WarSclerotic

Sanctioning Iran: If not now, when?.

The Return of “Kick Me” Foreign Policy – HUMAN EVENTS.

Man with alleged ties to Iran martyrs’ group can’t be deported.

Stewart Bell, National Post Published: Thursday, April 08, 2010

TORONTO — Iran is refusing to allow Canada to deport a member of an Iranian terrorist group who was arrested at Toronto’s Pearson airport while carrying a recruitment letter from the “Martyrdom Lovers’ Headquarters” in Tehran.

Gholam Reza Ameli has been held in Canadian custody since he arrived in Toronto more than three years ago; the Immigration and Refugee Board says he is a commander of an Iranian terrorist organization and a danger to the public.

The IRB ordered the government to deport Mr. Ameli but immigration officials have been unable to remove him because, while Iran admits he is an Iranian citizen, it refuses to cooperate with the Canada Border Services Agency on the case.

The source of the problem is Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to a memo by Brock Mitchell, an immigration enforcement officer in Toronto. “They will not give permission for the embassy in Ottawa to issue a travel document for Mr. Ameli,” he wrote. “They did not provide a reason for the refusal.”

The CBSA headquarters has asked the Department of Foreign Affairs to negotiate with the Iranian government over the matter. Because Mr. Ameli does not have a passport, he cannot be deported until Iran gives him a travel document.

Christine Csversko, spokeswoman for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, would not comment on the case but said it was “deeply troubling anytime a foreign government refuses to issue travel documents to one of its citizens deemed inadmissible to Canada.” The Iranian embassy did not respond to interview requests.

“It’s concerning,” said Mark Holland, the Liberal public safety critic. “Canada shouldn’t be placed in that position, obviously. Tehran should be taking this individual back.

“We shouldn’t have to assume this responsibility for somebody who seems to have very clear links to a terrorist organization. It’s grossly unfair that that situation be dumped on our lap, so we’ve got to find a way for Tehran to take responsibility for their citizen.”

Ottawa and Tehran have been openly at odds in recent years over Iran’s nuclear program, support for terrorism and human rights issues such as the crackdown on reformist demonstrators and the killing of Canadian Zahra Kazemi in an Iranian prison.

This latest diplomatic dispute has not been publicly reported until now. It concerns the fate of a 40-year-old Iranian who flew to Canada in October 2006 and made a refugee claim while carrying a letter from “Martyrdom Lovers’ Headquarters” in Tehran.

Under a logo of a raised rifle, the letter was addressed to Mr. Ameli and assigned him a “martyrdom code.” It advised him to read what the Koran says about martyrdom, conduct physical training, study “the enemies of Islam” and “submit your plan of actions for neutralizing and repelling them.” The return address was a Tehran postal box.

“By registration in the Martyrdom Armies, you proved that you could be a genuine crusader of God and, in fact, you have taken your first strong step in the battlefields of the friends of our dear leader for the sake of God,” it read. “Therefore, to join the Martyrdom Lovers’ Headquarters means registering for martyrdom and from now on, your heroic name is registered in the organization of the martyrdom army of the province of your residence.”

The BBC and Agence France Presse reported in 2005 that an advertisement in a conservative Iranian publication had called for volunteers to join Martyrdom Lovers. The group’s commander was Mohammad Reza Jafari, the AFP reported. The letter seized in Canada was signed by a man of the same name.

In the 2007 book, Iran’s Military Forces and Warfighting Capability, authors Anthony Cordesman and Martin Kleiber, quoted Mr. Jafari saying that: “members of the martyrdom-seeking garrisons across the world have been put on alert so that if the Islamic Republic of Iran receives the smallest threat, the American and Israeli strategic interests will be burnt down everywhere.”

Several experts who examined the Martyrdom Lovers letter at the request of the National Post said Iran’s martyrdom armies were largely propaganda tools meant to deter the West from attacking Iran. The experts were uncertain of the letter’s significance or even whether it was genuine.

“It can be authentic,” said Mohsen Sazegara, a former high-ranking Iranian official and a founder of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps who is now a pro-democracy activist in the United States.

“It can be from a small group,” he said. “The ideas and suggestions in this letter are very childish but it can be from some of these groups because some of them, they have very childish ideas.”

He said while a small radical group might have been seeking martyrs, they would not have had the official sanction of the government of Iran, which recognizes the dire consequences it would face over such actions. He said if Iran wanted to conduct terrorist attacks abroad, it would not use such volunteers but would hire or recruit locals.

“Especially now, five years after this letter, I’m sure that the people who have written this letter, or the group who thought like that, I’m sure that they are not in this business anymore.”

Ali Alfoneh, the author of a Middle East Forum paper on Iran’s suicide brigades, said such groups are mostly a deterrent meant to chasten both the West and domestic reformers.

He said the letter could also be a fraud circulated by the Mujahedin-e Khalq, the armed Iranian group that has been fighting to overthrow the government, said Mr. Alfoneh, an Iran expert at the American Enterprise Institute.

“The letter could be genuine, but the entire affair is most likely psy-ops, either of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which tries to intimidate the Western public and change calculation of Western military planners, or psy-ops of Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization which tries to depict the Islamic Republic in the worst imaginable light.”

Before arriving in Canada, Mr. Ameli was a commander of a group called Mahdaviyat, which in 1999 car-bombed Ali Razini, a senior judicial officer in Tehran, leaving him paralyzed and killing his bodyguard.

Mr. Ameli said he was not involved in the attack but that he later fled to the United Arab Emirates. When he returned to Iran, he said he was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death for his activities.

The sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment, he said. He said he was tortured “extensively” while in Iranian custody but that 30 months into his sentence, he was issued a temporary pass and escaped to Turkey, where he was again arrested.

“When I was deported back to Iran, I came to Tehran clandestinely and I contacted my wife, and my wife said that, ‘We have received a letter from this place and it’s very important,'” he testified at his immigration hearing. “So I received it from her and then I had it on me when I fled to Turkey and later to this country.”

He said he gave the Martyrdom Lovers letter to Canadian immigration officers voluntarily. The CBSA subsequently filed it as evidence to bolster their deportation case against him, but Mr. Ameli denied he was a member of the Martyrdom group.

“No individual with a sound mind will travel with such a document with the purpose of coming here and submitting and saying, ‘Here I am. I’m a terrorist, please accept it,'” Mr. Ameli argued.

“Since at the time I was a fugitive, this meant to serve as a trap that could get me back or lure me back, and they had simply told my mother that, ‘Have him accept this document and then we make sure that he gets his amnesty and he will get released.’ This is what I and my family believe. We believe that this was meant to serve as an encouragement, a way to entrap me.”

At his immigration hearing, the CBSA argued that Mr. Ameli belonged to both Mahdaviyat and Martyrdom Lovers. “The nature of this organization is clear,” the CBSA official said of Martyrdom Lovers. “It exists to defend Islam and to destroy Israel by making use of martyrs.”

According to transcripts of the hearings, the CBSA was puzzled over why Mr. Ameli would travel with such a “damaging” document but suggested it was because it “had great meaning” to him.

The IRB ruled that Martyrdom Lovers existed “and is apparently an organization that was created by the president of Iran. The goal is the training of individuals of [sic] suicide attacks and to promote the Islamic religion through terror.”

That view was repeated last October, when the IRB ruled that, “After Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president in 2005 he formed the Lovers of Martyrdom. And while Mr. Ameli was away, a recruiting letter went to his home.” It added that Martyrdom Lovers was “an agent of the state, and that the president was presumably sending these recruiting notices to a large number of people.”

The IRB was not satisfied that Mr. Ameli was a “member” of Martyrdom Lovers but it ruled he was a “key member” of Mahdaviyat and ordered his deportation for belonging to an organization that had engaged in terrorism.

“You have signed a death sentence. Thank you,” Mr. Ameli responded.

He initially refused to cooperate with his removal but last August he said he would willingly return to Iran. He is being held northeast of Toronto at the Central East Correctional Centre. Hearings to decide whether he should remain in custody were scheduled to begin in Toronto next Friday.

National Post

The Fingerman: Jewish Fact Check #12: Obama, Brzezinski and Middle East peace plans.

As a reporter in the Jewish press throughout the 2008 presidential campaign, there were many rumors about Barack Obama that I found myself writing about, and debunking — but none may have been more persistent than the one about Zbigniew Brzezinski being one of his foreign policy advisers. If I was doing “Jewish Fact Checks” back then, it was the kind of thing I probably would have written about.

The charge had a grain of truth undergirding it — Brzezinski had endorsed Obama and introduced him at a foreign policy speech Obama gave early in the primary campaign. But the Obama campaign, and even Obama himself, insisted that the former Carter national security adviser was no more than a prominent endorser of the candidate, and no role in the campaign or in formulating Obama’s foreign policy views.

Which is why I was so surprised and disappointed when I read yesterday’s David Ignatius column in the Washington Post suggesting that the administration was thinking about proposing an American peace plan for the Middle East. Whatever the wisdom of such a plan, I was struck by one of the “advisers” pushing such a policy…Zbigniew Brzezinski! As Ignatius writes:

Brent Scowcroft, who served as national security adviser for presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, spoke up first, according to a senior administration official. He urged Obama to launch a peace initiative based on past areas of agreement; he was followed by Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser for Jimmy Carter, who described some of the strategic parameters of such a plan.

The New York Times even added that Obama had dropped in on the meeting — which also included a number of other former national security advisers, although not Condi Rice or Stephen Hadley from the Bush II administration (Colin Powell, who was NSA during Bush I but Secretary of State during W.’s first term, was part of the meeting.)

This is really kind of stunning, when one looks back at the efforts the Obama campaign went to in order to make sure Jewish voters knew that they had nothing to do with Brzezinski and his ideas on the Middle East. And there was good reason for that: Brzezinski is not considered much of a friend of Israel by many pro-Israel voters. Last fall, he even suggested that if Israel sent jets to attack Iran’s nuclear program, the U.S. should shoot them down.

Obama surrogates, and even Obama himself, insisted that they had virtually nothing to do with Brzezinski, constantly making this case to Jewish and pro-Israel voters for months. Take this comment from an appearance Obama made before Jewish voters in Ohio in February 2008:

There is a spectrum of views in terms of how the US and Israel should be interacting. It has evolved over time. It means that somebody like Brzezinski who, when he was national security advisor would be considered not outside of the mainstream in terms of his perspective on these issues, is now considered by many in the Jewish Community anathema. I know Brzezinski he’s not one of my key advisors. I’ve had lunch with him once, I’ve exchanged emails with him maybe 3 times. He came to Iowa to introduce for a speech on Iraq. He and I agree that Iraq was an enormous strategic blunder and that input from him has been useful in assessing Iraq, as well as Pakistan, where actually, traditionally, if you will recall he was considered a hawk. The liberal wing of the Democratic Party was very suspicious of Brzezinski precisely because he was so tough on many of these issues. I do not share his views with respect to Israel. I have said so clearly and unequivocally.

Such a statement didn’t stop either Hillary Clinton supporters or Republicans from continuing to spread the charge. In fact, it started to annoy me how much this apparently false information was being spread. Back in March 2008, not long after Clinton adviser Ann Lewis had been quoted saying that Brzezinski was an top Obama foreign policy adviser, I asked her at a panel during the UJC Young Leadership conference why she kept repeating that charge. She responded that she had read the information in the media — after which Obama adviser Dan Kurtzer replied that Brzezinski wasn’t even an adviser to the campaign — something that seemed to genuinely surprise both Lewis and McCain rep Larry Eagleburger.

Then Republicans, most prominently the Republican Jewish Coalition in ads like this one, continued to parrot the charge all through the general election campaign. And the Jewish press tried to set the record straight, as my former colleague Ron Kampeas did here and here, noting that while Brzezinski did represent the campaign once on a call for Democrats Abroad, he played no role in the campaign.

The Brzezinski stuff even continued after the inauguration — I noted that Florida Republican leader Adam Hasner had incorrectly repeated it in a March 2009 piece at the American Thinker.

Well, I don’t know what was happening a year ago, but, now, after Ignatius’ piece, it looks like Hasner has been proven right. No, Brzezinski’s not an official member of the administration, but administration officials are openly soliciting and, apparently, taking, his advice — and then touting it proudly in public. If the RJC wants to run those ads ripping Obama for having Brzezinski as an adviser this November or in 2012, they won’t hear any commplaints from me — because they’re now supported by the facts. If one wants to argue that Brzezinski isn’t as “anti-Israel” as groups like the RJC claim, that’s fine — but there’s no argument that he’s involved with the administration in a somewhat serious way.

Do I believe that the Obama campaign advisers — who are now serving in the administration — telling me and others that Brzezinski had no role in the campaign were lying or trying to mislead me? No, I don’t — I think they were either telling the truth as it was at the time or at least believed what the candidate was telling them. But do I feel like sort of a sucker for actually defending the campaign against those spreading the Brzezinski rumor when the administration turns around a little more than a year later and brags about getting advice from the guy? I sure do.

Meanwhile, a postscript: Kampeas wrote in one of the articles linked above that the Obama campaign insisted that Obama’s views were close to Dennis Ross, not someone like Brzezinski. And while it’s unclear how influential Ross is in the administration, it’s interesting that while anonymous administration officials are talking positively about Brzezinski, at least one anonymous administration official late last month smeared Ross, telling Laura Rozen of Politico that Ross “seems to be far more sensitive to Netanyahu’s coalition politics than to U.S. interests.” Quite a change from the campaign…

Netanyahu cancels trip to U.S. nuclear summit – Haaretz – Israel News.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled a planned trip to Washington, where he was scheduled to participate in a nuclear security summit hosted by U.S. President Barack Obama, government officials said.

Intelligence and Atomic Energy Minister Dan Meridor will take Netanyahu’s place in the nuclear summit.

Obama has invited more than 40 countries to the summit, which will deal with preventing the spread of nuclear weapons to terrorist groups.

Netanyahu was due to arrive in Washington on Monday evening and was set to take part in three or four conference sessions the follwoing day, before returning to Israel on Wednesday.

Officials said the PM canceled the trip over fears that a group of Muslim states, led by Egypt and Turkey, would demand that Israel sign up to the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT.

A senior government official told Haaretz that that Israel was “disappointed” with developments in the run-up to the conference.

“The nuclear security summit is supposed to be about dealing with the danger of nuclear terror,” the official said. “Israel is a part of that effort and has responded positively to President Obama’s invitation to the conference.”

The official added: “But that said, in the last few days we have received reports about the intention of several participant states to depart from the issue of combatting terrorism and instead misuse the event to goad Israel over the NPT.”

The White House said it had been informed Netanyahu would not attend the summit and that Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor would lead the Israeli delegation.

“We welcome Deputy Prime Minister Meridor’s participation in the conference. Israel is a close ally and we look forward to continuing to work closely on issues related to nuclear security,” said Mike Hammer, White House National Security Council spokesman.

In New Orleans, hundreds of party loyalists at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference applauded when they were informed Netanyahu had just canceled his visit to Washington.

At the gathering, Liz Cheney, daughter of former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, blasted Obama for his “shabby” treatment of Netanyahu at the White House recently, saying it was “disgraceful”.

She added: “Israel is our strongest ally in the Middle East and one of our strongest allies anywhere around this globe. And President Obama is playing a reckless game of continuing down the path of diminishing America’s ties to Israel.”

One hundred eighty-nine countries, including all Arab states, are party to the NPT. Only Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea are not.

Israel is widely believed to have nuclear weapons but operates a policy of ‘nuclear ambiguity’, never publicly confirming or denying their existence.

Many Muslim countries have voiced alarm at alleged nuclear programs in Israel and Iran, and have repeatedly called for an agreement to ban nuclear weapons from the region.

In late March the Arab League called for a Middle East free of nuclear weapons during a closed-door sessio, calling for a review of the 1970 NPT in order to create a definitive plan for eliminating nuclear weapons .

They also called on the UN to declare the Middle East as a nuclear-weapons-free region.

Evelyn Leopold: Iran Sanctions Negotiations Start at UN With No End in Sight (Update).

UNITED NATIONS – The first talks at the United Nations on US proposals for sanctions against Iran began on Thursday but could take a month or even two months before any resolution is adopted by the 15-nation Security Council.

“I’m not prepared to predict when they will conclude or not — we’re working to get this done swiftly within a matter of weeks in the spring,” Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters.

The talks were made possible by the consent of China to negotiate on possible new sanctions against Iran for refusing to suspend uranium and discuss its nuclear activities.

China, which gets 11 percent of its oil and gas from Iran, was perhaps persuaded that diplomacy had reached an end, at least for the time being, after a recent visit to Beijing by Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili. Iran could reverse this by agreeing on a fuel-swap deal that would send out some of its uranium for a research reactor for refining in Russia and France.

Yet, despite all the hype, particularly from Washington, in predicting negotiations for weeks, the key participants in the discussions – the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany – would not on Thursday admit the talks had started or that they were being held at Britain’s UN mission, where reporters were waiting.

France’s Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner first announced the talks on Wednesday. He told reporters in Paris that “China will participate in a meeting tomorrow in New York. Whether they will talk about the text, whether it’s just to respect formalities, I don’t know.”

The negotiations follow a scathing attack by Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against President Obama, calling him an “inexperienced amateur” who was quick to threaten to use nuclear weapons against U.S. enemies. He was reacting to new US restrictions on the use of nuclear weapons in the new Nuclear Posture Review that nevertheless left Iran and North Korea as potential targets.

Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes but has not allowed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect all suspected sites. The UN Security Council, in three previous rounds of sanctions that China approved, has demanded Iran suspend all enrichment of uranium, which can be used in bombs.

“Obama made these latest remarks because he is inexperienced and an amateur politician,” Ahmadinejad said on Iranian television, Reuters reported. “American politicians are like cowboys. Whenever they have legal shortcomings, their hands go to their guns.”

The US proposals, agreed with European allies and shown to Russia and China in early March, include sanctions against Iran’s banking, shipping and insurance sectors, mainly those run by the Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Guards are increasing their hold on the Iranian economy as well as playing a leading role in brutally crushing any opposition. The draft also broadens the list of individuals facing a travel ban and assets freeze. China as well as Russia is expected to dilute the measures but energy supplies are not on the list.

In Prague, where Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and President Obama signed an arms reduction treaty on Thursday, the Russian leader said he was in favor of “secure strong sanctions” but that they should not bring hardship to the Iranian people. He said he had presented the American president with a list of what was and was not acceptable.

If the six powers agree, the other 10 Council members must support the measures and the United States wants at least 14 votes, expecting Lebanon to oppose or abstain as its government now includes the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group. But Brazil and Turkey, which have rotating seats on the Council, also have reservations.

Separately, both the United States and the European Union are considering further unilateral sanctions. But UN Security Council sanctions in the long run can have more impact as they apply to all states. Council diplomats said that one aim of the sanctions was to show the Iranian establishment it was isolated and that increased penalties, no matter how incremental, would become more costly than pursuing a nuclear arms program.

How far Iran is from making a bomb is in dispute. But Tehran kept its program a secret for 18 years, revealing it to the UN International Atomic Energy Agency only six years ago.

Still, like Iraq’s late President Saddam Hussein, having or pretending to have weapons of mass destruction, is often a step towards regional one-upmanship. “In some perverse way, Iran made (nuclear energy) attractive,” said Mohamed ElBaradei, the recently retired director general of the IAEA. “Nuclear power, in many ways got sexy.”

Con Coughlin: The Price of Iranian Sanctions – WSJ.com.

By CON COUGHLIN

As U.S. President Barack Obama intensifies his efforts to garner international support for fresh U.N. sanctions against Iran, Tehran is quietly putting its own measures in place for renewed confrontation with the West. Watching how a conventionally armed Iran manages to destabilize the entire region only serves to underline how dangerous a nuclear-armed Iran would be.

For all of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s public bluster, the Iranian regime likely feels threatened by the prospect of further sanctions—so much so that it has now embarked on a well-organized and coordinated effort to attack or undermine Western interests throughout the region. The most sinister trend is the revival of Iran’s international terrorist infrastructure, which is evident in neighboring Afghanistan where NATO intelligence officers have reported a marked increase in cooperation between Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Taliban insurgents.

A senior Taliban commander claimed last month in Britain’s Sunday Times that hundreds of his fighters had been taught how to conduct ambushes at training camps run by Iranian Revolutionary Guards located along Iran’s border with Afghanistan. At the camps young Taliban recruits were given instructions on how to attack American, British and other NATO troops, as well as how to construct the deadly roadside bombs that account for the majority of NATO casualties.

Tehran has also revived its interest in Iraq, where the Revolutionary Guards’ elite Quds force has a long history of attempting to radicalize the country’s Shia community. The inconclusive election result last month has delivered the balance of power to Muqtada al-Sadr, the Iran-backed radical Shia cleric who waged war against U.S. forces at the height of Iraq’s insurgency. At present Mr. al-Sadr is living in exile in the Iranian holy city of Qom, where he is undergoing intensive religious training. But after his Sadrist Movement (the political arm of his Mahdi Army that has in the past fought bitterly with U.S. forces) won between 30 and 40 seats in Iraq’s 325-seat assembly, Mr. al-Sadr suddenly finds himself in the unlikely position of being courted as a potential king-maker by secular Shia leaders, such as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and his main rival, Ayad Allawi.

Mr. al-Sadr’s unexpected return to Iraqi politics has resulted in the almost inevitable surge in sectarian strife. After Tehran was accused of organizing the execution-style murder last weekend of 25 Sunnis in a village south of the capital, Sunni suicide bombers subsequently attacked the Iranian embassy in Baghdad.

Nor is this increase in Iran’s terrorist activity confined to its immediate borders. Saudi intelligence officials have blamed a detachment of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in north Yemen for the recent increase in al-Qaeda terror attacks against Saudi Arabia. Following the failed Christmas terror attack on a Detroit-bound airliner, Yemen has emerged as a major training center for al-Qaeda. Iran’s claim that it has sent its Revolutionary Guards to protect Yemen’s minority Shia community has raised fears in intelligence circles that they might be attempting to cooperate with al-Qaeda terror cells.

Finally, there are Iran’s well-documented ties with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, which have been strengthened in recent months in anticipation of renewed hostilities with Israel—one obvious consequence of any increased tensions between Iran and the West. Israeli intelligence estimates that Hezbollah now has more rockets at its disposal than it did during the Lebanon war of 2006. Meanwhile, Iran is continuing to supply Hamas with the military means to attack Israel’s southern border. One aspect that has been overlooked in the row over the January assassination of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai is that al-Mabhouh was negotiating with Iran to ship weapons to Gaza at the time of his death.

With so much Iranian activity taking place throughout the region, the message is clear: Any attempt by the West to increase the pressure on Iran over its nuclear program will result in an explosion of violence throughout the Middle East and beyond. The problem is that doing nothing about Tehran’s nuclear ambitions would be even more dangerous.

Mr. Coughlin is executive foreign editor of London’s Daily Telegraph. The updated edition of his book “Khomeini’s Ghost” has just been published by Ecco.

Iran will not beg to avoid sanctions: Ahmadinejad | Reuters.

(Reuters) – Iran’s president said on Thursday he would not plead with opponents of Tehran’s nuclear program in order to avoid sanctions as Russia and the United States said new measures might be necessary.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who Wednesday called President Barack Obama a nuclear-armed “cowboy”, said Iran would “try to make an opportunity out of sanctions” rather than change its stance to avoid them.

“We do not welcome the idea of threat or sanctions, but we would never implore those who threaten us with sanctions to reverse their sanctions against us,” he was quoted as saying by the official news agency IRNA.

Ahmadinejad was speaking as Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a nuclear arms reduction treaty in Prague. The two were “working together at the United Nations Security Council to pass strong sanctions on Iran,” Obama said.

Medvedev said he was unhappy with Iran’s stance over its nuclear program which the West believes is aimed at developing atomic weapons.

“Tehran is not reacting to a range of suggested constructive compromise agreements. We can’t close our eyes to this. That is why I do not exclude that Security Council will have to examine this question again,” Medvedev told reporters.

Obama is hoping to persuade Russia and China — both Security Council veto holders — to drop their traditional reluctance to the new sanctions.

His campaign is likely to continue next week when both Medvedev and Chinese President Hu Jintao attend a summit on nuclear security in Washington.

MILITARY WARNING

While dismissing the sanctions threat, Iran has also warned against any military steps against its nuclear program.

After several warnings that it would hit back at Israel if attacked from there, Iran’s military chief said Thursday he would target U.S. forces stationed in the Middle East if Washington attacked.

“If America presents Iran with a serious threat and undertakes any measure against Iran, none of the American soldiers who are currently in the region would go back to America alive,” Major General Hassan Firouzabadi, was quoted as saying by the semi-official Fars news agency.

U.S. troops are engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which border Iran.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a military ceremony, Firouzabadi said a strike on Iran would also put oil supplies at risk.

“If America wants to have the region’s oil and its markets then the region’s markets would be taken away from America and the Muslims’ control over oil would increase,” he said, according to state broadcaster IRIB.

Israeli minister touts new ‘oil weapon’ – UPI.com.

Iran vows to strike American troops in Middle East.