WarSclerotic

Ahmadinejad ‘advises’ U.S. and Israel to ‘stop and be ashamed’, as media frenzy debates consideration of military option; Iran continues to insist program being used for civil purposes, and not nuclear weapons.

Iran would not stop its nuclear work, despite media speculation that Israel was considering military threats, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday.

“We advise the United States and its ally [Israel] to stop and be ashamed of [their threats] and be aware that Iran will not take one step back [from its nuclear program],” Ahmadinejad said in a meeting with students in Tehran.

Ahmadinejad, Natanz nuclear facility

Ahmadinejad at the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility in 2008.

Photo by: AP

“Anyone acting against Iran would gravely regret” a military attack, he said according to official news agency IRNA.

Ahmadinejad was speaking ahead of the publication Wednesday of a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA], which is expected to disclose new details of Iranian efforts to build a computer model of a nuclear warhead.

Western nuclear experts have told Haaretz, in anticipation of the IAEA report, that Iran will be ready to build a nuclear bomb within a few months if it desires.

Israel, the U.S. and some other Western countries were awaiting the release of the report before considering harsher steps against Tehran, while media reports have speculated that Israel may launch a military attack on Iran’s nuclear sites.

“We do not accept any accusations by the IAEA, whose head unfortunately has no authority and just repeats what the US tells him to say,” Ahmadinejad said.

The Iranian president once again reiterated that Tehran was not after nuclear weapons and was pursuing a civil nuclear program in line with international regulations.

The West fears however that Iran has been using the peaceful projects as a cover, and plans to use the same technology to make a nuclear bomb.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi said Tuesday that neither the IAEA, the U.S., nor Israel had any proof that Iran was working on computer models of nuclear warheads, and said the accusations were solely made to pressure Iran.

Iran says that, as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the IAEA, it has the legitimate right to pursue a civil nuclear program.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Tuesday played down speculation that Israel intended to strike Iranian nuclear facilities, saying it had not decided to embark on any military operation.

“War is not a picnic. We want a picnic. We don’t want a war,” Barak told Israel Radio ahead of the release this week of the IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear activity. “[Israel] had not yet decided to embark on any operation.”

But he said Israel had to prepare for “uncomfortable situations” and ultimately bore responsibility for its own security. All options to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions should

remain open, he said.

“I estimate that it will be quite a harsh report … it does not surprise Israel, we have been dealing with these issues for years,” Barak said. “We are probably at the last opportunity for coordinated, international, lethal sanctions that will force Iran to stop.”

France and Russia this week both warned Israel against choosing a military opinion for dealing with Iran, cautioning it could cause irreparable damage to the region.

via Iran vows to pursue nuclear program, despite speculation of Israeli plans to attack – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Israeli strike on Iran nuclear program? Global leaders try to quiet speculation, threats. – CSMonitor.com.

Ahead of an IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear program, China, Russia, Germany, and France have all urged calm.

By Ariel Zirulnick, Staff writer
posted November 8, 2011 at 9:27 am EST

By YAAKOV KATZ AND REUTERS

11/08/2011 15:40

Israel, United States and Europe contributed intelligence to upcoming report, ‘Post’ learns; Jerusalem seeks sanctions against Iran’s central bank; report may include Iranian computer modeling of nuclear weapon.

Israeli intelligence agencies played a role in helping the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) gather information that is expected to be released later this week and will accuse Iran of developing a nuclear weapon, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

In addition to Israel, intelligence agencies from the United States and Europe were also instrumental in helping the IAEA compile the report.

RELATED:

Barak not optimistic about int’l will to stop Iranian nukes

Israel hoping IAEA report will spur West into action

Israel is expecting the United States to take the lead in pushing the United Nations and other Western countries to impose tougher, new sanctions on Iran following the publication of the incriminating IAEA report.

Israel is seeking sanctions against the Central Bank of Iran, which has yet to be directly affected by earlier rounds of sanctions. Sanctions imposed on the CBI would, for example, make it difficult for Iran to bankroll its nuclear program and buy components it requires to build new advanced centrifuges.

The UN nuclear watchdog report is expected to show recent activity in Iran that could help in developing nuclear bombs, including intelligence about computer modeling of such weapons, Western diplomats said on Tuesday.

“There are bits and pieces of information that go up through 2010,” one Vienna-based diplomat said.

If confirmed in this week’s keenly awaited document by the International Atomic Energy Agency, it could stimulate new debate about a controversial US intelligence assessment in 2007 that Iran had halted outright “weaponization” work in 2003.

It would heighten Western suspicions that Iran is resolved to pursue at least some of the research and development (R&D) applicable to atom bombs, even if Tehran has made no apparent decision to actually build them, as diplomats believe .

“There is still evidence there where I think the agency will be in a position to say that they have serious concerns coming up to the present day,” said another envoy in the Austrian capital, where the IAEA is based.

But Western officials and experts suggested that research and experiments pointing to military nuclear aims may not have continued on the same scale as before 2003, when Iran started coming under increased Western pressure over its nuclear work.

“Iran is understood to have continued or restarted some R&D activities since then,” said nuclear proliferation analyst Peter Crail of the US-based Arms Control Association, a research and advocacy group.

Iran denies accusations it is seeking nuclear arms, saying they are based on forged documents. It says its uranium enrichment program is aimed at generating electricity so that it can export more of its abundant oil.

Many conservative experts criticized the 2007 findings as inaccurate and naive, and US intelligence agencies now believe Iranian leaders have resumed closed-door debates over the last four years about whether to build a nuclear bomb.

“I suspect that the new IAEA report will play into the hands of US conservative and Israeli critics of the 2007 NIE (National Intelligence Estimate), who had accused the US intelligence community of playing down evidence of clandestine nuclear weapons activities in Iran,” said Shannon Kile of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute think tank.

Modeling a Nuclear Weapon

The IAEA report, due to be submitted to member states in the next few days, is expected to provide new evidence of explosives and physics research suggesting Iran is seeking the capability to design nuclear weapons.

Some of the activities have little application other than atomic bomb-making, including computer modeling of a nuclear weapon, sources familiar with the document said.

They said it would support intelligence reports that Iran built a large steel container at the Parchin military complex southeast of Tehran for the purpose of carrying out tests with high explosives usable for a nuclear chain reaction.

“It is a forensic body of evidence that shows some serious scientific intent,” one of the Western diplomats said.

In February, US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Iran was “keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that better position it to produce such weapons.”

Crail said Clapper’s statements were not “inconsistent with the notion that some weapons-related R&D has resumed which is not part of a determined, integrated weapons-development program of the type that Iran maintained prior to 2003.”

Mark Fitzpatrick, a director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said it was too early to say whether the IAEA report will cast doubt on the 2007 NIE assessment.

“The US intelligence community already has the information in the IAEA report,” Fitzpatrick said, adding that Clapper as recently as March confirmed the belief that Iran had not made a decision to restart its nuclear weapons program.

“The apparent disconnect between that statement and the leaks that have come out about the IAEA report probably pertain to the time frame of the weapons research and development and the level and scale of the activity that the IAEA apparently believes continued after 2003,” he said.

via Some intelligence in IAEA report… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

Russia accuses Israel of using ‘dangerous rhetoric’ against Iran – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

President Dmitry Medvedev says threatening atmosphere being created by Israel, and that now is the time to ‘take a deep breath and open talks’.

By DPA

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev accused Israel on Tuesday of using “dangerous rhetoric” that could lead to a war with Iran, amid rising tensions over the latter’s nuclear program.

Speaking in Berlin after meeting his German counterpart Christian Wulff, Medvedev said a threatening atmosphere was being created by the Israelis, as media speculation abounded that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak were considering a military option against Iran.

	Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, left, is welcome by German President Christian Wulff, not seen, with military honor at the Bellevue Palace in Berlin, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2011.
	Photo by: AP

“The threat of a military strike could lead to a major war,” he warned, adding that it was now vital to calm the situation, “take a deep breath and open talks.”

Moscow had repeatedly urged Tehran to prove to the world that its nuclear research was purely peaceful in its objectives. “Unfortunately there hasn’t been any movement in this direction,” said Medvedev, who was later to attend a ceremony to open an undersea gas pipeline through the Baltic Sea.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned Monday that a strike against Iran would be a grave mistake with unpredictable consequences: “This would be a very serious mistake fraught with unpredictable consequences,” he said.

Defense Minister Barak played down speculation Tuesday that Israel intended to strike Iranian nuclear facilities, saying it had not decided to embark on any military operation.

“War is not a picnic. We want a picnic. We don’t want a war,” Barak told Israel Radio ahead of the release this week of an International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] report on Iran’s nuclear activity.  “[Israel] had not yet decided to embark on any operation.”

But he said Israel had to prepare for “uncomfortable situations” and ultimately bore responsibility for its own security. All options to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions should
remain open, he said.

The IAEA report is widely expected to strengthen suspicions that Iran is seeking to produce nuclear weapons despite its statements that its uranium enrichment programme is aimed at power generation.

“I estimate that it will be quite a harsh report … it does not surprise Israel, we have been dealing with these issues for years,” Barak said. “We are probably at the last opportunity for coordinated, international, lethal sanctions that will force Iran to stop.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] is set to issue a report this week on Iran’s nuclear activity. Western nuclear experts have told Haaretz, in anticipation of the IAEA report, that Iran will be ready to build a nuclear bomb within a few months if it desires.

Other experts, who have seen intelligence used in the compilation of the latest report, have said that Tehran already has the know-how, the technological means and the materials needed to put an atom bomb together within short order.

These experts have concluded that nuclear weapons engineers from Russia, Pakistan and North Korea have been assisting Iranian scientists in their efforts to reach nuclear capability. Haaretz published similar information last week, reporting that experts have said that Iran could carry out underground nuclear tests quite soon if it wants to.

France this week also warned Israel against taking a military options, saying it was seeking to harden sanctions instead.

By AMY TEIBEL, Associated Press – 2 hours ago

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s defense minister warned on Tuesday of a possible Israeli military strike against Iran’s nuclear program and rejected suggestions the Jewish state would be devastated by an Iranian counterattack.

Ehud Barak spoke a day before the United Nations’ nuclear agency was expected to release a critical report on the Iranian program. The report is expected to implicate Iran in bomb building and erase any doubts about the nature of the program, which Iran says is designed to produce energy, not weapons.

Barak told Israel Radio he didn’t expect the International Atomic Energy Agency report to persuade Russia and China to impose what he called “lethal” sanctions on Iran to pressure Tehran to dismantle its nuclear installations.

“As long as no such sanctions have been imposed and proven effective, we continue to recommend to our friends in the world and to ourselves, not to take any option off the table,” he said.

The “all options on the table” phrase is often used by Israeli politicians to mean a military assault.

The U.N. has imposed four rounds of sanctions on Tehran, but none has succeeded in curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions. On Tuesday, Barak suggested adding a naval blockade that would cut off Iran’s economic lifeline, oil.

Israel views Iran as its greatest threat because of its nuclear program, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s repeated references to the destruction of the Jewish state and Iran’s support for Palestinian and Lebanese militant groups.

With most of its population concentrated in a narrow corridor of land along the Mediterranean, Israel’s homefront could be vulnerable to a counterattack if Israel were to strike.

An Israeli attack would also likely spark retaliation from local Iranian proxies, the Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip to Israel’s south and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon along Israel’s northern border.

Barak lashed out against recent media reports and statements by current and former officials suggesting that he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were intent on attacking Iran, over the objection of Israeli defense chiefs.

Any Israeli attack would likely draw Iranian retaliation, with media reports suggesting as many as 100,000 Israelis could be killed.

“This outlandish depiction (by the media) of two people, the prime minister and the defense minister, sitting in a closed room and leading the entire country into an adventurist operation is baseless and divorced from reality,” he said.

A larger forum of Cabinet ministers would have to make that decision — if it is made at all, he said. “We haven’t decided yet to embark on any operation,” he said. “We don’t want war.”

But if Israel is dragged into one, he said, “I tell you there won’t be 100,000 casualties, and not 10,000 casualties and not 1,000 casualties,” he said. “And Israel won’t be destroyed.”

In 1981, Israel stunned the world with an airstrike on an unfinished nuclear reactor in Iraq that destroyed Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program. Israeli warplanes also destroyed a site in Syria in 2007 that the U.N. nuclear watchdog deemed to be a secretly built nuclear reactor, though Israel never acknowledged responsibility for the attack.

Iran’s program would be significantly more difficult to cripple because its facilities are scattered, and some are mobile and built underground.

via The Associated Press: Israeli minister warns Iran strike is possible.

TEL AVIV — What was meant to be a co-ordinated campaign to pressure Iran in advance of an International Atomic Energy Agency’s report on its secret nuclear activities this week embarrassingly has been derailed by Israeli sloppiness.

The whole thing started late last month when Yukia Amano, the Japanese director of the IAEA, went to the White House to discuss Iranian progress in its efforts to build a nuclear bomb. Based on intelligence given to the international agency by the CIA, the Israeli Mossad and British intelligence agencies, IAEA’s experts were able to conclude that, contrary to Iran’s persistent denials, it was working on a nuclear weapon at a secret military base called Parchin.

Iran was aided in this effort by Vyacheslav Danilenko, a former Soviet nuclear scientist who had retired from government service many years ago. Danilenko was contracted by Iran about five years ago to assist his Iranian employers through lectures and sharing research papers on the development and testing of a nuclear weapon.

Israel has no evidence that the Putin government knows exactly what Danilenko is doing in Iran. Nor is there evidence in Israel or in the U.S. that Iran has reached a stage where it can produce a nuclear device.

Some Israeli experts, however, are of the opinion that the supreme Iranian leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has given the green light for such production.

What is confirmed in Israel is that Iran is very close, a development that had been overshadowed for almost a year by the Arab Spring and its regional ramifications.

The fall of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, the undecided Syrian insurgency and U.S. President Barack Obama’s decision to withdraw all troops from Iraq is likely to create a dangerous vacuum in the Persian Gulf that Iran is trying to fill.

Thus, the progress made in Iran’s nuclear project constitutes a real threat, not only to Israel but also to American and Western national interests in the Persian Gulf. This was, then, the time for Israel and the West to refocus on Iran and to start sounding the alarm about Iran’s nuclear threat.

In his speech to the Knesset last Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “Israel cannot allow Iran to produce a nuclear bomb.” He stressed Israel’s need to accumulate “enough power” to use responsibly.

In full co-ordination with the U.S., Israel revealed that its air force had conducted long-range training flights with NATO forces in Italy. Then, uncharacteristically, Israel revealed that it successfully tested one of its long-range ballistic missiles, hinting broadly that the missile could hit targets in Iran. Some foreign agencies added that this missile can carry a nuclear device. And Defence Minister Ehud Barak, during a short visit to London, declared that “all options” against Iran are “on the table.”

But then came what I call Israeli sloppiness. Despite these public moves, at no time was there any intention to create the impression of an immediate unilateral Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. The purpose of this war of nerves was to create an atmosphere for the Security Council to impose harsher sanctions against Iran. It was hoped that the threat of an Israeli strike, combined with the findings of the international watchdog, would convince Russia and China to support harsher sanctions.

Not being privy to the top-secret Israeli-American consultations, and long an opponent of a unilateral Israeli strike against Iran, Meir Dagan — the former Mossad chief — sharply attacked Netanyahu and Barak for their planned adventure against Iran.

Dagan told editorial writers in several Israeli dailies that Iran is still years away from nuclear capability.

Rumoured to have political ambitions, Dagan urged Israeli correspondents not to be “manipulated” by the “war mongers” Netanyahu and Barak. Indeed, one Israeli correspondent went so far as to suggest that Netanyahu and Barak were planning a unilateral strike “without American consent.”

That was, of course, sheer nonsense. No Israeli government would dare attack Iran without American consent. Thus, if there was even a slight chance of success in securing Russian or Chinese consent for harsher sanctions against Iran, Dagan blew it. That’s a pity

via Anti-Iran stratagem bungled – Winnipeg Free Press.

Attacking Iran: Israeli Who Bombed Iraq Says Mission Is Feasible – The Daily Beast.

In an interview with The Daily Beast, an Israeli pilot who bombed Saddam Hussein’s nuclear site in 1981 says an attack on Iran today would be complicated but successful.

Nov 8, 2011 4:45 AM EST

One of the Israeli pilots who bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor 30 years ago in a dramatic military operation told The Daily Beast yesterday that an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities today would not be significantly more challenging given advances in technology and intelligence.

Amir Nachumi, a retired brigadier general, said in both cases—Iraq in 1981 and Iran currently—the hardest part of the operation is deciding whether to undertake it in the first place.

Nachumi spoke amid a flurry speculation in the Israeli press about whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has resolved to strike at Iran, whose leaders have repeatedly threatened to destroy the Jewish state. A report to be released today by the International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to say Iran is at the threshold of nuclear capability. Iran denies the program is military in nature.

“The distance [to Iran] is farther, but the airplanes are better now, the ammunition is better, the intelligence is better, and we have more planes available,” Nachumi, 66, said in a telephone interview. “I wouldn’t say ’81 was simple and this is complicated. It’s all a matter of what you have in your arsenal.”

The attack on Iraq is often held up as evidence of Israel’s determination to prevent any country in the region from obtaining nuclear weapons. At the time, eight planes struck a single Iraqi reactor about 600 miles from Israel’s border.

An assault on Iran’s program is certain to be more complicated. Its nuclear facilities are dispersed throughout the country, and some are buried deep underground. Analysts have speculated Israel would have to attack dozens of sites, some more than 1,000 miles away, and still might only end up impeding Iran’s progress by a year or two.

Something is definitely going on between Israel and Iran. More behind-the-scenes diplomacy? Plotting tougher sanctions? Or is something real finally in the works? It’s not quite clear what that “something” may be. Uncertainty is exactly what the Israelis prescribe for now.

The window of opportunity to destroy Iran’s nuclear-weapons program is swiftly closing, Western intelligence sources say. The Israelis, who have everything to lose, understand that if they’re going to do something about a foe building a nuclear weapon while boasting that it will “wipe Israel off the map,” the time to act is soon upon them.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), an agency of the United Nations, is expected to release this week a long-awaited finding of what it has further learned about the Iranian nuclear program. It’s expected to confirm what everybody, except maybe the CIA, knows is going on in Iran. The document, say inside sources, will supply new evidence that the Iranians are working on a nuclear bomb and computer modeling of how to use it.

The IAEA investigators, The Washington Post reported Sunday, learned that nuclear scientists from the old Soviet Union, perhaps rogues in it only for the money, and from Pakistan, an “ally” of the United States, have joined North Korea to work for the Iranians to build the high-precision detonators needed to set off the chain reaction of a nuclear explosion.

The usual suspects are lining up to urge the West to go back to sleep and let the diplomats, who have been so effective in the past, handle things. Russia and China, ever eager to be helpful, have warned that publishing anything about the looming crisis will damage delicate diplomacy. They say this with the straight face that so impresses other diplomats in Foggy Bottom and other places where the terminally naive sip their herbal tea and tut-tut everything Israel does to defend itself.

The IAEA report, if it is anything like it is expected to be, will reject the infamous CIA conclusion sent to the White House four years ago that the Iranians had halted “weaponization” work. (That’s just how the rascals talk.) British news agency Reuters reported that “a senior U.S. military official” says Iran has become “the biggest threat to the United States,” and the president of Israel says “the military option” is “nearer.”

The Iranians deny everything, naturally, with the usual blah, blah, blah that nobody actually listens to. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran who is in charge of purple rhetoric but who defers to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to make the important decisions, such as when to actually build a bomb, says the United States started all the talk because Iran is now the military equal of the United States and Israel. The Americans fear the prowess of the Iranians, the president boasts.

Rumor, gossip, hearsay and speculation abound in the region as usual, but the Jerusalem Post observes that this time “there is no question that something is afoot.” Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, and Leon E. Panetta, the secretary of defense, have traded recent visits, and David Petraeus, the director of the CIA, was recently in Jerusalem. So was Adm. James G. Stavridis, the chief of the U.S. European Command. The Guardian in London reports that the British generals and admirals are drafting contingency plans for British participation in an attack, led by the United States, on the Iranian nuclear works. There’s a contingency plan for nearly everything, no matter how improbable, in the vaults of the big powers; when you need an order of battle it’s too late to draw one. There’s probably a British contingency plan to renew the hostilities at Yorktown. But we’re talking about serious contingencies.

The Obama administration tries to dampen speculation about what’s up and what America might do to help – or hinder – an Israeli bombing mission. Barack Obama’s dearest wish might be to tilt toward the Muslims, but a decisive strike against the Iranian troublemakers could be a dramatic diversion from his soggy election-year prospects, making him an unlikely war hero. There’s no great enthusiasm for war in Israel, either. Iran has 50,000 missiles capable of striking anywhere in Israel, and an Israeli strike on Iran would have to be accompanied by a simultaneous strike on Hezbollah missile sites close to home.

“To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war,” as Winston Churchill famously said. But not always. Survival is always better than the alternative, achieved by any means necessary.

• Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Washington Times.

via PRUDEN: Rattling sabers at the Iranians – Washington Times.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

(If this report is correct, Israel is in a very difficult position.  I find it hard to believe that Obama thinks he can be reelected if he allows Iran to go nuclear. – JW)

DEBKAfile Special Report November 8, 2011, 12:42 PM (GMT+02:00)

Economic constraints tie US hands against Iran

US President Barack Obama is backing away from crippling sanctions on Iran’s central bank bank and an embargo on its oil trade. This was decided shortly before the International Atomic Energy Agency was due to confirm Tuesday or Wednesday, Nov. 8-9 that Iran’s clandestine military nuclear program had reached the point of no-return, and after Israel intelligence experts found that Iran could build a weapon as soon as it so decided.
Four considerations persuaded the Obama administration to backtrack on new sanctions, thereby letting Tehran prevail in this round of the nuclear controversy:
1.  Because it is too late. Even the harshest sanctions would not alter the fact that Iran has arrived at a position wherbey it is capable of building a bomb or warhead any time it chooses.

2. Severe penalties against Iran’s central bank and its fuel exports would exacerbate the turmoil on international financial markets.

The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday, Nov. 8, “Though US officials had declared they would hold ‘Iran accountable’ for a purported plot [to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington], they now have decided that a proposed move against Iran’s central bank could disrupt international oil markets and further damage the reeling American and world economies.”

Instead, say those officials, Washington will seek to persuade some of Tehran’s key trading partners, including the Persian Gulf states, South Korea and Japan, to join existing sanctions.

3. For the first time in American history, Washington has admitted its military capabilities are constrained by economic concerns.

This constraint was also reflected in the Washington Post of Tuesday: “The possibility of a US strike is considered remote, however. That is partly because there is no certainty it would successfully stop Iran and partly because of the diplomatic and political repercussions for a cash-strapped nation emerging from two wars.”
4.  Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Tuesday in a radio interview that he was not optimistic about tough sanctions because there was no international consensus to support them.

debkafile‘s intelligence sources report that Russia and China would not only cast their votes against stiff penalties but disrupt them through marketing mechanisms they have already put in place for bypassing international restrictions on Iran’s foreign banking and exports.

Those mechanisms have also been placed at the disposal of Syria.

Tehran has therefore been able to pre-empt the IAEA report, however damning it may turn out to be, and can continue to develop its nuclear objectives without fear of punishing sanctions.

The Israeli defense minister noted that while it would be preferable in matters as grave as a potential attack on Iran’s nuclear sites to work closely with the United States, Israeli is a sovereign country and its government cannot shirk responsibility for defending its security.
Israel’s existence was not at stake, Barak stressed – either from Iran’s missiles or Hizballah’s rockets. An attack would cause suffering on the home front, he said, but nowhere near the 100,000 mentioned in the speculation of the last two weeks – or even 5,000. He dismissed much of this speculation as wildly irresponsible and unfounded.

If sanctions against Iran fall by the wayside, all other options stay on the table, said the defense minister. Israeli is holding intelligence exchanges with some friends but in the last resort must make its own decisions which he promised would be made responsibly.

Prime Minster Binyamin Netanyahu no doubt intended to go through the motions of demanding tougher sanctions against Iran after the publication of the IAEA report. But that option has vanished from the Washington landscape, leaving Israel with a choice between a military strike or bowing to the Obama administration’s acceptance of a nuclear-armed Iran and learning to live with this ever-present menace.

The same stark choice confronts Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf.

‘No ‘smoking gun’ in IAEA report on Iran’ – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Diplomats say that while UN’s nuclear watchdog’s report on Iran will offer an abundance of evidence as to military nature of its nuclear work, it still lacks truly damning proof

Dudi Cohen

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been strangely silent vis-à-vis the growing speculations of a possible strike on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities. While other Iranian officials have threatened a “brutal response” and a “crushing blow” in retaliation of any such strike, Ahmadinejad himself may not be as complacent.

The Iranian president has reportedly confided in close associates, that his is concerned that Iran may be on a collision course with NATO, and that should thing boil over, a conflict could “cause Iran to suffer for 500 years.”

The international community is waiting for the new IAEA report on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear efforts, but despite the knowledge that it stands to be its harshest one yet and that it will include “overwhelming evidence” as to the military nature of Iran’s nuclear work, experts say it is still devoid a “smoking gun.”

The Natanz uranium enrichment facility (Photo: Reuters)

Diplomatic sources told the Daily Telegraph that a fifth round of international sanctions was “not a slum dunk,” mostly because Russia and China are likely to oppose them.

“The current sanctions already cover Iran’s nuclear program and military industries,” a UN source told the Daily Telegraph. “Pursuing more sanctions would mean going after oil and gas resources, which Russia and China won’t abide.”

Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad – who is waging a political war oh his domestic rivals – warned that “the West is rallying to destroy us… It is as clear as the light of day that NATOyearns to attack Iran.

“We are close to the moment of the final confrontation. But it might not be a military one – it may be political.”

Iran must be prepared for the conflict, he said, or it may suffer a serious blow.

Ahmadinejad seems to be bracing for a diplomatic battle with the West and bracing for what is sure to be unprecedented pressure on Iran following the IAEA’s report.

Still, the Iranian president expressed confidence that Tehran’s armed forces would be “more than a match” for the Americana forces stationed in the Persian Gulf, as well as for Israel.