Coming War With Iran - All Iran News Here

[Optimus]

Iran could build one nuke, analysts say
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/11/20/Iran_could_build_one_nuke_analysts_say/UPI-70521227190073/
Published: Nov. 20, 2008 at 9:07
 
TEHRAN, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- Iran has produced enough material to make one nuclear weapon, said nuclear experts analyzing a report by international inspectors.

Information detailing Iran's progress was in an update from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been conducting inspections of Iran's main nuclear facility at Natanz. The report concluded that, as of earlier in November, Iran produced about 1,390 pounds of low-enriched uranium, The New York Times (NYSE:NYT) reported Thursday.

Several experts told the Times that amount was enough for a bomb, adding that more work was needed to actually create the weapon. Not only would Tehran have to renege on its agreements and boot inspectors, it also would have to further purify the fuel and put it in a warhead design.

"They clearly have enough material for a bomb," Richard L. Garwin, a nuclear physicist who helped invent the hydrogen bomb and has advised U.S. officials, told the Times. "They know how to do the enrichment. Whether they know how to design a bomb, well, that's another matter."

Iran has maintained its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. However, many Western nations say they suspect the true purpose is to gain nuclear weapons-making capability.

The IAEA said Iran was avoiding questions about its suspected work on nuclear warheads. The report also said In the Natanz plant was feeding uranium into about 3,800 centrifuges, the same number as in the agency's September quarterly report.



Iran Has Enough Low-Level Uranium for Work on Bomb (Update1)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a_RUWtZMdXxY&refer=home

Experts: Iran has enough nuclear material for bomb
http://jta.org/news/article/2008/11/20/1001100/experts-iran-has-enough-nuclear-material-for-bomb



Next thing you know the MSM will say is Iran has a nuke and there will probably be a false flag attack with one going off in the US or Israel and Iran will be blamed for it.

[Optimus]

Iran rejects NY Times atom bomb report
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=76129&sectionid=351020104
Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:47:36 GMT
 
The New York Times reported that Iran possesses enough nuclear material to build a single nuclear weapon.
 
Iran has rejected a New York Times report which claimed the country has produced enough nuclear material to make 'a single atom bomb'.

The latest UN nuclear watchdog report on Iran, released Wednesday, disclosed that the country had 'produced approximately 630 kilograms [1,390 pounds] of low enriched UF6'.

UF6 is used in the uranium enrichment process that produces fuel for nuclear reactors and weapons.

Later, the New York Times, citing nuclear experts, reported that the amount of UF6 at the disposal of Iran 'was enough for a bomb'.

The nuclear experts, meanwhile, cautioned that the milestone was 'mostly symbolic' because to produce a nuclear bomb, Iran would have to 'breach its international agreements and kick out the (UN nuclear watchdog) inspectors' and put an extremely purified fuel -- which Iran does not possess the technology to produce -- 'into a warhead design', the report added.

On Friday, Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Ali-Asghar Soltaniyeh, categorically rejected the report as 'unjustified and politically motivated'.

All enrichment activities at Iranian nuclear sites are being controlled through the 24-hour surveillance of IAEA cameras, the Iranian envoy told Press TV.

The IAEA report, meanwhile, clearly declared that UN inspectors, during announced and some twenty unannounced visits to Iran's fuel enrichment plant, have found that the country has only managed to enrich uranium to a level of 'less than five percent'.

The rate is consistent with the development of a nuclear power plant -- nuclear arms production requires an enrichment level of above 90 percent.

Soltaniyeh stressed that enriched uranium containers at Iranian facilities are 'sealed' and under the surveillance of UN nuclear watchdog agents.

Western countries, headed by the White House, accuse Iran of having plans to develop a military nuclear program.

Tehran, a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), denies the allegation, insisting its activities are directed at the civilian applications of the technology. 

[bigron]

Prospect of Israel war on Iran 'stronger' 

22/11/2008 09:39:00 AM GMT
http://aljazeera.com/news/newsfull.php?newid=186045
 

(patdollard.com) The prospect of military action against Iran has increased .
 

Israeli intelligence sources say the prospect of military action against Iran has increased significantly in the past few weeks.

Israeli sources told the Times on Friday that in the past few weeks Tel Aviv has witnessed an increase in the chances of launching an airborne attack on Iran's nuclear infrastructure.

The revelation comes as Israeli military officials recently sent mixed signals about a calculated attack on Iran.

In a Wednesday interview with German weekly Der Speigel, Israeli Air Force Commander General Ido Nehushtan claimed that his forces were ready to follow any order to bring Iran's nuclear program to a halt.

"The IAF is a very robust and flexible force... ready to do whatever is demanded," he said.

Former Israeli military general Moshe Ya'alon, meanwhile, claimed that Tel Aviv has the 'right capabilities' to launch a successful strike on Iran.

"[A strike] is not the end of the game. Then, we should follow it up with a viable, sustainable military operation to target the facilities [serving] the regime's interests, and not allow the regime to rehabilitate itself," he said.

The head of the Israeli military's Diplomatic-Security Bureau Amos Gilad, however, said a military attack on Iran would pose a 'considerable challenge'.

"Iran is a country with smart people that have capabilities... It really would be a considerable challenge," he said.

Israel's military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin also dismissed an Israeli plan to strike Iran, saying the world financial crisis and Barack Obama's election as the next US president have dissipated the chances of wiping out the Iranian enrichment program.

Any military attack on Iran would require U.S. cooperation as it would almost certainly involve Israeli warplanes flying through the Washington-controlled Iraqi airspace.

The Iranian armed forces have repeatedly warned that any attempted violation of Iran's territorial integrity would be a 'suicidal folly'.

"After failure in its 33-day-war on Lebanon, Israel has realized that any effort or movement against Iran would have devastating consequences," the top Iranian military commander Yahya Rahim-Safavi said on Sunday.


-- Press TV
 

[Optimus]

Israel back for green light on Iran war?
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=76245&sectionid=351020104
Sat, 22 Nov 2008 15:36:55 GMT
 
US President George W. Bush and Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert are to meet in the wake of the latest UN nuclear watchdog report on Iran.

The Times reported on Friday that President Bush will hold crucial White House talks on Monday with Olmert on Middle Eastern issues.

The White House press secretary Dana Perino said that the meeting would also touch on 'continuing efforts to bring peace to the Middle East and a wide range of international issues'.

The meeting between the two lame duck leaders, which comes only days after the release of the most recent UN nuclear watchdog report on Tehran, has raised fears due to the long history Israel has in encouraging an attack on Iran.

The Guardian has confirmed that Olmert sought a green light to strike Iranian nuclear installations in a May 14 meeting with President Bush.

Israeli intelligence sources told the Times on Friday that the prospect of military action against Iran had significantly increased in the past few weeks.

The controversy reached new heights on Wednesday with Israeli Air Force Commander General Ido Nehushtan announcing that his forces were ready to follow any order to bring Iran's nuclear program to a halt.

"The IAF is a very robust and flexible force... ready to do whatever is demanded," he said.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei in a report released on Wednesday said that the agency 'has been able to continue to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran,' adding that there has been 'no indication' of Iran conducting nuclear reprocessing activities.

The report also urges Iran to increase its cooperation with the agency over the 'alleged studies' of weaponization attributed to Tehran by Western countries.

The 'alleged studies' Tehran has been accused of include a 'green salt project, high explosives testing, and the missile re-entry vehicle project'.

Iranian officials say the allegations are based on 'fabricated data' and have requested the UN nuclear watchdog to provide Tehran with the original documents.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, however, says it is in no 'position' to do so, as the US has only provided the agency with copies of the documents.

 

[Optimus]

Israel preparing for air strike aftermath
http://www.daily.pk/world/middle-east/8242-israel-preparing-for-air-strike-aftermath.html
Written by www.daily.pk     
Saturday, 22 November 2008 15:11
 
The Israeli army says it will soon begin operating a US-made early-warning radar system as Tel Aviv beats the drum of war against Iran. Israel's army radio announced on Saturday that the X-Band array radar system, capable of tracking medium and long-range missiles in space, is scheduled to become operational in mid-December.

Some 120 US military personnel, who are tasked to operate the advanced system, are said to be conducting final tests.

The system is believed to be capable of countering Iran's advanced Shahab-3 and the newly-tested Sejjil ballistic missiles. Earlier reports suggested that the system could also facilitate an Israeli air strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

The radar system is scheduled to become operational at a time when Israel has stepped up its efforts in portraying Iran as a regional threat.

Israeli officials claim that Tehran, a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), has plans 'to build a nuclear weapon', claiming a nuclear Iran would pose an existential threat to Israel.

Under such accusations, Tel Aviv argues that the use of military force is a legitimate option in halting Iran's nuclear progress.

Tehran denies the Israeli claim, insisting that its enrichment program is solely directed at the civilian applications of the technology.

The UN agency pertinent to the Iranian nuclear program, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said in its latest report that it has 'been able to continue to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran'.

The agency, however, argued that unless Tehran increases its cooperation with the agency, the UN body 'will not be able to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran'.

[Godfather77]

Israel fears US will dither while Iran goes nuclear
November 23, 2008
Full article:- http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5213323.ece

Mounting fears that the United States will do nothing to prevent Iran becoming a nuclear power will be outlined by Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister, when he meets President George W Bush in Washington tomorrow.

Israel is concerned that Bush will pass the Iranian hot potato to Barack Obama, the president-elect, while the last chance of destroying Tehran’s nuclear bomb-making programme may be passing.

A Pentagon source told The Sunday Times earlier this year that Bush had given Israel an “amber light” to carry on with military preparations to attack Iranian nuclear sites.

According to Israeli intelligence sources, Iran has sufficient nuclear material to make an atomic bomb. “They are working on three programmes at once,” said the sources. “They are speeding up their centrifuges to enrich uranium, calibrating a warhead to fit their ballistic missiles and improving the range and accuracy of their ballistic missiles.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been inspecting Iran’s main nuclear facility at Natanz, published a report last week which concluded that Iran is rapidly increasing stockpiles of enriched uranium and may be on course to build a nuclear weapon by next year.

In the baking heat of the Negev desert, the Israeli air force’s top guns are training for a secret mission. No one here knows if, or when, a raid will get the political go-ahead but the pilots say it could be their third attack in three decades on a nuclear plant and easily the most dangerous.

In a further indication that this squadron is preparing for conflict, 80 US technicians based at the nearby Nevatim air base in the Negev have installed the world’s most advanced X-band radar system, with a range of 1,250 miles, that will hugely enhance Israel’s tactical capacity in the air.

There is a grave mood among the pilots, who know they may soon be sent to defend their country. “We feel the future of Israel isn’t safe and we want to do what we can to defend it,” said one.

[skyfind]

US to activate anti-missile radar in Israel next month
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ipQxlx_ldsIgYbYuIuswNp28SHuA


The US has deployed 120 troops in Israel to operate the radar system which has a range of more than 2,000 kms

JERUSALEM (AFP) — A radar system, which the United States agreed in July to deploy in Israel to counter a perceived missile threat from Iran, is to go operational in mid-December, army radio reported on Saturday.

The US military technicians who will operate the system are currently carrying out the final tests, the radio said.

The radar system, which has a range of more than 2,000 kilometres (1,250 miles), has been installed in the Negev desert in southern Israel.

Some 120 US troops have been deployed to Israel to set up and operate the system, public radio reported in late September.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates agreed to the deployment after Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak and army chief Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi made separate visits to Washington in July to discuss the perceived Iranian threat.

It was formally announced by the Pentagon early last month.

Iran boasts a number of ballistic missiles with the range to hit targets in the Jewish state and both Israel and its US ally suspect Iran of seeking to develop a nuclear warhead under cover of its civilian nuclear programme.

The two governments' concerns are expected to top the agenda of outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's White House talks with US President George W. Bush on Monday.

"The idea here is to help Israel create a layered missile defence capability to protect it from all sorts of threats in the region, near and far," a senior Pentagon official told AFP in late July.

The so-called X-band radar system, also known as an AN/TPY2, is a powerful phased array radar that is designed to track ballistic missiles through space and provide ground-based missiles with the targeting data needed to intercept them.

The United States deployed a similar system to Japan in 2006 in response to a North Korean missile test. It plans to install a larger one in the Czech Republic.

The Pentagon was scheduled to deploy the radar to Israel in the autumn of 2009 for a joint exercise but moved it up a year following the talks in Washington earlier this year.

The system includes two massive radar antennae which have been under construction near the Dimona nuclear plant in the Negev.

The Maariv newspaper reported on October 5 that the two 400-metre-high (1,300 foot) masts being erected near the top-secret military plant where Israel is widely believed to have developed the only nuclear arsenal in the Middle East would be the largest in the region.

Data from the radar will be provided to Israel's missile defence system, but it will remain owned and operated by the US military.

Since the US-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Israel has regarded Iran as its main strategic threat. Its concerns have been heightened by repeated predictions by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the Jewish state is doomed to disappear from the map.

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edit/PD:
why i don´t see this in my local news or CNN?? 
1000 Palestinian kids in Israeli jails 
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=76204&sectionid=351020202

or this
Shiraz blast suspects 'brainwashed'
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail.aspx?id=76266&sectionid=351020101

Three men accused of carrying out a fatal bombing in a mosque in Iran have confessed to being brainwashed by a Western terrorist cell.

The three confessed in a Saturday hearing at the Islamic Revolution court to 'being brainwashed into launching a terrorist attack in the country,' according to IRNA.

[Biggs]

Iran detains terrorists carrying Israeli arms

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 10:42:52 GMT

Israeli-made weapons have been confiscated from terrorists arrested near the Iran-Iraq border, an Iranian intelligence official says.

“Four members of a terrorist organization equipped with Israeli weapons have been arrested near Iran's border with Iraq's Kurdistan region,” the counter-espionage director of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry said on Saturday.

The official told reporters that the group had entered Iran on an assassination mission, but were arrested by Iran's intelligence forces before 'doing anything.'

The intelligence director did not provide details regarding the exact location of the arrest or the nature or name of the terrorist group.

Iran has on several occasions reported clashes between government forces and members of the outlawed Party for Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK) along its western border with Iraq.

PJAK is considered to be an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has been fighting Turkish troops for more than three decades.

Tehran has repeatedly accused Washington of aiding PJAK in a bid to stir up ethnic unrest in the country, an accusation the US denies.

In a 2006 article published in the New Yorker, investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh, revealed that the US military and Israel are assisting PJAK by providing the group with equipment, training, and vital intelligence in a bid to destabilize the Islamic Republic.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=76215&sectionid=351020101


Iran hangs Iranian convicted of spying for Israel

Sat Nov 22, 2008 6:08am EST

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has executed an Iranian businessman convicted of spying on the military for the Islamic Republic's arch foe Israel, the judiciary said on Saturday.

Ali Ashtari was hanged on Monday. He was arrested in 2006 after working with Israel's foreign intelligence agency Mossad for three years, a judiciary statement said.

State television broadcast what it said was a confession.

Tensions have run high in recent months between Iran and Israel, which has not ruled out military strikes on the Islamic Republic if diplomatic efforts fail to resolve a row over Tehran's nuclear programme.

Rest of the article: http://ca.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE4AL12L20081122

[skyfind]

Israeli squadron devising attack on Iran?
Sun, 23 Nov 2008 16:22:01 GMT
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=76330&sectionid=351020101



The Israeli Air Force is reportedly holding secret training sessions to prepare for what may be a future attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

An Israeli squadron is conducting dress rehearsals in the Negev desert, for a strike on Iran's nuclear infrastructureThe Sunday Times reported.

According to the Sunday report, the secret mission could lead to Israel's third and 'easily most dangerous' attack on a nuclear plant in three decades if it gets 'the political go-ahead'. Israel had earlier attacked nuclear plants in Iraq and Syria.

"We feel the future of Israel isn't safe and we want to do what we can to defend it," The Sunday Times quoted a pilot as saying on condition of anonymity.

This comes as some 120 US military personnel in the Nevatim air base near the Negev desert are adding the finishing touches to an advanced X-band radar system, with a range of 1,250 miles that will gravely enhance Israel's tactical capacity in the air.

The system is also believed to be capable of countering Iran's advanced Shahab-3 and the newly-tested Sejjil ballistic missiles. Earlier reports suggested that the system could also facilitate an Israeli air strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

The Haaretz daily, meanwhile, reported on Sunday that Israeli defense chiefs are calling for contingency plans to be drawn up for military action against the Islamic Republic.

"Israel faces these threats almost alone ... It is imperative to mobilize the international community and obtain regional cooperation. The new American administration is an opportunity to do this," Haaretz quoted one of the military chiefs as saying.

The report came as US President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert are to hold crucial White House talks in the wake of the latest UN nuclear watchdog report on Iran, which states that the agency 'has been able to continue to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran,' adding that there has been 'no indication' of Iran conducting nuclear reprocessing activities.

The Guardian has confirmed that Olmert sought a green light to strike Iranian nuclear installations in a May 14 meeting with President George W. Bush.

On July 13, The Sunday Times quoted a senior Pentagon official as saying that the Bush administration had given the 'amber light' to an Israeli plan to attack Iran by means of long-range bombing sorties.

"Amber means get on with your preparations, stand by for immediate attack and tell us when you're ready," said the official on condition of anonymity.

On October 12, The Times reported that there is the likelihood of Israel bypassing US warnings and unilaterally striking Iranian nuclear facilities in the same manner Georgia attacked South Ossetia.

"The experience of Georgia has given an amber, if not a green light to Israel (to attack Iran) and only Bush can switch that to red," The Times asserted.

SBB/SME/MMN

---

See also:
Israeli hawks ready to fly on Iran
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/paul-sheehan/israeli-hawks-ready-to-fly-on-iran/2008/11/23/1227375056994.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

[bigron]

Iran holds defence drills, warns on oil route


REUTERS
Reuters North American News Service

Nov 23, 2008 09:05 EST
http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=463917


TEHRAN, Nov 23 (Reuters) - An Iranian militia held civil defence drills on Sunday to prepare for any hostile air strikes and the military said it could close a waterway crucial for world oil supplies if Iran was attacked.

The exercises organised by student members of the Basij militia were held at hundreds of schools across the country and involved transporting wounded people and putting out fires after a fictitious bombardment by enemy planes.

The United States and Israel have hinted they could take military action if Iran presses ahead with a nuclear programme they believe is aimed at making atomic bombs.

Iran, which says the programme is for peaceful purposes, says it will retaliate for any strikes against it.

State television showed pictures of ambulances with sirens wailing rushing to the scene of a simulated attack and people lying on the ground with bloodied faces.

Officials also reiterated that Iran was ready to close down the Strait of Hormuz, a sea route at the mouth of the Gulf through which 40 percent of the world's traded oil passes, if the United States attacked.

Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayari said foreign forces in the region were being closely watched and Iran would not allow any foreign ship to enter its waters.

"We are capable of closing the Strait of Hormuz," he told told IRNA news agency.

Rasoul Sanairad, a senior Basij political officer, said the strait provided "an exceptional opportunity" for defending the nation, according to Fars News Agency.

Military experts say Iran's armed forces cannot match U.S. military technology but could still cause havoc on shipping routes, particularly using small craft for hit-and-run attacks.

Iran's navy will hold exercises in December involving missile-equipped battleships and scuba-diving special forces, state radio said.

The Basijis are a paramilitary force estimated to have 12 million members who uphold Islamic revolutionary values. In the 1980s war with Iraq, they provided much of the manpower for the front. In peacetime, they help enforce Iran's strict Islamic dress and other moral codes. (Reporting by Hashem Kalantari and Parisa Hafezi; Writing by Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Source: Reuters North American News Service

[bigron]

U.S. gathering intel on Iran defenses? 

25/11/2008 08:54:00 AM GMT
http://aljazeera.com/news/newsfull.php?newid=187122

 
(greekmilitary.net) The S-300 anti-aircraft system

The Pentagon is reportedly studying Russian-made surface-to-air S-300s amid reports that Iran may be equipped with the defense system.

Reports have suggested that escalating Israeli threats against Iranian national security have prompted the Islamic Republic to seek the sophisticated S-300 anti-aircraft system.

Tel Aviv alleges that Tehran, a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), has plans to build a nuclear weapon.

While claiming that a nuclear Iran would pose an existential threat to Tel Aviv, Israeli officials argue that the use of military force is a legitimate option in halting the country's nuclear progress.

According to the Kommersant-Ukraine daily, Ukrainian state arms exporter Ukrspetsexport has provided the U.S. military with the 36D6 Tin Shield, a sophisticated radar used in the S-300 system.

The Pentagon, according to the paper, is interested in mastering the vulnerabilities and defense capabilities of the Tin Shield.

The 36D6 is a mobile radar system, used as a reconnaissance and targeting system. It is highly effective in detecting low-, medium-, and high-altitude targets and is capable of moving in a broad speed range.

The Tin Shield, which enjoys high interference immunity under active and passive jamming conditions, allows the S-300 system to simultaneously track 100 targets 75 miles (120 km) away.

Officials in Tel Aviv have long lobbied to prevent Russia from selling the system to Iran. According to long-time Pentagon advisor Dan Goure, "If Tehran obtained the S-300, it would be a game-changer in military thinking for tackling Iran."

Following the August conflict in the Caucasus, Israel's ambassador to the United States, Sallai Meridor, suggested Russia to be willing to provide the system to Iran but pleaded the Kremlin not to sell the system to the 'adversaries' of Tel Aviv.

"We hope that, despite the events in Georgia, the Russians will not supply Iran with arms," said Meridor after it was revealed that Israel provided weapons and intelligence, which were used against South Ossetia.

Iran's Foreign Ministry in September denied reports that Tehran had acquired the S-300 system. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also commented on the issue in October, saying that Moscow would not sell the S-300 to countries 'in volatile regions'.

According to Goure, should the Russian S-300 deal with Iran go through, "it could be the catalyst which would trigger Israel to launch a pre-emptive attack on [Iranian] nuclear sites".

This is while a Sunday-leaked security assessment drawn up by Israeli military chiefs calls for the preparation of contingency plans for an attack on Iran, despite the common belief that a war with Tehran would push the U.S. into another armed conflict in the Middle East.

The intelligence assessment indicates that Israel has a 'limited' window of opportunity to act against Iran, raising fears that an Obama administration might lead up to the restoration of Washington-Tehran relations.

The Israeli call for military action comes after the release of the latest report on Tehran by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is the UN agency pertinent to the Iranian nuclear program.

The UN body says it has "been able to continue to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran".

The agency, however, insists that unless Tehran increases its cooperation with the agency, the UN body "will not be able to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran".




-- Press TV

 

[skyfind]

IMPORTANT!

Olmert wins US backing for Iran war 
Tue, 25 Nov 2008 19:19:29 GMT 
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=76534&sectionid=351020104


The Israeli Air Force (IAF) recently produced a rare display of aerial power that could be sent into Iran. The Negev demonstration involved warplanes including F-16Is "Sufas" and Apache helicopters (reflected in the helmet of this Israeli pilot).

Israel's prime minister says Washington has not rejected a request by Tel Aviv to take any action it deems "necessary" against Iran.

Ehud Olmert, the outgoing premier, said Tuesday that he had extensively discussed Iran and its nuclear program with "Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the (US) president".

"There is a basic, deep understanding about the Iranian threat and the need to act in order to remove the threat," Olmert told reporters.

Israel insists that a nuclear Iran would pose an existential threat to Tel Aviv, claiming that Tehran has "plans to build a nuclear weapon."

Under the allegation, Israeli echelons and army brass have long argued that militarily taking out Iran's nuclear infrastructure is a legitimate option.

An earlier report by Time suggested that Washington had expressed its opposition to an Israeli military strike on Iran before President-elect Barack Obama takes office in January.

"We have been warned off," the American magazine quoted an Israeli Defense Ministry official as saying.

However, the outgoing Israeli premier dismissed the Time report.

"I don't remember that anyone in the administration, including in the last couple of days, advised me or any other of my official representatives not to take any action that we will deem necessary for the fundamental security of the state of Israel, and that includes Iran," said Olmert, who is forced to leave office following a corruption scandal.

On Sunday, in a leaked annual National Security Council assessment, Israeli army chiefs advocated a timely military strike on Iran before a "limited" window of opportunity is missed.

The intelligence assessment declared that Tel Aviv must draw up "contingency plans to attack Iran" even if it means courting a confrontation with Washington.

Earlier in July, Texas congressman Ron Paul warned that any Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities would take place with the explicit backing of the US government.

The outspoken congressman told Press TV that, "No matter what they do, it is our money, it is our weapons, and they are not going to do it without us approving it."


Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert (L) says there has been no objection by the Bush administration to a military strike on Iran.

Olmert's remarks, meanwhile, suggested that should Israel involve in a military conflict with Iran, there would not be a quarrel between Tel Aviv officials and the Obama administration.

President-elect Obama has vowed to 'engage in aggressive personal diplomacy' with Iranian leaders to resolve the controversy surrounding the country's nuclear program.

Iranian officials insist that the country's nuclear activities are solely directed at the civilian applications of the technology, adding that under the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Tehran is entitled to uranium enrichment.

The UN agency responsible for investigating Iran's nuclear activities confirmed in its latest report that it has "been able to continue to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran."

MD/HGH

---

see also:

Iran alleges spies for Israel linked to elite unit
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081125/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran_israel

Former Israel Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon: Assassinate Ahmadinejad
http://www.bloggernews.net/118758

[skyfind]

Nice article from Asia Times, "WHERE IS THE THREAT??" i would call it
There is only propaganda, they only want to kill the government, and all those nations against their ideals, including the people (innocents) that get in their way, and put the world in a state of chaos, so the New World Order can come in (problem - reaction - solution; create the problem, manipulate te reaction MSM/mass media , and give the solution; they will impose what they want, most of the people will not know that them created the problem -disaster-, they will believe that they are living in an utopia but they will be slaves)
I´m not saying that Iran and all those nations are the "champions" of liberty, justice, freedom, etc..., please don´t get me wrong.


A new spin on Iran's nuclear fuel
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
Nov 25, 2008
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JK25Ak05.html

As United States president-elect Barack Obama prepares to take over the White House two months from now, the mainstream US media have been awash reports about Iran's nuclear "threat" that will likely influence the coming Obama administration away from introducing any major change in the US's hitherto coercive Iran policy.

The latest anti-Iran spin is that Tehran has accumulated enough nuclear fuel for one nuclear bomb and that given Iran's rapid progress in installing more centrifuges at its uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, Iran's nuclear bomb-making capability will substantially increase in the near future.

Leading the pack in this media endeavor for a Chomskyian "manufactured consensus" on Iran's nuclear threat is the nation's leading newspaper, the New York Times. Although known as the voice of the liberal "eastern establishment", the Times is perceived by many as a pillar of support for pro-Israel global public diplomacy and, therefore, it comes as little surprise that the respected newspaper may have been churning out alarmist and misleading articles about Iran's purported nuclear threat.

Case in point, in a high-profile article by two veteran reporters, William Broad and David Sanger, the paper claimed as per the expert opinion of various nuclear scientists, that Iran had already amassed "nuclear fuel for one weapon", to paraphrase the article's catchy title, and that, naturally, would be a serious problem for the upcoming Obama administration.

But does it? The article does not mention the following important, and highly relevant facts:
1. Iran's nuclear fuel is kept in containers sealed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
2. As stated by Iran's envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, the Natanz facility is under the surveillance of IAEA cameras 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
3. Contrary to misleading claims by various US nuclear experts such as David Kay, a former weapons of mass destruction inspector, there is no evidence that Iran has gone beyond low-grade enrichment of uranium to the point of "weapons-grade" enrichment. In fact, the various IAEA reports confirm the fallacy of such unsubstantiated claims, routinely featured in Israeli papers' biased reports on Iran.
4. Nor do the reporters give more than cursory attention to the content of recent IAEA reports on Iran, which confirm the agency "has been able to continue to confirm the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran".
5. Another major flaw in Broad and Sanger's piece is that they deliberately underestimate the technical challenge of leaping from low-level enrichment to weapons-grade to a simple matter of "further purification".
6. The fact that the IAEA is well-equipped to uncover any attempt by Iran to engage in weapons-grade enrichment activities is mentioned only in passing, without influencing the gist of the article and the planned paranoia lurking behind it.
7. Finally, the whole argument that Iran's ability to produce nuclear fuel represents a "threat" warranting sanctions and other coercive counter-measures by the world community falls by the wayside in light of the legal framework of Iran's nuclear activity under the articles of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and Iran's nuclear transparency mentioned above.

Instead of focusing on the objective guarantee of Iran's peaceful uranium enrichment activities, the reporters deliberately hyped up the perceived threat of a "nuclear breakout" via future scenario-setting of "if" Iran exits the NPT and terminates its cooperation with the IAEA, as if the US and other Western governments should engage in "pre-emptive" policy vis-a-vis Iran on the basis of such theoretical guesswork. Of course, the absurdity of the "inevitability of a nuclear weapon capable Iran" speaks for itself. Nothing is inevitable in world affairs and such deterministic analysis are inherently wedded to dogmatic assumptions about what is otherwise a highly fluid situation.

Given Iran's possession of dual purpose nuclear technology, although the potential for a future break out is inherently nested in this technology, there are several important intervening variables missing, without which this potential would not be actualized - one being the absence of a nuclear threat to Iran warranting Iran's reaction to go nuclear.

Sure Russia, Pakistan, India, China, and Israel have nuclear weapons, but none poses a nuclear threat to Iran, not even "out of area" Israel. If anything Iran's main fear today is the future break-up of Pakistan and the threats of Sunni extremism in Pakistan, but this is a low to medium level concern and not by any means blown out of proportion. Tehran remains confident about the ability of Pakistan's government to fight off the extremists and prevent them from accessing its nuclear arsenal.

With respect to Israel, some 1,500 kilometers distant from Iran's national borders, it is hard to digest the argument that Iran needs nuclear bombs to counter Israel's nuclear arsenal, principally because as Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad himself has repeatedly stated, Israel's bombs did not help it win the latest war in Lebanon nor have they been a factor in its previous wars with its Arab neighbors. So why should they be a factor of concern for Iran now? The absence of a credible answer is, in fact, one main reason why Iran is not racing to manufacture nuclear warheads today.

As for the US military threat against Iran, in light of the US military quagmire in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the overstretched nature of the US military. Tehran does not foresee an imminent threat of confrontation with the US, despite the occasional tensions over the "turf war" in Iraq and elsewhere in the region.

On the contrary, the mere post-9/11 proximity of US forces with Iran has translated into a qualitative deepening of diplomatic and security dialogue and interactions between the two countries and, henceforth, with the help of more Cold War style confidence-building measures, the tensions between Washington and Tehran can be lessened considerably.

What both Washington and Tel Aviv fail to realize is that their own action, of constantly threatening Iran with nuclear attacks, is tantamount to playing with fire. Such threats heighten Iran's sense of national security vulnerability and chip away at the latency of Iran's nuclear potential. In other words, the perceived remedy of issuing threats in the hope of thwarting Iran's march toward nuclear bombs has the exact opposite effect of poisoning the climate where Iran feels safe enough not to go beyond its reliance on conventional arms and acquire the actual bombs.

To return to the New York Times, a number of its columnists, such as Thomas Friedman and David Brooks, have also been fully involved in cultivating the perception of an "Iran threat". In Friedman's recent column titled "Show me the money" he takes this for granted and takes European, and the Russian and Chinese governments to task to prove their support for Obama by imposing tougher sanctions on Iran.

This aside, in light of the news of the impending selection of the ardently pro-Israel senator from New York, Hillary Clinton, as Obama's secretary of state, we are unlikely to witness any moderation of anti-Iran bias in Washington, influenced as it is by the incessant wheels of the "Fourth Estate".

Needless to say, hardly enough of this is encouraging and, indeed, is rather depressing and despairing of the hope that true change is coming to the practice and orientation of US foreign policy. The sheer speed of "over-Clintonization" of the Obama administration, reflected in the selection of so many officials linked to the Clinton "circle", none of whom can be regarded as agents of change, alone indicates that the hope for an Obama-led change in US foreign policy may be a hope against hope.[/b]

Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) . For his Wikipedia entry, click here. His latest book, Reading In Iran Foreign Policy After September 11 (BookSurge Publishing , October 23, 2008) is now available.

[bigron]

Wednesday, November 26, 2008
22:18 Mecca time, 19:18 GMT   
News Middle East
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/11/200811261732819723.html


 
Iran expands nuclear operations 

 
Aghazadeh said progress has been made constructing a 40 megawatt heavy-water reactor [AFP]
 
Iran has expanded its controversial nuclear programme and now operates more than 5,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges, the country's nuclear chief has said.

The figure released on Wednesday is a significant rise from the 4,000 Tehran said were operational in August at the Natanz plant in central Iran.

Gholamreza Aghazadeh, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, said Tehran had no intention of halting its nuclear operations over Western pressure and would continue to install centrifuges to produce fuel for future nuclear power plants.

US and EU leaders have accused Iran of using a civilian energy programme as a front to develop atomic weapons, despite a collective assessment made by 16 US spy agencies last year that it had ceased such activity in 2003.  Tehran has denied the claims.

Uranium enriched to low level is used to produce nuclear fuel but further enrichment can make it suitable for weapon use.

'Good progress'

Iran has said it plans to move towards large-scale uranium enrichment that will ultimately involve 54,000 centrifuges, with a target of 9,000 operational by next year.

Aghazadeh said Iran aims to start electricity production at its first nuclear power plant - the Russian-built Bushehr facility - in mid-2009.

He said "good progress" has been made in constructing a 40 megawatt heavy-water reactor near Arak in central Iran.

"The heavy water plant is experiencing a production beyond its capacity," Aghazadeh said without elaboration.

"The Arak complex will be used to make isotopes for medical and agricultural ends," he said.

The West has repeatedly called on Iran to stop construction of the reactor, fearing it could be used as a second track toward building an atomic warhead.

Rocket launch

Iran also announced on Wednesday that it had successfully launched into space its second rocket - the Kavoshgar (Explorer) 2.

"The rocket was launched to register and send correct environmental data and [to test] separation of the engine from the body," state radio said.

It said after reaching the lower reaches of space, the rocket returned to Earth on a parachute.

The first Kovoshgar rocket was launched in February.

The West fears Iran's space programme may form part of a bid to build missiles that could carry warheads.

Iran's refusal to halt its programmes has drawn three rounds of UN sanctions since 2006, as well as separate US measures.
 
 Source: Agencies 
 
 

[bigron]

Russian intelligence sees U.S. military buildup on Iran border

17:31 | 27/ 03/ 2007
 http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070327/62697703.html

 

MOSCOW, March 27 (RIA Novosti) - Russian military intelligence services are reporting a flurry of activity by U.S. Armed Forces near Iran's borders, a high-ranking security source said Tuesday.

"The latest military intelligence data point to heightened U.S. military preparations for both an air and ground operation against Iran," the official said, adding that the Pentagon has probably not yet made a final decision as to when an attack will be launched.

He said the Pentagon is looking for a way to deliver a strike against Iran "that would enable the Americans to bring the country to its knees at minimal cost."

He also said the U.S. Naval presence in the Persian Gulf has for the first time in the past four years reached the level that existed shortly before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Col.-Gen. Leonid Ivashov, vice president of the Academy of Geopolitical Sciences, said last week that the Pentagon is planning to deliver a massive air strike on Iran's military infrastructure in the near future.

A new U.S. carrier battle group has been dispatched to the Gulf.

The USS John C. Stennis, with a crew of 3,200 and around 80 fixed-wing aircraft, including F/A-18 Hornet and Superhornet fighter-bombers, eight support ships and four nuclear submarines are heading for the Gulf, where a similar group led by the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower has been deployed since December 2006.

The U.S. is also sending Patriot anti-missile systems to the region.

 

[Boubear]

Russian intelligence sees U.S. military buildup on Iran border

17:31 | 27/ 03/ 2007
 http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070327/62697703.html

 

MOSCOW, March 27 (RIA Novosti) - Russian military intelligence services are reporting a flurry of activity by U.S. Armed Forces near Iran's borders, a high-ranking security source said Tuesday.

"The latest military intelligence data point to heightened U.S. military preparations for both an air and ground operation against Iran," the official said, adding that the Pentagon has probably not yet made a final decision as to when an attack will be launched.

He said the Pentagon is looking for a way to deliver a strike against Iran "that would enable the Americans to bring the country to its knees at minimal cost."

He also said the U.S. Naval presence in the Persian Gulf has for the first time in the past four years reached the level that existed shortly before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Col.-Gen. Leonid Ivashov, vice president of the Academy of Geopolitical Sciences, said last week that the Pentagon is planning to deliver a massive air strike on Iran's military infrastructure in the near future.

A new U.S. carrier battle group has been dispatched to the Gulf.

The USS John C. Stennis, with a crew of 3,200 and around 80 fixed-wing aircraft, including F/A-18 Hornet and Superhornet fighter-bombers, eight support ships and four nuclear submarines are heading for the Gulf, where a similar group led by the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower has been deployed since December 2006.

The U.S. is also sending Patriot anti-missile systems to the region.

 

This seems to be an old article, the date is 27/ 03/ 2007

[skyfind]

Iran tasks Air Force with guarding nation
30 Kasım 2008 Pazar 22:18
http://www.haber27.com/news_detail.php?id=16671



The Iranian Air Force will be the 'ultimate bulwark' against foreign threats in the event of war, says a senior military commander

“Today our Air Force is carefully guarding national interests and is capable of defending the country in the face of foreign threats,” said the Chief Commander of Iran's Air Force, Hassan Shah-Safi on Saturday.

Brigadier General Shah-Safi said the Iranian Air Force has concentrated efforts to upgrade its defense capabilities following calls by the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

Iran's military developments come at a time when the Israeli Air Force is reportedly devising contingency plans for an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Recent reports of Israeli military preparations have fueled speculation that Tel Aviv intends to stage its third attack on Middle Eastern countries over nuclear allegations. Israel had earlier attacked Iraq and Syria, claiming that they sought to attain nuclear weapons technology.

The Hurriyet quoted US political strategist Charles Krauthammer as saying that Israel would strike the Islamic Republic in the same manner it bombed Syria in September 2007.

"The Israelis would not attack (Iran) over Iraq. The way to go is through Turkey…When Israel attacked the reactor in Syria, it went up the Mediterranean and through Turkish air space," Krauthammer said.

The Iranian armed forces have repeatedly warned that any attempted violation of Iran's territorial integrity would be a 'suicidal folly'.

"After failure in its 33-day-war on Lebanon, Israel has realized that any effort or movement against Iran would have devastating consequences," the top Iranian military commander Yahya Rahim-Safavi said in November

---

Iran would 'hit US warships' at war
Sun, 30 Nov 2008 19:21:06 GMT
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=77024&sectionid=351020101


Super-carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt is deployed in the Persian Gulf to support operations of the US 5th Fleet, located in Bahrain.

Iran says heavy enemy warships in the Persian Gulf would become prime targets for its forces in the event of an attack on the country.

Top Iranian Army commander Major General Ataollah Salehi said Sunday that the recent war rhetoric against the country has prompted Iran's military brass to task analysts with developing quick-reaction contingency plans.

The general said the "heavy weight" of enemy warships provides the Iranian side with an ideal opportunity for launching successful counter-attacks.

This is while earlier in June, The New York Sun reported that America's intelligence analysts were poring over scenarios for an Iranian attack on the US 5th Fleet, located in Bahrain.

The scenarios included offensives by Iranian warships equipped with Russian-designed Shkval torpedoes.

Among the US warships currently present in the Persian Gulf are the multi-purpose amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima and USS Mount Whitney as well as the Destroyer Squadron 50/CTF 55 and the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group.

Maj. Gen. Salehi also stated that the Iranian Navy is on a constant watch in the Persian Gulf as the Iranian Commander-in-Chief, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, has warned that the enemy is on the lookout for "a moment of neglect".

Salehi's remarks come shortly after chief Iranian navy commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari said Saturday that Iran is "perfectly capable" of blocking the Strait of Hormuz to protect its sovereignty should the country come under attack.

"We are perfectly capable of blockading the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf and whoever doubts our capabilities can take a step and see the consequences," Sayyari warned.

Iran, in further preparation has also upgraded the Asalouyeh Naval Base in the Persian Gulf and inaugurated a new naval base in the port of Jask located in the Sea of Oman in order to tighten its grip on the strategic region.

CS/HGH

---

see also:
Iran displays nuclear achievements
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail.aspx?id=76984&sectionid=351020104

[Biggs]

Israel preparing strike against Iran - report

By staff writers

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24750906-23109,00.html

December 04, 2008 04:41pm
Isreal preparing strike on Iran - report
May go ahead without support from US
Iran says Israel is bluffing

ISRAEL is reportedly drawing up plans to attack Iranian nuclear facilities and is prepared to launch a strike without backing from the US.

"It is always better to coordinate," a top Defence Ministry official told The Jerusalem Post.

"But we are also preparing options that do not include coordination."

Israel would prefer to work in consultation with the US because the US Air Force controls the Iraqi airspace its jets would need to cross on a bombing mission.

"There are a wide range of risks one takes when embarking on such an operation," a top Israeli official said.

Iran, the world's fourth-largest crude producer, says its uranium enrichment activities are aimed at making fuel for a network of planned electricity-generating nuclear power plants and not for developing weapons.

A report, published in September in Britain's Guardian newspaper, claimed that Isreali Prime Minister Ehud Olmert requested a green light to attack Iran in May but was refused by George W. Bush

Iran has already dismissed the possibility of an Israeli strike.

"We think that regional and international developments and the complicated situation faced by Israel itself will not allow it to launch military strikes against other countries," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said, according to the Press TV Web site.

 "Israel makes threats to promote its psychological and media warfare."

[Optimus]

Thursday, December 04, 2008 Israel Today Staff 
Israel may attack Iran without US approval
http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=17689

Senior Israeli defense officials told The Jerusalem Post this week that they are preparing to launch an aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities even without US assent.

America controls most of the airspace between Israel and Iran, so reaching the targets would be difficult without receiving the proper US Air Force codes, though not impossible, according to the Israelis.

Israel believes it must be fully prepared to strike Iran at a moment's notice, as international diplomatic efforts to curb Iran's nuclear program have proved ineffective. A nuclear-armed Iran is an existential threat to the Jewish state, and is viewed by Jerusalem as a totally unacceptable outcome.

According to reports last summer, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert wanted to attack Iran in May, but was denied the green light he sought from US President George W. Bush.

At the time, Israeli leaders consoled themselves that the Bush Administration also viewed an nuclear-armed Iran as a red line, and would never allow the Islamic Republic to build atomic weapons.

But for months Israeli analysts have warned that with US President-elect Barack Obama in the White House, and threat of American military intervention will disappear, as will any possibility of gaining official or even tacit US support for an Israeli strike.
 

[skyfind]

Iran Conducts War Games Near Strait of Hormuz
By VOA News
03 December 2008
http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-12-03-voa49.cfm

Iran is conducting a second day of war games near the Strait of Hormuz.

The Fars News Agency reports fighter jets successfully launched air-to-sea missiles against a predetermined target.

State television reports that this second stage of the six-day exercises expands into the east of the Gulf of Oman.

Officials say 60 combat units are taking part, including destroyers, missile-equipped ships, submarines, helicopters and fighter planes. The games are taking place over 130,000 square kilometers of sea.

Iranian state media quote a military official, Army Navy force Commander Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, as saying the force is prepared for any threats. He also praised the forces' use of domestically built equipment.

Tehran is under three sets of United Nations sanctions over its disputed nuclear program, which has made it difficult to get foreign help to maintain and improve its military.

It has recently announced the design and testing of several Iranian-made military pieces - including rockets, missiles and combat aircraft.

Israel and the United States, along with other nations, accuse Iran of secretly seeking nuclear weapons. Iran says its atomic program is for peaceful purposes and has staged numerous military maneuvers recently in what it says is a show of defensive strength.

Iran has repeatedly threatened to shut down the Strait of Hormuz if it faces any attack over its nuclear program. About 40 percent of the world's oil travels through the strait, which separates Iran from the Arabian Peninsula.

--

Nuclear Iran is unacceptable: Memo to Obama
http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?idarticle=16931

Negotiate with Iran and deal with Tehran from a position of strength, stressing sticks rather than carrots, because for Iran, a nuclear weapon is the biggest carrot

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

---> very large article, please enter the link to read it

---

'US harboring animosity against Iran'
Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:14:40 GMT
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=77351&sectionid=351020101

An Iranian official warns that US forces, having pursued failed policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, are gearing up to harm the Islamic Republic.

"The US is still mulling over launching an attack on the Islamic Republic. It still seeks to create setbacks for Iran and has armed its forces to the teeth," said the Chairman of Iran's Expediency Council, Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, on Tuesday.

"The US is still harboring animosity towards Iran, thus it remains our enemy," added the former president, as he addressed a group of leading officials at the Iranian parliament.

For 30 years the Islamic Republic has advanced in the path of development, independent from foreign aid and superpowers, Ayatollah Rafsanjani said.

"The Islamic Republic will remain invulnerable as long as it has the support of its people," he added.

Rafsanjani's warnings came as a recently leaked Israeli National Security Council assessment has fueled speculation that the United States' closest ally, Israel, was preparing to launch a strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.

The assessment, drawn up by Israeli army chiefs, urged Tel Aviv to launch a military strike against Iran before US President-elect Barack Obama takes office in Washington on January 20.

Officials in Tel Aviv fear that once in office, Obama will work to restore relations between Washington and Tehran.

MJ/CW/MMN

---

Czechs warn against Israeli Iran war plan
Tue, 02 Dec 2008 19:21:26 GMT
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail.aspx?id=77224&sectionid=351020104


An Israeli F-15 warplane.

The Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg says an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would ignite an all-out 'catastrophe'.

In an interview with the daily Haaretz on Tuesday, Schwarzenberg warned Tel Aviv against any form of aggression against Tehran.

"A war is only justified in very, very extreme conditions. War is not something that should be easily started and this I mean very seriously," said Schwarzenberg.

"If we pass the next petrol station here, we will see a sign that says, don't come near the gas station with an open fire ... In this area [the Middle East], which is the gas station of the whole world, you don't walk with an open fire," he added.

Recent reports of Israeli military preparations have fueled speculation that Tel Aviv intends to stage its third attack on Middle Eastern countries over nuclear allegations. Israel had earlier attacked Iraq and Syria, claiming that they sought to attain nuclear weapons technology.

This is while the daily Hurriyet quoted US political strategist Charles Krauthammer on Friday as saying that Israel would strike the Islamic Republic in the same manner it bombed Syria in September 2007.

"The Israelis would not attack (Iran) over [Iraqi territory]. The way to go is through Turkey ... When Israel attacked the reactor in Syria, it went up the Mediterranean and through Turkish air space," Krauthammer said.

Iran's armed forces have repeatedly warned that any attempted violation of Iran's territorial integrity would be a 'suicidal folly'.

"After failure in its 33-day-war on Lebanon, Israel has realized that any effort or movement against Iran would have devastating consequences," the top Iranian military commander Yahya Rahim-Safavi said in November.

SBB/SME/DT

---

see also
'War on terror infringes human rights' 
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=77376&sectionid=351020606

Malaysia to invest $14b in Iran energy 
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=77163&sectionid=351020103

[bigron]

Neo-cons Still Preparing for Iran Attack

By Robert Dreyfuss
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21385.htm

December 05, 2008 "Information Clearinghouse" -- What, exactly, does president-elect Barack Obama's mild-mannered choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services, former senator Tom Daschle, have to do with neo-conservatives who want to bomb Iran?

A familiar coalition of hawks, hardliners and neo-cons expects Obama's proposed talks with Iran to fail - and they're already proposing an escalating set of measures instead. Some are meant to occur alongside any future talks. These include steps to enhance coordination with Israel, tougher sanctions against Iran, and a region-wide military buildup of US strike forces, including the prepositioning of military supplies within striking distance of that country.

Once the future negotiations break down, as they are convinced will happen, they propose that Washington quickly escalate to war-like measures, including a US Navy-enforced embargo on Iranian fuel imports and a blockade of that country's oil exports. Finally, of course, comes the strategic military attack against the Islamic Republic of Iran that so many of them have wanted for so long.

It's tempting to dismiss the hawks now as twice-removed from power: first, figures like John Bolton, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith were purged from top posts in the George W Bush administration after 2004; then the election of Obama and the announcement on Monday of his centrist, realist-minded team of establishment foreign policy gurus seemed to nail the doors to power shut for the neo-cons, who have bitterly criticized the president-elect's plans to talk with Iran, withdraw US forces from Iraq, and abandon the reckless "war on terror" rhetoric of the Bush era.

'Kinetic action' against Iran
When it comes to Iran, however, it's far too early to dismiss the hawks. To be sure, they are now plying their trade from outside the corridors of power, but they have more friends inside the Obama camp than most people realize. Several top advisers to Obama - including Tony Lake, United Nations ambassador-designate Susan Rice, Tom Daschle and Dennis Ross, along with leading Democratic hawks like Richard Holbrooke, close to vice president-elect Joe Biden or secretary of state-designate Hillary Clinton - have made common cause with war-minded think-tank hawks at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and other hardline institutes.

Last spring, Tony Lake and Susan Rice, for example, took part in a WINEP "2008 Presidential Task Force" study which resulted in a report entitled, "Strengthening the Partnership: How to Deepen US-Israel Cooperation on the Iranian Nuclear Challenge". The Institute, part of the Washington-based Israel lobby, was founded in coordination with the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and has been vigorously supporting a confrontation with Iran. The task force report, issued in June, was overseen by four WINEP heavyweights: Robert Satloff, WINEP's executive director, Patrick Clawson, its chief Iran analyst, David Makovsky, a senior fellow, and Dennis Ross, an adviser to Obama who is also a WINEP fellow.

Endorsed by both Lake and Rice, the report opted for an alarmist view of Iran's nuclear program and proposed that the next president set up a formal US-Israeli mechanism for coordinating policy toward Iran (including any future need for "preventive military action"). It drew attention to Israeli fears that "the United States may be reconciling itself to the idea of 'living with an Iranian nuclear bomb'," and it raised the spurious fear that Iran plans to arm terrorist groups with nuclear weapons.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with consultations between the United States and Israel. But the WINEP report is clearly predisposed to the idea that the US ought to give undue weight to Israel's inflated concerns about Iran. And it ignores or dismisses a number of facts: that Iran has no nuclear weapon, that Iran has not enriched uranium to weapons grade, that Iran may not have the know-how to actually construct a weapon even if, at some time in the future, it does manage to acquire bomb-grade material, and that Iran has no known mechanism for delivering such a weapon.

WINEP is correct that the US must communicate closely with Israel about Iran. Practically speaking, however, a US-Israeli dialogue over Iran's "nuclear challenge" will have to focus on matters entirely different from those in WINEP's agenda. First, the US must make it crystal clear to Israel that under no circumstances will it tolerate or support a unilateral Israeli attack against Iran.

Second, Washington must make it clear that if Israel were indeed to carry out such an attack, the US would condemn it, refuse to widen the war by coming to Israel's aid, and suspend all military aid to the Jewish state. And third, Israel must get the message that, even given the extreme and unlikely possibility that the US deems it necessary to go to war with Iran, there would be no role for Israel.

Just as in the wars against Iraq in 1990-1991 and 2003-2008, the US hardly needs Israeli aid, which would be both superfluous and inflammatory. Dennis Ross and others at WINEP, however, would strongly disagree that Israel is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Ross, who served as Middle East envoy for president George H W Bush and then Bill Clinton, was also a key participant in a September 2008 task force chaired by two former senators, Republican Daniel Coats and Democrat Chuck Robb, and led by Michael Makovsky, brother of WINEP's David Makovsky, who served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in the heyday of the Pentagon neo-cons from 2002-2006. Robb, incidentally, had already served as the neo-cons' channel into the 2006 Iraq Study Group, chaired by former secretary of state James Baker and former Representative Lee Hamilton. According to Bob Woodward's latest book, The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008, it was Robb who insisted that the Baker-Hamilton task force include an option for a "surge" in Iraq.

The report of the Coats-Robb task force - "Meeting the Challenge: US Policy Toward Iranian Nuclear Development" - went far beyond the WINEP task force report that Lake and Rice signed off on. It concluded that any negotiations with Iran were unlikely to succeed and should, in any case, be short-lived. As the report put the matter, "It must be clear that any US-Iranian talks will not be open-ended, but will be limited to a pre-determined time period so that Tehran does not try to 'run out the clock'."

Anticipating the failure of the talks, the task force (including Ross) urged "prepositioning military assets" coupled with a "show of force" in the region. This would be followed almost immediately by a blockade of Iranian gasoline imports and oil exports, meant to paralyze Iran's economy, followed by what they call, vaguely, "kinetic action".

That "kinetic action" - a US assault on Iran - should, in fact, be massive, suggested the Coats-Robb report. Besides hitting dozens of sites alleged to be part of Iran's nuclear research program, the attacks would target Iranian air defense and missile sites, communications systems, Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps facilities, key parts of Iran's military-industrial complex, munitions storage facilities, airfields, aircraft facilities, and all of Iran's naval facilities. Eventually, they say, the US would also have to attack Iran's ground forces, electric power plants and electrical grids, bridges, and "manufacturing plants, including steel, autos, buses, etc".

This is, of course, a hair-raising scenario. Such an attack on a country that had committed no act of war against the United States or any of its allies would cause countless casualties, virtually destroy Iran's economy and infrastructure, and cause havoc throughout the region. That such a high-level group of luminaries should even propose steps like these - and mean it - can only be described as lunacy. That an important adviser to Obama would sign on to such a report should be shocking, though it has received next to no attention.

Palling around with the neo-cons
At a November 6 forum at WINEP, Patrick Clawson, the erudite, neo-conservative strategist who serves as the organization's deputy director for research, laid out the institute's view of how to talk to Iran in the Obama era. Doing so, he said, is critically important, but only to show the rest of the world that the US has taken the last step for peace - before, of course, attacking. Then, and only then, will the US have the legitimacy it needs to launch military action against Iran.

"What we've got to do is to show the world that we're making a big deal of engaging the Iranians," he said, tossing a bone to the new administration. "I'd throw everything, including the kitchen sink, into it." He advocates this approach only because he believes it won't work. "The principal target with these offers [to Iran] is not Iran," he adds. "The principal target of these offers is American public opinion and world public opinion."

The Coats-Robb report, "Meeting the Challenge", was written by one of the hardest of Washington's neo-conservative hardliners, Michael Rubin of the AEI. Rubin, who spent most of the years since 9/11 either working for AEI or, before and during the war in Iraq, for the Wolfowitz-Feith team at the Pentagon, recently penned a report for the Institute entitled: "Can A Nuclear Iran Be Deterred or Contained?" Not surprisingly, he believes the answer to be a resounding "no", although he does suggest that any effort to contain a nuclear Iran would certainly require permanent US bases spread widely in the region, including in Iraq:

If US forces are to contain the Islamic Republic, they will require basing not only in GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries, but also in Afghanistan, Iraq, Central Asia and the Caucasus. Without a sizeable regional presence, the Pentagon will not be able to maintain the predeployed resources and equipment necessary to contain Iran, and Washington will signal its lack of commitment to every ally in the region. Because containment is as much psychological as physical, basing will be its backbone.

The Coats-Robb report was issued by a little-known group called the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC). That organization, too, turns out to be interwoven with WINEP, not least because its foreign policy director is Michael Makovsky. Perhaps the most troubling participant in the Bipartisan Policy Center is Obama's eminence grise and one of his most important advisers during the campaign, Tom Daschle, who is slated to be his secretary of health and human services. So far, Daschle has not repudiated BPC's provocative report.

Ross, along with Richard Holbrooke, recently made appearances amid another collection of superhawks who came together to found a new organization, United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), which is led by Mark Wallace, the husband of Nicole Wallace, a key member of Senator John McCain's campaign team. Among UANI's leadership team are Ross and Holbrooke, along with such hardliners as Jim Woolsey, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Fouad Ajami, the Arab-American scholar who is a principal theorist on Middle East policy for the neo-conservative movement.

UANI is primarily a propaganda outfit. Its mission, it says, is to "inform the public about the nature of the Iranian regime, including its desire and intent to possess nuclear weapons, as well as Iran's role as a state sponsor of global terrorism, and a major violator of human rights at home and abroad" and to "heighten awareness nationally and internationally about the danger that a nuclear-armed Iran poses to the region and the world".

Obama has, of course, repeatedly declared his intention to embark on a different path by opening talks with Iran. He's insisted that diplomacy, not military action, will be at the core of his approach to Tehran. During the election campaign, however, he also stated no less repeatedly that he will not take the threat of military action "off the table".

Organizations like WINEP, AIPAC, AEI, BPC, and UANI see it as their mission to push the United States toward a showdown with Iran. Don't sell them short. Those who believe that such a confrontation would be inconceivable under president Obama ought to ask Tony Lake, Susan Rice, Dennis Ross, Tom Daschle and Richard Holbrooke whether they agree - and, if so, why they're still palling around with neo-conservative hardliners.

Robert Dreyfuss, an independent journalist in Alexandria, Virginia, is a contributing editor at the Nation magazine, whose website hosts his The Dreyfuss Report, and has written frequently for Rolling Stone, The American Prospect, Mother Jones, and the Washington Monthly. He is the author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam.

(Copyright 2008 Robert Dreyfuss.)

[Brocke]

Iran anti-nuclear efforts 'failed'

From correspondents in Washington
Agence France-Presse
December 08, 2008 04:28am

THE head of the UN nuclear watchdog has said international efforts to halt Iranian nuclear activity have been a failure.

"We haven't really moved one inch toward addressing the issues," said Mohamed ElBaradei, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in the Los Angeles Times.

"I think so far the policy has been a failure."

Iran has faced three sets of UN security council sanctions over its refusal to freeze uranium enrichment activities, but over the past five years Tehran has pressed on with its controversial nuclear work.

The United States and other western powers suspect the Islamic republic's nuclear program is a cover for an atomic weapons-making program...

Full Story
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24766434-23109,00.html

[bigron]

'Iran will not engage in war with U.S.' 


09/12/2008 11:18:00 AM GMT
http://aljazeera.com/news/newsfull.php?newid=192059
 
 Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani says that the Islamic Republic does not intend to engage in a war with the U.S.


(Reuters) Rafsanjani says that the Islamic Republic does not intend to engage in a war with the U.S.

The chairman of Iran's Expediency Council Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani says that the Islamic Republic does not intend to engage in a war with the U.S.

"We have no intention to involve in a conflict with the US. Iran only intends to stand on its two feet and set a role model for regional countries to uphold their independence and freedom," Rafsanjani said Tuesday addressing prayers of Eid Al-Adha in Tehran.

He criticized the US President-elect Barack Obama for following the same policies adopted by the outgoing President George W. Bush on Iran. He said, "It is not appropriate for Obama to use such words [similar to those of Bush]."

Obama's election as the next US president has opened prospects of Tehran-Washington rapprochement. His recent comments, however, suggest the former Illinois senator is already backtracking on campaign promises of 'a clean break from the Bush administration's policies'.

Obama said on Sunday that he would exercise "direct but tough diplomacy" in a bid to dissuade Tehran from enriching uranium.

In an interview with NBC's Meet the Press, Obama said he is prepared to offer 'carrots' in the form of generous economic incentives to persuade the Islamic Republic to wrap up its nuclear program. He warned that Iran's refusal to halt its uranium enrichment program would subject the country to tougher sanctions - or 'sticks'.

Iranian officials have repeatedly called on the Obama administration to live up to world expectations and forgo Washington's age-old carrot and stick policies.

Rafsanjani recommended US leaders to confirm Iran's right to peaceful nuclear energy and act rationally.



-- Press TV

 

[bigron]

Still preparing to attack Iran
 
09/12/2008 11:30:00 PM GMT
http://aljazeera.com/news/newsfull.php?newid=190358
 
 Organizations like WINEP, AIPAC, AEI, BPC, and UANI see it as their mission to push the U.S. toward a showdown with Iran.


By Robert Dreyfuss


(www.middleeast.org) When it comes to Iran, it's far too early to dismiss the hawks.

The neoconservatives in the Obama era.

What, exactly, does Barack Obama's mild-mannered choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services, former Senator Tom Daschle, have to do with neocons who want to bomb Iran?

A familiar coalition of hawks, hardliners, and neoconservatives expects Barack Obama's proposed talks with Iran to fail -- and they're already proposing an escalating set of measures instead. Some are meant to occur alongside any future talks. These include steps to enhance coordination with Israel, tougher sanctions against Iran, and a region-wide military buildup of U.S. strike forces, including the prepositioning of military supplies within striking distance of that country.

Once the future negotiations break down, as they are convinced will happen, they propose that Washington quickly escalate to war-like measures, including a U.S. Navy-enforced embargo on Iranian fuel imports and a blockade of that country's oil exports. Finally, of course, comes the strategic military attack against the Islamic Republic of Iran that so many of them have wanted for so long.

It's tempting to dismiss the hawks now as twice-removed from power: first, figures like John Bolton, Paul Wolfowitz, and Douglas Feith were purged from top posts in the Bush administration after 2004; then the election of Barack Obama and the announcement Monday of his centrist, realist-minded team of establishment foreign policy gurus seemed to nail the doors to power shut for the neocons, who have bitterly criticized the president-elect's plans to talk with Iran, withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq, and abandon the reckless Global War on Terrorism rhetoric of the Bush era.

"Kinetic action" against Iran
When it comes to Iran, however, it's far too early to dismiss the hawks. To be sure, they are now plying their trade from outside the corridors of power, but they have more friends inside the Obama camp than most people realize.

Several top advisers to Obama -- including Tony Lake, UN Ambassador-designate Susan Rice, Tom Daschle, and Dennis Ross, along with leading Democratic hawks like Richard Holbrooke, close to Vice-President-elect Joe Biden or Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton -- have made common cause with war-minded think-tank hawks at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and other hardline institutes.

Last spring, Tony Lake and Susan Rice, for example, took part in a WINEP "2008 Presidential Task Force" study which resulted in a report entitled, "Strengthening the Partnership: How to Deepen U.S.-Israel Cooperation on the Iranian Nuclear Challenge."

The Institute, part of the Washington-based Israel lobby, was founded in coordination with the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and has been vigorously supporting a confrontation with Iran. The task force report, issued in June, was overseen by four WINEP heavyweights: Robert Satloff, WINEP's executive director, Patrick Clawson, its chief Iran analyst, David Makovsky, a senior fellow, and Dennis Ross, an adviser to Obama who is also a WINEP fellow.

Endorsed by both Lake and Rice, the report opted for an alarmist view of Iran's nuclear program and proposed that the next president set up a formal U.S.-Israeli mechanism for coordinating policy toward Iran (including any future need for "preventive military action"). It drew attention to Israeli fears that "the United States may be reconciling itself to the idea of 'living with an Iranian nuclear bomb,'" and it raised the spurious fear that Iran plans to arm terrorist groups with nuclear weapons.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with consultations between the United States and Israel. But the WINEP report is clearly predisposed to the idea that the United States ought to give undue weight to Israel's inflated concerns about Iran. And it ignores or dismisses a number of facts: that Iran has no nuclear weapon, that Iran has not enriched uranium to weapons grade, that Iran may not have the know-how to actually construct a weapon even if, sometime in the future, it does manage to acquire bomb-grade material, and that Iran has no known mechanism for delivering such a weapon.

WINEP is correct that the United States must communicate closely with Israel about Iran. Practically speaking, however, a US-Israeli dialogue over Iran's "nuclear challenge" will have to focus on matters entirely different from those in WINEP's agenda.

First, the United States must make it crystal clear to Israel that under no circumstances will it tolerate or support a unilateral Israeli attack against Iran. Second, Washington must make it clear that if Israel were indeed to carry out such an attack, the United States would condemn it, refuse to widen the war by coming to Israel's aid, and suspend all military aid to the Jewish state. And third, Israel must get the message that, even given the extreme and unlikely possibility that the United States deems it necessary to go to war with Iran, there would be no role for Israel.

Just as in the wars against Iraq in 1990-1991 and 2003-2008, the United States hardly needs Israeli aid, which would be both superfluous and inflammatory. Dennis Ross and others at WINEP, however, would strongly disagree that Israel is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Ross, who served as Middle East envoy for George H.W. Bush and then Bill Clinton, was also a key participant in a September 2008 task force chaired by two former senators, Daniel Coats (R.-Ind.) and Chuck Robb (D.-Va.), and led by Michael Makovsky, brother of WINEP's David Makovsky, who served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in the heyday of the Pentagon neocons from 2002-2006.

Robb, incidentally, had already served as the neocons' channel into the 2006 Iraq Study Group, chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Representative Lee Hamilton. According to Bob Woodward's latest book, The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008, it was Robb who insisted that the Baker-Hamilton task force include an option for a "surge" in Iraq.

The report of the Coats-Robb task force -- "Meeting the Challenge: U.S. Policy Toward Iranian Nuclear Development" -- went far beyond the WINEP task force report that Lake and Rice signed off on. It concluded that any negotiations with Iran were unlikely to succeed and should, in any case, be short-lived. As the report put the matter, "It must be clear that any U.S.-Iranian talks will not be open-ended, but will be limited to a pre-determined time period so that Tehran does not try to 'run out the clock.'"

Anticipating the failure of the talks, the task force (including Ross) urged "prepositioning military assets," coupled with a "show of force" in the region. This would be followed almost immediately by a blockade of Iranian gasoline imports and oil exports, meant to paralyze Iran's economy, followed by what they call, vaguely, "kinetic action."

That "kinetic action" -- a U.S. assault on Iran -- should, in fact, be massive, suggested the Coats-Robb report. Besides hitting dozens of sites alleged to be part of Iran's nuclear research program, the attacks would target Iranian air defense and missile sites, communications systems, Revolutionary Guard facilities, key parts of Iran's military-industrial complex, munitions storage facilities, airfields, aircraft facilities, and all of Iran's naval facilities.

Eventually, they say, the United States would also have to attack Iran's ground forces, electric power plants and electrical grids, bridges, and "manufacturing plants, including steel, autos, buses, etc."

This is, of course, a hair-raising scenario. Such an attack on a country that had committed no act of war against the United States or any of its allies would cause countless casualties, virtually destroy Iran's economy and infrastructure, and wreak havoc throughout the region. That such a high-level group of luminaries should even propose steps like these -- and mean it -- can only be described as lunacy. That an important adviser to President-elect Obama would sign on to such a report should be shocking, though it has received next to no attention.

Palling around with the neocons
At a November 6 forum at WINEP, Patrick Clawson, the erudite, neoconservative strategist who serves as the organization's deputy director for research, laid out the institute's view of how to talk to Iran in the Obama era. Doing so, he said, is critically important, but only to show the rest of the world that the United States has taken the last step for peace -- before, of course, attacking. Then, and only then, will the United States have the legitimacy it needs to launch military action against Iran.

"What we've got to do is to show the world that we're making a big deal of engaging the Iranians," he said, tossing a bone to the new administration. "I'd throw everything, including the kitchen sink, into it." He advocates this approach only because he believes it won't work. "The principal target with these offers [to Iran] is not Iran," he adds. "The principal target of these offers is American public opinion and world public opinion."

The Coats-Robb report, Meeting the Challenge," was written by one of the hardest of Washington's neoconservative hardliners, Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute. Rubin, who spent most of the years since 9/11 either working for AEI or, before and during the war in Iraq, for the Wolfowitz-Feith team at the Pentagon, recently penned a report for the Institute entitled: "Can A Nuclear Iran Be Deterred or Contained?" Not surprisingly, he believes the answer to be a resounding "no," although he does suggest that any effort to contain a nuclear Iran would certainly require permanent U.S. bases spread widely in the region, including in Iraq:

"If U.S. forces are to contain the Islamic Republic, they will require basing not only in GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries, but also in Afghanistan, Iraq, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. Without a sizeable regional presence, the Pentagon will not be able to maintain the predeployed resources and equipment necessary to contain Iran, and Washington will signal its lack of commitment to every ally in the region. Because containment is as much psychological as physical, basing will be its backbone."

The Coats-Robb report was issued by a little-known group called the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC). That organization, too, turns out to be interwoven with WINEP, not least because its foreign policy director is Michael Makovsky. Perhaps the most troubling participant in the Bipartisan Policy Center is Barack Obama's éminence grise and one of his most important advisers during the campaign, Tom Daschle, who is slated to be his secretary of health and human services. So far, Daschle has not repudiated BPC's provocative report.

Ross, along with Richard Holbrooke, recently made appearances amid another collection of superhawks who came together to found a new organization, United Against Nuclear Iran. UANI is led by Mark Wallace, the husband of Nicole Wallace, a key member of Senator John McCain's campaign team. Among UANI's leadership team are Ross and Holbrooke, along with such hardliners as Jim Woolsey, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Fouad Ajami, the Arab-American scholar who is a principal theorist on Middle East policy for the neoconservative movement.

UANI is primarily a propaganda outfit. Its mission, it says, is to "inform the public about the nature of the Iranian regime, including its desire and intent to possess nuclear weapons, as well as Iran's role as a state sponsor of global terrorism, and a major violator of human rights at home and abroad" and to "heighten awareness nationally and internationally about the danger that a nuclear-armed Iran poses to the region and the world."

Barack Obama has, of course, repeatedly declared his intention to embark on a different path by opening talks with Iran. He's insisted that diplomacy, not military action, will be at the core of his approach to Tehran. During the election campaign, however, he also stated no less repeatedly that he will not take the threat of military action "off the table."

Organizations like WINEP, AIPAC, AEI, BPC, and UANI see it as their mission to push the United States toward a showdown with Iran. Don't sell them short. Those who believe that such a confrontation would be inconceivable under President Obama ought to ask Tony Lake, Susan Rice, Dennis Ross, Tom Daschle, and Richard Holbrooke whether they agree -- and, if so, why they're still palling around with neoconservative hardliners.

-- Robert Dreyfuss, an independent journalist in Alexandria, Virginia, is a contributing editor at the Nation magazine, whose website hosts his The Dreyfuss Report, and has written frequently for Rolling Stone, The American Prospect, Mother Jones, and the Washington Monthly. He is the author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam.

Copyright 2008 Robert Dreyfuss

TomDispatch





-- Middle East Online

 

[bigron]

Obama to offer Israel 'nuclear umbrella' against Iranian attack

By Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondent
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1045687.html

December 12, 2008 "Haaretz." -- - U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's administration will offer Israel a "nuclear umbrella" against the threat of a nuclear attack by Iran, a well-placed American source said earlier this week. The source, who is close to the new administration, said the U.S. will declare that an attack on Israel by Tehran would result in a devastating U.S. nuclear response against Iran.

But America's nuclear guarantee to Israel could also be interpreted as a sign the U.S. believes Iran will eventually acquire nuclear arms.
Secretary of state-designate Hillary Clinton had raised the idea of a nuclear guarantee to Israel during her campaign for the Democratic Party's nomination for the presidency. During a debate with Obama in April, Clinton said that Israel and Arab countries must be given "deterrent backing." She added, "Iran must know that an attack on Israel will draw a massive response."

Clinton also proposed that the American nuclear umbrella be extended to other countries in the region, like Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, if they agree to relinquish their own nuclear ambitions.

According to the same source, the nuclear guarantee would be backed by a new and improved Israeli anti-ballistic missile system. The Bush administration took the first step by deploying an early-warning radar system in the Negev, which hones the ability to detect Iranian ballistic missiles.

Obama said this week that he would negotiate with Iran and would offer economic incentives for Tehran to relinquish its nuclear program. He warned that if Iran refused the deal, he would act to intensify sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Granting Israel a nuclear guarantee essentially suggests the U.S. is willing to come to terms with a nuclear Iran. For its part, Israel opposes any such development and similar opposition was voiced by officials in the outgoing Bush administration.

"What is the significance of such guarantee when it comes from those who hesitated to deal with a non-nuclear Iran?" asked a senior Israeli security source. "What kind of credibility would this [guarantee have] when Iran is nuclear-capable?"

The same source noted that the fact that there is talk about the possibility of a nuclear Iran undermines efforts to prevent Tehran from acquiring such arms.

A senior Bush administration source said that the proposal for an American nuclear umbrella for Israel was ridiculous and lacked credibility. "Who will convince the citizen in Kansas that the U.S. needs to get mixed up in a nuclear war because Haifa was bombed? And what is the point of an American response, after Israel's cities are destroyed in an Iranian nuclear strike?"

The current debate is taking place in light of the Military Intelligence assessment that Iran has passed beyond the point of no return, and has mastered the technology of uranium enrichment. The decision to proceed toward the development of nuclear arms is now purely a matter for Iran's leaders to decide. Intelligence assessments, however, suggest that the Iranians are trying to first accumulate larger quantities of fissile material, and this offers a window of opportunity for a last-ditch diplomatic effort to prevent an Iranian bomb.

[bigron]

The great wall between Iran and the US


By Mahan Abedin
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JL12Ak02.html

As the Iranian revolution enters its fourth decade, the country's real leaders, the Shi'ite clerics who control the commanding heights of government, can be forgiven for reminding the world of their achievements.

In their 30-year quest to consolidate, widen and deepen the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the high priests of the Islamic Republic have secured an impressive list of achievements; from steering the country towards political and economic independence, and securing a solid core of a highly dedicated

 
grassroots support base in the process, to achieving geopolitical dominance in the Middle East.

But arguably their biggest achievement has been to emerge as the most serious and effective anti-American force in the world. Simply put, in the global arena, the United States does not recognize a bigger ideological and security threat than the Islamic Republic of Iran.

But the high priests of the Islamic Revolution have paid a heavy price for their consistent and unabashed opposition to American power in the Middle East and beyond. And every major political, strategic and economic indicator points to the direction of ever-escalating costs, as the Islamic Republic enters into the fourth decade of its confrontation with the "Great Satan".

As a basic rule, the more powerful and influential the Islamic Republic becomes, the stakes rise further still, thus fanning the global confrontation with the United States. The geopolitical rise of Iran in the past decade has been unprecedented in the modern history of this embattled nation.

Not since the late 18th century has Iran been able to project such power in the region and beyond. To the clerics who control the destiny of the Islamic Republic, this phenomenal rise is a direct consequence of the 1979 Revolution, but a more dispassionate analysis could not fail to tie this geopolitical success to the mistakes and follies of Iran's arch nemesis.

With the election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States, there is now more talk than ever about a thaw in relations and a gradual process of engagement leading to normalization of ties. Anyone with a good grasp of the nature of the Islamic Revolution - and more importantly a good understanding into the nature of the men at the helm of the Islamic Republic - coupled with a firm knowledge of the tortured history of Iranian-American ties in the modern period, would dismiss such talks out of hand.

Nevertheless, there are signs on the horizon pointing to a breach in the "wall of mistrust" - to borrow a term from the lexicon of Iran's rulers - separating the two sides. To Iran's rulers, this prospect holds both peril and promise; on the one hand they risk undermining the very fabric of the revolution, but on the other hand they gain invaluable space to pursue their inexorable geopolitical rise.

The illusion of Obama
Ebrahim Asgharzadeh is one of the more enigmatic products of the Iranian Revolution. A key leader of the students who attacked and occupied the American Embassy (or the "Den of Espionage" as he would call it) on November 4, 1979, (a saga that lasted 444 days and humiliated the United States), he is one of the most interesting ideologues of the Islamic Revolution.

More rooted in the leftwing and egalitarian ethos of the revolution - but nonetheless Islamic to the core - Asgharzadeh represents the faction in the revolution which has an uneasy and reluctant relationship with the dominant theocrats. Moreover, Asgharzadeh is probably the most determined and effective anti-American ideologue in the contemporary world. Nearly three decades after the seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran, Asgharzadeh is a more determined opponent of American hegemony than ever.

In an interview with the semi-official Fars News Agency, which is close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Asgharzadeh claims that the Iranian Revolution poses a permanent and fundamental contradiction to American interests. [1] Asgharzadeh knows what he is talking about. He played a lead role in reconstructing shredded confidential US Embassy documents that exposed the full range of US manipulation in Iran for over 25 years.

To understand the anti-Americanism of men like Asgharzadeh, the serious student must delve deeply into the murky and exploitative relationship between the United States and post-1953 Iran. The Fars News Agency's Vizhenameyeh Sheytan-e-Bozorg (The Great Satan Special) is a good place to start insofar as it documents the thoughts, actions, worries and aspirations of the most anti-American faction in the Islamic Republic.

Iranian anti-Americanism is not limited to the supporters of the Islamic Revolution. It spans the entire political spectrum, linking diehard leftwingers with nationalists and even some remnants of the overthrown monarchy. The United States may have reduced the Pahlavi monarchy to a mere puppet, but that hasn't stopped key supporters of the former regime from resenting American power. Iranian anti-Americanism is particularly fierce, deep and complex. An exposition of its many facets and origins is beyond this essay, but suffice to say that the US Central Intelligence Agency's role in overthrowing the nationalist and democratically elected government of Dr Mohammad Mossdegh - which set the stage of 25 years of American domination in Iran - drives much of the resentment and animosity.

The Islamic Revolution added a religious ingredient to the mix, but hardcore ideologues like Asgharzadeh have always been careful to divorce their anti-Americanism from excessive rhetoric and emotional readings of history. Theirs is a resentment of American hegemony based on the reality of American power in Iran, the wider region and beyond.

This cold and calculated mentality helps explain the enduring influence of this faction within the impossibly complex architecture of power within the regime. Broadly speaking, the anti-American faction is part of the Islamic left, which encompasses diverse forces, ranging from the Association of Militant Clerics (whose founding member is the powerful Mehdi Karrubi), former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi (widely recognized as the most leftwing leader in the regime) and his supporters and former president Mohammad Khatami and his diverse range of so-called "reformist" supporters.

But Asgharzadeh and the original group which seized the US Embassy and brazenly highlighted the impotence of American power to the world have been careful to steer clear of the fluid (and sometimes treacherous) factional politics of the Islamic Republic. In the past 30 years they have eschewed positions of real power (which would have exposed them to ruthless factional squabbles) for semi-secret consulting and research jobs. Nonetheless, they remain crucially influential and have access to the top people of every key institution in the country; from the leadership, the presidency, the IRGC, the Ministry of Intelligence and down to the Tehran municipalities (where they advise on anti-American street murals).

From an ideological and strategic point of view, the election of Obama must be seen in the context of the Iranian Revolution's enduring challenge to American hegemony. Moreover, the US does not show any signs of coming to terms with the losses it suffered as a result of the revolution and its aftermath. More to the point, America's 30-year campaign against the Iranian Revolution - and specifically against legitimate Iranian geopolitical and economic aspirations in the region and beyond - has further heightened "the wall of mistrust" between the protagonists. Any "thaw" is likely to prove tactical, but the real question is whether the Iranian side is willing to accommodate a succession of tactical "thaws".

Mahmud Ahmadinejad: A bitter disappointment
In the past three-and-a-half years, President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has surprised friend and foe alike. He has proven to be a far more shrewd and intelligent than initially thought and has stamped his personality onto the institution of the presidency.

The last point is particularly unsettling to the high priests of the Islamic Revolution since they prefer to perpetuate the association between leadership and membership in the clerical class for as long as possible. Ahmadinejad - as a non-cleric - has always posed a latent threat. This has come to the fore with his highly idiosyncratic and unconventional leadership style which tends to eschew tradition and protocol for instant demagogic gains.

During his term in office, Ahmadinejad has managed to alienate every key faction, including some of his own support base. His saving grace has been the strong support of the Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Seyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei, who admires Ahmadinejad's tenacity and strength of character. This may sound counter-intuitive - Khamenei is after all at the helm of the clerics who control Iran's destiny - but the Supreme Leader has an idiosyncratic, albeit uncharismatic, leadership style of his own.

In a nutshell, Khamenei is much more in tune with the Hezbollahi grassroots of the regime than with the secretive group of clerics who pull all the important strings. Grasping the relationship between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei requires a deep understanding into the nature and dynamics of factional politics in the Islamic Republic.

Ahmadinejad has proven to be most surprising in the sphere of Iranian-American relations. Single-handedly he has broken the biggest taboo in revolutionary Iran. Previously any mention of establishing or normalizing ties with the "Great Satan" brought a sharp rebuke from various ideological forces and often led to a humiliating retreat (and occasionally downfall) of the individual proposing normalization.

But Ahmadinejad has talked openly of direct talks with the president of the United States. Moreover, he has made four high-profile visits to the US (to address the United Nations General Assembly in September) where he has interacted extensively with American society. Furthermore, high-ranking Iranian diplomats have come face-to-face with their American counterparts in Baghdad to discuss the future of Iraq. All of these developments are unprecedented in the history of the Islamic Republic. And they make the core ideological forces of the revolution extremely nervous.

There is even talk of setting up an American consulate in Tehran or enabling a small Iranian-American lobby organization (the so-called American Iranian Council) to set up shop in the city. These developments have brought a sharp rebuke from the anti-American faction, with Forouz Rajaifar (a prominent female student who was involved in the seizure of the embassy) warning that reopening the US Embassy in Tehran prepares the ground for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. [3]

Moreover, Massoumeh Ebtekar (the most high-profile female student who participated in the seizure of the embassy and who served as vice president during the Khatami years) categorically rules out any friendly relations at this juncture. [4] The underlying issue isn't blind hatred of the United States, but the potential consequences of taking any steps (however minor) that point towards eventual normalization. Ahmadinejad - as intelligent and shrewd as he is - does not possess the depth of insight and knowledge and far-sightedness to manage this process. This is the primary reason why he has lost the support of the anti-American faction, which initially welcomed him, albeit reluctantly.

A world without America
As the Iranian Revolution enters its fourth decade, it is abundantly clear that the issue of the United States is more important than ever, even more so than the initial tumultuous days of the revolution. This makes it more important than ever for the leaders of the Islamic Republic to clarify their position vis-a-vis the United States and specifically American hegemony.

Justifying perpetuating the "wall of mistrust" based on the fear that the United States seeks to overthrow the Islamic Republic can no longer constitute a rational basis for the formulation and implementation of policy. No one doubts that the United States and its allies seek to overthrow the achievements of the Iranian Revolution, but then again no one intimately involved with Iranian affairs can seriously think that the post-revolutionary system can be undermined (let alone overthrown) by external machinations.

The Islamic Republic is a regime of powerful institutions and as a major ideological force in the world it commands the loyalties of a very large and highly dedicated grassroots base. The notion of "regime change" has always been a myth, and one that has been consistently exploited by the security apparatus of the regime. But it is time to move on.

As they contemplate their relations with the "Great Satan", Iran's rulers must prioritize long-term ideological and geopolitical goals over short- to medium-term political gains. While full normalization is out of the question (and would in any case take decades to bear fruit) any thaw in any aspect of this complex file will have profound consequences for domestic and international policy. Iran's rulers take pride in projecting their country as the only authentic and serious counter to American power in the world.

There is an element of hyperbole and self-righteousness in these statements, but nevertheless they attest to a global strategic reality. One only has to listen to how American officialdom (from the president down) has spoken about Iran in the past 30 years to understand just how seriously the Americans take the Iranian challenge.

More broadly, Iran's rulers need to adapt their anti-Americanism to the realities of the 21st century. The anti-American faction of the regime has so far taken great steps to dissociate Iranian anti-Americanism from other forms of anti-Americanism; ranging from Latin American "anti-Gringo" counter-cultures to the anti-Americanism of the European environmentalist movement. If envisioning a world without America entails striving for a multipolar international system that is more orientated to tacking global problems, then the Islamic Republic must critically appraise aspects of its own history, lexicon and ideology.

In the final analysis, if the Islamic Republic is serious about becoming one of the great powers of the 21st century, then it must adopt a post-modern attitude and actively engage with all major international forces, barring of course the "Great Satan".

Notes
1. For the interview, click here.
http://www1.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8708141060
2. Click here.
http://www1.farsnews.com/newsh.php?hoz=201&spc=1&i=10
3. Click here.
http://www1.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8708181561
4. Click here.
http://www1.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8708210774

Mahan Abedin is a consultant to independent media in Iran. He is also director of research at the Center for the Study of Terrorism, a London-based strategic and security think-tank. He edits Islamism Digest, the center's monthly journal.

[Biggs]

US: Iran buying Russian arms via Belarus
Fri, 12 Dec 2008 19:33:56 GMT

http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=78263&sectionid=351020101
 
US officials believe Russia is selling Iran the SA-20 strategic-range air defense system

US government officials say Moscow is selling Tehran the sophisticated SA-20 strategic-range air defense system through Belarus.

In a recent article published by the Aviation Week, US officials speaking on conditions of anonymity claimed that Moscow is using Belarus as a route for selling the highly advanced air defense systems to Iran so that it can deny "direct involvement" in the affairs.

"The Iranians are on contract for the SA-20," one of the US officials was quoted as saying. "We've got a huge set of challenges in the future that we've never had [before]. We've been lulled into a false sense of security because our operations over the last 20 years involved complete air dominance and we've been free to operate in all domains."

The unnamed official added that the deployment of the SA-20 around Iranian nuclear facilities would be a direct threat to Israel's fleet of advanced, but non-stealthy, F-15Is and F-16Is.

He, however, said that Israel still has time for a preemptive strike against the Islamic Republic as it would take Iranian armed forces more than 24 months to become proficient in the operation of SA-20s.

Moscow delivered some 29 Russian-made Tor-M1 air defense missile systems under a $700 million contract clinched in late 2005 and has so far trained Iranian Tor-M1 specialists, including radar operators and crew commanders.

Western countries have criticized Russia's sales of defensive military equipment to Iran, saying that it has sabotaged efforts to curb Iran's uranium enrichment.

Russian officials, however, say the contract is completely in line with international law as it involves "defensive hardware, which cannot be used for offensive purposes".

[Brocke]

Iran is absent for Afghanistan talks
By Steven Erlanger
Sunday, December 14, 2008

PARIS: Afghanistan and all its neighbors - except, notably, Iran - agreed at an informal conference here Sunday to intensify their regional relations in the interest of security and stability, pledging to work together to stabilize Afghanistan, restrict narcotics traffic and coordinate against terrorist groups.

Although Iran had said its foreign minister would attend the conference, then said no, then said yes and then said its ambassador to France would represent Tehran, no Iranian official showed up Sunday morning, according to the French Foreign Ministry spokesman, Eric Chevallier.

"It's unfortunate, but when nobody showed up this morning, everyone sat down to work," Chevallier said. "No one explained why."

Iran was annoyed with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France for remarks last week criticizing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's constant threats against Israel, and it may be that with elections in Iran in June, it was easier for Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki to stay home.

Iran's failure to attend was a blow to French hopes for the conference, the first of its kind, which was meant to bring together all the countries touching on Afghanistan, including the "stans" of the former Soviet Union, China, India and Pakistan.

The conference also included the United Nations Special Representative for Afghanistan, Kai Eide, and senior European Union officials responsible for foreign policy and aid.

Germany was also invited, as a financier of great importance and a country which will be asked to do more on the ground in Afghanistan - with civilian and police trainers, if not with many more troops. All countries with troops in Afghanistan were also represented, including the United States and Britain, while Russia also attended.

With the American president-elect, Barack Obama, vowing a "surge" of troops and civilian advisers to try to stabilize Afghanistan, the French, who remain president of the European Union until the end of the year, wanted to present a forward-looking European initiative, French officials said.

And after the terrorist violence in Mumbai, and its apparent connections to Pakistan, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner of France thought it was another opportunity for the two countries to sit down over a shared problem.

"There is a consensus that there can be no peace, security and prosperity in Afghanistan without the strong involvement of its neighbors," Kouchner said after the meeting. "And there can be no peace, security and prosperity for the region without a stable Afghanistan."

Pakistan in particular has been charged with not doing enough to prevent cross-border operations by the Taliban, and NATO convoys and supply depots have recently been attacked in Pakistan itself. On Sunday, in Bahrain, General David Petraeus, head of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, said that the problems in Pakistan brought "new urgency" to finding alternate supply routes through the "stans" - Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

The Pakistani foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, said at the meeting that the attack on Mumbai "was an attack on us all," a French official said.

The conference became more detailed on economic regional cooperation, officials reported, with the European Commission offering to host a meeting of economic experts to prepare better for a regional economic conference planned for Islamabad early next year.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/12/14/asia/afghan.php

[bigron]

December 16, 2008

Is a US-Iran Deal on the Middle East Possible?

 
by Gareth Porter

TEHRAN - Would a negotiated agreement between Iran and the Barack Obama administration be feasible if Obama sent the right signals? The answer one gets from Iranian officials and think-tank analysts is, "Yes, but…"

The Iranian national security establishment has long salivated over the prospect of an agreement with Washington. But there's a big difference between Iranian and U.S. ideas of what such an accord would look like.

Washington is fixated on what it would take to get Iran to agree to stop enriching uranium. On the other hand, Iranians interviewed here indicate that an agreement would only be possible if it represented a fundamental change in the U.S.-Iran relationship. Iranian officials and analysts see the problem of U.S.-Iranian relations as a seamless web of issues on which agreement must be reached as a whole. And in addition to the bilateral issues of normal diplomatic and economic relations, they see a new U.S.-Iranian understanding on the Middle East as essential.

The problem for Iran, they observe, is that it feels it must base its policies across the entire region on the assumption of U.S. hostility. "As long as there is a lack of understanding between the United States and Iran, any move by the United States worries us," said Hamid Reza Dehghani, director of the Center for the Persian Gulf and Middle East at the Iranian foreign ministry's think-tank, the Institute for Political and International Studies.

On the other hand, Iranian officials appear to recognize that the United States and Iran do have some objective interests in common in the region – especially opposition to al-Qaeda and related Islamic terrorists. Despite past U.S. policies that threaten Iranian interests, therefore, they see potential opportunities for U.S.-Iranian cooperation in the region.

"If there is a chance for finding commonalities with the United States," said Dehghani, "it will be found in the Middle East."

An adviser to the foreign ministry who asked not to be named, because he is not authorized to speak to foreign journalists, told IPS that a "grand bargain" – an agreement on all the issues that both sides wish to raise – is possible, based on a joint recognition of the threat from al-Qaeda and related terrorist groups.

He added that U.S.-Iran understandings on both Iraq and Afghanistan would be "central" to any such agreement.

Iran has long been willing to deal directly with the United States on both Afghanistan and Iraq, having participated in a series of secret meetings with U.S. diplomats in Geneva from late 2001 to spring 2003 before the George W. Bush administration cut them off.

Dehghani explained the Iranian eagerness to deal with the United States on Iraq now as a function of relatively greater Iranian capabilities and leverage. But he also admitted Iranian officials are concerned over whether the United States will abide by the agreement it has reached with the Iraqi government to withdraw all of its forces by 2011.

Despite President-elect's Obama's campaign pledges on troop withdrawal and the U.S. commitment to Iraq to withdraw completely by the end of 2011, Dehghani said, "I'm doubtful about it." He cites factors that are favorable to U.S. withdrawal: the fact that the U.S.-Iraqi withdrawal agreement was imposed on an unwilling U.S. government by Iraqi public opinion, and factions in the Iraqi government "friendly to Iran" – an obvious reference to Iraqi Shia political parties which had long enjoyed Iranian patronage and are now part of the Nouri al-Maliki regime in Baghdad.

What worries Iranian strategists are elements of the Iraqi regime they view as responsive to U.S. interests. "Iraqi government security and military forces were established directly by the United States," said Dehghani, "and the heads of these systems are not friendly to Iran."

But Dehghani denied the Bush administration charge that it has been "favoring special groups in Iraq, regardless of the central government."

If the U.S. and Iran reached a broader agreement to end their hostility, Dehghani said, it would make a complete U.S. withdrawal from Iraq "more feasible," implying that the main U.S. interest in keeping troops in Iraq now is to contain Iranian influence.

On Afghanistan, Iranian officials appear to view the brief period of U.S.-Iran cooperation against the Taliban and al-Qaeda after 9/11, which was terminated as a result of a neoconservative initiative in Washington, as the template for what should occur in the future. Dehghani hinted that Iran is more concerned about the danger of rising Sunni extremist power in Afghanistan than it is with Obama's intention to increase U.S. troop strength there.

He said nothing about U.S. troops in Afghanistan except that they were suffering more casualties than those in Iraq. Instead, Dehghani made it clear Iran opposes peace negotiations with the Taliban, as proposed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

U.S. support for a "dialogue" with the Taliban, he said, "would be a great mistake."

Europeans and Arab states may be supporting an accommodation with the Taliban, said Dehghani, but the "the real policymakers in the U.S. are not." He suggested that such an accommodation "cannot be supported by the U.S. public."

Dehghani thus implied that Iran and the United States both oppose the same enemy – Sunni extremism – in Afghanistan, providing an objective basis for a broader regional accord.

Perhaps the most politically sensitive issue for both sides in any broad U.S.-Iran negotiations, apart from Iran's nuclear program, would be Iran's relations with Hezbollah and other anti-Israel organizations.

A secret May 2003 Iranian proposal offered to support the Saudi-sponsored Arab League plan for a peace settlement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which would result in Iranian recognition of Israel if the plan were carried to completion. But, as opponents of engagement with Iran have noted, the U.S. State Department's Near East Bureau doubted that the proposal represented anything more than the position of the Mohammad Khatami administration's reformist faction, which they believed was too weak to carry out such an agreement.

It was conservative editor and political strategist Amir Mohebbian, a longtime supporter of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who suggested in an interview that a U.S.-Iran accord could "help the United States solve the Israel-Palestinian issue."

Cutting through Iranian propaganda on Israel aimed largely at appealing to Arab populations across the region, Mohebbian said Iranian policy toward Israel has to be viewed as a two-level operation. "As a slogan," he told IPS, "Iran says we can't accept the reality of Israel, but we have slogans and we have action. There is a difference between the two."

According to the foreign ministry's top official on U.S. affairs, Ali Akbar Rezaie, the main obstacle to a broad U.S.-Iran agreement is not conflicts over objective interests, but U.S. concern with Iran's status as a "great power in this region."

"The only way for the United States to reverse this vicious circle is to agree to coexist with this greater status of Iran," said Rezaie. "Sooner or later they will have to recognize this."

(Inter Press Service)
 

 
 
 
 

 
Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/porter/?articleid=13911 

[bigron]

Everything You Needed Know about Iran but the Mass Media, the Republicans and Hillary Clinton Wouldn't Tell You

We have to abandon the 30 years of crisis, threats of military action, vindictiveness and retaliation and look to diplomacy with Iran.


By Col. Ann Wright, TruthOut.org
Posted on January 1, 2009, Printed on January 2, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/116641/

Just a month ago, while Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President George W. Bush met in Washington for the last time as heads of state and continued their relentless bellicose rhetoric toward Iran, I and three activists from the United States were in Iran as citizen diplomats talking with Iranians on their views of a new American presidential administration and their hopes for their country.

We went to Iran with no illusions. We knew well the history of United States involvement in Iran. We knew of Iranian support for organizations U.S. administrations have labeled terrorist groups. And we were very familiar with international concerns about Iran's nuclear-enrichment program and human-rights record.

We wanted to talk with members of the Iranian government as well as with ordinary Iranians. We ended up meeting with officials in the Iranian president's office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and with two female members of the Iranian Parliament (Majles). We also spoke with businesspersons, members of nongovernmental organizations, writers, filmmakers and university students and faculty.

Writing about the concerns of the Iranians we met leaves one open to comments of being one-sided, not speaking with enough Iranians to provide the "real" voices and of picking and choosing voices to record. I acknowledge the possible criticism in advance but believe our discussions are worthy of presentation to those who have not been so fortunate to have traveled to Iran to see and hear for themselves. So here goes.

Iranians Want Peace, Not War

Codepink Women for Peace co-founders Jodie Evans and Medea Benjamin, Fellowship of Reconciliation Iran Program Director Laila Zand and I were reminded in virtually every conversation that Iranians want peace with the United States. Not one person in Iran told us that, first, she believed her country would begin a war with the United States or any other country, including Israel, and second, that if the United States initiated military actions against Iran, that those actions would resolve problems in Iran or with the United States.

They reminded us that, unlike the United States, which has invaded and occupied Iran's neighbors Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran has not attacked any country in the last 200 years. They reminded us that Iran was the victim of an eight-year war in the 1980s, when Iraq invaded Iran and the United States and European countries provided Iraq with military equipment, intelligence and chemical weapons that were used at least 50 times against Iranian civilians and military forces. We learned that during that war, the Revolution's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini had mandated that it would be against Islamic precepts to bomb Iraqi cities or use chemical or unconventional weapons on Iraq -- and Iranian military forces complied.

Most Iranians Have Issues With Their Government, as Most Americans Have Issues With Theirs

Iran is a country with a population of about 70 million (two-and-one-half times as many people as Iraq) and a geographic area about the size of Alaska (four times as large as Iraq). Tehran, the nation's capital, has 7.5 million people in the urban area and 15 million in surrounding areas. It is a modern city with a beautiful subway and cosmopolitan shops, as well as a huge traditional bazaar and an incredible number of cars, trucks and motorcycles. Tehran and Iran have recovered from the Iraq war that ended 20 years ago and are holding up remarkably well to U.S. and international sanctions.

Most Iranians with whom we talked openly said they have issues with many aspects of their government. Many said the Iranian people share a common dislike with Americans -- dislike of their respective governments -- noting that Bush's and the U.S. Congress' approval ratings with the American people are extremely low, as is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's ratings, particularly in urban areas. But, they strongly said they do not want outside interference in the internal political events of their country and definitely do not want a political system and government installed by invasion and occupation. Their democracy, even with its flaws, is better than a U.S.-enforced democracy, they said.

America's best policy would be to treat Iran with respect and not with threats of military action. Any attempt to overthrow the Iranian government would be met with stiff opposition, even from those who don't like the government, they repeated. "Regime change" will come in due time and in an Iranian manner.

U.S. Interference in Iran's Internal Affairs

Several reminded us that in January 1981, the United States and Iran signed the Algiers Accord, in which the United States agreed "not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran's internal affairs." The Algiers Accord was the agreement to end the 444-day U.S. Embassy hostage crisis.

However, this accord has been violated numerous times by the United States. Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh wrote in the New Yorker that in late 2007, Bush requested and received from Democratic congressional leadership $400 million reprogrammed from previous authorizations to fund a presidential finding that substantially increased covert activities designed to destabilize Iran's religious leadership. These covert actions involved support for the Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. Hersh wrote that since 2007 United States special operations forces had been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with presidential authorization, including seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and pursuing "high-value targets" who could be captured or killed. Hersh said operations by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command were significantly expanded in 2007 by this authorization.

Iran's Nuclear Program

Iran has had a nuclear program for almost 50 years, having purchased a research reactor from the United States in 1959 during the reign of the Shah Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. The Iranian government states that its nuclear energy program will allow increased electricity generation to reduce consumption of gas and oil to allow export of more of its fossil fuels. The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate made public on Dec. 3, 2007, concluded with "high confidence" that the military-run Iranian nuclear weapons program had been shut down in 2003 but that Iran's enrichment program could still provide enough enriched uranium to produce a nuclear weapon by the middle of the next decade, a time frame unchanged from previous estimates.

Virtually everyone with whom we spoke said they believe their country has a right to have a nuclear-enrichment program and to produce nuclear energy. Many questioned why Iran would ever need a nuclear weapons program, unless as leverage against the United States' 30-year antagonism toward their country. They reminded us that Iran is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (unlike Israel, North Korea, India and Pakistan, which refused to join the NNPT and developed nuclear weapons purposefully outside the treaty). Additionally, they insist that Iran is in compliance with the International Atomic Energy Agency standards, according to the November 2008 IAEA report, despite interpretations of the report by the United States and Israel.

Some reminded us that on Aug. 9, 2005, at the IAEA meeting in Vienna, 60 years after the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei announced that he had issued a fatwa, or religious mandate, forbidding the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons. Importantly, the supreme leader controls the Iranian military and the nuclear program of Iran, not the president, Ahmadinejad.

Iran, Israel and the United States

Iran, Israel and United States have had a disturbing, but fascinating, history over the past 30 years. Iran's current relationship with Israel and Western countries seems to be defined by Ahmadinejad's October 2005 statement -- widely reported, but tragically and dangerously mistranslated and misinterpreted -- that "Israel should be wiped off the face of the earth." According to highly respected Middle Eastern scholar Juan Coles, Ahmadinejad was "not making a threat, but was quoting a saying of Khomeini's that urged pro-Palestinian activists in Iran not give up hope -- that the occupation of Jerusalem was no more a continued inevitability than had been the hegemony of the shah's government." Whatever this quotation from a decades-old speech of Khomeini may have meant, Ahmadinejad did not say that "Israel must be wiped off the map" with the implication that phrase has of Nazi-style extermination of a people.

But the history of Iranian-Israeli relationships is more than just Ahmadinejad's misinterpreted statement. Israel, like the United States, had a long history of selling arms to the shah, which Iran's revolutionary government was willing to exploit secretly, despite its public animosity toward the state of Israel. In the early years (1980-82) of the Iranian Revolution and during the war with Iraq, Khomeini's government sold oil to Israel in exchange for weapons and spare parts. Even during the American hostage crisis (1979-1981) in which 52 U.S. diplomats were held for 444 days, Israel made weapons deals with Iran. President Ronald Reagan's Secretary of State Alexander Haig gave permission to Israel to sell U.S.-made military parts for fighter planes to Iran in early 1981.

In another remarkable relationship known as the Iran-Contra affair, funds from Israel's sale to Iran of U.S. weapons in 1985-1986 were used by U.S. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, National Security Adviser Adm. John Poindexter, National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane (Reagan's first national security adviser) and National Security Council staffer Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North to fund the Contras' war against the revolutionary government in Nicaragua. This was in violation of a congressional ban on funding the Contras and took place during the Iraq-Iran war when the United States was also providing military equipment to Iraq. Iranians remember that those convicted for their actions, including Weinberger, Poindexter, McFarlane and North were pardoned by President George H.W. Bush, who was vice president during this period of criminal actions.

Iranian Support for Hamas and Hezbollah

When asked about one of the most contentious points in U.S.-Israeli-Iranian relationships -- the Iranian government's support for Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon -- Iranians pointed out that the United States has consistently and heavily funded Israel during its 62-year existence (the United States provides about $4 billion per year to the Israeli government and the Israeli Defense Forces). Many Iranians suggested that Palestinians who have lived in refugee camps during those 62 years must be provided assistance. Hezbollah began in 1982 as a small militia fighting the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and is now not only a military group but a political organization that won seats in the Lebanese government, has a radio and satellite television station and provides social development and humanitarian assistance for much of southern Lebanon. Iranians strongly felt that Hamas, the elected (and they emphasize elected) government of Gaza, needs financial support, particularly now in current extraordinary humanitarian crisis due to the lengthy Israeli blockade of foods and services into Gaza.

Iraq

On the question of Iraq, many Iranians who lived in the border regions with Iraq during the eight-year war said they personally knew the agony of deaths, injuries, destruction and other costs of war and do not wish that on their former enemies. They talked of the irony of the political outcome of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, in which many Shiite Iraqis, who lived in exile in Iran during President Saddam Hussein's regime and have longstanding ties to the Iranian government, are now in leadership positions in the new U.S.-backed Iraqi government.

Afghanistan

Other Iranians reminded us of Iran's help to the United States in 2001 and 2002 in the early days of the U.S. military action in Afghanistan. When we asked about recent U.S. intelligence analysis that indicated Iranian support for the Taliban, we were met with laughs. The Taliban are Sunni Muslims, while Iranians are Shiites. They reminded us that in 1998, the Taliban killed 11 Iranian diplomats and one Iranian journalist at the Iranian consulate in Afghan northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, an incident Iranians have not forgotten. The Iranians consider the Taliban their adversaries and feel that a Taliban government in Afghanistan would make the region more unstable.

Sanctions Are Drying Up Lines of Credit for Businesses

We found that Iranians are proud of their creativity to outwit the 29 years of various sanctions the United States has placed on their country. They say the United States has only isolated itself commercially by its sanctions, as Iran trades with many other nations. Europeans, Chinese, Russians and Indians have had flourishing businesses with Iran. However, the recent international sanctions' clampdown on lines of credit for Iranian banks has had a rippling effect into the business community, where money for loans to Iranian businesses for purchase of materials is drying up. Oil dollars that paid for an incredible amount of imports are drying up with the downturn in oil prices, and the government is beginning to re-evaluate the large subsidies given to the population for food, gasoline and services.

We spoke with four businesswomen (an architect, a chemist, a business consultant and an agricultural professional), who each said of their businesses had been affected negatively with the shrinking of money available for purchase of materials from outside the country and for continuation of current levels of operation or expansion of their businesses.

One of the most incredible stories we heard about the effect of the sanctions was on the alternative-energy sector. Since there is so much rhetoric in the United States about the dangers of the Iranian nuclear program, we decided to see if there were alternative-energy companies in the country. On the aircraft flying into Iran, we met a European businessman who said he would put us in touch with the director of a wind-energy company. He introduced us by telephone to the director of Saba Niroo Co., an Iranian company that makes wind turbines and is the largest regional wind power manufacturer. We met with the director and staff at the state-of-the-art factory in south Tehran. Saba Niroo has installed some of the 143 wind turbines planned for the wind farm in Manjil, Guillan Province, and the 43 wind turbines planned for the Binalood wind farm in Khorasan Razavi Province. They have installed four wind turbines in the Pushkin Pass wind farm in Armenia.

However, the director told us that because of U.S. sanctions, Vestas, a Danish wind energy company with whom the Iranian company has had a contractual relationship, has now refused to honor its 15-year contract to furnish critical parts for the wind turbines.

As a result, Saba Niroo has 50 huge 70-foot-long blades and corresponding chassis and installation towers lying useless in its warehouse and warehouse yard. Saba Niroo may go bankrupt in six months if it is unable to complete and sell the wind turbines -- all because of U.S. sanctions and pressure.

As a part of citizen diplomacy, we decided to defy sanctions and show our support of alternative-energy programs, by purchasing shares in Saba Niroo. We have also decided to purchase shares in Vestas, which has a big U.S. headquarters in Portland, Ore. As shareholders, we could put pressure on Vestas to honor its contract with the Iranian company.

Human Rights in Iran

On the question of human rights in Iran, executions, political prisoners and rights of gays and lesbians, many Iranians strongly want changes in their government's policies. In response to a question on Sept. 24, 2007, from an audience at Columbia University in New York, Ahmadinejad drew widespread criticism when his answer was translated as, "In Iran, we don't have homosexuals in our country, we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who told you that we have it." In October 2007, one of Ahmadinejad's media advisers said that the president had meant that "compared to American society, we don't have as many homosexuals -- in Iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country."

Homosexual acts are punishable by law: Sodomy (defined as "sexual intercourse with a male") is punishable by execution, and punishment for "lesbian acts" is 100 lashes. However, conviction takes the testimony of four witnesses, and if the accused recants before witnesses testify, the accused will not be punished. The discussion of human rights of youth and gay youth combined in the much-publicized 2005 execution by hanging of two young men in Iran. Some say they were executed solely because they were gay, and others say the two were convicted and hanged because they sexually assaulted another boy.

Interestingly, sex-change surgery is legal in Iran and there are more sex-change operations in Iran than any other country except Thailand. The Iranian government provides grants up to $4,500 for the operation and further funding for hormone therapy on the theory that persons wanting a sex change have a "treatable disorder."

Iranians want change to come from within their society, not imposed by another government, especially one, as we were reminded, that has its own human rights issues, including incarceration of the highest percentage of its citizenry of any country in the world, high rates of execution (Texas in particular), state-sponsored kidnapping from other countries (known in the Bush administration as extraordinary rendition), imprisonment without due process, extrajudicial courts and a military and an intelligence agency that are notorious for torture.

Women's Issues

When thinking of women in Iran, many in the West immediately respond with comments about the clothing women must wear. Few realize that 70 percent of all university students are women, 30 percent of doctors in Iran are women, 80 percent of women are literate (88 percent of men can read), women receive 90 days of maternity leave at two-thirds pay and right to return to their jobs, and the number of children per woman has declined from seven in 1979 to 1.7 now. Abortions are illegal in Iran, but it's the only country I know of where couples must take a class on modern contraception before being issued a marriage license. It has the only state-supported condom factory in the Middle East, and it produces 45 million condoms a year in 30 colors, shapes and flavors.

In one of the most successful instances of women's grassroots organizational pressure on the government, in September 2008, more than 100 advocates for women's rights successfully lobbied against proposed changes to marriage laws that were detrimental to women and forced the Iranian Parliament to drop the regressive amendments.

Clothing Restrictions

Yes, there are mandatory clothing rules for women, including wearing a scarf and clothing that covers the arms to the wrists and legs to the ankles, and they are cited by Western women as a human rights concern. In fact, as our aircraft arrived at the Tehran International Airport terminal, the aircraft crew announced, "By the law of the country of Iran, women cannot leave the aircraft without a scarf on their heads -- and there will be an Iranian official outside the aircraft to return women who are not properly covered." While some Iranian women say wearing the scarf is burdensome, others are comfortable with the dress code. In any case, clothing restrictions are not the main focus of women's rights advocates. Rights to custody of children and property after divorce, right to education and health care are more important than mandatory wearing of a scarf.

In the Month Since Our Visit

Sparks fly over Iranian president's BBC Christmas message -- "Jesus Christ Would Stand Up to Bullying, Ill-Tempered and Expansionist Powers."

In what they surely knew would be a very controversial request, the British Broadcasting Company asked Ahmadinejad to deliver Channel 4's traditional "alternative Christmas message" to the Queen's Christmas address.

The head of BBC News and Current Affairs said the decision to ask Ahmadinejad was because "As the leader of one of the most powerful states in the Middle East, President Ahmadinejad's views are enormously influential. As we approach a critical time in international relations, we are offering our viewers an insight into an alternative worldview. Channel 4's role is to allow viewers to hear directly from people of world importance with sufficient context to enable them to make up their own minds."

It turned out that Ahmadinejad's 36-second message in Farsi, with English subtitles, broadcast on Christmas Day probably resonated with much of the world, but predictably provoked a British government hornet's nest with his comment that if Jesus Christ lived today he would stand up against bullying powers.

"If Christ were on earth today, undoubtedly he would stand with the people in opposition to bullying, ill-tempered and expansionist powers." Ahmadinejad, a devout Muslim, criticized the "indifference of some governments and powers" toward the teachings of the "divine prophets, including Jesus Christ" and said that "the general will of nations" was for a return to human values. He declared, "The crises in society, the family, morality, politics, security and the economy … have come about because the prophets have been forgotten, the Almighty has been forgotten and some leaders are estranged from God."

Ahmadinejad's remarks received very little media coverage in the United States, minuscule when compared to the news story of the month -- Bush's encounter with the Iraqi shoe thrower. However, a spokeswoman for the U.K.'s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, in predicting anticipated Bush administration displeasure, said: "President Ahmadinejad has during his time in office made a series of appalling anti-Semitic statements. The British media are rightly free to make their own editorial choices, but this invitation will cause offense and bemusement not just at home but amongst friendly countries abroad."

Labor Member of Parliament Louise Ellman, chairwoman of the Labor Jewish Movement, said: "I condemn Channel 4's decision to give an unchallenged platform to a dangerous fanatic who denies the Holocaust while preparing for another and claims homosexuality does not exist while his regime hangs gay young men from cranes in the street." Conservative MP Mark Pritchard, a member of the Commons all-party media group, said: "Channel 4 has given a platform to a man who wants to annihilate Israel and continues to persecute Christians at Christmastime."

Media Relations Not a Strong Suit of the Iranian Government

It's almost as if Ahmadinejad, who is up for re-election in summer 2009, has hired lame ducks Vice President Dick Cheney and Israel's Olmert as his foreign policy, national security and media consultants. How else could the Iranian government have come up with so many incidents in recent weeks that give ammunition to those in the United States and Israel who do not want dialogue with Iran on nuclear and regional security issues, who want human rights issues to publicize and who wish ill to the Iranian government and people?

For example, on Dec. 22, the Iranian government closed down two human-rights organizations headed by 2005 Nobel Peace Prize-winner Shirin Ebadi. The government accused the organization of carrying out illegal activities, such as publishing statements, writing letters to international organizations and holding news conferences. The Center for Participation in Clearing Mine Areas helps victims of land mines in Iran, and Defenders of Human Rights Center reports human rights violations in Iran, defends political prisoners and supports families of those prisoners. Ebadi was taken into police custody briefly following the raids.

The first week in December 2008, in a campaign against Western cultural influence in Iran, Qaemshahr city police arrested 49 people during a crackdown on "satanic" fashions and unsuitable clothing and closed five barbershops for "promoting Western hairstyles."

And now, there is the predictable increased international criticism about the Russian government providing the Iranian government with anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense systems, triggered by the Bush administration's decision to put a "missile shield" in Poland and the Czech Republic. On Dec. 23, United Press International reported that the Russian government had begun delivery to the Iranian government of some of its most modern anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense systems, the S-300s. These missile systems can shoot down ballistic missiles and aircraft at low and high altitudes as far away as 100 miles. Iran conducted well-publicized air force and ballistic missile defense exercises in September.

The Bush administration's poke in the eye of Russia and Iran by the deployment of ballistic missiles in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic "to protect against attacks from rogue states" is perceived by many Iranians as a strategy to ensure that tensions in the region continue to escalate. The United States is planning to deploy 10 Ground-Based Interceptors in Poland and batteries of shorter-range Patriot PAC-3 anti-ballistic missiles to protect the GBIs.

Iranians Not Optimistic About Future Relations with the United States Under an Obama Administration

Despite President-elect Barack Obama's comments during the presidential campaign that he would have dialogue with the Iranian government without preconditions, many Iranians with whom we spoke are not optimistic that there will be meaningful change in U.S. policy during an Obama administration. Citing appointments of former Israeli Defense Force member and U.S. Congressman Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff; Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., who during the summer campaign said she would "obliterate" Iran if Iran used nuclear weapons against Israel (a statement that Iranians find incomprehensible since it is Israel that has nuclear weapons, not Iran, and Israel continues to threaten Iran), and Dennis Ross, the Middle East negotiator during the Clinton and Bush administrations, Iranians said they hoped the American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobby had not already determined Obama's agenda toward Iran.

Iranians Want Peace

To emphasize again, the overwhelming comment from Iranians during our visit was that they want peace with the United States. They hope that the new president of the United States will talk with their government to resolve issues instead of resorting to the threat, much less the use, of military action.

Our Future With Iran -- a Hope for Diplomacy, Not Military Action

As we have seen from the American invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, the use of our military to resolve security issues kills and injures civilians, destroys cities and villages, creates more people who dislike/hate our country and who may be willing to use violence against us, and jeopardizes, not enhances, the security of the United States.

As a retired U.S. Army colonel and a former U.S. diplomat, I hope that the Obama administration will throw away the old template of 30 years of crisis, threats of military action, vindictiveness and retaliation and look to diplomacy to develop a peaceful future with Iran!


Ann Wright is a 29-year Army/Army Reserves veteran who retired as a colonel, and a former U.S. diplomat who resigned in March 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq. She served in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia and Mongolia. In December 2001, she was on the small team that reopened the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. She is the co-author of the book Dissent: Voices of Conscience.

© 2009 TruthOut.org All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/116641/

[Dok]

John Bolton: Gaza Crisis Means We Should Attack Iran Now

Yesterday, on Fox’s Hannity and Colmes, Iran war hawk John Bolton said that Israel’s recent bombing campaign in Gaza is all the more reason for the United States to bomb Iran now. “So while our focus obviously is on Gaza right now, this could turn out to be a much larger conflict,” he said, adding that “we’re looking at potentially a multi-front war here.”

“You would strike Iran right now?” asked host Alan Colmes. “I would have done it before this,” Bolton responded. Colmes asked whether tensions and war across Middle East would escalate if the U.S. or Israel were to bomb Iran. Bolton said that the many Arab countries would secretly be cheering if Iran were attacked:

COLMES: So if we do that, they strike back, are we then in danger of creating a broader war?

BOLTON: I think in many Arab states in the region, although they wouldn’t say it publicly, they’d be doing the equivalent of popping champagne corks because the Arab states don’t want Iran with nuclear weapons any more than Israel does. What Iran could do is what’s already happening in the Gaza Strip or what might happen if they unleashed Hezbollah, terrorist attacks on Israel.

Watch it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m60s-_kSo38&eurl=http://www.blacklistednews.com/news-2822-0-3-3--.html

It’s hard to believe that the Arab world would be pulling out the party hats if Iran were attacked. Thanks to the policies of President Bush, the U.Sis immensely unpopular across the Middle East. Iran, on the other hand, enjoys unprecedented support in Iraq, which is supposed to be America’s greatest ally in the region.

The LA Times reported last year that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “has transcended national and religious divides to become a folk hero across the Middle East.” Ahmadinejaded, “the leader of a non-Arab Shiite nation, has ingratiated himself with the Middle East’s predominantly Sunni Arab population.”

Without regard for the wider war and increased regional instability that an attack on Iran would likely cause, Bolton believes the solution to a Middle East already in flames is to throw more wood on the fire.

http://www.blacklistednews.com/news-2822-0-3-3--.html

[bigron]

Obama and the nuclearization of the Middle East
 
09/01/2009 02:00:00 PM GMT
http://aljazeera.com/news/articles/39/Obama_and_the_nuclearization_of_the_Middle_East.html
 
 America under the Obama administration will press ahead with normalising U.S. relations with Iran in exchange for a security pact with Israel.


(www.topnews.in) 'By granting Israel a nuclear guarantee the U.S. is willing to come to terms with a nuclear Iran'


By Abid Mustafa

On 13/12/2008, Robert Gates, the U.S. Secretary of Defence speaking at international security conference in Bahrain gave some insight about forthcoming relations between America and Iran.

He said, "Nobody is after a regime change in Iran...What we are after is a change in policies and a change in behaviour so that Iran becomes a good neighbour of people in the region (rather) than a source of instability and violence."

In response to a question about Iran, Gates said, "If we say that we want to try to change Iranian behaviour and want to deter Iran from developing nuclear weapons and we want to avoid conflict, then the way to get them to change there behaviour is to use every tool at our disposal to bring economic and political pressure on them.”

However through the course of the conference Gates made no mention of the military option that characterised much of Bush administration’s parlance about Iran. Furthermore, Gates warned delegates at the conference about testing Obama.

Gates said, "Anyone who thought that the upcoming months might present opportunities to 'test' the new administration would be sorely mistaken. The president-elect and his team, myself included, will be ready to defend the interests of the United States, and our friends and allies, the moment he takes office on January 20.”

Do the above comments represent a departure from the policies pursued by the Bush administration to change Iran’s behaviour? What are the implications for Israel’s security and that of the whole region?

To answers these questions that following points need to be considered:-

1. The first administration of George Bush was dominated by neoconservatives who held the opinion that the best way to control the people of the Middle East was through the promotion of democracy through forcible regime change. This model failed soon after the invasion of Iraq, and set in motion a vigorous policy debate amongst America’s politicians and academia.

The second Bush administration made some adjustments and abandoned this approach. Nevertheless, it was unable change its rhetoric towards Iran because of two factors. First, the bellicose language helped the U.S. aggressively push its missile shield programme in face of stiff Russian opposition.

Additionally, it enabled the U.S. to enter into new security pacts with the frightened gulf countries. Second, the close ties between the Jewish lobby and Bush administration prevented it from removing the military option off the table—even though the probability of war between U.S. and Iran had greatly diminished.

2. The political language adopted by President elect Obama and his foreign policy team which includes, Defence Secretary Robert Gates, and his foreign policy advisor Brzezinski suggests that the U.S. will use diplomacy and soft power to not only normalise U.S.-relations with Iran, but also bolster Iran and encourage it to play an active role in the region.

As early as July 2004, Brzezinski and Gates advocated greater engagement with Iran to change Tehran’s behaviour through a system of reward and punishments. Both co-chaired a task force to study on how best to approach America’s relations with Iran. The outcome of the task force was a report entitled ‘Iran: Time for a New Approach’. The substantive nature of the report opposed the neoconservative assertion of regime change.

The report stated: "The Task Force reaches the important assessment that despite considerable political flux and popular dissatisfaction, Iran is not on the verge of another revolution. From this finding flows its advocacy of the United States adopting a policy of what it describes as limited or selective engagement with the current Iranian government...The Task Force concluded that the current lack of sustained engagement with Iran harms U.S. interests in a critical region of the world and that direct dialogue with Tehran on specific areas of mutual concern should be pursued.”

In 2006, Gates was part of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which also advocated diplomatic outreach to Iran. In a speech to a group of retired diplomats this year, Mr. Gates said the U.S. needed to "develop some leverage on Iran" and then "sit down and talk with them.”

More or less, throughout his election campaign Barrack Obama has stressed the importance of talking to Iran and has played down the prospect of employing military action. Writing in Foreign Affairs in July 2007, Obama stated:’ Throughout the Middle East, we must harness American power to reinvigorate American diplomacy. Tough-minded diplomacy, backed by the whole range of instruments of American power—political, economic, and military—could bring success even when dealing with long-standing adversaries such as Iran and Syria’.

In a September 2007 in a speech in Iowa, Obama voiced concern over Bush’s policy on Iran. He said, “...we hear eerie echoes of the run-up to the war in Iraq in the way that the President and Vice President talk about Iran. ... They issue veiled threats. They suggest that the time for diplomacy and pressure is running out when we haven't even tried direct diplomacy. Well George Bush and Dick Cheney must hear — loud and clear — from the American people and the Congress: you don't have our support, and you don't have our authorization for another war.”

In December 2008, Obama gave an interview on Sunday's "Meet the Press" with host Tom Brokaw. During the interview Obama said that he would pursue "tough but direct diplomacy with Iran." Obama said that he would offer Iran economic incentives if it abandoned its nuclear program but would seek to punish the country with tougher sanctions if it refused to cooperate.

Brzezinski has been an avid supporter of normalizing relations with Iran. Brzezinski, in his book ‘Second Chance’ chastises the Bush administration for damaging American prospects in the Middle East through the futile pursuit of regime change.

In December 2008, The Salt Lake Tribune quoted Brzezinski as saying, "One of the reasons that I do favour a dialogue with the Iranians, and if it is feasible, the establishment of normal diplomatic relationships, is that I think that would help promote political change in a country which is far less centrally controlled, far less subject to effective state authority than was or is the case in the People's Republic of China.”

It might be added here that whilst Hilary Clinton has adopted a hardened posture against Iran during her presidential campaign, it is expected that she will reflect the new approach both in word and deed.

3. Apart from the clandestine cooperation between the two countries to secure American interest in the region—ranging from supporting Hamas and Hezbollah in the Levant, strengthening the Iraqi government and fighting Sunni and Shia resistance fighters, to stabilising Afghanistan—official contact has gradually grown over the past year or so.

The Bush administration has progressively taken a number of steps to prepare the ground for Obama to complete the normalisation process. For instance the presence of the highest ranking U.S. official, William Burns in the Geneva talks with Iran came after a series of meetings between the two countries.

Another is the administration’s announcement to establish a U.S. diplomatic mission in Tehran to facilitate people to people contact. America has also snubbed Israeli advances to attack Iran. America played down Israel’s show of air power over the Mediterranean a few months ago, and has refused to sell the powerful GBU-29 bunker-busters bombs.

More recently, the U.S. has exploited Israeli apprehensions over Iran’s nuclear programme and offered Tel Aviv new security guarantees. This includes NATO protection and a promise of a nuclear umbrella. On 2/12/2008 NATO authorized a pact to strengthen and expand Israel's security and political relations with the states in the military alliance.

Under Individual Cooperation Program (ICP) agreement permits the exchange of intelligence information and security expertise on different subjects, an increase in the number of joint Israel-NATO military exercises and further cooperation in the fight against nuclear proliferation. It also paves the way for an improvement of collaboration in the fields of rearmament and logistics and Israel's electronic link to the NATO system.

Israel’s foreign minister Livni hailed the treaty and said, "Israel's security capabilities are a household name and we see the strengthening of cooperation between Israel and the international security body as a strategic objective that reinforces Israel.”

According to press reports, the U.S. nuclear guarantee would be backed by a new Israeli missile defence system, and the U.S. early-warning radar system already deployed in the Negev desert to counter Iranian missiles.

The report further suggests that by granting Israel a nuclear guarantee the U.S. is willing to come to terms with a nuclear Iran, where the uranium enrichment program has reportedly "passed beyond the point of no return.”

No doubt America will use NATO in the future to push for a resolution to the Palestinian question, check Israeli ambitions of expansion beyond Palestine and deploy NATO forces to quell popular uprisings in the region.

On 12/12/2008 Brzezinski alluded to some of America’s motives behind NATO’s agreement with Israel. He said, ”The possible involvement of NATO is not a question of war on terror, but ensuring that the Palestinian state is not a military threat, but at the same time stable and secure, and NATO presence could bring this double benefit. Perhaps a NATO presence [could] ensure a peace agreement, or maybe even an American presence along the Jordan River, to give the Israelis sense of geographical security.”

4. Despite the continuous imposition of sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme, the West is nowhere close to halting its enrichment programme. This is because America has deftly exploited the five year old negotiations between the EU-3 and Iran to coax the Europeans into a protracted discussion over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Furthermore, America has added fuel to the fire through the bravado of the neoconservatives and doggedness of Ahmadinejad, which has resulted in an atmosphere of war and created perpetual tensions in the region.

By doing so, America has gained a strategic advantage by persuading the Gulf Arab countries to acquire nuclear energy, by nudging the Israelis into a security pact and by permitting Iran to divert its civilian programme to build atom bombs. On 12/12/2008 the U.S. State Department announced that United States was close to concluding a nuclear cooperation agreement with the United Arab Emirates.

The so-called 1-2-3 agreement would be similar to the nuclear cooperation accord the United States reached with India in 2005. It would allow the United States to sell nuclear fuel, equipment and technology to the UAE . Similar agreements are being pursued with Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. In summary, America is working towards the nuclearization of the Middle East.

5. Some Israeli officials have started to prepare the Israeli people for a change in American policy towards Iran. On 18/11/2008 Israel's military intelligence chief said he saw a positive side to a possible US dialogue with Iran.

Major-General Amos Yadlin said, “Dialogue with Iran while at the same time insisting on clear and defined parameters for stopping the Iranian nuclear programme is not necessarily negative.”

On 9/12/2008 the Arab News reported that Israeli President Shimon Peres said that the union of western countries against Iran’s policies and the drop in oil prices has rendered the military option against the Islamic Republic unnecessary at this point. Yet there are still some pro-Jewish supporters in the U.S. who pushing Bush administration to attack Iran.

In response to their endeavours Brzezinski has warned: “Israel will do harm to its relations with the United States if it insists on lobbying Washington for an American military strike on Iran”. It wouldn't be particularly good for American-Israeli relations, and there will be a lot of resentment against [Israel].”

In conclusion, America under the Obama administration will press ahead with normalising U.S. relations with Iran in exchange for a security pact with Israel. However, the pace of the normalisation process will be slow and will probably gather pace after the Iranian presidential election in 2009 and with the removal Ahmadinejad. America will employ a series of carrots and sticks to mould the Iranian regime to implement its policies and protect U.S. interests.

The introduction of NATO is ominous sign in that America wants to safeguard the hydrocarbons (oil and gas) of the Middle East from Russia and China. Iran will serve as America’s lynchpin in providing energy security and becoming a frontline state against Russia.

The spread of nuclear technology in the Middle East under U.S. auspices signals that from a geostrategic perspective, America is looking to completely surround Russia and China with nuclear armed states stretching from the Eastern Europe to the Asian pacific. The intention is to considerable reduce Russian and Chinese nuclear strike capabilities, and limit the theatre of war to these frontline states. Nevertheless, America faces huge challenges and the foremost is to subdue the resurgence of radical Islam accentuated by the Bush years.

The Muslims of the region and beyond have been manipulated before and served as U.S. pawns to bring down the Soviet Union. Today, Obama and some of his advisors believe that this feat can be repeated against Russia and China. Muslims must learn from their past experiences.

-- Abid Mustafa is a political commentator who specialises in Muslim affairs.




-- Middle East Online

 
 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
© aljazeera.com
 

[bigron]

In Washington, All Roads Lead to Tehran

By Daniel Luban
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45361

Januaru 10, 2009 -- WASHINGTON, Jan 9 (IPS) - As the war in Gaza approaches its third week, a chorus of influential voices in the U.S. media has cast the conflict as a proxy war in which the real enemy is not Hamas but Iran.

The result has been a growing tendency in the U.S. to view Gaza as simply one battleground in a larger war between Iran and the West, and to dismiss the stated concerns of the Palestinians as a mere smokescreen for Iranian influence.

But critics charge that this way of framing the conflict is both overly simplistic and agenda-driven. By overstating the importance of Iran's operational aid to Hamas, they claim, these opinion-makers aim to increase hostilities with Iran, to bolster an increasingly shaky Israeli rationale for war, and to curtail any inclination to reach a peace settlement with the Palestinians.

For years, it has been a commonplace among neoconservatives that Iran is the real source of opposition to the U.S. and Israel throughout the Middle East, from Palestine to Lebanon to Iraq. During Israel's 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, prominent neoconservatives urged the West to focus "less on Hamas and Hezbollah, and more on their paymasters and real commanders in Syria and Iran", as William Kristol wrote in the Weekly Standard.

Similarly, neoconservatives have taken the current war with Hamas as a sign that the West needs to take a harder line with Iran. "It's all about Iran," Michael Ledeen, a prominent Iran hawk based at the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies, wrote in National Review Online on Dec. 30. "[The Israelis] are left to contend with the tentacles of the terrorist hydra, while the main body remains untouched. They may chop off a piece of Hamas or Hezbollah, but it will regenerate and grab them again."

However, the belief that Hamas is merely an Iranian proxy has spread beyond neoconservative circles to be voiced by opinion-makers closer to the political centre. Self-described realist Robert Kaplan wrote in the Atlantic on Monday that "Israel's attack on Gaza is, in effect, an attack on Iran's empire...Our own diplomacy with Iran now rests on whether or not Israel succeeds."

In the New York Times, influential neoliberal Thomas Friedman implied that Iran was to blame for the outbreak of hostilities in Gaza, writing that Tehran can "stop and start the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at will". In the Los Angeles Times, Israeli commentators Yossi Klein Halevi and Michael B. Oren wrote an op-ed titled "In Gaza, the real enemy is Iran", which warned that if Hamas "manipulat[es] world opinion into the imposition of a premature ceasefire...[it] would mean another triumph for Iran".

And in the literature released by hawkish advocacy groups such as the Israel Project, Hamas is rarely mentioned without the adjective "Iran-backed".

It is widely accepted that Iran has in fact provided weaponry and other operational assistance to Hamas in recent years. However, there are few reliable estimates of the scope of this aid.

"I'm very sceptical whenever I see figures in the media," former State Department intelligence official Wayne White, now of the Middle East Institute, told IPS. "Even when I was in the intelligence community, exact details were often elusive."

Many feel that those blaming Iran for the Gaza crisis attach too much importance to Iran's operational aid to Hamas when they suggest that Hamas is nothing more than an Iranian "proxy".

White suggested that Iran's relationship with Hamas is "more symbiotic than dictatorial", and that its influence with Hamas is more limited than is portrayed in the media. "Iranian inspiration is being given far too much weight in the overall Israeli-Hamas equation. Hamas has every reason to make its own decisions, most of which are sufficiently militant to please the Iranians," he said.

Critics charge that framing the Gaza conflict as an U.S.-Iran proxy war is a tendentious move that is meant to advance several covert political goals.

The most obvious of these goals is to increase hostilities with Iran. Unsurprisingly, many of those espousing the "proxy war" argument, such as Ledeen, are advocates of regime change in Tehran, backed if necessary by military force.

But the proxy war argument has also been deployed to bolster the Israeli case for war in Gaza, as Israel's war aims have become increasingly slippery and elusive over the past two weeks.

Israeli officials have at times suggested that the war is intended to halt all rocket fire from Gaza, or to overthrow Hamas rule in Gaza, but both of these goals are viewed by many as unrealistic and the Israeli government has subsequently backed off of them.

Casting the military campaign as a struggle against Iranian power provides a broader rationale for war, and has been used as a way to rally support from U.S. policymakers who are sceptical of the campaign's wisdom. On this analysis, Israel is doing the U.S.'s dirty work by confronting Iranian power.

In this vein, the Wall Street Journal editorialised on Monday that the war would help President-elect Barack Obama's diplomatic efforts with Iran, since "the mullahs are going to be more interested in diplomacy if their military proxies have been defeated".

And hawkish liberal Jim Hoagland suggested in the Washington Post that Israel's attack was helping to hold off the possibility of a nuclear Iran, writing that "only Israel poses any threat of military action to halt Iran's drive to enrich enough uranium to build a nuclear bomb".

But one important consequence of the proxy war argument, critics say, has more to do with Palestine than with Iran. By portraying Hamas as nothing more than a projection of Iranian power, commentators implicitly reject any notion that the group may derive its influence from specifically Palestinian concerns.

By doing so, the critics argue, these commentators seek to assuage Israeli consciences by portraying Hamas as the product of a nebulous Islamist menace rather than of local grievances about occupation, refugees, or settlements.

But more than that, they seek to remove any impetus to compromise on such issues. If Iranian power is the real cause of Israel's Palestinian problem, then a local settlement with the Palestinians would do little to alleviate Israel's insecurity.

In response, a growing number of analysts have spoken out against this line of thinking.

"Yes, the conflict has been exploited on many sides and certainly by Iran and other hardliners in the region," wrote former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy of the New America Foundation on Monday. "ut if the unaddressed Palestinian grievance did not exist then it would not be there to exploit."

White concurred in his assessment of the situation.

"The [proxy war] view is a very unsophisticated one," he told IPS. "This is at bottom a struggle between Hamas, along with many other Palestinians, and the Israelis."

[Brocke]

Iran Bans Activists From Fighting Israel

Ayatollah Attempts to Cool Rhetoric After 70,000 Students Seek Permission to Attack Israel

Posted January 8, 2009

Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced today that he would ban Iranians from leaving the country to carry out suicide attacks against Israel. The ban is an attempt to silence calls by Iran’s far right to take a direct role in confronting Israel on its attacks on the Gaza Strip.

Earlier this week it was reported that student groups had solicited over 70,000 volunteers to participate in suicide bombings against Israel in response to the war on Gaza. The volunteer drives were a response to a statement in which Khamenei declared that anyone killed defending the people of Gaza would be considered a martyr.

The volunteer drive started off slow, but swelled after Israel began its ground invasion to include an enormous number who sought permission from President Ahmadinejad to head for Israel. Ahmadinejad was under growing pressure to grant the request, though Khamenei’s ban suggests his comments were not intended to organize the people of Iran to go to Israel to fight in the war. He did however say that Iran would assist Hamas in other ways.

http://news.antiwar.com/2009/01/08/iran-bans-activists-from-fighting-israel/

[bigron]

Iran: Revisiting the 1979 revolution
 
13/01/2009 11:04:00 AM GMT
http://aljazeera.com/news/articles/39/Iran_Revisiting_the_1979_revolution.html

 
(flickr.com) Political realism on the part of the Islamic Republic is as much a rarity now as it was at its formation


 The 1979 revolution was not only against U.S. domination of Iranian politics but was also supposed to place it amongst the countries that made the transition to electoral democracy.


By Jalal Alavi

The 30th anniversary of the Iranian revolution is nearing. The revolution of 1979 was not only an act against the US domination of Iranian politics, which began with the US-British coup of 1953 against the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mosaddegh, but also an act that was supposed to place Iran amongst the countries that made the transition to electoral democracy [1] as part of what the late Samuel Huntington and others have called the “third wave” of democratization.


Thirty years later, it seems fair to say that neither of the above objectives has been achieved to the satisfaction of the majority population in Iran, of course, for a variety of reasons, the most important of which, as of the time of the revolution, may be said to be actor-based in nature: those who promised a more sovereign Iran and a more open society decided to establish a manifestly anti-Western theocracy instead, which eventually engendered not only a more interventionist Iran policy on the part of the United States and other Western powers, but also a clerical regime that turned out to be more reactionary than the secular autocracy it replaced.


Thus the turn of events in Iran paved the way for the gradual international isolation of the country under the global hegemony of the United States, which has continued to this very day, as well as the domestic rise in corruption, poverty, and chronic repression.


Implicit in the above is the important proposition that the Iranian revolution of 1979 could have alternatively led to a more balanced state of affairs at both the domestic and international levels had those in charge of the revolution been less impulsive and thus more pragmatic in their political thinking and behavior.


To be sure, a more pragmatic approach to politics would have required not only a show of indifference on the part of the revolutionaries with regard to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s entry into the United States on medical grounds (as this eventually turned out to be a source of great tension in US-Iran relations [2]), but also firm support for the provisional government of Mehdi Bazargan, whose conciliatory approach towards the United States – under a somewhat sympathetic Carter administration – had the potential of not only improving relations between the two countries at an early stage, but also preventing the occurrence of both the hostage crisis of 1979-1981 and the Iraq-Iran war of 1980-1988.


Alas, such political realism on the part of the Islamic Republic is as much a rarity now as it was at its formation stage; hence the current situation, in which the regime is finding it hard to even manage its day-to-day activities.


The failure of the 1979 revolution to bring about a more prosperous and democratic Iran can also be blamed on the Islamic Republic’s lax attitude towards the establishment and growth of myriad special interests that have hitherto permeated Iran’s fragile, often mismanaged petroleum-based economy.


The “bonyads”, or charitable trusts often of dubious nature, and the Revolutionary Guard Corps, whose privileged and thus predatory position in the Iranian economy has not remained a secret to anyone, are to name but two of such special interests.


Added to all this, of course, is the fact that Iran’s increasingly volatile state of affairs has made it extremely difficult over the years for foreign investors to take part in Iran’s various development projects.


It may be concluded, therefore, that, short of direct action by Iran’s disgruntled citizenry, the combination of the above, along with the possibility of even more international sanctions and lower petroleum prices in world markets, is bound to have a major effect on policy decisions within the Islamic Republic. Let us hope, however, that this effect is not only benign in nature, but also imminent [3].


-- Jalal Alavi is a sociologist and political commentator residing in Britain.



Notes:


[1] Modern electoral democracy, rooted in Joseph Schumpeter’s notion of procedural democracy, can be found in many less developed countries and thus does not require the sort of structural changes that, say, a liberal or social democracy would require. At a minimum, competitive elections of a free, open, and fair nature must be guaranteed for a political system to be called electoral democracy.


[2] In retrospect, it seems the effort by some influential elements in or close to the Carter administration to secure the Shah’s entry into the United States might have been a shrewd way of dampening the prospects of better relations between the US and revolutionary Iran. Thus a show of indifference by Iran would have neutralized this stratagem.


[3] Tragic incidents, such as the current US-backed Israeli massacre of the Gaza population, which, according to such prominent international law experts as Richard A. Falk, is a “severe and massive violation” of the very principles of international humanitarian law as defined by the Geneva Conventions, have historically had an impeding effect on the process of democratization in Islamic countries, not least by playing into the hands of authoritarian rulers.



-- Middle East Online

 

[bigron]

The Target is Iran: Israel's Latest Gamble May Backfire



By Muriel Mirak-Weissbach
 
Global Research, January 12, 2009
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11747


The aerial war against Gaza launched by Israel just after Christmas, and the ground offensive, with which it rang in the New Year, were shocking in their brutality, but should constitute no surprise, if viewed from the standpoint of long-term Israeli strategic aims. The Israelis have argued that the offensive was launched in response to eight years' of relentless attacks by Hamas rockets into Israel. But then, one asks: why now? Why should they wait eight years?

Perhaps the massive military onslaught, which has killed over 800 Palestinians and wounded thousands, has nothing to do with Kassam rockets. Perhaps it is not a tactical military operation by Israel, but a strategic decision on the part of Israel's Anglo-American backers, whose ultimate aim is war against Iran. Perhaps the military calculations in Tel Aviv are that continued massive pounding of Gaza by air and in house-to-house fighting, will take such a ghastly toll on the Palestinian civilian population, that Iran, touted as the backer of Hamas, will be forced to move into the conflict. Perhaps that is precisely the reaction Israel desires, in order to justify launching its war against the Islamic Republic, a war which has been on the drawing boards of the Israelis and their neocon sponsors for many years.

If that is the name of the game, it may well be that it will backfire totally. Not only will Iran not be drawn into the trap, but the continued genocidal campaign against the Palestinians may utterly discredit Israel politically and morally, and contribute to a shift in attitudes even in Europe and, most importantly, in the U.S. That, in turn, may open the way to redefining the conflict and therefore opening the way for real solutions.

The Clean Break Doctrine

What we have witnessed in Gaza since December 27 is the implementation of one crucial part of an Anglo-American strategic doctrine for redrawing the map of the Middle East (within a broader context), known as the "Clean Break." This doctrine had been cooked up by Dick Cheney's neocon task force in 1996 and served to then-aspiring PM Benjamin Netanyahu, on a silver platter. The policy had been fashioned by Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser and his wife Meyrav, among others, under the auspices of the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies in Jerusalem. The paper, which was one in a series of strategic policy papers from 1992 on, outlining how the Anglo-Americans could establish world hegemony in the post-Cold War world, derived its name from the idea that Israel must make a "clean break" with the historic 1993 Oslo Accords between it and the Palestinian Authority, and revert to "a peace process and strategy based on an entirely {new intellectual foundation} one that restores strategic initiative and provides the nation the room to engage every possible energy on rebuilding Zionism, the starting point of which must be economic reform". (http://www.iasps.org/strat1.htm).

This new approach involved Israeli initiatives to secure its northern borders: "Syria challenges Israel on Lebanese soil. An effective approach, and one with which America can sympathize, would be if Israel seized the strategic initiative along its northern borders by engaging Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran, as the principal agents in Lebanon..." This did not exclude attacks by proxy Israeli forces on Syria from Lebanon, targetting Syrian sites in Lebanon as well as in Syria proper.

The doctrine went on to develop the idea that Israel, "in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan" could shape the strategic environment "by weakening, containing and even rolling back Syria." "This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq," the paper specified. As for the Palestinian question, "Clean Break" was equally explicit: "Israel has a chance to forge a new relationship between itself and the Palestinians. First and foremost, Israel's efforts to secure its streets may require hot pursuit into Palestinian controlled areas, a justifiable practice with which Americans can sympathize..."

This 1996 policy paper was enthusiastically endorsed by Benjamin Netanyahu, who presented its basic tenets in a speech to a joint session of the U.S. Congress days later, as "his" policy. However, before it could move accordingly, Israel would have to wait until the neocon establishment which had prepared the doctrine, regained power in Washington. This occurred promptly, in the wake of the dubious results of the 2000 U.S. presidential elections, and the events of September 11, 2001. It was 9-11 which made it possible for the "Clean Break" strategic doctrine to become U.S. military policy.

After the neocons had succeeded in their 2003 war against Iraq to actually depose Saddam Hussein, they followed up with "regime change by other means" in Lebanon (with the Hariri murder laid at Damascus's door). The Israeli 2008 bombing of a site in Syria alleged to be a nuclear installation, was the ultimate humiliation to Damascus. What remained on the Clean Break agenda were Iran and those militant Islamist Arab forces said to be allied to Tehran, to wit, Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon. It was widely acknowledged in the press and political realm that, were the Cheney faction to endorse an Israeli bid to attack Iran -- whether by bombing its presumed nuclear installations, and/or fomenting subversive processes within the country, -- then those elements which could engage in an effective asymmetric response against forces allied to the aggressors, must be taken out first. That was the rationale behind the 2006 Israeli war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, a war which, however, did not proceed according to Tel Aviv's script. Hezbollah prevailed militarily and politically, much to the chagrin of the Cheneyacs in the US/UK and Israel.

The Target is Iran

Throughout 2007 and 2008, the debate raged among concerned parties, including on the www.globalresearch.ca website, as to whether the war party would or could mount a military attack against Iran, using the pretext that questions regarding its nuclear program remained open, etc. Statements attributed to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatening the existence of Israel, were hyped up, to justify a preemptive strike against Tehran. But certain military realities had to be taken into consideration, at least by those who knew something about warfare.

The concern raised by competent military professionals, including those inside the U.S., was that, were Iran to be attacked (by the U.S. and/or Israel), the asymmetric response on the part of pro-Iranian factors in the region would unleash regional conflict with an immediate potential to become global. This was the thinking which led U.S. officials to tell Israel point blank that they would not endorse a military attack on Iran. Now, further confirming this report, the New York Times has released a timely article detailing Israel's bid and Washington rejection of permission to bomb Iran's plant at Natanz.

(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/washington/11iran.html?_r=1&th=&emc=th&pagew)
 
In the article by David E. Sanger, it is reported that it was following the late 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which said Iran had no nuclear weapons program, that Israel asked the U.S. for bunker busters, permission to fly over Iraqi air space, and refueling equipment. President Bush, according to the article, "was convinced by top administration officials, led by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, that any overt attack on Iran would probably prove ineffective, lead to the expulsion of international inspectors and drive Iran's nuclear effort further out of view." Bush et al reportedly also "discussed the possibility that an airstrike could ignite a broad Middle East war" which would draw in U.S. forces in Iraq. The article further quotes a spokesman of Gates, saying the Defense Secretary stated a week earlier that he believed "a potential strike on the Iranian facilities is not something that we or anyone else should be pursuing at this time."

Among those factors catalogued as pro-Iran, which might be activated in the event of an attack against Iran, were Shi'ite communities as well as armed militias in Bahrein, Saudi Arabia, Kuweit etc., and of course Iraq. Hezbollah remained the leading danger in Lebanon. In addition, the Palestinian Hamas movement, though not Shi'ite, was considered a serious threat. Thus, if any serious Israeli move against Iran were to be considered, one would have to figure out how to deal with Hamas first; not because it were such a powerful military force, comparable, say to Hezbollah, but because its self-conceived role as leading opposition to belligerent Israeli intentions would ensure its immediate mobilization in case of an Israeli move, a mobilization which would not be generically political, but pointedly military, and aimed at any Israeli vulnerabilities.

Thus the move against Hamas. Contrary to Israeli and other propaganda, the onslaught against Hamas in late 2008 had {nothing} to do with that Palestinian faction's alleged violation of the ceasefire, since it was Israel's continuing blockade of Gaza which was in violation. Rather, the Israeli military assault constituted a repetition of the strategy tried in 2006 against Hezbollah: to wipe out a potential nuisance, while proceeding to target Iran. The outgoing U.S. administration's military had signalled its rejection of a new war against Iran, but would obviously not object to Israeli aggression against Hamas, if presented as a thing-in-itself.

The neocon faction, led by outgoing Vice President Cheney, is viewing the Gaza war as a preparation for aggression against Iran, and the spark that ignites regional conflict. John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., and one of the most outspoken among the neocon war party, announced on December 31, that the Gaza war was the first step towards an attack against Iran, which he deemed necessary. "I don't think there's anything at this point standing between Iran and nuclear weapons other than the possibility of the use of military force possibly by the United States, possibly by Israel," he was quoted by Fox News. "So while our focus obviously is on Gaza now," he went on, "this could turn out to be a much larger conflict. We're looking at potentially a multi-front war." And, as Daniel Luban summarized in a January 10 piece for http://www.antiwar.com, the general consensus among the neocons was that the Gaza war was a proxy war against Iran.

Israel chose the timing of its Gaza war most carefully, with these considerations in mind: the lame duck, lame-brained U.S. President could be counted on to assert publicly that Israel had every right to defend itself from Hamas's deadly rocket attacks. President-elect Barack Obama would not venture to denounce the Bush administration's policy as long as it were still officially in power. Any initiatives launched by the European Union would be rebuffed by Israel. Israeli Foreign Minister Livni and Prime Minister Olmert, in fact, ignored any and all calls for a cease-fire on grounds that Israel alone would decide if and when any such a cease-fire could be organized. Israel's demands have been that the international community (in whatever form -- UN peacekeeping troops or whatever) would have one and only one task: to ensure that Hamas could no longer fire rockets on Israel, and that no weapons could be delivered to Gaza through the Egyptian border. The power of the Israeli establishment to blackmail any European or other attempts at mediation, -- on utterly unspoken, totally implicit, but universally understood grounds that any criticism of Israeli policy can be misconstrued as anti-semitic, -- has been demonstrated. The attempt of the EU troika to plea for a ceasefire, like the moves by the Russians too, have been ineffective.

Israel may be seriously miscalculating the total situation. It is to be mooted that the Israelis thought, -- and perhaps still think -- that, if they continue with their inhumane aggression in Gaza, killing women and children and obliterating anything that has to do with civil life in Gaza, then the other side will give up. This will not occur. Anyone who knows how the militant Hamas leaders think, realizes that their resistance even with their relatively modest missiles, will continue to be launched, up to the last man. For militant Hamas members, there is no fear of dying in struggle; on the contrary, a fighter killed in the battle for liberation is a martyr.

By the same token, if the Israelis believe that their escalation of the war will provoke Hezbollah, but more importanly, Iran, to enter the fray, they may be as badly mistaken. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah delivered a major speech on December 30, denouncing the Israeli aggression and calling for the defense of Palestinians. Significantly, he explicitly compared the Gaza war to the Israeli war on Hezbollah (Lebanon) in 2006. "What is happening today in Gaza is not similar but identical to what happened in July of 2006" (http://www.presstv.ir/pop/print.aspx?id=79953). He charged that the same international forces, and certain Arab states, "are asking Israel to eliminate Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and the rest of the resistance factions...." The marching orders that Nasrallah issued were {not} that others should join the armed struggle. Rather, he called on Arabs to "take to the streets by the thousands, by the tens and hundreds of thousands, and demand from these [Arab] governments to act responsibly." This included emphatically the demand that Egypt open the Rafah border to Gaza, but, he added, "I am not calling for a coup in Egypt....". Days later, on January 7, Nasrallah warned Israel against expanding the hostilities to Lebanon, but that was it. The rocket reportedly fired from southern Lebanon against Israel, was not the work of Hezbollah, the group declared.

As for Iran, its leadership's response has been most cautious. Immediately after the aggression, demonstrations took place in Iran unhindered, but the leadership explicitly warned demonstrators not to attack or occupy diplomatic missions of foreign nations, for example, the British Embassy, which some protestors had targetted. When, on January 5, it was reported that 70,000 Iranian students had declared their readiness to go to Israel as suicide bombers, the regime responded unequivocably that that was {not} the answer. Supreme Leader of the Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quoted on January 10, saying, "I thank the pious and devoted youth who have asked to go to Gaza ... but it must be noted that our hands are tied in this arena." Iran criticized the inaction of Arab governments, but that was it. Iranian Speaker of the Parliament Ali Larijani had met in Damascus with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on January 7 to discuss the crisis.


Although some commentators have tried to cast these events in Iran as part of a domestic political faction fight between Ahmadinejad, seen as the militant, and Khamenei, seen as the elder statesman, the issue transcends any such internal political controversy. The issue is strategic, and the Iranians know it.

In short, it appears that both Hezbollah and the Iranian leadership have realized what kind of a trap was being laid for them, and have wisely refrained from taking any irrational step that might entrap them. It is to be expected that they will continue to lie low, and bide their time, in hopes that the Palestinians can hold out until the regime change in Washington is completed.

The Change in Washington

The leading political power which could effect a major shift in the crisis, force Israel to pull back from its genocidal war, and impose serious negotiations aimed at an end to the bloodletting and a just peace, is the United States. History has shown, from Eisenhower's intervention in the Suez crisis, to later U.S. moves for Middle East peace, by Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, et al, that, if the power of the U.S. presidency is brought to bear on the issue, something can be done. The hope is that incoming President Barack Obama will make good on his campaign promises to introduce a fundamental change in U.S. foreign policy, engage in dialogue with perceived adversaries (Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, Syria), in the pursuit of viable solutions to the regional crises involved.

Although nothing will be certain until Obama delivers his inaugural speech on January 20, there are signs that he may make good on his campaign pledges. First, he has announced a number of encouraging appointments. His naming Leon Panetta as head of the CIA, was a courageous step; although Panetta has no intelligence experience, he has gone on record as principally opposed to any kind of torture, and can be expected to help implement Obama's pledge to shut down the infamous Guantanamo prison, and to reverse the Bush administration's anti-constitutional policy and practices. Obama's Vice President Joe Biden has been a relatively rational voice in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Several other appointees, from the economic policy team, to those in the justice area, like Dawn Johnsen, Elena Kagan and Tom Perelli, come from the Bill Clinton administration.

As for his foreign policy team involved in the Middle East directly, Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State is obviously central. Many in the region will recall that Mrs. Clinton made an unfortunate reverse conversion on the road to Damascus, some years back. Although she had made headlines, and friends, after having engaged politically and personally with Suha Arafat, the wife of Palestinian Authority president Yassir Arafat in 1999, she soon thereafter made a U-turn, in the course of her first campaign for a seat in the Senate from the state of New York, where the pro-Zionist vote is significant. That said, Mrs. Clinton is the wife of former President Bill Clinton, who strove to forge a just peace between Israel and the Palestinians, at Camp David, until his bid was sabotaged by Ehud Barak. During the presidential campaign, Mrs. Clinton uttered carelessly formulated statements on Iran, -- which she later rectified -- and of course stood by Israel and its "right to self-defense," etc., as is expected of any U.S. political figure. It is to be hoped that what she will represent in her new position, will more depend on what the general policy of the Obama presidency will be, than her personal views.

As for Obama, he repeatedly asserted in the campaign that he would meet with perceived adversaries, including the leaderships of Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, etc., on grounds that diplomatic progress can be made with enemies, not just with friends. He recently repeated this, saying he thought Iran constituted a threat, but should be dealt with through diplomacy. Since the outbreak of the Gaza war, reports have been leaked, and then perfunctorily denied, that the Obama tream would be willing to establish contacts with Hamas. The London Guardian reported on January 9 that three people close to the Obama camp had said, on conditions of confidentiality, that Obama would be open to low-level contacts with Hamas

(http://.www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/08/barack-obama-gaza-hamas).

Although this was denied, it sounds plausible.

Considerable attention has been given to the policy orientation of several of Obama's advisors and other appointees. It has been mooted that Richard Haas will be an important Mideast envoy. Haas was the co-author of a recent CFR study, "Restoring the Balance," (http://www.cfr.org/publication/17791/), with other individuals who might be Obama advisors, which argues that a "new U.S. strategy" in the Mideast is required, that "a comprehensive diplomatic initiative" towards Iran is on the agenda, that "Arab-Israeli peacemaking needs to become a priority" and so forth. Other members of the Obama team have been involved in the Iraq Study Group, which called for talks with Iraq's neighbors, including Iran, to solve the Iraq mess. Among them is Defense Secretary Gates, who is to stay on.


The intervention of former President Jimmy Carter, has also been most useful. Carter, who oversaw the Camp David peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, is the author of an insightful book, Peace not Apartheid. In the context of the raging Gaza war, Carter presented an OpEd in the Washington Post on January 8, entitled "An Unnecessary War," in which he argued, from the standpoint of his experience in the region, that "the devastating invasion of Gaza by Israel could easily have been avoided."

The Boomerang

As the war continues and Israel threatens a further escalation of the conflict, reports of atrocities multiply, and the response of international public opinion is affected. Thus far, we have been informed that a UN school, designated as a refuge for civilans, was bombed; that a UN convoy of humanitarian aid was attacked, killing a driver and injuring others; that a house in which Israeli military had told 110 Palestians to seek safety, was shortly thereafter bombed, and 30 killed; that a UN building outfitted for refugees, was bombed.

Although the Israelis have systematically either denied the facts or pleaded ignorance, there are enough eyewitnesses, especially among Red Cross and UN personnel, to set the record straight. What emerges from the overall picture, is that the Israelis are doing in Gaza what the Anglo-Americans did in Iraq, only in a much shorter time frame and with more devastating consequences. Compare events in Gaza to the drama of Iraq: between 1990, after the invasion of Kuweit, and 2003, when the U.S. declared victory in its war against Saddam Hussein, Iraq had been subjected to a genocidal embargo, which deprived its 18 million citizens of food, medicines and other vital goods. The embargo continued even after Desert Storm had totally destroyed the country's infrastructure (energy, water, tranportation, health, etc.), and in the interim period, the U.S. and U.K. air forces systematically bombarded Iraq's anti-aircraft defenses, under the rubric of the "no-fly-zones."

What the Israelis have done in Gaza, is remarkably similar: through their closure of Gaza, sealing the borders from Israel and Egypt, they put the Palestinian people in the situation of a "concentration camp," as Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino of the Vatican Justitia et Pax recently stated. The population has been cut off from normal imports of food, medicine and energy, and then subjected to aerial bombardments and artillery attacks by a vastly superior force. The only result can be genocidal.

After the Israeli war against Hezbollah in summer 2006, Israeli senior analyst Dr. Martin van Krefeld told a seminar in Germany, that in that event, the response of the Israelis had been that of "a mad dog!" He described the utterly disproportionate Israeli response as showing that the Israelis were "mad dogs." Certainly, his characterization would apply today to the Gaza war in spades. But instead of producing awe, such mad dog violence is provoking justified outrage.

Statements by Israeli leaders, featured in news reports in Europe, have contributed to the outrage. Fopreign Minister Livni, for example, stated early on in the war, that the great disparity in casulaties between Palestinians and Israelis, was inconsequential. If hundreds of Palestinians were killed by the air bombardments, as compared to less than ten, from Hamas-fired rockets, no matter; it's not the numbers, she said, but that fact that Hamas was targetting civilians. Israeli President Shimon Peres made an even more offensive statement. When asked about the high number of Palestinian children killed, he said, yes, that's true, there are many palestinain children and very few Israeli children casualtieies, but that is because "we take care of our children."

The psychological control exerted on large parts of the population in Western countries, in Europe and the U.S., as a result of the horrendous crimes perpetrated by the Nazis in World War II against the Jews, has been massive. But, now, in light of the atrocities committed against Palestinian civilians in Gaza, that control is being broken. Tens of thousands of Germans have taken to the streets since the New Year, to protest the war in Gaza, political figures have spoken out, and letters to the editors of leading German dailies have documented the fact that the psychological blackmail no longer works.

The most eloquent response in Germany to the ongoing Gaza catastrophe has been provided by musician and director Daniel Barenboim, who, prevented by the hostilities from performing as scheduled in Qatar, quickly reorganized his concert program, to bring his historic Arab-Israeli orchestra to Berlin on January 12, and then to Moscow, Milan and Vienna. Barenboim's commitment has been to define a completely new, higher level, from which standpoint this insane conflict, manipulated over decades by geopolitical forces, can be overcome. The fact that his concert was sold out in 24 hours, and a second concert in Berlin had to be added to accomodate the demand, testifies to the desire among many Germans, to seek solutions to conflict through the medium of the universal ideas of great music.

The author can be reached at mirak.weissbach@googlemail.com
 

[Brocke]

BBC launches Persian TV channel

The BBC's newest satellite TV channel has gone on air, a Farsi language service for viewers mainly in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. BBC Persian TV will broadcast for eight hours a day, seven days a week, in peak viewing time in those countries. The head of BBC World Service, Nigel Chapman, says millions of Iranians have dishes and there is plenty of demand. But Iranian officials have branded the channel a "security threat" and say they will take "necessary" steps.

Iranian Intelligence Minister Gholamhoseyn Mohseni-Ezhei said after Wednesday's cabinet session: "We do not consider this network as suitable for the security of the country and will take the necessary measures with regards to it." The Iranian authorities have already refused the BBC permission to conduct any production operations for the new TV channel on their soil. The BBC has been broadcasting in Farsi on the radio since 1940 and it launched BBCPersian.com in 2001.

The radio has a weekly audience of 10 million people and the BBC hopes that the television service will reach the same figure within three years.

Important audience

As part of the BBC World Service, the new channel is funded by the UK Foreign Office at an annual cost of £15m ($22m) but it is editorially independent of the government.

Mr Chapman said it was important to provide TV in Farsi because of the numbers of people accessing news and information through television. He called them "a very important audience... who trust the BBC, who value it". As well as news, the BBC Persian channel will show BBC arts, culture, science and technology programmes, dubbed into Persian. Correspondents say despite the efforts of the government in Tehran, the BBC has a high reputation as a reliable news provider among Iranians.

Although the government has banned Farsi-language operations, it does allow the BBC to base an English-language correspondent in the country. But the authorities have warned citizens not to get involved with the new TV channel, and the BBC has advised viewers not to risk getting themselves into trouble in order to take part in phone-ins and other interactive broadcasts.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7828363.stm

[Biggs]

America eyes up Georgia as a base to launch attack on Iran

by Marcus Papadopoulos

Global Research, January 17, 2009
tribunemagazine.co.uk

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11857

GEORGIA’S President Mikheil Saakashvili is involved in high level negotiations with members of the United States government on the construction of American military bases in the South Caucasian country, according to a representative of a Georgian opposition party.

Nestan Kirtadze, of the Georgian Labour Party, said last week that President Saakashvili is offering Washington thousands of hectares of land rent free on which to build military bases.

Mrs Kirtadze appealed to American planners and policy-makers not to turn Georgia into a theatre for confrontation between the two superpowers – a reference to US-Russia rivalry in the former Soviet republic.

The accusation made by Mrs Kirtadze will fuel suspicions in the Kremlin that the US is intent on encircling Russia. It will also provide an opportunity for Russian hawks to argue to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that the Russian army should have toppled the government of President Saakashivili during the war in South Ossetia last year, and that something still needs to be done about the staunchly pro-Western Georgian leader.

Discussions concerning American bases in Georgia will also bring to the surface again the possibility of Washington launching pre-emptive air strikes against Iran.

Last year Russia’s envoy to Nato, Dmitri Rogozin, argued that the US wants to use the strategically-placed Caucasus country as a base for military operations against the Islamic republic.

Focus will soon shift to incoming US President Barack Obama regarding Washington’s stance on Georgia and Iran. He has repeatedly called for accession to Nato for Ukraine and Georgia, referring to Russia as a “21st century superpower” behaving like a “20th century dictatorship”. When Russian tanks were on the outskirts of Tbilisi last year, vice president-elect Joseph Biden was the first US politician to visit Georgia and express support for the country’s leadership.

On the subject of Iran, Mr Obama has given mixed messages about what approach the US should adopt. In 2004 he appeared to imply that he would support military action against Iran as a last resort but during last year’s American presidential campaign he said that while no option was “off the table” an Obama administration would employ “tough, direct presidential diplomacy” with Tehran as the best means “to make progress”.

[Biggs]

Last update - 00:01 25/01/2009          


Report: Iran's uranium supply could run out within months

By Haaretz Service

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1058244.html

Western powers believe that Iran's supply of yellow cake uranium, the material required to manufacture nuclear weapons, could run out within months, the Times of London reported on Saturday.

The British newspaper reported that countries including Britain, the United States, France and Germany have all launched intensive diplomatic efforts to dissuade major uranium producers from selling to Iran.

According to the report, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office sent out a confidential request to its diplomats in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Brazil, all major uranium producers, requesting that they lobby governments not to sell uranium to Iran.    Advertisement


The enriched uranium required for use in nuclear reactors or weapons is produced in centrifuges that spin uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6) at high speeds. The UF6 is derived in a chemical reaction from yellow cake, a concentrate obtained from mined uranium ore.

The international effort to limit Iran's uranium supply reflects a growing concern that 2009 could be a crucial year with regard to Iran's nuclear ambitions.

The assessment that Iran is likely to produce its first bomb during 2009 or in early 2010 was has been reaffirmed by Israel's military intelligence and the Mossad.

Sources said that while unlikely to cripple any effort to develop an atomic bomb, limiting Iran's yellow cake supply would help to contain the threat.

A spokesperson for Britain's Foreign Office declined to confirm the Times report but said, "It's essential to dissuade Iran from progressing towards the technology for a nuclear bomb. This risks sparking off a regional nuclear arms race. In a region which already faces huge security and other challenges, nuclear proliferation would be disastrous for stability."

Iran has always claimed that its nuclear program is peaceful. However, Western governments accuse Tehran of trying to acquire nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian nuclear energy program. Iran denies the accusation and says it only wants nuclear power in order to generate electricity.

The World Nuclear Association lists the top 10 uranium mining nations in 2007 as Canada, Australia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Niger, Namibia, Uzbekistan, the United States, Ukraine and China. Brazil was 13th.

The Times said the Democratic Republic of Congo, where fighting and smuggling are rife, was another potential source of supply that troubles Western nations and the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

[Biggs]

Israeli Ambassador slips up
and talks about plans to 'deal' with Iran in the next 10 or more months, also hints that new leadership of Israel will have more robust methods of 'dealing' with Iran
(1min)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=cznZs-swR9k
The Israeli Ambassador in Australia asks for the media to stop filming after letting slip plans concerning Iran.