WarSclerotic

Articles: Reza Kahlili and the Truth About Iran.

Western intellectuals have turned themselves inside-out to sanction the monstrous mullahcracy in Iran.  Saving the free world is of no import or little priority.  What is important is condemning any effective action to head off the inevitable catastrophe.  And so Obama touts his toothless sanctions and keeps extending olive branches to the murderous mullahs, and hardly anyone has the courage to call him on it.  But Reza Kahlili does.

Reza Kahlili is the author of A Time To Betray, the gripping story of his life as a CIA agent inside Iran’s bloodthirsty Revolutionary Guards.  Now he is a member of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, an advisory board member of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran, and an instructor at the Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy of the Department of Defense.  It is good to know that someone with sense and vision is still inside the DoD.

I recently interviewed Reza Kahlili, and what he told me was revealing.

Pamela Geller: Do you think the Iranian statements about Israel’s imminent demise portend a nuclear strike from Iran against Israel?

Reza Kahlili: Though it is difficult for the West to understand, the decisions and actions by the leaders of the Islamic regime in Iran are based on an ideology which is deeply rooted in “Mahdiism,” and that’s the promise by Allah for the day that the last Islamic Messiah (the Shiites’ 12^th Imam, Mahdi) will reappear to raise the flag of Islam in all corners of the world.  As per centuries-old hadith, the trigger for the coming is the destruction of Israel.  The Iranian leaders are on a path to bring about that trigger, believing that it will bring about the final victory of Islam over infidels.  Their nuclear program is for the destruction of Israel and the West.

PG: What do you think should be done to prevent Iran from striking at Israel?

RK: I think the best course is regime change, as any attack just on the Iranian nuclear sites will not only fail to solve the threat posed by the radicals ruling Iran, but will engulf the region.  The only solution to this problem is a regime change in Iran, which would go a long way toward securing world peace and global stability.  That can only be achieved by helping the Iranians, who are one of the most westernized people in the region, to bring about change in Iran, while at the same providing every reason for the loyalists to abandon the regime.

PG: Is Iran a danger to the U.S. now?  How is that likely to change in five years?

RK: Unfortunately, not many in the U.S. realize that the leaders in Iran not only pose an existential threat to Israel, but also to America.  The fact that the U.S. could destroy Iran in a matter of minutes in case of an attack will not deter the Islamic regime in Iran from an attack on U.S. soil.  The Iranian assets, including Quds forces and Hezb’allah cells, have long infiltrated the U.S.  The Iranians run a complex operation through several entities and organizations, such as mosques, Iranian Islamic student associations, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Muslim Students Association, and others.  In helping U.S. intelligence, I once established contact with a Revolutionary Guard commander who posed as a student here in the U.S.  Another time I was informed of a very important Guard commander who had come to the U.S. under a fake passport, and was meeting with the heads of Muslim Students Association groups.  So not only terrorism at home is very likely when the leaders in Iran decide to take action, but a more dangerous scenario is a launched missile with a nuclear payload, either from Iran or off of a ship close to U.S. shores.

China has sold intercontinental ballistic missile technology to Iran, and the North Koreans are helping with the assembly.  And the fact that Iran can launch a satellite into space is another indication of their intercontinental missile capability.  The world will soon be shocked to find out that Iran possesses intercontinental ballistic missiles.  I revealed last July that Iran has armed its vessels with long-range ballistic missiles and soon will expand its mission into the Atlantic Ocean, reaching right outside of the Gulf of Mexico.  The Revolutionary Guards have practiced launching ballistic missiles off a ship and have detonated a warhead in the air.  This has been verified by the IAEA.  A naval vessel or a third-party commercial vessel could get close to our shores and in less than 60 seconds launch a missile with a nuclear payload, detonating over U.S. skies, creating an electromagnetic pulse attack that would fry U.S. power grids, shutting down power, water, electronics, communication…  Studies show that several weeks after such attack, Americans will be leaving their homes looking for food and water, and just one year after such attack, two-thirds of Americans will have ceased to exist.  Mutually assured destruction will not work with those who are looking forward to martyrdom!

PG: How popular are the mullahs?  If Obama had supported the demonstrators, might the regime have been toppled in 2009?  If so, what kind of regime might have replaced it?

RK: As described in my book A Time to Betray, barely a year and a half into the Islamic revolution, the people of Iran wanted change.  Tens of thousands have lost their lives, and thousands remain in prison as of today.  However, the West continuously chose to negotiate with the regime, as opposed to supporting the people.  We had the greatest opportunity in 2009 to bring about change in Iran and to change the geopolitics of the region without firing a single bullet, but President Obama and his advisers, believing they could negotiate with the regime, chose to appease.  And the regime, which was at the brink of falling when millions took to the street demanding regime change, successfully used the silence of the world over its atrocities and the suppression of the people to violently put down the uprising.  Once that was achieved, the regime then went back on its promise to the West that it would negotiate over the nuclear program and announced that there could be no negotiation over its right to nuclear energy.  They once again fooled the West.

PG: Iran under the Shah was a relatively secular society.  How broad is the support for the Islamization of Iranian society since 1979?  If the mullahs fell, would Iran become secular again?

RK: Growing up during the time of the Shah was wonderful, and it seemed that most Iranians were happy and hopeful, and the country was progressing.  It was a very open society.  Women were free to do what they wanted, and religion was not an issue.  Many Jews, Christians, and Muslims not only lived happily side by side, but were friends and shared mutual respect.  There were many Americans living in Iran, and they were respected and treated as part of a big family.  Living in Tehran then was like living in Los Angeles.  Building cranes monopolized the skyline.  Apartment buildings were thirty stories high.  Theaters, nightclubs, concerts, symphony, opera, and much more were there for entertainment.  Hundreds of colleges and universities across Iran provided education to tens of thousands of Iranian boys and girls.

I guess the only thing missing was political freedom — the freedom of speech.  Many political parties objected to that and would not accept the rule of Shah and his one-party system.  We did have political prisoners, and tortures were carried out at Evin prison, but nothing like what happened after the Revolution.

The Iranians had no idea that their aspirations for democracy and full political freedom would be hijacked by a minority of Islamists.  Though many in Iran then did not adhere to Islamic rules, they respected the religion and the clerics.  However, now they openly curse the religion, its God “Allah,” and its prophet “Mohammad.”  The Iranians see themselves as Persians.  Also, many are converting to Christianity, even though the crime of such conversion is the death penalty.  Once the Islamic regime falls, we will see true democracy in Iran and an important ally in the fight against radicalism in the region.

PG: Why is Iran funding the Sunni jihadis of Hamas and the Taliban?

RK: That’s another misunderstanding by the West.  Though the help by the Islamic regime to Sunni forces also is tactical to confront the U.S. and Israel, also in Islam the main enemy is the infidel.  And so in pursuit of that final glorification of Islam, the Iranian leaders will collaborate and help any Islamic force that could help with the destruction of Israel and the demise of America.

PG: What is life like for the Jews, the Baha’is, and other religious minorities within Iran?

RK: The Jews in Iran, though able to practice their religion, are constantly under watch by the regime.  Many Jews are interrogated upon traveling in and out of Iran, under the suspicion of being spies for Israel.  Several are imprisoned, and often mock executions are done in order to make them talk.  However, Baha’is have a much harder time, as they are banned from schools, universities, and businesses, and often are arrested and sentenced to death for their belief.  They live in constant fear.

PG: What did you see and hear from the Iranian leadership as a member of the Revolutionary Guards that Americans generally don’t know, and need to know?

RK: I have set out the details through my story in my book.  However, the most revealing issue is the fact that they would openly tell me how they are fooling the West in every level with promises of cooperation, while at all times believing in their goal of destroying the West.  You see, they do not resent the West because of its actions in the Middle East and the world; however, the most important fact that America and the West have continuously missed is the ideology behind Iran’s destiny.  Its doctrine knows no boundaries and stands in diametric opposition to and defiance of the most basic principles and fundamental forms taken by Western civilization.

Pamela Geller is the publisher of AtlasShrugs.com and the author of the WND Books title Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance.

Articles: The Iranian Plan to Annihilate the Jews.

For many years, I have tried to raise awareness not only of the threat posed by the fanatics ruling Iran, but also of the injustices done to the Iranian people.  This has drawn the ire of the mullah-appeasers and those in alliance with the criminal Islamic regime in Iran.

Recently, I revealed a shocking piece, “Ayatollah: Kill All Jews, Annihilate Israel,” in which a well-known strategist within the Iranian government introduced a new doctrine not only to destroy Israel in a preemptive attack, but also to commit to genocide and kill the Jewish people.  The piece got international attention and made headlines across the world.

The facts in my piece were an exact copy of the original piece, which was published in Iran.  I even left a link to the Iranian piece that interestingly was not only written in Farsi, but also translated into English.  I wanted to make sure that the world could see that my piece was a true and accurate reflection of what was said in Iran.

I wanted the world to see that the jihadists in Tehran had no shame in openly calling for the mass murder of the people of another

nation.  I wanted the world to realize that we were once again dealing with madmen who had no interest in humanity, love, or peace, and that they were determined to commit a grave crime, based on their belief in glorifying Allah.

Even though I did my best to make it easy to verify the facts, many Islamists, and those supporting negotiations with the regime in Iran, launched an attack against me and my article and did not hide their hatred for Israel and the Jewish people.

In their attacks, they not only tried to assassinate my character, but also tried to deceive the readers, claiming that my piece was a lie and that no one in Iran was calling for the killing of the Jewish people. 

These people failed to mention that just recently, the Iranian supreme leader once again called Israel “a cancerous tumor that should and will be cut” during his recent Friday prayer sermon.  One must be living in a cave not to have heard Khamenei, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and other officials of the Islamic regime call for the destruction of Israel and how this “cancerous cell” needs to be wiped off the face of the earth.

But the clarity is in the piece that was published in Iran, which has a full paragraph with the title “Israeli People Must be Annihilated.”  All Iranian state media are strictly pro-government and highly sensitive to any statement that might cause the regime problems.  The original piece was published in over 28 major official media sites of the Islamic regime, including the Revolutionary Guards’ Fars News Agency and Mashregh News.  It does represent the official view of the Islamic regime.

The site, Alef, which ran the piece, belongs to Ahmad Tavakoli, a hard-line parliamentarian and a close ally of Khamenei.  The author, Alireza Forghani (who recently resigned his post as governor of southern Iran’s Kish Province over tensions with pro-Ahmadinejad circles), entered the Basij forces when he was 14 and served one of the most fanatical elements of the regime, the Ansare Hezb’allah in the city of Mashhad, from age 17 to 21.  He continued his education in the field of analytical strategy.  He was one of the first within the Iranian government to call Khamenei an imam, and is an analyst and a strategy specialist in Khamenei’s camp.  He has the following in his bio on his blog:

Favorite book: The Absolute Rule of the Jurisprudent

Favorite sport: Jihad in fierce war

But let’s take direct quotes from the original piece, which was published in English:

In the name of Allah
Iran must attack Israel…

The necessity of Israel annihilation … :

Today, the first Qibla of the Muslims has been occupied by Israel, a cancerous tumor for the Middle East. Today, Israel is causing division using all evil means. Every Muslim is obliged to equip themselves against Israel. … and since the potential danger is facing the foundations of Islam, it is necessary for the Islamic governments in particular and other Muslims in general to remove this corrupting material by any means. All our troubles are due to Israel! And Israel results from America too.

Military Aspects of Iranian Attack on Israel

In order to attack Iran, Israel needs western and U.S. assistance, permission and coordination. In the current situation and passiveness of U.S. and the West, Iran should wipe out Israel.

… Based on preemptive defense doctrine, Israel should get under heavy military strikes through first and final strikes. In the primary step of first scene, ground zero points of Israel should be annihilated by Iranian military attacks. To get this end, Iran can use long-range missiles. The distance from Iranian easternmost point to westernmost point of Israel is about ۲۶۰۰ km (2,600km). Strategic targets deep inside Israeli soil are in the range of Iranian conventional missiles.

Israeli People Must Be Annihilated

Israel is the only country in the world with a Jewish majority. According to the last census of Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, this country has a population of ۷.۵ (7.5) million including ۵.۷ (5.7) million Jews …

Residents of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa can be targeted even by Shahb ۳ (3). Population density in these three adjacent areas composes about ۶۰ % (60%) of Israeli population. Sejjil missiles can target power plants, sewage treatment facilities, energy resources, transportation and communication infrastructures; and in the second stage Shahab ۳ and Ghadr missiles can target urban settlements until final annihilation of Israel people.

There is no need to post the whole piece, as the link here is available for all to see.

The point is that my piece was a true reflection of this new doctrine and shocking ideology of genocide of the Jewish people.

However, in order to see the truth, one must be faithful to one’s spirit.  In Iran, Basiji bullies, Revolutionary Guards armed to the teeth, and Ansare Hezb’allah thugs with chains and knives attack those bold enough to reveal the truth.  In America, the mullah-appeasers attack and character-assassinate those who reveal the truth about this criminal regime. There’s no difference between the two.

I do not take these attacks on me to heart, as I choose truth over lies, love over hate, justice over injustice, and light over darkness.  I choose to be the voice of the voiceless.  Although it is a constant battle on many fronts, I know that in my heart that I walk the path of My Lord.

I do not expect those who have chosen evil to understand, but again, if they had any dignity, if they had respect for humanity, then they would not support a regime that stones women to death, a regime that rapes and tortures Iranian boys and girls to suppress their desire for freedom, a regime that chops off hands and feet in punishment for stealing, a regime that lashes Iranians as punishment for not adhering to Islamic rules and savagely attacks anyone opposing it.  This is a regime that is at the helm of worldwide terrorism in which many of its officials are wanted either by Interpol or courts around the world for terrorist acts and assassinations.

Though it saddens me to know there are such individuals among us — individuals who profess loyalty to a barbaric regime — I am happy to report that even they will not be able save the criminals ruling Iran.  Their final outcome is in the hands of God.

Long Live the Iranian People.

God Bless America.

Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for a former CIA operative in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the author of the award-winning book A Time to Betray.  He is a senior fellow with EMPact America and teaches at the U.S. Department of Defense’s Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy (JCITA).

IAEA Will Not Hold Talks With Iran, 23 February 2012 Thursday 9:28.

Turkish Weekly

Thursday, 23 February 2012

The U.N. nuclear agency on Wednesday acknowledged its renewed failure in trying to probe suspicions that Tehran has worked secretly on atomic arms, in a statement issued shortly after an Iranian general warned of a pre-emptive strike against any nation that threatens Iran, AP reported.

The double signs of defiance reflected continued Iranian determination not to bow to demands that it defuse suspicions about its nuclear activities despite rapidly growing international sanctions imposed over its refusal to signal it is ready to compromise.

With the International Atomic Energy Agency already failing to dent Iranian stonewalling in talks that ended just three weeks ago, hopes had been muted that the latest effort would be any more successful even before the IAEA issued its statement.

The fact that the communique was issued early Wednesday, shortly after midnight and just after the IAEA experts left Tehran, reflected the urgency the agency attached to telling its side of the story.

As the two-day IAEA visit was winding down, Iranian officials sought to cast it in a positive light, with foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast telling reporters that “cooperation with the agency continues and is at its best level.”

Beyond differing with that view, the language of the IAEA communique clearly – if indirectly – blamed Tehran for the lack of progress.

“We engaged in a constructive spirit, but no agreement was reached,” it quoted IAEA chief Yukiya Amano as saying.

The communique said that on both visits, Iran did not grant requests by the IAEA mission to visit Parchin – a military site thought to be used for explosives testing related to nuclear detonations, and cited Amano as calling this decision “disappointing.”

It also said that no agreement was reached on how to begin “clarification of unresolved issues in connection with Iran’s nuclear programme, particularly those relating to possible military dimensions.”

The abortive trip was just the latest sign of Iranian resolve to continue hard-line resistance in the face of international pressure to curb its nuclear activities, despite sanctions and U.S. and Israeli warnings of possible last-resort military action should diplomacy fail.

Iran over the weekend announced that it will stop selling oil to Britain and France in retaliation for a planned European oil embargo this summer. The move was mainly symbolic – Britain and France import almost no oil from Iran – but it raised concerns that Iran could take the same hard line with other European nations that use more Iranian crude.

The European Union buys about 18 percent of Iran’s oil exports, though most of that comes from sales to just two countries: Italy and Spain.

Iran flailed out again just hours before the IAEA team left, with Gen. Mohammed Hejazi, who heads the military’s logistical wing, warning that Iran will “not wait for enemies to take action against us.”

“We will use all our means to protect our national interests,” he told the semiofficial Fars news agency.

His comments followed Iran’s announcement of war games to practice protecting nuclear and other sensitive sites, the latest military maneuver viewed as a message to the U.S. and Israel that the Islamic Republic is ready both to defend itself and to retaliate against an armed strike.

The official news agency IRNA said the four-day air defense war games, dubbed “Sarallah,” or “God’s Revenge,” were taking place in the south of the country and involve anti-aircraft batteries, radar, and warplanes. The drill will be held over 73,000 square miles (190,000 square kilometers) near the port of Bushehr, the site of Iran’s lone nuclear power plant.

Iran has held multiple air, land, and sea maneuvers in recent months as tensions increase, while at the same time continuing to deny any interest in nuclear weapons. It asserts that the allegations of secret work on developing such arms are based on fabricated U.S. and Israeli intelligence.

But Amano, the IAEA chief, outlined his concerns in a 13-page summary late last year listing clandestine activities that he said can either be used in civilian or military nuclear programs, or “are specific to nuclear weapons.”

Among these were indications that Iran has conducted high-explosives testing to set off a nuclear charge at Parchin – the site the agency said Wednesday that the IAEA team was not allowed to visit.

Other suspicions include computer modeling of a core of a nuclear warhead and alleged preparatory work for a nuclear weapons test and development of a nuclear payload for Iran’s Shahab 3 intermediate range missile – a weapon that could reach Israel.

The IAEA team had hoped to talk to key Iranian scientists suspected of working on the alleged weapons program, break down opposition to their plans to inspect documents related to nuclear work and secure commitments from Iranian authorities to allow future visits.

Beyond denying any covert work on nuclear arms, Iran also insists concerns that it will turn its uranium enrichment program to making fissile warhead material are unfounded, saying it is enriching uranium only to make nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes such as producing energy.

But because of weapons fears, the U.N. Security Council has imposed sanctions on Tehran in a failed attempt to force it to stop enrichment.

More recently, the U.S., the European Union and other Western allies have either tightened up their own sanctions or rapidly put new penalties in place striking at the heart of Iran’s oil exports lifeline and its financial system.

Tehran’s expanding enrichment activities at its plant at Fordo, near the holy city of Qom, are of particular concern for Israel – which has warned it will not let Iran develop nuclear arms – because it is dug into a mountain and possibly resistant to attack.

In interviews late last week, diplomats told The Associated Press that Iran is poised to install thousands of new-generation centrifuges at the cavernous facility. That would mean that Iran would have the capability of enriching to weapons-grade level much more quickly and efficiently that with its present, less efficient mainstay machines.

Friendship Under Fire – By David Makovsky | Foreign Policy.

The Iranian nuclear threat will challenge Obama and Netanyahu’s sometimes-rocky relationship like never before.

BY DAVID MAKOVSKY | FEBRUARY 22, 2012

Next month, U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will hold a key meeting over the Iranian nuclear challenge that will test their sometimes rocky relationship. After a weekend visit by National Security Advisor Tom Donilon to Israel, the White House announced this week that Obama will host Netanyahu in Washington on March 5. This will be an opportunity for the two leaders to synchronize their positions on Iran. Whether they can reach some common ground — now or in the near future — could be a decisive factor in Israel’s decision-making on whether to strike Iran sometime this year.

International pressure on the Islamic Republic has never been higher. In addition to the new, crippling U.S. sanctions enacted on Dec. 31 and Feb. 6, the European Union recently pledged to halt the importation of Iranian oil by July 1. Iran’s economy is reeling.

For their part, Iranian leaders have struck an increasingly aggressive note. They have threatened a preemptive strike against their foes, and warned that they could close the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s traded oil flows daily. In another recent act of defiance, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced on Feb. 15 that a “new generation” of Iranian centrifuges had just been activated at the Natanz nuclear site. And this week, IAEA inspectors charged with monitoring Iran’s nuclear program were denied access to a military facility, returning to Vienna after what they termed “disappointing” talks with their Iranian interlocutors.

Despite its saber-rattling, Iran is feeling the heat of international sanctions. Over the past month, the Iranian rial has been devalued by 50 percent. Iran has also indicated that it may even be willing to resume diplomacy, which it has scorned since the last round of negotiations in 2009 and 2010.

With the media rife with speculation about a possible Israeli military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities by this summer, tensions between the two countries have risen to an all-time high. Iran is blaming Israel for the recent assassinations of its nuclear scientists, and Israel is accusing Iran of masterminding the Feb. 13 terror attack against Israeli diplomats in New Delhi, as well as attempted attacks in Tbilisi and Bangkok.

It is no secret that Netanyahu and Obama have never been close, but now is the time for the two leaders to find common ground over the Iranian nuclear issue.

There has already been some progress in getting top U.S. and Israeli officials to speak about Iran in similar terms. Last week in the Knesset, Netanyahu said it is critical that the world — not just Israel — identify “red lines” when dealing with the Iranian nuclear program. In a CBS appearance last month, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta declared that Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon, as well as closure of the Strait of Hormuz, are “red lines” for the United States.

However, the United States and Israel clearly differ in where their red lines lie. The United States has put the focus on Iran actually gaining a nuclear weapon, while Israel — more vulnerable to Iranian missiles due to its geographic proximity — views the threshold as the Iranian regime’s acquisition of enough low-enriched uranium to build a bomb, pending a political decision to convert it to weapons-grade fuel.

The other set of differences between the United States and Israel has to do with how long they are willing to wait before judging the international sanctions of Iran to be a success or failure. On the one hand, this is the first time that the United States and the EU have imposed the type of “crippling” sanctions that Israel has long called for. But on the other, recent statements by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak signal that Israel believes its window for military action is rapidly closing. As a result, Israeli officials fear they might not have the time to wait and see whether the sanctions halt Iran’s nuclear program peacefully.

Israeli military capabilities to strike Iran’s proliferating nuclear sites — especially those bunkered deep within a mountain outside the city of Qom — are more limited than those of the United States. The prospect of a new round of Iranian-U.S. diplomacy is another critical component of this equation, as it could further postpone U.S. military action in the event that sanctions fail. Taken together, these circumstances could force an Israeli decision on a preemptive strike under suboptimal conditions.

All this puts Israel on the horns of a dilemma. It can hope that sanctions will ultimately deter Iran’s nuclear program, but this may mean foregoing decisive action against what it sees as an existential threat in the hope that the United States will act further down the road. Barak and Netanyahu are commonly identified as favoring a strike, but based on my recent trip to the region, it is clear that others within the Israeli cabinet and defense establishment still have doubts. As such, the prospect of a strike is not inevitable. If Israel believed that the United States were absolutely committed to handling this issue, it would certainly shift the Israeli debate about whether to strike.

But without absolute certainty, holding off on a strike is a tough decision for Israeli officials to make. Many Israeli military leaders are children of Holocaust survivors who joined the Israeli army to ensure Israeli self-reliance in fighting against enemies who regularly pledge to eradicate it. A poignant reminder is the iconic photo of Israeli jets flying over Auschwitz in 2003, which hangs on the walls of many of their offices.

Nonetheless, it is a fundamental misreading of Israel to view this as an ideological issue. Israeli considerations of a strike are rooted not in their ethos of self-reliance, but in the fear that the United States will ultimately fail to strike, even if sanctions fail. Israeli officials’ fears are compounded by their knowledge that the American people are fatigued by conflict, and by the suspicions of some that the United States has not entirely ruled out a strategy of containment, U.S. protestations to the contrary.

The Obama administration’s official policy opposes containment, holding that the Iranian nuclear program is too destabilizing for the Middle East. As the president told NBC on Feb. 5, “We are going to do everything we can to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and creating an arms race — a nuclear arms race — in a volatile region.” Concerns about Iran handing dirty bomb technology to non-state actors, such as the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, along with fears that Iran would seek to dominate the Persian Gulf, are also all too real.

In light of these threats, some analysts could argue that Obama — who is known for his preference for Predator drone strikes in Pakistan and such surgical operations as the one that killed Osama bin Laden — would indeed resort to military action if sanctions failed. And despite tensions between Obama and Netanyahu over the Middle East peace process, sources close to Obama argued to me that these policy differences in no way infringe upon the president’s commitment to Israel’s security.

At the same time, U.S. officials have also raised fears of an Israeli strike in the short term — as evidenced by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey’s comments on Feb. 19 that an Israeli attack would be “destabilizing.” Their fears center on the belief that an attack by Israel could unravel international sanctions, and that Iran would be able to reconstitute its program in fairly short order.

How can Obama and Netanyahu win each other’s trust? The two sides should come to a more precise understanding of U.S. thresholds for the Iranian nuclear program and American responses should they be breached, as well as an agreement on a timetable for giving up on sanctions so their Iran clocks are synchronized. In other words, the two sides need to agree on red lines that might trigger action. Israel will probably seek some guarantees from the United States before agreeing to forgo a pre-emptive strike that might not succeed.

It may turn out that such guarantees are impossible, given the mistrust between the two parties and the ever-changing regional circumstances. Whatever the mechanism, there is no doubt that the U.S.-Israel relationship could benefit greatly from a common approach toward the Iran nuclear program at this tumultuous time. Their upcoming meeting and the months ahead promise to test the Obama-Netanyahu relationship like never before.

BOLTON: Iran’s relentless nuclear quest – Washington Times.

Nothing has slowed regime’s race to build the bomb

The Valentine’s Day announcement of new scientific and technological achievements in Iran’s nuclear program demonstrates the continued broadening and deepening of its capacities in this sensitive, dangerous field. While the race to achieve functional nuclear weapons is the most mesmerizing and immediately threatening aspect of Iran’s work, its continued march across the full scope of nuclear activities shows that Tehran is confident it will not soon be thwarted.

Iran is in for the long haul, belying the fancy that diplomacy or economic sanctions can work. The confirmation that the Fordo uranium-enrichment facility near Qom is fully operational and that its first domestically manufactured fuel rods are installed in the Tehran Research Reactor shows Iran steadily mastering the nuclear-fuel cycle. Perhaps we will next hear that the Arak heavy-water production facility is completed and functioning and that the nearby heavy-water reactor will, in fact, be inaugurated in 2013. Or that Iran’s ballistic-missile program has launch-tested vehicles capable of reaching targets in the Western Hemisphere.

Each successive step underscores that Iran’s carefully planned, systematic and increasingly operational nuclear infrastructure is not designed simply to show defiance of Western opposition and sanctions, as some contend. Remember, for example, the flurry of optimism about proposals to exchange Iran’s existing supply of low-enriched uranium so that a foreign nation could manufacture fuel rods for the Tehran reactor. Iran swatted away that initiative, not least because manufacturing fuel rods domestically always was part of its larger strategy to widen and intensify its nuclear capability.

Iran’s slow and steady progress for two decades has demonstrated beyond frantic rhetorical efforts at denial that diplomacy has not only been futile, but has provided Iran political cover and legitimacy while it pursued its nuclear objectives. Even more important, negotiations and the imposition of weak, ineffective sanctions have given Iran time to reach the point where its nuclear activities are broad and deep, and it is close to winning the strategically important race to the nuclear-weapons finish line. President Obama’s own Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper testified to the Senate in January that “the sanctions as imposed so far have not caused [the Iranians] to change their behavior or their policy.” Public assertions and actions by China, India, Turkey and others make clear that new financial and oil-related sanctions also will come essentially to naught.

This ongoing failure also demonstrates why the notion, still dominant in Europe and the Obama administration, that Iran can be trusted with a “peaceful” nuclear program if it renounces weapons capabilities is delusional and dangerous. There is no way to comprehensively monitor covert nuclear activities by a nation determined to hide them, as North Korea unfortunately has proved. For decades, Iran has lied about its objectives, obstructed international inspectors and flouted its supposedly solemn treaty obligations against pursuing nuclear weapons, all the while supporting international terrorism. Plainly, therefore, to all but the most naive, the Tehran regime is not to be trusted with sharp objects, let alone nuclear weapons.

The sedate pace of Iran’s nuclear program demonstrates its lack of concern for U.S. military action. Indeed, so confident is Tehran that it not only has conspired to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington on our own soil, but has been busily targeting Israeli diplomats in terrorist attacks and giving Europe a taste of its own medicine by cutting off oil supplies even before new European Union sanctions take effect. Sadly for America, Iran’s progress represents a bipartisan foreign-policy failure, extending over three successive administrations. The Obama administration’s only real distinction, embarrassing though it is, is to have carried Clinton and George W. Bush administration mistakes to their ultimate conclusion. Mr. Obama could well be remembered in history as the president asleep in the wheelhouse when Iran actually achieved both nuclear weapons and a fully indigenous nuclear fuel cycle.

Only one question remains. However sanguine Iran is about U.S. inattention, neither Tehran nor Washington really knows what Israel will decide to do militarily. The window for such action has been closing for years, and Israel may have waited too long. Given the size and growth of Iran’s program and the notorious inadequacy of our intelligence in that country, there is much we don’t know, and none of it can be good. Accordingly, even a successful Israeli strike could now be insufficient to halt Iran’s program for an extended period. And certainly, Iran has more than enough strategic warning to prepare its defenses.

Those in the White House who fear an Israeli attack more than Iranian nuclear weapons may prevail. But a world where Iran has nuclear weapons (and, inevitably therefore, so will others nearby) will be far more dangerous than a world after an Israeli military strike.

John R. Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of “Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad” (Simon & Schuster, 2007).

Nuclear Iran | Isreal | Slain Nuclear Scientist | The Daily Caller.

“Mostafa’s ultimate goal was the annihilation of Israel,” Fatemeh Bolouri Kashani told the Fars News Agency this week.

She was referring to the wishes of her late husband, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan Behdast, an Iranian nuclear scientist assassinated on the streets of Tehran in January.

It is unclear who exactly killed her husband and other scientists involved in the Iranian nuclear program over the last two years — no one has claimed responsibility — but their elimination was likely directed by Israel, the United States or one of the various Arab countries that quite understandably fear a nuclear Iran (or perhaps a combination thereof). What Kashani’s comment highlights, however, is why Israel cannot live with a nuclear Iran and why Israel’s leaders have been forced to seriously weigh authorizing a difficult and dangerous mission to set the Iranian nuclear program back militarily.

Many foreign policy elites, perhaps epitomized by CNN host Fareed Zakaria, confidently assert that Israel specifically and the West generally can live with a nuclear Iran. The Iranian leadership isn’t suicidal, they tell us. Ignore Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s repeated calls for Israel to be wiped off the map, or Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s statement that Israel is a “cancerous tumor of a state” that “should be removed from the region,” or supposed moderate former Iranian President Akbar Rafsanjani’s casual remark that the “application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world.”

They’re just posturing or joking or have been misinterpreted, we’re told. Israel and the West can live with a nuclear Iran, foreign policy intellectuals in New York, London and Berlin proclaim.

But if you’re the tiny, embattled State of Israel, it is hard to see how you can afford to take the chance that the Iranian leadership is merely joshing with their eliminationist rhetoric. Even if the odds are only 5 percent that the Iranian regime is apocalyptic and would act to bring back the hidden Imam through a nuclear holocaust, a five percent chance of a second holocaust is five percent too much for Israel to tolerate. (And let’s forget entirely for a moment the dire strategic problems of dealing with a nuclear-armed Iran even if the Islamic Republic doesn’t immediately use the bomb once it obtains the capability to strike. Try handling Hezbollah when they have a nuclear shield.)

But while Western policy elites exude confidence in the rationality of the Iranian regime, we see from Kashani’s comment about her late husband that those intimately involved in making a nuclear Iran a reality believe it is their mission, likely the very reason they got involved in the nuclear project to begin with, to eliminate the Jewish state. And we aren’t talking about some uneducated bumpkin. This was a highly educated nuclear scientist.

Earlier this week my boss, Tucker Carlson, appeared on a comedy show and jokingly called for the elimination of Iran (as you may have heard, an alarming number of their leaders have called for the elimination of Israel). The liberal blogosphere went apoplectic, which is funny considering anyone who has actually talked to Tucker about foreign policy knows that the last thing he thinks is prudent is a strike on Iran, much less a genocidal attack eliminating an entire people.

But Glenn Greenwald and other liberal commentators got their panties in a wad over the comment, though it is strange how Greenwald and his buddies never seem to get as incensed by much more serious calls by Iranian power brokers to eliminate Israel.

Scream over the trivial, ignore the serious. This is your liberal commentariat, America.

I don’t know if Israel will strike Iranian nuclear facilities — no one really does. I don’t know what Israel’s capacity is to set back Iran’s program. I don’t know if the Israeli intelligence establishment is right when they say they can handle Iran’s nuclear program or those who argue that covert action is no longer sufficient are right. And I don’t know when Iran will cross a “red line” where Israel will no longer have a military option.

But I do know that the current Israeli government faces gut-wrenching decisions, which probably can’t fully be appreciated by leaders in Paris or London or even Washington. The West would be seriously threatened by Iranian nuclear proliferation. Only Israel faces possible elimination.

If Israel believes the United States won’t act to protect itself and the world from a nuclear Iran, it may very well decide it has to act itself. Understanding Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan Behdast’s dream — and the strong probability that there are plenty of others working on Iran’s nuclear program that share it — helps one better comprehend the reason why.

GuelphMercury – Eyeing the point of no return with Iran.

IranA carnival float depicting Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with dynamite in his mouth – representing Iran’s nuclear program – and a match took part in the traditional carnival parade in Duesseldorf, Germany, Monday.

Frank Augstein/The Associated Press

Oman Tribune – the edge of knowledge.

WASHINGTON The Obama administration is bluntly warning Israel about the danger of bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities, but it is far from clear whether the allies are truly at odds over a core policy question or orchestrating an elaborate campaign to wring concessions from the Islamic Republic.

Both countries say that at least for now, tightening a web of economic sanctions around Iran’s vital oil exports is the best way to pressure Teheran into serious negotiations about its nuclear programme, which the US and its allies suspect is aimed at mastering the know-how to build a bomb.

But Israel regards a nuclear-armed Iran as an existential threat, and in recent weeks officials have suggested they may attack its nuclear facilities before the programme reaches a point of no return.

At times, US officials have appeared alarmed that overheated war talk could ignite a conflict and sought to tamp it down.

But the administration has struggled “to find the right mix of threat and persuasion,” said Suzanne Maloney, a former State Department official now at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy.

“Wildly oscillating” messages “are playing out in the media in ways that are not helpful to whatever the diplomatic aims of the Israelis and the Americans might be,” she added.

Cliff Kupchan, a former State Department official now with the risk analysis firm Eurasia Group, said the Obama administration “is using the real possibility of an Israeli attack to both push sanctions and to wring concessions out of Iran. And the same time, US military and other officials are publicly and privately telling Israel not to go, because they think it’s a truly bad idea.”

Israeli officials insist publicly that the two countries are working closely together.

“Not only is there no crisis, but coordination and understandings are tightening,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon. “We see nearly eye-to-eye on the course of action as well as on the whole.”

Israeli media have portrayed the flurry of visits by top American security officials as an attempt to dissuade Israel or, in the words of one published report, to “implore” it not to attack Iran. Whether Israel really is considering an airstrike is far from clear. For one thing, Netanyahu does not appear to have convinced his security Cabinet or the military that bombing Iran is the proper course.

“The problem for Netanyahu is that some military insiders are still against it,” said an Israeli official, who did not want to be identified when speaking about the sensitive issue.

Several high-ranking military and intelligence officials who retired last year, including Meir Dagan, who headed the spy agency Mossad, have come out publicly against preemptive military action.

To some, the mixed messages appear to be part of a grander strategy.

“It’s a shell game in which the Europeans play the ‘good cop,’ the US is the ‘bad cop’ and Israel is the ‘crazy cop,’” said Cameron Brown, international affairs columnist for The Jerusalem Post. “The idea is to appear so irrational that you scare the other side into making concessions. It’s a strategy Israel has used for a long time.”

A military official said the “crazy Israel” strategy has served as an effective deterrent over the years.

National security adviser Tom Donilon told Israeli officials that Washington shares their concern about Iran’s nuclear push but also stressed the need to let sanctions work, White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

“We certainly understand the heightened concern that Israel has given its geographic location and other circumstances that are involved here for Israel,” Carney said, discussing Donilon’s visit and the White House view on Iran’s ambitions.

Gates Opens Up on an Armed Iran | The Jewish Exponent.

Amid all the speculation about a possible Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities — and what such a strike would mean for the United States — Robert M. Gates says he’s “blessedly” relieved that he’s no longer the Pentagon’s top man.

Robert Gates’ last visit to Israel as secretary of defense came in 2011, when he met with Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak (right) in Tel Aviv. Flash 90

Throughout his decades of government service, including stints as secretary of defense and director of the CIA, Gates has wrestled with his share of foreign-policy predicaments. But how to handle the current situation with Iran, he says, is one of the toughest challenges he’s ever encountered.

“The problem is that there are three clocks at work here, all of them moving at a different speed,” Gates said in an interview with the Jewish Exponent, ahead of his upcoming appearance at the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia’s major campaign event on March 15.

One clock is Iran’s own internal timer. With the country facing powerful international economic sanctions, the question is, he said, whether they will cause enough instability to change Tehran’s approach to its nuclear program.

The second clock is the pace at which that nuclear program is proceeding, and the third clock revolves around the thorny questions ticking steadily away in the United States and Israel: How much longer can you wait to see if sanctions work and is military intervention the solution?

His comments came just days before the U.S. national security adviser, Tom Donilon, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem over the weekend and before a group of international monitors returned to Iran to seek greater clarity on what is happening on the ground.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Martin Dempsey, warned that an Israeli strike at this time would be “destabilizing.” Gates’ successor, Leon Panetta, recently suggested that Israel might strike sometime this spring, setting off a firestorm of reaction among analysts in both countries.

Gates, whose 2006-2011 term as secretary of defense spanned both the Bush and Obama administrations, said the tensions between Israel and the United States over the Iran question arise because the two nations see this “tough issue” through different lenses.

Robert M. Gates

“Iran is a huge challenge for the United States, but it is an existential threat for Israel,” he said. “We say we won’t accept a nuclear Iran, but we said that about North Korea, too.”

He asserted that the two allies generally agree in their assessment of how far along the Iranian program is. The difference, he said, stems from the thinking over what Iran’s reaction would be to a military strike.

“A fair number in Israel think that Iran would respond only with a token attack,” he said, suggesting that Israeli officials see a comparison with the lack of reaction to its strike at the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981 and it’s attack on a Syrian nuclear facility in 2007.

In contrast, he said, the “more broadly accepted view in the United States” is that such an attack could launch another war that would be destabilizing to the region.

Why such different assessment? It’s “just different perspectives,” he said, adding that he is in sync with the prevalent American perspective. “My personal view is that neither one of those countries was Iran,” he said, alluding to Iraq and Syria.

Although Gates has cautioned against military action in the past, he told the Exponent that the question “is ultimately something Israel has to decide for itself.”

Gates acknowledged that the wide speculation over whether Israel would take unilateral military action without first conferring with — or at least warning — the United States is indicative of some tension between the two allies.

Some of that friction, he has suggested, stems from the lack of progress in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, which President Barack Obama placed as a high priority on his foreign-policy agenda when he took office.

He said the disputes over Jewish settlements in the West Bank that have led to public disagreements between Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are not new.

Noting that he has worked for eight presidents, Gates said that the most angry he has seen any of them is over the settlements issue.

He said there is frustration on the part of the U.S. government with both Israel and the Palestinians, but the stories about tensions with Israel are overblown.

“There are some superficial tensions,” he said, but the actual relationship between Israel and the United States has never been stronger.

“We’ve done more for Israel in the past five years,” going as far or farther than any military cooperation in the past, he said, citing as examples the funding Washington provides for Israel’s joint missile-defense program and the Iron Dome, which aims to protect against short-range rocket attacks.

“There’s a huge underlying bond between the two countries; we wouldn’t be doing what we do for Israel if there wasn’t recognition of the strong alliance.”

Gates, who was recently installed as chancellor of the College of William and Mary, his alma mater, is slated to tackle some of the recent developments in the region during his talk in Philadelphia, “A Diplomat’s Guide to the New Mideast.”

The Arab Spring and what’s happening in the foreseeable future “presents the U.S. and Israel with more problems than opportunities,” he said.

He also predicted little movement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at this time, saying there are “too many factors working against progress,” especially given the recently declared unity government between Hamas and Fatah. “How can you have a unity government with two parties — one willing to work with Israel, the other sworn to its destruction?”

Asked about the outcome of the war in Iraq, which he inherited when he became secretary of defense in 2006, during President George W. Bush’s second term, Gates demurred.

“It’s too early to tell,” he said of whether the nearly nine-year war could be considered a success.

How Iraq develops from this point on, he said, will help determine that judgment.

Lebanon news – NOW Lebanon -Iran urges IAEA not to “perturb climate of cooperation”.

Iran’s envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency urged the UN watchdog on Wednesday to “avoid perturbing the climate of cooperation,” saying talks over Tehran’s controversial nuclear program would continue.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh was speaking after two days of fruitless visit to Iran by IAEA inspectors raised tensions, with Russia warning of “catastrophic” consequences if it leads to a military attack on the country.

“During the past two days, we raised technical and legal matters. Technical answers were provided to the agency’s questions,” Soltanieh was quoted by state television’s website as saying.

“This posture of cooperation and dialogue will continue, and we advise [the IAEA] to avoid perturbing the climate of cooperation.”

“Proposals were made” to advance cooperation between Iran and the IAEA, “but to reach a final accord, we need more time. And we have agreed to continue discussions.”

The IAEA said it had gone into the two-day visit to Tehran, and another inconclusive one last month, in a “constructive spirit,” but that no agreement had been reached on efforts to elucidate Iran’s nuclear activities.

The UN watchdog said there was no agreement with Iran “at this point in time” on holding further talks.

Despite requests, “we could not get access” to a military site in Parchin where suspected nuclear warhead design experiments were conducted, team leader and chief inspector Herman Nackaerts said on returning to Vienna.

Referring to Parchin, Soltanieh said: “For every visit, it is necessary to fix a framework and rules taking into consideration both parties.”

Talk of possible military action against Iran by Israel, with or without US help, had lent urgency to diplomatic efforts to lower tensions.

The United States and Europe have been ramping up economic sanctions on Iran since November, when the IAEA published a report crystallizing – though not entirely validating – Western suspicions it was pursuing nuclear weapons research in Parchin and elsewhere.

Iran has repeatedly said the sanctions will not deter it from its nuclear ambitions, and it has threatened to strike back at any military action, possibly by closing the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

–AFP/NOW Lebanon