Advisory committee votes are often, but not always, followed by the agency.

“I think it will be a very useful drug for a significant number of patients,” Dr. Jeffrey R. Kirsch, the chairman of the advisory panel, said after the vote.

But while the committee, in a series of votes, approved the drug’s effectiveness for lower back pain, it voted against the drug’s use for osteoarthritis. The F.D.A. staff earlier in the week opposed Lilly’s broader proposal that would have allowed Cymbalta to be used for chronic pain on a host of issues.

Dr. Robert Baker, Lilly’s global development leader for psychiatry and pain disorders, said the company would continue seeking F.D.A. approval to market Cymbalta to treat all chronic pain.

In an interview, he said Lilly learned only this week that the agency had limited votes to just two conditions. “While we’d have been happy to move right to chronic pain, we are also understanding and interested in helping them capture this for doctors as they work for patients for individual subsets of pain such as osteoarthritis or lower back pain,” Dr. Baker said.

Approval for lower back pain alone could add as much as $500 million in annual sales of Cymbalta, on top of its $3 billion current sales, an investor note from Barclays Capital said Thursday.

“If you think of how many people have lower back pain, it’s an extraordinarily large opportunity,” C. Anthony Butler, a Barclays analyst, said. The Barclays note predicted Lilly, which is based in Indianapolis, would invest heavily in promotion because it was relying on Cymbalta for sales growth from next year, when its patent expires on its best-selling drug, Zyprexa, to 2013, when its patent expires on Cymbalta.

But Lilly also was criticized Thursday by the F.D.A. panel members for its advertising campaign for Cymbalta. The ads say “depression is painful.” Dr. Kirsch, who is chairman of the department of anesthesiology at the Oregon Health Sciences University, said he was perturbed at what he termed an attempt to “premarket” the drug for a pain use that had not yet been approved.

The F.D.A. approved Cymbalta for major depression and diabetic nerve pain in 2004, generalized anxiety disorder in 2007, and fibromyalgia in 2008.

The drug was used by 2.8 million patients with 14.6 million prescriptions last year, according to an F.D.A. staff report, about 400,000 of them off-label for musculoskeletal pain, headaches or nerve pain. Doctors may prescribe any approved drug for any use they see fit.

Dr. Sidney M. Wolfe, a consumer representative on the panel and director of the health research group at the nonprofit group Public Citizen, said the F.D.A. should “move slowly, if at all,” to expand approved uses of the drug. Lilly stock fell 1.4 percent, to $34.28 Thursday amid a comparable sell-off in broader markets.

Separately on Thursday, Judge Dennis M. Cavanaugh of Federal District Court in Newark ordered that no generic version of the Lilly attention-deficit drug Strattera be brought to the market for at least two weeks. Last week, the judge overturned Lilly’s patent on Strattera, which had $609 million sales last year.

Also on Thursday, Standard & Poor’s Rating Service downgraded Lilly’s corporate credit rating from AA to AA-, writing, “The rating action considers the disappointments and delays for both new and existing products experienced by this top-tier drug company, which we believe weaken its ability to offset the lost revenues for products facing generic competition over the next three years.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/health/20drug.html?ref=health

BP Settlements Likely to Shield Top Defendants

WASHINGTON — People and businesses seeking a lump-sum settlement from BP’s $20 billion oil spill compensation fund will most likely have to waive their right to sue not only BP, but also all the other major defendants involved with the spill, according to internal documents from the lawyers handling the fund.

The documents — which include e-mails, draft and final versions of the protocols, claims forms and legal notes about the administration of the fund — provide the first definitive picture of who will be paid by the $20 billion fund, and how and when.

They also shed new light on the components of the payment plan that are likely to stir controversy, including the fund’s emphasis on geographic proximity as a determining factor for eligibility.

The fund is being administered by a prominent Washington lawyer, Kenneth R. Feinberg, who declined to be interviewed about the documents but verified their authenticity.

The eligibility requirements for compensation from the fund are similar to those of the 9/11 victims compensation fund, which Mr. Feinberg also handled. People affected by the spill seeking final settlements face a choice similar to that faced by the 9/11 victims: If they decide to sue instead of accepting a settlement, they could face years of litigation; and if they decide to accept the settlement, it could come before the full damage from the spill is known.

A key difference between the spill fund and the Sept. 11 victim compensation fund is the matter of geographic proximity. The 9/11 fund took that issue into account, but it was less controversial because that fund focused on compensating people injured in the terrorist attacks and families of those killed rather than adversely affected businesses.

Fishermen, shrimpers and seafood processors as well as hotel and restaurant owners with beachfront property in areas where oil washed ashore will have the easiest time getting reimbursed. An ice cream parlor or a golf course miles from the affected shore but along the main highway headed to the beach will probably not be eligible, the documents indicate.

Legal experts said that the eligibility criteria in the protocol, including the emphasis on proximity, make intuitive sense, but they will cut out large sectors of businesses and people that were indirectly but nonetheless deeply affected by the spill.

Examples of the kinds of businesses that may be excluded include a bait and tackle supply store in Raleigh, N.C., that equips much of the gulf’s fishermen; a gas station in Flomaton, Ala., alongside Highway 29, which heads to the Gulf Coast; and a beer distributor in Atlanta whose biggest contracts were with restaurant chains on the affected coast.

The documents say that people or businesses “in a community or municipality adjacent to a beach shoreline, marsh, bay or tributary of the gulf where oil or oil residues came ashore or appeared in the waters” will be given top priority.

Eligibility “will take into account, among other things, geographic proximity, nature of industry, and dependence upon injured natural resources,” the documents say.

The possible provision in the final oil spill settlement protocol requiring people to waive their right to sue companies other than BP that were working on the rig is also expected to face protest, legal experts said.

Those other companies related to the spill include Transocean, the operator of the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded and sank in April; Halliburton, the company responsible for cementing the well; and Cameron International, the maker of the failed blowout preventer, a device designed to shut off a well.

Mr. Feinberg plans to publicly release the protocol for emergency payments on Friday and the protocol for the final settlement in the fall. The eligibility terms for both protocols will be nearly identical, though the burden of proof to qualify for a final settlement payment will be higher, the documents say.

Even though BP is the fund’s sole contributor so far, it may still be in its interest that the other companies linked to the spill be protected from claims because they could in turn try to sue BP for payment, said Richard Nagareda, a mass torts expert and law professor at Vanderbilt University.

While the protocol says that all workers injured or killed as a result of the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon or the spill are eligible to file claims, a letter sent by BP’s lawyers to Steve Gordon, a lawyer representing some of those workers, states otherwise.

The letter was handed over to the House Judiciary Committee, which is investigating liability issues and the claims process.

“To be clear, it is BP’s position, consistent with this indemnification, that any settlement between Transocean and any of its injured or deceased employees must include a full release of all BP entities from any and all claims or liability in connection with the Deepwater Horizon incident,” said the letter, from John T. Hickey, a lawyer for BP. “This full release of all BP entities would indeed bar any subsequent claims against the fund being established by BP and the claims facility that will be administered by Mr. Feinberg.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/us/20spill.html?ref=business

On Midterm Stump, Clinton Is Defender in Chief

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. — The last time Bill Clinton and Barack Obama spent so many hours on the campaign trail, dashing across the country to appear before adoring crowds, they were on different sides of the Democratic argument.

So that is exactly where Mr. Clinton began when he arrived here this week.

“It’s no secret that I tried hard to defeat President Obama in the primaries — and some of you helped,” Mr. Clinton said, drawing a laugh from an audience in Palm Beach County, a place that was slow to embrace Mr. Obama two years ago.

“But I want to tell you something,” he continued, waiting for the crowd to listen. “It is my professional opinion that he has done a much better job than he has gotten credit for so far. And all elections are about the future, so what is the alternative?”

A coast-to-coast campaign swing by Mr. Obama this week, his biggest plunge into the midterm election season to date, drew considerable attention as he raised money for Democrats in five states over three days. But in a series of less noticed trips to every corner of the country, it is Mr. Clinton who has stepped into the role of defending all Democrats — Mr. Obama included.

Few people may have more credibility paying a compliment to Mr. Obama than Mr. Clinton. Tense exchanges between the two men were an unforgettable element of the 2008 presidential race, which by all accounts Mr. Clinton took far longer to get over than Hillary Rodham Clinton did.

“If you’re a Democrat, you need to hold your head up,” Mr. Clinton said this week, delivering the pep talk of a coach who is disappointed with his team’s behavior. “I’m tired of reading about how we’re all belly-aching.”

The former president has become one of the party’s best salesmen. He has long been in demand to raise money for Democratic candidates, but now there is a more pressing need: raising the spirits of Democratic voters, dispensing wisdom as he works to put the party’s political challenges into a broader context.

A decade after he was banished from the campaign trail — seen at the time as a liability to Vice President Al Gore’s presidential ambitions — Mr. Clinton is now the most sought-after Democrat, logging 29 stops so far this year with more to come in the fall. He has been embraced by Democrats wherever he goes, even as several candidates have run the other way when Mr. Obama has arrived in their state.

In Nevada, Mr. Clinton campaigned for Senator Harry Reid in June. (“Why would you give away the Senate majority leader who has delivered time and time and time again?” Mr. Clinton asked a crowd in Las Vegas.)

In Pennsylvania, as he appeared this month for Representative Joe Sestak in his Senate race, he warned about what could happen if Republicans win control of Congress. (“Give us two more years, and if we’re wrong, send us packing,” he argued.)

And here in Florida, he made stops on Monday in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade Counties on behalf of Representative Kendrick B. Meek, a longtime friend who faces an uphill Senate race. (“We haven’t built our way out of that hole as fast as anybody wanted, but it was a very deep hole,” Mr. Clinton told his audience.)

Mr. Clinton, who gives precedence to Democrats who endorsed Mrs. Clinton’s presidential bid, makes use of the perspective and latitude afforded to former presidents.

This week, as both Mr. Obama and Mr. Clinton passed through Florida, Democrats had the chance to see the distinct styles of the 42nd and 44th presidents side by side. Mr. Clinton is more cerebral, delivering a thorough recitation of the economic condition and discussing how the challenges of today are more severe than those of his time in office. Mr. Obama, after ticking through his policy achievements, edged closer to mockery of his rivals.

“Remember our campaign slogan, ‘Yes we can’?” Mr. Obama told a fund-raising audience Wednesday evening at the Fontainebleau hotel in Miami Beach. “This year, their campaign slogan is, ‘No, we can’t.’ It’s pretty inspiring, huh? You know, you wake up in the morning and you hear ‘No!’ That just puts a little pep in your step.”

By the time Mr. Obama returned to the White House a few hours later, he had raised millions of dollars for the Democratic Party across the country, in Florida, California, Washington State, Wisconsin, Ohio. Along the way, he honed his fall message and spent nearly as much time criticizing Republicans as promoting his own achievements.

For Mr. Clinton’s part, the utterances of a past president are not scrutinized as closely as the words of a sitting one, so he speaks a bit more bluntly now than when he was in office. His words are passionate, yet not personal. He conceded that the economic condition of the country has not improved as much as people hoped it would after Democrats took control of Congress in 2006 and the White House two years later.

“A year and a half just wasn’t enough time to get us out of the hole we were in,” Mr. Clinton said. “So I want you to stick with us. Give us two more years — two more years until another election. If we fail, you can throw us all out.”

There is one word, though, that Mr. Clinton does not say: Bush.

Some Democrats have started mentioning former President George W. Bush with such frequency that you might think he had been written into the party’s platform. But Mr. Clinton spoke of the opposition in generic terms, focusing on Republicans in Congress. (Not only has Mr. Clinton joined with Mr. Bush in raising money for rebuilding in Haiti, he also has become a close friend of Mr. Bush’s father.)

Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, said the Democratic Party was showing its desperation by spending so much time focusing on his brother. “It’s a loser issue — they have a big L on their foreheads,” Mr. Bush said in an interview. “If that’s all they’ve got, it’s a pretty good indication of the problems that the Democrats face in 2010.”

And before Mr. Clinton took the stage here in Delray Beach — yes, he often still runs very late — a parade of local Democratic officials warmed up the crowd, with speakers offering sharp criticism of President Bush.

But when Mr. Clinton began speaking, he did not mention his successor in the White House at all, an omission that at least one woman in the crowd said she appreciated.

“I think that’s the politically correct thing to do. It’s also respectful,” said Fay Gallam, a social worker from West Palm Beach, who waited hours to see Mr. Clinton for the first time. As she walked away from the gymnasium, she beamed.

“He says just what we need to hear, and because he’s articulate, you can follow him and see the logic,” Ms. Gallam said. “He’s more at liberty now, and President Obama is really under the gun.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/us/politics/20zeleny.html?ref=politics

Israelis and Palestinians to Resume Talks, Officials Say

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to announce Friday that Israel and the Palestinians will return to direct negotiations for the first time in 20 months, delivering the Obama administration a small victory in its protracted effort to revive the Middle East peace process, two officials briefed on the situation said Thursday evening.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, have agreed to place a one-year time limit on the talks, these officials said.

President Obama is expected to invite both leaders to Washington in early September to start the negotiations, which will cover thorny issues like the borders of a new Palestinian state, the political status of Jerusalem, security guarantees for Israel and right of return for Palestinian refugees.

The Obama administration declined to confirm the announcement, which was first reported by Reuters, with an official cautioning that final details were still being worked out and that the timing could slip by a day or so.

But after months of grueling diplomacy by the administration’s special envoy to the region, George J. Mitchell, officials sounded a more optimistic note on Thursday.

“We think we are very, very close to a decision by the parties to enter into direct negotiations,” Philip J. Crowley, the State Department spokesman, said to reporters. “We think we’re well positioned to get there.”

Mrs. Clinton has been working the phone in recent days to clear the final hurdles, speaking Thursday with Jordan’s foreign minister, Nasser Judeh, and with Tony Blair, the special representative of the Quartet, the group of Middle East peacemakers comprising the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia.

Late on Wednesday, she spoke with the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad. The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that on Thursday night President Abbas called a meeting of the Fatah Central Committee, the party’s main decision-making body, at which "developments in the peace process" were discussed.

While the details of the talks are not yet public, the one-year time limit is viewed as crucial because the Palestinians are leery of being drawn into an open-ended negotiation with Israel. Mr. Netanyahu has long said he is open to talks, but the Palestinians have been resistant, seeking assurances from the United States about the terms and conditions.

Israel has eschewed any pre-conditions to negotiations, officials said, including an extension of the government’s 10-month, partial moratorium on settlement construction in the West Bank, set to expire on Sept. 26. The Obama administration has pushed to restart direct talks so that the two sides would be at the negotiating table when that date arrives.

Mr. Obama held separate meetings with Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Abbas in recent weeks, which officials said helped reassure the Palestinians and began to heal a rift between Israel and the United States over American demands that Israel halt settlement construction.

The broad outlines of a peace agreement are well known and likely to be based on the borders of Israel before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, with certain agreed-upon land swaps. But many analysts are skeptical that Israel and the Palestinians will be able to reach a deal, given the hardened political realities on each side.

Mr. Netanyahu is trying to hold together a right-wing coalition that will view concessions, like an extension of the settlement moratorium, with extreme suspicion. The Palestinians are deeply divided between Fatah, which controls the Palestinian Authority from its base in the West Bank, and Hamas, a militant Islamic group that rules Gaza and is shunned by the West for its terrorist attacks.

Some analysts believe the two sides will quickly turn to the United States to provide “bridging proposals” to help close the gap on delicate issues. Mr. Crowley stressed that the negotiation was between Israel and the Palestinians, but acknowledged the American role.

“We, the United States, have always played a special role within this effort, and we will be prepared to assist the parties going forward in moving towards a successful negotiation,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/21/world/middleeast/21mideast.html?_r=1&hp

U.S. Assures Israel That Iran Threat Is Not Imminent

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, citing evidence of continued troubles inside Iran’s nuclear program, has persuaded Israel that it would take roughly a year — and perhaps longer — for Iran to complete what one senior official called a “dash” for a nuclear weapon, according to American officials.

Administration officials said they believe the assessment has dimmed the prospect that Israel would pre-emptively strike against the country’s nuclear facilities within the next year, as Israeli officials have suggested in thinly veiled threats.

For years, Israeli and American officials have debated whether Iran is on an inexorable drive toward a nuclear bomb and, if so, how long it would take to produce one. A critical question has been the time it would take Tehran to convert existing stocks of low-enriched uranium into weapons-grade material, a process commonly known as “breakout.”

Israeli intelligence officials had argued that Iran could complete such a race for the bomb in months, while American intelligence agencies have come to believe in the past year that the timeline is longer.

“We think that they have roughly a year dash time,” said Gary Samore, President Obama’s top adviser on nuclear issues, referring to how long it would take the Iranians to convert nuclear material into a working weapon. “A year is a very long period of time.”

American officials said the United States believed international inspectors would detect an Iranian move toward breakout within weeks, leaving a considerable amount of time for the United States and Israel to consider military strikes.

The American assessments are based on intelligence collected over the past year, as well as reports from international inspectors. It is unclear whether the problems that Iran has had enriching uranium are the result of poor centrifuge design, difficulty obtaining components or accelerated Western efforts to sabotage the nuclear program.

American officials said new intelligence information was being fed into a long-delayed National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear program.

Now, American and Israeli officials believe breakout is unlikely anytime soon. For one thing, Iran, which claims it is interested in enriching uranium only for peaceful purposes, would be forced to build nuclear bombs from a limited supply of nuclear material, currently enough for two weapons. Second, such a decision would require kicking out international weapons inspectors, eliminating any ambiguity about Iran’s nuclear plans.

Even if Iran were to choose this path, American officials said it would probably take Iran some time to reconfigure its nuclear facilities to produce weapons-grade uranium and ramp up work on designing a nuclear warhead.

Israeli officials have indicated that if they saw a race for the bomb under way, they would probably take military action and encourage the United States to join the effort. A spokesman for Israel’s embassy in Washington declined to comment for this article. In interviews, Israeli officials said their assessments were coming into line with the American view, but they remain suspicious that Iran has a secret enrichment site yet to be discovered.

American officials said, in contrast to a year ago, that Iran’s nuclear program was not currently the central focus of discussions between top leaders in Washington and Jerusalem. During the last visit to Washington by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in early July, the Iranian program was relatively low on the agenda, according to one senior administration official.

To block Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the United States and the European Union recently imposed harsh economic sanctions aimed at choking off Iran’s energy supplies and prohibiting foreign banks from doing business with financial institutions inside the country.

Several officials said they believed the mounting cost of the economic sanctions, especially those affecting Iran’s ability to import gasoline and develop its oil fields, has created fissures among Iran’s political elite and forced a debate about the costs of developing nuclear weapons.

“The argument is over how far to push the program, how close to a weapon they can get without paying an even higher price,” said the senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because American assessments on these debates are classified. “And we’re beginning to see a lot of divisions inside the leadership on that question.”

Nuclear experts agree that the hardest element of producing a weapon is obtaining weapons-grade material. And for Iran that quest, which stretches back more than 20 years, has not been going well, by most accounts.

For most of this year, Iran has added relatively few centrifuges — the machines that spin uranium at supersonic speed, enriching it — to its main plant at Natanz. Only about half of those installed are operating, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. So far, Iran has produced about 5,730 pounds, enough, with considerable additional enrichment, to produce roughly two weapons.

The public explanation by American officials is that the centrifuges are inefficient and subject to regular breakdowns. And while Iranian officials have talked about installing more advanced models that would be more efficient and reliable, only a few have been installed.

“Either they don’t have the machines, or they have real questions about their technical competence,” Mr. Samore said.

Some of Iran’s enrichment problems appear to have external origins. Sanctions have made it more difficult for Iran to obtain precision parts and specialty metals. Moreover, the United States, Israel and Europe have for years engaged in covert attempts to disrupt the enrichment process by sabotaging the centrifuges. Officials concede there are potential vulnerabilities in their assessments. Chief among them is whether Iran has hidden another enrichment center somewhere in the tunnels it has dug throughout the country, including some near Natanz.

Last September, Iran acknowledged to inspectors that it had spent years building such a hidden facility near the city of Qum, buried in a mountain near a major military base. The admission came just days before Western leaders revealed the existence of the facility. But after detailed surveys, and interviews with defectors, officials say they have no evidence a second such facility is under construction.

The current draft of the intelligence report also describes considerable division in Iran about whether the goal of the nuclear program should be to walk right up to the threshold of building an actual bomb — which would mean having highly enriched uranium on hand, along with a workable weapons design — or simply to keep enough low-enriched uranium on hand to preserve Tehran’s options for building a weapon later.

Even as American and Israeli officials agree that the date that Iran is likely to have a nuclear weapon has been pushed into the future, that does not mean that Israel has abandoned the idea of a possible military strike.

American officials said that Israel was particularly concerned that, over time, Iran’s supreme leader could order that nuclear materials be dispersed to secret locations around the country, making it less likely that an Israeli military strike would significantly cripple the program.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/world/middleeast/20policy.html?_r=1&hp