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WND » Iran boasts U.S. has abandoned Israel

Claims ‘rejection by West’ paves way to annihilate Jewish state

Published: 14 hours ago

By Reza Kahlili

Iranian outlets have been claiming recently the United States has been forced to bow before Iran on its nuclear program, demonstrating the West’s abandonment of Israel and paving the way for the Islamic regime to annihilate the Jewish state.

While restating that Iran will demand ever more in the upcoming second round of talks with the 5+1 nations to be held this month in Baghdad, the Iranian media are now boasting that Israel has been abandoned by its allies and is in a dire bind.

One such editorial, published last week by Iran’s Keyhan newspaper, which is directly under the supervision of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stated, “It can be said that within the last 60 years, this is the first time that the Zionist regime, since its illegal inception, has had to endure rejection by the West over its vision and interest in the region.”

The editorial, written by Sadollah Zarei, a columnist for the hard-line paper, said that within the last three months, Israeli officials, after reports that America is on the verge of accepting the Iranian nuclear program, have made several trips to Washington, where on one trip they met for 10 days with U.S. officials to try to change President Obama’s decision to accept Iran’s nuclear program. They were unsuccessful.

“The ramifications of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s defeat in the face of Obama’s policies have been a breakdown in Israel’s usurper regime, where now many within its own government have spoken against its own prime minister, claiming Iran is a rational regime and not after the bomb,” Zarei wrote.

While Israel’s government is in disarray internally, the editorial said, the West is forced to watch Iran’s victory in nuclear negotiations.

“The West, which in the first (5+1) Istanbul talks would not recognize Iran’s nuclear program even if the 20 percent enriched material was sent out of the country, now before stepping into the Baghdad meeting has accepted Iran’s nuclear program without even getting an assurance on the 20 percent enrichment process,” Zarei said. “All of this is taking place in front of the horrified eyes of the Zionist regime.”

The 5+1 nations, which are the five permanent Security Council nations plus Germany, have broached the subject of allowing Iran to enrich uranium to the 5 percent level for peaceful purposes. Enriching to the 20 percent level is an important step to nuclear weaponization, which Iran is pushing for as part of its stated goal of obliterating Israel.

The question now is why the West has changed its policies toward Iran, the editorial said. It could have continued with the same old policies of confrontation.

The answer, the editorial said, is that “in the last year, two important events have taken place. One has been the Islamic Awakening (the Arab Spring) in the region, which is based on the ideology of the Islamic Republic of Iran and has the West quite worried and concerned; the other is the events in Egypt, which, despite all the analysis by the West, have turned into an Islamic movement with Sharia laws. These two events have forced the West to rethink its approach toward Iran.”

As a result, Israel is backed into a corner, alone without its allies, the editorial said.

Zarei concluded that Israel has been weakened drastically with what is happening in Egypt, which has collapsed part of Israel’s regional security.

“With diminishing support for Israel and with the (upcoming) collapse of the monarchy in Saudi Arabia,” Zarei claims, “there won’t be any obstacles left facing Iran with its policy of annihilation of Israel.”

Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, one of the most influential clerics in the Islamic regime and possibly the next supreme leader, has stated that it is the duty of Muslims to destroy the “Zionist regime and its arrogant supporters.”

Yazdi had decreed in 2006 that in case of war between Muslims and “infidels,” Muslims can take the “infidels” as slaves until they become Muslims and then send them back to their countries.

In a new decree, Yazdi said, “When protecting Islam and the Muslim (community), martyrdom operation not only is allowed, but it even is an obligation.”

In any attack on Israel, only Israeli civilians who have opposed Israel’s “vicious crimes” should be spared, but the rest can be slaughtered, he said.

As WND has reported, the Iranian government, through a website proxy, has laid out the legal and religious justification for the destruction of Israel and the slaughter of its people.

The doctrine includes wiping out Israeli assets and Jewish people worldwide.

Calling Israel a danger to Islam, the conservative website Alef, with ties to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the opportunity must not be lost to remove “this corrupting material. It is a ‘jurisprudential justification’ to kill all the Jews and annihilate Israel, and in that, the Islamic government of Iran must take the helm.”

Watch the following Iranian video describing the timing of the destruction of Israel:

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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, a member of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and teaches at the U.S. Department of Defense’s Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy (JCITA).

‘Air Force prepared for any mission’ – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Outgoing IAF chief says that while Israel’s Air Force has necessary capability to strike Islamic Republic, such a campaign must follow ‘ever-changing strategic realities’

Ron Ben-Yishai

“I believe that the Air Force is well prepared for its missions,” outgoing IAF Chief Major-General Ido Nehushtan said Sunday.

Nehushtan’s statement came in response to a question presented at a press briefing, which wondered about the IAF’s readiness for a large military strike. The hint to Iran was clear and Nehushtan’s reply resonated clearer.

Nehushtan retired from the IDF this week, after 37 years in service. Maj.-Gen. Amir Eshel, Israel’s new IAF chief, echoed his predecessor’s sentiment upon taking office, saying that Israel’s Air Force was “ready for every scenario.”

The retiring IAF chief did qualify his statement, saying that the force’s capabilities are not static: “The IAF chief has to be able to explain what can be done given the needs and the circumstances, which are constantly changing.”

Thus, while the IAF is currently ready and able to successfully carry out such a mission, the matter of a possible strike on Iran would have to be reviewed as it is discussed by the political and military echelons, in real time and in line with other strategic and technical consideration, as they become evident by in the international arena and in Iran itself.

In any case, the outgoing IAF chief was not about to drop the proverbial bomb in his farewell briefing.

‘Situation constantly changing’

During his time in office, Nehushtan conducted himself very carefully, keeping a low profile for the most part; despite the fact that the scope of the IAF’s operations under his command was hardly a humble one.

In his four years in office, the corps noted 650,000 flight hours – 150,000 of them operational – and struck 7,000 targets. An additional 150,000 airborne hours were performed by drones.

The data alludes most of all as to the scope of training, especially for long-range strategic missions – which is a code-phrase often used to describe the Iranian issue – as well as to the growing importance of drone operations in the IAF.

The Air Force suffered four deadly training accidents during those four years, but overall, Nehushtan’s IAF had a stable safety record.

Nehushtan characterized his term as one riddled with rapid regional changes and strategic and budgetary uncertainties, which meant he had to constantly adjust the corps accordingly.

“The strategic situation mandates that we rethink our defense dogma and adapt it to an ever-changing strategic and budgetary reality,” he said.

In April, he added, he nearly had to suspend all flights due to a real concern that the corps was lacking spare parts for maintenance, fuel and munitions.

A force to be reckoned with

Nehushtan admitted that the State of Israel allocates generous resources to its Air Force, but stresses that the need to be simultaneously ready for multiple scenarios means that when the IDF formulates its next five-year plan, the IAF will require a bigger piece of the budget pie.

“My foremost challenge was to develop the corps’ quality, maintain it and leave a better IAF behind me,” he said. “The IAF has some of the most advanced capabilities in the world.”

Nehushtan’s term focused on five avenues: Operations, bolstering the force, maintaining the quality of human capital and organizational culture, intensive training and better collaboration with the Ground Forces.

His greatest successes were noted in the fields of operations and force-building. He oversaw the creation of another F-16i squadron, which is a significant addition to Israel’s striking capabilities; as well as the creation of a large drone unit, meant primarily from long-range strategic missions.

Nehushtan’s pièce de résistance, however, was the formation of the “aerial defense lineup” that consists of an anti-tank missile interception wing and an rocket and missile interception wing.

The latter in the parent-unit of Iron Dome, which has successfully intercepted 93 rockets and missiles fired at Israel from Gaza.

Nehushtan has also been able to rid the Air Force of its innate aversion of such defense systems, pushing for the creation of a multi-tier missile defense system. In three years, the lineup will also include the Arrow and Magic Wand defense systems.

The Air Force, he said, must look ahead to future challenges, in Lebanon and Syria, “Where the next test of the pubic and the government’s trust lies.”

Iran nuke talks kick off, IAEA d… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

By REUTERS

05/14/2012 11:56

IAEA deputy director general meets with Iranian officials for start of 2 days of negotiations, says goal is to “resolve all outstanding issues with Iran” and demands access to information, people sites.

Photo: REUTERS

VIENNA – A senior UN nuclear watchdog official said Iran needed to give his inspectors access to information, people and sites as he began a two-day meeting with Iranian officials on the Islamic state’s disputed atomic activities on Monday.

Herman Nackaerts, deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told reporters as he arrived at an Iranian diplomatic mission in Vienna that Iran should now engage on issues of substance with the IAEA.

The UN agency is investigating suspicions that Tehran may be seeking nuclear weapons capability, a charge it denies.

“The aim of our two days is to reach agreement on (an) approach to resolve all outstanding issues with Iran, in particular clarification of the possible military dimensions remains our priority,” Nackaerts said.

Two previous rounds of talks in Tehran early this year failed to make any notable progress, especially on the IAEA’s request for access to a military site where it believes nuclear weapons-relevant research may have taken place.

Since then, Iran and the six world powers have resumed wider diplomatic talks aimed at resolving the standoff over Tehran’s atomic ambitions and they will meet again in Baghdad on May 23.

Western diplomats will be watching this week’s discussions in Vienna for any sign that Iran is now ready to address the IAEA’s concerns about its nuclear work, saying this would send a positive message ahead of the Baghdad talks.

“We are here to continue our dialogue with Iran in a positive spirit,” said Nackaerts, who heads a team of senior IAEA officials in the meeting at the Iranian diplomatic mission.

“It is important now that we can engage on the substance of these issues and that Iran let us access to people, documents, information and sites,” he said.

Iran and the powers involved in nuclear diplomacy – the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany – revived negotiations in Istanbul last month after a 15-month hiatus and both sides say they hope for progress in Baghdad.

The resumption of diplomacy offers a chance to defuse soaring tension that has raised fear of a new Middle East war.

Israel – widely believed to hold the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal – and the United States have not ruled out military action to prevent Iran from obtaining atomic bombs if negotiations fail to achieve this objective peacefully.

Two previous meetings between Iran and the IAEA in Tehran early this year failed to make any notable progress.

The UN agency’s document published in November lent independent weight to Western allegations about Tehran’s nuclear agenda and helped pave the ground for a significant ratcheting up of US and European sanctions to block its oil exports.

One finding in the report was information that Iran in 2000 had built a large containment chamber at Parchin – a military complex southeast of Tehran – in which to conduct high-explosives tests that the IAEA said are “strong indicators of possible (nuclear) weapon development”.Iran has rejected the accusations as fabricated but so far has not granted repeated requests by the UN agency to visit the place. IAEA head Yukiya Amano says the issue is a “priority” for his team of senior officials in this week’s discussions.

Navy Commandos in Largest Drill in Decade – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

Naval exercise

Photo: IDF

Israel Navy commando forces carried out their largest drill in a decade last week. Soldiers of the elite Shayetet 13 and the 916 Detachment, together with the Snapir port security unit and the Israel Air Force, practiced “operational scenarios that could arise at any moment,” reported Yohanan Levin in the Israel Navy Website.

The senior leadership of the Detachment attended the exercise, in which soldiers simulated a number of scenarios. These included neutralization of an enemy force at sea, ship malfunctions, and evacuation of an injured soldier by helicopter – all carried out within severe time restraints. The exercise was overseen by Base Commander Col. Dror Friedman, who evaluated the soldiers’ preparedness for such incidents.

As part of the exercise, a helicopter simulated the evacuation of a person injured at sea. The casualty was quickly and efficiently transported. “The crew acted rapidly and maintained a high level of professionalism,” said Lt. Amir, a ship commander.

After this drill, the ships received envelopes with different scenarios simulating ship malfunctions. One such scenario involved a fire in the engine room, which required the crew to abandon ship and escape in lifeboats.

At the end of the exercise, the ships were deployed along the length of Israel’s Mediterranean coast, reported the Israel Navy Website. “All of the sailors went on deck to witness a powerful sight that had not been seen in a decade – visual proof of the size and strength of Israel’s navy. Lt. Amir stood with his soldiers on his ship’s deck and looked out on the naval forces. ‘We are here to protect the security of the State of Israel,’ he remarked. ‘The power that the navy has is amazing. To see all of the ships together along Israel’s coasts gives us great pride and assures us that Israel’s civilians can sleep well at night.'”

On their way back to base after the drill, the naval convoy deliberately sailed close to Israel’s coastline, in order to imbue Israelis who live near the shore with confidence that a powerful navy is protecting them.

The drill may or may not be connected to preparations for an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, which is expected later this year.