F6 .. Yup, the war against Iran has been going on for a long time .. might have missed it, but didn't see this, or already forgotten it is there, in yours so just to link it in, in case ..
Iraq, Iran and the Nuclear Phantasm: We’ve Seen this Picture Posted on 11/09/2011 by Juan
just to highlight this from the number 8 link in your bottom list
"As ambassadors to Iran during the last decade, we have all followed closely the development of the nuclear crisis between Iran and the international community. It is unacceptable that the talks have been deadlocked for such a long time." http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=64150008
which reminds of the Arab/ME efforts to stop the Bush invasion of Iraq .. finally, this bit from the one i'm replying to (as the 8th link above) .. from your 3rd article ..
"We have another dodgy dossier, in the shape of the report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which claims Iran is developing nuclear weapons but says so largely on the basis of intelligence which ends in 2003. It relies on documents on a laptop, found in 2004 by the Israelis, whose reliability prompted deep scepticism among Western intelligence at the time. The foreign scientist said to have worked on a bomb with the Iranians turned out to be a nanotechnologist. And a former IAEA chief inspector has said the type of explosion chamber referred to in the report could not be used in a nuclear test."
We have seen a member of the House Intelligence Committee who apparently didn't realize that we haven't had an embassy in Iran for the last 30 years, candidates who don't believe in evolution, and a candidate that didn't even know the voting age in the United States. Maybe Bush, Daniels, Christie, Barbour and Thune figured out ahead of time what Fairleigh Dickinson University uncovered just recently: that people who watch Fox News are actually more ignorant than people who watch no news at all. Could you imagine what they would have found had they studied people listening to talk radio? .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=69793349
Stopping an Iranian bomb
By Stephen M. Walt Wednesday, November 16, 2011
In a thoughtful dissection of the seemingly endless debate on Iran's nuclear program (and the various proponents of military action), Andrew Sullivan says "For my part, I cannot see how we can prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb." Sullivan is no fan of military action, but I suspect his view is widespread. Some think the inevitability of Iran's getting the bomb is a reason to attack them now; for others, it is an argument for turning to robust containment. [ http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/11/what-will-the-iaea-report-on-iran-bring.html ]
I'm against the former and would favor the latter if necessary, but I do not think it is a foregone conclusion that Iran will actually go forward and acquire a nuclear weapons capability. In particular, I can think of two good reasons why a smart Iranian leader would not want to cross the nuclear threshold.
First, an Iranian nuclear weapons capability means that they will automatically be suspected if a nuclear detonation takes place anywhere in the world.
[...]
Second, and equally important, Iran has by far the greatest power potential of any country in the Persian Gulf. It has more people, more economic potential, and plenty of oil and gas too. If it ever had competent political leadership it would easily be the strongest conventional power in its neighborhood. But if it gets an overt nuclear capability, that act would raise the likelihood that other states in the region (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, even Iraq) would follow suit. It is far from certain that they would, but it would certainly make it more likely. And if they do, this step would partially negate Iran's conventional advantages. .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=69583987
Iran Trumpets Nuclear Ability at a Second Location
A 2009 satellite image of the enrichment site near Qum.
By DAVID E. SANGER January 8, 2012
CAIRO — Iran’s top nuclear official announced this weekend that the country was on the verge of starting production at its second major uranium enrichment site, in a defiant declaration that its nuclear program would continue despite new international sanctions restricting its oil revenue.
The announcement, made through official news media reports, came after a week of escalating confrontations between Washington and Tehran, including a threat that Iran would respond with military force if the United States tried to send an aircraft carrier strike group back into the Strait of Hormuz.
The imminent opening of the enrichment site — the Fordo plant, near the city of Qum — confronts the United States and its allies with difficult choices about how far to go to limit Iran’s nuclear abilities. The new facility is buried deep underground on a well-defended military site and is considered far more resistant to airstrikes than the existing enrichment site at Natanz, limiting what Israeli officials, in particular, consider an important deterrent to Iran’s nuclear aims.
When the existence of the Qum facility was first disclosed by President Obama and his counterparts in France and Britain in the fall of 2009, American officials expressed doubts that Iran would ever go forward with the facility. But once it goes into operation, the chances of disabling it, in the words of one former top Israeli official, “diminish very dramatically.”
The declaration that the facility was nearly ready came in an interview on Saturday with Fereydoon Abbasi, who was made the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization shortly after surviving an assassination attempt in 2010. The official news agency Mehr quoted him as saying, “The Fordo site near Qum would soon be opened and become operational.” Iranian newspapers reported the development on Sunday.
While Iran has often exaggerated its abilities, nuclear experts say this claim is plausible. In December, inspectors for the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that during a visit to the plant they saw the finishing touches put on enrichment centrifuges and said they expected the facility to be operating soon.
Iran says its nuclear program is critical to its national security — not because it is seeking weapons, but because it wants an alternative energy source to oil and is seeking to refuel a reactor that makes medical isotopes.
Four years of sanctions have deeply hurt Iran’s economy, but have not changed its nuclear strategy. But the new American sanctions, along with an oil embargo under discussion in Europe, aim to undercut the government by squeezing its most important source of revenue: oil sales. In response, Iran has clearly signaled that the sanctions have only hardened its determination to proceed. On Sunday, for instance, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad began a highly publicized series of visits to South American leaders that have been critical of the United States, starting with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela.
More troublingly, Iran threatened early last week to close off shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, an action that analysts say could send global oil prices soaring. Iran conducted military exercises in the waterway, and then said it would use force to bar any re-entry of the United States aircraft carrier John C. Stennis and its escort ships.
While American officials and outside experts have dismissed the threat as hyperbole, and say they have every intention of patrolling the area with a carrier, there is broad concern that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Navy could harass oil tankers passing through the narrow strait or lay mines that could create significant risks to shipping.
The opening of the plant does not significantly affect estimates of how long it could take Iran to produce a nuclear weapon, if that is its true intention. The new facility has been inspected regularly, and unless the Iranians barred inspectors or managed to deceive them, any effort to produce uranium at bomb-grade levels would most likely be detected. American officials have estimated that they would have six months to a year to react, if needed, before the enrichment was completed.
But should it come to that, the Fordo plant site itself would greatly complicate any military action. Satellite photographs show it is surrounded by antiaircraft guns, and the mountainous setting was designed to make a bombing campaign nearly impossible. Mr. Abbasi said Saturday that the plant would house a new generation of centrifuges — the machines that spin at supersonic speeds to enrich the purity of uranium — though inspectors largely saw older, far less efficient models at the plant.
“No one has a full sense of the Iranian production plan there,” said one diplomat who has studied the few details Iran has shared about the plant. “And I think that’s the point.”
Already Iran has produced enough fuel to manufacture about four weapons, but only if the fuel goes through further enrichment, nuclear experts say. Some of the fuel at Fordo, Mr. Abbasi said, would be enriched to 20 percent purity for use in a research reactor in Tehran; because of the oddities about how uranium is enriched, those batches would be the easiest to convert for use in weapons.
It is that ability that has Israel most concerned. So Israeli officials were relieved in December when Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, speaking at a conference in Washington, strongly suggested that the United States was determined to stop not only a weapon, but the ability to produce one.
But on Sunday, appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Mr. Panetta was less specific about how close to the line Iran would be allowed to go. Sanctions and separate embargoes against Iran were “working to put pressure on them, to make them understand that they cannot continue to do what they’re doing,” Mr. Panetta said, in comments that were taped before Mr. Abbasi’s announcement. “Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No. But we know that they’re trying to develop a nuclear capability. And that’s what concerns us. And our red line to Iran is: do not develop a nuclear weapon. That’s a red line for us.”
In saying that the United States did not have any evidence that Iran was seeking to develop a nuclear weapon, Mr. Panetta was hewing closely to the conclusions the often fractious American intelligence agencies agreed upon in 2007 and again in 2010. Two National Intelligence Estimates, designed to reflect the consensus of the intelligence community, concluded that Iranian leaders had made no political decision yet to build an actual weapon. Instead, they described a series of steps that would take Iran right up to that line — and position it to assemble a weapon fairly quickly if a decision to do so were made.
When asked on “Face the Nation” about the how difficult it would be to take out Iran’s nuclear ability in a military strike, Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: “Well, I would rather not discuss the degree of difficulty and in any way encourage them to read anything into that. But I will say that my responsibility is to encourage the right degree of planning, to understand the risks associated with any kind of military option, in some cases to position assets, to provide those options in a timely fashion. And all those activities are going on.”
Iran's nuclear ambitions could lead to 'Middle East cold war', says Hague
Foreign secretary said the world would face most serious round of nuclear proliferation since invention of atomic bomb
Chris McGreal in Washington, Conal Urquhart and agencies guardian.co.uk, Saturday 18 February 2012 10.51 GMT
Foreign secretary William Hague has warned of the dangers facing the world if Iran acquires nuclear weapons.
Photograph: Gianluigi Guercia/AFP/Getty Images
The Middle East could be the battleground for a new cold war, if Iran succeeds in acquiring nuclear weapons, Britain's foreign secretary has warned.
William Hague said the world would face the most serious round of nuclear proliferation since the invention of the atomic bomb, which would be a "disaster in world affairs".
Hague's comments come as officials in Washington expressed fears that Iran is ignoring economic sanctions, increasing the likelihood of Israel and or the US attacking the Islamic Republic this year.
Hague insisted that the UK did not currently support military action against Iran but added "all options must remain on the table".
"[The Iranians] are clearly continuing their nuclear weapons programme," Hague told the Daily Telegraph. "If they obtain nuclear weapons capability, then I think other nations across the Middle East will want to develop nuclear weapons.
[GAWD! I HATE READING, OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN EVIDENCE DEVOID WAR-MONGERING PROPAGANDA]
"And so, the most serious round of nuclear proliferation since nuclear weapons were invented would have begun with all the destabilising effects in the Middle East. And the threat of a new cold war in the Middle East without necessarily all the safety mechanisms. That would be a disaster in world affairs."
Hague's desire to give economic sanctions time to work is reflected in Washington. However, officials in key parts of the Obama administration are increasingly convinced that sanctions will not deter Tehran from pursuing its nuclear programme. They believe the US will be left with no option but to launch an attack on Iran or watch Israel do so.
The president has made clear in public, and in private to Israel, that he is determined to give sufficient time for recent measures to bite deeper into Iran's already battered economy before retreating from its principal strategy to pressure Tehran. These measures include the financial blockade and the looming European oil embargo.
But there is a strong current of opinion within the administration – including in the Pentagon and the state department – that believes sanctions are doomed to fail. They also believe their principal use now is in delaying Israeli military action, as well as reassuring Europe that an attack will only come after other means have been tested.
"The White House wants to see sanctions work. This is not the Bush White House. It does not need another conflict," said an official knowledgeable on Middle East policy. "Its problem is that the guys in Tehran are behaving like sanctions don't matter, like their economy isn't collapsing, like Israel isn't going to do anything.
"Sanctions are all we've got to throw at the problem. If they fail, then it's hard to see how we don't move to the 'in extremis' option."
The White House has said repeatedly that all options are on the table, including the use of force to stop Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon, but that for now the emphasis is firmly on diplomacy and sanctions.
But long-held doubts among US officials about whether the Iranians can be enticed or cajoled into serious negotiations have been reinforced by recent events.
"We don't see a way forward," said one official. "The record shows that there is nothing to work with."
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed this week that Iran had loaded its first domestically-made fuel rod into a nuclear reactor, and he also threatened to cut oil supplies to six European countries. This was read as further evidence that Tehran remains defiantly committed to its nuclear programme.
If Obama were to conclude that there is no choice but to attack Iran, he is unlikely to order it before the presidential election in November, unless there is an urgent reason to do so. The question is whether the Israelis will hold back that long.
On Friday, the US and EU expressed optimism at the possibility of a resumption of talks with Iran. US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said a letter from Iran to the US and its allies was "one we have been waiting for".
But other US officials complained that the latest Iranian offer to negotiate with the UN security council appeared to contain no significant new concessions. They believed that renewed talks would likely steer discussions away from the nuclear programme.
That view was strengthened by Iran's increasingly belligerent moves such as the botched attempts, which were laid at Tehran's door, to attack Israeli diplomats in Thailand, India and Georgia. Such moves are compounding the sense that Iran is far from ready to negotiate.
Feeding into the considerations are the timing of the US election, including its bearing on Israeli thinking, as well as the pace of Iranian advances in their nuclear programme.
Obama has publicly said that there are no differences with Israel on Iran, describing his administration as in "lock step" with the Jewish state.
But the US and Israel are at odds over the significance of Iran's claim to have begun enriching uranium at the underground facility at Fordow, near the holy city of Qom, and therefore the timing of any military action.
Israel's defence minister, Ehud Barak, has warned that Iran cannot be allowed to establish a "zone of immunity" at Fordow, where it is able to work on a nuclear weapon deep underground and protected from Israel's conventional weapons. Earlier this month, Barak said Israel must consider an attack before that happens.
=============== .. WARMONGERS CONTINUE TO RATCHET THE TEMPERATURE UP ..
Israel joins Hague in raising temperature over Iran
As Tehran unveils the latest developments in its nuclear programme, the Israeli Defence Minister calls for 'crippling' sanctions
Sunday 19 February 2012
Israel joined the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, in ratcheting up the pressure on Iran last night, calling for "crippling" sanctions on Tehran to force it to give up its nuclear programme. Israel's Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, said a nuclear-armed Iran would trigger an arms race in the Middle East and ultimately pose a threat to the entire world.
The warning came hours after Mr Hague had claimed that Iran's nuclear ambitions could plunge the Middle East into "a new Cold War". Mr Hague told The Daily Telegraph: "If [the Iranians] obtain nuclear weapons capability, other nations across the Middle East will want to develop nuclear weapons," leading to "the most serious round of nuclear proliferation since nuclear weapons were invented".
Tensions in the Middle East are already running high, with Israel accusing Iran of masterminding attacks on its embassies. Iran denies the allegations and blames Israel and the United States for assassinating several Iranian nuclear scientists in recent years.
Mr Barak added to the tensions yesterday, when he expressed frustration that four rounds of UN sanctions had failed to halt Iran's uranium enrichment programme. On a visit to Tokyo, he said: "We have to [speed up] imposing sanctions and make them crippling to such an extent that the leadership ... will be compelled to sit down and ask themselves 'are we ready to pay the price of isolation from most, if not all, of the world?'"
On Wednesday, Iran unveiled new developments in its nuclear programme, declaring it had used domestically made nuclear fuel in a reactor for the first time. Yesterday, after extensive naval manoeuvres in the region, Iranian warships entered the Mediterranean for only the second time since the 1979 revolution.
But experts urged governments last night to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to lead the investigations. Sir Richard Dalton, a former UK ambassador to Iran, said: "It is wrong to say that Iran is rushing towards having a nuclear weapon.
"But," he added, "it is right that the IAEA should press Iran on behalf of the international community to answer fully questions about what it has been up to in the past and what it may still be doing in the present." The shadow Foreign Secretary, Douglas Alexander, said: "Instead of raising the rhetoric, the Government should be focused on redoubling their efforts to increase the diplomatic pressure on Iran and find a peaceful solution to the issue."
On Friday, US and European Union leaders were optimistic about resuming talks with Iran. The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, said a letter from Iran to the US and its allies was "one we have been waiting for".
Talks between Iran and six world powers – the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China – on Tehran's nuclear programme collapsed a year ago. In recent months, Western countries have stepped up pressure on Iran over the nuclear issue, with the EU and US both introducing wide-ranging sanctions on the country. The US President, Barack Obama, emphasised this month that Israel and the US were working in "unison" to counter Iran.
Mr Hague told the Telegraph that Britain has urged Israel not to strike. He said: "We support a twin-track strategy of sanctions... and negotiations," adding that a military attack would have "enormous downsides."
...there is no doubt that Iraq (after Afghanistan) was the next step in the PNAC plan which always had Iran as its ultimate objective, or that the Israeli Likudniks/Jewish neocons were central to and in the genesis and later implementation of that PNAC plan http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=72019708
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