WarSclerotic

‘Car bomb kills nuclear scientis… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

    A university professor and department head of a uranium enrichment facility was killed by a bomb placed on his car by a motorcyclist in Tehran on Wednesday, Iranian media reported, in an incident that looked similar to attacks on nuclear scientists in the city more than one year ago.

The semi-official FARS news agency cited witnesses as saying a motorcyclist stuck a bomb on the side of the car which then exploded, killing one and injuring two people inside. Witnesses told Reuters one other pedestrian was killed in the bombing. FARS identified the victim as Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan. State-run Press TV said he was a university professor.

According to the FARS report, Roshan, 32, was a graduate of an “oil industry university,” and headed a department at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in the Isfahan province in central Iran.

A local official likened the attack to previous ones against Iranian scientists, and implicated Israel in the bombing.

“The bomb was a magnetic one and the same as the ones previously used for the assassination of the scientists, and is the work of the Zionists (Israelis)” FARS quoted Deputy Governor Safarali Baratloo as saying.

Witnesses told Reuters they saw two people on the motorbike stick the bomb to the car. As well as the person killed in the car, a pedestrian was also killed by the blast. Another person in the car was gravely injured, they said.

In August 2011, an Iranian man pleaded guilty to the murder of a scientist that prosecutors said was an assassination ordered by Israel to halt Tehran’s race for nuclear technology.

Majid Jamali-Fashi, a man who looked in his mid-20s, appeared in court to confess the murder of Massoud Ali-Mohammadi in January 2010, the first of several attacks on scientists which Iran has blamed on foreign agents, state television said.

An Iranian physicist was shot dead by a motorcyclist in Tehran in July, one of four Iranian scientists to die in mysterious but violent circumstances since 2007. Iran’s student news agency ISNA quoted an unnamed police official as saying that man was a nuclear scientist.

ISNA named the scientist as Darioush Rezaie, 35, a university teacher who held a PhD in physics. It was not clear whether he was part of Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. Enriched uranium can be used for civilian nuclear purposes, but also to build atomic bombs.

The United States and Israel have both denied involvement in any of the deaths, despite both countries’ disapproval of Iranian nuclear ambitions, and threats to take action should Tehran refuse to cease nuclear development.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

(Too bad, so sad… – JW)

DEBKAfile Special Report January 11, 2012, 10:48 AM (GMT+02:00)

Prof. Ahmadi Roshan’s car

Forty-eight hours after Iran began advanced uranium enrichment in the fortified Fordo bunker near Qom, Prof. Mostapha Ahmadi-Roshan, deputy director of the first uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, was killed early Wednesday, Jan. 11 by a sticky bomb planted on his car by two motorcyclists exploding near the Sharif technological university in northern Tehran.
The pair made their escape. Prof. Ahmadi-Roshan was the fourth Iranian nuclear scientist to be mysteriously assassinated in Tehran. The same method of operation was used in a similar operation last year. Iran has blamed them all on Israel.

Tuesday, President Barack Obama received the Saudi foreign minister Saud al-Faisal. Their conversation was shrouded in secrecy. At the same time, US Navy and Air Force chiefs spoke forcefully about the approaching armed conflict over the Strait of Hormuz.
To be continued…

Iran, West Approaching ‘turning Point’ In 2012, Officials Warn | Fox News.

War games. Threats to close a key oil passageway and block a U.S. aircraft carrier from returning to the Persian Gulf. An American sentenced to death in Tehran, accused of spying. And now a breakthrough in Iran’s nuclear program.

The developments portend what officials see as a momentous year ahead in the standoff between Iran and the West, as Iranian leaders appear to grow bolder despite a new round of international sanctions which, by most accounts, is taking a toll.

“There won’t be taking an eye off the ball,” Adm. Jonathan Greenert, chief of naval operations at the Defense Department told reporters on Tuesday. Greenert spoke after the second rescue in less than a week of Iranians in trouble in Gulf waters. “If you ask me what keeps me awake at night, it is the Strait of Hormuz and the business that is going on in the Arabian Gulf.”

U.S. lawmakers and other officials say western nations, which already have been putting the screws to the regime in Tehran, must take additional steps in order to persuade the country not to go down the nuclear weapons path.

In a letter to the European Union released Tuesday, a group of bipartisan senators described 2012 as a “turning point in the confrontation between Iran and the international community.” They urged the organization to impose an oil embargo on Iran and follow the U.S. lead by sanctioning Iran’s Central Bank.

“We believe that both (steps) are absolutely necessary if we are to prevent the Iranian regime from acquiring nuclear weapons and thereby foreclose either a regional war or a cascade of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East,” reads the letter signed by Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn.; Mark Kirk, R-Ill.; Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and five others.

In New York, state senators on Monday passed legislation already approved by the state Assembly to prohibit state and local governments from doing business with companies that have more than $20 million in ties to Iran’s energy sector.

“The Senate’s swift action shows how important it is that we stand together to condemn tyrannical governments like Iran which sponsor terrorism, have attempted to acquire nuclear weapons and threaten U.S. allies like Israel, as Iran has repeatedly done,” Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos said on the Senate floor.

The move, which mirrors actions by Florida and California, comes after state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli announced $86 billion of the nearly $150 billion state pension fund has been divested from companies involved in Iran and Sudan.

The array of actions and latest warnings — particularly on the Republican presidential campaign trail — highlight the West’s effort to make tough choices on Iran, within a quickly narrowing window.

The latest alarm bell came Monday when the United Nations‘ nuclear agency confirmed that Iran had started to enrich uranium at its underground Fordo site. The level of enrichment being pursued is said to be 20 percent, far more than the 3.5 percent-level material being produced at Iran’s central enrichment site.

The State Department described the development as very bad news.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement Tuesday that the enrichment activity “demonstrates the Iranian regime’s blatant disregard for its responsibilities.”

She called on Iran to stop enriching uranium and return to international talks on its nuclear program, adding that the circumstances surrounding the Fordo site are “especially troubling.”

“There is no plausible justification for this production. Such enrichment brings Iran a significant step closer to having the capability to produce weapons-grade highly enriched uranium,” she said.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland also said a day earlier that, “When you enrich to 20 percent, there is no possible reason for that if you’re talking about a peaceful program.”

John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador the United Nations under the Bush administration, said that if there is a strike, Israel is the most likely candidate to carry it out. But he said Israel risks a “nuclear response” in the event the country waits too long to launch one.

“Every day that goes by means that the military option gets less and less likely,” Bolton told Fox News.

Reflecting the views of the senators who wrote to the European Union, Bolton said a nuclear Iran would trigger a nuclear race in the volatile Middle East among Iran’s powerful neighbors.

“I think it’s a very dangerous period. I think Iran is drawing close to the point where it will have a nuclear weapons capability,” Bolton said.

On Tuesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said the U.S. is consulting with countries like India and China on ways to keep the pressure up — after both nations committed to stronger partnerships with Iran’s oil sector.

In the meantime, Carney said, “We have effectively isolated Iran to a degree that has never before been the case. And the impact of the sanctions and the efforts that we’ve implemented is profound.

He added that while the military option isn’t off the table, the U.S. is focused on “diplomatic, economic and other non-military actions that we can take to bring about the results that we and many, many countries around the world — our international partners and allies — are demanding.”

Israel has not betrayed its plans, though the country’s military chief of staff Benny Gantz said Tuesday that 2012 “will be a critical year” on the Iranian nuclear front, according to The Jerusalem Post.

The Institute for National Security Studies, an Israeli think tank, also claimed that Israel could still attack Iran even after an Iranian nuclear test.

“The Israeli military option is likely to be a significant lever,” the group said in a report on a simulation it conducted regarding the possible responses to such a test.

The United States has not publicly signaled a shift away from the international sanctions route. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, speaking Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” said that while no option is off the table, the “responsible” path is “to keep putting diplomatic and economic pressure on them,” so they don’t pursue a nuclear weapon. He said it’s important for the international community, “including Israel,” to work together.

Panetta, who said last month that Iran could develop a weapon in 2012, claimed Sunday that Iran is not currently trying to develop one.

“But we know that they’re trying to develop a nuclear capability. And that’s what concerns us,” he said. “And our red line to Iran is do not develop a nuclear weapon. That’s a red line for us.”

Panetta said “they’re going to get stopped” if they pursue a weapon.

Other U.S. lawmakers have pressed the Obama administration to do more. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement Monday that she is “deeply troubled by the sense of complacency that seems to describe the administration’s view of Iran as undecided about whether to pursue nuclear weapons.”

She said an Iran with “nuclear breakout capability” should be treated like an Iran with a nuclear weapon, and noted that Iran is making inroads into Latin America to directly threaten U.S. security.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said in a statement to FoxNews.com that “it seems apparent that Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon in the face of international condemnation and sanctions.”

“While we may not yet be at risk of nuclear retaliation from Iran, the longer we wait to act, the harder it would be to destroy an Iranian nuclear arms program while keeping civilian casualties and environmental damage to a minimum,” King said.

King late last year called — to no avail — for the United Nations to expel Iran’s diplomatic officials from the U.N. mission in New York. That was after Iranian officials were tied to an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S.

The Republican presidential candidates meanwhile have increasingly warned about the dangers of a nuclear Iran on the campaign trail. Anti-war Rep. Ron Paul, though, has likened the rhetoric to that which poured out of Washington before the 2003 Iraq invasion.

The Case for Military Action Against Iran | Terrorism Right Side News.

Iran’s 30-year war against the United States may be reaching its decisive moment. Signs of the worsening crisis abound. Iran just announced it has begun enriching uranium at the Fordo underground nuclear site, a key step to producing more quickly fissile material for a nuclear warhead. As Europe moves closer to embargoing Iranian oil, deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guard Ali Ashraf Nouri threatens, “ If enemies block the export of our oil, we won’t allow a drop of oil to pass through the Strait of Hormuz,” through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil passes. In support of this threat, the regime continues to stage war games in the area and to warn American warships from passing through the strait into the Persian Gulf. Meanwhile the U.S. and Israel have announced a joint missile defense exercise, as Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits America’s enemies in Latin America, bearding the U.S. lion in its own hemisphere of influence.

Iran may be just indulging bluster and bluff. Perhaps the mullahs recall the severe punishment inflicted on its navy in 1988 during the Tanker War, an earlier attempt to disrupt oil shipments transiting the Persian Gulf. That effort ended when Ronald Reagan retaliated for a missile attack on an American warship by eventually destroying two Iranian oil platforms, two Iranian ships, and six Iranian gunboats. Yet our current president has not shown as yet any of Ronald Reagan’s guts and nerve, and the mullahs may be calculating that the bluff will work.  

And why wouldn’t they? Iran has been killing Americans for 30 years with impunity, from the 241 military personnel killed in Beirut by a suicide bomber, to the hundreds more soldiers murdered in Iraq and Afghanistan by Iranian proxy terrorist outfits trained and armed by Tehran. Repeated rounds of sanctions, threats, U.N. Security Council resolutions, and deadlines for cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have been contemptuously ignored. Our citizens are arrested and held on trumped-up charges, our ally Israel is threatened with genocide, and incessant anti-American “Great Satan” rhetoric daily pours from Tehran. Just this week a former American Marine was condemned to death by an Iranian court for allegedly being a spy and a “mohareb,” or “fighter against God.” Yet Obama has answered this aggression against our security and interests with appeasing diplomatic “outreach” offered “without preconditions,” and pleas for “mutual respect” that the regime correctly interprets as a sign of weakness and failure of nerve.

Given that Iranian aggression has so far provoked appeasement and empty threats, the mullahs very well could believe that since they are the “best of nations,” as the Koran has it, in any conflict Allah will protect the Islamic Republic and render insignificant America’s overwhelming military superiority. After all, Muslims for centuries have believed in their superiority based on Allah’s special regard for them, as aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry noted in 1939: “Their [Muslims] pride was born of the illusion of their power. Allah renders a believer invincible.” The mullahs today will remember what the Ayatollah Khomeini said in 1980, after America’s ill-planned and half-hearted mission to rescue the embassy hostages was ignominiously thwarted by a sandstorm that caused two helicopters to crash and burn: “Those sand particles were divinely commissioned. . . . [President] Carter still has not comprehended what kind of people he is facing. . . . Our people is the people of blood and our school is the school of Jihad.”

Thirty years later, we still have not “comprehended” the nature of the Iranian enemy. We have continuously operated with a materialist calculus that ignores the spiritual motives that account for much of Iranian aggression. More depressing still, this is the same mistake the Carter administration made in 1979, when it ignored the religious roots of the Iranian Revolution, dismissed Khomeini as “nutty” and “a crazy man,” as Carter did, and assumed that the secular political parties and technical elites would eventually rule Iran and marginalize the mullahs, virulent Iranian hostility would wane, and “after a transition period common interests could provide a basis for future cooperation,” as an assistant to the Secretary of State reported. Similarly the West today has assumed that economic punishment, or the desire for “greater international integration,” as Obama put it, can change Iranian behavior. We still don’t believe what a member of the Revolutionary Council said a few months after the seizure of our embassy: “No individual, no official and no Muslim has the right to show forbearance or compromise toward an enemy who is not defeated and is not overthrown.”

We sophisticated modern materialists slight these religious motives, dismissing them as throwbacks to the Dark Ages, or cynical pretexts to camouflage the pursuit of the material goods we recognize, such as wealth and power. Because religion in the West has faded into a life-style choice or repository of comforting holiday rituals, we cannot fathom that for other creeds the spiritual world is a living reality in their lives. But even if those beliefs are mere ghosts, they still drive behavior in the here-and-now. As Orwell wrote in 1941 of H.G. Wells, the celebrated champion of internationalism and scientific rationalism, “He was, and is, quite incapable of understanding that nationalism, religious bigotry and feudal loyalty are far more powerful forces than what he himself would describe as sanity. Creatures out of the Dark Ages have come marching into the present, and if they are ghosts they are at any rate ghosts which need a strong magic to lay them.”

The melancholy lesson of history is that force is the “strong magic” that compels fanatical believers to abandon their murderous ideologies or keep them within their own borders. Equivocating about the use of force, or pursuing non-lethal ways to change behavior, such as diplomatic negotiation or economic sanctions, only convinces the fanatic aggressor that he has the gods or history or destiny on his side, that his enemy is weak and lacks conviction, and that a few more blows will achieve the aggressor’s aims. Nor does it matter if the failure to retaliate actually reflects other concerns such as political expediency. There were many reasons Clinton withdrew our forces from Somalia in 1993 after the “Blackhawk Down” battle in which 18 U.S. servicemen were killed, but political self-interest and survival were clearly the most important. Yet to bin Laden, the retreat from Mogadishu was like the withdrawal from Vietnam and Beirut after the Marine barracks bombing: the result of America’s “low spiritual morale” and “cowardice and feebleness.” And that perception fed bin Laden’s certainty that the U.S. rested on “foundations of straw” and could be toppled with spectacular terrorist attacks.

Settling the conflict with Iran and keeping it from acquiring nuclear weapons, then, will in the end be achieved with mind-concentrating force that convinces the mullahs to change their ways. One place to start would be to destroy Iran’s navy and shore missile batteries in the Persian Gulf. Degrading the military assets, bases, and production facilities of the Iranian Republican Guard Corp and the paramilitary Basij might provide an opportunity for the dormant Green Revolutionaries to effect regime change. As Indiana University’s Jamsheed K. Choksy wrote in The Wall Street Journal, “Once the power of the Basij and the IRGC to enforce the regime’s will upon the people has been seriously compromised, it would not be surprising to see large segments of Iran’s population casting off the theocratic yoke.” A saner regime perhaps would be more amenable to abandoning the pursuit of nuclear weapons.

The time is fast running out on policies that refuse to accept the necessity of force in changing Iranian behavior. Military action obviously involves unknowable risks and costs; but allowing a rogue regime, one situated in the middle of a region that produces one-fifth of the world’s oil, to acquire nuclear weapons will likely end up subjecting our security and interests to much greater risks and much higher costs.

Philip Taubman: Examining Iranian And North Korean Nuclear Threats.

The nuclear weapons news of late has been alarming. David Sanger reported in “The New York Times” on January 9 that Iran’s top nuclear official had announced his country was near initiating uranium enrichment at a new plant. And the recent leadership change in North Korea means added uncertainty about one of the world’s most unpredictable nuclear weapons states. Both developments mean the danger is rising that nuclear weapons or the means to make them will spread in this year.

The ominous news brings to mind a comment that Robert M. Gates made a few years ago while working as President Obama’s Secretary of Defense. “If you were to ask most of the leaders of the last administration or the current administration what might keep them awake at night,” he told me, “it’s the prospect of a [nuclear] weapon or nuclear material falling into the hands of Al Qaeda or some other extremists.”

I was interviewing Gates for a book about nuclear threats. The book, “The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and Their Quest to Ban the Bomb,” [Harper, $29.99] examines the acute state of nuclear dangers today, including the spread of nuclear materials and technology to unstable nations like Pakistan, North Korea and Iran. If a terror group like Al Qaeda is ever going to get its hands on a nuclear weapon, or more likely the fissile material needed to make one, the source is likely to be one of those three nations. North Korea and Pakistan have a frightening history of exporting nuclear weapons technology. Iran may be next.

Despite the denials of Iranian leaders, Tehran seems well on the way to building its first nuclear weapon. Iran already has enough enriched uranium to make several warheads once the uranium is raised to a higher level of enrichment. The enrichment process can move very quickly from a low level to high, bomb-grade levels. Some upgrading of known Iranian enrichment facilities are required to get there, and these changes would be visible to the outside world. Still, Iran may well have hidden enrichment programs already cranking out highly enriched uranium. If it does move openly to higher enrichment, Israel and the United States will be tempted to attack Iran’s nuclear installations.

A simple but powerful nuclear weapon can be fabricated with just a small amount of highly enriched uranium. The hardest part of making a uranium bomb is producing highly enriched uranium, something that requires advanced, industrial-scale technologies beyond the reach of a terror group. But with just 60 pounds of highly enriched uranium, a small, savvy group of engineers with some basic laboratory equipment could construct a fission bomb in a garage. The bomb mechanism is so straightforward that the United States did not bother to test a uranium weapon before dropping one over Hiroshima in 1945. And it is not wildly improbable to imagine Iran giving highly enriched uranium to a terror group.

The continuation of the Kim dynasty in North Korea – now in its third generation with the recent installation of Kim Jong-un as the new supreme leader – does not augur well for more responsible behavior by North Korea. With its active nuclear weapons program, hunger for hard currency and record of selling nuclear weapons goods to Libya and Syria, North Korea is one of the most dangerous nations on earth.

While North Korea is unlikely to sell a nuclear weapon to a terror group, it could provide the materials and knowhow to make a crude but powerful bomb. The United States, for all its intelligence-gathering hardware like spy satellites, does not know a great deal about the North Korean program. Washington was surprised to learn in 2010 that North Korea had constructed a uranium enrichment plant outfitted with the latest centrifuge technology. News about the existence of the plant came from a group of American scholars who were shown the facility during a visit to the North Korean nuclear complex at Yongbyon.

The plant is not a problem if it is producing low enriched uranium to fuel a small, light water reactor. But the plant could be used to produce highly enriched uranium. The rapid construction of the plant – it was built in just 18 months – suggested that the North Koreans might have honed their techniques at another enrichment facility, as yet undetected by the United States.

I recently asked my Stanford colleague Sig Hecker, one of the scholars who visited the enrichment plant in 2010, to outline what to watch for in the North Korean weapons program in coming weeks to determine if the new leadership is planning any change in nuclear policy and/or operations. Sig served as director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory 1986-1997. He has been a frequent visitor to North Korea, one of the few Americans to get a first-hand look at the North Korean nuclear program.

His response:

I believe that there will be a period of quiet on the diplomatic front, both for mourning and to rethink strategy. Just before Kim Jong-il died, American and North Korean diplomats came close to an agreement of American food aid in return for some concessions on the nuclear program (some reports indicated that Pyongyang would stop enrichment – but I have yet to hear official confirmation from the United States – and we never may). What to look for is to see when North Korean diplomats are ready to re-engage with Americans in quiet bilateral talks, most likely in China.On the technical front – I would expect “normal operations” at Yongbyon. That means they will continue with the experimental light water reactor construction – although little will be seen from overheads because it is winter time. Much of the interior components will be fabricated in shops. I also expect them to continue with operations of the centrifuge enrichment facility – either to make more low enriched uranium for reactor fuel or to get the facility to operate fully (which it may not have been when we visited). Both of these operations will continue regardless of which way Pyongyang eventually decides to go with the nuclear program. I don’t see any reason why they would cut back on these operations now.

As for potential provocative actions – they could prepare for another nuclear test – but that is highly unlikely, if for no other reason than it is winter. Their tests occurred in October 2006 and May 2009. Nevertheless, the third test tunnel appears to have been dug some time ago (South Korean news reports and overhead imagery) and one should watch closely for activity at the test site (particularly come spring). We should also look for potential missile tests – the new launch site on the west coast should be watched for another potential long-range missile launch. (They have had three attempts from the old launch site in the east: 1998 over Japan, 2006 a complete failure, and 2009 two out of three stages worked.) They also have not flight-tested the Musudan road-mobile missile. (For a detailed assessment of North Korean nuclear developments in 2011 by Sig Hecker, Robert Carlin and Niko Milonopoulos, see their article in the latest edition of Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)

It would not surprise me if North Korea conducted another nuclear test in 2012. If Kim Jong-un is looking for a way to flex North Korean military power and remind his impoverished people that their nation matters to the rest of the world, detonating a nuclear weapon will do the trick.

Iran’s nuclear program will also likely generate news and international anxiety this year. Iranian threats to attack US naval vessels in the Persian Gulf may seem self-defeating, but a military confrontation between Iran and the United States is not out of the question.

There is no greater danger to American and global security than the spread of nuclear weapons and the means to make them.

TheSpec – Goal of Iran sanctions is regime collapse, U.S….

Clinton slams Iran nuclear move,… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

    WASHINGTON – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday Iran’s decision to enrich uranium near the city of Qom was “especially troubling” and urged Tehran to return to serious talks with Western powers over its atomic program.

“This step once again demonstrates the Iranian regime’s blatant disregard for its responsibilities and that the country’s growing isolation is self-inflicted,” Clinton said in a statement.

Clinton’s strongly worded comments repeated US concerns over Iran’s announcement that it had started enrichment at the underground Fordow bunker near Qom, which came amid rising tensions between Tehran and western powers.

Iran denies Western suspicions that its nuclear program has military goals, saying it is for purely peaceful purposes.

“The circumstances surrounding this latest action are especially troubling,” Clinton said.

“There is no plausible justification for this production. Such enrichment brings Iran a significant step closer to having the capability to produce weapons-grade highly enriched uranium.”

Clinton rejected Iran’s assertion that it needed to enrich uranium to produce fuel for a medical research reactor, saying Western powers had offered alternatives means of obtaining such fuel but their offers had been rejected by Tehran.

The United States imposed additional sanctions on Iran last month and the European Union is expected to agree on a ban on imports of Iranian crude oil later this month.

As sanctions squeeze, Iran has threatened to shut the Strait of Hormuz, the outlet for 40 percent of the world’s traded oil.

At the same time, it has called for fresh nuclear talks with the permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany, a group known as the “P5+1,” which have been stalled for a year.

Calling on Iran to immediately halt uranium enrichment, Clinton also urged Tehran to return to talks with the P5+1 “prepared to engage seriously on its nuclear program.”

“We reaffirm that our overall goal remains a comprehensive, negotiated solution,” Clinton said.

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the nonprofit Arms Control Association, welcomed Clinton’s fresh call for a negotiated solution.

“The United States and its ‘P5+1’ partners – China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United Kingdom – should continue to prepare for and more energetically pursue additional talks with Iran and continue to highlight constructive proposals they are prepared to discuss,” Kimball said in an emailed comment.

“A near-term goal should be to test Iran’s recent publicly stated offer to halt uranium enrichment to 20 percent levels if it could have access to fuel for its Tehran Research Reactor,” he added.

“A stockpile of 20 percent would allow Iran to shorten its time frame to produce weapons, if it chose to do so,” Kimball said. “We should not forgo any realistic opportunities to reduce that risk.”

Iran’s taunts to West amid nuclear tensions show state-of-siege direction by military – chicagotribune.com.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — In the high desert along Iran’s Afghan border this week, soldiers from the powerful Revolutionary Guard practiced ambush tactics in subzero temperatures. Next month, the Guard’s warships are expected to resume battle drills near Gulf shipping lanes that carry much of the world’s oil.

Iran looks like a country preparing for war. But Tehran’s leaders are already using whatever leverage they can muster — including military displays and threats to choke off Gulf oil tanker traffic — to counter international pressure against the Iranian nuclear program.

A month after Iran embarrassed Washington with the capture of a CIA spy drone, the messages from the Islamic Republic couldn’t be clearer or more taunting: Tehran could turn the hook-shaped Strait of Hormuz into a dead end for tankers and hold the world economy hostage as payback for tighter U.S.-led sanctions.

Despite Iran’s escalating tough talk, there are contradictions and complications that cast doubt on the likelihood of drastic military action by Tehran that could trigger a Gulf conflict. It also shows how much Iran’s foreign policies are now shaped by its military commanders as the country views itself in a virtual state of war with Western powers and their allies.

It appears to be part of the kind of seesaw brinksmanship that has become an Iranian hallmark: Pushing to the edge with the West and then retreating after weighing the reactions.

“Iran sees pressures coming from all sides and sanctions seem to be taking a major bite,” said Salman Shaikh, director of The Brookings Doha Center in Qatar. “Iran’s military is stepping up as the outside threats increase. This could well be the year that defines the direction of the Iran showdown.”

Iran has rolled out its troops and arsenals in an unprecedented display of military readiness. It wrapped up naval maneuvers earlier this month that included the first threats to block Gulf oil tankers. Ground forces also were sent on winter war games — against what a Tehran military spokesman called a “hypothetical enemy” — with U.S. forces just over the border in Afghanistan.

And the Revolutionary Guard — by far the strongest military force in Iran — said it will send its ships for more exercises in February near the Strait of Hormuz, which funnels down to a waterway no wider than 30 miles (50 kilometers) at the mouth of the Gulf. The U.S. and allies have told Iran that any attempts to blockade the strait would invite retaliation.

In response, Iran’s defense minister, Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, tried to shift the blame to the presence of Western forces in the region.

“The point is if anybody wants to jeopardize security of the Persian Gulf, then it will be jeopardized for all,” the website of state TV quoted Vahidi as saying Sunday.

For many Iranians, sanctions that could target Iran’s oil exports are disturbingly reminiscent of the U.N.-imposed limits on Iraq’s oil industry in the 1990s.

Mahmoud Shekari, the owner of a bookshop in the wealthy Tehran neighborhood of Vanak, sniffed: “If we cannot sell our oil, why should others be able to export?”

Ninia Eskandari, a 20-year-old music student, boasted that the “Strait of Hormuz is ours. … We can block it if others want to damage us.”

For the moment, it’s unlikely to reach that potentially explosive point, analysts said.

Iran naval forces are significantly outgunned by Western flotillas, including the U.S. 5th Fleet based in Bahrain that can draw on aircraft carriers and other warships in the Indian Ocean and taking part in anti-piracy patrols off the Horn of Africa. Britain is also deploying one of its biggest destroyers, HMS Daring, to the Gulf.

“Iran knows it cannot realistically close off the strait,” said Paul Rogers, who follows international defense affairs at Bradford University in Britain. “It can, however, try to keep Western forces guessing and on edge. They are good at doing that.”

Iran also knows that blocking oil flow in the Gulf would bring serious self-inflicted wounds. Iran counts on oil for about 80 percent of its foreign currency earnings. Any disruptions would immediately start draining Iran’s treasury and leave its main oil customers, including China, India and South Korea, scrambling for new suppliers. As Iranian affairs analyst Afshin Molavi quipped: Closing the strait for Iran would be “akin to a man purposely blocking a coronary artery.”

Iran’s increased military focus is also, in some ways, a reply to threats of possible pre-emptive strikes against its nuclear sites.

In November, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said his country will not “take any option off the table,” a clear reference to military action. Last week, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called for Israel to “work together” with Washington on emphasizing diplomatic and economic pressures on Iran.

The goal of the current showdown seems aimed at making the U.S. and Europe think twice about implementing tough new sanctions that take aim at Iran’s Central Bank and ability to make oil sales. Iran’s economy minister called it “economic war.”

Iran already portrays itself as locked in a battle of wits against alleged Western agents and plots.

On Monday, state television said a former U.S. Marine interpreter, Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, has been sentenced to death after being convicted of being a CIA spy. The Obama administration rejected the claims against Hekmati, an Iranian-American born in Arizona, and called the prosecution a political ploy.

Last month, Iran managed to capture a sophisticated CIA drone, known as RQ-170 Sentinel, and displayed the apparently intact aircraft on state TV alongside a banner that read “The U.S. cannot do a damn thing” — a quotation from Iran’s late supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Another banner depicted the American flag with skulls instead of stars.

Iran also has accused the U.S., Israel and their allies of waging cyberwarfare campaigns targeting nuclear facilities and being behind the killings of at least two Iranian scientists since 2010. Iran insists, however, that a Nov. 12 explosion at an ammunition depot that killed the top Revolutionary Guard missile commander and at least 20 others was an accident despite persistent speculation that it was sabotage.

“In this climate of feeling under siege, the Revolutionary Guard has found fertile ground to take control of policies and strategies,” said Theodore Karasik, a security expert at the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis. “How Iran deals with the sanctions and the West is now all dictated, in one way or another, by the military.”

It’s been taking shape for years. The Revolutionary Guard — whose network stretches from Iran’s missile programs to neighborhood militias — has always held a privileged role in policy-making as guardians of the cleric-led establishment. But the Guard’s sway was sharply expanded after it took charge of the crackdown on the opposition after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election in June 2009.

The Guard’s planned naval exercises next month near the Strait of Hormuz — following similar war games by the regular navy that began in December — are certain to reinforce the perception that Iran’s theocracy is increasingly comfortable with letting the military set the tone, said security analyst Karasik.

“The bigger questions now are: How far will the Revolutionary Guard go with the upcoming naval drills and other actions to challenge the U.S. and the West?” he said. “How far are they willing to go to push back against the Western pressures?”

Ehsan Ahrari, a political analyst and commentator based in northern Virginia, said Iran’s military is seen as the best option to “unite the country” as sanctions bite deeper and Washington seeks to turn up the heat on Tehran’s leadership.

“Iran and the United States are playing their games,” he said. “One is full of hubris and the other is full of pride and awful resentment.”

A cartoon in the Abu Dhabi-based newspaper The National shows Iran and the U.S. gesturing at each from respective lecterns. The microphones were drawn to represent matches.

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UN: Syria has accelerated killing since mo… JPost – Middle East.

    UNITED NATIONS – A senior UN official told the Security Council on Tuesday that Syria accelerated its killing of pro-democracy demonstrators after Arab League monitors arrived, US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said.

“The under-secretary-general noted that in the days since the Arab League monitoring mission has been on the ground, in fact an estimated 400 additional people have been killed, an average of 40 a day, a rate much higher than was the case even before their deployment,” Rice told reporters.
Rice was speaking after Lynn Pascoe, the UN under-secretary-general for political affairs, briefed the 15-nation Security Council behind closed doors on Syria and other major crises. She said the figure did not include the more than two dozen people killed in a suicide bombing in Damascus last week.

“That is a clear indication that the government of Syria, rather than using the opportunity … to end the violence and fulfill all of its commitments (to the Arab League), is instead stepping up the violence,” she said.

Earlier on Tuesday Syrian President Bashar Assad vowed to strike “terrorists” with an iron fist and derided Arab League efforts to halt violence in a 10-month-old revolt against his rule.

The Arab League recently deployed monitors to check Syria’s compliance with an Arab peace plan after suspending it from the 22-member body in November.

Rice reiterated Washington’s view that it was time for Assad to “step aside and yield to the wishes of the Syrian people for a government that reflects the will of the people.”

The US envoy also criticized Russia, which, together with China, vetoed a European-drafted UN Security Council resolution in October that would have condemned Syria’s crackdown that the United Nations says has killed at least 5,000 people and threatened Assad’s government with sanctions.

Rice said Russia, which last month circulated a draft resolution on Syria that Washington and its European allies had hoped to begin negotiations on, has yet to produce a revised text.

“We think it’s long past time that the council passes a strong resolution that supports the Arab League (and) all the elements of the Arab League resolution, including its call for sanctions,” she said.

“Unfortunately after a bit of a show last month of tabling a resolution, the Russians inexplicably have been more or less AWOL (absent without leave) in terms of leading negotiations on the text of that resolution,” Rice said.

She added that Washington was “deeply concerned” by reports that two Kuwaiti Arab League monitors “were roughed up, harmed, harassed, hurt in the context of their work.”

Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari rejected Rice’s allegations, saying the violence in the country was caused by “terrorists” and “armed groups” that were receiving support from foreign countries.

Thousands Of USTroops To Arrive In Israel This Week – International Middle East Media Center.

Accompanied by a US aircraft carrier, 9,000 US troops including airmen, missile interceptor teams, marines, technicians and intelligence officers are scheduled to land in Israel in the coming weeks. Many will stay up to the end of the year as part of the US-Israeli Army deployment in readiness for a military engagement with Iran, aiming at a synchronized military front against Iran.

image by hasbarafellowships.org

US Third Air Force Lt. Gen. Frank Gorenc commented in his visit two weeks ago that the coming action is more a “deployment” than an “exercise,”. The joint force will now be in place ready for a decision to attack Iran’s nuclear installations or any combat emergency.

After Tehran had released a bulletin about another Iranian naval exercise at the Strait of Hormuz in February, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the two army chiefs, US Gen. Martin Dempsey and Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz decided to announce the coming of the force on Thursday night, Jan. 5.

During his visit to Washington, British Defense Minister, Phillip Hammond, confirmed that Britain stands ready to strike Iran if the Strait of Hormuz is closed.

Tehran stage military’s maneuvers every few days to assure the Iranians that it is prepared to defend the country against an American or Israeli strike on its national nuclear program.

The joint US-Israeli drill is going to test several Israeli and US air defense systems against incoming missiles will also practice intercepting missiles and rockets coming in from Syria, Hezbollah Party in Lebanon, and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.