Israel Urges Iran Oil Embargo Even Without U.N. Okay – NYTimes.com.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Monday for an immediate embargo on Iran’s energy sector, saying the U.N. Security Council should be sidestepped if it cannot agree on the move.

Iran’s uranium enrichment in defiance of several rounds of Security Council sanctions has spurred world powers to consider tougher measures to halt what the West fears is a drive to produce nuclear weapons.

Israel has endorsed the talks while hinting at preemptive military action should it deem diplomacy a dead end.

If the world “is serious about stopping Iran, then what it needs to do is not watered-down sanctions, moderate sanctions … but effective, biting sanctions that curtail the import and export of oil into Iran,” Netanyahu said in a speech.

“This is what is required now. It may not do the job, but nothing else will, and at least we will have known that it’s been tried. And if this cannot pass in the Security Council, then it should be done outside the Security Council, but immediately.”

Though it is the world’s fifth-largest oil exporter, Iran imports some 40 percent of its gasoline from foreign refineries.

Many Western diplomats believe that China, along with fellow veto-wielder Russia, would block any Security Council sanctions targeting Iran’s energy sector. Proposed sanctions for now focus on Iranian government assets like the Revolutionary Guard Corps.

INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT

Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev said Israel would prefer the Security Council to curb Iran but believed there was enough international support outside that forum for energy sanctions.

“If the United States, Europe and like-minded countries act in unison, they can succeed in sending the desired message and forcing the regime in Tehran to rethink its nuclear weapons programme,” Regev said.

Israel’s Haaretz daily reported in 2008 that Netanyahu’s predecessor, Ehud Olmert, proposed for the United States to enforce a naval blockage on Iran. Regev declined to discuss whether the current Israeli government had similar ideas.

Netanyahu has in the past predicted energy sanctions would be enough to “cripple” Iran. He appeared to demur on Monday by raising the prospect that Iran — which announced plans to build two new enrichment plants — could weather even an oil embargo.

Regev said the premier was speaking extemporaneously in his English address to diaspora Jewish leaders, and that there was no change to Israel’s strategic view on its arch-foe.

Iran says its uranium enrichment is for energy or medical needs, but Tehran’s anti-Israel rhetoric and support for Islamic guerrillas on the Jewish state’s borders, as well as concerns over an Israeli military strike, have stirred fears of conflict.

Netanyahu made no reference to the possibility that Israel, which is assumed to have the Middle East’s only atomic arsenal, would try to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. Some analysts believe this option is circumscribed by the long ranges, Iranian defences, and U.S. reluctance to see another regional conflict.

(Additional reporting by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Dominic Evans)

AFP: US to pursue pressure track on Iran: Petraeus.

By Stephanie Griffith (AFP) – 1 hour ago

WASHINGTON — The United States is raising the stakes in its bid to halt Iran’s nuclear program, putting the issue on a “pressure track,” top US general David Petraeus said Sunday.

The US and other world powers are drumming up support for a fourth round of UN sanctions against Iran for its refusal to comply with repeated ultimatums to suspend uranium enrichment and agree to a UN-backed nuclear fuel deal.

President Barack Obama had talked about a dual-track approach to dealing with Iran’s suspect nuclear activities, involving efforts to engage Iranian leaders backed up by the threat of further sanctions.

“I think that no one at the end of this time can say that the United States and the rest of the world have not given Iran every opportunity to resolve the issues diplomatically,” Petraeus, the head of US Central Command, said.

“That puts us in a solid foundation now to go on what is termed the pressure track. That’s the course on which we are embarked now,” he told NBC television’s “Meet the Press” program.

Petraeus said the administration intends to “send the kind of signal to Iran about the very serious concerns that the countries in the region and, indeed, the entire world have… about Iran’s activities in the nuclear program.”

Concerns on Iran rose last week when the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, said it suspected that Tehran might already be trying to develop a nuclear warhead.

A US intelligence report in 2007 said Iran halted such research in 2003, but the latest IAEA report gives credence to the belief held by some Western countries that the program continued.

Petraeus suggested that Iran’s recent actions were leading US intelligence agencies to update their estimations.

“There is no question that some of the activities have advanced during that time. There is also a new national intelligence estimate being developed by our intelligence community in the United States,” he said.

The IAEA also confirmed on Thursday that Tehran had begun enriching uranium to higher levels, theoretically bringing it closer to the levels needed for an atomic bomb.

Iran has previously reached uranium enrichment levels of no more than five percent at its facility at Natanz, in defiance of UN orders for it to cease and despite three rounds of UN sanctions.

Earlier this month, Iran announced it would begin enriching uranium to 20 percent, ostensibly to make the fuel for a research reactor that makes medical radioisotopes.

Iranian officials have dismissed the IAEA report and the country’s all-powerful supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei denied on Friday that Tehran was seeking atomic weapons.

Last year the IAEA proposed sending Iranian low-enriched uranium (LEU) abroad for further enrichment, denying Tehran refining capacity world powers fear could be used to help build an atomic bomb.

The offer would have seen the uranium returned to Iran in a high-grade form for use in a medical research reactor, but Tehran rejected the plan.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted that the exchange had to be “simultaneous,” an Iranian stance that has led to a deadlock over the deal.

Israel unveils new drone fleet that can reach Iran – News – World – bnd.com.

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A visitor looks at an Israeli air force unmanned plane in the Tel Nof base, central Israel, Sunday, Feb. 21, 2010. Israel’s air force has introduced a fleet of large unmanned planes that it says can fly as far as Iran. Air force officials say the Heron TP drones have a wingspan of 86 feet (26 meters), making them the size of passenger jets, which can fly 20 consecutive hours, and are primarily used for surveillance and carrying payloads. – AP Photo

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Iran…Not Our War Asharq Alawsat Newspaper (English).

18/02/2010

By Tariq Alhomayed

The first stage of war is fought with words, as the saying goes, and what we see today between Iran and the West is a real war of words. As soon as Iran threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz recently, Tehran found itself face to face with Washington in an ongoing and dangerous escalation, and Iran has been dragged into a verbal confrontation with the US, rather than Israel, with the intransigence now coming from the Obama administration. In Washington on Tuesday the White House said that it was not ruling out any option – including a military option – with regards to dealing with Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said “Iran is the largest supporter of terrorism in the world today” and said that the country is on its way to becoming a “military dictatorship.”

The Iranian response to this was further escalation and Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused Clinton of spreading “lies.” What was also noticeable in Iran’s response is what was said by Ahmadinejad, who said that he expects a war to break out in the spring or the summer, and he threatened Israel saying that in the event of a war breaking out, “the resistance and regional states will finish them.” He also threatened that Tehran’s response will make the superpowers “regretful” should they choose to impose new sanctions on the country over its nuclear program. While on the exact same day, and only hours after Ahmadinejad’s statement, Hassan Nasrallah came out threatening Israel, saying that if Israel attacks Lebanon’s airport then Hezbollah will attack Israel’s airport, and that if Israel attacks civilians, Hezbollah would attack Tel Aviv in retaliation. Nasrallah also mocked those who warned of the necessity of “not giving Israel any pretext to launch aggression against Lebanon” as such talk was dangerous “and was an attempt to acquit Israel and presumptively lays all the responsibility on the resistance.”

Some might ask what has one thing got to do with the other; what ties Ahmadinejad’s statement with what Nasrallah said?

This is the crux of the matter, for as we have repeatedly stated, whenever Israel threatens Iran, Tehran responds by threatening the Gulf States, and whenever Tehran raises its voice, Nasrallah comes out repeating Iran’s words as if he were an echo. What is interesting today is that in the event of a war breaking out Ahmadinejad is threatening Israel and the West, and not on behalf of his own country, but in the name of “the resistance and regional countries.”

Firstly, what is the connection between the resistance and the regional countries and Iran’s nuclear program?

The other issue is that if Nasrallah is criticizing the Lebanese people who are advocating not giving Israel any excuse to attack their country, and who are intimating that is not their war, but rather Iran’s war, then why on 28 December 2008, after the discovery of a Katyusha rocket cache, did Nasrallah criticize those who were saying that these rockets belonged to Hezbollah, saying that this would give Israel a justification and excuse to launch aggression against Lebanon?

Therefore this war, should it take place, is Iran’s war, and it is up to Iran – which has not attempted any wise acts – to defuse this. Why should our region and our countries be involved in this? It is not our war, and we do not desire for it to take place, therefore this is solely Iran’s war and that of its agents as well. As for us, we will be victims of Iran should it gain nuclear capabilities, and we will also be Tehran’s victims should a war break out. Can we realize this issue before we lose our minds in the midst of any future war breaking out, God forbid?

James M. Lindsay and Ray Takeyh – The force needed to contain Iran – washingtonpost.com.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

As Iran relentlessly moves toward acquiring a nuclear weapons capability, calls will grow for the United States to think seriously about how to contain Tehran. A preventive attack will not work, some will argue, and could unleash a wave of terrorism that would further imperil Iraq and Afghanistan. Conversely, containment will be held up as a way to deter Tehran without having to resort to military force.

But this view draws a false distinction between containment and force. A preventive attack might not end Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Defense Secretary Robert Gates argues that a successful attack would delay the Iranian program by at most a few years. Yet a policy of containment will not save the White House from having to make tough choices about using force. Indeed, Iran can be contained only if Washington is prepared to use force against an emboldened adversary armed with the ultimate weapon.

The rationale for the Iranian nuclear program has changed over time. It began as part of a largely defensive strategy under the moderate presidencies of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami. Nuclear weapons would provide a way to deter a range of foes while enhancing national prestige.

Today, as Iranian hawks consolidate their power and the Revolutionary Guards emerge as a key pillar of the state, Tehran views nuclear weapons as the means to regional preeminence. A nuclear shield would give Iran freedom to project its power in the Middle East. Such an Iran is unlikely to be subtle about brandishing the nuclear card.

It would take considerable American political skill and will to contain such regional pretensions. Washington would need to be explicit about its red lines: no initiation of conventional warfare against other countries; no use or transfer of nuclear weapons, material or technologies; no stepped-up support for terrorist or subversive activities. Washington would need to be just as explicit about the consequences of crossing those lines: potential U.S. military retaliation by any and all means necessary.

Tehran would probably test U.S. resolve early on, believing that regional dynamics had shifted sharply in its favor. In that case, the United States would face a momentous credibility crisis because it had failed to stop Iran from going nuclear after persistently declaring that such an outcome was unacceptable. Even close U.S. allies would doubt Washington’s security guarantees.

An emboldened Iran would test Washington in several ways. It would probably lend more support to Hezbollah and Hamas and encourage them to act more aggressively against Israel. It might step up subversive activities against the Gulf sheikdoms and demand that they evict U.S. troops from their territory.

A nuclear Iran could also be tempted to transfer nuclear materials and technologies to other countries. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has already declared that “Iran’s nuclear achievements belong to all those countries thinking of peace and welfare, and we are prepared to provide these achievements to those who hate war and aggression.” How would the United States respond to an Iran that transferred advanced centrifuges or nuclear weapon designs to its Syrian ally? Or if it gave fissile material to a terrorist group?

Such dangerous and destabilizing actions cannot be addressed by tough diplomatic talk or yet more U.N. Security Council resolutions. It can be addressed only by a willingness to respond with force. And in the curious logic that governs deterrence, a Tehran that believes Washington will retaliate will be less likely to act aggressively in the first place.

The challenges of making containment work make it far preferable that Iran stop — or be stopped — short of becoming a nuclear power. Efforts to negotiate limits on Iran’s nuclear program must be pursued with vigor, and economic pressure on Tehran must be maintained. Military options should not be taken off the table.

If Tehran remains determined to go nuclear and preventive attacks prove too risky or unworkable to carry out, the United States will need to formulate a strategy to contain Iran. In doing so, however, it would be a mistake to assume that containment would save the United States from the need to make tough choices about retaliation. If Washington is not prepared to back up a containment strategy with force, the damage created by Iran’s going nuclear could become catastrophic.

James M. Lindsay is senior vice president and Ray Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Their article “After Iran Gets the Bomb” will be published in the March-April issue of Foreign Affairs.

Dubai hit – another move in the Israel-Iran cold war – Haaretz – Israel News.

The assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mahbouh in Dubai, allegedly perpetrated by Israel, was another expression of the all-out cold war between Israel and Iran. The two regional powers are fighting for clout and influence in the Middle East, threatening mutual destruction and harassing each another with clandestine action.

The hostility has been going on for years, but this month there has been more talk of an actual war breaking out, during the “crucial year” of 2010. The American administration is now trying to avoid an explosion; that is President Barack Obama’s main challenge in the region.

The current Israeli-Iranian hostilities are reminiscent of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War, and Israel’s war for influence against Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt in the 1950s and ’60s, and against Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization in the ’70s and the ’80s. They have similar characteristics: profound ideological rejection of the foe, threats against its existence, an arms race, clandestine global activity, supplying arms to allies, diplomatic alliances with regional and global powers, an economic boycott and diplomatic isolation.

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Every few days, the Iranian news agency IRNA posts to its Web site a promise by an Iranian leader that the Zionist regime is on the verge of collapse. Or a soothing message that Israel is weak and incapable of attacking Iran, or that if it does attack, it will be punished. Or encouragement for anti-Zionist rabbis in Europe and calls to try “Israeli war criminals” over their deeds in Gaza. Even Prof. Ilan Pappe, “the Israeli dissident,” is mentioned favorably.

The Iranian message: Zionism is a criminal ideology responsible for shocking war crimes. The Zionist regime is not legitimate, and will inevitably collapse if faced with determined “resistance.”

Furthermore, according to the Iranians, Saudi Arabia is attacking Yemen as part of an American and Israeli plot. This sounds ridiculous until we recall the story the Israeli Air Force journal published two years ago about the secret military aid Israel gave the pro-Saudi royalists in their war against Nasser. History is repeating itself.

Just as the Iranians are saying they are not against Jews, but only Zionism, the Israeli leaders are explaining they love and respect the Iranian people but oppose only the regime. They blame Iran for all the security troubles facing Israel, from suicide attacks to rockets and Qassams, but add that if the ayatollahs were to be cast out, we could love again, as in the days of the shah.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls Iran “the new Amalek” because of its attempts to obtain nuclear weapons. The Book of Deuteronomy (25:19?) exhorts: “Thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.”

Airport “doctrine”

This week the public threats peaked. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned that Israel is planning to launch a war “in the spring or the summer” and said that if this happens, “The resistance and the states in the region will wipe out this false regime.”

Last week Ahmadinejad announced that his country could build an atomic bomb. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah marked out targets – Tel Aviv and Ben-Gurion International Airport, which would be bombed if Israel were to attack Beirut and Hariri Airport. In the face of Israel’s “Dahiya doctrine” (i.e., destruction of Lebanese infrastructure if Israel comes under rocket fire again), Hezbollah is proposing the “Ben-Gurion International doctrine.”

Nasrallah, like his Iranian friend, spoke about self-defense in the face of Israeli action, and not about initiating an attack. Here, too, it is hard to ignore the symmetry in the threats. Ahmadinejad and Nasrallah’s remarks resemble Israel’s warnings against a Syrian “miscalculation” three years ago. In the end, Syria did nothing and Israel bombed the nuclear installation near the Euphrates River.

Are Iran and Hezbollah plotting to attack under the cover of warnings against Israeli aggression? Nasrallah’s explanation sounds like an exact copy of Lieberman’s statements that Syria’s ruling Assad family will fall from power if it takes on Israel. Nasrallah and Lieberman believe boastful threats are the most effective deterrence.

Meanwhile, the public is staying calm on both sides. Here, too, Tel Aviv and Beirut are mirror images of each other. Both cities have been threatened with destruction in the next war. Both have seen an insane increase in real estate prices – both gained 37 percent over the past year, according to TheMarker and the Global Property Guide Web site. The skylines of both coastal cities are changing rapidly as luxury apartment towers multiply – the first buildings likely to collapse under bombardments and missile attacks.

Conclusion: The Israelis and the Lebanese do not believe the threats. Were they really afraid of “a second Holocaust” and the destruction of their cities, they would no doubt be seeking refuge overseas and not wasting millions of dollars on luxury apartments that would be destroyed.
Yet, it would be a mistake to dismiss the reciprocal threats as empty words intended for “domestic consumption.” This is also how Israel explained Nasser’s threats until the entire region was swept into the Six-Day War. Then, too, each side claimed its enemy wanted to attack it. Cumulative escalation could explode if it is not identified and defused – and that is what the top American officials are trying to do, as they set out for the Middle East to calm tempers.

The old cliche “the Arabs have the oil and we have the match” has been proven again: The American administration has not invested nearly as much effort in aiding the suffering Palestinians as it has now put into preventing a regional eruption that would send energy prices sky high. Israel’s threats against “Amalek” and its Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian partners disturb the Americans far more than the expansion of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Jewish housing in East Jerusalem.

Next month U.S. Vice President Joe Biden will visit Jerusalem. He is expected to warn Israel against a preventative attack on Iran’s nuclear installation, as U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Michael Mullen did this week. The public warning gives the Americans diplomatic cover: They have told the Israelis not to act. But attacking Natanz, like Israel attacked the reactors in Iraq and Syria, is just one possible scenario. And what if the Lebanese front ignites, Iran backs Hezbollah and Israel retaliates in the name of self-defense? Or if, vice versa, Israel takes action in the north and Iran bombs it?

Netanyahu will meet with Obama twice in the next few weeks, when he visits Washington for the conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobby and during the international nuclear conference. The Iranian threat will star at both events, the prime minister will have plenty to say, and the president will have plenty to hear

Israel is back – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Our enemies scared of ‘crazy’ Israel, which finally learned rules of region

Guy Bechor

Middle East Views | Ahmadinejad and Nasrallah prepare us for war.

Hassan Haidar

The past two weeks have witnessed many Iranian allusions to the possibility of a military conflict erupting in the region, and this coincides with the start of serious discussion over imposing further sanctions on Tehran because of its obstinacy in the nuclear issue, as well as with Washington announcing that it will present a draft concerning this matter to the Security Council before the end of this month.

Indications of war came in the words of Iranian President Ahmadinejad, who announced that he had informed Syria in a telephone call to its president that “we have reliable information (…) that the Zionist regime is after finding a way to compensate for its ridiculous defeats from the people of Gaza and Lebanon’s Hezbollah”, adding that “if the Zionist regime should repeat its mistakes and initiate a military operation, then it must be resisted with full force to put an end to it once and for all”.

He then repeated his claims in a press conference two days ago, saying that “according to information we have they (Israel) are seeking to start a war next spring or summer, although their decision is not final yet”, without making clear against whom yet adding “but the resistance and regional states will finish them if this fake regime does anything again”.

Some might find it “understandable” for Ahmadinejad to hint at the possibilities of war with Israel and to raise the level of tension in the region, in order to deter the Westerners from seeking to impose sanctions and drive them instead to rush to find a way to calm the situation down, and consider this to fall under “tactics” and “indirect negotiations”. Yet previous experience has shown that Iran’s talk of war has been serious when the matter concerns the regime’s interests. The summer 2006 Lebanon war erupted after economic sanctions were imposed on Tehran, and there is nothing preventing such a scenario from being repeated, a scenario which produced a “victory” Iran and its allies still boast of.

Yet it is noteworthy that, when Ahmadinejad spoke of resisting any Israeli offensive, he did not indicate the willingness of his country to participate in such resistance, and in fact laid the responsibility for the task on just Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas. And of course, Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyid Nasrallah rushed to seize the direct Iranian message and gave a speech the day before yesterday in which he raised the bar of the “challenge” which he said to “accept” and threatened to strike the infrastructure in Israel if it endeavored to attack Lebanon.

Nasrallah said that he does want war, despite the fact that he “misses” it and is willing to wage it, but he seemed in effect to be luring the Israelis to confrontation under the guise of “deterrence” when he revealed a substantial development in his arsenal and his possession of accurate rocket launch systems that never miss their targets and have the ability to destroy.

And when he spoke of Israel’s “weakness” and its inability to wage a war unless it ensures its “certain, guaranteed and absolute” victory in it, and said that it needed time to regain its strength and build an anti-rocket “steel dome”, he in fact fell into contradiction with his ideology itself. Indeed, if he is certain of Israel’s weakness, of the “predicament” it is in, and of the fact that it cannot bear another defeat because that would mean its end, then why does he choose to grant it enough time to prepare since his political convictions and his “religious obligation” drive him to obliterate the “Zionist entity”?

The explanation for such contradiction has come in the words of Nasrallah himself when, in the process of attacking those who demand that he does not give Israel a pretext to launch an offensive against Lebanon, he said “since July 2006, nothing has happened on the South Lebanon front, and this has assured us of a strategy”. The strategy here means exclusively the decision and timing controlled by Tehran, which might currently want to prevent sanctions at any cost… which of course we would pay.

*Published in the London-based AL-HAYAT on Feb. 18, 2010

American Thinker Blog: Iran secretly working on developing a nuclear payload for its missiles: IAEA.

Rick Moran
Thank God Mohammed ElBaradei is no longer head of the IAEA. The guy was famous for using weasel words and outright underplaying Iran’s nuclear progress and ambitions.

Thankfully, the new head of the International Atomic Energy Administration is made of sterner stuff. Yukia Amano has completed his first report on Iran and comes to a frightening conclusion:

The information available to the Agency in connection with these outstanding issues is extensive and has been collected from a variety of sources over time. It is also 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. 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. These alleged activities consist of a number of projects and sub-projects, covering nuclear and missile related aspects, run by military related organizations.

[…]

While the Agency continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran, Iran has not provided the necessary cooperation to permit the Agency to confirm that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.

The IAEA strongly suspects Iran of carrying out a “dual track” nuclear program with an above board aspect that, since Iran is party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, is carefully monitored and inspected, but also a secret program run by the military. Before Iran was politicized by our intelligence agencies, the Bush administration had a strong suspicion that such was the case. Now the CIA and others have dismissed that notion.

Looks like another rewrite is in order for that 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that predicted Iran would not get the bomb until 2015 and that they gave up trying to make a bomb in 2003.

Reading between the lines of this diplomat-speak, you cannot escape the impression that the IAEA believes that, in addition to all the declared facilities (and declared stockpiles of uranium) that the Iranians actually have other, secret facilities and nuclear stockpiles where they are probably working on mating a nuclear warhead to a missile.

What now?

The president is pushing another round of sanctions at the UN with both Russia and China making noises as if they would be agreeable in principle. But really, it is far too late for any sanctions to matter. Iran will not be denied by peaceful means. There is no upside for them to give up on making a nuclear weapon. They have committed enormous sums, virtually ruined their economy, in order to get to this point. It is not likely they will be deterred – unless someone or a group of someones physically prevents them from taking the last step over the cliff.

This piece in the J-Post outlines the thinking in Tel Aviv; if Obama says “no” to Israel regarding an Iran strike, it is probable that they will not risk an open break with Washington. But, there are different ways that Obama can say “no:”

At the end of the day, it may all come down to how clear and explicit the American red light to Israel is. If President Obama looks Prime Minister Netanyahu in the eyes and says, “Absolutely not,” then it will be extremely unlikely Israel will attack Iran. But in politics and diplomacy, there are many different ways of saying no, many different ways of interpreting a “no,” many different shades of red. Sometimes things are not so cut-and-dry, red is not always black and white.But the parade of US officials here will be reminding their Israeli counterparts that red is a primary color, not made up of some green, some yellow and some white. It is not magenta, it is not crimson. If the Americans give Israel a firm red, in the clearest possible terms, and they really mean it, then there is no room for constructive ambiguity, and those in the driver’s seat of Israel’s car will have to approach the oncoming fateful intersection with extreme caution.

I’m sure, given the anti-Israeli advisors that Obama has brought into his administration, that there will be several key foreign policy figures who would want to punish Israel severely for protecting itself from the mad mullahs. It may even be Obama’s feeling as well.

Given this report by the IAEA, the clock in Tel Aviv is close to striking midnight – where Israel must make a decision that would certainly be the most fateful of this century, and perhaps the most important decision regarding the peace of the planet in many decades.

IDF welcomes ‘super-drone’ – Israel News, Ynetnews.

IDF welcomes ‘super-drone’

New unmanned aircraft can fly higher, stay in air longer than other drones

Hanan Greenberg