WarSclerotic

IAEA report: Iran may be developing atom bomb – Haaretz – Israel News.

The U.N. nuclear agency on Thursday expressed concern for the first time that Iran may currently be working on ways to turn enriched uranium into a nuclear warhead, instead of having stopped several years ago. Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel / Iran in the cross-hairs Its report appears to contradict an assessment by Washington that Tehran suspended such activities in 2003. It appears to jibe with the concerns of several U.S. allies that Iran may never have suspended such work. Advertisement The U.S. assessment itself may be revised and is currently being looked at again by American intelligence agencies. In a report prepared for its 35 board nations, the International Atomic Energy Agency also said that Iran managed to make a minute amount of near 20-percent enriched uranium within days of starting production from lower-enriched material. Higher enrichment puts Iran nearer to the capability of making fissile warhead material, should opt to do so. Iran denies any interest in developing nuclear arms. But the confidential report, made available to The Associated Press, said Iran’s resistance to agency attempts to probe for signs of a nuclear cover-up give rise to concerns about possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program. The language of the report – the first written by Yukiya Amano, who became IAEA head in December – appeared to be more directly critical of Iran’s refusal to cooperate with the IAEA than most previous ones under his predecessor, Mohamed ElBaradei. It strongly suggested that intelligence supplied by the U.S., Israel and other IAEA member states on Iran’s attempts to use the cover of a civilian nuclear program to move toward a weapons program was compelling. The information available to the agency … is broadly consistent and credible in terms of the technical detail, the time frame in which the activities were conducted and the people and organizations involved, said the report, prepared for next month’s IAEA board meeting. Altogether, this raises concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile, said the report. The Western bid for sanctions Western allies have been working on gaining international support to place another round of stringent sanctions on Iran, after the Islamic country ignored a deadline to halt its uranium enrichment internally, and rather to import it from outside sources. On Wednesday Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a television interview that the U.S. is not planning a military strike on Iran over its nuclear program. “Obviously, we don’t want Iran to become a nuclear weapons power, but we are not planning anything other than going for sanctions,” Clinton told Al-Arabiya television. “What we are focusing on is trying to change Iranian behavior, and the international community has been united in trying to send a message to Iran that it is time for it to clarify its intentions,” she said. “We want to try to get the strongest sanctions we can out of the United Nations Security Council…mostly to influence their decision-making,” Clinton added. Iran earlier Wednesday said it will not give up uranium enrichment and the West must get used to an Iran that is a “master of enrichment,” Tehran’s envoy to the UN nuclear watchdog was quoted as saying. Iran was “always ready to talk in a civilized manner,” Ali Asghar Soltanieh said in an interview with New Statesman, a British current affairs magazine. “But the West just has to cope with a strong Iran, a country with thousands of years of civilization, that is now the master of enrichment. I know it is hard for them to digest, but it is the reality,” he said. “Iran will never give up enrichment – at any price. Even the threat of military attack will not stop us,” the Iranian ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency said. Iran says its nuclear program is for electricity generation. Tehran announced this month it had begun work to enrich uranium to a higher grade for a reactor making isotopes for cancer patients, further raising Western concerns that it might build a nuclear bomb. Western powers had offered Iran a fuel swap under which it would have sent much of its low-enriched uranium abroad in return for fuel rods for the medical reactor. The United States is leading a push for the UN Security Council to impose a fourth round of sanctions on Iran over its nuclear work

The Associated Press: Iran vows to stand by Hezbollah against Israel.

By NASSER KARIMI (AP) – 4 hours ago

TEHRAN,Iran — Iran’s president on Thursday said that if the Israelis launch a new war against Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the militant group should retaliate strong enough to “close their case once and for all.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s comments, in a conversation with Hezbollah’s leader, were the latest in a heated exchange of rhetoric between Israel and Lebanon and Syria this months in which all sides have been warning the other not to start a war.

Speaking by phone, Ahmadinejad urged Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah to prepare his fighters to be able to retaliate strongly against any Israeli attack.

“The preparations should be of the level that, if they (the Israelis) want to repeated the mistakes of the past (by attacking), then their case should be closed once and for all and the region delivered from their evil ways forever,” the Iranian president said, according to the state news agency IRNA.

“The people of Iran will stand by the peoples of Lebanon and the region in this,” he said. Nasrallah dismissed any fears, saying Israeli “threats will lead to nothing.”

Iran is a key supporter of Hezbollah, believed to funnel it weapons and millions of dollars in funding, though Tehran denies arming the Shiite group. Hezbollah, also closely allied to Syria, boasts a heavy arsenal of rockets capable of reaching deep inside Israel.

The past month has seen increased sabre-rattling between Israel and Syria, Hezbollah and Lebanon — though there’s been little apparent cause on the ground for the warnings of new war. Hezbollah and Israel fought a monthlong war in 2006 that wreaked destruction in south Lebanon and parts of Beirut. But since then, Hezbollah has refrained from firing rockets across the border.

In a speech aired nationally in Lebanon this week, Nasrallah vowed that if Israel attacks again, his fighters would retaliate in kind, striking Tel Aviv or Israel’s international airport on the city’s outskirts.

Lebanon’s prime minister also warned of “escalating” Israeli war threats and vowed Lebanon would support Hezbollah in any fight. The prime minister, Saad Hariri, is a pro-U.S. figure and longtime rival of Hezbollah, but the group is now a member of his national unity government.

Earlier in the month, Syria’s president Bashar Assad accused Israel of avoiding peace, and its prime minister warned that if war broke out, Israeli cities would be attacked. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman replied that if Damascus draws Israel into a war, its army would be defeated and the Syrian regime would collapse.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Iran in the cross-hairs – Haaretz – Israel News.

If anyone still had doubts about an imminent conflict with Iran, it was removed this week by the arrival of the U.S. army chief in Israel and the threats from the Iranian president and Hezbollah secretary-general.

Something sinister is in the air.

If the international community’s collision course with Tehran leads to harsh sanctions meant to halt its nuclear program, the spring and summer months will be especially sensitive. It would be impossible to rule out a scenario in which the increasing tension leads to all-out open war. Tehran and Jerusalem regularly exchange threatening messages via various channels, but with Beirut, Gaza and Damascus in the middle, the situation is liable to get out of control.

At a time when Iran is deliberately inflaming the situation, the U.S. is seeking to cool things down. Interestingly and strangely enough, the two rivals seem to have a similar read on Israel’s current role in the drama. Both believe Israel could lose patience and implement its policy of “a leadership gone mad” that former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert took great pride in during the Second Lebanon War and Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. This belief serves as the backdrop for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s remarks implying that Israel is readying for war (which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has steadfastly denied) and for Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s threats to attack strategic infrastructure in Israel.

The possibility of unleashing Israel’s “bull in a china shop” approach is also behind the recent flurry of visits from senior American officials, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who arrives next week. The visits are intended to explain to the Netanyahu government why an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is unwanted at the moment ? and also to clarify what Israel seeks in return for sitting quietly and allowing the Obama administration to build an international coalition to impose sanctions on Iran.

Mullen landed here at the beginning of the week – on the hottest day of Israel’s winter – with an unambiguous warning. His visit opened with a brief press conference at the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv, to which journalists were summoned on short notice, and that was characterized by something of a culture clash. Some of the Israeli journalists showed up in T-shirts, and Mullen seemed a bit surprised by the casual atmosphere and by the strident tone of the questions.

Despite this, he stuck to the message he was sent here to convey: that he is concerned by the “unexpected consequences” of an Israeli attack on Iran. Mullen’s remarks, made in public even before his first meeting with his Israeli hosts, immediately dictated the tone of Israeli media would adopt to cover his visit.

In recent weeks, especially since its announcement that it has begun production of 20-percent-enriched uranium, Iran has not even bothered to claim its nuclear program is intended for peaceful means, as it had in the past. Iran’s true intentions are clear to everyone from Washington to London to Beijing. China, however, is more concerned about its oil supply than the Iranian threat, and sees its refusal to impose sanctions as an effective means of challenging U.S. power.

It’s possible the concern over an Israeli strike has come too soon. Israel will only attack as a last resort. But if Iran continues its enrichment and the U.S. fails to consolidate sanctions, or if the sanctions are ineffective down the line, the military option becomes more relevant. In this case, Israel also has more legitimacy to act in self-defense and cannot be blamed for the failure of diplomacy.

This week, Nasrallah broadcast another message from his bunker and, for the first time, mentioned the “axis of evil.” He warned of a four-pronged attack against Israel by Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas ? which those parties have avoided outlining explicitly until now in an effort to maintain the appearance of independence. At the same time, Nasrallah presented Hezbollah’s planned response to Israel’s “Dahiya doctrine” (a term used to describe a conventional army targeting civilian infrastructure used by terrorists) by saying his group would destroy Ben-Gurion International Airport and attack Tel Aviv.

Posted by Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff, February 18, 2010