Netanyahu Prepared To Go It Alone On Iran

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04/02/09
Netanyahu Prepared To Go It Alone On Iran

By Kristin Deasy, RFE/RL

In an exclusive interview on March 31 with "The Atlantic," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel could go it alone and attack Iran if the country went nuclear.

Netanyahu told Jeffrey Goldberg that if "the wide-eyed believer gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the entire world should start worrying."

Should the Iranian government -- a "messianic apocalyptic cult," Netanyahu told Goldberg -- control atomic bombs, Israel does not need U.S. approval to launch an attack. One Netanyahu adviser told "The Atlantic" that the "problem [with attacking Iran] is not military capability."

Netanyahu's comments came days after an article by Seymour Hersh appeared in "The New Yorker" with reports that former Vice President Dick Cheney privately told the Israelis that Obama was "pro-Palestinian" and might not support their policies.

Reactions to the interview have been mixed: CBS's Tucker Reals can't decide if Netanyahu is bluffing.

In "The Atlantic" piece, Goldberg admits the threat may be a "tremendous" bluff but that as former commandoes, Netanyahu and Company are "men predisposed to action."

Reals calls the conversation "an interesting preview" of new dialogue between Washington and Israel.

"Haaretz's" Aluf Benn is more skeptical, citing experts in Israel's security-strategic community who think an attack against Iran is "too big a mission for Israel" and that sending in an air force requires U.S. cooperation.

Over at Talking Points Memo, M.J. Rosenberg writes that, "Obama needs to get on the phone and let Netanyahu know" that "Israel cannot act unilaterally."

Kaveh L Afrasiabi, author of "After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy," writes in Asia Times that Israel's position "muddies" Obama's promised "new beginning" with Iran.

And former Israeli diplomat Zvi Shtauber, speaking at Harvard University, said that he thought Israel would only consider an attack when Iran was "within the striking distance" of nuclear capability.

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Biden warns Israel off any attack on Iran

Paul Richter in Washington – LA Times April 8, 2009



Vice President Joe Biden issued a high-level admonishment to Israel's new government Tuesday that it would be "ill advised" to launch a military strike against Iran.

Biden said in a CNN interview that he does not believe newly installed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would take such a step. Even so, his comment underscored a gap between the conservative new Israeli government and the Obama White House on a series of questions, including the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and Iran.

While the Obama administration has made a series of recent overtures to Tehran, the Israelis have grown more confrontational out of concern that the Islamic Republic's increasing nuclear know-how could one day become an existential threat.

Netanyahu signaled several times during his election campaign that he would not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran. "I promise that if I am elected, Iran will not acquire nuclear arms," he said in one appearance, "and this implies everything necessary to carry this out."

With his brief comment Tuesday, Biden became the highest-ranking administration official to caution the Jewish state against a military strike. In the interview, Biden was asked whether he was concerned that Netanyahu might strike Iranian nuclear facilities.

"I don't believe Prime Minister Netanyahu would do that. I think he would be ill advised to do that," Biden said.

"And so my level of concern is no different than it was a year ago."

But many U.S. officials believe Israel is serious. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, head of U.S. forces in the Middle East, told senators this month that the Israeli government may be "so threatened by the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon that it would take preemptive military action to derail or delay it."

Other U.S. officials have made it clear in the past that they would prefer that Israel not carry out a strike against Iran. Navy Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, cautioned last summer against military action.

"This is a very unstable part of the world," he said then. "And I don't need it to be more unstable."

Among other concerns, U.S. Defense Department officials worry that Iran might retaliate by striking at U.S. troops in neighboring Iraq.

Differences between U.S. and Israeli officials also are emerging on key issues involving the Palestinians. Netanyahu has not embraced Washington's goal of an independent Palestinian state, and some of his key supporters favor expanded Jewish settlements in the West Bank, an idea criticized by President Obama.

But U.S. views are important to the Israelis. Steven J. Rosen, a former policy director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, an influential lobbying group, said a decision by Israel to attack Iran's nuclear facilities "depends to a large extent on the impact such a strike might have on the United States." He made the comment in a blog, the Obama Mideast Monitor.

Many top officials in the Obama administration have said they believe the costs of a U.S. attack on Iran would outweigh any benefits, and they are considered less likely to favor military action than the Bush administration.

One hint of the Obama administration's intentions may lie in its choice of top experts.

Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration's representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, has hired longtime Iran expert Vali Nasr. Dennis Ross, senior administration advisor for Southwest Asia, has hired Ray Takeyh, another veteran Iran expert.

Both Nasr and Takeyh have advocated diplomatic engagement with Tehran.

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US: OBAMA TEAM DEBATES STANCE ON ISRAELI ATTACK THREAT

(English IPS News Via Acquire Media NewsEdge)

WASHINGTON, Apr. 8, 2009 (IPS/GIN) - A recent statement by the chief of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), Gen. David Petraeus, that Israel may decide to attack Iranian nuclear sites has been followed by indications of a debate within the Barack Obama administration on whether Israel's repeated threats to carry out such a strike should be used to gain leverage in future negotiations with Tehran.

In the latest twist, Vice President Joseph Biden, who has been put in charge of the administration's non-proliferation agenda, appeared to reject the idea. "I don't believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu would [launch a strike]," he told CNN's Wolf Blitzer Tuesday. "I think he would be ill-advised to do that." His remarks suggested that any proposal to exploit the threat of an Israeli attack as part of a "good cop, bad cop" tactic with Iran would run into stiff opposition within the administration, since it would rest on the credibility that the threat was real and that the U.S. would not actively oppose its being carried out.

Petraeus invoked the possibility of an Israeli attack in prepared testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee last Wednesday. "The Israeli government may ultimately see itself as so threatened by the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon that it would take pre-emptive military action to derail or delay it," he asserted. In contrast to past statements by U.S. officials on the issue, he added nothing to indicate that Washington would oppose such an attack or was concerned about its consequences.

Moreover, a CENTCOM spokesman later told IPS that Petraeus' testimony had been reviewed in advance by the Office of the Secretary of Defence (OSD), suggesting that brandishing of the Israeli threat had the approval of Pentagon chief Robert Gates.

But the Pentagon now appears to be backing away from the Petraeus statement. In an email message to IPS, Lt. Col. Mark Wright, an OSD press officer declined to confirm or deny that Petraeus's statement had been reviewed by his office. Wright insisted that it "would be inappropriate to characterise the General's view on this from the Pentagon" and referred the question back to CENTCOM.

Gates himself had appeared to go along with Petraeus' approach in an interview published in the Financial Times Apr. 1, in which he implied strongly that Israel would indeed attack Iran if it crossed an Israeli "red line." Asked whether Israel would attack Iran, Gates said, "I guess I would say I would be surprised if [Israel] did act this year." "I think we have more time than that," he said, referring to the moment when progress on Iran's nuclear-enrichment programme might provoke an Israeli attack.

"How much more time I don't know. It is a year, two years, three years. It is somewhere in that window." Within 24 hours, however, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), Adm. Michael Mullen, like Biden several days later, reiterated his own publicly stated reservations about any such Israeli action in a meeting with the Wall Street Journal's neo-conservative editorial board Apr. 2.

While conceding that the Israeli leadership "is not going to tolerate" a nuclear Iran and that its military could inflict serious damage on Iran's nuclear programme, Mullen also warned that such an attack would pose "exceptionally high risks" to U.S.

interests in the region, according to a record of the interview quoted to IPS by Mullen's office. In an editorial about the meeting published Monday, the Journal stressed that Mullen understood that Tehran's nuclear ambitions were "a matter of 'life or death' for the Jewish state" and downplayed the threat to the U.S.

Mullen, in fact, has consistently spoken out against an Israeli strike since early July 2008, when, after returning from consultations with his Israeli counterpart, he publicly warned against an Israeli attack which, he said, in addition to further destabilising the region, would be "extremely stressful on us ."

The issue of how to handle the Israeli threat to attack Iran has been made more urgent by the installation of a far-right government led by Likud Party chief Binyamin Netanyahu, who has been particularly hawkish on Tehran and deeply sceptical that Obama's diplomatic engagement with Iran will yield acceptable results before Israel's "red lines" are crossed. Israeli officials have called on the U.S. to strictly limit the amount of time it will devote to its diplomatic effort before resorting to punitive measures, a demand echoed by key U.S. lawmakers - Democrats, as well as Republicans - who are considered close to the so-called 'Israel Lobby' here.

Some administration officials had embraced the brandishing of the threat of an Israeli attack on Iran as a means of exerting pressure on Iran even before they joined the Obama administration.

Dennis Ross, who is now "Special Adviser" on Iran to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had endorsed an early draft of a report published last month by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) - a think tank that often reflects the Israeli government's views - which included the statement, "If the international community appears unable to stop Iran's nuclear progress, Israel may decide to act unilaterally."

Both Gary Samore, the new White House co-ordinator on weapons of mass destruction, and Ashton Carter, now under secretary of defence for acquisition, technology and logistics, expressed support for a diplomatic strategy of exploiting the Israeli military threat to Iran at a forum at Harvard University's Kennedy School last September.

Referring to negotiating with Iran on the nuclear issue, Samore said, "My view is that, unless it's backed up by a very strong bashing alternative, it probably won't be successful." Samore called the threat of such an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites "a good diplomatic instrument" for the United States.

Carter, who is also a non- proliferation specialist, referred to making the Iranians "wonder whether the Israelis are going to do something" as "not an unreasonable game to play." But Samore also acknowledged that such a strategy could be dangerous. "[W]e have to be careful when we use that instrument," he said, "that the Israelis don't see that as a green light to go ahead and strike before we're ready to have that actually happen."

Still, he argued that any new administration would not want to "act in a way that precludes the threat, because we're using the threat as a political instrument." That danger is particularly acute with Netanyahu's accession to power, because he represents Israeli political and military circles that hold most firmly to the idea that Iran's enrichment program poses an "existential threat" to Israel, a view reportedly also shared by his defence minister, Labour Party leader Ehud Barak.

According to the New York Times' David Sanger, President George W. Bush last year rejected a request from then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for over- flight rights and other support needed to attack Iran.

Mullen was then sent to Israel to personally convey Washington's opposition to such an attack. It was on his return that he made that opposition public. In the end, Olmert apparently decided against taking any action without a green light from Washington.

But, much as Samore anticipated, the new government is widely regarded as more likely to act unilaterally.

Bush reportedly feared that such a strike would further destabilise Iraq and expose U.S. troops there to retaliation, according to his top Middle East adviser, Elliott Abrams, who has recently argued that the those dangers have since been significantly mitigated. In the one cautionary quotation that the Journal chose to include in its editorial about Mullen's views on a possible Israeli attack on Iran, the JCS chief noted that Tehran's ability to retaliate in Iraq "has not maxed out at all."

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Indian Rocket Launches Israeli-Built Spy Satellite

By Stephen Clark
posted: 20 April 2009
11:25 am ET

I

India launched a closely-guarded Israeli-built radar spy satellite Monday to begin gathering valuable intelligence data from a 342-mile-high perch above the planet, regardless of lighting and weather conditions.

The country's 15th Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle ignited at 0115 GMT and leapt from the Second Launch Pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Center on India's east coast. Liftoff of the 144-foot-tall rocket was at 6:45 a.m. local time.

The Indian Space Research Organization, which oversaw the launch, declared the flight a success on its Web site.

The PSLV was carrying a secretive satellite fitted with a dish-like radar antenna designed to see through darkness, clouds and camouflage, Spaceflight Now reported Saturday.

The satellite, named RISAT 2, weighs about 660 pounds at launch and was built by Israel Aerospace Industries. It is designed for an orbit with an altitude of about 342 miles and inclined 41 degrees to the equator.

Radars transmit beams toward Earth and measure the reflected signals to create detailed images of objects on the ground.

"RISAT 2 is a radar imaging satellite with all-weather capability to take images of the Earth," ISRO said in a document on its Web site. "This satellite will enhance ISRO's capability for disaster management applications."

But Indian news agencies have reported RISAT 2 will be used by the military.

RISAT 2 is similar to Israel's TECSAR satellite launched by another PSLV rocket last year. Both satellites look identical in available public imagery, have the same launch mass, and will operate in comparable orbits.

The new satellite provides an important new capability for Indian intelligence services. Previous Indian satellites, including a high-resolution observer launched last April, carried optical imaging sensors that were hampered by darkness and bad weather conditions on the ground.

For more information on RISAT 2, see our preview story.

Monday's launch also hauled into space a small 84-pound educational satellite called ANUSAT.

ANUSAT will demonstrate technologies related to message store-and-forward operations, according to ISRO.

The craft was built by students at Anna University, a leading engineering institution in India.

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Nisan 25, 5769 / April 19, '09

Published: 04/18/09, 10:48 PM

IDF Steps Up Preparations to Halt Iranian Nukes

by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
(IsraelNN.com)

The military and Home Front Command have stepped up training, including nationwide civil defense exercises, to prepare the country for up to a dozen attacks on Iranian nuclear sites, according to the Times of London.

Media reports last December stated that the government ordered the IDF to map out plans for an attack, but Defense Ministry officials at the time told the Times that an attack was unlikely without relative certainty of its success and without American backing.

Since then, President Barack Obama has taken office and has backed a policy aimed at halting the Iranian nuclear threat through diplomatic channels. Saturday’s Times report stated that Israel has stepped up its plans but that lack of American support would all but preclude an attack.

Israel would need American approval to use Iraqi air space to stage an aerial strike on Iran's reactors, which are buried under concrete deep underground. Several analysts have said another option for Israel would be to attack by way of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, which also are fearful of Iran's becoming a nuclear power.

Without knowing that Israel will indeed carry out the attack, the military is preparing for the eventuality. The Times quoted a Defense Ministry official who said, “Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light, they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words.”

The successful Israel strike on Sudan last January, targeting convoys carrying Iranian weapons destined for Gaza, was a clear signal to Iran that Israel will attack whenever necessary. “Sudan was practice for the Israeli forces on a long-range attack,” Ronen Bergman, the author of The Secret War with Iran, told the Times.

Israel's largest-ever nationwide drill next month also is designed to prepare the country for an attack while letting Iran know that the Jewish State cannot tolerate Iran as a nuclear power.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad responded to the report in the Times in a speech at a ceremony on Iran’s Army Day on Saturday, where he said, “No country in the region threatens Iran. The gall to threaten the Iranian nation was quashed forever."

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Commander: Iran not concerned about Israel's advanced armaments

2009-04-19 21:18:20
Special Report: Iran Nuclear Crisis

TEHRAN, April 19 (Xinhua) -- The commander of the Iranian Army Ground Force General Ahmad Reza Pourdastan said that Iran was not concerned about Israel's advanced armaments, the local Press TV reported on Sunday.

"The country is not concerned with Israel's state-of-the-art armaments," Pourdastan said, adding that, "Despite possessing sophisticated military technology equipment, Israel failed to clinch victory in Lebanon and Gaza."

"This is an indication that modern military equipment will not ensure victory."

He reiterated other Iranian high ranking military officials' statements that Iran's "armed forces are perfectly capable to trounce invaders in the event of an onslaught against the country."

Iran made a military parade on Saturday to present its readiness and capabilities in the face of any danger to the country.

Recent reports from the U.S. media have raised some concern that Israel is furtively preparing to stage a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

During the last five years Iran has succeeded in producing advanced weapons to defend the country, as its officials said.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly said that his country will never recognize Israel.

The United States and its allies have accused Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program.

Israel has consistently refused to rule out the possibility of military strikes against Iran over its refusal to halt its nuclear program.

Iran has denied the U.S. and its allies' charges and insisted that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

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Sunday, April 19, 2009

Israel's Air & Missile Forces Could Wipe out Iran's Nuclear Sites

DEBKA-Net-Weekly Exclusive
Updated by DEBKAfile
April 15, 2009

The detailed report compiled by the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) in Washington last month, complete with graphs and diagrams, has been reprinted in thousands of copies in Tehran. It is compulsory reading for its intelligence and Revolutionary Guards personnel because the Study on a Possible Israeli Strike on Iran's Nuclear Development Facilities concludes that the Jewish state has all the resources necessary for a successful strike.

When asked recently, Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint US Chiefs of Staff, agreed with this estimate. This week, president Shimon Peres and prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu both said that if diplomacy failed to halt Iran's nuclear activities, Israel would be left with no option other than the military one. And Tuesday, April 14, the New York Times quoted an Israeli official as saying that Jerusalem would give the Obama administration until late 2009 to stop Iran's uranium enrichment projects; after that, Israel will be forced to act.

Tehran responded with a complaint to the UN Security Council demanding that Israel be condemned for "its threats against a sovereign state."

For the past three years, US military and intelligence sources have used attributed and leaked assessments to the American media to emphasize that such an operation is beyond Israel's capabilities because of the nuclear facilities' wide distribution across Iran. At best, they maintained, the Israeli Air Force might knock out a few Iranian nuclear installations, but only enough to put Iran's nuclear drive temporarily on hold.

The CSIS paper refutes this assessment and maintains there is no need to destroy dozens or hundreds of sites; the destruction of seven to nine targets would be enough to cripple the Iranian program, and lists them as follows:

1. Lashkar A'bad, site of secret uranium enrichment plants in the north near the Turkish border.

2. Tehranb, for the central laboratory for developing atomic armaments as well as more uranium enrichment facilities.

3. Arak, in central Iran, where a heavy water plant is under construction to manufacture plutonium for weapons.

4. Isfahan, in central Iran, near which a small research reactor and a cluster of laboratories for uranium enrichment, centrifuges and weapons development, are situated.

5. Natanz, the main center for uranium enrichment.

6. Ardekan, at the southern tip of Iran, where more uranium enrichment facilities are located.

7. Saghand, Iran's main uranium mining region.

8. Bushehr, on the Persian Gulf shore, Iran's biggest nuclear reactor built by Russia.

9. Gachin, near the Strait of Hormuz, the site of more uranium mines and enrichment facilities.

Complicated tables set forth an array of technical details showing how many PG bombs Israeli Air Force F16I or F15F bomber-fighter planes can carry, how much fuel is needed to reach their Iranian targets, and at what stage of their return journey they would need to refuel.

This think tank finds Israel has enough aircraft as well as the necessary intelligence and electronic resources for the task - contrary to previous estimates.

The authors propose three attack routes for a potential Israeli operation against Iran: an eastern route over Saudi Arabia; a central route over Iraq, and a northern route over Turkey, Syria and northern Iraqi Kurdistan. They point to the third as Israel's best option in view of the superiority of its electronic warfare (EW) capabilities.

This is the first time a detailed and accurate description of these capabilities, and a description of how they were put to use in the Israeli raid on the North Korean-built plutonium reactor in Dar az-Zawr, Syria, on September, 2007, has ever been published.

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Israel warns of Iran at march honoring Auschwitz victims (Roundup)

Europe News
Apr 21, 2009, 14:08 GMT

Warsaw - Some 7,000 people walked silently at Auschwitz, Poland on Tuesday to honor victims of the Holocaust amid a controversial UN conference on racism.

Israeli Vice Premier Silvan Shalom, who led the walk, said Iran's current actions are 'not far away' from what Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler did to Jews and that the world must unite to stop Iran, reported the Polish Press Agency PAP.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a key speaker at Monday's UN conference on racism, had called Israel a 'racist regime' that made Palestinians 'homeless' after World War II. The speech prompted a walk-out by European Union delegates in response.

Thousands waved Israeli and Polish flags as they marched through the gates displayed with the words, 'Arbeit Macht Frei,' the Nazi phrase meaning 'work brings freedom.' Visible in the crowd were young people from Greece, Argentina and Turkey, among others.

The walk this year comes amid the controversial UN conference in Geneva that has been boycotted by countries including the United States, Poland Germany and Israel. Critics said a draft declaration on racism included vague attempts to limit criticism of religion, and that the conference would single out Israel.

This year's march is 'the answer to all the anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers who at the same time will gather in Geneva to declare Israel a racist state,' event chairman Shmuel Rozenman has told the Jerusalem Post.

A previous conference in 2001 caused controversy after activists at side events attempted to have Zionism, the founding ideology of the Jewish State, officially equated to racism.

The March of the Living included Holocaust survivors, some 1,800 Poles and young Jewish students from across the world in a walk going from the former Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz to Birkenau.

Launched in 1988, the annual tribute comes on Holocaust Memorial Day.

Holocaust Memorial Day was also marked in Israel with sirens and a two-minute silence on Tuesday to remember victims.

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Knesset Speaker: Hitler is back. He has a beard and speaks Farsi

21.04.2009 17:24 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/

During his statement at Geneva’s anti-racism conference, Iran President Mahmud Ahmadinejad accused Israel of racist policy and establishing discrimination regime on Palestinian territories, justifying the worst fears of conference participants.

Iran president also criticized USA for boycotting Durban 2 and accused Washington of expansion policy and capture of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ahmadinejad proclaimed Israel as modern world’s most cruel and racist regime and named US, Europe and Israel responsible for world financial crisis.

After Iran President stated that sufferings of the Jewish at World War 2 were only a pretext for Israel creation, a number of outraged Western delegates left the conference hall.

Nobel Prize laureate Eli Visel responded that Ahmadinejad had to be imprisoned for crimes against humanity, Voice of Israel Radio station reported today.

In his turn, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin addressed a letter to foreign parliamentary speakers, warning his colleagues about catastrophic consequences of inaction when faced with anti-Semitic rhetoric of Iranian president.

“Yesterday, within 73 years of Munich Olympiad, the world saw Hitler. This time, he had a beard and spoke Farsi, but was no different otherwise. And he’s once more given the tribune for public statements,” Rivlin stated.

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Iran could produce first nuke in 60 days with 7,000 centrifuges working 24/7 – Western experts

DEBKAfile Special Report
April 21, 2009, 12:17 PM (GMT+02:00)

DEBKAfile's military sources cite some Western intelligence and nuclear
weapons experts as predicting that Iran could turn out nuclear weapons
some time in the next 12 months.

This estimate is based on Tehran's announcement that 7,000 centrifuges
are in operation to enrich uranium. If all those machines were to work at
top speed day and night, seven days a week, they could produce enough
weapons-grade uranium to build a bomb in 60 days, say some intelligence
sources. According to American experts, given the current rate of the
program's development, Iran will be in a position to manufacture as many
as 60 nuclear bombs and warheads in 12 to 18 months.

This judgment was confirmed by Israel's military intelligence (AMAN) chief,
Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin in his latest briefing to the cabinet Monday, April 20.
He reported that Iran is going all-out for enriched uranium from overseas to
shorten the process.

Japanese sources recently reported that a North Korean boat shipped a
large quantity to Iran earlier this year. According to the big-circulation The
Nikkei, the North Korean vessel's hold carried a secret cargo of uranium
highly-enriched to 50-60 percent. The ship set out for Iran in December,
moving moved at a leisurely pace so as not to call attention from Western
spy satellites, surveillance vessels and warships. Earlier this year, the
illegal consignment was dropped at an Iranian port for transport to a
facility near Tehran, according to the Japanese paper.

Yadlin noted that extreme economic crisis has not delayed Tehran's
headlong nuclear progress or curtailed its designs on other Middle East
countries – Hizballah's subversive activities in Egypt are not a lone
instance. Inflation is officially put at 30 percent but is probably closer to
50 percent, while unemployment is deepening, yet Tehran upped the 2009
appropriation for its nuclear program by 15 percent.

Rather than translating the crisis into leverage for persuading Iran to
abandon its nuclear objectives, the Israeli intelligence chief noted that the
Obama administration has opened the door to dialogue with all the
extremists of the Middle East, including Iran, albeit "with open eyes."

Iran, for its part, is accelerating its nuclear program, taking full advantage
of the undercover communications with Washington which are aimed at
gaining Tehran's cooperation for the US war effort in Afghanistan and
Pakistan.

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Iran warns Israel not to attack nuclear sites

By NASSER KARIMI,
The Associated Press
7:01 a.m. April 21, 2009

APTEHRAN, Iran — Iran warned Israel Tuesday against attacking the Islamic Republic's nuclear facilities, a day after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad raised tensions between the two foes by calling Israel the "most cruel and repressive racist regime" at a U.N. conference in Geneva.

Israel has identified Iran as its biggest threat, citing the country's nuclear program and its development of long-range ballistic missiles.

But parliament speaker Ali Larijani said if Israel attacked, "Iran will respond in a way that they will not be able to sleep easy anymore."

He made the remark at a meeting in Tehran of top prosecutors from Islamic countries, who are trying to find ways to arrange for the arrest and prosecution of Israeli leaders on war crimes charges over the Gaza assault earlier this year.

Larijani's comments came a day after Ahmadinejad's speech to a U.N. racism conference prompted European diplomats to walk out and drew sharp criticism from Israel.

Ahmadinejad got a hero's welcome when he returned Tuesday to Tehran airport, where about 200 people greeted him with bouquets of flowers. A few hard-line lawmakers said Ahmadinejad demonstrated Iranian dignity and greatness during the conference. State TV said he defended Palestinian rights against a racist regime.

The official IRNA news agency quoted lawmaker Mohammad Reza Bahonar as saying the speech in Geneva was a "great achievement for the (Iran's ruling) system." Morteza Agha Tehrani, another conservative lawmaker, said "Ahmadinejad taught Arab and Islamic nations how to stand up and get their rights."

Israel, which has a new hardline government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, did not have any immediate comment on Larijani's remarks. But last week, President Shimon Peres dismissed the idea that Israel was planning any attack Iran's nuclear facilities.

Earlier this month, Israel's Defense Ministry said the country had successfully tested an anti-missile system designed to protect the country against Iranian attack.

Israel believes Iran is developing nuclear weapons that could pose a threat to its existence. Oil-rich Iran denies that and says its nuclear work is for peaceful purposes such as generating electricity. Israel has threatened military action, and Iran has repeatedly said it would strike back.

Obama administration overtures to open a dialogue with Iran after decades of diplomatic stalemate are also making Israel nervous.

Ahmadinejad has previously suggested the Holocaust never happened and called for Israel to be "wiped off the map." The United Nations said Tuesday that Ahmadinejad had dropped a reference to Holocaust denial from his speech Monday at the conference.

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Obama: Mideast players must step back from abyss

By Matt Spetalnick Matt Spetalnick – 1 hr 4 mins ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Tuesday urged Israel and the Palestinians to "step back from the abyss," saying he expected good faith gestures from both sides in coming months as part of a bid to revive stalled peace efforts.

In White House talks, Obama reassured Jordan's King Hussein of his commitment to a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict, despite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's reluctance to commit to the goal of a Palestinian state.

Obama's pledge of serious engagement in Middle East peacemaking has been complicated by the emergence of Netanyahu's new right-leaning Israeli government.

"What we have to do is step back from the abyss," Obama told reporters after meeting Abdullah.

Obama said he expected to meet Netanyahu when he visits the United States. No date for the trip has been announced.

Nudging Netanyahu to accept the principle of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, Obama said, "They're going to have to solidify their position."

He voiced hope that over the next few months "you start seeing gestures of good faith on both sides."

"We can't talk forever," Obama said. "At some point, steps have to be taken."

Obama reiterated his promise to make Middle East peace a priority for his administration, in contrast to his predecessor George W. Bush, who was widely criticized for a more hands-off approach to the decades-old conflict.

U.S. re-engagement in long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts is seen as a key thrust of Obama's bid to repair Washington's image in the world.

(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Bill Trott)

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Iran warns Israel of consequences if nuclear sites come under attack

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

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TEHRAN: Iran warned Israel on Tuesday against attacking the Islamic state's nuclear facilities, a day after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad raised tensions between the two foes by calling Israel the "most cruel and repressive racist regime" at a UN conference in Geneva. Israel has identified Iran as its biggest threat, citing the country's nuclear program and its development of long-range ballistic missiles.

But parliament speaker Ali Larijani said if Israel attacked, "Iran will respond in a way that they will not be able to sleep easy anymore." He made the remark at a meeting in Tehran of top prosecutors from Islamic countries, who are trying to find ways to arrange for the arrest and prosecution of Israeli leaders on war crimes charges over the Gaza assault earlier this year.

In response, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said Israelis sleep well "and in our dreams Iran is a friendly country engaged in a constructive relationship with the international community and is not the lunatic and dangerous regime it is now." The comments came a day after Ahmadinejad's speech to a UN racism conference prompted European diplomats to walk out and drew sharp criticism from Israel.

Israel believes Iran is developing nuclear weapons that could pose a threat to its existence. Iran denies those charges and says its nuclear work is for peaceful purposes such as generating electricity.

Israel has threatened military action, but last week President Shimon Peres dismissed the idea that the country was planning an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Iran has repeatedly said it would strike back to an attack.

Earlier this month, Israel's Defense Ministry said the country had successfully tested an anti-missile system designed to protect the country against Iranian attack.

Obama administration overtures to open a dialogue with Iran after decades of diplomatic stalemate are also making Israel nervous. - AP

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“Destruction in eleven days " Iran threatens Israel


Ahmadinedschad makes occasionally with markigen sayings of itself talks.

Picture series

Iran under the Mullahs 30 years Islamic revolution

Sunday, 3 May 2009

of Ulrich W. Sahm

Iran for the first time announced the destruction of Israel with a concrete goal denomination. The Israeli television showed an interview with the Iranian general chief of staff Attalah Salihi. He announced a “destruction of Israel within eleven days”.

The Arabia expert Oded Granot explained as it: “Ever we did not hear a so clear and open announcement Iran.” Präsiden Mahmoud Ahmadinedschad announced the destruction of Israel again and again “in large courses and as a political goal”, but never so concretely and with date, as it did Salihi. Granot could not find out, why the destruction of Israel in eleven should happen days.

Before the USA with the consideration had gotten “better bomb straight than bombarding” that one had resigned oneself in Washington under president Barack Obama to the building of an Iranian atom bomb. The high-ranking Europeans, such an exclusive report of the Israeli television, would have these estimates to the “few surprised” Israelis passed on.

The Israelis came already for some time in the end the fact that the Americans did not let themselves convince today any longer so easily of intelligence data and that therefore also the rather diffuse information about the possible Iranian development of an atom bomb to a preventive American impact against Teheran will not lead.

Accordingly wish to Washington also no military impact of other countries as for instance Israel against the atomic mechanisms in Iran.

Original Link

[vector7]

Arrow operators prepare for Iran threat

May. 3, 2009
YAAKOV KATZ and JPost.com staff , THE JERUSALEM POST
Air Force reservists who operate the Arrow and Patriot missile defense systems have recently begun spending one day a week on duty to sharpen their skills, amid fears that in a conflict with Iran, dozens of long-range missiles would be fired at Israel, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

The decision to call up operators of the Arrow and Patriot systems was made last year by head of the IAF's Air Defense Division Brig.-Gen. Daniel Milo.
Until then, only pilots were called up for one day of reserve duty a week following their discharge from mandatory service.

"We are working hard to be ready for the Iranian threat," a top IAF officer said. "We are preparing for barrages, split warheads and other surprises and therefore we need to retain a high operational level by everyone, including reservists."

Soldiers from the Air Defense Division who are on study leave are also spending one day a week at the unit.

"They come once a week to simulate different scenarios," the officer explained.

The scenarios that are drilled include the firing of large barrages at Israel from different countries at once, and the need for the operator to decide which missile to intercept first and at what stage of its flight.

"There are difficult dilemmas that the operators face when it comes to missile defense," the officer said.

Last month, the IAF held its 17th test of the Arrow 2 interceptor, shooting down a missile mimicking an Iranian Shihab ballistic missile.

Later this year, the IAF will hold an unprecedented and massive exercise with the US military to jointly test three different ballistic missile defense systems, including the Israeli-made Arrow and the American THAAD and Aegis, which will be brought specially to Israel for the exercise.

The high-powered American X-Band radar, deployed in the Negev Desert in late 2008 as a farewell gift from former President George W. Bush, participated in the recent Arrow test and tracked the incoming target.

Military sources said that it was capable of providing "several minutes" of warning from when a missile is launched from Iran and until it is supposed to land in Israel.

Meanwhile, L'Express reported Sunday that IAF fighter jets recently conducted a drill above the Strait of Gibraltar in preparation for a possible attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

According to the French newspaper, the exercise, held some 3,000 kilometers from Israel, included a mid-air refueling drill.

[vector7]

Israeli Planes Prepare for Airstrike on Iran

by Avraham Zuroff

(IsraelNN.com) While the U.S. is preparing for talks with Iran, Israel appears to be preparing for an attack, according to a plethora of media reports.

Israel Air Force planes conducted exercises between Israel and Gibraltar, including midair refueling, according to a report published Saturday in the French weekly L’Express. The writer speculated that the distance of the exercises that were carried out, 2,361 miles (3,800 km) from Israel, appeared to confirm that the IDF is preparing to attack Iran if Teheran continues its refusal to end its nuclear program.

Two weeks ago, the London-based Sunday Times reported that Israel plans to attack Iran’s nuclear reactor using three AWAC planes. A senior military official was quoted as saying, “Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words.”

However, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman downplayed the chances of Israel carrying out a military attack on Iran to halt or destroy its nuclear program. In a report published in last week’s Kleine Zeitung, Lieberman was quoted as saying, "The most effective way is to impose very harsh sanctions. We are not talking about a military strike. Israel cannot solve a global problem militarily.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates strongly warned Israel in mid- April not to attack Iran and said that the only way to prevent Iran from producing a nuclear weapon is if "Iranians themselves decide it's too costly." He told Marine Corps students in an address that a military strike would do nothing more than delay Iran's nuclear programs while it would unify Iranians in an "undying hatred of whoever hits them."

Gates said that Western thinking should be geared toward arguing that nuclear weapons in Iran would diminish and not improve its security, "particularly if it launches an arms race in the Middle East."

[American Patriot]

Go!

I mean.. umm Biden should really STFU.

I mean.. "Israel... you can't do this alone (wink) and it would be foolish (nudge) of you to do so... (nod).... you know?"

[Toad]

Iran is about to find out that the IDF has been taking names, and now it's time to kick ass.

Seriously. When Israel commits to action, it doesn't fuck around. I don't know how Iran hasn't gotten this message based on recent history. They are in for a very rude and ego damaging wake up call.

[vector7]

Emanuel: Thwarting Iran hinges on Israeli-Palestinian talks

May. 4, 2009
JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST

Thwarting Iran's nuclear program is conditional on progress in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, according to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

Israeli TV reports said Monday that Emanuel made the comments in a closed-door meeting the previous day with 300 major AIPAC donors.

Last month, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Israel that it risks losing Arab support for combating threats from Iran if it rejects peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

Clinton said Arab nations had conditioned helping Israel counter Iran on Jerusalem's commitment to the peace process.

Meanwhile, in an interview with the Jerusalem Post Sunday, former US House speaker Newt Gingrich blasted the Obama administration for setting itself on a collision course with Israel and endangering the Jewish state.

He called US President Barack Obama's program of engagement on Iran a "fantasy," and his Middle East policies "very dangerous for Israel." He summed up Obama's approach as "the clearest adoption of weakness since Jimmy Carter."

[vector7]

Netanyahu heads for collision with Obama administration

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis

May 2, 2009

Israeli PM Netanyahu vows to stop Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb

Israeli president Shimon Peres' task in Washington on May 4-5 is to blunt the sharp edge the White House is honing to force Israel to toe the new Washington line on the Palestinians, Syria and Iran.

Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu can expect the full force of a bludgeon to be wielded in his White House talks on May 18.

DEBKAfile's Washington sources report that their host is fired up to be the first US president in decades of close friendship and cooperation to clash openly with Israel and the bulk of US Jewry. Oblivious to Israel's claim of US support for its security in a hostile regional environment, Barack Obama is expected to squeeze the Netanyahu government hard for immediate engagement on the Middle East conflict without further delay.

According to our sources, the White House staff is working at top speed on options for imposing its will.

Peres and Netanyahu will be informed that Washington is setting up two trilateral peace commissions to hammer out peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians and Israel with the Syrians.

US officials in both chairs will intercede with their own ideas to prevent them running into deadlock on disputed issues. DEBKAfile's sources confirm that the Obama administration will not spare the whip to force the parties into line.

The US president and his top advisers are convinced that the Palestinian problem is the main obstacle to accommodations for Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Iran. Defense secretary Robert Gates and national security adviser Gen. James Jones are the leading advocates of this proposition, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton more skeptical but ready to back the president's Middle East determination to place Israel in the first line of fire.

Some of DEBKAfile's US sources admit that President Obama is himself under pressure because, despite the high approval rating he gained for his first 100 days in office, his myriad policy initiatives have yet to show results.

His economic remedies have steadied the banking system but not yet filtered down to the general public, he faces a hard slog in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan before making headway, and Tehran is playing hardball at every turn on the road to dialogue.

The only arena where the White House can hope for quick results is the Israel-Palestinian-Syrian track.

The two peace conferences in preparation recall Bill Clinton's success in forcing the Serbs, Bosnians and Croats to sign the Dayton Accord of 1995, so terminating a war of three-and-a-half years.

The presidential envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, was the architect of Dayton. George Mitchell, Obama's Middle East envoy, is in line for a similar role today. During his two rounds of talks in Middle East capitals, Mitchell has shown a smiling, genial face, but said little, while in Washington, a State Department team is working overtime on a new American "road map."

It starts out with pressure on Israel to freeze settlement activity on the West Bank and construction in East Jerusalem. At a later stage, Israel would be pushed to abandon large sections of the West Bank, remove authorized communities as well as unauthorized outposts and hand over the historic nucleus of Jerusalem.

Finally, the Israeli government would be required to accept an independent Palestinian state, even if its government is dominated by the rejectionist terrorist group Hamas.

Peres and Netanyahu will find administration officials deaf not only on Israel's arguments on the Palestinian issue but on a nuclear-armed Iran too. They will see the US president no longer prioritizing the suspension of Iran's nuclear aspirations, but bent on establishing a new Persian Gulf order that formalizes Iran's rising power. Washington's objective now is negotiations for setting the boundaries of Iran's Middle East expansion and limits for its nuclear program.

Israel will have no say in this process. In fact, by elevating Iran to premier regional power, America is sidelining its longstanding friends, Israel and Egypt, and setting aside their security and strategic interests for the sake of deals with Iran.

Dennis Ross, US envoy for Iran, carried this message to the capitals of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, last week.

But Obama's new Middle East design is not without powerful opponents:

1. Tehran itself will not let Washington dictate the limits of its expanding influence but insists on dialogue taking place amid "equality and mutual respect." This attitude also governs its nuclear aspirations. US diplomats will have to make the running to temper the ayatollahs rather than the other way round.

2. Cairo and Riyadh will resist with all their might the US bid to anoint Iran the crowning Middle East-Gulf power. Both perceive Iran's nuclearization as the inevitable outcome of this policy.

They are also extremely concerned by Oabana's public endorsement of Turkey as the senior Muslim power in the Eastern Mediterranean and Central Asia, a boost for Ankara's aspirations to resuscitate the Ottoman Empire.

3. Jerusalem will resist being cast into a peripheral role in the strategic and military processes going forward with regard to Iran, the Palestinians, Syria and their terrorist arms, Hizballah and Hamas, all of which bear pivotally on Israel's future existence. Like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the Netanyahu government may not accept being crushed between two hostile regional powers, Iran and Turkey, whose aggressive pretensions Washington is promoting.

- Netanyahu is marshalling all Israel's resources, including an active role for President Peres, to avoid dropping into the role of second- or third-rate Middle East power whom no one consults.

Peres, whose rich diplomatic experience and international reputation make him a prime asset, has been pressed into service to become the first Israeli president to step out of his ceremonial role into active-policy-making.

- The Israeli prime minister will also take advantage of the interests Jerusalem shares with Cairo and Riyadh in frustrating the new Washington orientation – and not only with regard to Iran.

Netanyahu and Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak have arranged to put their heads together and are meeting before their separate trips to Washington.

- Israel has not abandoned its option of a military strike against Iran's nuclear installations and its economic infrastructure. US officials, led by the defense secretary, are accordingly pouring contempt on the extent of the damage Israel is capable of inflicting. Next, they will try and tie Israel's hands by discrediting Netanyahu and his administration.

- A final arrow in Netanyahu's quiver is the ability to enlist American public opinion, which is traditionally supportive and sympathetic to Israel, against Obama's Grand Middle East Design. He will seek to canvass support among friends in the US Congress and the Jewish community.