WarSclerotic

Iran: We Lie to Inspectors on Our Nuke Program – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

IAEA officials

AFP/File

Western countries have long suspected Iran of misleading international inspectors over the extent of its nuclear program – and now a top Iranian official has admitted as much. In an interview with the London-based Arabic Al-Hayat daily, Fereydoun Abbasi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency, said that Tehran had on occasion “misled” International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors on a number of issues.

“At times we submitted false information (to inspectors) in order to defend the nuclear facilities and our achievements, “Abbasi told the paper.” “We had no choice but to mislead the IAEA and other spies.”

Abbasi also described the practical tactics of how Iran misleads the West. “Sometimes we pretend to have a weakness we really do not have,” to throw inspectors off the track; if Iran is not capable of certain more basic things, the thinking is that they could not be capable of more advanced activities. “And sometimes we pretend to have a strength that we do not have. Afterwards, the effect of these tactics is evident when we have discussions with the IAEA,” Abbasi said.

Abassi, who is also a vice-president of Iran, said that the regime felt it had no choice but to act deviously. “It is unacceptable that the IAEA would consider us as a guilty party that has to prove its innocence. There are certain parties that accuse us of all sorts of things, and the IAEA tries to prove these accusations. It is similar to what happened to Saddam Hussein of Iraq.” Hussein was accused of amassing weapons of mass destruction by the U.S., but to date no such weapons have been found.

Abbasi added that Iran is being targeted by spy and security agencies around the world. “For seven years we have been observing British Mi6 agents spying on us, and gathering information on individuals who were eventually killed by Zionist agents.” Abbasi was referring to Iranian nuclear scientists who have been killed in automobile accidents or other incidents. Iran has accused Israel and Britain of being behind the killings, charges both countries deny.

Abbasi, who was speaking during a meeting of the IAEA, said that he did not believe the U.S. or Israel would attack Iran. However, he said that he expected international pressure to remain high, or even grow, with the IAEA bouncing the Iranian nuclear issue back to the UN Security Council for further action.

Israel could probably destroy only two of Iran’s nuclear plants – it would take America to do the rest – Telegraph Blogs.

AFP: Israeli strike on Iran may wreck Arab treaties: US.

( Thanks for giving them the idea and the justification for doing so, Obama.  – JW )

(AFP) – 48 minutes ago

JERUSALEM — Egypt and Jordan could annul their peace treaties with Israel if it carries out a preemptive strike against Iran, US officials have warned the Jewish state, an Israeli newspaper reported Thursday.

Quoting a high-level Israeli official, Yediot Aharonot said Washington had warned the Jewish state that Arab leaders would not be able to control an angry public backlash if Israel were to mount an attack on Iran.

The newspaper said the US official pointed to the violent response in several Middle Eastern countries to a film insulting Islam, saying: “Today the Arab leaders do not control their peoples, the streets control the leaders.

“An Israeli strike is just what the Iranians need. The entire Arab and Muslim street will take to the streets to demonstrate,” the official said.

“What happened with the film against Mohammed is just a preview of what will happen in case of an Israeli strike,” he said, referring to the unrest which has spread across the Muslim world, which has so far left more than 30 people dead.

The official said that Egypt and Jordan, the only Arab countries that have signed peace treaties with Israel, would face enormous pressure to annul the accords if Iran’s nuclear facilities were attacked.

Israel, the Middle East’s sole if undeclared nuclear power, has said it cannot rule out preemptive military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Israel and much of the international community believes that Iran’s nuclear programme masks a weapons drive, a charge denied by Tehran.

Washington has backed tough sanctions against Iran but has publicly differed with Israel over the timetable for any possible military action on its nuclear facilities.

Iran pours more troops into Syria, ready to target Israel from Syria and Lebanon.

DEBKAfile Special Report September 20, 2012, 10:50 AM (GMT+02:00)

IDF Chief of Staff observes big Golan drill

Iran continues to fly military personnel and quantities of weapons into Syria by civilian aircraft which cut through Iraqi airspace, American intelligence sources disclosed early Thursday, Sept. 20. UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon also said that, “Unfortunately, both [Syrian] sides, government and opposition forces, seem to be determined to see the end by military means.”

Clearly, Iran is augmenting its military involvement in the constantly escalating Syrian civil war, broadening it into a multinational conflict which threatens to drag Lebanon in, by means of the Iranian-Syrian ally, Hizballah.

The UN Secretary General’s statement implying that the two Syrian sides are determined to fight to the bitter end is echoed in Iran’s resolve to fight to the bitter end for Assad, on Syrian soil.

Tehran is not hiding its actions. Sunday, Sept. 16, Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) Commander Gen. Ali Jafari said openly that Al Qods Brigades units were present and operational in both Syria and Lebanon.

No comment on this revelation has come from the US, Israel or Israel’s military (IDF) chiefs – notwithstanding its menacing import, namely, that Tehran is no longer hanging about and waiting for its nuclear program to be attacked in order to punish Israel, but is getting ready for a pre-emptive operation.

Still, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have chosen silence in the face of what any other nation would regard as a casus belli: the open deployment of enemy forces on its northern and eastern borders.
This must have been the catalyst for the IDF’s surprise two-division strength drill Wednesday on Israel’s Golan border with Syria. But the IDF spokesman sounded almost apologetic when he explained that the exercise had nothing to do with the events in Syria or with Hizballah, and that it was no more than a routine drill for testing preparedness.

debkafile‘s military sources say that, in the current climate, no military operation by any army on the Syrian border – especially one of this magnitude – may be regarded as “routine.” Only a week ago, the Golani Brigade concluded a large military exercise in northern Israel including the Golan. That sort of frequency must have operational connotations: The IDF is evidently keeping the army on the move and in a constant state of readiness to fight a real war without delay on terrain made familiar by repeated war games.
IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Benny Gantz has a penchant for expressing himself through symbols, his method of overcoming the restrictions placed on his tongue by military and other constraints.

On New Year’s Eve last week, the general handed military correspondents a small gift: The Hebrew edition of the American writer Richard David Bach’s “There’s No Such Place as Far Away.”

For the Golan drill Wednesday, he decided to attach Maj. Gen. (res.) Nati Sharoni, chief artillery officer in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, to his party of advisers and observers.
The book was a clear message to Tehran and doubting Thomases at home that the IDF is fully capable of an operation against Iran’s nuclear program and of successfully accomplishing any mission far from its shores.

Gen. Sharoni’s presence at the Golan exercise, and the exercise itself, was a warning to Iran, Hizballah and Syria that they will be disappointed if they hope to catch Israel unready, as it was by the surprise attack which almost overcame the IDF 39 years ago before the tide of war was turned back against Egypt.

Iran Talks Give Hint of Obama Betrayal « Commentary Magazine.

Jonathan S. Tobin | @tobincommentary 09.19.2012 – 2:45 PM

Give the Islamist regime in Iran some credit. They can read between the lines as easily as anyone in Washington. Having seen the spectacle of the Obama administration’s refusal to set red lines about Iran’s nuclear program despite impassioned pleas from Israel to do so, the ayatollahs understand they have been sent a signal that the president is open to another round of hopeless negotiations over the issue.

That’s the upshot of the informal meetings taking place in Istanbul between the Iranians and European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. Ashton headed up the West’s delegations in the P5+1 talks held earlier this year but, like President Obama, appears to have learned nothing from the experience. As Laura Rozen reports in The Back Channel blog, the Iranians may have again convinced the West that they should give the talks yet another try. According to Rozen, “The path going forward is ‘open,’ one western diplomat said.”

That’s excellent news for the Iranians, who may now be able to look forward to more negotiating sessions with the Western consortium at which they can drag out the process even further without giving an inch. But it’s bad news for anyone who wants to actually stop the Iranians from achieving their nuclear ambition.

The P5+1 talks earned the Iranians several months more during which their centrifuges could keep spinning and turning out more enriched uranium for their weapons project. This illustrates why the Israelis are so intent on red lines.

This year’s diplomatic minuet over the Iranian nuclear program wasn’t the first time Tehran played the West for suckers.

The Bush administration vetoed any Israeli attack on Iran and outsourced diplomacy on the question to the Europeans. But despite the warm relations that France and Germany supposedly had with their Iranian business partners and their offer of a deal that would have allowed Tehran to have a nuclear program, no deal was ever struck.

President Obama came into office acting as if the Bush attempt at diplomacy never happened and wasted a year on a foolish attempt at “engagement” with Iran and two more on assembling a weak international coalition in favor of loosely enforced sanctions on Tehran. Talks were held and deals even struck, but the Iranians always reneged on any deal. The president’s fourth year in office was marked by more sanctions that had no effect on Iran and the P5+1 talks that merely bought Iran’s scientists more time.

The Israelis and other savvy observers understand that Iran’s goal in the talks is not even a favorable agreement that would enable them to finesse their way to a bomb the way the North Koreans did. Rather, their intention is to stall until their stockpile of nuclear material is large enough and stored in invulnerable underground bunkers that would render any attack pointless.

That’s why what is needed now is a presidential statement about red lines rather than another P5+1 fool’s errand. Anything other than a warning that force will be used if Iran doesn’t halt its enrichment program is a sign not so much of patience but that the president will go back on his pledge not to “contain” a nuclear Iran.

No one who is not an Iran apologist can possibly argue — at least not with a straight face — that more talks with Iran under these circumstances will serve anyone’s interests but that of the Islamist regime. Those who have argued that the administration should be trusted to stop Iran must speak out urgently about what another round of P5+1 talks will mean: more months for Iran to get closer to a bomb and a bridge to a second term reversal of policy on the issue by President Obama.

Islamic states to reopen quest for global blasphemy law.

Thursday, 20 September 2012

The OIC wants insults to religions to be criminal offence, while Christians say Pakistan blasphemy law brings persecution. (Reuters)

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Report: Iran shipping ‘tons of weapons,’ personnel to Syria via Iraq – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

According to Western intelligence seen by Reuters, the transfers are organized by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to help Syria’s Assad crush the uprising against his regime.

Israeli soldiers patrol the border with Syria. Photo by Yaron Kaminsky

By Avi Issacharoff and Reuters

Sep.20,2012 | 12:51 AM | 2

Iran has been using civilian aircraft to fly military personnel and large quantitiesof weapons across Iraqi airspace to Syria to aid President Bashar Assad in his attempt to crush an 18-month uprising against his government, according to a Western intelligence report seen by Reuters.

Earlier this month, U.S. officials said they were questioning Iraq about Iranian flights in Iraqi airspace suspected of ferrying arms to Assad, a staunch Iranian ally. On Wednesday, U.S. Senator John Kerry threatened to review U.S. aid to Baghdad if it does not halt such overflights.

Iraq says it does not allow the passage of any weapons through its airspace. But an intelligence report obtained by Reuters says Iranian weapons have been flowing into Syria via Iraq in large quantities. Such transfers, the report says, are organized by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“This is part of a revised Iranian modus operandi that U.S.officials have only recently addressed publicly, following previous statements to the contrary,” said the report, a copy of which was provided by a UN diplomatic source.

“It also flies in the face of declarations by Iraqi officials,” it said. “Planes are flying from Iran to Syria via Iraq on an almost daily basis, carrying IRGC (Iranian
Revolutionary Guard Corps) personnel and tens of tons of weapons to arm the Syrian security forces and militias fighting against the rebels.”

Although the specific charges about Iraq allowing Iran to transfer arms to Damascus are not new, the intelligence report alleges that the extent of such shipments is far greater than has been publicly acknowledged, and much more systematic, thanks an agreement between senior Iraqi and Iranian officials.

Iraqi officials in Baghdad and New York did not have any immediate comment.

The issue of Iranian arms shipments to Syria came up repeatedly at a Senate hearing in Washington on Wednesday on the nomination of Robert Beecroft as the next U.S. ambassador to Baghdad. Beecroft is currently deputy chief of mission there.

John Kerry, the Democratic chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, asked Beecroft what the embassy was doingto persuade the Iraqis to prevent Iran from using their airspace for flights carrying weapons to Syria. Beecroft said that he and other U.S. officials made clear to Iraq the flights must stop.

U.S. threat to review aid

Kerry said he was alarmed that U.S. efforts thus far had not persuaded Baghdad to halt the overflights, and suggested that the United States could in future make some of the hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance it gives to Iraq contingent on their cooperation on Syria.

“Maybe we should make some of our assistance or some of our support contingent on some kind of appropriate response,” he said. “It just seems completely inappropriate that we’re trying to help build democracy, support them, put American lives on the line, money into the country, and they’re working against our interest so overtly.”

The intelligence report, which Western diplomats said was credible and consistent with their information, said Iran had cut a deal with Iraq to use its airspace.

One envoy said it was possible that Tehran and Baghdad did not in fact have any formal agreement, only an informal understanding not to raise questions about possible arms transfers to Syria.

In comments published by Iranian media on Sunday, Mohammad Ali Jafari said members of the IRGC were providing non-military assistance in Syria and Lebanon. He added that Tehran might get involved militarily in Syria if its closest ally came under attack. A day later, however, Iran’s foreign ministry denied
those remarks.

Two Boeing 747 aircraft specifically mentioned in the intelligence report as being involved in Syria arms transfers – an Iran Air plane with the tail number EP-ICD and Mahan Air’s EP-MNE – were among 117 aircraft hit with sanctions on Wednesday by the U.S. Treasury Department.

The Treasury Department also blacklisted aircraft operated by Iran’s Yas Air for supplying Syria with weapons. A UN panelof experts that monitors compliance with UN sanctions againstIran has repeatedly named Yas Air, along with Iran Air, as supplier of arms to Syria.

The Treasury Department statement on the new blacklistings said the move would “make it easier for interested parties to keep track of this blocked property, and more difficult for Iran to use deceptive practices to try to evade sanctions.” 

The statement did not mention Iraq.

Earlier this year, the UN panel of experts recommendedn that Yas Air be put on the UN blacklist for helping Iran skirt a UN arms embargo. So far the Security Council has not taken any action on that recommendation.

The UN panel’s reports have described Iranian arms shipments to Syria via Turkey, not Iraq.

The intelligence report said such transfers across Turkish airspace had ceased.

“Since Ankara adopted a firm position against Syria, and declared that it would intercept all weapons shipments sent to the Assad regime through Turkish territory or airspace, Tehran has all but completely stopped using this channel,” it said.

Tehran is forbidden from selling weapons under a UN arms embargo, which is part of broader sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

Earlier this month, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Syria’s conflict had taken a brutal turn with other countries   arming both sides, spreading misery and risking “unintended Iran ships arms, personnel to Syria via Iraq consequences as the fighting intensifies and spreads.”

US warned Israel that strike on Iran will cause Egypt, Jordan to sever ties, report says | The Times of Israel.

Current Arab protests only a ‘preview’ for what will happen in the wake of an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, senior Israeli official tells Yedioth Ahronoth

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama give an uncomfortable joint press conference at the White House, May 2011. (photo credit: Avi Ohayon/Government Press Office/FLASH90)

The US has recently warned Israel that an Israeli strike on Iran will likely cause Egypt and Jordan to annul their peace agreements with Israel and sever ties, according to a senior Israeli official quoted by the Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth on Thursday.

“These days, Arab leaders don’t rule their people. Rather, the street rules its leaders,” the official was quoted as saying. “An Israeli strike is exactly what the Iranians need: the entire Arab and Muslim street will go out to demonstrate.”

The Israeli official reportedly linked between the anticipated Arab reaction to an Israeli strike and the recent rage-fueled wave of anti-Western protests in the wake of the publication of a trailer for a new film, “The Innocence of Muslims,” that denigrates Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

“What we’ve been seeing with the anti-Muhammad film is nothing but a preview for what’s going to happen if Israel attacks,” the official was quoted as saying.

The comments come after weeks of increasing speculation about a possible Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Israel has argued that due to its security concerns and reluctance to “outsource” its security to another country — even the US — it cannot afford to let Iran reach a breakout point in its nuclear program, meaning the stage at which manufacturing an atomic weapon becomes merely a matter of time.

The US and Israel have recently become embroiled in a standoff after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama publicly said they would not set “red lines” for Iran’s nuclear program, beyond which military force would be deployed.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for such measures as a means of calming Israeli apprehensions.

On Wednesday, a senior Israeli official warned Iran to stop its “direct and blunt threats” against his country, telling a 155-nation nuclear conference that Israel was ready to defend itself against any nation that menaces its existence.

Israeli nuclear chief Shaul Chorev avoided any suggestion that his country was contemplating a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities — a scenario that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is increasingly suggesting may be necessary to stop what he says is Tehran’s path toward atomic arms.

Alluding to Iranian statements questioning Israel’s right to exist, Chorev warned that his country “does not remain indifferent in view of such direct and blunt threats.”

“Israel is competent to deter its enemies and to defend itself,” he told the meeting.

On Monday, Iran’s nuclear chief said that his country’s nuclear facilities could now survive enemy attack.

Insulted, Muslims spread hatred – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Op-ed: Same people who murder over amateurish anti-Islam film revel in horrific portrayal of Jews

Shaul Rosenfeld

The Muslim impulse to resort to violence whenever the prophet Mohammed or any other Islamic saint is criticized did not disappoint this time either. It had to crush and burn everything in its path over something that appeared Western enough to be hostile to Islam as well.

Just as Theo van Gogh was murdered in Amsterdam in 2004 after criticizing Islamic society in his movie “Submission,” and just as the publication of prophet Mohammed caricatures in Denmark (2004) sparked violent riots that claimed the lives of more than 1,000 people worldwide – it is only natural that an amateurish film such as “Innocence of Muslims” – produced by a Coptic Christian – serves as a good enough excuse for the Muslims to murder, torch embassies and riot in 2012.

But even if the Arab-Islamic riots subside soon and Obama, Clinton and other senior officials in the US and Europe continue to condemn the violence, still only a few of them will be willing to shed the naïveté within their ranks and take a closer look at the Islamist-fundamentalist incitement and its sources of inspiration, at the violent character of Arab-Muslim society and at the anti-Semitic and anti-Western propaganda in its newspapers, books and television broadcasts.

‘Valley of the Wolves’

The same society that turns violent whenever its holy figures are disparaged, revels in the horrific portrayals of Jews and Judaism in Arab media, particularly during the holy month of Ramadan. Movies such as the Iranian-produced “Saturday Hunter” and the Egyptian television series “Horseman Without a Horse,” as well as the TV series “Al-Shatat” (which was cancelled in Jordan after 22 episodes due to American pressure) and the Turkish mini-series “Valley of the Wolves” – all contain hateful anti-Semitic motifs that the Muslim viewer “eats up” enthusiastically.

Cartoon in Saudi newspaper al-Watan

These motifs are also endorsed by respected Muslim academics. Between 2003 and 2006 a slew of Egyptian scholars explained how despicable the Jewish religion is and how big the lie which the Jewish religion is based on is – and all this at a time of peace with Israel, when Mubarak, not the Muslim Brotherhood, ruled.

In his 2003 book “The Nature of the Jews (as reflected) in the Torah and the Talmud,” Dr. Ahmad Hijazi al-Saqa explained that “almost all the revolutions, coups d’état, and wars that ever happened in the world were brought about by the Jews, instructed by the falsified Torah, the Talmud, and ultimately The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. (These texts) all incite (the Jews) to eliminate non-Jews, using all means to achieve their goal: ruling the world from Jerusalem….”

That same year al-Saqa published “The Complete Version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” which served as the basis for another monumental book about the “protocols” – Dr. Baha al-Amir’s “The Divine Inspiration and its Reversal, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” published in 2006. A year earlier Dr. ‘Ayid Taha Nassef published “The Children of Israel and the Lie of Semitism.” All of these books (and this is just a partial list) were on display at the international book fair Cairo in 2007.

When a crown of thorns is promised to whoever speaks of the violence in Islamic society and culture, and when double moral standard becomes a profession in Arab countries, as well as in Western countries, a feminist such as Judith Butler can view Israel as the devil incarnate and at the same time consider Hamas and Hezbollah to be legitimate organizations representing the global leftist camp.

In such an atmosphere, Edward Said can refer to the descriptions of the Levant’s backwardness – including the oppression of women and the hatred of the West, Jews and Judaism – as racist Western propaganda, no less.

The people of the Levant can view an esoteric film as an excuse to launch a pogrom against the infidels from the West and at the same time accept fatwas describing Jews as the descendants of apes and pigs.

ME carnage: Appeasement and histo… JPost – Opinion – Columnists.