WarSclerotic

US: Iran uranium enrichment a f… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

US: Iran uranium enrichment a ‘f… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

    WASHINGTON – The United States said on Monday that if Iran is enriching uranium to 20 percent at an underground facility at Fordow, this would be a “further escalation” of its pattern of violating its obligations under UN Security Council resolutions.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog, confirmed on Monday that Iran has started enriching uranium up to 20 percent at an underground site at Fordow, near the Shi’ite Muslim holy city of Qom, and said all atomic material there was under its surveillance.

“The fact that the IAEA has made clear that they are enriching to a level that is inappropriate at Fordow is obviously a problem,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters at her daily briefing.

Nuland said the Vienna-based IAEA’s assessment, previously reported by diplomats in Vienna, did not come as a surprise to the United States.

“If they are enriching at Fordow to 20 percent, this is a further escalation of their ongoing violations with regard to their nuclear obligations,” Nuland said, referring to a series of UN Security Council resolutions calling on Iran to halt its enrichment-related activities.

Meanwhile on Monday, European Union diplomats said that the EU is expected to bring forward a meeting of foreign ministers due to decide on an oil embargo on Iran by one week to Jan. 23.

They said a final decision would be taken by a meeting of EU ambassadors in Brussels on Tuesday, and the aim would be to avoid overshadowing a summit of EU leaders set for Jan. 30.

“It looks likely it will be brought forward to the 23rd,” one of the diplomats said.

EU states have already agreed in principle to an embargo on Iranian oil, part of the latest Western effort to ratchet up pressure on Tehran over its nuclear programme.

However, they still have to finalise details of when it will be imposed. Diplomats say the embargo could take several months to start because some EU capitals want a delay to shield their debt-stricken economies.

UN nuclear agency confirms Iran … JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

    The United Nations nuclear watchdog confirmed on Monday that Iran has started enriching uranium at an underground site and said all atomic material there was under its surveillance.

Diplomats in Vienna, home of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), earlier said Iran had begun refining uranium to a fissile purity of 20 percent at Fordow near the Shi’ite Muslim holy city of Qom.

“The IAEA can confirm that Iran has started the production of uranium enriched up to 20 percent…using IR-1 centrifuges in the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant,” agency spokeswoman Gill Tudor said in an e-mail.

“All nuclear material in the facility remains under the Agency’s containment and surveillance,” she said.

Iran has said for months that it is preparing to move its highest-grade uranium refinement work to Fordow from its main enrichment plant at Natanz, and sharply boost capacity. Enriched uranium can have both civilian and military uses.

The decision by the Islamic Republic to conduct sensitive atomic activities at the underground site – offering better protection against any enemy attacks – could complicate diplomatic efforts to resolve the long-running row peacefully.

On Sunday, an Iranian newspaper quoted the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization as saying Iran would in the “near future” start enriching uranium at Fordow.

The United States and its allies say Iran is trying to develop the means to make atomic bombs, but Tehran insists its nuclear program is aimed at generating electricity and isotopes for medical treatment.

Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, Former U.S. Marine, Sentenced To Death In Iran.

TEHRAN, Iran — An Iranian court has convicted an American man of working for the CIA and sentenced him to death, state radio reported Monday, in a case adding to the accelerating tension between the United States and Iran.

Iran charges that as a former U.S. Marine, Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, received special training and served at U.S. military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan before heading to Iran for his alleged intelligence mission. The radio report did not say when the verdict was issued.

The 28-year-old former military translator was born in Arizona and graduated from high school in Michigan. His family is of Iranian origin. His father, a professor at a community college in Flint, Michigan, has said his son is not a CIA spy and was visiting his grandmothers in Iran when he was arrested.

Behnaz Hekmati, his mother, said in an email to The Associated Press that she and her husband, Ali, are “shocked and terrified” that their son has been sentenced to death. She said the verdict is “the result of a process that was neither transparent nor fair.”

Under Iranian law, he has 20 days to appeal. Hekmati has a court-appointed lawyer who was identified only by his surname, Samadi, and there was no word about an appeal.

Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehei, spokesman for Iran’s judiciary said if the verdict is appealed, it would go to Iran’s Supreme Court, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Hekmati’s trial took place as the U.S. announced new, tougher sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, which Washington believes Tehran is using to develop a possible atomic weapons capability.

Iran, which says it only seeks nuclear reactors for energy and research, has sharply increased its threats and military posturing against stronger pressures, including the U.S. sanctions targeting Iran’s Central Bank in attempts to complicate its ability to sell oil.

The U.S. State Department has demanded Hekmati’s release.

The court convicted him of working with a hostile country, belonging to the CIA and trying to accuse Iran of involvement in terrorism, Monday’s report said.

In its ruling, a branch of Tehran Revolutionary Court described Hekmati as a mohareb, an Islamic term that means a fighter against God, and a mofsed, or one who spreads corruption on earth. Both terms appear frequently in Iranian court rulings.

In a closed court hearing in late December, the prosecution asked for the death penalty for Hekmati.

The U.S. government has called on Iranian authorities to grant Swiss diplomats access to him in prison. The Swiss government represents U.S. interests in Iran because the two countries don’t have diplomatic relations.

Hekmati is a dual U.S.-Iranian national. Iran considers him an Iranian since the country’s law does not recognize dual citizenship.

Similar cases against Americans accused of spying have heightened tensions throughout the years-long standoff over Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran arrested three Americans in July 2009 along the border with Iraq and accused them of espionage, though the Americans said they were just hiking in the scenic and relatively peaceful Kurdish region of northern Iraq.

One of them was released after a year in prison, and the other two were freed in September in deals involving bail payments that were brokered by the Gulf sultanate of Oman, which has good relations with Iran and the U.S.

On Dec. 18, Iran’s state TV broadcast video of Hekmati delivering a purported confession in which he said he was part of a plot to infiltrate Iran’s Intelligence Ministry.

In a statement released the same day, the Intelligence Ministry said its agents identified Hekmati before his arrival in Iran, at Bagram Air Field in neighboring Afghanistan. Bagram is the main base for American and other international forces outside Kabul, the Afghan capital.

It is not clear exactly when he was arrested. News reports have said he was detained in late August or early September.

Hekmati’s father said in a December interview with The Associated Press, that his son was a former Arabic translator in the U.S. Marines who entered Iran about four months earlier to visit his grandmothers.

At the time, he was working in Qatar as a contractor for a company “that served the Marines,” his father said, without providing more specific details.

Israel Hayom | Iran enriching uranium at covert site, diplomats confirm.

Diplomats on Monday confirmed reports that Iran has begun uranium enrichment at a new underground bunker, and say the process is producing material that can be upgraded quickly for use in a nuclear weapon.

Two diplomats told The Associated Press that centrifuges at the site in Fordo, Iran, are churning out 20 percent uranium. That is higher than the 3.5 percent being produced at Iran’s main enrichment plant and can be turned more easily into fissile warhead material.

The diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that 348 machines are operating at Fordo. They based their information on an inspection last week by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

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The diplomats’ remarks follow a report Sunday in the hardline Iranian daily Kayhan, which said operations at the bunker-like Fordo facility south of Tehran were small in comparison to Iran’s main enrichment site. However, the centrifuges at the underground labs are considered more efficient than others and are shielded from aerial surveillance and protected against airstrikes by up to 300 feet (90 meters) of mountain rock.

Uranium enrichment is at the core of the international standoff over Iran’s nuclear program. The U.S. and its allies fear Iran could use its enrichment facilities to develop high-grade nuclear material for warheads. Iran insists its nuclear program has only peaceful aims.

On Monday, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the Iranian nation would not yield to the pressure of sanctions imposed by the West to force Iran to change its nuclear course.

“The Iranian nation believes in its rulers … sanctions imposed on Iran by our enemies will not have any impact on our nation,” he said in a speech broadcast by state TV. “Sanctions will not change our nation’s determination.”

Iran has recently increased its threats and military posturing in the face of growing pressure, including U.S. sanctions targeting Iran’s Central Bank aiming to complicate its ability to sell oil.

A senior commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard was recently quoted as saying Tehran’s leadership had decided to order the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic oil route, if the country’s petroleum exports are blocked. Revolutionary Guard ground forces also staged war games in eastern Iran in an apparent display of resolve against U.S. forces just beyond the border in Afghanistan.

Iranian officials have issued similar threats, but this is the strongest statement yet by a top commander in the security establishment.

“The supreme authorities … have insisted that if enemies block the export of our oil, we won’t allow a drop of oil to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. This is the strategy of the Islamic Republic in countering such threats,” Revolutionary Guard Deputy Commander Ali Ashraf Nouri was quoted as saying by another newspaper, the Khorasan daily.

For the moment, however, U.S. officials are seeking stronger diplomatic and economic pressure on Iran rather than military action, although they have not yet ruled this out.

In an interview broadcast Sunday, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Iran was laying the groundwork for making nuclear weapons, but was not yet building a bomb. Panetta reiterated U.S. concerns about a unilateral strike by Israel against Iran’s nuclear facilities, saying the action could trigger Iranian retaliation against U.S. forces in the region.

“We have common cause here [with Israel], and the better approach is for us to work together,” he said.

Panetta’s remarks, on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” reflect the Obama administration’s long-held view that Iran is not yet committed to building a nuclear arsenal, only to creating the industrial and scientific capacity to allow one if its leaders decide to take that final step.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, appearing with the defense secretary, said he wanted the Iranians to believe that a U.S. military strike could wipe out their nuclear program.

When asked whether the U.S. could destroy Iran’s nuclear program if it chose to, Dempsey said, “I absolutely want them to believe that’s the case.”

Panetta also did not rule out launching a pre-emptive strike. “But the responsible thing to do right now is to keep putting diplomatic and economic pressure on them to force them to do the right thing,” he said. “And to make sure that they do not make the decision to proceed with the development of a nuclear weapon.”

Dempsey also said that Iran has the military power to block the Strait of Hormuz “for a period of time” if it decides to do so, but that the U.S. would take action to reopen the waterway. “We can defeat that,” he said.

Panetta said closing the strait would draw a U.S. military response. “We made very clear that the United States will not tolerate the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz,” he said. “That’s another red line for us and … we will respond to them.”

A number of experts say Iran is unlikely to close the strait, through which Gulf oil flows, because the action could hurt Iran as much as the West.

Kayhan, affiliated with Iran’s ruling clerics, reported that Tehran has begun injecting uranium gas into sophisticated centrifuges at the Fordo facility, near the holy city of Qom.

“Kayhan received reports yesterday that show Iran has begun uranium enrichment at the Fordo facility amid heightened foreign enemy threats,” the newspaper said in a front-page report. Kayhan’s manager is a representative of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final word on all important matters of state.

Iran has a major uranium enrichment facility in Natanz in central Iran, where nearly 8,000 centrifuges are operating. Tehran began enrichment at Natanz in 2006.

Syria’s opposition criticizes Arab League; Turkey urges SNC to use ‘peaceful means’.

Monday, 09 January 2012

gulfnews : Dangerous game of brinkmanship.

The ongoing exchange between Iran and the US and its allies over the Hormuz Strait has raised tensions in the region

• Image Credit: Dana A. Shams ©Gulf News

If you rely on the major English-language satellite channels for your news, the dangerous ratcheting-up of tensions between Tehran and Washington may have escaped your radar. For some reason best known to network heads Iran’s belligerent words and actions and the responses of Washington and London are an afterthought compared to extensive TV coverage of the GOP race and events in Syria and Iraq.

The scarcity of mainstream television news and analysis on Iran hit me after I spoke to friends in the UK who knew little to nothing about the potential fall-out from Iran’s war games in the Strait of Hormuz or its threat to seal this vital waterway to shipping. Conversely, last week’s feel good story, the US rescue of Iranian fishermen from pirates, looms large on our screens.

Certainly, the respected Lebanon-based political analyst Rami Khouri doesn’t believe the potential for war is great because such disruption of the oil-flow would result in western economic suicide. Logically, he’s spot on. A full scale military face-off between Washington/London/Tel Aviv and Tehran in the Gulf is unthinkable. Yet, history tells us the unthinkable sometimes happens when muscle-flexing is taken to extremes.

At the other end of the spectrum are Israeli newspapers and websites. If you browse the DebkaFile, said to have links to the Mossad, for instance, you’ll be heading off to buy a hard hat. The website’s top story on Saturday headlined, Thousands of US troops land in Israel. Aircraft carrier coming soon, maintains that “they are part of the joint US-Israel deployment ready for a military engagement with Iran and its possible escalation into a regional conflict”.

An earlier DebkaFile report tells us that Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are on “War alert for early US-Iran clash”. Personally I take DebkaFile with a huge shovel of salt; some of its stories are accurate, others are patently Israeli government disinformation.

Just as extreme is the Fox News brigade. Fox’s Sean Hannity and his guests Fox News contributor Angela McGlowan, former Republican Senator Alfonse D’Amato and Donald Trump all agree that President Barack Obama is likely to go to war with Iran to increase his reelection chances. “I say he starts a war with Iran before the election which will make it very hard for the Republicans to win” predicted Trump. “He’s Machiavellian. He’ll do anything to win an election,” McGlowan said.

Here’s what we do know with some certainty. Israel’s hawkish Benjamin Netanyahu-led government has been pressing the US to give the green light for an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites for years and according to former Mossad chief Meir Dagan has firmed-up strike plans. Dagan has termed his government “reckless and irresponsible” and says he did his best to thwart such “a dangerous adventure” when he was in office but he’s now “afraid that there is no one to stop Bibi [Netanyahu] and [Ehud] Barak”.

Desperate move

New anti-Iranian US sanctions targeting the country’s Central Bank are impacting Iran’s economy causing its currency to plummet. Despite protestations to the contrary, signs are that the Iranian government is seriously worried. It’s no coincidence that the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is currently touring Latin America seeking support from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Ecuador, characterised by the Obama administration as a “desperate” move. In response to upcoming US and European sanctions against Iran’s oil industry, Iran’s navy chief warned that it would be easy for Iran to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for 35 per cent of the world’s seaborne oil shipments.

If that threat were carried out, experts believe oil prices would rise by 50 per cent the following day. A spokeswoman for the US Navy Fifth fleet based off Bahrain said her country’s navy is “always ready to counter malevolent actions to ensure freedom of navigation.” Britain has made it clear that any such attempt would be met with military action.

In recent weeks, Tehran has gone on the offensive. Iran has just completed 10 days of naval exercises in Hormuz and the Gulf of Aden during which it tested short, mid and long-range missiles and has vowed to shortly conduct new war games in the crucial Gulf shipping lanes. Iran has also warned the American aircraft carrier, USS John Stennis not to return to the Gulf. The US says it plans to patrol the Gulf as usual and has announced preparations for joint military exercises with Israel, the most extensive to date.

On Saturday, the UK threw its hat into the ring by announcing that it’s deploying its most technologically sophisticated warship HMS Daring in Gulf Waters which will be joined by other destroyers if necessary. I doubt anyone knows for certain how all this will pan out, not even the players themselves. This is a game of chicken fraught with unintended consequences. Just a single lit match could set the region aflame and if Iran finds itself cornered it may decide to strike it.

Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She can be contacted at lheard@gulfnews.com Some of the comments may be considered for publication.

Khamenei says Iran will not yiel… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

    TEHRAN – Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Monday that Iran would not yield to the pressure of sanctions imposed by the West to get the Islamic Republic to change its nuclear course.

“The Iranian nation believes in their rulers … Sanctions imposed on Iran by our enemies will not have any impact on our nation,” he said in a speech broadcast by state television.

“Sanctions will not change our nation’s determination.”

Tension between Iran and the West has been rising after the United States and European Union expanded sanctions against Tehran in recent months over its disputed nuclear program.

Washington and its allies say Iran is trying to develop atomic bombs under the guise of a civilian nuclear energy program. Tehran denies this.

“The Islamic establishment…knows firmly what it is doing and has chosen its path and will stay the course,” Khamenei said.

Iran has so far refused to halt uranium enrichment activity, a pathway to nuclear energy or nuclear weapons, as demanded by the United Nations Security Council.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Special Report January 9, 2012, 10:21 AM (GMT+02:00)

Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kutznetsov in Syrian port

US, Russian French and British air and naval forces streamed to the Syrian and Iranian coasts over the weekend on guard for fresh developments at the two Middle East flashpoints.
The Russian carrier Admiral Kuznetsov anchored earlier than planned at Syria’s Tartus port on the Mediterranean Sunday, Jan. 8, arriving together with the destroyer Admiral Chabanenko and frigate Yaroslav Mudry.
To counter this movement, France consigned an air defense destroyer Forbin to the waters off Tartus.

debkafile‘s military sources report a buildup in the last 48 hours of western naval forces opposite Iran in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea in readiness for Tehran to carry out its threat to close the Strait of Hormuz.

Britain has dispatched the HMS Daring, a Type 45 destroyer armed with new technology for shooting down missiles, to the Sea of Oman, due to arrive at the same time as the French Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier.

Our sources report too that Saturday, the giant RQ-4 Global Hawk UAV, took off from the USS Stenning aircraft carrier for surveillance over the coasts of Iran. The Stennis and its strike group are cruising in the Sea of Oman at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz after Tehran announced it would not be allowed to cross through.
This was the first time the US has deployed unmanned aerial vehicles over Iran since its RQ-170 stealth drone was shot down by Iran on Dec. 4. It was also the first time the huge drone was ordered to take off from an aircraft carrier for a Broad Aerial Maritime Surveillance Mission (BAMS).

US military sources reported Monday, Jan. 9 that the Global Hawk’s mission is “to monitor sea traffic off the Iranian coast and the Straits of Hormuz.” The US Navy was ordered to maintain a watch on this traffic, another first, after Iranian Navy chief Adm. Habibollah Sayyari said in a televised broadcast Sunday night that the Strait of Hormuz was under full Iranian control and had been for years.
Also Sunday, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the US Chiefs of Staff, warned in no uncertain terms that Iran has the ability to block the Strait of Hormuz “for a period of time.”  He added in a CBS interview:  “We’ve invested in capabilities to ensure that if that happens, we can defeat that.” Gen. Dempsey went on to emphasize: “Yes, they can block it. We’ve described that as an intolerable act and it’s not just intolerable for us, it’s intolerable to the world. But we would take action and reopen the straits.”
Appearing on the same program, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned of a quick, decisive and very tough American response to any Iranian attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz.

They both spoke a few hours after a spokesman for the Revolutionary Guards said the supreme Iranian leadership had ruled the Strait must be closed in the event of an oil embargo imposed on Iran by the European Union.

debkafile‘s military sources report the constant escalation of military tens around Iran and Syria in recent days as not just stemming from the rapid advances Iran is making toward production of a nuclear weapon, program, but from fears in the West and Israel that Tehran and Damascus are in step over their military plans for the Persian Gulf and Mediterranean sectors.

After the Admiral Kuznetsov docked in Tartus Sunday with much fanfare, the Syrian Navy commander Dawoud Rajha was received on the deck by a guard of honor of marines under a flyover of Russian Su-33 and Su-25 fighter-bombers. This was taken as a signal of Moscow’s willingness to back the Assad regime up against any Western military intervention as well as a gesture of support for cooperation between Syria and Iran in their operational plans.

Sunday, the Iranian media issued divergent statements about the situation at Iran’s underground uranium enrichment plant at Fordo, near Qom: In English, the site as described as going on stream soon, while the Farsi media reported it was already operational.

The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization Fereydoun Abbasi Davani declared furthermore,” …the Islamic Republic is capable of exporting services related to nuclear energy to other countries.”

This statement showed that Tehran has no fear of raising the level of its threats to the West up to the point of offering to hand out its nuclear technology to other countries in a gesture of uncontrolled proliferation.

What if Iran Really is Suicidal Enough to Attack Israel? » Publications » Family Security Matters.