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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.

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.

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.

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.

DEBKA.

As dark clouds gathered over the revolutionary regime in Tehran, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad groped for a semblance of stability by a show of space science and military achievements, on the one hand, and of fake diplomatic flexibility, on the other.

He was bracing for the next shock of a mass demonstration of popular disaffection on Feb. 11, the 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution. Opposition tacticians are counting on jostling the regime ever closer to collapse, while the president’s men are out there trying to break the spirit of the resistance and avert large-scale disturbances.

In typical theatrical mode, Ahmedinejad vowed that the upcoming national anniversary will mark “the total annihilation of the capitalist liberal regime.” His meaning was not clear, but he sounded to DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Iranian experts as though he was threatening physical annihilation for dissidents who dared show up on the streets of Tehran and other big cities on Revolution Day.

Two former demonstrators were hanged this week and more executions were threatened.

At the same time as Iran paraded its offensive might, Ahmadinejad threw out an offer to send Iran’s 3.5-percent enriched uranium overseas in return for 19.7 percent grade material, a UN proposal he ignored for months.

Washington was right to be wary of his sudden display of flexibility. DEBKA-Net-Weekly Iranian sources report that never for a moment did Tehran consider letting go of a single gram of its low-grade enriched uranium stock. Sounding reasonable was just a tactical ploy by which the Iranian leader hoped to torpedo US and Western efforts to bring Russia and China aboard for tough sanctions.

It also sought to justify Iran’s own gradual upgrade of uranium enrichment to 19.7 percent towards the goal of 80-90 percent weapons grade material.

Legendary eagle to threaten US shores

The three space satellites Iran unveiled Wednesday, Feb. 3 in Tehran were less significant than the new carrier engine for launching them the Kavoshgar-3 (Explorer-3). Put on display were the Tolou satellite, a research capsule called Navid-e Elm-o-Sanaat (Messenger of Science and Industry), and the first version of Sabah-2. All three are first-generation communications satellites.

The real star of the show was the Kavoshgar-3, which can loft a payload weighing up to 100 kilos to an altitude of 310 miles. On its back was a biocapsule of living creatures, a mouse, two turtles and worms.

This missile, presented as “home-made,” is in fact an upgraded North Korean No-dong, parts of which were delivered six months ago by an Antigua-flagged ship which slipped past American patrols to reach Iran.

The space test was held to camouflage Iran’s efforts to finish developing a 6,000-kilometer range ballistic missile capable of reaching every capital in Europe, from Vienna to London.

On show too was a model of a next-generation booster rocket, called Simorgh after the Iranian version of the mythical Phoenix, fabled to be the strongest bird in the world. It is equipped to carry a carry a 100-kilogramme (220-pound) satellite 500 kilometers (310 miles) into orbit.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s military sources report that, after it is fully developed in partnership with Pyongyang, Simorgh will be powerful enough to send a missile up to the East Coast of America; from North Korea, the West Coast would be in range..

The joint project is generously funded by Tehran, with Pyongyang pressing a team of its finest engineers and scientists into service to speed its development. Iran hopes to begin production in two to three years

China has also contributed technology to the Simorgh project for the sake of profitable contracts from the Islamic Republic and generous remuneration.

The Sabah-2 comsat’s development is aided by the Italian Carlo Gavazzi Space Company.

This firm’s spokesman strenuously denied any connection with the Italian satellite development Tuesday, Feb. 2, during Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi‘s visit to Israel. But our sources insist that the company has been cooperating with the Iranian space-missile program for some time in conditions of deep secrecy.

Iran’s strategic advantage, China‘s vested interest

On February 2, written testimony to Congress by Director of US Intelligence Dennis Blair revealed: “Iran already has the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the Middle East” and it continues to expand the scale, reach and sophistication of its ballistic missile forces, “many of which are inherently capable of carrying a nuclear payload,”

DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Washington sources report 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. His conclusion is that Iran has accumulated more missiles than Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states combined, or Egypt.

This was a radical reassessment of US and Israeli intelligence evaluations computed as recently as the fall of 2009, when Iran was believed to be able to field in a Middle East conflict no more than 60-70 ballistic missiles with ranges of up to 200 kilometers.

Blair did not spell out the current figure, but our military sources believe Iran has at least 300 medium-range missiles in operational service and is capable of producing another 10-12 a month, so that in a year’s time, Tehran’s missile arsenal will be boosted by another 40-50.

According to our Iranian sources, Tehran is no longer counting on Moscow’s support, unsure now whether Russia might not line up with the US and the West on the nuclear controversy.

Beijing is another matter. Tehran trusts its deepening ties with China to keep Beijing loyal and is willing to hand out contracts for an increasing number of military, industrial, and economic projects to buy China’s continued opposition to expanded sanctions.

Beijing has proved useful in helping Iran devise ruses for circumventing new US restrictions on Iran’s foreign banking and international trade. In command of vast financial resources and a major share of world banking China stands to amass huge profits from collaborating with Iran in beating US financial penalties.

Threat of Iran becoming more clear | The Daily Caller – Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment.

“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.” —Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking on Holocaust Memorial Day.

There is a coming war that you are not hearing enough about. It’s largely being ignored by American media and the impetus for doing so may be because it is being ignored by the White House. Since the inception of the new Jewish state, the United States of America has been a staunch supporter of the nation of Israel. But since the election of President Obama, the prospect of Israel remaining safe from nuclear threat has largely received only lip service by the president. During his State of the Union address, Obama said “…the international community is more united, and the Islamic Republic of Iran is more isolated. And as Iran’s leaders continue to ignore their obligations, there should be no doubt: They, too, will face growing consequences. That is a promise.” Though the actions of our president do not mirror his vows.

In the past week, it has been reported to extent that the U.S. is looking to expand its ballistic missile defense in four countries within the same region of Iran. There is only one reason that our government would be looking into this option. The White House has in fact accepted a nuclear-armed Iran. And the only actual “promise” that our president can offer us is just more words and just more speeches. It is clear by now, however, that Israel will not stand by and allow this to happen because, unlike the American President, Netanyahu is a man of action who is not merely an empty vessel pontificating at the plebeians he is forced to serve whom just don’t get it because he hasn’t made his point clear enough.

It appears that an attack by Israel up to this point has not occurred only because Netanyahu was attempting to gain the support of the American Military. With the announcement by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Iran would deliver a blow to “global arrogance” on the upcoming anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, one can only assume that Iran will unveil the completion of a ballistic nuclear missile. The truth of the matter may be that Iran has probably been six months or more ahead of the progress that they have been making public. And it has been assumed for some time that Iran would have a nuclear weapon completed in 2010. With that being the case, the coming war is probably coming soon.

Last week, speaking at a function at The Heritage Foundation, Dr. Charles Krauthammer observed:

“The only question, I think, for the Israelis now is a technical one. Can this be done?

“It will be very dangerous and difficult. For the Israeli’s it will be a very hard choice to make. Nonetheless, I find it almost impossible to believe that they will accept six million Jews living under the threat of nuclear annihilation particularly given the history of the Jewish people. I think that will trump all other considerations.”

We are likely less than 90 days from seeing the first strike, and one of the biggest questions may be who will come to Israel’s aid? Many scholars have described that we will likely not only see a response from Iran, but that Hezbollah and Hamas will be released from their shackles as well. What’s more is that Iran’s current friendliness with Russia creates grave concerns in regards to potential growing alliances. In what is a gut-wrenching acknowledgment, I do not believe that America will participate. It is my full belief that the United States under the leadership of President Obama will turn its back on Israel for the first time in either countries’ history. And it shames me that this notion is even a possibility.

Iran’s Supreme Leader: West can’t save Israel – Haaretz – Israel News.

		Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. (Archive)

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei said Sunday 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.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

Syrian-made Fateh-110 to Hizballah

The secret transfer of the mobile surface-to-surface Syrian-made Fateh-110 (range 250km) missile to Hizballah sparked the prediction Friday, Feb. 5 from an unnamed US official that cross-border arms smuggling from Syria into Lebanon outside state control was “very dangerous”  and “paved the way to war similar to Israel-Hizballah conflict of 2006. debkafile‘s military sources report hat Israel warned Syria through at least two diplomatic channels against Hizballah using this lethal weapon, which is capable of reaching almost every Israel city.
Our sources disclose: Syria pulled the wool of Israel’s eyes for the transfer by openly training Hizballah in the use of SA-2 and SA-6 surface-to-surface missiles. Israel had warned it would deem their passage into Lebanon Syrian casus belli by Syria.

The Fateh-110 is still more lethal, accurate and dangerous than the SA-2 and SA-3. it confronts Israel now with a Hizballah armed with a solid-fuel propellant, road-mobile, single-stage, short-range ballistic system weighing three tons with a half-ton warhead and a range of 250 kilometers. It is not deployed in surface batteries but fired from mobile launchers, which the solid propellant renders capable of firing at speed with little advance preparation, before returning to the fortified underground silos Hizballah has sunk in mountain areas across Lebanon.
These features make the Fateh-110 a very tough target for Israeli bombers to strike.
According to our intelligence sources, Israel posted warnings against Hizballah using the weapon through US Middle East envoy George missile who called on president Bashar Assad in Damascus on January 20 and ,even more emphatically, through Spanish foreign minister Miguel Moratinos who arrived in Syria on Feb. 3 after talks in Jerusalem. The message he carried was that if Hizballah ventured to fire the Fateh-110, Israel was determined to hit back at strategic and military targets inside Syria.
This warning instantly prompted the war rhetoric which emanated from Assad and his foreign minister Walid Moallem. Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, known for his undiplomatic, blunt style, responded by warning Syria that it stood to lose the next war and the Assad family would lose its grip on power in Damascus.
Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and defense minister Ehud Barak are presumed to have endorsed the first part of Lieberman’s comment as representing their own view. But the minister added the personal threat on Syria’s leaders on his own initiative.

Iran’s President Moves Ahead on Uranium Processing – NYTimes.com.

Iran’s President Moves Ahead on Uranium Processing

CAIRO — Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, ordered the nation’s atomic energy agency on Sunday to begin producing a special form of uranium that can be used to power a medical reactor in Tehran, but that could also move the country much closer to possessing fuel usable in nuclear weapons.

The announcement Sunday came after several days of conflicting signals from Mr. Ahmadinejad and other Iranian officials about whether they were ready to reopen negotiations about giving up much of their country’s fuel in exchange for enriched uranium from another country. The exchange would allow Iran to meet some of its energy needs, but would ease fears in the West because the fuel sent to Tehran would be in a form that would be very difficult to use in a bomb.

The deal fell apart when it was rejected by the leadership in Tehran.

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s order on Sunday may represent nuclear gamesmanship; it is unclear if the country has the capacity to enrich its fuel to roughly 20 percent, from about 5 percent, as Mr. Ahmadinejad was ordering. Doing so would require retooling the configuration of the nation’s centrifuges at a moment when Iran appears to have run into considerable technical difficulties at its nuclear plants.

It is unclear if those troubles have been caused either by its own technical failings, or sabotage by Western intelligence agencies, or both. American intelligence officials have told Congress and close allies, in closed briefings, that covert efforts to interfere with Iran’s production capability are extremely active.

Mr. Ahmadinejad is betting that the threat itself may force the United States, Europe and Russia to provide fuel on his terms; American officials have said the move would only speed the effort to impose sanctions. It may also affect Israel’s calculation about how far it is willing to allow Iran to get to a weapons capability before launching an attack on Iran’s nuclear or missile facilities.

Until now, Iran has never enriched significant quantities of fuel beyond the level needed in ordinary nuclear reactors, part of its argument that its program is entirely for peaceful purposes. But any effort to produce 20 percent enriched uranium would put the country in a position to produce highly-enriched uranium — at the 90 percent level used for weapons — in a comparatively short period of time, according to nuclear experts.

The deal announced in October would have required Iran to ship about 1200 kilograms of its low-enriched uranium to Russia, and then to France, where it would have been produced for the Tehran reactor. But that would have left Iran with too little fuel to produce a weapon, at least for a year or so. The deal was initialed at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna more than three months ago, and was supposed to go into effect by Jan. 15. But it became a source of huge contention inside Iran, criticized by both hardliners in the government and leaders of the opposition.

“We have to agree, that deal is dead,” said Valerie Lincy, senior associate at the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control.

Speaking at a laser technology conference in Tehran Sunday, President Ahmadinejad announced the decision that Iran would produce the fuel itself. He directed Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the atomic energy agency, who was seated in the audience, to move ahead.

“Mr. Salehi you start enriching up to 20 percent and we are still open to negotiations on the issue,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said. He added: “The path to cooperation is open, if they come and agree to exchange without preconditions, we will exchange.”

That reference to “preconditions,” while vague, appeared to reinforce recent Iranian statements that the government was open to a new deal that did not require Iran to give up so much of its existing stockpile, or ship it out of the country. But such a deal has no appeal to President Obama, his aides have said. “For us, the only utility of the agreement was to buy considerable additional time before they could produce a weapon,” one of Mr. Obama’s strategists said in a recent interview. “If the deal doesn’t meet that test, we’re not going ahead.”

Reaction to the announcement was swift, even though it remains unclear that Iran has the technical capacity to proceed.

On Sunday, United States Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called on the international community to bring greater economic and political pressure on Tehran. During a news conference in Rome with Ignazio La Russa, the Italian defense minister, Mr. Gates said, “if the international community will stand together and bring pressure to bear on the Iranian government, I believe there is still time for sanctions and pressure to work.“ But we must all work together,” he said.

“No one has tried more sincerely to reach out and engage with the government of Iran than President Obama,” Mr. Gates said after meeting Italian officials in Rome. “The results have been very disappointing.”

The Iranian announcement Sunday appeared part of Tehran’s dual approach to confront western capitals seeking to isolate and penalize it for backing away from the exchange deal negotiated in Geneva in October. Iran has been saber rattling, testing missiles, holding war games, and on Saturday announced mass production of two missiles, one that can destroy “low-altitude aerial targets that fly at low speed and the other “equipped with two warheads and can destroy armored vehicles,” according to state owned Press TV.

The plans to increase enrichment to 20 percent fit with that leg of the strategy.

The second leg of Iran’s strategy calls for presenting itself as ready and able to negotiate.

The White House had given Iran until the end of the year to settle the dispute, or face new sanctions. Now, as Washington, London, Berlin, and Paris have talked up the prospect of increasing economic and political pressure on Iran, the government has repeated its willingness to cut a deal.

That could make it easier for China to continue to block efforts to have the United Nations’ Security Council impose tough new sanctions. Russia has previously been reluctant to impose new sanctions, but has been warming to the idea as Iran continued its defiance of the West.

“If they make gestures that may appear to some like they’re reconciliatory, it could have the effect of dividing up an already fragile coalition at the UN,” said Ms. Lincy, of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control. “The Chinese are reticent right now and they have been since the beginning of the year when the deadline was supposed to have passed.”

Iranian officials have been forced to deal with the nuclear conflict against the backdrop of the worst internal political crisis to plague the government since the 1979 revolution. A grassroots protest movement emerged after President Ahmadinejad declared a landslide victory in elections in June amid charges of fraud.

The government responded with an aggressive crackdown that has jailed thousands, left many dead and injured, and raised charges that protestors were raped and tortured by officials. Recently, the government was accused of trying to scare protestors when it hung three men it said belonged to terrorist organizations, but tried to link them to the post election unrest.

Iran remains extremely tense, as it wrestles with a severe economic crisis, and the prospect of huge new protests on February 11, when the nation marks the anniversary of the revolution.