WarSclerotic

Barak: Time running out to stop … JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

    WASHINGTON – Iran is less than a year away from being unstoppable in its goal of producing a nuclear weapon, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in an interview with CNN released on Saturday.

In an advance transcript of an interview to air on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” program on Sunday, Barak said Israel was focused on the prospect of a nuclear Iran and what “should and could be done about it on time.”

“It’s true that it won’t take three years, probably three quarters [of a year] before no one can do anything practically about it because the Iranians are gradually, deliberately entering into what I call a zone of immunity, by widening the redundancy of their plan, making it spread over many more sites with many more hidden elements,” he said.

Barak said a report earlier this month by the UN nuclear watchdog that Tehran appeared to have worked on designing an atomic bomb and may still be conducting secret research had had a sobering effect on world leaders and was driving urgent, intensive diplomacy.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report confirmed long-standing concerns that Iran aims to build a nuclear weapon, which Israel sees as a threat to its existence. Tehran has said its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

“I don’t think that that is a subject for public discussion,” Barak said when asked whether Israel was prepared to attack Iran to stop its nuclear ambitions.

He said a nuclear Iran would have deep repercussions for the Middle East, prompting countries like Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt to “turn nuclear” and starting a countdown to putting nuclear materials in the hands of terrorists.

Barak declined to comment on widespread speculation an explosion at an Iranian military base last week that killed 17 troops including an officer regarded as the architect of Iran’s missile defense systems was the work of Mossad.

“No. I don’t know anything that I can contribute to this conversation,” he said.

Iran ‘undecided’ over allowing IAEA fact-finding mission – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

UN nuclear watchdog made request on Thursday, after approving resolution calling on Iran to address concerns about military dimensions of nuclear program.

By DPA

Iran has not made a decision on whether to allow the United Nations nuclear agency to send a mission to address concerns that it had tested designs used to make an atomic weapon, the country’s envoy to the international watchdog said on Saturday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) made the request on Thursday when its board approved a resolution calling on Iran to address concerns about military dimensions to its nuclear program.

	Ayatollah Emami Kashani, bottom left, leads Friday prayers at the Tehran University campus in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Nov. 18, 2011.
	Photo by: AP

“The visit was supposed to take place before the IAEA board meeting and therefore the request by the IAEA general director to dispatch the inspection team should first be examined again by Tehran,” Ali Asghar Soltanieh said Saturday told ISNA news agency.

On Friday, sources reported the United States plans to sanction Iran’s petrochemical industry. The sources said the U.S. wanted to send a strong signal after the UN nuclear watchdog issued a Nov. 8 report saying Iran appeared to have worked on designing an atomic bomb and may still be secretly carrying out related research.

The sources, who said the sanctions could be unveiled as early as Monday, said the U.S. wanted to find a way to bar foreign companies from aiding Iran’s petrochemical industry with the threat of depriving them access to the U.S. market.

While European nations typically resent “extra-territorial” U.S. sanctions on their companies, the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said in this case the Europeans would likely follow suit, though not immediately.

Israpundit » Blog Archive » Canada forging stronger defence ties with Israel.

This is great news.There is no question that Canada has been staunchly in Israel’s corner in the diplomatic war. In fact she has lead the way. Now this. There is no question in my mind that this relationship will include a commitment to resupply Israel in the event of war. Such a back-up to American resupply is very important. What ever Canada gets in exchange, she deserves. Ted Belman

By Lee Berthiaume, Postmedia News November 17, 2011

OTTAWA — Canada and Israel are about to complete a number of defence co-operation agreements that will significantly tighten military bonds between the two countries as tensions grow over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

And Defence Minister Peter MacKay refused Wednesday to rule out a mutual-defence agreement that would oblige Canada to come to Israel’s defence should the latter be attacked.

Appearing together at a media conference in Ottawa on Wednesday, MacKay and his Israeli counterpart Ehud Barak said they anticipate negotiations will be completed by the end of the year.

“Israel needs strong, reliable partners, which Canada is certainly one,” MacKay said. “I would argue they could not find a more supportive country on the planet.”

The ministers said the agreements will cover a range of areas, including intelligence sharing, joint research and development, and military exchange programs.

“The steps that we’re taking today are in fact bringing our countries closer together,” MacKay said, “and they are also allowing us to further build on a strong foundation of co-operation that will build tangible results, not just to our two militaries, but to Canada and Israel more broadly.”

MacKay said the agreements did not relate to basing Canadian soldiers in Israel.

“The defence co-operation details will be disclosed when we sign,” he said.

War between Israel and Iran has become a very real possibility since the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, released a report last week that laid out the most details yet of Iran’s alleged efforts to build a nuclear arsenal.

Neither Barak nor MacKay would talk specifically about military action against Iran, saying world leaders are in the process of deciding the appropriate response.

But they also identified Iran as the greatest threat to global stability, and continued to hint at the possibility of military action.

“We said all along the way that we recommend to all friends around the world not to remove any option off the table,” Barak said. “And I’m glad to notice that many leaders in the world recently just repeating this very phrase.”

While the Conservative government has been criticized for tacking a strongly pro-Israel policy since taking power, Barak said his country appreciates all of Canada’s support.

“Israel and Canada are very good friends,” he said. “We highly appreciate the support we get from the Canadian government and people on many issues. And we are proud of the deepening and strengthening of the defence relationship that we have developed.”

The Associated Press: Syrian troops attack despite Arab peace plan.

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian troops stormed Saturday a central town and a northwestern region in search of opponents of the government as pressure on Damascus intensified to end an eight-month crisis that has left thousands of people dead, activists said.

The attacks on the town of Shezar in the central province of Hama and the restive Jabal al-Zawiya region near the Turkish border came a day after Syria agreed in principle to allow Arab observers into the country to oversee a peace plan proposed by the 22-member Arab League.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees said that land and cellular telecommunications as well as electricity have been cut in the Jabal al-Zawiya region where army defectors have been active for months.

Syria’s acceptance came on Friday after surprisingly heavy pressure from the Arab League, which brokered the plan and this week suspended Syria from the 22-member organization for failing to abide by it. On Wednesday, the league gave Damascus three days to accept an observer mission or face economic sanctions.

The latest attacks came amid building international pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad.

An official at Britain’s Foreign Office said Foreign Secretary William Hague intends to meet opposition representatives in London on Monday.

Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe called on the U.N. Security Council to strengthen sanctions against Assad’s regime. However, Russia, which holds veto power in the council, urged caution in moving against Damascus.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the U.S. has seen no signs that Syria’s government will honor the Arab League proposal.

Violence has escalated in Syria over the past week, as army dissidents who sided with the protests have grown more bold, fighting back against regime forces and even assaulting military bases. Activist groups said security forces on Friday killed at least 16 anti-government protesters.

Also Saturday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, commenting on the deteriorating relations between his country and its southern neighbor, accused Syria of not fulfilling promises for reform or to stop the bloodshed.

“In the past nine years, it was Syria and the Syrian people — rather than Turkey — that had benefited from the Turkish-Syrian friendship,” Erdogan said. “Unfortunately, the Syrian administration has acted in a reluctant and insincere manner in keeping its promises.”

“If there is a change of policy, it is not by Turkey but by Syria. Syria has not kept its promises to Turkey, to the Arab League or to the world. It made promises but did not fulfill them. It has not acted in a sincere trustworthy manner,” he said.

The attacks on Jabal al-Zawiya came two days after an army force in the nearby area of Wadi al-Deif came under attack by army defectors, a clash that lasted four hours and left an unknown number of casualties among troops loyal to Assad, said an activist said.

The activist, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said troops fired from heavy machine guns mounted on armored personnel carriers on the attackers.

The Arab League observer mission aims to prevent violence and monitor a cease-fire that Damascus agreed to last week, but has been unwilling — or unable — to implement.

___

Associated Press writers Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, and Meera Selva in London contributed to this report.

Report: Iran blast caused by missile testing – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Brother of Gen. Hasan Tehrani Mogaddam, who was killed in explosion at ammunition depot last week, says blast occurred during testing of intercontinental missiles

News agencies

The brother of an Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander killed in an explosion at an ammunition depot west of Tehran last week has been quoted by a government daily as saying that the dead man was testing an intercontinental missile.

Gen. Hasan Tehrani Mogaddam was killed together with 20 other Guard members Nov. 12 at a military site outside Bidganeh village, 25 miles (40 kilometers) southwest of Tehran. The Guard said the accidental explosion occurred while military personnel were transporting munitions.

But Mohammad Tehrani Moghaddam was quoted by the government-run “Iran” newspaper as saying that his brother was killed when the weapon exploded during testing. Iran says it has ruled out sabotage.

Moqaddam was one of the “cornerstones” of the artillery and missile units at the Revolutionary Guards during the Iran-Iraq war.

The officer reportedly served as a researcher at a Tehran university and headed the “Jihad Self-Reliance” unit, mostly tasked with developing arms and missiles.

Senior Guards member Mustafa Izadi published an article saying Moqaddam’s research helped the terror groups fight Israel.

Set up after the 1979 Islamic revolution to defend Iran against internal and external threats, the Guard is in charge of the Islamic republic’s missile program, including Shahab-3 missiles with a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) capable of hitting Israel.

Despite four sets of UN Security Council sanctions, Iran has refused to abandon its nuclear and missile programs.

Iran army tests defenses as nucl… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

    TEHRAN – The Iranian army is conducting a four-day training exercise to test its defenses, state TV reported on Saturday, amid rising international tensions over Iran’s nuclear program.

Press TV said the war games started on Friday and were taking place over 800,000 square km in the east of the country.

“The initial stage of the drills will assess the units’ performance in setting up primary and secondary command centers and stationing tactical and swift reaction divisions,” Press TV said.

Both Israel and the United States say they do not rule out striking Iran militarily if other means fail to stop the nuclear work that Tehran says is entirely peaceful.

However, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has played down talk of any such action, warning that a war with Iran would harm the world economy.

The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog has expressed “increasing concern” about Iran’s nuclear program, after a UN report said the Islamic state appeared to have worked on designing an atom bomb, a charge Iran has repeatedly denied.

Powers united in opposition to nuclear Iran

The White House said on Saturday that Iran is facing an unprecedented degree of isolation, with major world powers united in their opposition to Tehran getting a nuclear weapon.

“Russia, China and the United States I can tell you share a similar goal, and that is to not seeing the Iranians move toward the development of nuclear weapons,” US national security adviser Tom Donilon told reporters.

“The degree of isolation really is unprecedented,” he said, referring a Friday vote by the United Nations nuclear watchdog IAEA expressing concerns about Iran’s nuclear program.

US President Barack Obama discussed Tehran’s nuclear ambitions with Russian and Chinese leaders last week during an Asia-Pacific summit he hosted in Hawaii.

Clinton: Syria sliding to civil war; global community won’t intervene – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

U.S. Secretary of State tells NBC news that Syrian opposition will be well armed and eventually well financed; says Arab League, Turkey are key to persuading Assad to halt violence.

By Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday Syria could slide into civil war but she did not foresee the global community intervening in the same way it did in Libya.

“I think there could be a civil war with a very determined and well-armed and eventually well-financed opposition that is, if not directed by, certainly influenced by defectors from the army,” Clinton told NBC news in an interview in Indonesia, where she was attending a regional summit.

	U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
	Photo by: AP

“We’re already seeing that, something that we hate to see because we are in favor of a peaceful protest and a nonviolent opposition,” she said.

Clinton said, however, that she saw no prospect for the kind of coordinated international intervention that occurred in Libya, where a NATO-led coalition won a UN mandate to mount air strikes in support of rebels fighting Muammar Gadhafi.

What do you think about this article? Visit Haaretz.com on Facebook and share your views.

“There is no appetite for that kind of action vis-a-vis Syria,” Clinton said, pointing to regional moves by the Arab League and Turkey as key to persuading Syrian President Bashar Assad to halt the violence against civilians.

The United States and the European Union have both imposed a series of targeted sanctions against Damascus. But UN sanctions are seen as unlikely given opposition from Russia and China, which last month vetoed a draft Security Council resolution condemning Syria.

The Arab League has suspended Syria and set a Saturday deadline for it to comply with the Arab peace plan, which entails a military pullout from around restive cities and towns, threatening sanctions unless Assad acts to halt the violence.

	Demonstrators protest against Syria’s President Bashar Assad gather in Hula, near Homs, November 13, 2011.
	Photo by: Reuters

Clinton told CBS in a separate interview that it was clear Assad’s days were numbered.

“Look, Assad’s going to be gone; it’s just a question of time. What we hope is that they avoid a civil war, that they avoid greater bloodshed, that they make the changes that they should have been making all along. And we think the Arab League pressure is probably the most effective pressure,” she said.

Activists said Syrian security forces killed 11 people after weekly prayers on Friday, in the latest violence in the crackdown on protests, which the United Nations says has killed at least 3,500 people since March.

U.S.: Iran facing ‘unprecedented’ isolation over nuclear program – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

U.S. national security adviser says that U.S., Russia and China are united in their opposition to Iran getting a nuclear weapon; sources say U.S. plans to sanction Iran’s petrochemical industry.

By Reuters

The White House said on Saturday that Iran is facing an unprecedented degree of isolation, with major world powers united in their opposition to Iran getting a nuclear weapon.

“Russia, China and the United States I can tell you share a similar goal, and that is to not seeing the Iranians move toward the development of nuclear weapons,” U.S. national security adviser Tom Donilon told reporters.

	U.S. President Barack Obama poses with world leaders before a gala dinner in Bali, November 18, 2011.
	Photo by: Reuters

“The degree of isolation really is unprecedented,” he said, referring a Friday vote by the United Nations nuclear watchdog IAEA expressing concerns about Iran’s nuclear program.

U.S. President Barack Obama discussed Iran’s nuclear ambitions with Russian and Chinese leaders last week during an Asia-Pacific summit he hosted in Hawaii.

Donilon was speaking on the last day of Obama’s nine-day Asia tour, which is ending with his participation in an East Asia Summit meeting in the Indonesian island of Bali.

On Friday, sources familiar with the matter said that the U.S. plans to sanction Iran’s petrochemical industry, seeking to raise pressure on Iran after fresh allegations it may be pursuing nuclear weapons.

The sources said the U.S. wanted to send a strong signal after the IAEA issued a Nov. 8 report saying Iran appeared to have worked on designing an atomic bomb and may still be secretly carrying out related research.

Discussion of the new possible sanctions comes amid a renewed flurry of Israeli media speculation about the possibility of an Israeli military strike to try to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The U.S. suspects Iran may be using its civil nuclear program as a cover to develop nuclear weapons. Iran has insisted its program is purely peaceful.

Israel, Iran and Hezbollah – WSJ.com.

With new tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, the militant group stands ready to retaliate against Israel

By NICHOLAS BLANFORD

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

HEZBOLLAH supporters in Beirut watch a televised address by Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah in August 2010.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, a radar operated by French United Nations peacekeepers picked up a pilotless Israeli reconnaissance drone crossing into south Lebanon. It was given no more attention than any of the dozens of other surveillance missions flown by the Israelis in Lebanese airspace each month.

But when the drone passed above Wadi Hojeir, a yawning valley with steep, brush-covered slopes, it abruptly vanished from the radar screen. The startled peacekeepers contacted the Lebanese army, and a search of the rugged valley was conducted in the early-evening gloom. Nothing was found.

No one can recall the last time that an Israeli drone malfunctioned over Lebanon and crashed, and there were no reports of antiaircraft fire. The Israelis have said nothing. Neither has Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group and arch foe of Israel. The peacekeeping force is now abuzz with speculation that Hezbollah may have found a way of electronically disabling drones.

It is food for thought as tensions escalate once more between the West and Iran, Hezbollah’s ideological patron, over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions. A report by the International Atomic Energy Agency released last week claimed that Iran has been engaged in “activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device.” It was the IAEA’s toughest report yet on Iran, and it was preceded by a flurry of articles in the Israeli press saying that the Israeli government was seriously considering a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Iran has delivered its own warnings. Brig. Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, the deputy chief of the country’s armed forces, was quoted saying that “the smallest action by Israel [against Iran] and we will see its destruction.” He added that plans for retaliation were already in place.

Many analysts believe that those plans could include directing Hezbollah to unleash its military might against Israel, pummeling it with thousands of long-range rockets, placing the Jewish state’s heartland on the frontline for the first time since 1948.

Hezbollah and Israel last came to blows in July 2006, when the Lebanese militants fought the Israeli army to a surprise standstill in the valleys and hills of south Lebanon. Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s charismatic leader, proclaimed a “divine victory” against Israel, but since then he has been careful not to provoke another round of fighting.

But the quiet has not stopped the two sides from making feverish preparations for another encounter, one that neither Hezbollah nor Israel wants but that both believe is probably inevitable.

The rate of recruitment into Hezbollah’s ranks has soared. New recruits are bused to secret training camps in the Bekaa Valley, where they endure lengthy marches over the craggy limestone mountains carrying backpacks weighed down with rocks. They learn fieldcraft and weapons handling, and some go on to receive advanced training in Iran. The military instruction is interspersed with religious and cultural lessons, teaching them the importance of jihad, martyrdom and obedience to Hezbollah’s religious figurehead, currently embodied by Ayatollah Ali Khameini, the supreme leader of Iran.

Hezbollah never divulges details of its ever-improving military capabilities, but reports claim that the organization has amassed as many as 50,000 rockets, including guided missiles that can strike targets in Tel Aviv. Hezbollah fighters have repeatedly hinted that they are being trained to slip across the border into Israel in the next war, a development to which Sheikh Nasrallah himself referred for the first time in a speech earlier this year.

Still, even as it has evolved into the most formidable nonstate military force in the world, Hezbollah faces its greatest array of challenges since emerging in the early 1980s.

It is in the spotlight of an international tribunal based in the Netherlands which has indicted four party members for their alleged role in the 2005 assassination of Rafik Hariri, an iconic Lebanese statesman. Hezbollah has denied any involvement in the killing of Mr. Hariri by a truck bomb.

Of far greater consequence for the group is the bloody upheaval in Syria, where protests against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad have left some 3,500 dead since mid-March, according to the U.N. For Hezbollah and Iran, the collapse of the Assad regime would upset the strategic balance in the Middle East, rupturing an alliance between Damascus and Tehran that has endured for 30 years and only grown stronger in the past decade under the presidency of Mr. Assad.

Syria is an important conduit for the transfer of arms to Hezbollah, but more crucially it is Iran’s only solid ally in the Arab world, granting Tehran an influential toehold on Israel’s northern border and providing strategic depth for Hezbollah.

Hezbollah’s repeated declarations of support for Mr. Assad have eroded the party’s popularity not only among the majority Sunnis in Syria, who make up the bulk of the opposition, but also more generally in the Arab world as the regional “cold war” intensifies between Shiite Iran and mainly Sunni Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia.

Sheikh Louay Zouabi, a Syrian Salafist cleric who was in Lebanon recently to drum up support for the opposition, listed Iran followed by Hezbollah as his two main enemies. The Assad regime came in third place. “Assad is third because it is natural for him to want to kill me because I am trying to overthrow him,” he said. “But why do Iran and Hezbollah want me dead? What have I done to them?”

Hezbollah’s popularity in Lebanon has declined since the heady days of the 1990s, when the Lebanese, regardless of sect, broadly backed Hezbollah’s resistance campaign against Israel’s occupation of south Lebanon. The Israelis left 11 years ago, but Hezbollah refused to disarm, and today the fate of its weapons lies at the heart of Lebanon’s gaping political divide. Hezbollah insists that its robust military wing serves as a defense for Lebanon against possible Israeli aggression.

“Israel will not wage a new war against Lebanon—not because of its nobility, ethics, or commitments to international resolutions, but rather because it cannot guarantee its success,” Mohammed Raad, the head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, said recently.

But skeptics point to Hezbollah’s ties to Iran and accuse it of serving the deterrent needs of Tehran rather than the defensive interests of Lebanon.

The dilemma for Hezbollah is that launching a war against Israel in response to an attack on Iran will reap massive destruction on Lebanon and on Hezbollah’s core Shiite constituency—all for the sake of defending the nuclear ambitions of a country lying 650 miles to the east.

Hezbollah officials remain coy on the organization’s likely reaction to an attack on Iran. Much would depend on the scale of the strike and the political situation in the Middle East. Sheikh Nasrallah recently said that neither the U.S. nor Israel is in a position to launch a fresh war in the Middle East, describing media speculation about a possible attack on Iran as “intimidation.”

Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s cadres concentrate on their relentless training and military planning, with a single-minded focus on the next conflict with Israel.

“Let them attack Iran. It will be great,” said a young, stocky Hezbollah fighter named Khodr. “It will mean that Israel is finished.”

—Mr. Blanford is a Beirut-based correspondent. His new book is “Warriors of God: Inside Hezbollah’s Thirty-Year Struggle Against Israel.”

‘US plans sanctions on Iran’s pe… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

    WASHINGTON – The United States plans to sanction Iran’s petrochemical industry, sources familiar with the matter said on Friday, seeking to raise pressure on Tehran after fresh allegations it may be pursuing nuclear weapons.

The sources said Washington wanted to send a strong signal after the UN nuclear watchdog issued a Nov. 8 report saying Iran appeared to have worked on designing an atomic bomb and may still be secretly carrying out related research.

The sources, who spoke on condition that they not be named, said the sanctions could be unveiled as early as Monday.

They said the United States was looking to find a way to bar foreign companies from aiding Iran’s petrochemical industry with the threat of depriving them access to the US market.

While European nations have historically resented such “extra-territorial” US sanctions seeking to punish their companies, in this case the sources said the European nations were themselves likely to follow suit, though not immediately.

US firms are barred from most trade with Iran. The US push is therefore aimed at foreign firms by in effect making them choose between working with Iran’s petrochemical industry or doing business in the vast US market.

It was not clear what authorities the Obama administration planned to invoke to impose the sanctions or precisely how, and how much, they would hurt Iran’s petrochemical sector.

Discussion of the idea comes amid a renewed flurry of Israeli media speculation about the possibility of an Israeli military strike to try to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The United States suspects Iran may be using its civil nuclear program as a cover to develop nuclear weapons. Iran has insisted its program is purely peaceful.

Anxieties about Iran’s nuclear program increased after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released intelligence last week suggesting Iran has undertaken research and experiments geared to developing a nuclear weapons capability.

Action on financial sector?

Iran, which denies it wants nuclear weapons, condemned the findings of the Vienna-based IAEA as “unbalanced” and “politically motivated.”

The report increased tensions in the Middle East and led to redoubled calls in Western capitals for stiffer sanctions against Tehran.

The sources familiar with the matter said there had also been discussion of sanctions on the Iranian financial sector.

While US officials last week said the idea of cutting off the Iranian central bank entirely was off the table for now, one source said there had been consideration of more limited measures.

“There was displeasure at the top with the view that it’s all or nothing … (and that if it’s all) we take out our own economic recovery,” he said. “The instruction was given to look for other possible avenues.”

The sources said the United States was reluctant to try to cut off the Iranian central bank entirely for fear this could drive oil prices dramatically higher, potentially impairing the US recovery.

The United States and its European allies, notably Britain, France and Germany, are seeking ways to raise the pressure on Iran without going to the UN Security Council, where fresh sanctions are all but sure to be opposed by Russia and China.

The UN Security Council has passed four resolutions imposing sanctions on Iran but both Russia and China have made clear their reluctance to go further for now.

There has been growing pressure from the US Congress and prominent Republicans, including presidential candidate and Texas Governor Rick Perry and former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to sanction the Iranian central bank.

Perry advocated the idea in a televised debate on Saturday while Rice did so in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday.

“There is time for diplomacy but it better be pretty coercive diplomacy at this point,” Rice told Reuters.

“There are many things we could do even without probably the Security Council: sanction the Iranian central bank, deny them access to the financial system through that,” she said.