Free Republic

After negotiating with help of US secretary of state, French FM stresses importance of Israel's security concerns, says there will be no deal; US diplomats tell 'LA Times' talks will continue at least into next week. France said on Saturday there was no certainty nuclear talks under way with Iran in Geneva would succeed because of major stumbling blocks over an initial proposed text on a deal, and the importance of Israel's security concerns. "As I speak to you, I cannot say there is any certainty that we can conclude" the talks, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on France...

Secret deal made with iran

A very unusual statement from the Israel prime minister on the eve of a possible nuclear detail between the U.S. and Iran:"I met Secretary Kerry right before he leaves to Geneva," said Netanyhau. "I reminded him that he said that no deal is better than a bad deal. That the deal that is being discussed in Geneva right now is a bad deal. It’s a very bad deal. Iran is not required to take apart even one centrifuge. But the international community is relieving sanctions on Iran for the first time after many years. Iran gets everything that it wanted...

Watching the Obama administration at work this week, a friend offered this judgment: Under Obama, Iran keeps its nuclear program and Americans lose their health insurance. Historians and political scientists will have much to say, after its collapse, about contemporary liberalism’s propensity to be at once tough on American citizens and soft on Iranian mullahs. Today’s liberals are pleased to use the power of the state to nudge—not to say bully—their fellow Americans, while shunning the exercise of power abroad, preferring to accommodate—not to say appease—the nation’s enemies. It would seem to be a paradox.

Despite a softening tone from Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on the regime’s illicit nuclear program, the Islamic Republic is hardening its position on the right to enrich uranium. An analysis by Fars News Agency, the Revolutionary Guards’ media outlet, said that Iran not only has the right to continue its nuclear program but to expand it dramatically to fulfill its needs.

Saudi Arabia has invested in Pakistani nuclear weapons projects, and believes it could obtain atomic bombs at will, a variety of sources have told BBC Newsnight. ... Earlier this year, a senior Nato decision maker told me that he had seen intelligence reporting that nuclear weapons made in Pakistan on behalf of Saudi Arabia are now sitting ready for delivery. Last month Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, told a conference in Sweden that if Iran got the bomb, "the Saudis will not wait one month. They already paid for the bomb, they will go to Pakistan...

"...Olli Heinonen, a former deputy director of the IAEA, said that Iran has, “in a certain way,” already reached the point of no return in its nuclear program. Heinonen confirmed the report released last week by the Institute for Science and International Security that said Iran could enrich enough weapons-grade uranium for a single bomb in about a month." excerpt- If the Iranians have reduced the “breakout time” needed to convert their vast stockpile of low-enriched uranium into nuclear fuel, then even if Tehran agreed to proposals about limiting their enrichment capacity, their path to a weapon is clear. If...

Iran plans to build many new nuclear plants with atomic reactors along its coastlines with the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea, Iran’s top nuclear official announced on Thursday. The announcement comes just a week after Western nuclear negotiators claimed that Iran was giving ground in talks aimed at ending Tehran’s contested enrichment program. Iranian leaders, however, have remained defiant in the face of talks, announcing on Thursday that Tehran will build “enough atomic reactors to generate a total of 20,000 megawatts of electricity by 2020,” according to the country’s state-run Fars News Agency.

Iran: A top independent nuclear expert now believes the regime in Tehran could have enough fuel to build an atomic weapon in about a month. Both the Obama and Bush administrations saw this day coming. ------------ "Since October 2012 when ISIS last published detailed breakout assessments about Iran's gas centrifuge uranium enrichment program, Iran has steadily expanded the number of IR-1 centrifuges installed at both its Fordow and Natanz gas centrifuge plants," ISIS reported. "Today, Iran could break out most quickly using a three-step process" and could produce a significant quantity of weapon-grade uranium "in as little as approximately 1.0—1.6...

SNIPPET: "North Korea appears to have been digging two new tunnels at a nuclear test site in Punggye-ri, North Hamgyong Province since May, sparking fears that it is preparing for another nuclear test." SNIPPET: "Specialist website 38 North, which is run by Johns Hopkins University, said it discovered two new tunnel entrances and a mound of earth while analyzing satellite pictures of the test site taken on Wednesday."

Iran's parliament speaker is warning that too much pressure from the West during nuclear talks could force Iranian lawmakers to call for stepping up atomic work.

Video at link: The Air Force’s two star general in charge of the units responsible for its 450 nuclear missiles has been fired “due to a loss of trust and confidence in his leadership and judgment.” Maj. Gen. Michael Carey has been removed from command of the 20th Air Force, according to an Air Force statement. That command is responsible for the three wings that maintain control of the 450 intercontinental ballistic missiles scattered in missile silos across the northern plains. Lt. Gen. James Kowalski, the commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, made the decision because of what the...

(excerpt) "Until Iran dismantles its military nuclear program, sanctions must not be eased - on the contrary. Only the pressure brought Iran to this point, and only the continuation of pressure and its strengthening can bring them to dismantle their nuclear program," Netanyahu was quoted as saying.

So far Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's peace ruse is still bearing some fruit. President Obama was eager to talk with him at the United Nations -- only to be reportedly rebuffed, until Obama managed to phone him for the first conversation between heads of state of the two countries since the Iranian storming of the U.S. embassy in 1979. Rouhani has certainly wowed Western elites with his mellifluous voice, quiet demeanor and denials of wanting a bomb. The media, who ignore the circumstances of Rouhani's three-decade trajectory to power, gush that he is suddenly a "moderate" and "Western educated."...

The Middle East is a mysterious cesspool with only one reasonably free and democratic nation, Israel. Iran now has a "moderate" Islamist President who is even less to be trusted than our own Dear Leader. It is necessary to listen very attentively, and very cynically, to what they do not say.Here is a Trifecta video that appeared at YouTube on October 1st. It addresses the dangers inherent in negotiating with Iran -- principally giving peace continued Iranian nuclear weapons development a chance.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpBlEMCLFhU&w=640&h=360] Video linkIsraeli President Netanyahu addressed the United Nations on October 1st. I re-blogged the text of his remarks here, commenting...

On Friday, Obama cited a “fatwa,” or religious edict, from Iran’s all-powerful Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, banning the pursuit of nuclear weapons. "I do believe that there is a basis for a resolution [because] Iran’s Supreme Leader has issued a fatwa against the development of nuclear weapons,” Obama told reporters. “There is no such fatwa. It is a lie from the Iranians, a deception, and it is tragic that President Obama has endorsed it,” MEMRI Founder and President Yigal Carmon told FoxNews.com.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu plans to tell the United Nations General Assembly that Iran has enough uranium to produce nuclear weapons, according to the Sunday Times. An unnamed senior Israeli official was quoted as having told the newspaper that Netanyahu will say in his speech on Tuesday that Iran currently has 219 kilograms (482 pounds) of enriched uranium, which is enough to produce a nuclear weapon. … The Sunday Times also reported that during Netanyahu’s meeting with President Barack Obama in Washington on Monday, the Israeli prime minister will present Obama with an intelligence dossier containing evidence that Iran is...

Developing Story.......

In many ways, President Obama resembles British Prime Minister Hacker of the 1980's BBC comedy series Yes, Prime Minister. Yes, Prime MinisterYes, Prime Minister, my favorite BBC comedy series, featured bumbling Prime Minister Jim Hacker striving for his place in history under the thumb of his Permanent Secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby, played by Nigel Hawthorne. His Principal Private Secretary Bernard Woolley, played by Derek Fowlds, is usually caught between the two. Loyal civil servants, both Sir Humphrey and Mr. Woolley (eventually to be Sir Bernard) had devoted their careers to rising through the civil service ranks to the top and to obstructing any developments which might diminish...

Whoops. I meant The Great CHARM offensive, but both depend on lots of public relations skill.Charmin is a toilet tissue advertised as very "soft." President Obama has been about as "soft" as Charmin on our nation's enemies and Iran has long been among those enemies. Iranian President Rouhani is not soft. If he gets what he and his master in Tehran want, more than merely truck loads of Charmin will be needed to clean up the mess. Their charmin tactics depend on their ability to con President Obama and much of the rest of the allegedly free world into thinking believing that President Rouhani is...