WarSclerotic

Iran: Negotiations under way to … JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

    Negotiations are under way to hold new talks between Western powers and Iran over Tehran’s nuclear program and the most likely venue is Istanbul, but there is no date set, Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on Wednesday.

“Negotiations are going on about venue and date. We would like to have these negotiations,” Salehi told reporters during a visit to Turkey, where he is expected to meet Turkish leaders.

Salehi also said Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was in touch with the European Union’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who heads the so-called P5+1 delegation, and Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili to try to arrange a date and venue.

“My personal view is to hold this in Turkey in Istanbul. Negotiations are still going on. My colleague Davutoglu is in touch with Lady Ashton and Jalili so that the date and venue is fixed. Most probably, I am not sure yet, the venue will be Istanbul. The day is not yet settled, but it will be soon.”

Istanbul was the venue of the last talks a year ago which ended in stalemate because participants could not even agree on an agenda. Iran has since come under much tougher sanctions from the West which accuses it of seeking nuclear weapons capability.

Tehran says its nuclear program is peaceful and that it has a sovereign right to atomic technology.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 18, 2012, 10:39 AM (GMT+02:00)

Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Al Qods commander

In the past 48 hours, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Turkey have alerted Washington to intelligence reports of Iranian Al Qods Brigades operatives heading their way for attacks on oil installations and American targets. The alert was accompanied by a query about how the US intended to respond to the approaching menace.

Reporting this, debkafile’s intelligence and counterterrorism sources say the information relayed to Washington was more detailed and specific than the customary tip-off.
Tuesday, Jan. 17, a US spokesman accused Tehran of deepening its involvement in the Syrian conflict. For the second time in a week, Washington disclosed that Al Qods commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani had visited Damascus recently, confirming Iranian arms shipments for ensuring President Bashar Assad’s victory over the uprising against him.

debkafile’s intelligence sources report that another part of Soleimani’s Damascus mission was to synchronize the Al Qods cells’ strikes across the Middle East – in Turkey, Lebanon, Gaza and Sinai – with the tempo of Assad’s crackdown on protest. He also dealt with setting up terrorist attacks against Israeli targets.

A US spokesman said: “We are confident that he was received at the highest levels of the Syrian government, including by President Assad.”

Four months ago, in October 2011, the US accused Soleimani of a hatching a conspiracy to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington.

Tuesday night, the Turkish Security General Directorate-EGM put all the country’s 81 districts on guard for the expected arrival of Al Qods operatives to stir up mass unrest against the Erdogan government and attack the US embassy and provincial consulates-general.
Their arrival, said the EGM notice, would be coordinated with the infiltration of Hizballah terrorist teams to Turkey.

debkafile’s sources in Ankara believe Tehran is kicking off its first round of Middle East terrorist operations in Turkey as punishment for consenting to the installation of a US radar station on its soil for the NATO shield against incoming Iranian missile attacks, in defiance of Iran’s warnings. The Erdogan government is also being penalized for actively supporting Syrian resistance to the Assad regime, especially the Free Syrian Army-SFA.

When Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani visited Ankara Jan. 12, he delivered a last warning to the Turkish government to desist from both steps, although the visit was officially billed as focusing on the resumption of nuclear negotiations between Iran and the five powers plus Germany.  Larijani’s talks clearly ended in disagreement, judging by his parting shot: “We’ve got our ways of doing things.”

A senior counterterrorism source told debkafile sources on Wednesday, Jan. 18 that the Iranians are setting Turkey up as an example to show the US and their Middle East antagonists what they can expect when Tehran lets the Al Qods Brigades loose against them.

According to the information relayed to Washington by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Al Qods has been placed on the ready for action, such as blowing up oil fields, oil pipelines and oil export terminals. Some of its cells are already present among the two countries’ Shiite populations in the guise of longtime Saudi and Kuwaiti nationals of Iranian descent; others to be dropped by sea on the Saudi and Kuwaiti coasts.

Report: Iran planning attacks on U.S. targets in Turkey – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

According to Turkish Zaman daily, a cell of the Quds Unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is planning to attack U.S. embassy in Ankara.

By Avi Issacharoff

he Turkish newspaper Zaman reported Tuesday that Turkish intelligence has warned that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is planning attacks on the American embassy and American consulates throughout the country.

According to the report, Turkey’s security forces have warned police in all 81 districts throughout the country, telling them to remain alert and vigilant.

	In this Sept. 22, 2011 photo, members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard march just outside Tehran, Iran.
	Photo by: AP

The report states that according to Turkish intelligence, it is likely that a cell of the Quds Unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is planning to break into the U.S. Embassy or one of its consulates. The intelligence further stated that the cell is planning on staying at a five-star hotel in the city in which the attack is being planned, cautioning forces to focus on foreigners residing in those hotels.

Moreover, the report states that Hezbollah may take part in such attacks against Americans.

According to Turkish intelligence, Iran is attempting to support the operations of small, illegal Turkish organizations in the wake of Turkey’s decision to establish a NATO radar within its territory, and due to Ankara’s condemnation of the Assad regime in Syria.

NYT columnist: Bibi, don’t attack Iran – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Roger Cohen says Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities before US elections would ‘stymie’ Obama; adds ‘choosing between US and Iran is a no-brainer’

New York Times columnist Roger Cohen urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to refrain from attacking Iran “this spring or summer” if he cares about his “dysfunctional relationship” with US President Barack Obama.

In an article published in the American daily on Monday, Cohen said a US ambassador in Europe was recently asked by an Israeli counterpart what could be done to improve the “lousy relations” between Netanyahu and Obama. He replied: “Every once in a while, say thank you.”

According to the senior columnist, the American ambassador added, “Maybe, once in a while, ask the president if there’s anything you can do for him. And above all stay out of our election-year politics.”

Netanyahu and Obama in digitally-altered Iranian photo

Cohen said the sharp reply “reflects Obama’s fury at several things: the way Netanyahu has gone over his head to a Republican-dominated Congress where he is a darling; Netanyahu’s ingratitude for solid US support, including the veto of an anti-settlements resolution at the United Nations last year and opposition to the unilateral Palestinian pursuit of statehood; the delaying tactics of Netanyahu reflecting his conviction Obama is likely a one-term president; and Netanyahu’s refusal to pause a second time in settlement building for the sake of peace negotiations.”

The op-ed states that Netanyahu is “tempted to bomb Iran in the next several months to set back its opaque nuclear program and – despite a call from Obama last Thursday and messages from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta – has declined to reassure the United States that he will not.”

“I would add a further piece of advice to Netanyahu if he cares about his dysfunctional relationship with Obama — and he should because Israelis know the United States matters and might be disinclined to re-elect a man who has poisoned relations with Washington. That advice is: Do not attack Iran this spring or summer,” Cohen wrote.

According to the columnist, an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities a few months before the US election in November would “stymie” Obama. The US president “would be in no position to express anger given the clout of the pro-Israel lobby, the important Jewish vote in Florida and the fulsome support any Israeli bombing would get from the Republican contender — probably Mitt Romney,” Cohen claimed.

“By contrast, a re-elected Obama would, as a second-term president, have room to mark his displeasure if Israel was to go it alone. Because awareness is growing that Obama could indeed win, these considerations carry weight in Jerusalem,” he wrote.

Cohen added: “Don’t go there, Mr. Netanyahu. It would be a terrible mistake. Choosing between the United States and Iran is a no-brainer. One is a great power and essential friend. The other is a blustering, combustible society that’s been tinkering with a nuclear program for decades and whose closest regional ally, Syria, is on the brink.”

Syrian ‘chemical, biological’ weapons concern Israel – Israel News, Ynetnews.

IDF’s planning division head says chemical, biological weapons still flowing into Syria, wonders ‘what will be transferred to Hezbollah?’

AFP

Israel has serious concerns about what will happen to “huge stockpiles” of chemical and biological weapons in Syria when the Assad regime collapses, a senior military official said on Tuesday.

Major-General Amir Eshel, head of the Israeli military’s planning division, said the working assumption was the regime of President Bashar Assad would eventually fall.

“The question is when, not if. And the big question is what’s going to come the day after,” he said.

“The immediate concern is the huge stockpiles of chemicals, biologicals (weapons), strategic capabilities that are still going into Syria, mainly from eastern Europe,” Eshel said.

“That’s a major concern because I don’t know who is going to own those the day after. Up till now, what has been transferred to Hezbollah? What will be transferred to Hezbollah? What will be divided between those factions inside Syria? What is that going to create?

“We are talking about huge stockpiles,” he said.

The regime has spearheaded a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy activists seeking to overthrow Assad, who has vowed to remain in power, raising the specter of civil war between Syria’s many religious sects if he steps down.

Eshel said the threat of civil war was a real possibility if Assad clung to power.

“If Assad will adopt this Yemenite model and leave, it might prevent a civil war,” he said, referring to an agreement that saw Yemen’s former president Ali Abdullah Saleh agree in November to leave power.

“But if he won’t leave of his own will, we might get into civil war,” he said. “If there will be a civil war, it might be a disaster.”

Eshel also warned that Syria faces bankruptcy, which could create new instability.

“I think the major challenge the Syrians will face in a few months, is bankruptcy. The reserves will be zero, and this is going to create, I think, internal turmoil. We can expect refugees in many countries.”

On January 10, Israel’s Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Benny Gantz told MPs that the military was preparing for the possibility of an influx of Syrian refugees, particularly on the Golan Heights.

‘Nuclear Iran could deter IDF fr… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

    A nuclear-armed Iran could deter Israel from going to war in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip against Tehran’s terrorist allies, an IDF officer said on Tuesday.

OC Planning Directorate Maj.-Gen. Amir Eshel echoed leaders in Jerusalem who argue that a nuclear-armed Iran could create a “global nuclear jungle” and fuel arms races in an already volatile Middle East.
Eshel made clear that Israel worries that Syria and Hezbollah, as well as Hamas in the Gaza Strip, could one day find reassurance in an Iranian bomb.

“They will be more aggressive. They will dare to do things that right now they would not dare to do,” he said in a briefing to foreign journalists and diplomats.

“So this is going to create a dramatic change in Israel’s strategic posture, because if we are forced to do things in Gaza or Lebanon under an Iranian nuclear umbrella , it might be different.”

Eshel, who spoke at the conservative Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs think-tank, quoted an unnamed Indian officer who, he said, had described the Asian power’s friction with nuclear-armed rival and neighbor Pakistan in terms of self-restraint.

“When the other side has a nuclear capability and are willing to use it, you think twice,” Eshel said. “You are more restrained because you don’t want to get into that ball game.”

Eshel said there are now some 100,000 rockets and missiles that could be fired at Israel by terrorist groups, Iran and its ally Syria.

Despite seeing its resources strained by a 10-month-old popular uprising, Syria’s government has invested $2 billion in air defenses over the last two years, and more on counter-measures against any ground invasion, Eshel said, linking both efforts to Syrian wariness of Israel.

He declined to be drawn on whether Israel might try to attack Iran’s distant, dispersed and well-defended nuclear facilities alone – or, conversely, whether it could decide to accept a nuclear-armed Iran as an inevitability to be contained through superior firepower and fortifications.

Those decisions, Eshel said, were up to the government and the armed forces would provide it with a “tool box” of options.

“We have the ability to hit very, very hard, any adversary,” said Eshel, a former senior air force officer and fighter pilot. But he cautioned against expecting any decisive “knock-out” blow against Israel’s enemies.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 17, 2012, 12:36 PM (GMT+02:00)

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu

debkafile‘s sources disclose exclusively that, contrary to recent reports published in Washington, Jerusalem – and this site too – it was Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, not the Obama administration, who decided to call off the biggest ever joint US-Israeli military exercise Austere Challenge 12 scheduled for April 2012.
Washington was taken aback by the decision. It was perceived as a mark of Israel’s disapproval for the administration’s apparent hesitancy in going through with the only tough sanctions with any chance of working against Iran’s nuclear weapon program: penalizing its central bank and blocking payments for its petroleum exports.
This was the first time Israel had ever postponed a joint military exercise; it generated a seismic moment in relations between the US and Israel at a time when Iran has never been so close to producing a nuclear weapon.

This week, Netanyahu further orchestrated a series of uncharacteristically critical statements by senior ministers: Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon called the Obama administration “hesitant” (Jan. 15), after which Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman urged the Americans to “move from words to deeds” (Jan 16).
The underlying message was that the Israeli government felt free to attack Iran’s nuclear sites on its own if necessary and at a time of its choosing.
debkafile‘s sources report that Netanyahu decided on this extreme course after careful consideration when he judged the Obama administration’s resolve to preempt a nuclear Iran to be flagging, as indicated by four omissions:

1. Washington has taken no action against Iran’s capture of the RQ-170 stealth drone on Dec. 4 more than a month after the event, and not even pressed President Obama’s demand of Dec. 12 for the drone’s return.
Tehran, for its part, continues to make hay from the event: This week, our Iranian sources report, the Islamic Republic circulated a new computer game called “Down the RQ-170.”  Players assemble the drone from the components shown on their screens and then launch it for attacks on America.

2.  Silence from Washington also greeted the start of 20-percent grade uranium enrichment at the underground Fordo facility near Qom when it was announced Jan. 9. Last November, Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned in two US TV interviews (Nov. 17 and 22) that as soon as the Fordo facility went on stream, Iran would start whisking the rest of its nuclear facilities into underground bunkers, out of reach and sight of US and Israeli surveillance.
Barak made it clear at the time that Israel could not live with this development; therefore, the Netanyahu government believes Israel’s credibility is now at stake.
3.  Exactly three weeks ago, on Jan. 3 Lt. Gen. Ataollah Salehi, Iran’s Army chief, announced that the aircraft carrier USS Stennis and other “enemy ships” would henceforth be barred from entering the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz . Yet since then, no US carrier has put this threat to the test by attempting a crossing. Tehran has been left to crow.
4.  Even after approving sanctions on Iran’s central bank and energy industry, the White House announced they would be introduced in stages in the course of the year. According to Israeli’s calculus, another six months free of stiff penalties will give Iran respite for bringing its nuclear weapon program to a dangerous and irreversible level.

Trying to make the cosmos out of nothing – 11 January 2012 – New Scientist.

This must be a good review.  He likes Kraus and loathes Dawkins!

____________________________________

A Universe From Nothing: Why there is something rather than nothing by Lawrence Krauss is excellent guide to cutting-edge physics; less good on theology

Editorial: “The Genesis problem“

IN 1996, Lawrence Krauss visited the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. During his time there he gave a talk on his latest idea – that empty space might contain energy. Afterwards, Krauss recalls, a young physicist came up to him and said, “We will prove you wrong!”

That young physicist was Saul Perlmutter, who last month picked up a Nobel prize – not for proving Krauss wrong, as it turns out, but for proving him right. As part of the team who showed that the universe is expanding ever faster, Perlmutter had defeated his own instincts and confirmed Krauss’s hunch that “nothing” is not quite what it seems.

As Krauss elegantly argues in A Universe From Nothing, the accelerating expansion, indeed the whole existence of the cosmos, is most likely powered by “nothing”. Krauss is an exemplary interpreter of tough science, and the central part of the book, where he discusses what we know about the history of the universe – and how we know it – is perfectly judged. It is detailed but lucid, thorough but not stodgy.

It is remarkable to think that, a century ago, quantum theory was barely formed, general relativity was a work in progress and only a few scientists believed there was a beginning to the universe. We have come a long, long way since then by developing scientific tools that have proved themselves both reliable and remarkably fruitful. As Krauss’s insightful book shows, these days we really can talk with scientific rigour about the history and even the prehistoric origins of our universe.

Yet despite its clear strengths, A Universe From Nothing is not quite, as Richard Dawkins hopefully declares in the afterword, a “knockout blow” for the idea that a deity must have kicked the universe into being.

Krauss does want to deliver that blow: towards the end of the book, he promises that we really can have something from nothing – “even the laws of physics may not be necessary or required”. Ultimately, though, he has to perform a little sleight of hand. Space and time can indeed come from nothing; nothing, as Krauss explains beautifully, being an extremely unstable state from which the production of “something” is pretty much inevitable.

However, the laws of physics can’t be conjured from nothing. In the end, the best answer is that they arise from our existence within a multiverse, where all the universes have their own laws – ours being just so for no particular reason.

Krauss contends that the multiverse makes the question of what determined our laws of nature “less significant”. Truthfully, it just puts the question beyond science – for now, at least. That (together with the frustratingly opaque origins of a multiverse) means Krauss can’t quite knock out those who think there must ultimately be a prime mover. Not that this matters too much: the juvenile asides that litter the first third of the book (for example, “I am tempted to retort here that theologians are expert at nothing”) mean that, by the time we get to the fascinating core of his argument, Krauss will be preaching only to the converted.

That said, we should be happy to be preached to so intelligently. The same can’t be said about the Dawkins afterword, which is both superfluous and silly. A Universe From Nothing is a great book: readable, informative and topical. Inexplicably, though, Dawkins compares it to On the Origin of Species, and suggests it might be cosmology’s “deadliest blow to supernaturalism”. That leaves the reader with the entirely wrong sense of having just ingested a polemic, rather than an excellent guide to the cutting edge of physics. Krauss doesn’t need Dawkins; a writer this good can speak for himself.

Michael Brooks is the author of Free Radicals: The secret anarchy of science (Profile, 2011)

Iran closer to bomb than world realizes?.

Warning: 1-year prediction may be too optimistic

A report that Iran is about a year away from having the capability to build a nuclear bomb may be too optimistic, contended John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

“I worry the publicly available information is giving only a very small picture and that Iran is actually even much further along,” Bolton said today in a radio interview.

Bolton was on “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” on New York’s WABC Radio. The former ambassador was asked about a statement from a former head of U.N. nuclear inspections claiming Iran is now just a year or so away from having enough enriched uranium to assemble a nuclear bomb.

Olli Heinonen wrote in an article published earlier this week that Iran made this advancement after switching production of its higher-grade enriched uranium to a new, underground site.

Reacting to the one-year timeline, Bolton stated, “I think it can be even less than that.”

The interview can be listened to at the Klein Online website.

Continued Bolton: “They’ve got, by publicly available information from the International Atomic Energy Agency, enough low-enriched uranium that if enriched up to weapons grade would be enough for four weapons.”

“So they’ve got more work to do, but they are already well on their way,” he said.

Bolton told Klein that 2012 will be a key year to stop Iran’s nuclear program.

“Even Secretary of Defense Panetta said last month that Iran could have a nuclear device within a year,” Bolton argued. “So they are very close, and obviously if they stepped up their efforts and worked harder, they may well be able to do it before then.

“So this is a clear and present danger,” he continued, “and I think it’s one of the reasons why you see the tension now in the region and why 2012 is going to be such an important year.”

In his article last week, Heinonen, who was the IAEA’s director-general until 2010, said that building a stock of 250 kg of 20-percent enriched uranium did not mean Iran could deploy a bomb without further engineering work.

Still, he allowed that 20-percent enriched uranium could within weeks be further purified to the 90-percent necessary for weapons grade.

Netanyahu deputy disappointed with Obama on Iran | Reuters.

(Reuters) – A senior Israeli official voiced disappointment in the Obama administration on Sunday, saying “election-year considerations” lay behind its caution over tough Iran sanctions sought by U.S. legislators.

While Washington has been talking tougher about Iran’s nuclear work and threat to block oil export routes out of the Gulf if hit with harsher sanctions, new U.S. measures adopted on December 31 gave President Barak Obama leeway on the scope of penalties on the Iranian central bank and oil exports.

Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s vice prime minister, contrasted the administration’s posture to that of France and Britain, which he said “are taking a very firm stand and understand sanctions must be imposed immediately.”

“In the United States, the Senate passed a resolution, by a majority of 100-to-one, to impose these sanctions, and in the U.S. administration there is hesitation for fear of oil prices rising this year, out of election-year considerations,” Yaalon told Israel Radio.

“In that regard, this is certainly a disappointment, for now.”

The Democratic president says he is determined to deny Tehran — which insists its nuclear programme is for peaceful needs only — the means to develop an atom bomb. His aides cast their sanctions strategy as a bid to work collaboratively with foreign powers and win over states that import Iranian oil without triggering price-boosting shocks to energy markets.

MIXED MESSAGES

The remarks by Yaalon, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, appeared to jar with praise centrist Defence Minister Ehud Barak offered last month for what he described as Obama’s resolve against Iran.

Running for re-election in the face of Republicans who hold sway over big pro-Israel constituencies, Obama has sought to burnish his credentials as a friend of the Jewish state despite having frosty relations with Netanyahu.

In a phone conversation with the prime minister on Thursday, Obama “reiterated his unshakable commitment to Israel’s security,” the White House said. Both sides said the leaders’ discussion dealt with Iran and Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

Reputed to have the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal, Israel sees the makings of a mortal threat in Iran’s uranium enrichment and missile projects, and has threatened to resort to force if it deems diplomatic isolation of its foe a dead end.

The prospect of Israel worsening regional instability with a unilateral strike has stirred worry in war-weary Washington.

Obama’s top military adviser, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey, was due to make his first visit to Israel on Thursday.

Israeli media predicted Dempsey would seek to persuade his hosts not to “surprise” the United States on Iran. The U.S. embassy had no immediate information about the visit’s agenda.

Yaalon, himself a former top armed forces commander, said Israel should not “leap forward” to attack Iran.

“But Israel has to be ready to defend itself,” he said. “Let’s hope we do not arrive at that moment.”

Netanyahu sounded sanguine last week about the efficacy of big-power pressure on Iran, telling an Australian newspaper: “For the first time I see Iran wobble … under the sanctions that have been adopted and especially under the threat of strong sanctions on their central bank.”

(Editing by Mark Heinrich)