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Iran FM: Israel is a crazy country run by crazies

February 8, 2010

Iran FM: Israel is a crazy country run by crazies – Haaretz – Israel News.

Iranian FM Manchour Mottaki said Monday that Israel is a ‘crazy country run by crazy people’ and weaker than ever.
 (Getty)

Iranian Foreign Minister Manchour Mottaki on Monday said that Israel was now weaker than ever before, adding that it was a “crazy country run by crazy people.”

Mottaki told the Al-Jazeera news agency that Israel was in no position to embark on another military conflict, due to its internal political crisis and its losses over recent years in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

“Israel is a crazy nation run by crazy people,” Mottaki declares. “Therefore, we must prepare for the chance that Israel will do something crazy against everyone in the region ? the Syrians, the Lebanese and the Palestinians.”

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When asked what would happen should Israel attack Iran, Mottaki replied: “Iran’s position is known by everyone. We can defend ourselves.” The Iranian foreign minister added that the Islamic Republic would “stand by our Arab brothers” should Israel attack any of its neighbors.

Mottaki’s remarks came after Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei said that Western support of Israel was ineffective, telling a top Palestinian militant leader that its obliteration was imminent according to the will of God.

“Today Palestine is the symbol of life, determination, faithfulness, diligence, and dignity,” Ayatollah Khamenei told Ramadan Abdullah, the secretary general of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement.

He praised the Palestinian resistance movement and declared that it had proven itself stronger despite the military superiority of the Israel Defense Forces.

In his comments, Khameini joined a long list of top Iranian officials, especially President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who have said on several occasions in the past that Israel should be destroyed.

Last year, Ahmadinejad said that Israel was “dying” and that people in the Middle East would destroy it if given the chance and stressed that opposition to Israel is a fundamental principle in Shi’ite Muslim Iran.

“They should know that regional nations hate this fake and criminal regime and if the smallest and briefest chance is given to regional nations they will destroy [it],” said Ahmadinejad, who often rails against Israel and the United States.

A 2005 statement by Ahmadinejad saying that “Israel should be wiped off the map” outraged the international community.

Also, a senior Iranian army commander said Iran will respond to any military attack from Israel by “eliminating” it, in comments condemned by Washington

Categories: Iran / Israel War

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Iranian Proxies: An Intricate and Active Web | Global Terrorism

February 8, 2010

For the past few years, STRATFOR has been carefully following the imbroglio over the Iranian nuclear weapons program and efforts by the United States and others to scuttle the program. This situation has led to threats by both sides, with the United States and Israel discussing plans to destroy Iranian weapons sites with airstrikes and the Iranians holding well-publicized missile launches and military exercises in the Persian Gulf.

Much attention has been paid to the Iranian deterrents to an attack on its nuclear program, such as the ballistic missile threat and the potential to block the Strait of Hormuz, but these are not the only deterrents Iran possesses. Indeed, over the past several years, Iran has consistently reminded the world about the network of proxy groups that the country can call upon to cause trouble for any country that would attack its nuclear weapons program.

Over the past several weeks, interesting new threads of information about Iranian proxies have come to light, and when the individual strands are tied together they make for a very interesting story.

Iran’s Proxies

From almost the very beginning of the Islamic republic, Iran’s clerical regime has sought to export its Islamic revolution to other parts of the Muslim world. This was done not only for ideological purposes – to continue the revolution – but also for practical reasons, as a way to combat regional adversaries by means of proxy warfare. Among the first groups targeted for this expansion were the Shiite populations in Iraq, the Persian Gulf and, of course, Lebanon. The withdrawal of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from Lebanon in 1982 left behind a cadre of trained Shiite militants who were quickly recruited by agents of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). These early Lebanese recruits included hardened PLO fighters from the slums of South Beirut such as Imad Mughniyah. These fighters formed the backbone of Iran’s militant proxy force in Lebanon, Hezbollah, which, in the ensuing decades, would evolve from a shadowy terrorist group into a powerful political entity with a significant military capability.

One of the most impressive things about these early proxy efforts in Lebanon is that the IRGC and the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security were both very young institutions at the time, and they were heavily pressured by the 1980 invasion of Iran by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, which was backed by the Gulf states and the United States. The Iranians also had to compete with the Amal movement, which was backed by Libya and Syria and which dominated the Lebanese Shiite landscape at the time. Projecting power into Lebanon under such conditions was quite an amazing feat, one that many more mature intelligence organizations have not been able to match.

Though these institutions were young, the Iranians were not without experience in intelligence tradecraft. The years of operating against the Shah’s intelligence service, a brutal and efficient organization known as the SAVAK, taught the Iranian revolutionaries many hard-learned lessons about operational security and clandestine operations, and they incorporated many of these lessons into their handling of proxy operations. For example, it was very difficult for the U.S. government to prove that the Iranians, through their proxies, were behind the bombings of the U.S. Embassy (twice) and Marine barracks in Beirut or the kidnapping of Westerners in Lebanon. The use of different names in public statements such as the Islamic Jihad Organization, Revolutionary Justice Organization and the Organization of the Oppressed on Earth, when combined with very good Iranian operational security, served to further muddy the already murky waters of Lebanon’s militant landscape. Iran has also done a fairly good job at hiding its hand in places like Kuwait and Bahrain.

While Iran has invested a lot of effort to build up Shiite proxy groups such as Hezbollah and assorted other groups in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, the Iranians do not exclusively work with Shiite proxies. As we discussed last week, the Iranians also have a pragmatic streak and will work with Marxist groups like the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, Sunni groups like Hamas in Gaza and various militant groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan (they sought to undermine the Taliban while that group was in power in Afghanistan but are currently aiding some Taliban groups in an effort to thwart the U.S. effort there). In an extremely complex game, the Iranians are also working with various Sunni and Kurdish groups in Iraq, in addition to their Shiite proxies, as they seek to shape their once-feared neighbor into something they can more-easily influence and control.

More than Foot Stomping

For several years now, every time there is talk of a possible attack on Iran there is a corresponding threat by Iran to use its proxy groups in response to such an attack. Iran has also been busy pushing intelligence reports to anybody who will listen (including STRATFOR) that it will activate its militant proxy groups if attacked and, to back that up, will periodically send operatives or proxies out to conduct not-so-subtle surveillance of potential targets. Hezbollah and Hamas have both stated publicly that they will attack Israel if Israel launches an attack against Iran’s nuclear program, and such threats are far more than mere rhetorical devices. Iran has taken many concrete steps to prepare and arm its various proxy groups:

  • On Dec. 11, 2009, authorities seized an Ilyushin-76 cargo plane in Bangkok that contained 35 tons of North Korean-produced military weapons that were destined for Iran (though Iran, naturally, denies the report). The weapons, which included man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), were either equivalent to, or less advanced than, weapons Iran produces on its own. This fact raised the real possibility that the Iranians had purchased the North Korean weapons in order to distribute them to proxies and hide Iran’s hand if those arms were recovered after an attack.
  • In November 2009, Israeli naval commandos seized a ship off the coast of Cyprus that was loaded with hundreds of tons of weapons that were apparently being sent from Iran to Hezbollah. The seizure, which was the largest in Israel’s history, included artillery shells, rockets, grenades and small-arms ammunition.
  • In August 2009, authorities in the United Arab Emirates seized a ship carrying 10 containers of North Korean weapons disguised as oil equipment. The seized cache included weapons that Iran produces itself, like rockets and rocket-propelled grenade rounds, again raising the probability that the arms were intended for Iran’s militant proxies.
  • In April 2009, Egyptian authorities announced that they had arrested a large network of Hezbollah operatives who were planning attacks against Israeli targets inside Egypt. It is likely, however, that the network was involved in arms smuggling and the charges of planning attacks may have been leveled against the smugglers to up the ante and provide a warning message to anyone considering smuggling in the future.
  • In January 2009, a convoy of suspected arms smugglers in northern Sudan near the Egyptian border was attacked by an apparent Israeli air strike. The arms were reportedly destined for Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and were tied to an Iranian network that, according to STRATFOR sources in the region, had been purchasing arms in Sudan and shipping them across the Sinai to Gaza.

As illustrated by most of the above incidents (and several others we did not include for the sake of brevity), Israeli intelligence has been actively attempting to interdict the flow of weapons to Iran and Iranian proxy groups. Such Israeli efforts may explain the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, whose body was discovered Jan. 20 in his room at a five-star hotel in Dubai. Al-Mabhouh, a senior commander of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, lived in exile in Damascus and was reportedly the Hamas official responsible for coordinating the transfer of weapons from Iran to Hamas forces in Gaza. A STRATFOR source advised us that, at the time of his death, al-Mabhouh was on his way to Tehran to meet with his IRGC handlers. The operation to kill al-Mabhouh also bears many similarities to past Israeli assassination operations. His status as an Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades commander involved in many past attacks against Israel would certainly make him an attractive target for the Israelis.

Of course, like anything involving the Iranians, there remains quite a bit of murkiness involving the totality of their meddling in the region. Hezbollah sources have told STRATFOR that they have troops actively engaged in combat in Yemen, with the al-Houthi rebels in the northern province of Saada along the Saudi border, and have lost several fighters there. Hezbollah also has claimed that its personnel have shot down several Yemeni aircraft using Iranian-manufactured Misagh-1 MANPADS.

The governments of Yemen and Saudi Arabia have very good reason to fear Iran’s plans to expand its influence in the Gulf region, and the Yemenis in particular have been very vocal about blaming Iran for stirring up the al-Houthi rebels. Because of this, if there truly were Hezbollah fighters being killed in Saada and signs of Iranian ordnance (like MANPADS) being used by Hezbollah fighters or al-Houthi rebels, we believe the government of Yemen would have been documenting the evidence and providing the documentation to the world (especially in light of Yemen’s long and unsuccessful attempt to gain U.S. assistance for its struggle against the al-Houthi insurgency). That said, while Hezbollah MANPADS teams are not likely to be running around Saada, there is evidence that the Iranians have been involved in smuggling weapons to the al-Houthi via Yemen’s rugged Red Sea coast. Indeed, such arms smuggling has resulted in a Saudi naval blockade of the Yemeni coast. Reports of al-Houthi militants being trained by the IRGC in Lebanon and Iran are also plausible.

Iran has long flirted with jihadist groups. This support has sporadically stretched from the early days of al Qaeda’s stay in Sudan, where Hezbollah bomb makers instructed al Qaeda militants in how to make large vehicle bombs, to more recent times, when the IRGC has provided arms to Iraqi Sunni militants and Taliban factions in Afghanistan. Iran has also provided weapons to the now-defunct Supreme Islamic Courts Council in Somalia and one of its offshoots, al Shabaab.

Over the past several months we have also heard from a variety of sources in different parts of the Middle East that the Iranians are assisting al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Some reports indicate that a jihadist training camp that had previously been operating in Syria to train and send international fighters to Iraq had been relocated to Iran, and that with Iranian assistance, the jihadists were funneling international militants from Iran to Yemen to fight with AQAP. Other reports say the Iranians are providing arms to the group. While some analysts downplay such reports, the fact that we have received similar information from a wide variety of sources in different countries and with varying ideological backgrounds suggests there is indeed something to these reports.

One last thing to consider while pondering Iran’s militant proxies is that, while Iranian missiles will be launched (and mines laid) only in the case of open hostilities, Iranian militant proxies have been busily at work across the region for many years now. With a web of connections that reaches all the way from Lebanon to Somalia to Afghanistan, Iran can cast a wide net over the Middle East. If the United States has truly begun to assume a defensive posture in the Gulf, it will have to guard not only against Iranian missile strikes but also against Iran’s sophisticated use of proxy militant groups.

Categories: Iran / Israel War

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Commentary: Hawks on the war path – UPI.com

February 8, 2010

Commentary: Hawks on the war path – UPI.com.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 (UPI) — “Clueless in Washington” was how The Economist, a British weekly read by movers and shakers the world over, headlined America’s crisis in governance. Neither the president nor Congress shows any sign of knowing how to tackle the budget deficit.

A $1.6 trillion deficit for the current fiscal year to be followed by $1.35 trillion for the 2011 budget and an authorized increase of almost $2 trillion in the national debt to $14.3 trillion is a road map for a fiscal catastrophe. The last half-trillion-dollar spending bill signed by Obama included more than 5,000 earmarks worth some $7 billion — pork funds forced upon the executive by legislators in return for their votes.

Deficits between now and 2020 are forecast to add up to $30 trillion. The total amount of U.S. dollars in circulation worldwide (known by the Fed as M3) is $14.3 trillion. Some financial and economic experts believe the Obama administration’s remedial measures thus far are tantamount to slightly rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. In his new book “Freefall,” Joe Stiglitz, a member of President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers, says, “In the Frankenstein laboratories of Wall Street, banks created new risk products without mechanisms to manage the monster they had created,” while innovation simply meant “circumventing regulations, accounting standards and taxation.”

Kevin Phillips, whose latest book — “Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism” — is an equally devastating indictment, writes, “The financial industry will most likely block any far-reaching overhaul, even though it will not be able to put its own broken Humpty Dumpty back up on the wall. That bleak conclusion may not be too far from what Joe Stiglitz himself thinks.”

Obama is floundering as he tries to reset his presidency on economics. Defense is sacrosanct. Either taxes go up or entitlements go down, or both. On Capitol Hill, it’s still burned toast for the president.

For centuries, leaders faced with insuperable domestic problems found escape in foreign distractions. In some cases, the distractions occurred suddenly and fortuitously, such as World War II, which started in Europe and pulled America out of the Great Depression.

Obama isn’t looking for such a distraction, but others have no pangs illuminating what they think is the way out of the “clueless in Washington” dilemma. Right-wing scholar-activist Daniel Pipes, a neocon icon, could not be more blunt: Obama can “save” his presidency by bombing Iran. The fact that this could also cost him the presidency is not deemed worthy of discussion.

Pipes was in good company. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair now says the world may have to take on Iran as the mullahcracy and its Revolutionary Guards are more of a threat today than Iraq was when U.S. and British troops invaded in 2003. Blair, addressing a joint session of Congress, gave President Bush a powerful oratorical assist on the historical need to destroy Saddam Hussein’s regime and its nuclear and chemical weapons. There was also much disinformation about an alleged alliance between Saddam and Osama bin Laden. At one stage, 60 percent of the American people believed the canard Saddam was behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that killed 3,000 Americans.

While under questioning by a British panel investigating his decision to join the U.S.-led war against Iraq, Blair kept coming back to Iran — no less than 58 times. If Saddam hadn’t been eliminated, Blair said, today Iraq and Iran would be competing in supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups.

Pipes, a powerful voice in Israel’s corner, says Obama “needs a dramatic gesture to change the public perception of him … preferably in an arena where the stakes are high, where he can take charge, and where he can trump expectations.” Such an opportunity now exists, to wit: “Obama can give orders for the U.S. military to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons capacity. It would have the advantage of sidelining healthcare, push Republicans to work with Democrats, make Tea Party-ers jump for joy, conservatives and neoconservatives would swoon ecstatically.”

In 2003 President George W. Bush appointed Pipes to the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace. Today he is part of a powerful lobby in Washington that pooh-poohs the repercussions predicted by the Iran war naysayers, a group that includes three former U.S. CENTCOM commanders. Gen. Anthony Zinni, one of the three, says, “If you like Iraq and Afghanistan, you’ll love Iran.” They can see how one bomb on Iran would trigger the theocracy’s impressive asymmetrical retaliatory capabilities up and down the entire Persian Gulf — and beyond.

To reinforce the war party’s arguments, Pipes also says, “the apocalyptic-minded leaders in Tehran” could eventually “launch an electro-magnetic pulse attack on the U.S., utterly devastating the country.” His detractors dismiss EMP alarmism as flimflam. But they are wrong. EMP is a very real concern of those who ponder future asymmetrical threats.

In his latest book “One Second After,” New York Times best-selling author William R. Forstchen looks at EMPs “and their awesome ability to send catastrophic shockwaves throughout the U.S. within seconds.” One Scud-type nuclear missile, fired from the cargo hold of a freighter off the East Coast, set to explode 75 miles up, could fry everything electrical in one-third of the United States, from every cellphone and computer to aircraft, trains, vehicles, elevators, and the entire government, including the Pentagon.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak disappointed the war hawks by saying the inability to negotiate a peace deal with the Palestinians is a greater threat to the Jewish state than a nuclear Iran. National security adviser Gen. James L. Jones added Israel is acting “responsibly” on Iran and “we’re working very closely with them.”

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suddenly cooed too, offering the West its low-enriched (3.5 percent) uranium, then taking it back once enriched at 20 percent. Within 48 hours Iran’s chief obfuscator was barking again, announcing the production of highly enriched uranium at 20 percent and the building of 10 new enrichment sites in 2010. Weaponization requires 90 percent. U.S. Defense Secretary Bob Gates said he is now certain Iran is going for the bomb and it’s time for tough new sanctions. But Russia and China are not aboard.

Categories: Iran / Israel War

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US buildup aims to contain Iran’s drive for Gulf supremacy

February 8, 2010

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis February 8, 2010, 2:30 PM (GMT+02:00)

Tags: Gulf Arab states Israel US-Iran

Director US intelligence Dennis Blair

The Obama administration’s decision last week to boost its military presence in the Gulf and supply its Arab allies with tens of billions of new weapons is a bid to win the galloping arms race with Iran and mark out American spheres of influence in the face of Iran’s drive for regional hegemony.

Looking behind Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s bluster, Washington is closely watching the numbers Iran’s opposition can muster on Feb. 11, Iran’s Revolution Day, despite the regime crackdown on dissidents.  A large turnout will shrink the hardline regime’s base of support proportionately. A Tienanmen-style response risks hackles rising – even in Europe.
Barack Obama appear to be hoping that the US buildup in the Persian Gulf, though purely defensive in nature, will make up for the world powers’ inability to come together on sanctions or any other means of bringing Iran to heel on its nuclear program. The US, the West and Israel, were struck dumb even when Iran’s Atomic Energy chief Ali Akbar Salehi announced Sunday, Feb. 7 that the production of home-made 20-percent grade uranium would start on Tuesday, Feb. 9 – virtually shutting the door to further engagement.
Still less has Washington condemned Iran for hanging two pro-democracy campaigners last week amid a succession of rigged trials and the massive persecution of protesters.

debkafile‘s intelligences source report that since January, the Obama administration has tried putting out discreet feelers to encourage Iranian flexibility. Director of US Intelligence Dennis Blair testified to the US Senate on Feb. 2: “We continue to assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that bring it closer to being able to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so. We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.”
Blair made it clear that a final decision on nuclear arms was Iran’s to make.
The subtext of this statement was notice that America would not resort to force to make Iran abandon its race for a nuclear weapon, but hoped Tehran was responsible enough to stop at the threshold and be dissuaded from going through to the final step of building one.

it sounded very much as though Obama had come to terms with Iran advancing up to that nuclear-arms threshold and accepted its right to cross over at will.
This concession was greeted with an outburst of confrontational rhetoric from Iran’s senior ally Syria, an Iranian missile airlift to Syria, expanded military support for its allies, the Hizballah in Lebanon and the Hamas in Gaza, and Tehran’s further engagement in a proxy war over Yemen with the US and Saudi Arabia.

By expanding the US naval presence and stepping up security for the Gulf’s Arab rulers – and especially their oil installations and ports – Washington may have increased the likelihood of hostilities.

But it is a gamble with the broader purpose of telling Tehran unambiguously that, even armed with a nuclear weapon, the Islamic Republic can forget about becoming the region’s omnipotent number one. The United States is there for its allies and has laid down military and spheres-of-influence markers confining Tehran’s areas of control.

Since engagement with Iran was first broached last year, non-belligerent options have progressively narrowed to a straight choice between a military strike for crippling Iran’s military nuclear facilities, with predicted dangerous repercussions, or living with a nuclear-armed Iran.
Israel’s prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and defense minister Ehud Barak are caught in a time warp, holding on to “common international action” against a nuclear-armed Iran and sanctions. They don’t seem to understand that the US military build-up around Iran does not let them off the hook of clear decision-making in the light of Israel’s security interests, or even survival, as Netanyahu has insisted more than once.
The US has struck a defensive posture in its Gulf build-up that will do nothing to deter Iran from consummating its nuclear objectives. If Israel fails to develop an independent policy on the issue, it will find itself tagging along behind a United States guided by its own geopolitical interests instead of being a key player in the contest ahead.

Categories: Iran / Israel War

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Barak: World can’t ignore Iran nuclear provocations – Haaretz – Israel News

February 8, 2010

Barak: World can’t ignore Iran nuclear provocations – Haaretz – Israel News.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Monday urged the international not to turn a blind eye to Iran’s declaration that it would begin enriching uranium to higher levels.

“This is additional proof that Iran is ridiculing the world,” Barak told members of his Labor party at a faction meeting. “The correct response is to impose decisive and permanent sanctions. I hope that the international community will not turn a blind eye to Iran’s declaration.”

At a Labor party meeting in the Knesset, Barak also commented on the recent statement by Iran’s supreme religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that Israel will disappear.

“It is appropriate to say to Khamenei that a regime that tramples its own people is a regime that at the end of the day will be trampled by those same people.”

A senior Iranian envoy said earlier Monday that he has formally told the United Nations nuclear agency that his country will enrich uranium to higher levels.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh says Tehran will start enriching up to 20 percent from its present stock of lower enriched uranium.

Soltanieh is Iran’s envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency. He said Monday that the production is meant for fuel for Iran’s research
reactor, which produces medical isotopes. World powers fear higher enrichment could ease the way for the production of nuclear weapons.

Iran has ignored five UN Security Council resolutions that it freeze its
enrichment program.

Iran on Sunday said it plans to build 10 new uranium enrichment facilities during the next Iranian year, its atomic energy chief was quoted as saying, in comments likely to further raise tension with the West.

The statement by Ali Akbar Salehi on Sunday evening comes after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad earlier in the day instructed Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization to start work on producing higher-grade nuclear fuel for a Tehran reactor.

Iran’s announcement raised the stakes in its dispute with the West, but Ahmadinejad said talks were still possible on a nuclear swap offer by world powers designed to allay fears the Islamic Republic is making an atomic bomb.

Salehi, who heads the Atomic Energy Organization, also on Sunday said Iran would start producing uranium enriched to a level of 20 percent on Tuesday, in the presence of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Salehi also suggested production would be halted if Iran received fuel enriched to 20 percent from abroad. Iran has expressed readiness to exchange its low-enriched uranium for higher-grade fuel, but wants amendments to the UN-drafted plan.

“Iran would halt its enrichment process for the Tehran research reactor any time it receives the necessary fuel for it,” Salehi said.

Iran in November announced plans to build 10 new enrichment plants in a major expansion of its atomic program, but did not specify the timeframe. The West fears Iran’s nuclear work is aimed at making bombs. Tehran denies the charge.

“Iran will set up 10 uranium enrichment centers next year,” al Alam quoted Salehi as saying. The Iranian year starts on March 21.

Analysts have expressed skepticism whether sanctions-bound Iran, which has problems obtaining materials and components abroad, would be able to equip and operate 10 new plants.

Enriched uranium can be used as fuel for nuclear power plants and, if refined much further, provide material for bombs. Iran currently enriches uranium to a level of 3.5 percent. A nuclear bomb would require 80 percent or more.

Iran to unveil domestically manufactured air-defense system

Iran also plans to unveil a domestically manufactured air-defense system with at least the same capability as Russia’s S-300 anti-aircraft hardware, an Iranian air force commander was quoted as saying on Monday.

Last month, Russia’s state arms trader declined to say whether it would go ahead with the sale of S-300 to Iran.

“In the near future, a new locally made air-defense system will be unveiled by the country’s experts and scientists which is as powerful as the S-300 missile defense system, or even stronger,” Heshmatollah Kassiri told the official IRNA news agency.

The possible sale of the S-300, which could protect Iran’s nuclear facilities against air strikes, is a sensitive issue in Russia’s relations with the United States and Israel, which have pressed Moscow not to proceed with the deal.

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Iran to open 10 new plants and enrich to 20%

February 8, 2010

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FOXNEWS – Israel Threating To Use Nuclear Weapons On Iran!

February 8, 2010

While the scary headline may be overblown, the bottom line is correct. All of Israel agrees that Iran must be prevented from getting the bomb.

I thought Israel would take action back in November. I was mistaken.

I now believe it will take action before May.

One thing I’m 100% sure of. Iran will only get the bomb after they have defeated everything the IDF can throw at them.

I also believe that Obama will support the action, if he doesn’t take it himself.

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Iran plans 10 uranium enrichment plants – Iran- msnbc.com

February 8, 2010

Iran plans 10 uranium enrichment plants – Iran- msnbc.com.

updated 5:53 a.m. ET Feb. 8, 2010//

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran says it will start producing higher-grade nuclear fuel on Tuesday and plans a major expansion of its uranium enrichment program by building 10 new plants in the next year, further stoking tensions with the West.

The statement by Iran’s nuclear agency chief Ali Akbar Salehi on Sunday evening came after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad earlier in the day instructed him to start work on producing atomic fuel for a Tehran research reactor.

Iran’s announcement raised the stakes in its dispute with the West, although analysts doubted Iran could launch 10 new plants in the near future since U.N. sanctions imposed on Tehran make it harder for it to obtain sophisticated components.

Analysts believe Tehran’s announcement that it will start producing higher-refined uranium may be a negotiating tactic to prod the West into closing a fuel deal largely on Iranian terms.

But the move could also backfire if it only serves to make Western powers increasingly determined to push for more sanctions against Iran, the world’s fifth-largest oil producer, over its refusal to suspend enrichment.

“Iran will set up 10 uranium enrichment centers next year,” Iran’s Arabic-language television station al Alam quoted Salehi as saying. The Iranian year starts on March 21. Iran mooted such a plan late last year but gave no time frame.

Ahmadinejad also said talks could still be revived on a nuclear fuel exchange offer by world powers designed to allay fears the Islamic Republic is trying to develop atomic bombs.

Salehi said Iran would start to raise the enrichment level from 3.5 percent to 20 percent on Tuesday, in the presence of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Purity
He said Iran would formally notify the Vienna-based U.N. watchdog about the move in a letter on Monday, al Alam reported. He earlier said production would take place at the Natanz site.

But Salehi also suggested production would be halted if Iran could import fuel enriched to 20 percent, the degree of purity required for conversion into special fuel needed to run a Tehran nuclear medicine reactor, Iran’s stated goal for the move.

Tehran has also voiced readiness to send low-enriched uranium (LEU) abroad in a swap for fuel for the reactor, due to run out of it later this year. But amendments Iran has demanded to the U.N.-drafted proposal have been rejected by the United States, France and Russia, the other parties to the plan.

“Iran would halt its enrichment process for the Tehran research reactor any time it receives the necessary fuel for it,” Salehi said.

Ahmadinejad’s contradictory signals over the last week — first expressing readiness to send low-enriched uranium abroad and then announcing that Iran would start producing 20 percent fuel itself — may also be a sign of Iran’s political turmoil.

Analysts believe Ahmadinejad may want to secure a swap deal with the international community to boost his standing and legitimacy after last year’s disputed election, but is hampered by political rivals who oppose any LEU export as a threat to national security.

Iran’s move to make 20 percent fuel itself may stoke suspicion that its real aim is higher-enriched uranium for atom bombs, since only France and Argentina — not Iran — are known to have the technology to yield fuel for medical isotopes.

A senior diplomat close to the IAEA said enrichment to 20 percent was legal under Iran’s non-proliferation accord with the agency. “But what counts is design verification (the inspectors do). Higher enrichment means higher verification requirements.”

“Natanz would need less than a few months to start making the 20 percent enriched uranium, (although) Iran will face significant technical hurdles in manufacturing it,” said David Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security, a think-tank that tracks nuclear proliferation.

“The larger technical issue is whether Iran is planning to make only the small amount of enriched uranium needed for its research reactor, or is it trying to convert most of its 3.5 percent stock of enriched uranium into 20 percent material.

By doing so, it would be going most of the rest of the way to weapon-grade uranium,” Albright told Reuters.

Western powers fear Iran’s nuclear program is aimed at developing nuclear weapons capability with high-enriched uranium. Tehran denies the charge, saying it wants only lower-grade nuclear material for electricity generation.

Iran in November declared plans to build 10 new enrichment plants in a vast, defiant expansion of nuclear work after the IAEA rebuked it for erecting a second plant in secret.

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Tehran egged on by limp Western- Israeli response to uranium enrichment hike

February 8, 2010

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

Visiting enrichment laboratory

Tehran’s decision to raise its uranium enrichment level to 20 percent – taking it weeks away from weapons-grade production – in the teeth of international objections, has raised no cries of outrage in Washington or Jerusalem. Asked Monday, Feb. 7, whether president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s announcement brought military action any closer, US defense secretary Robert Gates said noncommittally: “If the international community will stand together and bring pressure to bear on the Iranian government, I believe there is still time for pressure and sanctions to work.”

Gates pretended not to notice that the “international community” is deeply divided on this issue, with China and some European governments rooting against sanctions and Russia likely to join them. Tehran can therefore safely move forward without fear of the international community standing together on pressure.

The reaction from Jerusalem was even more flaccid: The Prime minister’s office stated that that when Binyamin Netanyahu travelled to Moscow next week, he would raise the Iranian nuclear issue and sanctions and ask the Russians to continue to withhold the S-300 defense missile from Iran.
No comment was heard on Tehran’s leap onto a higher level of uranium enrichment, or the fact that the fuel rods Moscow delivered two years for Iran’s atomic reactor at Bushehr enabled the Islamic Republic to go into home-production of high-grade uranium fuel.

The West had plenty of time to do – or at least, say something, because Ahmadinejad gave advance warning of the enrichment hike three weeks ago. On Jan. 14, he promised “good news” about 20 percent enriched uranium to mark the celebrations of Iran’s revolution Feb. 1-11.

Not only was nothing done to deter the Iranian president, but he was allowed to infer that Washington, Jerusalem and the Western powers no longer stand in the way of Iran’s progress step by accelerated step towards a nuclear weapon, or challenge its president’s posture as nuclear hero of the Muslim world, brave enough to defy America.

Categories: Iran / Israel War

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Iran Launches Production Lines of Unmanned Planes – NYTimes.com

February 8, 2010

Iran Launches Production Lines of Unmanned Planes – NYTimes.com.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s state TV says the country has launched two production lines of unmanned aircraft, or drones.

The Monday report quoted Iran’s defense minister, Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, as saying the planes will be able to carry out surveillance as well as attack tasks with high precision.

Iran said a year ago it has built an unmanned surveillance aircraft with a range of more than 600 miles (1,000 kilometers), long enough to reach Israel.

Also Monday, a senior air force Commander, Gen. Heshmatollah Kasiri, told the official IRNA news agency that Iran would soon deploy a missile air defense system that’s more powerful than the Russian S-300 system that Tehran has ordered from Moscow but not yet received.

Categories: Iran / Israel War

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