(Will Hamas pretend to be nice to help push the delusional “peace process,” or will Fatah unite with Hamas to continue giving terrorism a chance? — DM)
Fatah and Hamas have made significant progress in reconciliation talks held in Gaza and are now on the verge of implementing previously signed agreements, Palestinian media reported on Tuesday.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and prime minister in gaza strip, Ismael Hanyah, during a meeting between Fatah and Hamas in Cairo, Egypt, 23 February 2012 (photo credit: Mohammed Al-Hums/Flash90)
Fatah and Hamas have made significant progress in reconciliation talks held in Gaza and are now on the verge of implementing previously signed agreements, Palestinian media reported on Tuesday.
“Things are completely ready for ending the divide, and [PA] President [Mahmoud] Abbas is very optimistic that the reconciliation will soon be implemented,” said Nabil Shaath, a senior Fatah member sent by Abbas to Gaza late last week at the head of a delegation from Fatah’s Central Committee to hold talks with Hamas.
The two rival movements have been at loggerheads since Hamas’s violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, a year after winning a landslide victory in national elections. A series of signed reconciliation agreements have not been implemented amid ongoing persecution of opposition members both by Hamas in Gaza and by Fatah in the West Bank.
Speaking to journalists in Gaza Monday evening, Shaath said that Hamas has agreed to the immediate formation of a “national consensus” government headed by Abbas, followed by legislative and presidential elections in six months. Elections are also to be held for the Palestinian National Council, the legislative body of the PLO, in which Palestinian refugees living in the diaspora will take part.
Nabil Shaath in his Ramallah office (photo credit: Miriam Alster/Flash90)
Abbas is expected to send Azzam Al-Ahmad, the Fatah official responsible for talks with Hamas, to Gaza to discuss the implementation of the agreement, Shaath said.
Hamas, for its part, is concerned that some 55,000 of its civil servants working in Gaza will remain jobless following reconciliation with Fatah, the PA official daily Al-Ayyam reported, quoting “knowledgeable political sources.” Hamas would like to see these employees integrated into the PA’s bureaucracy, though Fatah has given no guarantee to that effect, the sources told the paper.
Referring to rumors regarding the content of a framework peace agreement to be presented by US Secretary of State John Kerry in the coming weeks, Shaath said that Abbas would not be able to accept a number of American conditions, including recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, leaving a certain number of settlers in the West Bank, and extending the Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley.
“Negotiations will not be extended [beyond their original nine-month time-frame] if these conditions persist,” Shaath was quoted by the London-based daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi as saying. He warned, however, that Palestinians should be prepared for the eventuality that refusal to accept the American conditions would bring about a “cutting of the foreign aid which the PA relies on to fulfill its needs.”
Fatah attempts to block Dahlan
Talks with Hamas were not the only purpose of the high-profile Fatah visit to Gaza, however. The Ramallah-based movement is concerned over the growing influence of Mohammad Dahlan, a former Fatah member and once the head of Palestinian security in the Gaza Strip.
An Arafat loyalist, Dahlan was expelled from the movement in 2011 after his public criticism of Abbas for corruption led to accusations that he was plotting a coup against the Palestinian president. He fled to Dubai, but continues to enjoy a following among the rank and file of Fatah both in Gaza and in the West Bank.
Mohammed Dahlan in 2006. (photo credit: Michal Fattal/Flash90)
According to Jerusalem-based Palestinian daily Al-Quds, the Fatah delegation headed by Shaath sent a harsh message to Fatah members in Gaza and the West Bank, warning them against cooperating with Dahlan. The movement summoned prominent supporters of Dahlan living in Ramallah, such as Sufian Abu Zaida and Majed Abu Shamala, and told them they must choose between working with Dahlan and remaining in the movement.
“Mohammed Dahlan is no longer a member of Fatah. He now works from an office in Dubai in the UAE under orders of UAE sheikhs, and moves as an Emirates citizen, receiving a budget from the UAE,” Shaath said.
Fatah’s leadership has also accused Dahlan of encouraging cooperation with Hamas in Gaza, a claim that Hamas’s deputy political bureau chief, Mousa Abu Marzouq, rushed to dismiss.
“Hamas denies the rumors regarding reconciliation with Dahlan,” Abu Marzouq wrote in a statement posted to Facebook on Sunday. “In truth, the demands which we obliged in Gaza came from the reconciliation delegation headed by Azzam Al-Ahmad.”
Hamas remained largely mum on Tuesday on the prospect of imminent reconciliation with Fatah.
(The Obama Administration is pretty good at drawing red lines. Doing something when they are crossed is different. — DM)
Iranian army members prepare missiles to be launched / AP
The White House on Monday pushed back against Iran’s efforts to set a “red line” preventing negotiations over its contested ballistic missile program, which has been permitted to continue undeterred under the recently signed interim nuclear accord.
One of Iran’s top nuclear negotiators stated early Monday that Iran would under no circumstances negotiate with the West on its ballistic missile program. These remarks were accompanied by the announcement that Tehran had successfully test fired two ballistic missiles, which are the preferred delivery system for nuclear arms.
“The defense-related issues are a red line for Iran,” Abbas Araqchi, Iran’s senior negotiator and its deputy foreign minister, was quoted as saying on Monday, just a week before talks are set to resume. “We will not allow such issues to be discussed in future talks.”
However, the White House quickly pushed back against the comments, vowing to force the issue during upcoming negotiations and demand that it be resolved under a final deal.
“Per the Joint Plan of Action, Iran must address the [United Nations] Security Council resolutions related to its nuclear program before a comprehensive resolution can be reached,” Bernadette Meehan, National Security Council spokesperson, told theWashington Free Beacon.
“Among other things, UN Security Council Resolution 1929 prohibits all activities involving ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches,” Meehan said. “So this issue will need to be addressed during the comprehensive discussions.”
This is one of the first instances of the White House publicly pushing back against Iran’s demands, which have grown increasingly bellicose as the talks proceed.
Iran is on course to develop more advanced ballistic missiles, the country’s defense minister was quoted as saying following Monday’s test.
“The new generation of ballistic missile with a fragmentation warhead, and a Bina laser-guided surface-to-surface and air-to-surface missile, have been successfully tested,” Defense Minister Hossein Dehgan was quoted as saying in numerous reports.
Under new Iran sanctions legislation currently stalled in Congress, Iran would have been subject to immediate and harsh economic penalties for launching a ballistic missile.
Wendy Sherman, the U.S.’s top negotiator, admitted during a congressional hearing last week that Iran can continue its ballistic missile work under the interim nuclear deal, which will last for around six months.
“It is true that in these first six months we’ve not shut down all of their production of any ballistic missile that could have anything to do with delivery of a nuclear weapon,” Sherman told lawmakers during a hearing on the nuclear deal. “But that is indeed something that has to be addressed as part of a comprehensive agreement.”
Sherman’s admission elicited concern from several senators.
“Why did you all not in this agreement in any way address the delivery mechanisms, the militarizing of nuclear arms, why was that left off since they [Iran] breached a threshold everyone acknowledges. They can build a bomb. We know that,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.), the committee’s ranking member. “They know that. They have advanced centrifuges. We have a major loophole in the research and development area that everyone acknowledges.”
(French, British, Japanese and German too, even before Iran is “open for business.” — DM)
A senior US official said Secretary of State John Kerry had telephoned his French counterpart Laurent Fabius to tell him that the visit, whilst from the private sector, was ‘not helpful’ in sending the message that ‘it is not business as usual’ with Iran.
A delegation consisted of American oil experts will visit Tehran in the next Iranian calendar month (to start of February 20), Iran’s Mehr News Agency reported on February 8.
Also 12 renowned oil and energy experts from the United States, UK, and Japan will attend an international oil, gas, and petrochemical industries conference in Tehran.
Also it is expected that representatives from 3 major German oil companies including Siemens, Linde, and BASF travel to Tehran in near future.
Tehran has already started negotiations with French oil and gas companies.
Iran’s Tasnim News agency reported on February 5 that French gas firm Gaz de France, has announced its readiness to work with Iran.
The company made the announcement during the visit of a French business delegation to Iran on Tuesday.
The cooperation will be apart from that of Total and Technip in this field.
A delegation of more than 100 French companies arrived in Tehran on Monday in the biggest demonstration of western business interest in Iran for more than a decade, Financial Times reported.
The three-day visit which includes top French companies such as major oil firm Total, engineering company Alstom, telecoms group Orange and car manufacturer Renault, has raised hopes in Iran that an interim deal on its nuclear programme could lead to a return of foreign investment.
The victory of centrist President Hassan Rouhani last summer paved the way for the country to strike an interim nuclear deal with six major powers, the U.S., UK, France, Russia, China and Germany in November 2013 which took effect in January.
A visit to Iran by such a large French business delegation drew a stern warning from Washington that most US sanctions remain in place and will be enforced even against allies, AFP reported.
The 116-strong French delegation with representatives from major companies like Total, Lafarge and Peugeot, was the largest of its kind from Europe since a landmark nuclear deal reached with the major powers in November gave Iran limited relief from crippling US and EU sanctions.
French employers’ union Vice President Thierry Courtaigne said the delegation which arrived in Tehran on Monday, wanted to assess the commercial opportunities opened up by the easing of Western sanctions.
However a senior US official said Secretary of State John Kerry had telephoned his French counterpart Laurent Fabius to tell him that the visit, whilst from the private sector, was ‘not helpful’ in sending the message that ‘it is not business as usual’ with Iran.
(How dare Prime Minister Netanuahu speak such blasphemy while Iran’s Charmin Offensive continues? Shouldn’t Israel simply lie back, relax and enjoy it? Does PM Netanyahu even want a benign Iran and the peace it would surely bring to the Middle East? — DM)
Netanyahu has vocally protested the easing of economic sanctions while Iran and the P5+1 world powers are negotiating a deal on the Iran’s long-disputed nuclear program, which Israel believes is geared to produce atomic bombs.
JERUSALEM, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday the recent easing of sanctions on Iran has not only failed to moderate its policies, but is fuelling its aggression, according to a statement by the prime minister’s office.
“What is happening here is that the international community is reducing the sanctions, and Iran is increasing its aggression,” Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, adding that “the Iranian foreign minister recently met with the head of Islamic Jihad. Iran continues to supply terrorist organizations with deadly weapons, continues aiding the massacre in Syria, and is sending warships to the Atlantic Ocean.”
These remarks came following reports that Iranian warships were sailing toward U.S. maritime borders on Saturday, which “was meant to counter U.S. naval presence in the Persian Gulf,” Iranian Navy chief R.-Adm. Habibollah Sayyari was quoted as saying by the Fars news agency.
Netanyahu has vocally protested the easing of economic sanctions while Iran and the P5+1 world powers are negotiating a deal on the Iran’s long-disputed nuclear program, which Israel believes is geared to produce atomic bombs.
On the other side, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave a speech Saturday in which he criticized Washington’s “controlling and meddlesome” policy toward his country.
It’s domestic politics, ideology and rejection of realityall the way down.
As I attempted to demonstrate in January, the English language text of the P5+1 “deal” with Iran has a comforting preface expressing a general intention to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons. However, neither the preface nor the rest of the text even mentions Iran’s continuing efforts to improve her ballistic missile capabilities, nuclear warhead development or her “undisclosed” military sites such as Parchin, where work on those projects evidently continues.
No significant reductions in either Iran’s nuke development or ability to produce nukes can reasonably be expected. Nor are we likely to know when she gets them.
A new report from the Pentagon warns that the US would be totally clueless if Iran were to obtain a nuclear weapon. The report reveals that America’s intelligence services are unable to detect when a nation has become nuclear armed.
Bret Stephens, a foreign affairs columnist for the Wall Street Journal, spoke about the report he recently analyzed while appearing on Fox News. There he noted the report exposes Vice President Joe Biden’s assurances, made in presidential debates with candidate Paul Ryan in 2012, as a lie.
“[Biden] said ‘for sure’ we would have ample warning before the Iranians decide to take their nuclear industrial capabilities and sprint toward a bomb,” Stephens noted. “This report tells us we probably wouldn’t have a clue.”
Although we have received nothing worth having from the November 24th deal and are not likely to, Iran is already benefiting from reduced sanctions and increased respect from the “international community” — as respect for the United States drops.
Under the terms of the November 24th “deal,” the process can continue for five months after it officially begins on February 18th. There has already been talk of extensions.
WASHINGTON – Comprehensive negotiations between world powers and Iran over its nuclear program officially begin in Vienna on February 18, at which point diplomats will have just over five months to reach an accord to end the long-standing impasse once and for all.
That cutoff was agreed upon, and is self-imposed, by the parties directly involved in the talks. Yet given the stakes of failure, Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s chief diplomat, is already discussing an extension of that deadline.
“Everyone will say to you, and rightly so, this is extremely difficult,” Ashton told The Wall Street Journal at a strategic conference in Munich on Sunday. “We have no guarantees in this and we will take the time that is necessary to get this to be the right agreement.” [Emphasis added.]
Getting the “right agreement” would take far more than additional time.
Asked about Ashton’s comments on Monday, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki reminded reporters that the Joint Plan of Action allowed for an additional six month extension of talks “upon mutual consent.”
“The comprehensive talks have not even begun yet,” Psaki said. “So we are not at a decision-making phase, we’re not predicting, we don’t know that they would be extended, and that’s certainly not the baseline we’re going on.”
“From our standpoint, that position hasn’t been determined yet, and that simply is a statement of what’s allowed for in the JPOA,” she added.
Speaking under condition of anonymity – given the sensitivity of the negotiations – US officials told The Jerusalem Post they, too, fear the talks will require more time than has been officially acknowledged. [Emphasis added.]
A further six month extension will permit the farce to continue well past the November U.S. elections, draining the Obama Administration’s foreign policy debacles of any juice they might otherwise provide for Republicans in the congressional elections.
Is that among President Obama’s goals? Probably, along with continued implementation of the ideology which is at least one of the bases for His policies. According to an article by Michael Ledeen at PJ Media titled Obama’s World: Embrace and Appeasement, not Realism,
I don’t think it’s hard to understand Obama’s foreign policy. Although there’s a lot we don’t know about him, his basic impulses are clear enough. He’s told us what they are (although, to be sure, he often misleads and obfuscates), and his actions are in keeping with his announced impulses. Furthermore, there’s nothing unique or surprising about them — you can hear them in our classrooms and our college dorms, and read them in the establishment press every day. He’s an establishment member in high standing.
Voilá:
He believes that most of the serious problems in the world are the result of past American actions. Call it imperialism. Call it meddling. Call it arrogance (as the Iranians do). Whatever you call it, it means that pre-Obama policies were bad. Ergo, it’s mostly Bush’s fault. (Shorthand for “before me, they didn’t understand. Anything.”) [Emphasis added]
It follows that the single most important action to ensure good policies is to rein in the United States. Get it out of the messes it has created. Weaken its abilities to meddle elsewhere. Ergo the retreats from Iraq and Afghanistan. Ergo the often spectacular dissing of past allies and the embarrassing embrace of previous and actual enemies. Diss Mubarak, embrace the Muslim Brotherhood. Ergo the incredible shrinking military budget, ergo the back-of-the-hand slap to many of our greatest warriors. [Emphasis added.]
It also follows that our foreign policy requires a new language, beginning with making amends for the bad policies of the past, and continuing with a dramatic realignment, aiming at creating a new alliance structure with countries we maltreated in the past. Ergo the global apology tour. Ergo the refusal to respond to insults from the likes of Hugo Chavez. Ergo the Russian “reset” stratagem. And ergo the Iran deal, pursued eagerly and relentlessly even before the 2008 election results were in, wrapped in terms of respect (the careful pronunciation of “The Islamic Republic of Iran,” for example). And ergo the rejection of “American exceptionalism,” putting the United States on the same moral and political platform as contemporary Greece. [Emphasis added.]
Those are his core principles. It’s a highly ideological policy matrix, beginning with his conviction that WE are the root cause of most bad things. It’s not subtle, doesn’t require mastery of nuance or even history, as his error-ridden Cairo speech demonstrated to anyone who cared to actually read it (my favorite is the claim that Muslims invented printing, when the Chinese did that, and Portuguese Jews brought it to the Middle East). Indeed, he and his minions are so uninterested in the facts of the world that they regularly invent the world, as Secretary of State Kerry did when he falsely announced that “last year, not one Israeli was killed by a Palestinian from the West Bank.” Actually there were several. [Emphasis added.]
The Iranian “deal” is a scam and a farce for at least the following additional reasons:
Wendy Sherman, the lead U.S. negotiator with Iran, has stated that “we’ve not shut down” Iran’s nuke program.
The U.S.’s top nuclear negotiator admitted on Tuesday that Iran could continue developing ballistic missiles under the recently inked nuclear accord meant to scale back Tehran’s nuclear program. [Emphasis added.]
Under pressure from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC), U.S. negotiator Wendy Sherman conceded that the U.S. failed to “shut down” Iran’s ongoing development of ballistic missiles, which have long range capabilities and are the preferred weapon for delivering a nuclear payload. [Emphasis added.]
“It is true that in these first six months we’ve not shut down all of their production of any ballistic missile that could have anything to do with delivery of a nuclear weapon,” Sherman told lawmakers during a hearing on the nuclear deal. “But that is indeed something that has to be addressed as part of a comprehensive agreement.” [Emphasis added.]
This comprehensive agreement will not be agreed upon for at least six months, Sherman admitted, giving Tehran a lengthy window in which to perfect its weapons systems.
TEHRAN: Iran’s ballistic missile program will not be discussed in nuclear negotiations with world powers, the deputy foreign minister said in statements published Monday.
The remarks by Abbas Araqchi, who is also Iran’s lead negotiator in talks with world powers, came a week before negotiations were to resume on a comprehensive accord over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
“Iran’s defence-related issues are not up for negotiations,” Araqchi said, according to media reports.
“We will not discuss any issue other than the nuclear dossier in the negotiations,” he added. [Emphasis added.]
US lead negotiator in the talks, Wendy Sherman, last week told a Senate hearing that Iran’s ballistic missile program would be addressed in the comprehensive deal.
Ms. Sherman can, of course, say whatever she (or her boss) desires for domestic consumption, where at least minimal impact seems likely. Her words will, however, change neither the views of Iran nor what happens, beyond further acquiescence in Iran’s demands.
Parchin and other military facilities and developments
Iran announced on Sunday it has not granted the U.N. atomic watchdog access to the Parchin military site, where the agency suspects experiments relating to nuclear weapons development may have occurred.
Iran cited that the visit would not fall under seven steps the Islamic Repubilc and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had agreed on.
“Visiting Parchin is not included in the seven steps,” Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesman for Iran’s atomic energy organization, told the ISNA news agency, referring to elements of an agreement reached Sunday.
The Islamic Republic agreed on seven “practical steps” with the IAEA in talks seeking further safeguards to enhance transparency on Tehran’s nuclear drive, an Iranian nuclear official said.
The steps are meant to be implemented by May 15, Iran’s envoy to the Vienna-based body, Reza Najafi, told the ISNA news agency.
Iran elaborated upon her position when she denied U.S. State Department claims that further protocols would be considered.
The U.S. State Department’s spokesman Alan Eyre’s statements on Iran`s obligation to ratify and implement additional protocol on its nuclear program is completely baseless, press service of Iranian embassy in Azerbaijan told Trend news agency on Feb. 9. [Emphasis added.]
On Feb. 3, Eyre told Trend that the Geneva agreement reads that: Islamic Republic should ratify and implement additional protocol on the nuclear program within the authorities of the Iranian president and the parliament as well.
It should be noted that Iran and the P5+1 reached a nuclear agreement on Nov. 24, 2013. Iran has agreed to curb some of its nuclear activities for six months in return for sanctions relief. Iran and the P5+1 group agreed to implement the agreement starting January 20, 2014.
In November, Iranian state television broadcast a short video animation of an Iranian response to an hypothetical Israeli attack on Iran. On February 7th, Iranian state television broadcast a longer and more “interesting” video:
Iranian state TV on Friday ran a documentary featuring a computerized video of Iran’s drones and missiles bombing Tel Aviv, Haifa, Ben Gurion Airport and the Dimona nuclear reactor in a hypothetical retaliation for an Israeli or American strike on the Islamic Republic.
Iranian drones and missiles are also shown carrying out simulated strikes on the American aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, downing American aircraft and striking American military targets in the Persian Gulf. [Emphasis added.]
The clip was broadcast amid a clear escalation of anti-American rhetoric and even action by Iran: On Saturday, an Iranian admiral announced that Iran had despatched warships to the North Atlantic, while Iran’s spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei denounced the Americans as liars who, while professing to be friends of Iran, would bring down his regime if they could. He also said it was “amusing” that the US thought Iran would reduce its “defensive capabilities.” [Emphasis added.]
The film, entitled “The Nightmare of Vultures,” opens with Supreme Leader Khamenei addressing military academy graduates in 2011, warning: “Anybody who thinks of attacking the Islamic Republic of Iran should be prepared to receive strong slaps and iron fists from the Armed Forces.”
“And America, its regional puppets and its guard dog – the Zionist regime – should know that the response of the Iranian nation to any kind of aggression, attacks or even threats will be a response that will make them collapse from within,” the film shows him saying. [Emphasis added.]
Set to dramatic music, the video shows Iranian drones and missiles carrying out strikes against Tel Aviv’s Kikar Hamedina square, the Azrieli Towers skyscrapers, and the IDF’s Kirya central command complex, as well as Ben Gurion International Airport, Haifa’s Technion, several army and air force bases, and the nuclear reactor in Dimona.
The strike on the Israel’s central command building is shown taking place while former prime minister Ehud Olmert and former defense minister Amir Peretz — who served in that capacity during the 2006 Second Lebanon War — are inside convening a meeting.
Regardless of whether Iran is now or soon will be capable of such attacks, the videos display a less than sincere Iranian interest in peaceful resolution of western problems with her current nuke development and her later use of the results. Iran’s evident attitude is in dramatic contrast to the U.S., P5+1 et al desire for peaceful resolution at any cost. What would the Iranian reaction be if either a U.S. or Israeli television network were to broadcast a comparable video animation of her response to a hypothetical attack by Iran? Iran probably would not be amused.
Iran’s assertions of military prowess are not limited to video animations. She claims to have the “biggest army in the region,” with long range missiles and drones.
To mark 35 years since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, the regime held a special display of the nation’s domestic military industry advances in the last decade, bragging that it has the “biggest army in the region.”
The pinnacle of Iranian warfare was presented in the Shihab 1, 2 and 3 missiles, which feature a range of up to 2,000 kilometers(1,243 miles), enabling them to strike Israel. The missiles are fired from subterranean launchers, making them difficult to detect by satellite.
According to the Iranian army, the Shihab missiles can be fired rapidly in response to an attack.
In addition, the army boasted its Khalij Fars rocket, a supersonic ballistic missile developed for strikes on naval targets. The current version of the rocket has a 300 kilometer (186 mile) range, and is being developed to upgrade that range. The rocket features a 650 kilogram (1,433 pound) warhead.
Iran has developed several drones, the most advanced being the Fotros whose 2,000 kilometer radius allows it to strike Israel. The drone can stay airborne for 30 hours, and aside from intelligence gathering is armed to attack.
The army took the opportunity to showcase its domestically produced Saeqeh fighter jet as well, which is modeled after the F-18, along with the Qaher 313 stealth plane and combat helicopters based on the Cobra.
Iran hasn’t neglected its navy either; the Islamic regime showed off its battleships which include a 94 meter (308 feet) long ship weighing 1,500 tons, submarines including miniature submarines, as well as speedy patrol ships.
Additionally, an advanced radar was displayed called Dhu al-Fiqar, after the name of the sword given by Mohammed, the founder of Islam, to his son-in-law Ali, who is considered the inheritor of Islam by the Shia Muslims who rule Iran. The radar is built to locate low-flying rockets and tanks.
said Monday it has “successfully tested” two missiles on the eve of the 35th anniversary of its Islamic revolution, the official IRNA news agency reported.
Iran’s ballistic missile programme has long been a source of concern for Western nations because it is capable of striking its arch-foe Israel.
“The new generation of ballistic missile with a fragmentation warhead, and a Bina laser-guided surface-to-surface and air-to-surface missile, have been successfully tested,” Defence Minister Hossein Dehgan said.
He said the new ballistic missile could “evade anti-missile systems” and was capable of “great destruction.” [Emphasis added.]
The other missile can be fired from a plane or a boat to strike military targets with “great precision,” he added. [Emphasis added.]
Peace-loving, humanitarian underdog Iran! Sanctions, lacking any rational basis and perversely imposed by the West out of sheer hatred for her suffering people, have reduced her to a state of abject poverty. The sanctions caused her beloved people to starve and to forego needed medical treatment with home-made radioactive isotopes.
They will just have to hang tough until the contemplated further lifting of sanctions. Perhaps Iran may then be able to do a little better for her beloved people and even build a purely defensive — but suitably modest — military. Right
Conclusions
The United States of Obama has blessed us with many problems, domestic and foreign. The Iranian scam is one of the latter and likely the most dangerous. Like all of the others, it probably will be impossible to deal with it effectively until after President Obama is relaxing comfortably in His new presidential library, glorying in the wonders He hath wrought for world peace and hoping for his next Nobel Peace Prize. If we are still around then, perhaps the United States may be able to undo some of His most dangerous blunders and revert to a path toward at least a semblance of sanity.
As American peace efforts toward Iran have meandered along, Western diplomats have been eagerly pointing to the moderate and supposedly promising statements coming from Iranian president Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammed Zarif. Amidst the Geneva negotiations between the Iranians and the P5+1 nations, not only has the Obama administration been backing away from using force to halt Iran’s nuclear program, but the president has spoken firmly about his will to stop Congress from implementing further sanctions against Iran. Yet, just as Obama’s clamor for peace with Iran is becoming most frantic, Iran is once again giving every indication that it is clamoring for war.
Writing at Mosaic, Michael Doran, a former security advisor in the Bush administration, makes the case that President Obama is essentially so allergic to the prospect of intervention in the Middle East that it may well have always been his strategy to acquiesce in the face of the Iranian bomb. Doran’s case is as disturbing as it is compelling, for as he points out, if containment rather than prevention had been Obama’s strategy from the outset then he hardly could have expressed this openly. Rather, he would have been at least compelled to publicly adopt the appearance of staunch opposition to a nuclear Iran. Yet, consistently, both in the case of Iran and Syria, Obama has expressed tough words, backed up by the kind of inaction that gives every reason to doubt the sincerity with which those words were offered.
One might have thought that the Iranians would have seized the opportunity that Obama was presenting them with–to pay lip service to reciprocating his own platitudes for peace, and in return they could rest assured that America would never get serious about intervention. Iran’s previous president, Ahmadinejad, never quite caught on and a series of crippling sanctions were the result of his fierce rhetoric and his refusal to even feign cooperation. It seemed that Rouhani was different in this respect and that he had learned that mild words could easily purchase sanctions relief and enthusiastic engagement from Western governments eager to renew trade relations.
It is, then, a sign of just how unpredictable Iran can be that over the last few days Iran has abruptly resumed the rhetoric of war. On Friday, as has now been widely publicized, Iranian state television ran a documentary featuring simulated footage of an Iranian bombardment of Israel’s cities as well as an air strike on a U.S. naval carrier. This appears to have been coordinated with a series of aggressive statements made by the regime over the weekend. These included an Iranian admiral announcing that Iran has dispatched warships to the north Atlantic, while both Iran’s defense minister and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ naval commander spoke of Iran’s ability to strike American forces. And perhaps most significantly of all, the nation’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei accused the Americans of being liars in their peace efforts with Iran. Khamenei also mockingly spoke of how he found it “amusing” that the U.S. thought Iran would reduce its military capabilities.
As Doran points out, the so called interim agreement between Iran and the West is designed in such a way so that negotiations can in fact run on indefinitely without reaching the end goal of forcing Iran to relinquish its nuclear capabilities. It is in Iran’s interest to try and keep this interim period open for as long as possible. The next round of talks are due to commence on February 18 and to run for five months. Iran may have decided that with part of the sanctions already lifted, it would be advantageous to delay the start of these negotiations by causing a minor diplomatic crisis. By pursuing a stop-start strategy on these talks, Iran can drag out the period in which it is still permitted to enrich, while sanctions have been scaled down and the threat of further sanctions are being held off, giving it time to cross the threshold of full weapons capabilities.
As the recent statements from the Iranian leaders demonstrate, the Obama administration can talk peace all it likes; the Iranians, however, may still have no interest in reciprocation. What they know full well is that by even threatening war, with a White House that is clearly intimidated by the prospect of military intervention, Tehran can keep America running scared.
Defense minister claims successful trials of ballistic missile and laser-guided plane- or ship-fired missile
By Times of Israel staff and AFPFebruary 10, 2014, 7:05 pm
A missile displayed during a military parade outside Tehran. (photo credit: AP/Vahid Salemi)
TEHRAN — Iran said Monday it has “successfully tested” two missiles on the eve of the 35th anniversary of its Islamic revolution, the official IRNA news agency reported.
Iran’s ballistic missile programme has long been a source of concern for Western nations because it is capable of striking its arch-foe Israel.
“The new generation of ballistic missile with a fragmentation warhead, and a Bina laser-guided surface-to-surface and air-to-surface missile, have been successfully tested,” Defence Minister Hossein Dehgan said.
He said the new ballistic missile could “evade anti-missile systems” and was capable of “great destruction.”
The other missile can be fired from a plane or a boat to strike military targets with “great precision,” he added.
President Hassan Rouhani, elected last year on promises to engage the West diplomatically, congratulated the Iranian people and Supreme Guide Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over the tests, IRNA reported.
The UN Security Council, the United States and the European Union have long imposed sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile programme.
Iranian officials have said they will not discuss the missile programme at talks with world powers later this month on Tehran’s controversial nuclear activities.
Western nations and Israel suspect Iran is covertly pursuing nuclear weapons alongside its civilian program, allegations denied by Tehran.
(“We have the ability to enrich uranium at 60 percent grade if one day we need it for peaceful works”… Like peaceful nuclear bombs? – Artaxes)
Tehran nuclear chief reserves right to resume enrichment to 60% if needed; Israeli team to meet US negotiators ahead of next week’s nuclear talks
By Times of Israel staff and AFP |February 10, 2014, 6:28 pm
International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors (2nd and 3rd left) and Iranian technicians at Natanz nuclear power plant south of Tehran on January, 20, 2014 (Photo credit: Kazem Ghane/IRNA/AFP)
Iran’s nuclear chief declared that his country has developed a new generation of centrifuges 15 times more powerful than those currently being used to enrich uranium, and said it might resume enrichment to 60% if necessary.
“We unveiled a new generation of centrifuges that surprised the Westerners,” said Ali Akbar Salehi on Monday. “This new machine is 15 times more powerful than the previous generation,” he claimed, according to Iran’s state broadcaster IRIB.
Salehi added that the development did not violate the November 24 Geneva interim agreement between Iran and six world powers that has imposed curbs on Tehran’s nuclear drive. “We successfully argued that this was allowed within the research and development article in the agreement,” Salehi said.
Talks between Iran and the six powers — the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — on a long-term, “comprehensive” accord are due to start in Vienna on February 18. Ahead of them, Israel’s Minister for Strategic Affairs is to lead a delegation for talks with the chief US negotiator with Iran, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman.
Sherman last week told a Senate hearing that Iran’s ballistic missile program would be addressed in the comprehensive deal.
But on Monday Iran’s deputy foreign minister Abbas Araqchi, who is also a senior Iranian nuclear negotiator, said “the defense-related issues are a red line for Iran.”
“We will not allow such issues to be discussed in future talks,” he said.
Sherman also argued that Iran does not require an unfinished heavy water reactor in Arak – which could one day produce plutonium as a by-product – nor the underground Fordo uranium enrichment site for its civilian nuclear program.
But another Iranian nuclear negotiator, Majid Takhte Ravanchi, on Monday reiterated that Iran would not accept the closure of “any of its nuclear sites.”
Last week, Salehi said Iran could make changes to Arak’s design to produce less plutonium and “allay the worries.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lambasted the US and the international community for the Geneva deal, which he called a “historic mistake,” and he is demanding that Iran’s entire “military nuclear” capability be dismantled under a permanent accord. US President Barack Obama, by contrast, has said he could envisage Iran being left with a heavily supervised enrichment capability under a permanent deal.
Iran currently has nearly 19,000 centrifuges, including 10,000 of the so-called first generation being used to enrich uranium. Some 1,000 second generation machines, three to five times more powerful, have been installed but are not in service. Under the November deal, Iran cannot increase the number of its centrifuges.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, center, arrives for the Security Conference in Munich, Germany, on Sunday. (photo credit: AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)
Salehi did not say when the new centrifuges would become operational, but said a first machine was to be delivered to a medical centre in Karaj, west of Tehran, “within two or three months.”
In a recent interview with The Times of Israel, former Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren warned that Iran was continuing to develop its centrifuges, and that more sophisticated models would enable it to speed more quickly to nuclear weapons if it chose to try to break out to the bomb. “If the talks break down,” he warned, “and you [the Iranians] quickly install your additional 9,000 centrifuges, among them the IR2s, which really give you [the equivalent of] about 24,000 centrifuges. And you have a stockpile [of enriched uranium]. And maybe you’ve done some research and development, that actually gives you some [centrifuges] closer to an IR3, which has an even higher rate of accumulation than the IR2s, how long is it going to take you [to break out]?”
In his remarks Monday, Salehi also said that despite the current halt in Iran’s uranium enrichment above the 5% grade, as agreed in the Geneva interim deal which took effect in late January, Iran has not and will not give up its right to enrich uranium to the 20% grade and may even resume enrichment to 60% if needed.
“We have met our needs to the 20-percent-enriched fuel (for the Tehran research reactor and medical purposes) and we have enough fuel, but we have not lost our right to produce 20 percent fuel,” he said, according to the Fars news agency.
He claimed Iran was entitled to enrich uranium to any level it wanted, and said, “We have the ability to enrich uranium at 60 percent grade if one day we need it for peaceful works.”
(The Iranian Parliament seems quite unlikely to agree to anything beyond Iranian perceptions of the P5+1 “deal.”– DM)
If the Parliament rejects the Additional Protocol, the administration will not be able to sign any agreement on the issue.
The U.S. State Department’s spokesman Alan Eyre’s statements on Iran`s obligation to ratify and implement additional protocol on its nuclear program is completely baseless, press service of Iranian embassy in Azerbaijan told Trend news agency on Feb. 9.
On Feb. 3, Eyre told Trend that the Geneva agreement reads that: Islamic Republic should ratify and implement additional protocol on the nuclear program within the authorities of the Iranian president and the parliament as well.
It should be noted that Iran and the P5+1 reached a nuclear agreement on Nov. 24, 2013. Iran has agreed to curb some of its nuclear activities for six months in return for sanctions relief. Iran and the P5+1 group agreed to implement the agreement starting January 20, 2014.
Under the agreement, six major powers agreed to give Iran access to $4.2 billion in revenues blocked overseas if it carries out the deal, which offers sanctions relief in exchange for steps to curb the Iranian nuclear program.
Additional protocol should pass the legal processes in Iran before implementation, the embassy statement reads, adding that Iranian parliament has the major role in the process.
The Additional Protocol allows unannounced inspections outside of declared nuclear sites and it is seen as a vital tool at the IAEA’s disposal to make sure that a country does not have any hidden nuclear work.
On October 16, 2013, Tasnim news agency quoted member of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Hussein Naghavi Husseini as saying implementation of the Additional Protocol by the Islamic Republic should be ratified in the Islamic Consultative Assembly (parliament).
“If the Parliament rejects the Additional Protocol, the administration will not be able to sign any agreement on the issue,” Naghavi Husseini added.
Additional Protocol was endorsed earlier by Iran in 2003, but wasn’t officially ratified by the country’s parliament.
The U.S. and its Western allies suspect Iran of developing a nuclear weapon – something that Iran denies. The Islamic Republic has on numerous occasions stated that it does not seek to develop nuclear weapons, using nuclear energy for medical researches instead.
(Israel’s attempts to defend herself against attacks by Hamas seem to upset them. — DM)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would attack Gaza if Kerry is going to propose a practical peace plan that is based on international law, Erikat told Xinhua.
GAZA, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) — Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erikat said on Monday that Israel may wage a war on the Hamas- ruled Gaza Strip to foil an expected peace plan of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would attack Gaza if Kerry is going to propose a practical peace plan that is based on international law, Erikat told Xinhua.
“This is a possible reaction to avoid signing a peace deal,” Erikat said.
He added Israel’s recent threats against Gaza are very dangerous, urging the international community to take what Israel is preparing for into consideration.
On Kerry’s peace plan that is expected to be proposed soon, Erikat said the Palestinian side has not received anything from the Americans so far.
The U.S.-sponsored peace negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis resumed last July and are set to end in April.
However, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have said on various occasions that no tangible progress had been achieved in the process.
Cross-border violence between Israel and Gaza militants has escalated recently, raising fears of a possible collapse of a one- year shaky cease-fire brokered by Egypt.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and prime minister in gaza strip, Ismael Hanyah, during a meeting between Fatah and Hamas in Cairo, Egypt, 23 February 2012 (photo credit: Mohammed Al-Hums/Flash90)
Nabil Shaath in his Ramallah office (photo credit: Miriam Alster/Flash90)
Mohammed Dahlan in 2006. (photo credit: Michal Fattal/Flash90)
anneinpt
artaxes
danmillerinpanama
davidking1530
Peter Hofman
Joseph Wouk
Peter
Louisiana Steve
WarSclerotic 
Recent Comments