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Reporting from Los Angeles and Washington— The radar-evading drone that crash-landed over the weekend in Iran was on a mission for the CIA, according to a senior U.S. official, raising fears that the aircraft's sophisticated technology could be exploited by Tehran or shared with other American rivals. It was unclear whether the drone's mission took it over Iran or whether it strayed there accidentally because of technical malfunctions, the official said. Though the drone flight was a CIA operation, U.S. military personnel were involved in flying the aircraft, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the...

<p>No sh*t Sherlock! New sanctions = buying time for the Iranians.</p>

News Conference about to begin. Reportedly about an Iranian-backed plot to attack U.S.

Energy giants Total, Shell, Statoil and Eni have pledged to end their investments in Iran. The pledges fall in line with tough new energy and financial measures the U.S. Congress imposed on Iran in June, which came atop U.N. Security Council sanctions imposed earlier the same month to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions.

NEW YORK – President Barack Obama condemned Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech Thursday at the United Nations, in which Ahmadinejad blamed the United States for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, calling it “offensive” and “hateful.” “And particularly for him to make the statement here in Manhattan, just a little north of Ground Zero, where families lost their loved ones, people of all faiths, all ethnicities who see this as the seminal tragedy of this generation, for him to make a statement like that was inexcusable,” Obama said in an interview Friday morning. "And it stands in contrast with the response...

<p>UNITED NATIONS — The U.S. and several European delegations walked out of the U.N. speech of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday after he said most people believe the U.S. government was behind the Sept. 11 terror attacks in order to assure Israel's survival.</p>

Anders Fogh Rasmussen claimed that a new defensive 'shield' could be set up in cooperation with Russia Anders Fogh Rasmussen told The Sunday Telegraph he has full American backing for a proposed €200 million (£165 million) defensive "shield", which he hopes will be agreed in November at a summit of members in Lisbon. He was speaking after weapons inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warned last week that Iran had passed a crucial nuclear threshold which took it nearer to being able to arm ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. "Based on their public statements we know that Iran...

Plans to free a US woman who has spent a year in an Iranian jail have suddenly been scrapped despite backing from the country's president. Iran Pulls President's Plan To Free US Woman Share Share Comments (14)11:48am UK, Saturday September 11, 2010 Tom Bonnett, Sky News Online Plans to free a US woman who has spent a year in an Iranian jail have suddenly been scrapped despite backing from the country's president. Sarah Shourd has been held in solitary confinement and denied medical treatment Mahmoud Ahmadinejad requested Sarah Shourd be set free as an act of clemency at the end...

Iran today effectively kick-starts opera tions of its Bushehr nuclear reactor -- a move hard-liners tout as defiance of President Obama's sanctions regime. This follows Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi's announcement yesterday that Iran has test-fired a new ballistic missile with advanced targeting capabilities. Yet despite it all, Washington reportedly has "assured" Israel that Iran is at least one year away from completing a "breakout" in uranium conversion into weapons-grade fissionable material. The point appears to be to delay pre-emptive Israeli military action against Iranian nuclear facilities until Obama can sweet-talk Tehran out of its bomb. Good luck with that --...

TEHRAN: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on US President Barack Obama on Monday to face him in a televised one-on-one debate to see who has the best solutions for the world’s problems. The provocative proposal comes as Iran deals with a new wave of international sanctions — driven by Washington - aimed at putting pressure on Tehran over its nuclear program. “Toward the end of summer we will hopefully be there for the (UN) General Assembly and I will be ready for one-on-one talks with Obama, in front of the media of course,” Ahmadinejad told a conference of Iranian expatriates...

Libya chairing the old Human Rights Commission served to discredit that rotten institution once and for all. The UN's Economic and Social Council has just elected Iran to a seat on the UN's women's rights commission - formally known as the Commission on the Status of Women. There's more yet. Iran has also just obtained three other seats. Iran is one of 16 new members just elected to four year terms on the Commission of Science and Technology for Development. Maybe they can provide handy tips on capacity-building for nuclear bomb technology. Iran was also just elected to the governing...

Forget Iran, the Obama administration appears to be more worried about Israel’s nukes. It appears the next phase in the standoff over Iran’s apocalypse-inducing nuclear weapons program is beginning to come into focus. In the months ahead, don’t be surprised if the efforts of the Obama administration to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions become predicated on the nuclear disarmament of the Jewish state. Why is this likely? Simple: Such a mandate is the inevitable outgrowth of the foolish yet increasingly pervasive tendency to consider as equals the nuclear ambitions of Israel and Iran. This false moral equivalence between the nuclear programs...

Negotiations grind on toward a fourth U.N. Security Council sanctions resolution against Iran's nuclear weapons program, even as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrives in New York to address the Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference. Sanctions advocates acknowledge that the Security Council's ultimate product will do no more than marginally impede Iran's progress. In Congress, sanctions legislation also creaks along, but that too is simply going through the motions. Russia and China have already rejected key proposals to restrict Iran's access to international financial markets and choke off its importation of refined petroleum products, which domestically are in short supply. Any new U.S....

It was one of the most significant developments in the Obama presidency. We refer to the leak last week of an explosive top secret memo sent in January by the Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to President Obama's national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, deploring the lack of planning concerning Iranian nuclear aspirations should the administration's much ballyhooed outreach approach fail. In itself, the memo's conclusion is nothing less than stunning - a senior official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, characterized the document as "a wake-up call." Yet the very fact that this highly classified analysis was leaked...

<p>KAMPALA, Uganda— Iran's president is in Africa this week to build alliances to evade stronger U.N. sanctions for his country's nuclear program, ease its international isolation and strengthen its economy.</p> <p>Both Zimbabwe and Uganda, the two countries President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is visiting, have something to offer.</p>

Iran: A leaked memo from the defense secretary reveals the administration has no alternatives to stop Iran's nuclear push if "soft power" fails. This should be a wake-up call, but we continue snoozing toward Armageddon. President Obama campaigned on the notion that not talking to tyrants was not an option or a workable policy. He said he'd be willing to talk with anybody anywhere to bring peace and relieve tensions. Unlike President Theodore Roosevelt, however, he has been talking softly but forgetting about the big stick. A memo written by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and unearthed by the New York...

The Pentagon and U.S. Central Command are updating military plans to strike Iran's nuclear sites, preparing up-to-date options for the president in the event he decides to take such action, an Obama administration official told CNN Sunday. The effort has been underway for several weeks and comes as there is growing concern across the administration's national security team that the president needs fresh options ready for his approval if he were to decide on a military strike, according to the official who is familiar with the effort. The official did not want to be identified because of the sensitive nature...

Only 5% think diplomacy and sanctions can stop Iran, AJC poll finds. Although a slim majority of American Jews supports the Obama administration’s handling of US-Israel relations, a larger majority opposes any Israeli concession on Jerusalem as part of a peace deal, a survey released over the weekend by the American Jewish Committee revealed. Fifty-five percent of respondents said they approved of the administration’s policy regarding US-Israel relations. But 61% also said Israel should not be “willing to compromise on the status of Jerusalem as a united city under Israeli jurisdiction” as part of the framework of a peace settlement.

TEHRAN (AFP) – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday warned his US counterpart Barack Obama of a "tooth-breaking" response, as he condemned Washington's new nuclear policy. Ahmadinejad lashed out after the United States unveiled new limits on use of the nation's nuclear arsenal, but suggested that exceptions could be made for "outliers" such as Iran and North Korea, both accused by the West of flouting UN resolutions concerning their nuclear programmes.

The rules of the great Iranian nuclear charade are simple: We pretend to punish the Iranians for the nuclear- weapons program that they pretend doesn't exist. The Obama administration is about to go to the UN Security Council for a fourth round of sanctions. Remember the first three rounds? Models of collective international action, they passed unanimously (with the exception of an abstention by Indonesia in 2008) while Iran spun ever-more centrifuges and enriched ever-more uranium. It's a two-track process. On one track, the West feels as though it's doing something; on the other, the Iranians advance the nuclear program...

The Obama administration is reported to be pressing key members of the U.S. Congress to allow more time before taking final action on legislation that would impose tough, unilateral sanctions on Iran. The president says he believes there can be success within weeks, rather than months, in building a tough sanctions resolution in the U.N. Security Council. Senator Joseph Lieberman called for quick action, describing new sanctions as a "last chance" for Iran. But efforts at the United Nations come amid increased concern in the U.S. Congress that Iran might be speeding up efforts to develop a nuclear weapons capability....

The reported defection of an Iranian scientist to the United States has renewed speculation about a CIA plot to sabotage Iran's nuclear program through covert action. But it remains unclear whether Shahram Amiri, the young physics researcher who reportedly joined forces with the US spy agency, represents an intelligence coup for Washington or a minor setback for Tehran, former CIA officers said. ABC television reported that Amiri, who went missing without explanation in Saudi Arabia last year, had defected and resettled in the United States in cooperation with the Central Intelligence Agency. Amiri, in his thirties, worked at Tehran's Malek-Ashtar...

Obama Accepts a Nuclear Iran By Greg Sheridan US President Barack Obama has decided to abandon any serious effort to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. He is determined instead to live with a nuclear Iran, by containment and, if possible, negotiation. This is the shifting tectonic plate in the Middle East. This is the giant story of the past few weeks which the world has largely missed, distracted by the theatre of the absurd of Obama's contrived and mock confrontation with Israel over 1600 apartments to be built in three years' time in a Jewish suburb in East Jerusalem....

Over the past three months, several prominent American think tanks and academic institutions have conducted simulation games about the Iranian crisis. Although these war games have nicely covered almost all facets of the problem, they have left one aspect mostly understudied: the nature of Iran's response to a U.S. or Israeli airstrike. I recently took part in two U.S. government-sponsored games in which the participants attempted to provide a modest assessment of that crucial issue. War simulation games are certainly not a new invention in government practice. Indeed, the history of strategy and that of simulation are inseparable. Ever since...

MARCH 25, 2010 U.S. Softens Sanction Plan Against Iran BY DAVID CRAWFORD, RICHARD BOUDREAUX, JOE LAURIA AND JAY SOLOMON VIENNA—The U.S. has backed away from pursuing a number of tough measures against Iran in order to win support from Russia and China for a new United Nations Security Council resolution on sanctions, according to people familiar with the matter. Among provisions removed from the original draft resolution the U.S. sent to key allies last month were sanctions aimed at choking off Tehran's access to international banking services and capital markets, and closing international airspace and waters to Iran's national air...

The number three Republican in the House of Representatives today told reporters, "I never thought I'd live to see the day that an American administration would denounce the Jewish state of Israel for rebuilding Jerusalem." Pence is a strong supporter of Israel and his remarks came just before a bipartisan meeting with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Speaking of bipartisanship, Pence has penned a letter with Democrat Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. asking the administration to focus less attention on where Israelis are building settlements and pay more attention on Iran's push for nuclear weapons. Here's a copy of the letter,...

The chess-masters of Tehran have played a single combination for the past five years: threaten America's flanks in Iraq and Afghanistan in order to gain control of the center of the board, that is, by pushing on with a nuclear program that many suspect is designed to acquire nuclear weapons. Iran has sufficient assets in the territory of its troubled neighbors to make a shambles of America's Potemkin village. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki may be able to govern Iraq with a third of the seats contested in the March 7 parliamentary elections, provided that Iran's allies such as Shi'ite...

(IsraelNN.com) Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s visit to the United States this week will include a demand that U.S. President Barack Obama release previously-promised bunker-busting bombs, the Times of London reported Sunday. The bombs could be used in an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, which are buried deep underground. The Iranian Fars news agency has quoted Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that the Busheur nuclear facility will be online by the summer.

WASHINGTON -- President Obama told Iranians in an online video message that the U.S. wants more educational and cultural exchanges, and lamented that Tehran's leaders have "turned their backs" on good faith overtures in the past to expand opportunities for their people.

Today, I want to extend my best wishes to all who are celebrating Nowruz in the United States and around the world. On this New Year’s celebration, friends and family have a unique opportunity to reflect on the year gone by; to celebrate their time together; and to share in their hopes for the future. One year ago, I chose this occasion to speak directly to the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and to offer a new chapter of engagement on the basis of mutual interests and mutual respect. I did so with no illusions. For...

TIMES OF INDIA: Stepping up its preparations for a possible strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, the United States is transporting hundreds of 387 'bunker-buster' bombs to its air base on the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, a media report claimed on Wednesday. The US government signed a contract in January with Superior Maritime Services to transport 10 ammunition containers to Diego Garcia from Concord, California, the Sunday Herald reported. The shipment includes 195 smart, guided Blu-110 bombs and 192 Blu-117 900kg bombs. The key Iranian nuclear facilities are underground and both these type of bombs are...

Barack Obama, in his first press conference after his election, called Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons ''unacceptable.'' He repetitively offered Iran ''engagement.'' He set a deadline of year-end 2009 for Iranian compliance, now unilaterally extended another three months. (Snip) Obama's Iran policy is collapsing to the accompaniment of open mockery around the globe. Obama assured us that his ''engagement'' would make it easier to enlist other countries to stop Iran. The result is the opposite: Virtually every country Obama approached has rebuffed him.

... ZAKARIA: Don't you have the beginning of a very robust containment strategy, though, and you would be the one actually who would probably be principally charged with the military operationalization of this. You have the moderate -- the Gulf states, the Sunni states, Egypt, Israel, the major European countries, perhaps even Russia, all arrayed, you know, along this common interest that Iran not -- not become a nuclear power. Wouldn't it be possible to contain it? PETRAEUS: ...you have to ask a country that is most directly concerned about this, and that would be Israel. And, at the...

"Who lost China?" was the Republican slogan in the 1950s, after Mao Zedong conquered China and turned it into a Communist tyranny. Jozef Stalin was in power in the Soviet Union at the time and controlled half of Europe. China and Russia were both nuclear-armed tyrannies, and democracy was in retreat all over the world. The Western Left constantly lied about Communist Imperialism -- to the point where they redefined the very word "imperialism" to exclude any Communist regime. Even today, the Left won't admit that the Soviets and Chinese were running a classic imperialist enterprise. The Western Left enabled...

This week the Israeli Air Force (IAF) held a ceremony spotlighting the "operational acceptance" of its biggest unmanned aerial vehicle, the 4.5-ton Heron TP, or "Eitan." The far-flying UAV, with a wingspan almost as long as a 737 airliner, appeared on the runway with a comparatively diminutive F-15 alongside it. The IAF already rushed this UAV into action during the 2008–'09 war in Gaza, so the ceremony really served as a reminder to Iran that its drone fleets can reach the nation. But how will Israel use them? The Eitan can carry a ton of payload and can reach Iran's...

IRAN has the US trapped. Barack Obama certainly knows it. And Hillary Clinton does, too. But Clinton is the designated canary who brings the bad news. Or, rather, the good news . . . at least to the mullahs. She has now told everyone who will listen that the US has no plans for a strike against Iran. And, given the President's deeply ideological commitment to peaceful engagement with Tehran, there is no reason to doubt her. In fact, it is reasonable to deduce that no armed strike by the US has even been laid out in the most theoretical...

It is becoming increasingly clear that President Obama's policies toward Iran have failed and that disaster is in the offing. President Obama began his relationship with the radical mullahs in Iran determined to show that he represented a new America and that he was truly seeking friendship between the two nations. This has proven to be dreadfully misguided. The president pursued two tracks at once. First, he initiated the appeasement process by sending his greetings to the mullahs for the Iranian New Year, calling the country "the Islamic Republic of Iran," and therefore legitimizing the rule of the mullahs. He...

It was just about 10 days ago that Iran's bombastic president, Mahmoud Ahma dinejad, publicly boasted that Tehran had enriched uranium to nearly 20 percent purity -- a key development on the path to nuclear weapons. To which White House spokesman Robert Gibbs declared: "We do not believe they have the capability to enrich to the degree they say they are enriching." Wrong-O, Bobby Boy. The International Atomic Energy Agency reports that Iran did in fact reach the 20 percent level recently -- which "raises concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or undisclosed activities related to the...

The President has steadfastly refused to criticize the Iranian regime over its human rights violations and its brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters. Thus, it should come as no surprise that the Obama administration actually tried to prevent the Broadcasting Board of Governors from protesting Iran's censorship policies: The Iranian government's blanket censorship of satellite and Internet communications last week was so effective, it led many to wonder: Why didn't the U.S. government do more to stop it? Despite strong statements from Foggy Bottom, the White House appears to be treading carefully. Three sources tell The Cable that the National Security...

AHMADINEJAD: 'YEP, I'M NUCLEAR!'February 17, 2010 The only man causing President Obama more headaches than Joe Biden these days is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (who, coincidentally, was right after Biden on Obama's short-list for V.P.). Despite Obama's personal magnetism, the Iranian president persists in moving like gangbusters to build nuclear weapons, leading to Ahmadinejad's announcement last week that Iran is now a "nuclear state." Gee, that's weird -- because I remember being told in December 2007 that all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies had concluded that Iran had ceased nuclear weapons development as of 2003. At the time of that leak, many of...

U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, attended a press conference after his arrival to Israel and made it clear that all options are on the table. “We would operate all our forces for Israel” “Politically, it is prohibited in any way that Iran will have nuclear weapons”, said Mullen during a press conference convened on Sunday evening only hours after his arrival to Israel. “Right now, diplomatic efforts continue,” he explained, but did not rule out military option, “The option to attack Iran is still on the table, but we’re not there yet.” “It is...

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday the Obama administration believes Iran is becoming a military dictatorship. In remarks to Arab students at Carnegie Mellon's campus in Qatar, Clinton said the Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran appears to have gained so much power, saying "the Revolutionary Guard ... we believe is, in effect, supplanting the government of Iran." "That is how we see it. We see that the government of Iran, the supreme leader, the president, the parliament, is being supplanted and that Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship. That is our view." Clinton's comments came after...

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," February 11, 2010. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

Biden is expected to pressure Israel not to go forward with a pre-emptive strike on Iran which is believed to be only a year away from producing nuclear weapons.

Vice President Joe Biden says the U.S. had made "significant progress" in addressing Iran's nuclear program. But former Vice President Dick Cheney says he's not yet persuaded that the Obama administration will do what's necessary to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons.

The chairman of the US military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, said on Sunday he was concerned about the consequences of any attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. "The outbreak of a conflict will be a big, big, big problem for all of us, and I worry a great deal about the unintended consequences of a strike," Admiral Mullen said.

Here is video of former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton on Fox and Friends today, where he said the case for striking Iran is growing. Bolton said Iran's radical Islamic regime sent signals this week that they are still firmly in control, as they kept protests to a minimum on the day Ahmadinejad announced they had successfully enriched uranium. He made the announcement on the 31st anniversary of the "Islamic Revolution" in Iran. Bolton said he believes the "pre-emptive use of military force" is the only way to prevent Iran from obtaining Nuclear Weapons. Since Bolton believes there is "zero likelihood"...

PING TO END TIMES, Dreams, Visions, Prophecy ping list and the UFO ping lists ########################### Dear Ones, Have been here so many times over the last decade or two . . . have resisted saying much of anything yet again to much of anyone. Nevertheless, the last week, reading multiple reports from Iran of their ever more pointedly put threats from AhmANutJob on down . . . has been more than a little sobering. And now yet another . . . Here's the FR thread about it: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2447187/posts A number of FREEPERS have communicated with me privately and some...

Hundreds of thousands of government supporters massed Thursday in central Tehran to mark the anniversary of the revolution that created Iran's Islamic republic, while a heavy security force that fanned across the city moved quickly to snuff out counterprotests by the opposition. In a nationally televised address in the square, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proclaimed that Iran has produced its first batch of uranium enriched to a higher level, saying his country will not be bullied by the West into curtailing its nuclear program a day after the U.S. imposed new sanctions. "The first package of 20 percent fuel was...

TEHRAN, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday that U.S. President Barack Obama is "missing chances" to make changes and do reforms. "We expected Mr. Obama to be able to make changes and we announced that we will help him," Ahmadinejad said addressing a rally in Tehran. "Unfortunately, the hopes to reform by him is turning to disappointment quickly," he addressed the large crowd who had gathered in Tehran Azadi square to mark the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.