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Moscow rejects reports that it may arm Iran, saying it has no plan to equip Tehran with the S-300 surface-to-air missile defense system. "We have declared more than once at the very highest political level that we do not intend to supply those types of armaments to countries located in regions that are, to put it mildly, unstable areas," said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko on Thursday. The Russian official added that the Kremlin makes decisions on selling such systems based on "both preserving the balance of power in the given region, and taking into account the need to...

Since the time of Hitler, civilization has never been so close to the brink of total catastrophe. This American election will decide whether civilization as we know it will survive. As much as economic questions are currently front and center, with blame to go all round, this is not an election primarily about corporate greed, or individuals living beyond their means, or government neglect of economic oversight. Nor is it about whether we should have gone into Iraq where, like it or not, American boots on the ground have begun to create an emerging democracy. This election is about whether...

No matter who is elected president in November, former CIA officer Robert Baer has no doubt about what will be topping his agenda: Iran. “Everything is coming to a head in the Middle East,” Baer tells Newsmax. “The days of messing around with Iran are over. We’ve been kicking this can down the road for 30 years, and now we’re at the end of the road.” The former CIA covert operative asserts that the Islamic nation of 70 million people is building an empire in the Middle East, believing it should be the “citadel of Islam.” He warns that Iran...

We Americans are accustomed to regarding political rhetoric much as Dr. Johnson did epitaphs. "They are not," he wrote, "given under oath." In other words, we don't expect public men or women to speak the truth from public platforms. When it comes to our own parochial affairs, there's probably a bit of weary realism in that. However, this casual expectation of rhetorical hypocrisy has inhibited from the start our ability to recognize and deal with the threat posed by Islamist radicalism. Time and again, the spokesmen for these movements have told the world precisely what they intend. Time and again,...

WASHINGTON: “People of India deeply love you,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told United States President George W. Bush here on Thursday evening. Sitting within a handshake distance from the American President at the Oval Office, Dr. Singh uttered those words, which produced a smile of satisfaction on Mr. Bush’s face but left the Indian media puzzled. Normally not given to loquaciousness, Dr. Singh found himself in an expressive mood and easily showered liberal praise on his host. “In the last four and half years that I have been Prime Minister, I have been the recipient of your generosity, your affection,...

Morning Edition's Steve Inskeep has interviewed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad explains his comments that he would like to see Israel wiped off the map. The full interview will run on Morning Edition Tuesday, Sept. 23rd.

Excerpt - SEOUL (AFP)--North Korea said Friday it no longer wants to be dropped from a U.S. terrorism blacklist and has begun rebuilding its atomic reactor following a deadlock in an international nuclear disarmament deal. A foreign ministry spokesman said work has been under way "since some time ago" to restore the plutonium-producing reactor, in response to the U.S. failure to drop it from the list. A ministry official earlier in the day had also told reporters at the inter- Korean border village of Panmunjom that the reactor is being restored. ~ snip ~

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...

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) Iran announced Tuesday that it has put the elite Revolutionary Guards in charge of defending the country's territorial Persian Gulf waters in what appeared to be a hardening of its stance in the vital oil route. U.S. commanders in the Gulf have in the past said they find Guards ships more confrontational than the regular Iranian navy, which until the new order was responsible for Iranian defenses in the Gulf. Iran has warned repeatedly that it will close the narrow Hormuz Strait at the mouth of the Gulf if the United States or Israel attacks it amid...

The security aid package the United States has refused to give Israel for the past few months out of concern that Israel would use it to attack nuclear facilities in Iran included a large number of "bunker-buster" bombs, permission to use an air corridor to Iran, an advanced technological system and refueling planes. Officials from both countries have been discussing the Israeli requests over the past few months. Their rejection would make it very difficult for Israel to attack Iran, if such a decision is made. About a month ago, Haaretz reported that the Bush administration had turned down an...

The Russian state-run company building Iran's first nuclear plant said Monday that preparations for the reactor's launch had entered their final stage. Atomstroiexport chief Leonid Reznikov said that by year's end the company will take steps that will make the launch of the Bushehr plant "irreversible." Company spokeswoman Irina Yesipova said the launch date will be determined after talks between Russian and Iranian nuclear officials this month. Iranian officials have said that Bushehr would be launched this fall. The International Atomic Energy Agency declined comment. Nonproliferation expert David Albright, whose Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security tracks countries under...

In August 2007, because certain intelligence agencies were not convinced of Israeli claims that President Bashar Assad was engaged in the construction of a nuclear weapons facility, Israel sent sent 12 members of the Sayeret Matkal commando unit into Syria in two helicopters to collect soil samples outside the site in question. Needless to say, this was a highly dangerous operation. And it very nearly went wrong. The commandos were almost exposed when a Syrian patrol drove past the landing site where the helicopters were parked. But it was well worth it. The results provided "clear-cut proof" of the nuclear...

Israel will not agree to allow Iran to achieve nuclear weapons and if time begins running out, Jerusalem will not hesitate to take whatever means necessary to prevent Iran from achieving its nuclear goals, the government has recently decided in a special discussion. According to the Israeli daily Ma'ariv, whether the United States and Western countries will succeed in toppling the ayatollah regime diplomatically, through sanctions, or whether an American strike on Iran will eventually be decided upon, Jerusalem has put preparations for a separate, independent military strike by Israel in high gear. So far, Israel has not received American...

Excerpt- SEOUL, Aug. 26 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Tuesday said it has halted disablement of its nuclear power plants as Washington failed to remove it from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. The communist nation's Foreign Ministry said measures to halt the process were taken as of Aug. 14. ~ snip ~

Iran's supreme religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quoted Sunday as praising Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for "standing up to" the West in a dispute over the country's nuclear program, amid growing domestic criticism of the president's management. Khamenei offered unusually glowing praise of Ahmadinejad, who upon his election in 2005 sparked a confrontation with the West by resuming uranium enrichment and also prompted worldwide condemnation for denouncing Israel. The country's spiritual leader has rarely, if ever, expressed such support for any other Iranian politician.

Okay, when you read this stuff, you realize two things: (1) The Russians aren't screwing around, and (2) It is time to cashier The Messiah. From The Times Online. Russia is considering arming its Baltic fleet with nuclear warheads for the first time since the cold war, senior military sources warned last night. The move, in response to American plans for a missile defence shield in Europe, would heighten tensions raised by the advance of Russian forces to within 20 miles of Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, yesterday. Under the Russian plans, nuclear warheads could be supplied to submarines, cruisers and...

If you don’t live in Washington, New York, or another big city, you may think: “Even if the terrorists do strike again on American soil, my hometown and my family probably aren’t in danger.” Think again. In 2001 the U.S. government established a commission to “assess the threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack.” The commission recently reported to Congress that if a nuclear warhead were to be detonated at high altitude over the American mainland the blast would produce an EMP — a shockwave so powerful that it would “cripple military and civilian communications, power, transportation,...

Calm down, you neo-conservative warmongers. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's no more a threat than Congressman Joe Blow back in Cleveland, trying to appeal to the good folks who make up his base. So suggests Brian Williams. Hat tip jazr. Fresh from his trip to Tehran, where he scored a big exclusive with the Iranian president, Williams sat down with Jon Stewart on last night's Daily Show. View video at Daily Show site.

via translation - ALERT - Nuclear: Iran has 5,000 to 6,000 centrifuges TEHRAN - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday that Iran had 5,000 to 6,000 centrifuges for uranium enrichment activities, confirming that the Islamic Republic has expanded its controversial nuclear programme, reported state radio.

VIENNA - Diplomatic masques are coming off. The Jerusalem Post/AP have just reported Tehran has announced the end of any further cooperation with the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) based in Vienna. The angry announcement was made by Iran Vice-President Gholam Reza Aghazadeh today, Thursday, in response to allegations by some of the IAEA thirty-five board members, based on U.S. and other intelligence, that the uranium Iran is enriching can make nuclear warheads for ballistic missiles. Knowing Tehran's offensive foreign policy this should not be a revelation. It was known Iran's nuclear program was revived in the early...

Senator Barack Obama, the visiting Democratic presidential candidate who is leading the race for the White House, told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday evening that, if elected president, he would do "everything in my power" to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Asked about concerns that the Iranians would abuse his stated readiness for "tough diplomacy" to play for time and keep moving ahead toward the bomb, Obama said that his "willingness to negotiate" had "very clear and direct goals" and "a sense of urgency." So "if the Iranians fail to respond, we've stripped away whatever excuses they may have,...

Barack Obama flatly stated in his interview with CBS News' Katie Couric yesterday that North Korea possesses "eight nuclear weapons":"There's a reason why, for example, North Korea, when we weren't talking, developed eight nuclear weapons. And when we started talking, we've now arrived at possibility where we could get those nuclear weapons, and those systems dismantled." I never seen any definitive statement from the U.S. government on the number of nuclear warheads North Korea has, nor have I seen any statement from North Korea on this. In fact, this article published July 11, 2008 by the Asia Times about the...

Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has called the U.S. decision to send a representative to international nuclear talks in Geneva a "positive step." But he reiterated Wednesday that his country will not back down in the face of international pressure to suspend sensitive nuclear activities. Mr. Ahmadinejad vowed Iran will continue to pursue nuclear technology despite the efforts of what he called oppressive powers. In Washington, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Mr. Ahmadinejad's statements continue to isolate the Iranian people from the international community. Earlier this week, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Iran could face additional sanctions if...

The drop in prices at the pump can in part be contributed to the high hopes associated with the Iran-U.S. talks in Geneva. In a significant shift in its policy of not engaging in opening talks until Iran ceased its uranium-enrichment program, diplomats from the UN, EU and the U.S. have presented Iran with a freeze-for-freeze offer that provides for no more sanctions against the country in return for Tehran suspending nuclear activities. The Iranian delegation expressed interest in the deal, but it’s unclear whether they are willing to take it or are trying to buy time. That’s a tough...

TEHRAN — Iran's top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili on Friday expressed optimism that weekend talks attended for the first time by the United States over their nuclear standoff would be constructive, provided Washington came with the right approach. "What is important for us is with what approach they come to the talks. If it is with a constructive approach, and that they refrain from past mistakes, then for sure we will have constructive talks," he was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency before leaving Tehran for Geneva.... And in a major policy shift by Washington, US Under-secretary...

It's time to update our national security strategy to stay one step ahead of the terrorists - to see clearly the emerging threats of our young century, and to take action to make the American people more safe and secure. It's time to look ahead — at the dangers of today and tomorrow rather than those of yesterday. America cannot afford another president who doesn't understand the threats that confront us now and in the future.

U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama on Wednesday said he'd like the world free of nuclear weapons and pledged to fight emerging threats posed by biological and cyber-terrorism. The Senator from Illinois made the remarks at a roundtable discussion on national security in West Lafayette, Ind.

"I warn you to abandon the filthy Zionist entity, which has reached the end of the line." That, from earlier this year, was but one of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's hysterical verbal assaults on a fellow member of the United Nations. If there is a regime anywhere on the globe whose leader regularly and volubly looks forward to the "destruction" of another nation, I'm not familiar with it. (Ahmadinejad actually anticipates the annihilation of two nations, since he has also spoken of a world without the United States.) In the past several days, Iran has punctuated its threats against Israel...

What Would America Do if Situation Were Reversed? Kennedy Taught Us A Lesson RFFM.org Commentary Barack Hussein Obama says we should use diplomacy with Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, regarding that nation's plans to develop a nuclear weapon. This wouldn't be bad advice if that same Iranian leader had not promised to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth. And, with a nuclear weapon, that threat one day would become a reality. It is obvious Mr. Obama has never heard of the saying, "Those who forget history are bound to repeat it." And Obama has also forgotten what Democratic...

More than four years after a stunning report about America's vulnerability to a nuclear electromagnetic pulse attack was released to Congress, the House Armed Services Committee will hear testimony from the scientist who issued the warning and who believes Iran is pursuing such an option. William R. Graham, President Reagan's top science adviser and the chairman of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, will update the committee Thursday morning. Graham warned in 2005 that Iran was not only covertly developing nuclear weapons, but was already testing ballistic missiles specifically designed to...

Going public for the first time in an article and interview on Pajamas Media, an Iranian who infiltrated Iran's Revolutionary Guard for the CIA accuses the mullahs of orchestrating — among other things — the 1988 explosion of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Iran has resumed work on making advanced equipment that nuclear experts say is principally used for developing atomic weapons, the The Telegraph reported Monday, citing intelligence reports received by Western diplomats. The British newspaper said that the goal of the work was to develop the blueprint provided by Pakistani scientist Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the so-called father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, who sold Iran information on building atom bombs in the early 1990s. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has established several civilian companies to work on the program, continued the Telegraph , adding that the companies' operations were being...

LONDON - The Former US ambassador to the UN says a military action against Iran is dangerous and risky yet it has to be on the table as a last resort, PressTV reported. "I don't think anybody views the use of military force against Iran's nuclear program as an attractive option. I think it's dangerous, risky, and not something that you would look at except as a last resort," John Bolton said in an exclusive talk with al-Jazeera on Thursday. "Five years of European diplomatic efforts have failed and left us with very few alternatives. That's why I think the...

A tourist who visited the Kirya in Tel Aviv this week could have been excused for mistaking the IDF Military Headquarters for an American army base. After all, it is not every week that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff visits Israel - certainly not mere days following a visit by two four-star generals. The week began with the arrival of Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead, who had come to meet his Israeli counterpart, Vice Admiral Eliezer Marom. Both took up their positions in late 2007, and they have already met three times - twice in...

North Korean Nuclear: important announcement at 09H00 GMT, according to Beijing BEIJING - China has informed Thursday that an "important announcement" would be made during a press conference in Beijing at 09H00 GMT on the nuclear issue of North Korean. "There will be a press conference at 17H00 (09H00 GMT) with an important announcement," said the spokesman of Chinese Foreign Ministry Liu Jianchao. Asked about the nature of this announcement, he said it was an "important news about the six-party talks", adding that he was "not in a position to give details." North Korea has promised to surrender Thursday...

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Following are excerpts from an interview with IAEA Director-General Dr. Muhammad Al-Baradei, which aired on Al-Arabiya TV on June 20, 2008. Muhammad Al-Baradei: If Iran wants to turn to the production of nuclear weapons, it must leave the NPT, expel the IAEA inspectors, and then it would need at least... Considering the number of centrifuges and the quantity of uranium Iran has... Interviewer: How much time would it need? Muhammad Al-Baradei: It would need at least six months to one year. Therefore, Iran will not be able to reach the point where we would wake up one morning to an...

One former general in the Israel Defense Forces made an original proposal this week: If in the swap of the murderer Samir Kuntar for Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser it is possible to learn the abducted soldiers' fate, Kuntar's fate should be decided accordingly. If they are returned alive, he will be returned alive. If they are brought back in coffins, he will also be put to death, on the spot, and his body returned to Lebanon in exchange for their bodies. It was not serious, of course. A state that considers itself enlightened does not behave this way, at...

Iran criticized on Saturday a recent Israeli military exercise that US officials said was designed to show Jerusalem's ability to attack Teheran's nuclear sites. Iran's official IRNA news agency quoted a government spokesman as saying that the exercises prove Israel "jeopardizes global peace and security." The spokesman, Gholam Hossein Elham, also said that Iran believed Israel has no ability to strike its nuclear program. According to a New York Times report published on Friday, Israel carried out a major military drill during the first week of June that US sources say was apparently a rehearsal for a potential attack on...

WASHINGTON — American and international investigators say that they have found the electronic blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon on computers that belonged to the nuclear smuggling network run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the rogue Pakistani nuclear scientist, but that they have not been able to determine whether they were sold to Iran or the smuggling... --snip-- It was not until 2005 that officials of the I.A.E.A., which is based in Vienna, finally cracked the hard drives on the Khan computers recovered around the world. And as they sifted through files and images on the hard drives, investigators found tons...

Israel will attack Iran if it continues with its nuclear program, Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz was quoted as saying Friday. "If Iran will continue with its plan to develop nuclear weapons, we will attack it," Mofaz told Yediot Ahronot.

(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is facing renewed criticism regarding his national security policies as he continues his campaign for his party's presidential nomination. In a YouTube video Obama made for a liberal pacifist organization last year, the senator called for major cuts in defense spending, slowing the development of future combat systems, and cutting investments in America's ballistic missile defense program. Some conservatives have expressed surprise at the degree of Obama's proposals on the video, and this past weekend, Sen. Hillary Clinton's (D-N.Y.) campaign released an ad criticizing Obama's alleged national security inexperience and trumpeting her as the...

Last week, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) revealed that they had possession of Iranian documents dating from 2004 containing a drawing showing how to make part of an atomic warhead and its delivery system. They called this development “alarming.” Would that anyone might notice, much less be alarmed. Furthermore, the documents indicate a clear and sole military purpose to the atomic technology involved – as if there were any peaceful purpose for a nuclear warhead. This runs directly counter to the repeated denials made by Tehran that their known uranium-enriching program was for domestic energy production. And this enriching...

Military action against Iran would be a last resort but the United States and its allies have not done enough to promote the alternative, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said on Wednesday. John Bolton, who was a leading hawk in President George W. Bush's administration, told an audience at the Hay literary Festival that five years of "failed" negotiation with Iran over its nuclear program had left just two options for dealing with the issue — regime change and use of force. "The use of military force is an extremely unattractive option and only to be used...

A ranking International Atomic Energy Agency official called Teheran's possession of a drawing showing how to make part of an atomic warhead "alarming" Thursday and said the onus is on Iran to prove it had not tried to develop nuclear arms, said diplomats attending a closed briefing. The US said the evidence detailed by IAEA Deputy Director General Olli Heinonen increased concerns that Teheran had tried to make such weapons. "Today's briefing showed ... strong reasons to suspect that Iran was working covertly and deceitfully at least until recently to build a bomb," Gregory L. Schulte, the chief US delegate...

E. Possible Military Dimensions 14. In addition to the implementation of Iran’s Additional Protocol, for the Agency to provide assurances regarding the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, Iran needs to, inter alia: resolve questions related to the alleged studies (GOV/2008/4, para. 35); provide more information on the circumstances of the acquisition of the uranium metal document (GOV/2008/4, para. 19); clarify procurement and R&D activities of military related institutes and companies that could be nuclear related (GOV/2008/4, paras 40–41); and clarify the production of nuclear equipment and components by companies belonging to defence industries (GOV/2004/11 para.37, GOV/2004/34...

Members of the eighth Majlis elected Ali Larijani, representative of the holy city of Qom, as the provisional speaker of the Iranian parliament on Wednesday. The 8th Majlis was inaugurated on Tuesday with a message of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei. Out of a total of 263 votes, Larijani, the single candidate for the post, won 232 ballots. Larijani had previously served as Iran's top nuclear negotiator. Majlis provisional presiding board would also be elected today. The board would continue its work until credentials of all MPs are confirmed by the legislative body.

Conservative pundit Jonah Goldberg often jokes that Jimmy Carter is history's greatest monster. It's a line that's ha-ha funny because it's absurd on it's face--whether you hate Jimmy Carter or... um, really hate him, he's a generally harmless old podunk fart, right? Well, unfortunately it seems Jimmy is doing his best to live up (down?) to his moniker.

FORMER US president Jimmy Carter has said Israel holds at least 150 nuclear weapons, the first time a US president has publicly acknowledged the Jewish state's atomic arsenal. Asked at a news conference at Wales' Hay literary festival yesterday how a future US president should deal with the Iranian nuclear threat, Mr Carter put the risk in context by listing atomic weapons held globally. "The US has more than 12,000 nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union (Russia) has about the same, Great Britain and France have several hundred, and Israel has 150 or more. We have a phalanx of enormous weaponry...

Clerics have told President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to stick to more worldly issues after he was quoted as saying the "hidden imam" of Shiite Islam was directing Iran. Ahmadinejad has always been a devotee of the Mahdi, the twelfth imam of Shiite Islam, who Shiites believe disappeared more than a thousand years ago and who will return one day to usher in a new era of peace and harmony. But in a speech to theology students broadcast by state television on Monday, Ahmadinejad went further than ever before in emphasising his belief that the Mahdi is playing a critical role in...