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Iran is ready to expand its military and security ties with Iraq, its armed forces chief of staff has said, a week after the exit of US forces from their neighbour. General Hassan Firouzabadi hailed the "forced departure" of the US and allied forces that he said "was due to the resistance and determination of the Iraqi people and government," the state Islamic Republic News Agency reported. The statements were made in messages Gen Firouzabadi sent to his Iraqi counterpart, Lieutenant General Babaker Zebari, and to Iraq's acting defence minister, Saadun al-Dulaimi, IRNA said. The departure of the US troops...

Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey said Tuesday that the United States can successfully attack Iran, if necessary. His biggest worry is that Iran will "miscalculate our resolve. Dempsey, speaking to CNN during a worldwide tour, spoke one day after Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta warned that the American government will not allow Iran to produce a nuclear weapon. He said that if Iran continues to enrich high-grade uranium, it could produce a nuclear weapon within a year, an estimate formerly given by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. "My biggest worry is they [Iran] will miscalculate...

snip American allies, such as Israel, are similarly nervous about the precipitous departure. A weak and America-less Iraq will have demonstrably negative consequences for Israel’s security environment. First, no country with an American military presence has attacked Israel. U.S. forces stationed in Turkey, Egypt, and the Gulf States have deterred or prevented those states from embarking on military action. In fact, the presence of U.S. forces has generally signaled the strategic orientation of those countries, first as anti-Soviet and now as anti-Iranian. snip Overall, the American withdrawal from Iraq portends ill for Israel. Iranian domination of Iraq is likely to...

The CIA and the U.S. military may have a serious security flaw to deal with if an Iranian engineer's story proves to be true. Speaking to Christian Science Monitor (CSM), he detailed how a team of specialists from his country hacked into a U.S. spy drone's GPS navigator in order to capture it. That's the same one the U.S. government claimed has landed in Iran's territory in early December due to a malfunction. The Iranian specialists reportedly figured out that the RQ-170 Sentinel's weakest point is its GPS by examining previously downed American drones back in September. Using this...

Courting Jewish Voters, Obama Says 'No Options Off Table' On Iran By Peter Nicholas December 16, 2011 President Obama can't show enough love for the Jewish vote – er, community. With his approval rating among Jews down 20 points from his showing in the 2008 election -- and with Republicans eager to exploit Jewish anxieties about Obama's commitment to Israel -- the president isn't passing up many chances these days to proclaim that he's a loyal friend of the Jewish state. On Friday, he spoke to the Union for Reform Judaism and maintained that his administration has done right by...

President Barack Obama launched into a passionate defense of his policy on Israel, accusing critics of distorting the facts on his Middle East record. Again. Obama, speaking at a Union for Reform Judaism event in Maryland, doubled-down on his record, saying that no administration has done more in support of Israel’s security. “Don't let anyone else tell you otherwise, it is a fact,” the president said. “America's commitment and my commitment to Israel and Israel’s security is unshakeable -- It is unshakeable." “As president, I have never wavered in pursuit of a just and lasting peace -- two states, two...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-3xeP7NFRE&feature=share&fb_source=message

BERLIN – Rising criticism from prominent German- Iranians, NGOs and the federal commissioner for culture and media prompted an elite cultural foundation on Tuesday to eject Iran’s acting Deputy Foreign Minister Mostafa Dolatyar from its board of trustees because he called for the destruction of Israel. According to a report in Iran’s Mahan News in 2010, Dolatyar said, “We hope that the prophecy of the Imam [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini] regarding the downfall of this regime [Israel] will occur very soon and that we will witness it.” A spokesman for Bernd Neumann, Germany’s federal culture commissioner, told The Jerusalem Post that...

Energy Policy: The same administration that says we can and should get oil from the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska is blocking a bridge needed to get it to market on environmental grounds. In his May 14 weekly radio address, President Obama called for annual lease sales in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPRA), not necessarily out of any conviction that increased domestic energy supply is good for prices and national security, but basically to perpetuate the myth that the oil companies refuse to drill in leased or leasable areas. While he restricts oil production in the Gulf of Mexico and...

Seems an explosion rocked Iranian city Isfahan that houses that nation’s uranium conversion facility on Monday. Hmm. Big hmm. Capitalized, italicized and boldfaced HMM. From the New York Daily News: “The government of Isfahan denied reports that the explosion was linked to the nuclear site, saying it was part of a military drill north of the city.” That excuse is so weak that I think Baghdad Bob either moved to Iran or has a cousin Tehran Terry. From the New York Daily News: “One of the first reports of the blast came from Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency, according to...

<p>“We face the threats from rising powers — China, India, others — that we have to always have sufficient force protection out there in the Pacific to make sure they know we’re never going anywhere,” Mr. Panetta said during a visit to a shipyard in Groton, Conn., where he toured a submarine, the Mississippi, in the final stages of construction.</p>

Israel tested a long-range ballistic missile capable of a carrying a nuclear warhead yesterday amid growing speculation that Benjamin Netanyahu is preparing to authorise military action against Iran. The test came just hours after the Israeli prime minister was reported to have stepped up pressure on his cabinet to back military strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities. Indicating that a rapid reassessment of policy was under way, Israeli newspapers suggested that an attack could take place either before the onset of winter or in the summer of next year. The dramatic disclosures came as the Israeli defence ministry confirmed that it...

'The Guardian' reports UK defense establishment believes US may accelerate plans for targeted strikes against Islamic Republic's nuclear facilities; UK military chief visited Israel 'secretly' this week. The British military is accelerating planning for its part in a potential US attack against Iran's nuclear facilities, The Guardian reported on Wednesday. According to the report, the UK Ministry of Defense believes the US may speed up plans for targeted missile strikes of certain Iranian nuclear targets. The Guardian quoted British officials as saying the UK would assist the US militarily if such a mission were to take place. British military officials...

Fearing an uncoordinated Israeli attack against Iran, the United States is working on several levels to pressure the UN's Security Council into imposing harsher sanctions on Iran, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Monday. A senior US State Department official said there was growing concern among Obama administration officials ahead of an IAEA report set to be published in November indicating considerable progress in Tehran's development of its military nuclear program.

Stratfor's George Friedman is a realist on what it would really mean: Destroying Iran's nuclear capability does not involve a one-day raid, nor is Iran without the ability to retaliate. Its nuclear facilities are in a number of places and Iran has had years to harden those facilities. Destroying the facilities might take an extended air campaign and might even require the use of special operations units to verify battle damage and complete the mission. In addition, military action against Iran's naval forces would be needed to protect the oil routes through the Persian Gulf from small boat swarms and...

Israel's long-anticipated attack on Iran's nuclear program may come as soon as Friday. Yesterday, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said Israel had eight days to strike Iran's nuclear facility at Bushehr before it would become operational. He revised the timeline to three days after word came that nuclear fuel would begin loading on Friday. We're now down to two days and counting.... It's doubtful America will take action. The State Department's response to the latest IAEA report on Iranian enrichment violations merely said, "We are hopeful that Iran will express a willingness to come to the...

They're back! The "Bomb Iran" crowd is making a big return to the political center stage after months of puzzlement over what to do about developments in the Islamic Republic. Hawks such as Daniel Pipes and John Bolton are arguing that Iran is dead-set on its pursuit of a nuclear arsenal -- and point to developments such as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's announcement this weekend that Iran would enrich its uranium stocks to 20 percent to argue that diplomatic avenues have reached a dead end. The would-be bombers fear that the mullahs will leverage their nuclear capability to expand Persian influence...

I do not customarily offer advice to a president whose election I opposed, whose goals I fear, and whose policies I work against. But here is an idea for Barack Obama to salvage his tottering administration by taking a step that protects the United States and its allies.

Quotes from the article: "The cap-and-trade plan pushed to reduce carbon emissions from fossil fuels 'is dead,' Graham said." "And he said he supported immigration reform, but not before the country secures its borders."

US military commander for the Middle East and the Gulf region has confirmed that the United States has developed contingency plans to deal with Iran's nuclear facilities. Gen David Petraeus, head of Central Command or Centcom, did not elaborate on the plans, but said the military has considered the impacts of any action taken there. Asked about the vulnerability of Iran's nuclear installations, he told CNN: "Well, they certainly can be bombed. The level of effect would vary with who it is that carries it out, what ordnance they have, and what capability they can bring to bear." General Petraeus...

The attempted Christmas Day underwear bombing of Northwest Flight 253 may have Iranian fingerprints, but those are dots the Obama administration doesn't want to connect. Iran and al Qaeda have made mutual war on America in Yemen before. In November 2008, Western security officials intercepted a letter signed by bin Laden deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri thanking Iran for its "vision" in helping al Qaeda establish a foothold in Yemen after being routed from Iraq and Saudi Arabia. The terror leader praised Tehran for its "monetary and infrastructure assistance" related to a September 2008 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Yemen's capital...

Today, the Islamic regime in Iran faces what could be a perfect storm. A respected opposition leader is being mourned, it is the most holy day of the year for Shiites, and the pro-democracy Green Movement is more energized and radicalized than ever. The spirit of liberation is alive and well. ...One of our New Year's wishes is that peaceful change comes to Iran, but the regime will do everything in its power to prevent that from happening. Hopefully the reform movement will reach critical mass before the Islamic regime's nuclear program does.

Politically, no Israeli prime minister could survive the fact that Iran became a nuclear-armed state, officially or unofficially, on his watch. The pressure on the Israeli government to do something to counter Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons would be so strong that it could well be tempted to play a desperate gamble, regardless of any security guaranties that the U.S. might offer. Similarly, no U.S. president (especially one endowed with a Nobel Prize) could escape blame for having let Iran become a nuclear-weapon state by consistently underestimating its ability to conceal its preparations. The intelligence community's credibility would be devastated,...

A smoking-gun document has emerged that indicates Iran is closer than ever to developing a nuclear weapon. Top-secret technical notes leaked from deep within the Iranian nuclear program - and making the rounds of Western intelligence agencies - detail research on a neutron initiator, a device that sets off a nuclear detonation. It is the smoking gun's trigger.

Representatives from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia are scheduled to meet today in Brussels to discuss future steps to dissuade Iran from developing the capacity to build nuclear weapons. Our message to the world leaders: If you want peace, prepare for war.

Iran is directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of more American military personnel than any other country since the Vietnam War. Tehran does not lack the will to stand up to the United States even without nuclear weapons. It's chilling to consider how much more bold Iran will be with an atomic arsenal.

The public is saying that it's worth trying anything to stop Iran, but in the end, we probably will have to fight it out. The Pew survey shows that 61 percent agree that Iran must be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons even if it requires the use of force. Just 24 percent believe we should accept an Iranian bomb if stopping it necessitates military action.

The only way to deter Iran's quest for regional dominance should diplomacy fail is the threat of force. Mr. Gates essentially took that off the table when he told CNN that "there is no military option that does anything more than buy time." If Tehran does not think diplomacy is backed by the threat of force, there is no credible way to make the nation reconsider its ambitions.

It's beginning to look like peace had its chance with Iran and failed. Tehran is facing a Tuesday deadline to respond to the Group of Six offer to open talks on trade if Iran ends its nuclear enrichment program. The United States should make contingency plans for when Israel takes action.

Month after month, the nation's attention seems to ping-pong back and forth between the world's two egregious nuclear malefactors, North Korea and Iran. For the last few weeks, all eyes have been on North Korea, as the nation's idiosyncratic leadership began reopening a plant that manufactures weapons-grade plutonium. Christopher Hill, an assistant secretary of state, met, to no effect, with North Korea's leaders in Pyongyang last week -_ a visit that would have been inconceivable while hawks still dominated the Bush administration.

US President George W. Bush will not attack Iran to halt its nuclear weapons program before his term ends in January, David Wurmser, a key national security adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney up until last year, has told The Jerusalem Post. "No, Bush won't go," Wurmser said when asked whether he thought the US president would want to take military action before he left office. Wurmser's comments came after a day-long roundtable this week in Brussels on nuclear nonproliferation sponsored by the European Jewish Congress. "Two things have to be in place for there to be an attack," Wurmser...

The Dutch intelligence service, the AIVD, has called off an operation aimed at infiltrating and sabotaging Iran's weapons industry due to an assessment that a US attack on the Islamic Republic's nuclear program is imminent, according to a report in the country's De Telegraaf newspaper on Friday. The report claimed that the Dutch operation had been "extremely successful," and had been stopped because the US military was planning to hit targets that were "connected with the Dutch espionage action." The impending air-strike on Iran was to be carried out by unmanned aircraft "within weeks," the report claimed, quoting "well placed"...

The Dutch intelligence service, the AIVD, has called off an operation aimed at infiltrating and sabotaging Iran's weapons industry due to an assessment that a US attack on the Islamic Republic's nuclear program is imminent, according to a report in the country's De Telegraaf newspaper on Friday. The report claimed that the Dutch operation had been "extremely successful," and had been stopped because the US military was planning to hit targets that were "connected with the Dutch espionage action." The impending air-strike on Iran was to be carried out by unmanned aircraft "within weeks," the report claimed, quoting "well placed"...

The Dutch intelligence service has pulled an agent out of an "ultra-secret operation" spying on Iran's military industry because spymasters in Netherlands believe a United States air attack was imminent. According to reports in the newspaper De Telegraaf, the country's intelligence service, the AIVD, has stopped an espionage operation aimed at infiltration and sabotage of the weapons industry in Iran. "The operation, described as extremely successful, was halted recently in connection with plans for an impending US air attack on Iran," said the report. "Targets would also be bombed which were connected with the Dutch espionage action." "Well placed" sources...

Saudi Columnist: Bomb Iran Now, Let Chips Fall Where They May In his August 4, 2008 column in the liberal Arab e-journal Elaph, Saudi columnist Saleh Al-Rashed argued that the Gulf states should urge the West to attack Iran before it acquires nuclear weapons. Following are excerpts from the column: [1] A Nuclear Iran is Like a Nuclear Bin Laden "'One cannot avoid the inevitable' - this adage came to mind when I read the pronouncement by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Mohammad 'Ali Ja'fari, who said: 'My country is easily capable of closing the Straits of Hormuz, the...

----SNIP A Nuclear Iran is Like a Nuclear Bin Laden "'There's no avoiding what there's no avoiding' - this adage came to mind when I read the pronouncement by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Mohammad 'Ali Ja'fari, who said: 'My country is easily capable of closing the Straits of Hormuz, the main passageway for oil freighters, if the country is attacked due to its nuclear program.' "In my estimation, confronting this country, which is trying to gain the time necessary to acquire nuclear weapons, is unavoidable. The possession of nuclear weapons by a state like Iran, which is ideological...

The American administration has rejected an Israeli request for military equipment and support that would improve Israel's ability to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. The Americans viewed the request, which was transmitted (and rejected) at the highest level, as a sign that Israel is in the advanced stages of preparations to attack Iran. They therefore warned Israel against attacking, saying such a strike would undermine American interests. They also demanded that Israel give them prior notice if it nevertheless decided to strike Iran.

The Bush administration should stop talking about a military attack as an option if negotiations do not immediately halt Iran's uranium reprocessing program, two former national security advisers said yesterday. "Don't talk about 'do we bomb them now or later?' " said Brent Scowcroft, adviser to presidents Gerald R. Ford and George H.W. Bush, during a discussion at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on the negotiations between the United States and Iran. Scowcroft added that by mentioning that threat, "we legitimize the use of force . . . and may tempt the Israelis" to carry out such a...

Representative Ron Paul says House Speaker Nancy Pelosi removed a section from a bill passed by Congress which would have barred the U.S. from going to war with Iran without a congressional vote, claiming she did so at the behest of the leadership of Israel and AIPAC. Paul, a former Republican presidential contender who formally removed himself from the party’s nomination race last week, makes the allegation on C-SPAN during a recently held foreign policy conference in Virginia. Paul says Pelosi’s first act as House Speaker in 2006 was to “deliberately” remove a portion of a legislative spending bill which...

European Union foreign ministers say they will not support a military strike on Iran but want more talks to try to resolve worries Tehran might be developing nuclear weapons. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband says it is now up to Iran to respond to global powers and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana after talks in Geneva on Saturday.

Israel will “almost surely” strike Iran’s nuclear sites in the coming months — and if the conventional attacks fail to destroy or at least delay Iran’s nuclear program, the Middle East will face a nuclear war. That’s the view of Benny Morris, a professor of Middle Eastern history at Israel’s Ben-Gurion University, who predicts either a subsequent pre-emptive Israeli nuclear strike or a nuclear exchange after Iran gets the bomb. “Should Israel’s conventional assault fail to significantly harm or stall the Iranian program, a ratcheting up of the Iranian-Israeli conflict to a nuclear level will most likely follow,” Morris, author...

It is difficult to imagine Israel attacking Iran. It is, however, more difficult to imagine Israel not attacking Iran. Consider three questions: First, does Iran mean what it says about destroying Israel? When its leaders repeatedly call for Israel's annihilation, after referring to it as a cancer and using other rhetoric not heard on a national level since the Nazi regime's depiction of Jews, is this just rhetorical flourish? Or do they really hope and plan to destroy Israel? Second, can Iran do it? One can hope and even plan to do something outrageous, but that does not necessarily mean...

Iran said on Friday it did not expect an attack from Israel or the United States triggered by the long-running dispute over its nuclear programme. "The possibility of such an attack (from Israel or the U.S.) is almost zero," Mottaki said, via a translator, in an interview with Turkish broadcaster NTV during a visit to Turkey. However, when asked whether it meant Iran was ready to freeze any expansion of its nuclear programme in return for the U.N. Security Council halting further sanctions measures against it, the source said "not at all".

MY greatest worry on Iran's nuclear threat to civilization isn't the military option. It's trying that option on the cheap. If there's any way to block Tehran's pursuit of nukes short of warfare, I'm all for it. Maybe yesterday's dispatch of the No. 3 US diplomat to observe the European Union's talks with the mullahs about their nukes will work a miracle (don't hold your breath). Military strikes must be the last resort. Even a successful attack would panic oil markets, interrupt supplies to an unknown degree and make enemies of the Iranian people for another generation. But the fanatics...

President George W Bush has told the Israeli government that he may be prepared to approve a future military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities if negotiations with Tehran break down, according to a senior Pentagon official.

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan opposes U.S. use of its territory for launching a possible attack against neighbouring Iran, President Hamid Karzai said in an interview broadcast on Monday. Iran has threatened to target Israel and U.S. interests in the region in the event of an attack against the Islamic Republic which is locked in a dispute with the West over its nuclear programme. Karzai said his government, which came to power after U.S.-led and Afghan forces overthrew the Taliban in 2001, had always tried to "keep the balance between the powers." "We are attentive to the dangers," Karzai told Radio...

The Sunday Times of London reported this weekend that "President George W. Bush has told the Israeli government that he may be prepared to approve a future military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities if negotiations with Tehran break down." The Times report quoted a senior Pentagon official as its source. With increased resistance from the Pentagon and the November elections closing in, the White House may be choosing its next best option in dealing with Tehran: to have Israel launch strikes on Iran's nuclear weapons facilities. The paper said Bush has told Israel it has an "amber light" to proceed....

President George W Bush has told the Israeli government that he may be prepared to approve a future military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities if negotiations with Tehran break down, according to a senior Pentagon official. Despite the opposition of his own generals and widespread scepticism that America is ready to risk the military, political and economic consequences of an airborne strike on Iran, the president has given an "amber light" to an Israeli plan to attack Iran's main nuclear sites with long-range bombing sorties, the official told The Sunday Times. "Amber means get on with your preparations, stand by...

US President George W. Bush has given Israel the "amber light" to carry out an attack on Iran if diplomatic efforts are unsuccessful in causing the Islamic Republic to back down and relinquish its nuclear program, according to a senior Pentagon official quoted by the British Sunday Times on Sunday morning. According to the official, Bush has given Israel free reign to attack Iran's nuclear sites if sanctions fail in spite of opposition from US generals and regardless of the possible economic and political repercussions of such a strike. "Amber means get on with your preparations, stand by for immediate...