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Netanyahu’s Message

by Iron Fist ( 87 Comments › )
Filed under Iran, Military, Nuclear Weapons at February 2nd, 2015 - 6:44 am

Thsi is a pretty good article in the New York Post:

Ever since John Boehner announced Benjamin Netanyahu would be addressing Congress, Obama officials have been screaming how the GOP House leader and the Israeli prime minister have spit in their faces — and vowing behind the scenes to make them pay.

Then again, maybe they’re vilifying the messenger to distract from the message.

Because Netanyahu’s main focus will be on Iran and the dangers of the nuclear deal President Obama is pursuing with Tehran.

Iran is the chief exporter of global terrorism.

It arms and finances Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. Its responsibility for the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish center is also at the heart of the assassination of an Argentine prosecutor investigating Iran’s role.

Netanyahu is likely to note that a deal that keeps Iran on the edge of nuclear capability will ignite an arms race among America’s longtime Arab allies: oil-rich Sunni gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which fear Tehran just as much as does ­Netanyahu.

Pretty heavy stuff. People keep forgetting, because it is convenient to forget, that Iran has been the chief exporter of terrorism for going on 35 years now. They didn’t back al Qaeda, it is true, but the rise of another terrorist power doesn’t =mean the first has gone away. Obama wants Iran to get atomic weapons. That is the end game of his “negotiations” with Iran. That should terrify everybody. Last week it looked like a Democrat was going to finally put country over party, but someone talked to him, and Bob Menendez backed down. The Republicans should be screaming, and they are in their way. Inviting Netanyahu to speak when the White House so clearly doesn’t want him to is an important first step.

In this, he would echo one of the president’s own former military commanders, retired Marine Gen. James Mattis who says the options will be “very bleak” if Iran comes away from any US deal with its nuclear program intact.

Apart from the president’s desperation to produce some policy triumph in the Middle East, he is no doubt thinking Iran will be an ally in the fight against the Sunni terrorists such as ISIS.

Talk about rose-colored glasses: Sen. John McCain rightly calls the idea that a deal with Iran means we’ll all be working ­together ­“delusional.”

In recent weeks alone, Iranian-backed forces have taken the capital of Yemen; Iranian-backed Hezbollah has killed two Israei soldiers; Iran’s influence in Iraq grows while America’s declines; while in Iran itself the nation is about to put a Washington Post reporter on trial.

So forget Netanyahu the messenger. Far more critical is the timely message about Iran he will deliver.

I hate to copy the whole article like that, but it is a short article, and it is packed with information. Obama is going to leave Iran’s nuclear program intact. We already know that. The centrifuges will keep spinning no matter what pretty words Obama gets on paper. That is, and the General says, a very bleak position to leave us in. At best Obama is going to come away with some kind of Munich accord with Iran on nuclear weapons. That is what he is shooting for. Peace in our time. Iran is on the move. We have a rising enemy in the Islamic State, and the Islamic State is Sunni and thus a rival against Iran’s Islamic Republic for power in the Caliphate, but we cannot count on them being more interested in fighting each other than in fighting us. Unlike the Obama Administration, I’d say both powers can walk and chew gum at the same time. As long as they know America is going to remain passive, they can both work their schemes against us even as they prepare to square off on the battlefield to decide whether the rising Caliphate will be ran by Sunnis or Shi’ites. And either one of those is of the gravest concern for the United States. We are watching the rise of our next great enemy, and Obama is bound and determined to make certain that at least one of them is armed with nuclear weapons. It is time to be afraid now.

Iran: Read This

by coldwarrior ( 3 Comments › )
Filed under Academia, Iran, Special Report at October 27th, 2013 - 9:33 am

From Purre and our friends in Finland:

He says: Recently Iranian ambassador to Finland protested against a study on Iran published on the webpage of Finland’s National Defence University. Sadly NDU responded by taking it offline. This has now rightly lead to uproar in Finland. However, the study can still be found in the internet, thanks to bloggers. If you want to read what the Iranian ambassador was so upset about – See more at: https://www.blogmocracy.com/2013/10/26/ncaa-football-week-9-2013-open-thread/#commentform

Here is the link, A working paper from NDU, this is testable materials so study well!

Kiitos, Purre!

Netanyahu to deliver ultimatum to Obama: If the USA does not attack Iran, we will do it alone

by Bob in Breckenridge ( 94 Comments › )
Filed under Ahmadinejad, Barack Obama, Dhimmitude, Elections 2012, History, Holocaust, Iran, Islam, Islamic Terrorism, Israel, Judaism, Leftist-Islamic Alliance, Military, Nuclear Weapons, Politics, Progressives, Terrorism at March 5th, 2012 - 11:30 am

Bibi meets with Obungler today (Monday) to discuss Iran. Think Obama will agree to order an attack on Iran? Me neither. So I guess Israel will be on her own. And God will be on Israel’s side. I just hope the Israelis are smart enough NOT to tell anyone in the Obungler administration when and where, because it wouldn’t surprise me if they warned Iran. After all, Obama did say that he’d stand with the moo-slimes.

‘Netanyahu to Tell Obama: Attack Iran – Or Else’

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will deliver President Barack Obama an ultimatum that if the United States does not attack Iran soon, Israel will, the London Telegraph reported Sunday.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said last month that there is a “strong likelihood” of an Israel attack by June. If Prime Minister Netanyahu delivers an ultimatum, it would give the United States 2-3 months to act or face the reality of an Israeli attack that would almost certainly require the United States coming to its aid, if necessary.

Israeli officials have said that in several months, Iran will have buried so many of its nuclear facilities deep under concrete bunkers in mountains that an attack would not be effective.

The Israeli Prime Minister “has the upper hand,” claims the Telegraph’s correspondent Adrian Blomfield.

“Exuding confidence, Mr. Netanyahu effectively brings with him an ultimatum, demanding that unless the president makes a firm pledge to use U.S. military force to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb, Israel may well take matters into its own hands within months,” wrote Blomfield.

He quoted analysts and sources as saying that the year-long Arab Spring rebellion in Syria, on which Iran is dependent to maintain the “axis of evil” with Lebanon, Hizbullah and Hamas, has weakened Iran as well as Damascus.

One other factor he did not mention is that President Obama is running for re-election. Failure to back Israel, if necessary, could torpedo his campaign. Moreover, Republican presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney will address the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) convention this week. President Obama, Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres also will speak.

The president and the Prime Minister are likely to show a unified stance in public, when they meet this week, but Prime Minister Netanyahu will tell President Barack Obama in private discussions that Israel cannot wait much longer for a military strike to stop or at least delay Iran’s unsupervised nuclear program.

President Obama ruined his already dimming pro-Israel image last year, directly admonishing Prime Minister Netanyahu for continuing to build homes in what the president called “illegitimate” settlements. In return, the Prime Minister gave President Obama a lecture on the facts of life in the Arab-Israeli struggle.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak recently has said that if the Netanyahu government attacks Iran, Israel can defend itself against an Iranian counter-attack.

“It won’t be easy,” a former senior Defense Ministry official told the London newspaper. “Rockets will be fired at cities, including Tel Aviv, but at the same time the doomsday scenario that some have talked of is unlikely to happen. I don’t think we will have all-out war.”

***UPDATE***

Obama- Give diplomacy more time!

Just what the Iranians were hoping to hear (and expected)…

Obama offers Netanyahu assurances over Iran

(Reuters) – President Barack Obama, aiming to head off any premature Israeli strike on Iran, sought to assure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday that the United States would always “have Israel’s back” but said there was still time for diplomacy.

Netanyahu, in a show of unity with an American leader with whom he has had a rocky relationship, said at the White House that both Israel and the United States stood together on the need to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

“The bond between our two countries is unbreakable,” Obama said. “The United States will always have Israel’s back when it comes to Israel’s security.”

The two men, sitting side by side and smiling at each other in the Oval Office, sought to present a united front in the Iranian nuclear standoff after weeks of mounting concern that Israel would preemptively strike Iran on its own.

In one of the most consequential meetings of U.S. and Israeli leaders in years, they made no mention of any differences they may have over red lines that could trigger military action to curb an Iranian nuclear program that Israel sees as a threat to its existence.

“We believe there is still a window that allows for a diplomatic resolution,” Obama said.

Netanyahu made clear that Israel would be the “master of its fate” in deciding how to deal with Iran, which has called for the destruction of the Jewish state.

“It must have the ability to defend itself, by itself, against any threat,” Netanyahu said, echoing remarks Obama made a day earlier in a speech to the powerful pro-Israel lobby AIPAC.

Obama has been urging Israel to allow sanctions more time to work against Iran’s nuclear ambitions while balancing that with assurances of his resolve to do whatever is necessary to keep the Islamic republic from becoming a nuclear-armed state.

At the White House meeting, Obama told Netanyahu the United States reserved “all options” in dealing with Iran. The president has made clear that would include a possible military component.

“We do not want to see a nuclear arms race in the most volatile region in the world,” Obama said.

Iran denies it is seeking nuclear weapons.

How the U.S.-Iran Standoff Looks From Iran

by coldwarrior ( 2 Comments › )
Filed under Ahmadinejad, Iran, Islam, Nuclear Weapons, Special Report at February 22nd, 2012 - 4:35 pm

PART 1 and Part 2 are here

 

More in the Series from Bloomberg:

Hossein Mousavian

The past six U.S. presidents have employed a policy of sanctions, containment and deterrence against Iran. Earlier in his tenure, President Barack Obama tried to change course by offering instead to engage, stressing “diplomacy without preconditions.” Two years later, however, the talk in Washington is of an inevitable coming war.

This is entirely the wrong direction for the U.S. to be taking. The consequences of a military strike on Iran would be catastrophic for the U.S., Iran and Israel.

Whether Iran should be able to build its nuclear program cannot be dealt with separately from the larger issue of the confrontational relationship that Iran and the U.S. have had since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. In his recent memoir, former International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said he doubted policy makers in Washington were ever truly interested in resolving the Iranian nuclear issue, but that they sought instead to achieve isolation and regime change in Iran.

Regardless of whether ElBaradei was right about that — and having sat at the other side of the table as an Iranian nuclear negotiator, it seemed that he was — it’s safe to say there won’t be a solution to the Iranian nuclear dispute as long as officials in Tehran and Washington continue to base their relationship on escalating hostility, threats and mistrust, particularly if the ultimate U.S. goal is regime change.

Both Miscalculated

Both sides have made miscalculations, worsening an already strained relationship. From 2003 to 2005, Iran’s team in nuclear negotiations with the so-called EU3 (the U.K., France and Germany) and the IAEA stressed repeatedly that Iran’s right to enrich nuclear fuel was non-negotiable. The team, of which I was part, argued that the EU3 should not be able to deprive Iran of its legitimate right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to acquire nuclear technology, including uranium enrichment. We made it clear that actions such as prolonging the negotiations or suspending the enrichment program would not stop Iran. Rather, Iran would restart the enrichment program, even at the cost of sanctions that could cripple the country’s economy, or of a military strike. The EU3 ignored these warnings.

On the other side, those in Tehran with a great deal of sway over nuclear policy ignored warnings that if Iran restarted enrichment unilaterally, that would result in Iran’s nuclear file being referred to the United Nations Security Council, citing Iran’s nuclear program as a threat to international peace and security. Once referred, the way would be paved for imposing further sanctions on Iran and further escalation. Unfortunately, these Iranian policy makers saw the threat of referral as a Western bluff aimed simply at intimidating them.

Hopefully, both parties have learned their lessons: Iran will not forgo its rights under the non-proliferation treaty, and the West will follow through with its threat of sanctions and referral.

From 2003 to 2009, Iran exchanged many proposals with the EU3, and later the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany). Again unfortunately, none were realistic, largely because they did not provide face-saving mechanisms for either party. Going forward, any viable solution needs to meet the bottom lines of both sides. For Iran, this means the ability to produce reliable civilian nuclear energy, as it is entitled to do under the non-proliferation treaty. For the U.S. and Europe, it means never having Iran develop nuclear weapons or a short-notice breakout capability.

Maximum Transparency

Specifically, the West should recognize the legitimate right of Iran to produce nuclear technology, including uranium enrichment; remove sanctions; and normalize Iran’s nuclear file at the UN Security Council and the IAEA. To meet the P5+1 conditions, Iran should accept the maximum level of transparency by implementing the IAEA’s Subsidiary Arrangement Code 3.1 and the non-proliferation treaty’s Additional Protocol, which broadly enable intrusive monitoring and inspections of nuclear facilities.

To eliminate Western concerns about a possible nuclear weapons breakout using low-enriched uranium, any deal should place a limit on Iran’s enrichment activities to less than 5 percent. Low-enriched uranium covers enrichment by as much as 20 percent, a level that is more conducive for further enrichment to weapons grade. A deal should also cap the amount of low- enriched uranium hexafluoride that Iran can stockpile; limit its enrichment sites during a period of confidence building; establish an international consortium on enrichment in Iran; and commit not to reprocess low-enriched uranium during the confidence-building period.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s offer to stop 20 percent enrichment in exchange for a P5+1 commitment to provide fuel rods for the Tehran Research Reactor — a proposal he made in comments to reporters last September after a speech to the UN General Assembly — and Russia’s “Step-by-Step Plan” represent the most conducive path to reaching such a deal. The Russian plan includes full supervision by the IAEA; implementation of the non-proliferation treaty’s Additional Protocol and Subsidiary Arrangement; readiness to stop production of low- enriched uranium and limiting enrichment to 5 percent; halting the production and installation of new centrifuges; limiting enrichment sites to one; addressing the IAEA’s “possible military dimension” concerns and other technical ambiguities; and temporary suspension of enrichment.

In return, Iran would expect the P5+1 to remove sanctions and normalize Iran’s nuclear file in the IAEA and Security Council. Iran has already welcomed both initiatives. The U.S. and Europeans have declined. Instead, they have chosen to try coercion. The result was evidenced in recent days, as Iranian officials announced the insertion of their first domestically produced 20 percent fuel rod, and an increase in the number of enrichment centrifuges to 9,000 from 6,000.

Non-Interference Key

Finally, the U.S. should seek a broad relationship with Iran based on mutual respect, non-interference, equality, justice and common interests. No significant progress can be made toward achieving the U.S. security objectives without first convincing Iran that the U.S. is prepared to discuss all agenda items in U.S.-Iran relations.

Both the U.S. and Iran have become prisoners of the past. They need to have a realistic assessment of potential areas where they could have common interests, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, security in the Persian Gulf, curbing drug trafficking, opposing al-Qaeda, and limiting the role of the Taliban. Unfortunately, the pursuit of these potential common interests has so far been hampered by a preoccupation with the nuclear file and the domestic political climate in both countries.

(Seyed Hossein Mousavian is an associate research scholar at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and a former spokesman for Iran’s nuclear negotiating team. He was Iran’s ambassador to Germany from 1990 to 1997. This is the third in a series of op-ed articles about Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program. The opinions expressed are his own.)

Read more opinion online from Bloomberg View.

To contact the writer of this article: Seyed Hossein Mousavian at emad@Princeton.edu