WarSclerotic

Iran threatens attacks on US bases in event of war – News – Boston.com.

FILE – This photo released on Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011 by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, claims to show the chief of the aerospace division of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, left, listening to an unidentified colonel pointing to a U.S. RQ-170 Sentinel drone which Tehran says its forces downed. Hajizadeh warned that Iran will target U.S. bases in the region in the event of war with Israel, raising the prospect of a broader conflict that would force other countries to get involved, Iranian state television reported Sunday, Sept. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Sepahnews, File) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS HAS NO WAY OF INDEPENDENTLY VERIFYING THE CONTENT, LOCATION OR DATE OF THIS IMAGE By ALI AKBAR DAREINI

Associated Press  / September 23, 2012

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is currently in New York to attend the annual U.N. General Assembly and could seek to use his speech and meetings later this week to highlight the possible risks — including sharply higher oil prices — if military action is taken.

Obama says ‘blocking out’ Israeli ‘noise’ – Israel News, Ynetnews.

US president says he understands Israeli PM’s ‘insistence’ to prevent Iran from becoming nuclear but stresses ‘when it comes to our national security any pressure I feel is to do what’s right for the American people’

Yitzhak Benhorin

WASHINGTON – US President Barack Obama described the Israeli pressure to draw a “red line” for Iran as “noise” he is trying to block out.

In an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday, the president addressed the crisis between Washington and Jerusalem over the handling of the Iranian nuclear issue. Obama stressed he feels “an obligation, not pressure” to coordinate with Israel.

Meanwhile, Israeli and US officials are still struggling to reach understandings on the matter behind the scenes. US Ambassador to Washington Michael Oren has traveled to Israel to meet Netanyahu before the latter heads to New York for the UN’s General Assembly on Wednesday night.

Obama said he “understands and shares” the Israeli prime minister’s “insistence” that Iran should not obtain a nuclear weapon as this “would threaten us, it would threaten Israel and it would threaten the world and kick off a nuclear arms race.”

However, in a jab to Netanyahu, he remarked that when it comes to US national security “any pressure that I feel is simply to do what’s right for the American people. And I am going to block out any noise that’s out there.”

Tensions between Israel and the US mounted when Netanyahu demanded that Obama’s administration draw “red lines” for Iran that if crossed would prompt a US reaction. Washington refused to comply but stressed its commitment to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

The crisis between Netanyahu and Obama exacerbated as Israeli elements accused the US president of refusing to meet with the prime minister. The White House claimed that schedule constraints prevented any meeting between the two on the sidelines of the General Assembly.

On Sunday, Obama stressed he feels “an obligation, not pressure to make sure that we’re in close consultation with the Israelis on these issues because it affects them deeply.” Earlier this week he noted in another interview that Israel was one of the US’ closest allies in the region.

Friedman blasts Netanyahu

Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, also interviewed on “60 Minutes” criticized the president for his attitude towards Israel.

Romney said that Obama’s decision not to meet Netanyahu in New York was a “mistake that sends a message throughout the Middle East that somehow we distance ourselves from our friends.”

Also Sunday, top US journalist Thomas Friedman criticized Netanyahu in an op-ed in the New York Times. “Bibi is Winston Churchill when it comes to demanding that the US draw red lines, but he is a local party boss when America asks him to draw a ‘green line’ delineating where Jewish settlements in the West Bank will stop and a Palestinian state might start. Oh, no! Can’t do that, Bibi tells American officials. ‘I would lose my coalition.'”

U.N. chief warns Ahmadinejad on fiery rhetoric amid European calls for new sanctions.

Monday, 24 September 2012

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has used his U.N. speeches to defend Iran’s nuclear program and to attack Israel. (Reuters)

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Obama snubs Netanyahu on Iran: My decisions – only what’s right for America.

DEBKAfile Special Report September 24, 2012, 9:24 AM (GMT+02:00)

Obama puts the lid on Iran cooperation with Israel

US President Barack Obama said Sunday night, Sept. 23 on CBS “60 Minutes” that he understands and agrees with Netanyahu’s insistence that Iran not be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons as this would threaten both countries, the world in general and kick off an arms race. But he then added: “When it comes to our national security decisions – any pressure that I feel is simply to do what’s right for the American people. And I am going to block out – any noise that’s out there.”

Obama went on to say: “Now I feel an obligation – not pressure but obligation – to make sure that we’re in close consultation with the Israelis on these issues because it affects them deeply.”

So, consultation? yes; cooperation? forget it. His comments removed the last hopes Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak may have entertained of cooperation with the US for curtailing Iran’s nuclear designs by military force.
The US president was crystal clear: By saying he will be ruled solely by American security interests, he showed them that they too were being left to be guided by Israel’s security interests. So forget about red lines for America, he was telling Netanyahu.
His blunt verging-on-contemptuous dismissal of Israel’s concerns as “noise out there” was not much different from the way Iran’s leaders referred to the Jewish state.
Their threats against Israel have different dimensions: On the one hand, they say that if Israel is even thinking of attacking Iran, it will be destroyed in a preemptive attack. On the other, Israel has neither the military capability nor the courage to strike Iran.
Asked on CNN Sunday whether he feared a war with Israel was imminent, Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said: “The Zionists are very much, very adventuresome… They seek to fabricate new opportunities for themselves and their adventurous behaviors.”
Obama’ “noises” are Ahmadinejad’s “fabrications.”
The Iranian president had no need to explain how Iran would react, because the answer was broadcast ahead of his arrival in New York to address the UN General Assembly Thursday, by Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Revolutionary Guards missile section.
The general said Sunday:  Should Israel and Iran engage militarily, “nothing is predictable… and it will turn into World War III” Addressing Iran’s Arab-language network, he said, “In circumstances in which they (the Israelis) have prepared everything for an attack, it is possible that we will make a pre-emptive attack. Any Israeli strike would be presumed to be authorized by the US. Therefore, “we will definitely attackUS bases in Bahrain, Qatar and Afghanistan.”
Tehran was therefore pulling against Obama by tying American and Israeli security interests into an inextricable bundle.
debkafile’s Jerusalem sources report that Netanyahu is now seriously considering calling off his trip to New York for a speech to the UN General Assembly scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 27. He realizes that by challenging US policy from the UN platform, he would lay himself open to criticism for gratuitous provocation of the president and interference in America’s election campaign weeks before a presidential election.
Obama’s Republican challenger Mitt Romney, in a separate CBS interview, attacked Obama’s reference to Israel’s legitimate concerns about a nuclear Iran as “noise out there,” calling it “just the latest evidence of his chronic disregard for the security of our closest ally in the Middle East.”

Earlier, Romney termed the president’s decision not to meet Netanyahu as sending a message throughout the Middle East “that we distance ourselves from our friends.”
As debkafile reported after that Obama snub, the wrangling with Washington has reduced Netanyahu’s options to start standing alone and making his own decisions.
Obama’s latest words underline this. The prime minister can no longer avoid his most fateful decision and one that is critical to Israel’s survival: to attack Iran and disrupt its nuclear program or live with an anti-Semitic nuclear Iran dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish state and a threat to world stability.
For two weeks, the Israeli prime minister has dodged and ducked around the White House message. Instead, he has kept on bombarding Washington with high-powered messengers. They all came back with the same tidings: the US President is not only fed up with Israeli pressure but more determined than evade any military engagement with Iran.