U.S. successfully tests airborne laser on missile | Reuters.

WASHINGTON, Feb 12 (Reuters) – A U.S. high-powered airborne laser weapon shot down a ballistic missile in the first successful test of a futuristic directed energy weapon, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said on Friday.

The agency said in a statement the test took place at 8:44 p.m. PST (11:44 p.m. EST) on Thursday /0444 GMT on Friday) at Point Mugu’s Naval Air Warfare Center-Weapons Division Sea Range off Ventura in central California.

“The Missile Defense Agency demonstrated the potential use of directed energy to defend against ballistic missiles when the Airborne Laser Testbed (ALTB) successfully destroyed a boosting ballistic missile” the agency said.

The high-powered Airborne Laser system is being developed by Boeing Co., (BA.N) the prime contractor, and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.

Boeing produces the airframe, a modified 747 jumbo jet, while Northrop Grumman (NOC.N) supplies the higher-energy laser and Lockheed Martin (LMT.N) is developing the beam and fire control systems.

“This was the first directed energy lethal intercept demonstration against a liquid-fuel boosting ballistic missile target from an airborne platform,” the agency added.

The airborne laser weapon successfully underwent its first in-flight test against a target missile back in August. During that test, Boeing said the modified 747-400F aircraft took off from Edwards Air Force Base and used its infrared sensors to find a target missile launched from San Nicolas Island, California.

The plane’s battle management system issued engagement and target location instructions to the laser’s fire control system, which tracked the target and fired a test laser at the missile. Instruments on the missile verified the system had hit its mark, Boeing said.

The airborne laser weapon is aimed at deterring enemy missile attacks and providing the U.S. military with the ability to engage all classes of ballistic missiles at the speed of light while they are in the boost phase of flight.

“The revolutionary use of directed energy is very attractive for missile defense, with the potential to attack multiple targets at the speed of light, at a range of hundreds of kilometers (miles), and at a low cost per intercept attempt compared to current technologies,” the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said.

(Reporting by Jim Wolf and David Alexander, Editing by Sandra Maler)

The Ayatollahs are Asking for It » Publications » Family Security Matters.

February 12, 2010

Alan Caruba

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1149191.html

By Natasha Mozgovaya, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service

White House: Ahmadinejad has said many things, and many of them turn out to be untrue.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s announcement that the country has succeeded at creating higher levels of uranium enrichment shows its nuclear intentions are “anything but peaceful,” the U.S. State Department said Thursday. Ahmadinejad said scientists had succeeded at producing a batch of uranium enrichment at a much higher level that it had previously accomplished. The amount was sufficient for running in nuclear power reactors, but still well below the levels needed for weapons grade uranium. But Iran’s nuclear ambitions continue to draw concerns from the United States and European allies who fear Iran is seeking the capability to build nuclear weapons. Iran has rebuffed diplomatic overtures to resolve the issue and is in defiance of UN Security Council demands that it suspend uranium enrichment. “Should Iran continue down the wrongful course that it’s on there will be consequences,” State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said. Crowley also said he was skeptical as to the accuracy of Iran’s claims of nuclear enrichment capabilities. “I’m not a scientists but I think there are questions about what Iran’s true capability is,” Crowley said, adding that Iran has “been boasting number of things for a couple of years, but we are taking their words seriously. It seems as a violation of the UN Security Council resolution.” “It appears that they’ve attempted a nearly total information blockade – it’s an unprecedented attempt to intimidate their own people and it’s clear they fear their own people,” Crowley said. “I think we have strong indications that Iran has tried to restrict access to the Internet, and it’s not about what the outsiders are doing, but about the fundamental relationship between Iranian government and their people. Iranian people are continuing to protest for their rights. This continuing intimidation by the Iranian government is a great concern to us, and it shows the increasing bankruptcy of the Iranian regime. White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs also referred to Iran’s claims of its nuclear capabilities, saying the Iranian president Ahmadinejad had said “many things, and many of them turn out to be untrue.” “We do not believe they have the capability to enrich which they claim they have,” Gibbs added, saying the actions of Iran have led to the world to be more unified” by defying international obligations. The comments by U.S. officials came after earlier Thursday British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the international community was moving closer to imposing sanctions on Iran because of its nuclear program. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced on Thursday that Iran was capable of enriching uranium to more than 80 percent purity, coming close to levels experts say would be needed for a nuclear bomb, although he said that was not the country’s intention. “I believe the mood around the world is now increasingly one where, patience not being inexhaustible, people are turning to look at the specific sanctions we can plan on Iran,” Brown told BBC. Officials: UN set to pass tighter Iran sanctions Senior United Nations officials told Haaretz that a Security Council resolution tightening the sanctions on Iran has become more likely, and that the resolution is probably going to be approved. Observers in both New York and Washington estimate that China will think twice about using its veto on a resolution after Russia recently threw its support behind a move against Iran. A veto could expose Beijing as isolated and out of touch with its fellow Security Council members. China could also abstain from voting and allow the decision to be made by a simple majority. However, the sources told Haaretz, the United States is still trying to obtain Chinese support for the sanctions. Ahead of its push for international sanctions at the UN, the U.S. sought on Wednesday to ratchet up pressure on Iran by imposing its own sanctions on elements of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, which Western intelligence officials believe is spearheading Iran’s nuclear program. The Treasury Department said it was freezing the assets in U.S. jurisdictions of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Rostam Qasemi and four subsidiaries of a previously penalized construction firm he runs because of their alleged involvement in producing and spreading weapons of mass destruction. U.S. officials said the measures were intended as a model for wider action at the UN. “The United States is seeking to reach a consensus between the five permanent members of the UN Security Council on the sanctions issue,” one of the sources said. “This would allow it to present the five superpowers as a united coalition, which would increase the impact of the sanctions.” According to estimates in Washington and New York, a first American draft for the new resolution will be circulated among Security Council members in early March at the latest, and the vote will take place at the end of the month. “To be honest, nobody knows for certain at the moment what China is going to do,” a senior official in New York told Haaretz. “But at the end of the day, China is sensitive about its position as a superpower, and will not be able to ignore the position of other superpowers, including Russia, who support tightening the sanctions. It’s not going to go against them by undermining the resolution.” The New York Times on Wednesday quoted officials in the Obama administration who said the U.S. president has been applying the same persuasion tack with China he earlier successfully used with Russian president Medvedev. According to the daily, Obama has placed sanctions on Iran at the top of his priorities in recent contacts with Beijing. Experts, however, warned that the same tactics that brought success with Russia may not work with China. A scheduled White House visit by the Dalai Lama has infuriated the Chinese, as did a recent arms deal between the United States and Taiwan. The Americans had earlier planned to begin promoting the resolution in February. France, which supports a tough line on Iran, is this month’s president of the Security Council. “”This is a critical time for Iran’s relationship with the rest of the world.” Brown said the international community did not want to impose sanctions but would do so if Iran did not cooperate more fully over its nuclear plans

Regime Change Bruited as US Troops Train Secretly for Next Campaign

Barak Obama

The hottest intelligence item bandied about in top Western, Russian and Middle East circles is this:
For some weeks now, US-military chartered airliners and scheduled flights have been ferrying hundreds of US officers and soldiers in civilian dress between the Persian Gulf, the Far East and Thailand, in particular. They are bound for a spot of R & R. Most of the American soldiers flooding the holiday resorts and local bars around Bangkok are tightlipped about their next missions, but some have disclosed they were resting up from strenuous training ahead of one of the most grueling and lengthy operations US armed forces have ever undertaken: A military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities and its strategic and military infrastructures.
There were additional signs in the past two weeks that President Barack Obama was turning away from diplomatic engagement with Iran and towards the military option (which he never eschewed).
Is the apparent U-turn a zigzag with more to come?
In a surprise statement Tuesday, Feb. 9, Obama told reporters he had “bent over backwards” to engage Iran in constructive dialogue, but now that Tehran has moved to enrich uranium to the 20 percent level in defiance of the world powers, the US is moving fast forward to develop a “significant regime of sanctions.”
The Pentagon said the US wants a UN Security resolution within weeks, pointing out that Iran has defied five UN Security Council resolutions with sanctions banning enrichment.
At the same time, the US president is letting talks with Iran go another round, perhaps as a last throw of his engagement dice. Tuesday, he sent Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutolu to Tehran to engage Iranian leaders in another bid to bridge the gap, a mission that could also take some weeks.
Either way, Iran’s leaders have again won time to parlay for progress on their nuclear plans, free of heavy American pressure to mend their ways.

So which is it to be? A sanctions regime or regime change?

DEBKA-Net-Weekly intelligence sources report exclusively that three former Democratic administration officials acting as his informal envoys last week delivered messages which took their interlocutors aback – European and Middle Eastern alike. Make no mistake about President Obama’s apparent offer of more time for Tehran to accept the world powers’ enriched uranium offer of a swap, or his slow response to Iran’s advance notice that it would start enriching uranium to 20 percent on Feb. 9 – or even the unveiling of the advanced Kavoshgar-3 satellite carrier-cum-missile. Washington is only pretending to let Tehran get away with its escalating provocations. In reality, the White House has reached three decisions in principle:
1. Not to allow Iran to build or possess nuclear weapons;
2. To go to war to prevent this happening, having concluded, contrary to former predictions, that a military strike on Iran would be less fraught with danger than letting Iran acquire an N-bomb.
3. Diplomatic engagement having exhausted itself, regime change in Tehran is a real option.
According to our sources, Obama’s messengers did not specify whether US military action would persevere until regime change is achieved or that two separate operations for separate goals were contemplated.
Asked to substantiate his highly dramatic message, one of the envoys advised an interviewee to read an article written by Richard Haass, president of The Council on Foreign Relations, for Newsweek of January 22.
Haass was faithfully representing President Obama’s thinking and his next direction, said the envoy. Beyond this, he would not elaborate.

The coming NIE may box Obama in

Under the headline “Enough Is Enough,” Haass wrote: “I’ve changed my mind (about the engagement policy). The nuclear talks are going nowhere. The Iranians appear intent on developing the means to produce a nuclear weapon…
“Critics will say promoting regime change will encourage Iranian authorities to tar the opposition as pawns of the West. But the regime is already doing so. Outsiders should act to strengthen the opposition and to deepen rifts among the rulers. This process is underway, and while it will take time, it promises the first good chance in decades to bring about an Iran that, even if less than a model country, would nonetheless act considerably better at home and abroad. Even a realist should recognize that it’s an opportunity not to be missed.”
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Washington and military sources note that the envoys are stressing that President Obama has already come down in favor of military action to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear arms in a bid to allay Middle East and Gulf Arab concerns. For their message to be believable and taken seriously – and not just as a non-binding expression of intent – the US envoys defined the circumstances that would prompt the offensive and the time frame for its launch, namely: Clear US intelligence affirmation that Iran was proceeding to assemble a nuclear weapon, i.e. some time this year or next.
On February 2, US intelligence chief Dennis Blair told the Senate: “Iran is keeping open the option of developing nuclear weapons but it remains unclear whether Tehran has the political will to do so.”
Our sources disclosed in last week’s issue (DEBKA-Net-Weekly 432) that Blair’s testimony was in fact the curtain-raiser for the administration’s new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), a work in progress which deals primarily with Iran.
Should the new NIE determine from the evidence that the Iranian leadership has made up its mind to go for a nuclear weapon – or assembled its components – it will be time for Obama to decide finally if an American military strike is warranted.
The pace would be forced if Iran landed the shock of its first nuclear test, which some Iran-watchers tell DEBKA-Net-Weekly cannot be ruled out during the Islamic regime’s anniversary month.

Obama bids farewell to his Muslim outreach

Obama’s decision to aim for regime change in Tehran would be a policy reversal as radical as his resort to military action to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions. It would bury for good the outreach to the Muslim world heralded in his epic speech at Cairo University on June 4, 2009 and add the name of Barack Obama to the list of bygone US presidents, including George W. Bush, who viewed regime change as legitimate for achieving political goals and reshaping countries and world regions.
Since Obama’s Cairo speech, the meaning has been drained from his opening words: “I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition.”
Washington sources note that ten months later, the principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings have gone up in smoke. The speech sincerely meant to heal a historic breach has been swept away on the battlefields of Afghanistan, Pakistan and latterly Yemen, where American servicemen are fighting Islamic forces.
If the US exercises its military option against Iran too, the breach will widen further

Iran: Destroy Israel if it strikes.

Ahmadinejad tells Assad Jewish state must be “resisted with full force.”

BY JPOST.COM STAFF
11/02/2010 09:43

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Syrian President Bashar Assad that Israel “must be resisted” and finished off “once and for all” if it launches a military operation in the Middle East, Reuters cited an Iranian report on Thursday.

“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 Hizbullah,” Ahmadinejad told his Syrian counterpart in a phone conversation on Wednesday evening, according to IRIB, Iran’s state broadcaster.

“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,” Ahmadinejad reportedly asserted.

The Iranian president has called for Israel to be “wiped off the map” multiple times and has voiced harsh criticism against Israeli policies.

At the UN General Assembly in New York in September, Ahmadinejad gave a fiery speech that targeted Israel as a “Zionist regime” guilty of “inhumane policies in Palestine.”

Through a translator, the Iranian leader likened actions by Israel in Gaza to “genocide,”‘ and said the international community “is impatiently waiting for the punishment of the aggressors and the murderers of the defenseless people of Gaza.”

Ahmadinejad portrayed Israel and its allies, including the United States, as part of a vast conspiracy.

Officials: UN Security Council poised to pass Tehran sanctions – Haaretz – Israel News.

NEW YORK – Senior United Nations officials told Haaretz that a Security Council resolution tightening the sanctions on Iran has become more likely, and that the resolution is probably going to be approved.

Observers in both New York and Washington estimate that China will think twice about using its veto on a resolution after Russia recently threw its support behind a move against Iran. A veto could expose Beijing as isolated and out of touch with its fellow Security Council members.

China could also abstain from voting and allow the decision to be made by a simple majority. However, the sources told Haaretz, the United States is still trying to obtain Chinese support for the sanctions.

“The United States is seeking to reach a consensus between the five permanent members of the UN Security Council on the sanctions issue,” one of the sources said. “This would allow it to present the five superpowers as a united coalition, which would increase the impact of the sanctions.”

According to estimates in Washington and New York, a first American draft for the new resolution will be circulated among Security Council members in early March at the latest, and the vote will take place at the end of the month.

“To be honest, nobody knows for certain at the moment what China is going to do,” a senior official in New York told Haaretz. “But at the end of the day, China is sensitive about its position as a superpower, and will not be able to ignore the position of other superpowers, including Russia, who support tightening the sanctions. It’s not going to go against them by undermining the resolution.”

The New York Times on Wednesday quoted officials in the Obama administration who said the U.S. president has been applying the same persuasion tack with China he earlier successfully used with Russian president Medvedev. According to the daily, Obama has placed sanctions on Iran at the top of his priorities in recent contacts with Beijing.

Experts, however, warned that the same tactics that brought success with Russia may not work with China. A scheduled White House visit by the Dalai Lama has infuriated the Chinese, as did a recent arms deal between the United States and Taiwan.

The Americans had earlier planned to begin promoting the resolution in February. France, which supports a tough line on Iran, is this month’s president of the Security Council.

It’s time to play the war card | The Daily Caller – Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment.

Everyone has suddenly noticed an elephant in the room: Play the War Card! So right after Daniel Pipes’ column in National Review Online last week, “How to Save the Obama Presidency: Bomb Iran,” pundits from Arnaud de Borchgrave, to Pat Buchanan, to Sarah Palin rushed to approve or disapprove of the idea. They all bring their agendas to the debate, but they all agree a U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would significantly raise Obama’s disastrous approval poll ratings. Like politics, all warfare is domestic.

Even with the issue finally out in the sunlight, questions remain like: Why attack Iran when sanctions and ballistic missile defenses are available? Would an attack be effective anyway, and what about the Muslim response? Examination of those key points is timely.

First, no serious observer doubts Iran’s intentions except Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, who told Congress last week he did not know whether Iran has decided to produce nuclear weapons. Although this has been the posture of the Bush and Obama administrations for years, officials now publically concede that Tehran’s huge uranium enrichment program is designed to build nuclear weapons. In addition, the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung just reported that with the help of a Russian expert in advanced warhead design, Iran is developing a nuclear warhead small enough to fit in their Shahab 3 intercontinental ballistic missile. The paper added that Western intelligence agencies and diplomats confirmed the report; other reports suggest Iran already has a warhead but it is too large for their missile.

Whatever the status of Iran’s program, the Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu gave a thinly veiled warning to Iran on Jan. 27 (Holocaust Memorial Day) saying, “From this site, I vow as the leader of the Jewish state that we will never again allow the hand of evil to destroy the life of our people and the life of our state. Never again!”

Tempo increased with a statement on Feb. 9 by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that his country would “punch” the western powers during the annual celebration of the revolution on Thursday, Feb. 11. He said: “The Iranian nation, with its unity and God’s grace, will punch the arrogance (western powers) on the 22^nd of Bahman (11 February) in a way that will leave them stunned.” (Agence France-Presse).

What might that “punch” be? If Iran tests a nuclear device the calculus of terror in the Middle East changes dramatically, and things will surely happen on several fronts. Such a test is unlikely, however, and the “punch” is probably some new conventional armament. Nevertheless, Iran’s promise to wipe Israel off the face of the earth would spur that nation to action should Iran demonstrate a nuclear arsenal. And Israel is not the only concerned Middle East nation. A nuclear arms race is already under way in the region and would accelerate. The purchase of Pakistani nuclear weapons by Shiite Iran’s fearful Sunni neighbors cannot be ruled out.

With China refusing to endorse an embargo on gasoline sales to Iran, and with Russia dragging its feet, the peaceful option of sanctions is a dead horse. Ineffectual promises of sanctions and vague threats were hallmarks of the Bush presidency. To that Obama has only added lapsed deadlines and the offer of ballistic missile defenses (BMD) to Iran’s neighbors. Why does Washington follow such failed policies? The answer is that a nuclear-armed Iran is a distant threat to the United States, and even if Iran somehow landed a missile on American soil we would absorb the blow and completely incinerate them. So Washington delays action, counsels patience, and hopes that something will happen soon—even if that something is an Iranian nuclear capability. Israel does not have the luxury of distance or land mass, and a single Iranian nuclear missile slipping through the Aegis or Patriot BMD systems would be a catastrophe. Into this mix comes the debate of whether or not American military action against Iran would bolster poll standings of president Obama. I believe U.S. military action is a moot point, since there is absolutely nothing to indicate that Obama would consider playing the war card.

White House meetings on the subject of Iran must be interesting. If we attack Iran we face a tsunami of condemnation while Islamic leaders whip the ‘Muslim Street’ into a frenzy. Terror attacks on Americans will take place here and abroad. And if Israel attacks Iran instead, we will be named a co-conspirator and face the same tidal wave. Damned if we do, and damned if we don’t. Meanwhile, the military ball is in Israel’s court.

The world knows the U.S. military can destroy any target in the world without using nuclear weapons. But what about Israel? That country, with a population less than that of New York City, has developed a “triad”—the capability to launch a nuclear strike from aircraft, missile silos, and submarines. Besides Israel, only the US, Russia, and China have that deterrent power. But would Israel use nuclear weapons in a pre-emptive strike on Iran? I suggest that is unlikely because, as we will see below, it is unnecessary in the usual sense. As for a non-nuclear pre-emptive strike, Israel cannot successfully attack Iran with conventional weapons or aircraft. The distance is great, the defenses formidable, and the casualties would be very high. Instead, I believe Israel will use an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapon. What’s that?

In 1962 the U.S. conducted an atmospheric test called Starfish Prime. In it, a 1.4 megaton weapon was detonated 400 kilometers above Johnson Island in the Pacific. The EMP from that test knocked out street lights in Hawaii, 900 miles away! The Soviets held similar tests and discovered EMP effects can penetrate far underground. If Israel used one of its Jericho III missiles to detonate 400 kilometers above north central Iran there would be no blast or radiation effects on the ground. In fact, if the strike was at noon on a sunny day the people below would not know it happened except their lights would go out, cars stop, fridges die, power line transformers short out, refineries shut down, and yes, those uranium enrichment centrifuges in caverns stop spinning. This bloodless annihilation, coupled with a selective cyber attack, would freeze Iran for decades.

What could be Iran’s response to such an attack? If they can find a working radio they can announce they have mined the Strait of Hormuz. Because of depth, width, and its hydrographic features the Strait cannot be mined, but if Iran says it is mined it would have the same effect. Lloyds will cancel insurance for any tanker transiting the Strait. Then we revisit “Tanker War” tactics of 1985, and the U.S. Navy would escort any ship anxious to cash in on the crisis. If shore missile batteries were somehow still operational, a battle group in the area together with bombers from Diego Garcia would reduce them to rubble, along with associated infrastructure like military harbors. A rain of missiles from Hezbollah in Syria would have to be endured by Israel, unless another EMP weapon was used. Terror attacks would be made on Israelis and Americans, but those can be dealt with by law enforcement and military forces, especially if they are forewarned. Of course the price of oil and gold would spike for a while. On the positive side, Iranian “Green” opposition forces would have an opportunity to take to the darkened streets of Tehran and rid themselves of the corrupt clerical regime.

So it seems the “war card” is in the hands of Israel, and the card has “EMP” on it.

Chet Nagle is the author of IRAN COVENANT.

Just watched this video again, the thrust of which was that Israel was really fighting Iran during the Gaza operation.  It’s relevant now because Israel is still only fighting Iran and it’s mercenary proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas.

I’m off to dive in Eilat for the weekend.  If the war begins on February 11 as the Iranians have hinted at, I’ll come home and begin posting video reports again.

Israeli Warships en Route to The Persian Gulf? | Editorial.