WarSclerotic

Iran cuts off Internet access | Politics, Policy, and Technology – CNET News.

Iran has cut off access to the Internet, leaving millions of people without access to e-mail and social networks.

An individual inside the country confirmed this morning that Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo email are no longer available. Ditto for Facebook. So far, the government has not made any announcement about the service interruption.

But cyber-sophisticated Iranians are still able to circumvent the government by using proxy servers over VPN connections.

“The interesting thing is that when asked, they deny the fact that all these services are all blocked,” an Iranian contacted by CNET said. This individual asked to remain unidentified.

However, the Iranian noted that the regime has cut off the Internet during protests and that the buzz on the streets is that anti-government protests are planned for Saturday. February 11 marks the anniversary of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution.

Last month the country’s information minister told the Islamic Republic News Agency that a firewalled national Internet would soon become operational. There was no word on when the government might plan to throw the switch on what essentially would be a vast “intranet,” but it could happen any day. And that prospect has cyber activists in Iran concerned. It would give the government a hand up in its cyber cat-and-mouse battle with opponents.

Right now, if Iran now blocks proxy servers and VPN connections for more than a few days, companies with branches or headquarters in the country are cut off from communicating with fellow employees around the world other than by telephone. That forces the government to open the spigot for everyone. Once the new network goes into effect, ordinary Iranians would wake up to a more censored Internet.

“I don’t know the the infrastructure that they will use but I don’t think we have a way out of that one,” said the Iranian person. “We are getting closer and closer to North Korea.”

15,000 elite Iranian special-ops ‘head’ to Syria — RT.

AFP Photo / Fars News / Str

The regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria is expecting up to 15,000 Iranian troops to help maintain order in the country’s provinces, a Chinese newspaper reports. Iran has yet to confirm or deny the news.

According to the central Chinese daily Renmin Ribao, the Iranian special task troops are due to be deployed in Syria’s key provinces.

The Syrian opposition announced earlier that commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force, Qassem Suleimani, advises the Syrian authorities on quashing the country’s opposition movement, the Telegraph newspaper reports.

According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, the Quds Force includes 15,000 elite soldiers, who operated in Iraq and other wars on foreign soil. The Quds is reportedly in charge of training and funding Hezbollah.

The number of advisers and troops from the Quds in Syria could reach up to high hundreds or low thousands, the Telegraph reports. The newspaper said that they have set up at least one military base near the capital Damascus.

Official Tehran has neither confirmed nor refuted the news of its military participation in Syria. However, according to the head of the country’s state news agency Mehr, it is not in Iran’s plans to send any military contingent to the country.

“As far as I know there is not and will not be any program to dispatch Iranian military troops to Syria,” Reza Moghadasi told in his interview to Voice of Russia radio station.

Seyed Mohammad Marandi from the University of Tehran, speaking to RT regarding the troops, dismissed the news as “basically Western propaganda” and attributed the claims to erroneous information received by the Chinese media.

“Iran has no troops in the country. Iran has never had troops involved in the problems within Syria.”

“Someone in the Chinese media has been receiving information that is completely false,” said Marandi.

He went on to say that the Iranian government supports Assad al-Bashar’s regime, but at the same time emphasized the fact that foreign intervention goes against Iranian policy.

“Iran’s position is based on a moral principal and that is the non-interference of hegemonic powers and the non-interference of neighboring countries in Syrian affairs,” he concluded.

Israeli website debka.com announced earlier that the UK and Qatari forces are involved with the conflict in Syria, directing tactics of the opposition forces in the bloody battle for Homs. According to the website, the presence of the foreign troops topped the agenda of talks Russia’s foreign intelligence chief Fradkov and Foreign Minister Lavrov held with Assad’s officials on Tuesday.

Syrian tanks and troops reportedly massed outside Homs on Friday. A large offensive is expected to hit the city and its neighborhood in the nearest future.

Up to 110 people have reportedly been killed in Homs on Thursday. As of yet, it is impossible to verify the number of casualties.

Konstantin Kosachev, the deputy chairman of the State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee commented that US intervention in Damascus was a precursor to regime change in Iran. He said that after the Syrian government is “forcefully removed” he expected “something similar will start happening in Iran.”

“This is not about democracy in Syria. This is not about any internal developments in this country. This is about Syrian foreign policy because Syria is considered and is, in reality, one of the closest allies of certain countries in the region.” said Kosachev.

He underlined the West’s ulterior motives in supporting a regime change in Syria and the removal of President Bashar al- Assad.

“This is a global game; this is about geo-political and geo-economic interests and unfortunately countries like Syria are being held hostage for the geo-political and geo-economic interests of Western countries.”

Syria says suicide bo mbers kill 28 in attacks on security HQs in Aleppo – The Washington Post.

By Associated Press, Updated: Friday, February 10, 7:27 PM

ALEPPO, Syria — Two suicide car bombers struck Syrian security compounds in Aleppo on Friday, killing 28 people, Syrian officials said, bringing significant violence for the first time to a major city that has largely stood by President Bashar Assad in the 11-month-old uprising against his rule.

State media touted the blasts as proof that the regime faces a campaign by terrorists, not a popular uprising against Assad’s rule. The opposition, in turn, accused the regime of trying to smear its movement as government forces try to crush rebels in one of their main strongholds, Homs.

The military, meanwhile, stepped up its siege of Homs that has reportedly killed hundreds over the past week. Soldiers who have been bombarding the central city made their first ground move, storming into one of the most restive neighborhoods.

At the same time, troops and security forces opened fire on anti-regime protesters who streamed out of mosques after Friday prayers nationwide. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 27 civilians were killed.

The morning blasts in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s most populous, ripped apart the facades of the local headquarters of the Military Intelligence Directorate and a barracks of the Security Preservation forces in another part of the city.

At the Directorate, windows were shattered and a large crater was torn into the pavement outside the entrance. A weeping correspondent on state-run TV showed graphic footage of at least five corpses, collected in sacks and under blankets by the side of the road.

At both sites, suicide bombers in explosives-packed vehicles tried to smash into the entrances, security officials said. At the barracks, the Security Preservation forces commander Brig. Firas Abbas told an Associated Press reporter on a government-guided visit to the scene that the vehicle made it through one roadblock before detonating near the gates.

State television cited the Health Ministry as saying 28 people were killed in the two blasts and 235 wounded, including civilians and military personnel. It didn’t give a breakdown of the individual casualty toll for each blast.

State TV blamed “terrorists.” Anti-Assad activists accused the regime of setting off Friday’s blasts to discredit the opposition and avert protests that had been planned in the city on Friday.

Capt. Ammar al-Wawi of the Free Syrian Army, a rebel group that wants to bring down the regime by force, denied involvement. He said fighters from his group had a short gunbattle with troops several hundred yards (meters) from the Directorate about an hour before the explosion but they did not carry out the bombings.

“This explosion is the work of the regime to divert world attention from the crimes it is committing against the people of Homs,” he said.

The blasts were the fourth such dramatic suicide attack since late December. All occurred on Friday mornings against various security headquarters and prompted the same exchange of accusations. The earlier attacks, in the capital Damascus, killed dozens of security forces and civilians, according to Syrian officials. Nobody has claimed responsibility for any of the attacks.

Friday’s bombings were the first significant violence in Aleppo, a city of some 2 million people that is home to a prosperous business community and merchant classes whose continued backing for Assad has been crucial in bolstering his regime.

The city has seen only occasional protests. Assad’s opponents have had little success in galvanizing support there, in part because business leaders have long traded political freedoms for economic privileges. Also, the city has a large population of Kurds, who have mostly stayed on the sidelines of the uprising since Assad’s regime began giving them long-denied citizenship as a gesture to win support.

Still, hours after the explosions, hundreds of protesters marched in several Aleppo neighborhoods after Friday prayers, part of nationwide demonstrations labeled “Friday of ‘Russia is killing our children’” — denouncing Russia’s veto last weekend of a U.N. attempt to condemn Syria’s crackdown.

Regime forces opened fire on the Aleppo protesters, killing at least seven, according to the Observatory. Another activist group, the Local Coordination Committee put the Aleppo toll at 12 and said 22 others had been killed nationwide. The figures could not be independently confirmed, in part due to restrictions the Syrian government has put on journalists.

Assad’s crackdown has killed well over 5,400 people since the uprising began in March, according to U.N. estimates.

The regime’s crackdown on dissent has left it almost completely isolated internationally — except for key support from Russia and China, which delivered a double veto last Saturday to block a U.N. resolution calling on him to leave power.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov signaled Friday that Moscow will again use its veto power at the United Nations to block any resolution aimed at ousting Assad.

“If our foreign partners don’t understand that, we will have to use strong means again and again to call them back to reality,” he was quoted as saying by the ITAR-Tass news agency.

Moscow’s stance is motivated in part by its strategic and defense ties, including weapons sales, with Syria. Russia also rejects what it sees as a world order dominated by the U.S. Last month, Russia reportedly signed a $550 million deal to sell combat jets to Syria.

Across Syria on Friday, thousands held protests denouncing the Russian position, from the northwestern province of Idlib, to the suburbs of Damascus, the Mediterranean coastal city of Latakia and the eastern town of Deir al-Zour.

A week ago, security forces launched a major assault on the central city of Homs after unconfirmed reports that army defectors and other armed opponents of Assad were setting up their own checkpoints and taking control of the most restive neighborhoods.

Days of bombardment of the neighborhoods with artillery, heavy machine guns and mortars continued on Friday, as troops on the ground backed by tanks for the first time pushed into one of the districts, Inshaat, activists said.

The Observatory said troops were going house to house detaining people. Inshaat is next to Baba Amr, a neighborhood that has been under rebel control for months.

“They are punishing the residents,” said the Observatory’s chief Rami Abdul-Rahman, who added that food supplies were dwindling in the area.

Mohammed Saleh, a Syria-based activist, said the regime appears to be trying to take over rebel-held areas in Homs and Idlib before Feb. 17, when Assad’s ruling Baath party is scheduled to hold its first general conference since 2005.

The conference is expected to move on reforms that Assad has promised in a bid to calm the uprising. During the conference, Baath party leaders are expected to call for national dialogue and announce they will open the way for other political parties to play a bigger role in Syria’s politics.

The opposition has rejected such promises as insincere and said it will not accept anything less than Assad’s departure.

Breaking.Twin explosions hit Syria’s Aleppo leaves 30 dead, 195 wounded.

Twin explosions rocked security installations in the Syria city of Aleppo, Syrian TV reported on Friday leaving many people dead and wounded on the scene.

According to press reports the blasts targeted the regime’s security forces. The Syrian news agency Sana reported that “terrorist attacks” hit a building of the military intelligence and a police brigade headquarters. Unofficial reports spoke about 30 dead and 195 wounded . According to reports, among the casualties are civilians and military personnel.

The background of the recent explosions is unclear. In the past similar cases, the regime accused “terrorists” of being behind the blasts. Opponents of President Bashar al-Assad claim the regime is responsible for the attacks. Some sources said residents have witnessed “suspicious behavior” ahead of one of the blasts. They added that government troops after the detonations fired several shots in order to give the impression that there had been a skirmish between them and the terrorists.

The northern Syrian city of Aleppo is considered the commercial center of the country. So far, it remained relatively quiet.

Meanwhile, more than 135 civilians were killed Thursday by the regime forces, most of them in the city of Homs. Syrian troops pounded Homs on Thursday, the sixth day of a massive assault intended to bend the rebellious city. From Saturday to Wednesday evening, more than 400 civilians were killed, according to opposition sources. In addition, seven members of the security forces were killed and 12 wounded in an ambush by deserters on the road between Deraa (south) and Damascus.

Elsewhere, troops have been conducting operations in other towns such as in Deir ez-Zor, Zabadani, Madaya (40 kilometers north of Damascus) and Idleb (northwest).

According to opposition activists, several hundred people were killed in the past week in Homs, a city located in the center of the country. The Syrian authorities claim security forces are fighting “armed terrorist groups” in the city.

Moreover, Germany has ordered the expulsion of four Syrian diplomats from its territory. The German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said the four members of the Syrian embassy now have three days to leave Germany. The case is related to the Syrian regime’s activities against opposition activists who live in Germany.

The four diplomats are three men and one woman who were employed at the Syrian embassy. Westerwelle mentioned that earlier this week, two Syrian spies were detained in Germany.

At the same time, Libya has given Syria’s top envoy and embassy staff 72 hours to leave the country.

UPDATE

SANA: Syrian Ministry of Health said bodies of 30 martyrs and more than 200 injured people were admitted to the national hospital of Aleppo.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report February 10, 2012, 7:29 PM (GMT+02:00)

Israel’s new Super Green Pine radar

A successful joint exercise carried out Friday, Feb. 10, demonstrated the interoperability of the US Aegis and Israel’s Arrow 4 ballistic missile defense systems and, most importantly, of their two radars, the US AN/TPY-2 X-band and Israel’s EL/M-2080 Super Green Pine, debkafile‘s military sources report.

It was a key milestone in the development of the US missile shield’s Middle East capabilities ahead of a potential war with Iran and the fourth significant preparatory step taken in the last ten days.

On the East Coast of the United States, the large-scale Bold Alligator 2012 exercise is drilling amphibian landings on a fictitious Iranian shore; in the Middle East, an American airlift this week ferried reinforcements to the Persian Gulf over Sinai; the Iranian army is in the middle of a major war game “under war conditions” opposite the Strait of Hormuz; and Israel is putting the finishing touches to its new Depth Command set up for operations behind enemy lines.

The joint US-Israel radar exercise Friday was a target-only tracking test over the Mediterranean. An attack on Israel was simulated by a Rafael Blue Sparrow 2 target missile launched from an F-15 fighter jet coming in from the east – the presumed direction of Iranian and Syrian missile strikes. The incoming missile was detected and tracked by two US AN/TPY-2 X-band stations and Israel’s Super Green Pine radar.

One of the American stations is located on Mount Keren opposite the Egyptian border in southern Israel; the other at a Turkish air base in the southeastern town of Kurecik.

US and Israeli officials said the joint test was successful but offered no further information about the order in which the three stations sighted the attacking “missile” or how they shared the data.

The successful collaboration of these systems has elevated the US missile shield to its operational phase.

debkafile‘s military and Washington sources report that the test went ahead after Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu arrived in Washington Thursday, Feb. 9 to discuss urgent international action for Syria and at the same time notified US officials that his government had withdrawn its objections to the Israel-based US x-band radar station taking part in a joint exercise against a potential Iranian or Syrian missile attack.

This notification was awaited before the test went ahead. It gave the Turkish foreign minister a handle for promoting his mission to gain Obama administration assent to his government’s initiative on Syria.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is pushing for joint Turkish-Arab military intervention to be launched against Bashar Assad’s brutal crackdown under cover of a humanitarian operation. He offered to meet the Americans halfway on the radar station issue to win support for this anti-Assad intervention.

Monday, Jan. 30, debkafile disclosed that a high-ranking US official had arrived in Israel to refute the Turkish claims that the US X-band radar station at Kurecik was Turkish-operated, not aimed against Iranian missiles and committed to withholding data from Israel.

Before he left Israel, the US official put the record straight by stating: “The radar is exclusively operated by US personnel, exactly as it is here. We will control the data and fuse it with data from other radars in the region to generate the most comprehensive and effective missile defense picture.”

This assurance was effectively demonstrated by the joint US-Israel detection and tracking test carried out Friday.

Israel Likely to Bomb Iran This Year: Political Analyst – Business News – CNBC.

Israel will bomb Iran and it’s increasingly likely to happen this year, according to Alastair Newton, Senior Political Analyst at Nomura.

Ammar Awad / REUTERS Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Though observers as prominent as President Barack Obama have emphasized that Israel has no firm plans to attack Iran, Newton said the political pieces were aligning in Israel that would make it easier for its leaders to attack a country they believe is trying to build nuclear weapons. He said the markets should be watching events on the ground in Israel “very, very closely indeed.”

“I’ve long taken a view that sooner or later, if push comes to shove, Israel will bomb Iran,” said Newton. “I’m getting a little bit more concerned this year, not because of the rhetoric but because of facts on the ground.”

Newton said Israel’s political leaders were gearing up for an early general election that would likely see the incumbent, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, comfortably re-elected.

“We don’t need to have a general election in Israel until the early fall of 2013 but it clearly is looking like he’s going to make his move this year,” he said.

Newton said that would give Israel a window of opportunity ahead of the US presidential elections in November, to launch an attack.

“A lot of people who watch these things very carefully are very concerned that the hawks in Israel will be seeing that as a potential window, especially if it looks like Barack Obama, who does not have a good relationship with Netanyahu, is going to win a second term,” he said. “The risks this year are greater than at any time for a very, very long period.”

World News – Report: Saudi Arabia to buy nukes if Iran tests A-bomb.

Saudi special forces take part in a military parade in the holy city of Mecca on November 10, 2010.

By msnbc.com staff, NBC News and news services

Saudia Arabia would move quickly to acquire nuclear weapons if Iran successfully tests an atomic bomb, according to a report.

Citing an unidentified Saudi Arabian source, the Times newspaper in the U.K. (which operates behind a paywall) said that the kingdom would seek to buy ready-made warheads and also begin its own program to enrich weapons-grade uranium.

The paper suggested that Pakistan was the country most likely to supply Saudi Arabia with weapons, saying Western officials were convinced there was an understanding between the countries to do so if the security situation in the Persian Gulf gets worse. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have denied such an arrangement exists.

Iran, which follows the Shiite branch of Islam, and Sunni Saudi Arabia are major regional rivals.

The Times described its source for the story as a “senior Saudi,” but gave no other details.

Israel uses MEK terror group to kill Iran’s nuclear scientists, US officials say

Mohammad Javad Larijani, a senior aide to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, describes what Iranian leaders believe is a close relationship between Israel’s secret service, the Mossad, and the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, or MEK, which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States.

“There is no intention currently to pursue a unilateral military nuclear program, but the dynamics will change immediately if the Iranians develop their own nuclear capability,” the source told the newspaper. “Politically, it would be completely unacceptable to have Iran with a nuclear capability and not the kingdom.”

It also cited an unnamed Western official as saying that Saudi Arabia would ask Pakistan to honor the alleged agreement “the next day” after any Iranian nuclear bomb test.

The U.S. and other nations suspect that Iran is using its civilian nuclear work as a cover for a weapons program, but Iran insists that its nuclear ambitions are strictly peaceful. The U.S. has used sanctions and diplomacy to pressure Iran on the issue, but has long refused to rule out military action saying that all options are on the table. Israel is also believed to be contemplating a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta now believes there’s a strong possibility that Israel will attack Iran in an attempt to thwart Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, according to U.S. officials. NBC’s Richard Engel reports.

In a statement issued Friday by the Pakistan Embassy in Saudi Arabia, Ambassador Mohammed Naeem Khan was quoted as saying that “each Pakistani considers (the) security of Saudi Arabia as his personal matter.” Naeem also said that the Saudi leadership considered Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to be one country.In January this year, Saudi Arabia’s former ambassador to the U.S., Prince Turki al-Faisal, said in an interview with The Associated Press that unless a zone free of weapons of mass destruction was created in the Mideast there would “inevitably” be a nuclear arms race, and “that’s not going to be in the favor of anybody.”

He stressed that the Gulf states were committed not to acquire WMD.

“But we’re not the only players in town. You have Turkey. You have Iraq which has a track record of wanting to go nuclear. You have Egypt. They had a very vibrant nuclear energy program from the 1960s. You have Syria. You have other players in the area that could open Pandora’s box,” the Saudi prince told The AP.

Iran envoy: We could hit US forces anywhere in world if attacked

Asked whether Saudi Arabia would maintain its commitment against acquiring WMD, Turki said: “What I suggest for Saudi Arabia and for the other Gulf states … is that we must study carefully all the options, including the option of acquiring weapons of mass destruction. We can’t simply leave it for somebody else to decide for us.”

Turki is also a former Saudi intelligence chief and remains an influential member of the Saudi royal family.

Turki said the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council should guarantee a nuclear security umbrella for Mideast countries that join a nuclear-free zone — and impose “military sanctions” against countries seen to be developing nuclear weapons.

“I think that’s a better way of going at this issue of nuclear enrichment of uranium, or preventing Iran from acquiring weapons of mass destruction,” he said in the AP interview.

In October, the U.S. claimed that agents linked to Iran’s Qud’s Force, an elite wing of the Revolutionary Guard, were involved in a plot to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S., Adel Al-Jubeir. Iran said the claims were “baseless.”

‘Meddling’
Turki said in November that there was “ample and heinous” evidence that Iran was behind the alleged plot. He added that the evidence “indicates the depths of depravity and unreason to which the (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad regime has sunk.”

Turki called the plot “the tip of the iceberg,” saying Iran was “meddling” in the affairs of many other countries, including Lebanon, Turkey, Pakistan and especially Iraq.

The Saudi government has also accused a terror cell linked to Iran of plotting to blow up its embassy in Bahrain, as well as the causeway linking the island kingdom to Saudi Arabia.

In a secret diplomatic cable made public by WikiLeaks, Saudi King Abdullah allegedly urged Washington to strike at Iran and “cut off the head of the snake.”

Turki dismissed the cable in November, telling reporters that Saudi Arabia supported sanctions and diplomatic pressure against Iran but not a military strike.

He said military action would only stiffen Iran’s resolve, rally support for the regime and at best delay, but not halt, the nuclear program. “Such an act I think would be foolish, and to undertake it I think would be tragic,” he said.

 

The Associated Press, NBC News and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

Israel or Iran – who will strike first? | Adelaide Now.

A view of Iran’s heavy water nuclear facilities, near the central city of Arak / AP

Israel believes Iran is close to completing a nuclear warhead with its name of it.

The US, which despite some differences under President Barack Obama’s watch remains an unflinching ally of Israel, believes the world has much more breathing space before Iran builds a bomb.

Strange things are happening that sometimes look more like a George Clooney political thriller than real life. Iran’s nuclear scientists go missing or are assassinated. Purported nuclear sites in Iran disappear off the map in explosions visible around Tehran.

Yet not Iran, Israel or the US seems to know anything about them.

There is a steady sense of inevitability to an Israeli strike, with The Washington Post newspaper last week quoting US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta as saying he believes there is a “strong likelihood” Israel will go to war with Iran as early as April.

If Israel does launch strikes, it would presumably attempt to contain the war to a short series of intense raids using the 500 bunker-busting bombs Mr Obama secretly sold it in 2009.

It is hard to imagine Israel taking unilateral action on its main regional enemy against the wishes of the US, but the sale of the bunker-busters – which are designed to penetrate 5m-thick concrete – suggest the Obama administration has sympathy for Israel striking first to defend itself.

The US has a “very good estimate” of when Iran might produce a weapon, Mr Obama said this week.

“We are prepared to exercise these options should they arise,” he said during an interview with NBC.

In recent weeks, hectares of US newsprint have been dedicated to this issue of Israel going to war against Iran.

The question only seems to be if it goes with the blessing of the US, or without it. Delegations reportedly are moving back and forth between Washington and Tel Aviv, arguing the points.

Reports typically depict Israel as demanding that the US politically support its unilateral action, while the US urges Israel to keep its powder dry because there is no imminent nuclear threat from Iran.

The Republican presidential election campaign is also becoming a staging ground for support for Israel.

THIS week presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich outlined a scenario designed to terrify voters into supporting him as a much stronger pro-Israel ally than Mr Obama.

“You think about an Iranian nuclear weapon,” Mr Gingrich said. “You think about the dangers to Cleveland or to Columbus or to Cincinnati or to New York. Remember what it felt like on 9/11 when 3000 Americans were killed.

“Now imagine an attack where you add two zeros. And it’s 300,000 dead. Maybe half a million wounded.

“This is a real danger. This is not science fiction. That’s why I think it’s very important we have the strongest possible national security.”

Iran has been accused of attempting to stage terror plots in the US, notably a foiled alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador by blowing up a Washington restaurant. And there is a long-standing assumption that Iran would happily lay waste an American or Israeli city with a nuclear bomb.

Iran has denied it is trying to blow up diplomats, and insists it is developing nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Late in January, US intelligence chiefs gave testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee on where they believed the Iranians were headed.

The director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, said he thought Iran was willing to stage limited terror attacks but said he did believe Iran had yet decided if it would turn its nuclear program to menacing purposes.

The CIA director David Petraeus appeared to take a different position, saying Iran already had more than enough enriched uranium to pursue peaceful needs.

Reports out of Israel this week had Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quoting to his cabinet the words of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who recently said Israel was “a cancerous tumour that must be cut off”.

International sanctions do not appear to be dimming Iran’s aggression to Israel, which refuses to rule out attacking Iran.

The consequences of a unilateral Israeli strike on Iran are almost unreadable.

There seems little question Israel would prevail in a pre-emptive series of strikes, which would set back Iran’s nuclear ambitions at least 24 months.

Some believe strikes would provoke Iran’s Lebanon-based little brother, Hezbollah, to strike at neighbouring Israel.

Others argue that any plans by Israel to hit Iran must simultaneously involve it taking out Hezbollah’s sizeable missile array.

That would mean Israel was singlehandedly fighting a war on two fronts, and there are doubts if it has the resources.

WHILE most Arab states have little affection for Iran, they will react angrily if Lebanese citizens become victims of Israeli strikes.

Gershon Baskin, co-chairman of the Israel Palestine Centre for Research and Information, writing in the Jerusalem Post this week, said he believed plans to strike Iran were in advanced stages of planning.

He suggested there was “no chance” the US would join Israel, which meant Europe would stay out of it as well.

He outlined a scenario of Washington expressing “concern” about Israel’s unilateral actions, but secretly approving.

Widespread chatter that an Israel strike would lead to terror groups targeting Israel and its silent partner, the US, seems flawed.

They already are targets.

With China and Russia this                   week vetoing a             UN Security Council resolution that called for regime change in Syria, the situation in that country drags on murderously.

It is inevitable, however, that the oppressed Sunni majority will claim power at some point.

Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad counts on his friendship with Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who reportedly has placed one of his senior military leaders in Mr Assad’s war room.

It is argued, by some, a strike against Iran by Israel would give Syrians the impetus to push hard against Mr Assad and topple him.

That also would benefit Israel, because a new Sunni regime in Syria would stop the flow of weapons from Shi’ite-controlled Iran to Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon.

Mr Baskin also claims that to offer some pacification for its pre-emptive aggression, Washington could, after strikes, pressure Israel to make a positive international statement on Palestine.

That could be offering it full statehood and joining other world players in the nuclear non-proliferation treaty from which it has so far has stayed away.

If the commentators and urgers are right, Israel will hit Iran in the northern spring.

Israel will have to attack Iran in 2012.

Obama isn’t listening, but Americans should be.

Iran and its Islamic rulers are consumed by hatred of Jews, hatred of Israel and a diabolical desire to annihilate both, all in the name of Islam. A strategy specialist to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei named Alireza Forghani has just written a document laying out the legal and religious reasons why Iran is required by Islam to attack and annihilate Israel, to remove the country from the face of the earth and kill all the Jews living there. The document was published on a website with close ties to the Ayatollah, which means that the Government of Iran endorses its conclusions and will work, is working, to carry them out.

This kind of rhetoric is nothing new in Iran. In the name of Islam, the Iranians want nothing more than to obliterate Israel and murder all the Jews there and the publication of this document is just the latest instance of them telling the world their intentions. Once they possess nuclear weapons they will have the ability to carry them out and there is no doubt whatsoever that they will try and do exactly that, which is why Israel must attack and destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons development facilities in 2012 at the latest. Iran is getting closer and closer to becoming a nuclear power and if the Israeli’s wait much longer it may be to late to prevent it from becoming one.

That would make an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel and a nuclear war in the Middle East and beyond a dead certainty. And make no mistake, the Israelis will have to do it soon and will do it soon. They’ll have to because no one else will, least of all the feckless Americans under President Obama. Nothing else will keep nuclear weapons out of the Iranian’s hands and the Israelis know it, even if Obama doesn’t. Or refuses to admit it. Or doesn’t care. Or doesn’t have the courage and sense to act militarily, even though it is patently in the best interests of the United States as well as Israel.

According to the document “In the name of Allah, Iran must attack Israel by 2014.” That means with nuclear weapons, since it is already attacking Israel in myriad ways on any number of fronts and has been for some time. If the Iranians can attack Israel with nuclear weapons before 2014 they will do so and unless Israel attacks them in 2012 they may very well attack long before then.

Americans shouldn’t kid themselves either. The Iranians hate them almost as much as they hate Jews and Israelis and America and Americans are firmly in their sites too. Just like it is doing with Israel Iran is already attacking the United States in myriad ways on a wide variety of fronts, including in the American homeland, and there is no doubt at all that Iran’s nuclear weapons will be used against the U.S. in due course if Iran is successful in developing them…the rhetoric tells Americans that and so does Iran’s actions and behaviour. The United States is after all the Great Satan and it is unquestionably on Iran’s hit list after Israel, the Little Satan.

All in the name of Islam. In fact, if Americans want to know what’s in store for them if Iran isn’t stopped all they need do is type in Iran must attack Israel by 2014, download the document and substitute Americans wherever they see Jews or Israelis and America or the United States wherever they see Israel.

First Israel, then the United States, or maybe even both at the same time Allah willing. Obama isn’t listening, but Americans should be.

49% of Americans in favor of Iran strike – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Recent poll by Pulse Opinion Research shows half of American public in favor of strike on Islamic Republic

Yitzhak Benhorin

Nearly half of American voters think the United States should use military force to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, according to a poll conducted for The Hill newspaper, which covers events relating to the Congress.

According to the poll, 49% of respondents said military force should be used, while 31% said it should not and 20% were not sure.

In addition, 62% of respondents said they were somewhat or very concerned about Iran launching a terror attack against the United States, while 37% said they were not very concerned or not at all concerned.

Although the Iranians deny pursuing nuclear weapons, few outside of Tehran believe the claim, and how to prevent such a scenario has become a hot election-year issue. Previous polls also showed the majority of Americans are in favor of a strike on Iran.

US President Barack Obama said in his State of the Union address: “Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal.”

Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney blamed Obama for failing to confront Iran. “A nuclear-armed Iran is not only an Israeli problem, it is a problem for the United States and all the decent countries of the world,” said Romney. Republican contender Rick Santorum said that if he’s elected president, he would bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities unless they were opened up for international arms inspectors.