WarSclerotic

‘Iranian military officers won’t support Ahmadinejad’.

Most Iranian military officers are not loyal to the regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and would not fight to protect the Islamic Republic, a former Iranian pilot who defected to France said on Wednesday.

Speaking to reporters at a press conference in Paris, Lieutenant Behzad Masoumi Legwan gave a speech saying “it is a fact that the overwhelming majority of the officer corps are in no way obedient followers of the regime. On the contrary, they are looking for the first opportunity whereby they can openly display their true sentiments by standing shoulder to shoulder with the people of Iran.”

RELATED:
Iranians begin 5-day, nationwide air defense drill
Ashton agrees to meet with Iranian negotiator on Dec. 5

Legwan added “I and a significant segment of personnel and senior officers in the armed forces are in opposition to the Islamic Republic and will never alter direction until such time that our nation has been liberated.” The 39-year-old Legwan arrived in Paris earlier this month, over a year after he fled to Iraqi Kurdistan in September 2009.

In Kurdistan, he made contact with representatives of the Green Wave and the Kurdish Democratic Party, who arranged for him to arrive safely in France. Legwan was given refugee status by the Sarkozy government, who also provided him with the necessary travel documents to make it to his new home. Months later, he was joined in Paris by his wife, who was also given assistance by the French government.

Legwan and his wife have no children back in Iran, though the pilot did confirm that he still has many relatives in the country who he has not spoken to but who he assumes will be in danger. Green Wave activist Hortense Harang said that Legwan and his wife living under tight, round-the-clock security in Paris, though she would not comment on what, if any role the French government plays in providing security for him.

During the press conference, the pilot related a harrowing story of repeated torture at the hands of Iranian security forces interrogators, who called him in for questioning on a number of occasions beginning after he was accused of rebellion and sedition in 2001. Before and following his eventual discharge in 2007, Legwan said he maintained contact with a network of dissenting military officers who helped prepare him for his defection.

Though he didn’t have any clear figures on how large the network of dissident officers in Iran is, or how many support the cause, Legwan said through an interpreter that “for every official defector who makes it out, there are hundreds more back in Iran who feel the same and need our support.”

Legwan was joined at the podium by Ex-consul of Iran in Oslo and Executive director of Iranian Green Embassies Campaign Mohammed Reza Heydari, who defected to Norway in January 2010. Alongside the two defectors was Amir Hossein Jahanchahi, the founding chairman of the “Green Wave Movement for Freedom of Iran”. Jahanchahi minced no words in describing the global danger posed by the Iranian regime, whose president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad he likened to Hitler.

“Iran is the root of all the problems in the region. All the conflicts in the region, including the Israel-Palestine conflict, Lebanese internal strife, and the Afghan and Iraqi wars all lead back to Iran.” He added that Israel is in a lose-lose situation in regard to the Iranian nuclear program, saying “if Israel does not attack there will be war, but if Israel does attack it would be the biggest gift the Ahmadinejad regime could ever receive and would send the entire region into war.”

Jahanchahi accused the leaders of the west, in particular US President Barack Obama of not understanding the severity of the situation in Iran or the danger it poses to the entire world. He added that the west “has no idea how many “Iranian agents are operating even just in Paris alone, and they aren’t necessarily Iranian or Shi’ite.”

Jahanchahi also said western leaders are not doing enough to help the people of Iran bring about regime change, before adding that such change will and must be brought about internally by the Iranian people.

‘Egypt-Iran jointly owned bank used to bypass sanctions’.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
11/17/2010 16:30

The Misr Iran Development Bank is being used to transfer millions of dollars to Teheran, circumvent int’l economic regulations.

Financial ties between Egypt and Iran have recently improved as a result of the Misr Iran Development Bank (MIDB), jointly owned by the two countries, according to a report by the Atlantic Monthly on Monday.

According to the report, the MIDB, founded in 1975, has become a potential route for Teheran to bypass imposed economic sanctions with Egypt. The bank serves as evidence of the complex challenge faced by the US in enforcing international sanctions against Iran.

Jonathan Schanzer, a former intelligence analyst at the US Treasury, is vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, revealed the connection.

The report explains that Cairo controls 59.86 percent of the bank, which it splits equally between the state-owned National Investment Bank and the semi-state-owned Misr Insurance Company. The remaining 40.14% of MIDB is owned by the Iran Foreign Investment Company (IFIC) at an estimated value of $80 million. The IFIC is a subsidiary of the country’s Oil Stabilization Fund, a wealthy, independent company which accumulates funds for the Iranian government, says the Atlantic Monthly. The fund holds investments in the Middle East, Africa, South America and other countries throughout the world.

The fund was created in 1999 to protect Iran from the unpredictability of the oil market, says the report. When oil prices were on the rise, the country injected money into the fund and invested it through IFIC. When oil prices were low, Iran pulled money from the fund to compensate for the deficiency. As a result of heavy international sanctions recently, Iran has been pulling funds drastically. The fund was put on the US Treasury Department’s Iranian Transactions Regulation (ITR) list in August after it discovered that the fund was a way for Teheran to bypass the sanctions. By placing the company on the black list, it became illegal for US citizens to engage in business with the company since it was owned by the Iranian government.

The Atlantic Monthly argued that Iran is striving to utilize the MIDB in the same manner. The IFIC may currently be using the Egyptian bank to bypass the sanctions. According to the government-controlled Teheran Times, the bank transferred $50 million to Iran in 2009 when the international community began debating how to punish Iran for its nuclear program. The Teheran Times also reported managing director Mehdi Razavi that the bank would open its first official branch in the country. This move allowed Teheran the ability to transfer funds free of restriction.

Benjamin Weinthal contributed to this report.

Iran says foreign planes violated its airspace.

TEHERAN, Iran — Iran on Wednesday said that unidentified foreign planes violated its air space six times as the country kicked off its biggest ever air defense drill but that the intruders were intercepted and forced back by Iranian jets.

The remarks by Gen. Hamid Arjangi, a spokesman for the exercise, were the first Iranian claim of an intrusion. Initially, he had only said that foreign reconnaissance planes had approached Iran’s air space.

Arjangi said Iran’s radar stations and observation posts picked up on the planes entering Iranian air space during the five-day drill, which started Tuesday.

“There were six cases of intrusion by unidentified planes into the country,” Arjangi was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency. “In all six cases, air force jet fighters took off and carried out interception operations … artillery systems were alerted, targets were identified and necessary warnings were given.”

The Iranian exercise is meant to showcase the country’s capabilities in defending its nuclear facilities from possible attack.

It followed an announcement by the Iranian Air Force saying its troops earlier this year conducted an exercise at several facilities — from the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, the under-construction enrichment site at Fordo, to the nuclear conversion facility near Isfahan and the Bushehr nuclear power plant.

Arjangi said thousands of watchers have been stationed along 4,400 miles (7,000 kilometers) of Iran’s border, equipped with sophisticated communication systems capable of countering enemy jamming to transfer data to control command centers. He did not specify whether the figure, which is only a segment of the total Iranian borderline, referred to that in the Persian Gulf.

Gen. Ahmad Mighani, head of an air force unit in charge of responding to threats to Iran’s air space, said Tuesday the war games seek to “upgrade the combat preparedness” of the country’s air defense system.

Iran is expected to unveil a locally made radar system with a range of some 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) during the drill.

There was no immediate comment from the US Navy’s Bahrain-based 5th Fleet.

MESS Report / Warnings of Hamas, Hezbollah threats should be taken seriously – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Two surprisingly honest statements have been made in the past two days by two of the most senior figures in the Israeli security establishment. While Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and Shin Bet director Yuval Diskin are not likely to be cited for their political correctness or sensitivity to regional issues anytime soon, both were speaking the truth: The situation on the two fronts of which they spoke, Lebanon and Gaza, is not too encouraging.

Ashkenazi, keeping as great a distance as possible from Defense Minister Ehud Barak (the two appear to be going out of their way recently not to be caught together in the same place ), told his Canadian hosts yesterday that Lebanon could fall into the hands of Hezbollah after indictments are served in the investigation into the Rafiq Hariri assassination.

Diskin, meanwhile, told foreign reporters on Sunday that if Egypt wanted to, it could stop weapons smuggling into Gaza within 24 hours.

	Hezbollah fighters parade during the inauguration of a new cemetery for their fighters who died in fighting against Israel, in southern Beirut, Lebanon, on Nov. 12, 2010.
	Photo by: AP

IDF chief Ashkenazi was referring to a growing concern among top brass over the internal political situation in Lebanon. At this stage, the international tribunal seems determined to indict next month a number of senior Hezbollah officials for the murder of former prime minister Hariri. Israel will hardly shed a tear if Hezbollah finds itself in a fix, but it is also aware that the organization could undermine the current Lebanese regime to extract itself from the tribunal’s siege.

All of these factors could also effect the situation along the Israel-Lebanon border, although intelligence services do not believe the Shi’ite Muslim organization has any particular desire right now to try its hand at another military confrontation with Israel.

Diskin’s comments were attributed initially to a “senior Israeli intelligence official,” who also informed the foreign press corps of the 80-km-range rockets smuggled into Gaza to allow Hamas to target Tel Aviv. Within a few hours, foreign media revealed the comments were in fact made by the Shin Bet chief. The security service appeared fairly unfazed, despite the potential embarrassment vis-a-vis the Egyptians.

It seems the Shin Bet predicted that the source’s name would be uncovered, and besides, Diskin has made similar if perhaps slightly more careful statements before. Cairo also knows that Diskin is correct. It seems that at least on the topic of weapons smuggling, Israel no longer needs to walk on eggshells around the Egyptians. Five years after the disengagement from the Gaza Strip, with the fight against weapons smuggling into Gaza yielding such limited results, Israel can finally complain out loud.

Whenever a senior security official speaks out publicly on a sensitive issue of a political nature, the media reflexively protests against the excessive commentary. But three months before his departure, it’s about time Ashkenazi spoke more freely. As for Diskin, Israeli journalists who took part in his briefings have been impressed with his sober, direct approach. It seems the discussion should be focused on the essence of their comments – danger in Lebanon, frustration with Egypt – rather than on ceremony.

Stuxnet has a double payload – The H Security: News and Features.

According to the latest analysis, Stuxnet is aimed not at disrupting a single system, but at two different systems. According to control systems security firm Langner Communications, the worm is not just designed to interfere with specific, variable frequency, motor control systems – it also attempts to disrupt turbine control systems. According to Langner, this would mean that, in addition to Iran’s uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, the country’s Bushehr nuclear power plant may have been a further target of the Stuxnet attack.

Specialists have been puzzling over the worm’s target for several weeks, with early rumours circulating that it was aimed at sabotaging Natanz or Bushehr. However, no-one initially suspected that its aim was to sabotage both plants, although clues that this might be the case have been emerging for some time. Stuxnet attacks Siemens control system types S7-300 (315) and S7-400 (417). The attack modules appear to have been created using different tools – probably even by different teams.

The code for the S7-417 system – used in the turbine control systems at Bushehr – is reported to be much more sophisticated than that for the S7-315 system. The code carries out what amounts to a man-in-the-middle attack in order to pass fake input and output values to the genuine plant control code. User code running on a programmable logic controller (PLC) does not usually query I / O ports directly, but instead reads from an input process image and writes to an output process image. Mapping of physical ports to logical ports is intended to ensure that I / O values do not change during processing cycles.

According to analysis by Langner, the Stuxnet code deactivates regular updating of the process images. Values are instead written to the process images by code injected into the PLC. What these values are depends on whether or not an attack is under way. The Stuxnet code is able to pass the original values from the physical input to the process image – or not, as the case may be. This allows it to disrupt turbine control systems, which in extreme cases can lead to destruction of the turbine.

This realisation is the cherry on top of the icing on the cake. Initial analysis of Stuxnet showed that the worm contained a rootkit for PLCs which fooled programmers into thinking there was nothing wrong with the code for their control system.

Just this past weekend, Symantec announced that it had discovered that the Stuxnet worm was aimed at specific motors which can be used, among other things, for uranium enrichment. The company reported that Stuxnet is designed to interfere with control systems for the frequency converters which determine motor speeds, but this now appears to be only one of the two payloads.

After stuxnet, nuclear watchdog could gain computer security role – tech – 16 November 2010 – New Scientist.

THE International Atomic Energy Agency could add computer security at nuclear plants to its remit after it emerged that stuxnet, the first computer worm known to attack industrial machinery, is indeed targeted at nuclear energy equipment as many observers had suspected.

“It’s not the IAEA’s primary role to
monitor how well nuclear plants are operating,” says Greg Webb,
spokesman for the nuclear watchdog in Vienna, Austria. “But if our 150
member states want us to, we could facilitate meetings that help nuclear
operators develop more secure computing systems.”

Such measures might include ensuring
there are no connections between office computers and PCs monitoring
control systems – or ensuring plant staff cannot insert USB sticks which
may carry malware into critical hardware.

Webb was speaking to New Scientist after antivirus firm Symantec of Mountain View, California, revealed further findings in its forensic analysis of stuxnet, which infected tens of thousands of computers in Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities in September.

No-one knows who wrote stuxnet, only
that at 600 kilobytes it is a much larger program than most viruses –
and that the differing professional skill sets needed to write it point
to an authoring team of at least ten people. That, say security experts,
points to a well funded operation replete with expertise – resources
consistent with nation state level backing. And given the target, it
was probably Israeli.

Delivered online or via a USB stick,
stuxnet used now-patched Windows vulnerabilities to seek out Windows PCs
running software that monitors industrial control computers made by
Siemens of Germany. But no-one knew what type of industrial machine
stuxnet wanted to meddle with.

They do now. After crowdsourcing some
expert help from industrial computing experts online, Symantec was able
to work out the product codes for the types of industrial machine
stuxnet aims to sabotage, says Orla Cox, chief researcher at Symantec’s
security response lab in Dublin, Ireland.

They found that stuxnet tries to subtly take control of two types of frequency converters made by just two firms: Vacon
of Finland and Fararo Paya of Iran. These machines convert AC power
from the grid at 50 hertz into fast oscillating frequencies that are
used for ultrafine speed control of some types of electric motors. The
higher the frequency, the faster the motor.

Cox says stuxnet only targets Vacon’s
or Fararo Paya’s frequency converters when they run between 807 and 1210
hertz. That range is used for a small number of high speed motor
applications, but chiefly for the centrifuges used in uranium
enrichment. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission only allows export of
machines rated above 600 hertz on a highly controlled basis.

Symantec’s analysis found that when
stuxnet found such devices, it would subtly vary motor control
frequencies from high (1410 hertz) to low (2 hertz) to not-so-high (1064
hertz) – in cycles that wrecked the purity of the enriched fuel. And it
is thought to have succeeded in its task, says Cox – intelligence
estimates says yields at Iran’s Natanz enrichment plant plummeted
shortly after the virus first appeared.

Could the ability of a computer virus
to effect such a change in a highly secure industry prompt action from
the IAEA? Right now, its chief role is to ensure that nuclear materials
are not diverted from peaceful energy generation purposes to secret bomb
making projects. “We measure how much fuel goes in and how much goes
out – and we want that to be the same,” says Webb.

But he concedes the agency can’t ignore the issue.

“Our goal is just to help countries
develop secure safety systems that are not compromised,” he says. “So we
could begin holding discussions among experts saying what computer
security measures have worked well for them – and let them share those
experiences with nuclear engineers from other countries.”

“We do this already with issues like seismic safety, and radiation safety.”

After stuxnet, nuclear watchdog could gain computer security role – tech – 16 November 2010 – New Scientist.

THE International Atomic Energy Agency could add computer security at nuclear plants to its remit after it emerged that stuxnet, the first computer worm known to attack industrial machinery, is indeed targeted at nuclear energy equipment as many observers had suspected.

“It’s not the IAEA’s primary role to monitor how well nuclear plants are operating,” says Greg Webb, spokesman for the nuclear watchdog in Vienna, Austria. “But if our 150 member states want us to, we could facilitate meetings that help nuclear operators develop more secure computing systems.”

Such measures might include ensuring there are no connections between office computers and PCs monitoring control systems – or ensuring plant staff cannot insert USB sticks which may carry malware into critical hardware.

Webb was speaking to New Scientist after antivirus firm Symantec of Mountain View, California, revealed further findings in its forensic analysis of stuxnet, which infected tens of thousands of computers in Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities in September.

No-one knows who wrote stuxnet, only that at 600 kilobytes it is a much larger program than most viruses – and that the differing professional skill sets needed to write it point to an authoring team of at least ten people. That, say security experts, points to a well funded operation replete with expertise – resources consistent with nation state level backing. And given the target, it was probably Israeli.

Delivered online or via a USB stick, stuxnet used now-patched Windows vulnerabilities to seek out Windows PCs running software that monitors industrial control computers made by Siemens of Germany. But no-one knew what type of industrial machine stuxnet wanted to meddle with.

They do now. After crowdsourcing some expert help from industrial computing experts online, Symantec was able to work out the product codes for the types of industrial machine stuxnet aims to sabotage, says Orla Cox, chief researcher at Symantec’s security response lab in Dublin, Ireland.

They found that stuxnet tries to subtly take control of two types of frequency converters made by just two firms: Vacon of Finland and Fararo Paya of Iran. These machines convert AC power from the grid at 50 hertz into fast oscillating frequencies that are used for ultrafine speed control of some types of electric motors. The higher the frequency, the faster the motor.

Cox says stuxnet only targets Vacon’s or Fararo Paya’s frequency converters when they run between 807 and 1210 hertz. That range is used for a small number of high speed motor applications, but chiefly for the centrifuges used in uranium enrichment. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission only allows export of machines rated above 600 hertz on a highly controlled basis.

Symantec’s analysis found that when stuxnet found such devices, it would subtly vary motor control frequencies from high (1410 hertz) to low (2 hertz) to not-so-high (1064 hertz) – in cycles that wrecked the purity of the enriched fuel. And it is thought to have succeeded in its task, says Cox – intelligence estimates says yields at Iran’s Natanz enrichment plant plummeted shortly after the virus first appeared.

Could the ability of a computer virus to effect such a change in a highly secure industry prompt action from the IAEA? Right now, its chief role is to ensure that nuclear materials are not diverted from peaceful energy generation purposes to secret bomb making projects. “We measure how much fuel goes in and how much goes out – and we want that to be the same,” says Webb.

But he concedes the agency can’t ignore the issue.

“Our goal is just to help countries develop secure safety systems that are not compromised,” he says. “So we could begin holding discussions among experts saying what computer security measures have worked well for them – and let them share those experiences with nuclear engineers from other countries.”

“We do this already with issues like seismic safety, and radiation safety.”

Iran War: The Risks And The Consequences | Risk Watchdog.

One of the biggest unknowns in global politics at present is the matter of whether the US and/or Israel will attack Iran’s nuclear facilities to prevent the country from developing the atomic bomb.

Every now and again, reports crop up in the international media that the US is reinforcing its aircraft carrier presence in the Gulf region or that Israel is conducting military exercises in preparation for a strike on Iran.

Nonetheless, in a special feature article titled Iran War: The Risks And Consequences, published today in Business Monitor Online, my colleagues and I argue that the US and Israel will refrain from an air attack on Iran between now and the end of 2012. While I do indeed believe the risks of a strike are rising, BMI still deems this to be less than 50% over that timeframe. We believe that the US does not have the appetite for military action any time soon, even if President Obama withdraws more troops from Afghanistan and Iraq in 2011. In addition, Washington is well aware that the consequences would be disastrous for the region. That said, we also state in the article that Israel feels much more threatened by the prospect of a nuclear Iran, and may essentially take matters into its own hands, regardless of any US objections.

Beyond 2012, my colleagues and I are reluctant to rule out any US or Israeli action, and we do see the risk probability rising. Much will depend on how close Iran is perceived to be in terms of developing the atomic bomb. Clearly, as Tehran draws closer to weapons capability, there may come a time when the US – whether under Obama or a Republican president – may feel the need to act, regardless of the consequences. This is even truer of Israel.

The feature article we have published also discusses the following topics:

• The reasons why Iran appears to be developing nuclear weapons
• Whether or not Iran is an existential threat to Israel
• The risks of a new nuclear arms race in the Middle East
• The factors affecting the US’ decision-making
• The factors affecting Israel’s decision-making
• Iran’s response to any airstrike
• The consequences of an airstrike on Iran’s domestic political scene
• The international reaction to an airstrike
• Other options besides war and containment
• What Iran might look like after a ‘war’ against it has ended

Overall, this is as comprehensive as its gets.

What To Do About Iran? >> New University.

If your neighbor spent every day yelling at you over the picket fence about how he’s going to take over your house or destroy you if you don’t leave, would you feel comfortable if you saw his garage stuffed to the rafters with submachine guns and assault rifles?

“Oh, they’re just for hunting deer in the woods,” he says, and puts a bullet into the head of a paper human outline at the end of the garage. Okay, he’s obviously telling the truth because to tell a lie would be abhorrent and horrible, and no one would do that in the public eye. But when he’s not cleaning his M-16, he’s threatening and lambasting you over your fence. Clearly, you have an important decision to make before you wake up one morning with a gun barrel in your mouth.

Let’s make this clear; allowing Iran to obtain nuclear power on the condition that they don’t use it to make weapons is as good an idea as allowing John Wilkes Booth to bring a gun into Ford’s Theatre on the condition that he doesn’t use it to assassinate anyone.

With ever-constant surprises regarding Iran’s nuclear program – a previously undisclosed uranium enrichment plant here, a rocket test there – the threat of the theocracy’s hostile ambitions, coupled with the ability to create weapons of mass destruction, has put many countries on edge, both Western and Arab. People are now looking back to Israel’s 1981 bombing run on Iraq’s Osirak reactor – which affected the course of the Cold War on a drastic level – and a 2007 Israeli attack on an unfinished plant in Syria and wondering if they can be replicated in Iran.

Every country has a right to development for the sake of bettering the quality of life for its people and advancing its own scientific knowledge. Iran and its people are no different. The regime in control of Iran – the neighbor who yells at you over the fence while sharpening an axe in his garage – is different.

In the past few years, Western governments have utilized economic sanctions in the hopes of dissuading Iran from pursuing its nuclear ambitions to no avail. States in the U.S. have recently begun approving boycotts on companies engaged in trade with Iran. In the face of a complete lack of results, many people are now considering what it would mean to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.

This option is not only being considered in the Western world, but in some Arab countries as well. Several recent polls, such as the Pew Global Attitudes Project Survey and the 2009 Pechter poll have asked Arabs about their views on Iran’s nuclear program. The wide majority of the results revealed that most Arabs polled held unfavorable views of President Ahmadinejad and Iran’s nuclear ambitions. One-third of Saudis polled said they would approve of an American military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and a quarter expressed the same sentiment about an Israeli airstrike. Earlier this year in June, Saudi Arabia gave Israel free passage through its airspace should the need for an airstrike on Iran arise.

This all proves that the urgency sweeping the Western world about Iran’s nuclear program is not without reason. However, a military option is not something to be taken lightly. The problem with economic sanctions is that the Iranian regime only understands military force, as exemplified by its brutal and terrifying crackdown on the 2009 election protestors. In the current regime, it will always be the people who suffer before the government. The problem with a military strike is that Iran, ever paranoid and military-minded, has taken such an attack into consideration; unlike Iraq and Syria, Iran has at least 17 nuclear facilities scattered throughout the country, with its main facility at Natanz built underground in order to withstand Israeli bunker-busters. The operation would be significantly more costly in terms of money, politics and risk of life compared with runs on the single reactors in Iraq and Syria.

Assuming Israel would be the country to saddle up and attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, here is how it would be likely to play out: using F-15 or F-16 fighter jets, Israeli Air Force pilots would need to fly 1,100 miles to reach Natanz. This includes 400 miles within Iran’s airspace before IAF pilots would even reach Natanz, running the almost-certain risk of being attacked by Iran’s 29 different Tor-M1 mobile missile defense systems (provided by Russia). Pilots assigned to other targets, like the reactor at Bushehr in the South, would have to travel farther. Such distance threatens the limits of an F-15/16’s capabilities, though they can reach larger distances by re-fueling in mid-air or using additional fuel tanks. The most direct routes are over Saudi Arabia or Iraq. While the former provides safe passage and the latter has no anti-aircraft capabilities of its own, a damaged Israeli fighter forced to land in either country would make for a diplomatic firestorm.

Should Israel run such an attack, Iranian retaliation could be expected to take the form of a missile launch that has the capability of reaching Israel, as well as U.S. military bases in the region. Iran may also choose to retaliate through Hezbollah, its puppet military in Lebanon. While largely incapable of directly striking Israel, Iran also has the influence to impact oil sales to Western nations. Retaliation against U.S. troops in Afghanistan and any remaining U.S. presence in Iraq is also likely.

The possibility of a military strike on Iran is not being taken lightly by the U.S. or Israel. Even hawkish Israelis are not too enthusiastic about such a choice; a military strike carries heavy ramifications not only in long-term Israel-Iran relations, but in the stability of the region as well. While the Jewish state – which has been the target of as many threats and racial slurs from Iran’s president as there are grains of sand on a beach – is willing to delay its decision to allow for the international community to try out more peaceful methods, the necessity for such a decision to be made grows larger as each day passes.

Aaron Elias is a fifth-year English major. He can be reached at eliasa@uci.edu.

US says military strike would unite a divided Iran – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Defense Secretary Gates tells WSJ strike would only offer ‘short-term solution’ to Iranian nuclear program issue; says Khamenei ‘beginning to wonder if Ahmadinejad is lying to him about impact of sanctions on economy’

Reuters

A military strike against Iran would unite the divided country and ensure Tehran’s unwavering commitment to pursuing nuclear weapons, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday.

Gates, in comments to the Wall Street Journal CEO Council, said it was important to use other means to convince Tehran against pursuing nuclear weapons and renewed concerns that military action would only delay — not prevent — it from obtaining such capabilities.

He told the council that military action would offer only a “short-term solution” to the thorny issue of Iran’s nuclear program.

According to the US defense secretary, sanctions against Iran may be causing a rift between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“We even have some evidence that Khamenei, now, (is) beginning to wonder if Ahmadinejad is lying to him about the impact of the sanctions on the economy. And whether he’s getting the straight scoop in terms of how much trouble the economy really is in,” Gates said, renewing his position that sanctions were having an impact.

Western nations have accused Tehran of seeking to develop a nuclear weapon, something Iran vehemently denies.

It has refused global calls to rein in its suspect nuclear enrichment program and has been slapped with a series of UN and international sanctions.

Meanwhile, Iran kicked off a five-day nationwide military drill on Tuesday to examine its air defense system, according to reports.

Dubbed “Defenders of the Sky 3,” the exercise simulates an attack on Iran’s borders and nuclear facilities. The drill is reportedly said to test Iran’s skill against Israel and the United States in the event that one or both of them decides to launch a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

AFP contributed to the report