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Iranian Parliament to Study Withdrawal from NPT

Fars News Agency | November 12, 2011

TEHRAN – Parliamentary sources revealed on Saturday that Iran’s legislature is due to discuss the country’s withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director-general released a biased report against Iran.

Vice-Chairman of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Mohammad Kowsari told FNA on Saturday that his commission would “study Iran’s withdrawal from the NPT” after a relevant demand by a major political faction of the Iranian university students.

His remarks alluded to a relevant demand raised earlier today by the Iranian students’ Office for Consolidating Unity (Daftar-e Tahkim-e Vahdat), asking the Iranian officials to review the country’s membership in the IAEA.

Kowsari underlined the “unreal” nature of the IAEA report on Iran which has been issued under the pressures of the US and Israel, and said the UN nuclear watchdog should not be turned into a place for the US false claims and allegations against other countries as it will impair the Agency’s dignity and credibility.

IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano released a US-dictated report on Iran earlier this week, in a move seen by many, even in the West, as part of Washington and Israel’s efforts to find a new pretext for intensifying pressure on Tehran.

The western diplomats and sources had informed around a month ago that the new report would contain allegations on the basis of some copied documents which have been presented to the IAEA by certain western countries to show that Iran is pursuing a military drive in its nuclear program.

Once the report was released, not only Iran, but also many world states, including Russia, China and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) member states, strongly rejected it and blasted the UN nuclear watchdog chief for acting as a White House proxy.

Iran also said that it would not budge “an iota” from its peaceful atomic activities.

Israel and its close ally the United States accuse Iran of seeking a nuclear weapon, while they have never presented any corroborative document to substantiate their allegations. Both Washington and Tel Aviv possess advanced weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear warheads.

November 12, 2011 Posted by | Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Syrian protesters storm Saudi embassy

Press TV – November 12, 2011

Syrian protesters have stormed the Saudi and Qatari embassies in Damascus to voice their outrage at an Arab League’s decision to suspend Syria’s membership in the Pan-Arab body.

The incident occurred late on Saturday when thousands of people poured into the streets of Damascus to stage protest rallies in front of the Qatari, Saudi, Turkish and US embassies.

Demonstrations were also held in Syria’s major cities of Aleppo, Raqqa, Lattakia, Tartous, Hasaka and Sweida.

In Damascus, some protesters broke into the Saudi embassy while some accessed the rooftop of the Qatari embassy building and raised the Syrian national flag.

Others pelted the Qatari facility with tomatoes and eggs to protest against Doha for heading the Arab League emergency session, where the suspension was announced earlier in the day.

Chanting slogans in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the protesters then gathered in front of the Turkish and US embassies, condemning the Arab bloc for acting out a plot they said had been hatched by the United States.

A similar protest was held against the Saudi-based Al-Arabiya and the Doha-based Al-Jazeera news channels in the Jordanian capital, Amman.

The angry protesters tried to break into the buildings of news channels, which they blamed for following a US and Israeli agenda against Syria.

The Arab League voted “to suspend Syrian delegations’ activities in its meetings” until the peace plan proposed by the body is implemented by the Syrian government.

It also urged Arab countries to recall their ambassadors from Damascus and called for the imposition of economic and political sanctions on Syria.

The announcement of Syria’s membership suspension came during an emergency meeting at the League’s headquarters in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.

Syria has been experiencing a deadly unrest since mid-March and according to the United Nations, over 3,500 people have been killed in the violence. Hundreds of Syrian security forces are among the dead.

While the Syrian opposition accuses the security forces of cracking down on what it calls anti-government protesters, Damascus blames the violence on outlaws, saboteurs and armed terrorist groups sponsored by foreign countries.

November 12, 2011 Posted by | Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Striking Iran: Israel’s War Wager

By Jonathan Cook | Al-Ahkbar | November 11, 2011

Israel is trying to exploit the international community’s uncertainty about how to respond to this week’s report by the UN nuclear watchdog (IAEA) on Iran’s nuclear program to justify a possible military strike against Iran. The IAEA’s report indicated Iran has secretly worked for years on developing a nuclear warhead and might still be doing so.

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s report is certain to lead to demands by the US and Europe for stiffer sanctions on the Iranian regime. Russia and China, meanwhile, have urged dialogue and cooperation with Iran.

Amid the divisions, British government officials said this week that Israel was preparing to launch a military attack on Iran’s suspected nuclear sites within the next two months, probably with logistical support from the United States.

An unnamed senior official at the Foreign Office told the Daily Mail newspaper: “We’re expecting something as early as Christmas, or very early in the new year.”

Similarly anonymous US military officials have been ringing alarm bells in the US media that Israel might launch an attack. The Pentagon, CNN reported, was “increasingly vigilant” for military activity between Israel and Iran.

The warnings followed a fortnight of reports in the Israeli media of bitter feuds within the Israeli government, as well as with Israel’s security chiefs, about plans to initiate such a strike.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, and his defense minister, Ehud Barak, are said to be strongly in favour of an attack. The balance in the inner cabinet apparently tipped in their favour last week when they recruited the foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, to their cause.

Further reports suggest that Netanyahu and Barak have recently moved from discussing a strike to the stage of “implementation.” In what looked like an additional intimidatory move, Israel test-launched last week the Jericho III, a long-range missile capable of reaching Iran.

Lined up against Netanyahu and Barak, according to the Israeli media, are both the current and recently retired heads of all the main military and intelligence services. They appear to be using the country’s military affairs correspondents to pass on dire warnings of the folly being prepared by Netanyahu.

The only one who has gone public so far is Meir Dagan, who departed as head of the Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, nearly a year ago. He incurred Netanyahu’s wrath early this year by stating that an attack on Iran was the “stupidest thing I have ever heard.”

He undermined Netanyahu’s public position again last month, arguing that Iran could not develop a nuclear bomb for at least another three years and, apparently contradicting the IAEA report, suggested there was no evidence Tehran has yet decided to develop military uses.

That position accords with the 2007 estimate of 16 US intelligence agencies, which found no evidence of Iran pursuing a nuclear weapons programme. An updated estimate this year has so far been kept under wraps by the White House, apparently because it confirms the earlier assessment.

Iran has long claimed it is only seeking to establish a civilian nuclear energy programme, as it is entitled to do as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It has been receiving help chiefly from Russia.

However, some experts believe Iran is also secretly trying to become a “nuclear threshold state”: that is, to get close to developing a warhead so that, should Tehran be threatened – possibly with a US invasion, as happened to neighboring Iraq – it can quickly produce a nuclear bomb as a deterrence.

Dagan and other Israeli security officials are reported to believe that an Israeli attack on Iran would be futile and dangerous. It would fail to disable most of the nuclear production sites, which are dispersed and hidden underground, and would only intensify the pressure on Tehran to develop the technology.

Israel’s security establishment also fears that a strike would lead to severe retaliation not only from Iran but also potentially from Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas; rally Iranians behind their regime; threaten reprisals against the US in Iraq; and bring international condemnation on Israel’s head.

Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, underlined that point today when he said any attack by either Israel or the US would provoke “regional war.”

Similarly, Iranian leaders have warned that, if attacked, they would hit back against both Israel and the US. “We would make them regret such a mistake and would severely punish them,” said Hassan Firouzabadi, the Iranian chief of staff, this month.

Nonetheless, the Israeli public appears to be supportive of an attack. In May, 71 percent of Israelis backed the US launching a strike against Iran. A poll this month showed 41 behind a lone Israeli operation, with a further 20 percent undecided. Support among Israeli Jews is almost certainly higher, as the survey included the fifth of the Israeli population who are Palestinian and are generally opposed to military action.

The very public display of division in Israel’s political and military establishments on a matter of such importance to national security is almost unprecedented, leading Dan Meridor, a deputy prime minister, to call the debate “insane” and a “scandal.”

Israel is believed to have twice launched attacks on Arab states to prevent what it claims were secret efforts towards making a nuclear warhead. In 1981 it bombed Iraq’s Osirak experimental reactor, while it was under construction; and Israel is widely assumed to have been responsible for a strike in 2007 on a suspected nuclear site in Syria.

Both attacks were carried out without warning.

Israel’s true intentions in this case are hard to decipher.

Israel has been warning of the dangers of an Iranian bomb for nearly two decades, regularly claiming over that period that Tehran is only years or months from building a warhead.

However, in recent years Israel has won backing in the form of a series of increasingly stringent sanctions on Iran, imposed by the UN Security Council, to dissuade it from pursuing even a nuclear energy programme.

But most in the Israeli leadership are known to be skeptical that sanctions alone can stop Tehran from getting the bomb. They argue that a nuclear-armed Iran would be a threat to world peace and suggest that Israel would be first to be targeted.

Netanyahu has been especially vociferous in promoting this threat, calling Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, the “new Hitler” and warning that Israel faces a “Holocaust from the ayatollahs” – comparing Israel’s position to that of the Jewish community in Germany in 1938.

Israel’s real concerns, however, are rather different from the doomsday rhetoric.

In fact, the leadership is chiefly fearful of the domestic and geo-political implications of Tehran developing a warhead, believing it would severely weaken both Israel’s regional superpower status and its tight alliance with Washington.

Israel has its own nuclear arsenal – estimated at between 200 and 400 warheads – which it developed secretly with assistance from Britain and France, and against US wishes, in the late 1960s.

Commentators have noted that one of Israel’s chief aims in developing a warhead was to blackmail the US and force it into a military alliance for fear that otherwise Israel might use the bomb in a confrontation with a neighboring state.

Francis Perrin, head of the French Atomic Energy Agency during the period when France helped Israel to develop a nuclear weapon, said: “We thought the Israeli bomb was aimed against the Americans… to say ‘if you don’t want to help us in a critical situation we will require you to help us, otherwise we will use our nuclear bomb.”

Just such a moment occurred a few years later, in 1973, when the US was forced massively to rearm Israel as it faced defeat at the hands of neighboring Arab states.

At the regional level, Israel’s current fear is that an Iranian bomb would unravel these gains. Israeli analysts were clear on this point as far back as the early 1990s, when Iran was trying to get European oversight for a nuclear energy programme.

Aluf Benn, an analyst for Haaretz, wrote in 1994, for example, that Israel regarded Iran as the number one military priority because it “could aspire to regional hegemony and ruin the peace process by virtue of having nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.”

In this assessment, were Tehran to become a military rival to Israel, it would be able to bolster its position with the Arab states, force Israel to make major concessions to the Palestinians and compete for influence in Washington.

None of these prospects is easy for Israel to live with.

In addition, there are also fears that a nuclear Iran would pose a “demographic threat” domestically for Israel, making Israeli Jews consider emigrating and Jews in the diaspora unwilling to immigrate. Given Israel’s desire to ensure the Jewish population outnumbers the Palestinians at all times, such issues are taken seriously.

In 2006 Ephraim Sneh, at the time the deputy defense minister to Barak, revealed that Israel was not primarily concerned that Iran might fire a nuclear missile.

The danger of an Iranian bomb, he warned, was that “most Israelis would prefer not to live here; most Jews would prefer not to come here with families, and Israelis who can live abroad will.” He added: “I am afraid Ahmadinejad will be able to kill the Zionist dream without pushing a button. That’s why we must prevent this regime from obtaining nuclear capability at all costs.”

But while there is no doubt these threats are taken extremely seriously by Israel’s security establishment, there is much less clarity about what action can feasibly be taken.

Dagan is credited with a series of exploits – including assassinating Iranian scientists, introducing computer viruses into the software being used in Iran’s nuclear programme, and setting up shell companies to sell faulty equipment to Tehran – that are believed to have slowed Iranian progress.

According to a confidential US embassy cable released by WikiLeaks last year, Dagan told US officials that covert action, including helping minority groups topple the regime, could contain Iran’s nuclear programme for the forseeable future.

There has been fevered speculation about why Israeli officials have gone public with their dispute about military action.

The disagreement has made Israel look weak and indecisive, fuelling fears that Netanyahu and Barak are sincere about wanting a military strike, even if they have to go against US wishes.

More likely, however, Dagan and others in the intelligence establishment are concerned that, while Netanyahu’s belligerent posturing towards Iran is a bluff, it might escalate into a dangerous confrontation. Haaretz’s military correspondent, Amos Harel, said there was a danger in Netanyahu’s behaviour of “a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

That concern is shared by Russia. Its foreign minister, Dmitry Medvedev, said today that Israel was using “dangerous rhetoric” that could lead to “a major war.”

Certainly, there is little evidence that Netanyahu’s threats are likely to dissuade Tehran from developing a weapon, if that is what Ahmedinejad’s regime is really trying to do. In fact, menacing Iran may simply firm up its resolve to protect itself by building a warhead.

The real audience of Netanyahu’s threat of military action, it seems, is the White House and the international community.

According to Israeli analysts, the US alone has the military muscle to take out Iran’s nuclear sites. Netanyahu appears to hope that Washington can be goaded into carrying out a strike of its own to avoid the threat of an unsuccessful Israeli operation.

At the very least, he may hope, Obama will be assisted in trying to win over China and Russia to “crippling sanctions,” as Lieberman demanded this week.

Even intensified sanctions might be used to try to bring Iran to its knees, as occurred in Iraq. That is the fear of Russia. Its deputy foreign minister, Genady Gatilov, warned this week that more sanctions would be seen as “an instrument of regime change in Tehran”.

The question is how Obama responds to the pressure. He is facing a presidential election year, and can expect to come under enormous arm-twisting not only from Israel but also from its supporters in the Congress and among Washington’s lobby groups.

How credible the report is is already open to doubt. Yaacov Katz, a Jerusalem Post analyst, noted that Israeli intelligence had provided “critical information used in the report.” That may have included information that Iran had recruited a Russian scientist, Vyacheslav Danilenko, to help in developing its nuclear programme. Almost immediately, evidence surfaced indicating that Danilenko had no nuclear expertise.

In a sign that the White House might fight a rearguard action to try to stop Israel cornering it into military action, US defence secretary Leon Panetta warned today that such an attack should be a “last resort,” and would make little impact on an Iranian programme but would have unintended consequences, including for US forces in the region.

November 12, 2011 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

The ‘Humanitarian’ Road to Damascus

Pro-Israel Groups Outline U.S. Options to Assist Syrian Opposition

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | November 12, 2011

On November 8, the Foreign Policy Initiative and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies jointly issued a discussion paper that outlines “policy options for the United States and like-minded nations to further assist the anti-regime Syrian opposition.” Entitled “Towards a Post-Assad Syria,” the paper advocates imposing “crippling sanctions” on the Assad government, providing assistance to Syrian opposition groups, and imposing no-fly/no-go zones in Syria.

Founded in 2009, the Foreign Policy Initiative is the successor organisation to the Project for the New American Century, a neoconservative advocacy group that relentlessly pushed for war with Iraq from its inception in 1997. FPI’s board of directors consists of PNAC co-founders, Robert Kagan and William Kristol; Dan Senor, a former intern at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee; and Eric Edelman, a Paul Wolfowitz protégé at the Pentagon who, thanks to support from Richard Perle, succeeded the scandal-ridden Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith in 2005. In a 2004 article entitled “Serving Two Flags,” Stephen Green named Wolfowitz, Perle and Feith as “the principals” in a pro-Israel neocon network who had “demonstrated, in their previous government service, a willingness to sacrifice U.S. national security interests for those of another country.”

Established shortly after the 9/11 attacks to advocate for an aggressive “war on terror,” the Foundation for Defense of Democracies has also demonstrated a preeminent concern for Israel’s security interests. Among its more notable funders are Edgar M. Bronfman, president of the World Jewish Congress from 1979 to 2007; Charles Bronfman and Michael Steinhardt, co-founders of Taglit Birthright which offers free trips to Israel for young Jewish adults as an inducement to go on its pro-Israel indoctrination programme; media mogul Haim Saban, who pledged $13 million to the Brookings Institution in 2002 to found the Saban Center for Middle East Policy in order to influence U.S. politics in a pro-Israel direction; Jennifer Mizrahi, director of The Israel Project; and Dalck Feith, father of the aforementioned “security risk” Douglas Feith. “With the disclosure of its donor rolls,” Eli Clifton wrote in a July 19 report, “it becomes increasingly apparent that FDD’s advocacy of U.S. military intervention in the Middle East, its hawkish stance against Iran, and its defense of right-wing Israeli policy is consistent with its donors’ interests in ‘pro-Israel’ advocacy.”

While Israel’s longstanding interest in destabilising Syria goes unmentioned, the FPI/FDD discussion paper stresses two of the groups’ well-worn themes: fighting terrorism and protecting human rights. “Long a sponsor of terrorism beyond its borders,” the paper asserts, “the Syrian government is now waging an internal war against its own people.”

Acknowledging that the U.N. Security Council is “unlikely to act anytime soon” due to what they decry as “gridlock” imposed by Russia and China, the FPI and FDD take it upon themselves to propose what options they think the United States has for responding to “the Assad regime’s provocations.” Citing a paper by Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, which suggests the “military options” of an air campaign, a maritime operation to enforce strong sanctions, a no-fly and no-go zone, and even an invasion to carry out regime change, they propose keeping those options “on the table” while exploring some additional “intermediate steps.”

Critical of the Obama administration’s slow response to the Syrian crisis, the FPI/FDD paper urges the President and Congress to “work to quickly pass legislation for harsher U.S. sanctions on Syria.” As examples of relevant pending bills, the paper cites the Syria Sanctions Act of 2011, originally introduced by Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Joe Lieberman and Mark Kirk; and the Syria Freedom Support Act, originally introduced by Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Eliot Engel. While few members of Congress can afford to cross the Israel lobby, it wouldn’t come as a surprise to lobby-watchers to hear that Gillibrand, Lieberman, Kirk, Ros-Lehtinen and Engel were the ones to “introduce” what was almost certainly AIPAC-crafted legislation.

To bolster their case for no-fly and no-go zones in Syria, FPI and FDD point out that “leading lawmakers are now discussing the possibility.” Senator Joe Lieberman, they note, “first suggested looking at military options to protect Syrian civilians in March 2011, and returned to the idea of no-fly and no-go zones in October 2011.” They also refer to Senator John McCain’s October 23 speech before a World Economic Forum meeting in Jordan, when he ventured, “Now that military operations in Libya are ending, there will be renewed focus on what practical military operations might be considered to protect civilian lives in Syria.” As those familiar with the careers of Lieberman and McCain well know, they are certainly “leading lawmakers” when it comes to putting Israel’s interests ahead of America’s.

If the “humanitarians” at the Foreign Policy Initiative and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies succeed in getting the Obama administration to adopt their “options” to assist the anti-regime Syrian opposition, Bill Kristol will soon be celebrating the sixth “war of Muslim liberation” that he and his pro-Israel cronies have induced the United States to wage — with little thought for all the “shed blood and expended treasure.” Unless the Syrian people want their country to be added to Kristol’s dubious roster of “the liberated” — Kuwait, the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya — they had better make it loud and clear that they have no desire whatsoever for the kind of “assistance” offered by pro-Israel groups.

Maidhc Ó Cathail is a political analyst and editor of The Passionate Attachment.

November 12, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Major push for Iran war by liberal Zionists and hawks

By Scott McConnell | Mondoweiss | November 10, 2011

Robert Wexler, former Florida congressman and a key Obama ally on Israel/Palestine issues, was one of the speakers at a Churches for Middle East Peace dinner last night. Wexler is a liberal Zionist, who (correctly) sees Israel’s long term interest in a two state solution, and has taken a lot of flack for defending Obama from attack by the Zionist right. But last night he was terrifying.

He began by saying he didn’t want to spend much time talking about the troubled peace process, about which there was little new to say, but Iran. What followed was a “Oh how it pains me to conclude this” analysis about how the US (not Israel) must launch a military attack on Iran, due to the progress Teheran has made in its nuclear program. Only then, Wexler said, in a line eerily evocative of the the neocons’ “road to Jerusalem runs through Baghdad” line of 2002, will Israel feel secure enough to make peace with the Palestinians. Obama faces the choice of going down in history as the president who was on watch while Iran acquired nuclear weapons, or being the one who stopped it. An Iranian bomb would unleash all kinds of unknowable dangers in the Middle East, but the consequences of the US attack on Iran are knowable. Much as it pained him to say this (channeling the classic Israel “shoot and cry” trope) American military action is the most rational course. He closed by calling explicitly for “regime change” in Teheran.

None of this went over very well with our group. One former ambassador asked a pointed question about whether the Grand Bargain was possible, and when Wexler said it had been tried, the questioner pointed to the Obama administration’s dismissive reaction to the Turkey/Brazil initiative on Iran’s nuclear program. I asked, “While I agreed that the consequences of a nuclear Iran are unknowable, could he please tell us the consequences of a US attack, since he claimed they are knowable.” He didn’t answer, pontificating for three minutes on “what if they got the bomb” and then saying American military planning could game out the consequences of a US attack. One sentence.

A couple of thoughts. First Wexler made not even passing mention of a possible Israeli strike– he seems to know that Israel by itself doesn’t have the capacity to end Iran’s nuclear program or do very much more than damage Iran and stir up hatreds that will last generations. So this has to be an American operation. Secondly, he is a major liberal Democratic foreign policy figure, and Obama seems to rely upon him. It’s the first time I’ve seen a representative of this group call explicitly for American attack on Iran.

At my table, the feeling was that we were witnessing the opening volleys of a major new push for war, by liberal Zionists and liberal hawks. By supporting Obama on two states (not that it has made the slightest difference) Wexler has positioned himself as a necessary ally of the administration, so if he defected because of Obama’s reluctance to launch a war, it might be seen as politically damaging. I would like to think that Wexler has no influence in the Obama White House, but I don’t believe that. And he wants another American war on a Muslim country, consequences be dammed. His position is exactly the same as Richard Perle’s.

November 10, 2011 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Iran’s “Soviet Nuclear Scientist” Never Worked on Weapons

By GARETH PORTER | CounterPunch | November 10, 2011

The report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) published by a Washington think tank Tuesday repeated the sensational claim previously reported by news media all over the world that a former Soviet nuclear weapons scientist had helped Iran construct a detonation system that could be used for a nuclear weapon.

But it turns out that the foreign expert, who is not named in the IAEA report but was identified in news reports as Vyacheslav Danilenko, is not a nuclear weapons scientist but one of the top specialists in the world in the production of nanodiamonds by explosives.

In fact, Danilenko, a Ukrainian, has worked solely on nanodiamonds from the beginning of his research career and is considered one of the pioneers in the development of nanodiamond technology, as published scientific papers confirm.

It now appears that the IAEA and David Albright, the director of the International Institute for Science and Security in Washington, who was the source of the news reports about Danilenko, never bothered to check the accuracy of the original claim by an unnamed “Member State” on which the IAEA based its assertion about his nuclear weapons background.

Albright gave a “private briefing” for “intelligence professionals” last week, in which he named Danilenko as the foreign expert who had been contracted by Iran’s Physics Research Centre in the mid-1990s and identified him as a “former Soviet nuclear scientist”, according to a story by Joby Warrick of the Washington Post on Nov. 5.

The Danilenko story then went worldwide.

The IAEA report says the agency has “strong indications” that Iran’s development of a “high explosions initiation system”, which it has described as an “implosion system” for a nuclear weapon, was “assisted by the work of a foreign expert who was not only knowledgeable on these technologies, but who, a Member State has informed the Agency, worked for much of his career in the nuclear weapon program of the country of his origin.”

The report offers no other evidence of Danilenko’s involvement in the development of an initiation system.

The member state obviously learned that Danilenko had worked during the Soviet period at the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Technical Physics in Snezhinsk, Russia, which was well known for its work on development of nuclear warheads and simply assumed that he had been involved in that work.

However, further research would have revealed that Danilenko worked from the beginning of his career in a part of the Institute that specialised in the synthesis of diamonds. Danilenko wrote in an account of the early work in the field published in 2006 that he was among the scientists in the “gas dynamics group” at the Institute who were “the first to start studies on diamond synthesis in 1960″.

Danilenko’s recollections of the early period of his career are in a chapter of the book, “Ultrananocrystalline Diamond: Synthesis, Properties and Applications” edited by Olga A. Shenderova and Dieter M. Gruen, published in 2006.

Another chapter in the book covering the history of Russian patents related to nanodiamonds documents the fact that Danilenko’s centre at the Institute developed key processes as early as 1963-66 that were later used at major “detonaton nanodiamond” production centres.

Danilenko left the Institute in 1989 and joined the Institute of Materials Science Problems in Ukraine, according to the authors of that chapter.

Danilenko’s major accomplishment, according to the authors, has been the development of a large-scale technology for producing ultradispersed diamonds, a particular application of nanodiamonds. The technology, which was later implemented by the “ALIT” company in Zhitomir, Ukraine, is based on an explosion chamber 100 sq metres in volume, which Danilenko designed.

Beginning in 1993, Danilenko was a principal in a company called “Nanogroup” which was established initially in the Ukraine but is now based in Prague. The company’s website boasts that it has “the strongest team of scientists” which had been involved in the “introduction of nanodiamonds in 1960 and the first commercial applications of nanodiamonds in 2000″.

The declared aim of the company is to supply worldwide demand for nanodiamonds.

Iran has an aggressive programme to develop its nanotechnology sector, and it includes as one major focus nanodiamonds, as blogger Moon of Alabama has pointed out. That blog was the first source to call attention to Danilenko’s nanodiamond background.

Danilenko clearly explained that the purpose of his work in Iran was to help the development of a nanodiamond industry in the country.

The report states that the “foreign expert” was in Iran from 1996 to about 2002, “ostensibly to assist in the development of a facility and techniques for making ultra dispersed diamonds (UDDs) or nanodiamonds…” That wording suggests that nanodiamonds were merely a cover for his real purpose in Iran.

The report says the expert “also lectured on explosive physics and its applications”, without providing any further detail about what applications were involved.

The fact that the IAEA and Albright were made aware of Danilenko’s nanodiamond work in Iran before embracing the “former Soviet nuclear weapons specialist” story makes their failure to make any independent inquiry into his background even more revealing.

The tale of a Russian nuclear weapons scientist helping construct an “implosion system” for a nuclear weapon is the most recent iteration of a theme that the IAEA introduced in its May 2008 report, which mentioned a five-page document describing experimentation with a “complex multipoint initiation system to detonate a substantial amount of high explosives in hemispherical geometry” and to monitor the detonation.

Iran acknowledged using “exploding bridge wire” detonators such as those mentioned in that document for conventional military and civilian applications. But it denounced the document, along with the others in the “alleged studies” collection purporting to be from an Iranian nuclear weapons research programme, as fakes.

Careful examination of the “alleged studies” documents has revealed inconsistencies and other anomalies that give evidence of fraud. But the IAEA, the United States and its allies in the IAEA continue to treat the documents as though there were no question about their authenticity.

The unnamed member state that informed the agency about Danilenko’s alleged experience as a Soviet nuclear weapons scientist is almost certainly Israel, which has been the source of virtually all the purported intelligence on Iranian work on nuclear weapons over the past decade.

Israel has made no secret of its determination to influence world opinion on the Iranian nuclear programme by disseminating information to governments and news media, including purported Iran government documents. Israeli foreign ministry and intelligence officials told journalists Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins about the special unit of Mossad dedicated to that task at the very time the fraudulent documents were being produced.

In an interview in September 2008, Albright said Olli Heinonen, then deputy director for safeguards at the IAEA, had told him that a document from a member state had convinced him that the “alleged studies” documents were genuine. Albright said the state was “probably Israel”.

The Jerusalem Post’s Yaakov Katz reported Wednesday that Israeli intelligence agencies had “provided critical information used in the report”, the purpose of which was to “push through a new regime of sanctions against Tehran….”

~

GARETH PORTER is an investigative historian and journalist with Inter-Press Service specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, “Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam“, was published in 2006.

November 10, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Israel influenced IAEA report on Iran

Press TV – November 10, 2011

Interview with Gareth Porter, historian and investigative journalist

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Yukiya Amano has released his latest report on Iran’s nuclear activities to the 35 members of the Board of Governors of the agency.

Iran dismissed the report as “unbalanced, unprofessional and prepared with political motivation and under political pressure by mostly the United States.”

The US and its allies accuse Iran of pursuing a military nuclear program and used the false charge as a pretext to convince the UN Security Council to impose a fourth round of sanctions on Iran.

Press TV has interviewed historian and investigative journalist Gareth Porter from Washington to discuss Amano’s latest report.

Press TV: How do you see this whole scenario, why would the IAEA release a report based on what it calls foreign intelligence agencies’ reports at this point in time?

Porter: First of all of course, this is a secrete annex –so called– that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Mohamed ElBaradei refused to publish in 2008 and was subjected to a concentrated attack on the part of the European and Israeli ambassadors and governments at that point, charging him with hiding relevant intelligence information about an Iranian nuclear weapons program.

ElBaradei made it clear the reason he didn’t publish it when he was the Director General was because the information did not pass the level of scrutiny that was required to ascertain that it was genuine. In other words, he had serious doubts that this was genuine evidence rather than fabrication and there is indeed every reason to believe that he was right, that much of the evidence that has been submitted by the Israelis, particularly, and I am talking about the ‘alleged studies’ documents which are the heart and soul of this secrete annex and that I have written about extensively that these are, I am quite convinced, fabrications. So this is still the same story that we have been talking about for years now, it goes back to 2005 when the US turned over these ‘alleged studies’ documents to the IAEA and the IAEA was then encouraged to go after Iran on the basis of these documents.

Press TV: Who are these foreign spy agencies that are providing the IAEA with the so-called information on Iran and would these reports be of any legal value?

Porter: Well this material, of course, will not stand up in any legal process that had any due process or fairness about it, simply because of the serious inconsistencies, the serious contradictions that are built into them –that I have talked about in my coverage of ‘alleged studies’ documents, particularly with regard to the so-called effort to integrate a nuclear payload into the Shahab-3 missile. This was a set of drawings that I pointed out where about the wromg missile

So the question is who had the opportunity and the motive to fake these kinds of documents. As I asserted in the past, Israelis are the ones who had the motive and the opportunity. They had a part of Mossad –which is known and is written about in main stream journals coverage of this– as a specific office to basically disseminate coverage or documents that are supposed to have come from Iran about the nuclear weapons program.

So they were fixed, they were prepared to put out documentation which would accomplish exactly what these ‘alleged studies’ documents have accomplished. So there was no doubt in my mind and I think that the evidence speaks for itself that Israel was the source of most of this intelligence.

Press TV: Where does this leave the credibility of this nuclear watchdog agency as this report is seriously raising questions on its impartiality?

Porter: This agency, during the period when Mohamed ElBaradei was Director General, was deeply divided between a group of people led by ElBaradei who were trying, I think, to achieve a degree of fairness and balance and a second group which was the group that Olli Heinonen in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 which was really not dedicated to any objective view or presentation of the evidence but was interested in putting Iran in the dock and making a case that Iran was seeking nuclear weapons regardless of what it took.

I have interviewed Olli Heinonen a couple of times, once in person once on the phone, and what I got from Olli Heinonen was a series of “I don’t knows”, “I don’t remembers” and basically inability to respond to the inconsistencies –which I pointed out in the reports that he has been responsible for.

November 10, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

IAEA Lacks Credibility

PressTVGlobalNews | November 9, 2011

November 9, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Video, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Livni demands ‘proactive action’ on Iran

Press TV – November 9, 2011

Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni has demanded that the international community be proactive and stop Iran’s nuclear program.

Livni, leader of Kadima – the largest political party in the Israeli parliament – on Wednesday called for international intervention to halt Iran’s nuclear activities in the wake of the latest report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on the Islamic Republic, Jerusalem Post reported.

“A lot of countries used the excuse we don’t have enough information [in order to take action],” Livni said.

She added, “Now it’s official. The world has the information and must act to halt Tehran’s nuclear program.”

“The threat of a nuclear Iran is far more dangerous than the economic implications of upholding sanctions on Iran,” Livni commented.

IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano’s latest report on Iran’s nuclear activities was distributed to the 35 members of the Board of Governors on Tuesday evening, ahead of the seasonal meeting of the board, which is scheduled to be held in Vienna from November 17 to 18.

Iran dismissed the report as “unbalanced, unprofessional and prepared with political motivation and under political pressure by mostly the United States.”

Israel, which is widely believed to possess over 300 atomic warheads, also test fired a new long-range missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads. This three-stage Jericho-3 missile which is capable of delivering a 750-kilo warhead to a distance, is estimated to have a range of up to 10,000 kilometers.

Paradoxically, the new nuke-capable missile, which can target many parts of the globe, is not considered a threat in the eyes of the West.

The Unites States — the first and only country to have used nuclear weapons against another nation — has also allocated a new budget to its military nuclear program, despite alleged commitment to a nuclear-free world and promises to reduce its nuclear stockpile.

While Israel refuses to allow inspections of its nuclear facilities or to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty based on its policy of nuclear ambiguity, Iran is a signatory to the NPT and has been subjected to snap International Atomic Energy Agency inspections due to its policy of nuclear transparency.

Iranian officials have promised a crushing response to any military strike against the country, warning that any such measure could result in a war that would spread beyond the Middle East.

November 9, 2011 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Warmongering Jeffrey Goldberg calls on Obama to use missile strikes against Iran

By Philip Weiss on November 8, 2011

We can now say for sure that after Jeffrey Goldberg smashed the New Yorker’s credibility to bits by publishing a bogus story about Saddam Hussein getting nuclear weapons, paving the liberals’ path to that disastrous war, he smashed the Atlantic Magazine’s credibility to bits last year by using the magazine to hysterically push an American attack on Iran– “The point of no return… who if anyone will stop Iran?” We can say as much because Goldberg is now plain about his agenda at Bloomberg News.

Here he is personally advocating what he covertly advocated in the Atlantic, in the earlier instance putting the argument on Netnayahu et al: America must act, so that Israel doesn’t have to. And once again, he cites an olio of anonymous Holocaust-inflected sources saying Israel has no choice but to go to war against Iran, and so America must do the job because it will do it better. So, Obama should be prepared to use missile strikes.

I believe, based on interviews inside and outside the White House, that he would consider using force — missile strikes, mainly — to stop the Iranians from crossing the nuclear threshold. ..

This isn’t to say that Obama has decided to use whatever means necessary to stop Iran. (He faces opposition in the Pentagon, for one thing, though the U.S. military has much greater capabilities than Israel.) Nor is a U.S. strike something desirable, even if done in concert with Western allies. …

But numerous Israeli officials have told me that they are much less likely to recommend a preemptive strike of their own if they were reasonably sure that Obama was willing to use force. And if Iran’s leaders feared there was a real chance of a U.S. attack, they might actually modify their behavior. I believe Obama would use force — and that he should make that perfectly clear to the Iranians.

November 8, 2011 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Is Herman Cain A Zionist Sock Puppet?

By Mantiq al-Tayr | November 6, 2011

1. Of course he is, why the hell are you even asking?  But it’s not just that his two top aides, Mark Block and Linda Hansen are long time Americans for Prosperity hacks (AfP being a Koch brothers creation). Nor is it just the current scandal involving Block and possible illegal campaign contributions. It goes much deeper than that. Enjoy the ride into the depths of the abyss.

Oh, before I get into it, I bet you wanna know what the picture above is all about and what it has to do with Herman ZioCann. Just keep reading. Sit back, grab your favorite beverage, make sure you are not near any sharp objects, and read, weep and drink.

First of all , I sure hope that the sexual harassment allegations against Herman Cain don’t derail his candidacy because Americans richly deserve to have such a monster become their president. Thank Allah that Cain has mastered the art of sucking up to Israel, as this link shows so clearly.  “Mr. Cain is a firm supporter of Israel,” said Imri Eisner, who was just named Cain’s point man for Jewish outreach. “He’s made it well known that as president, he will know who our friends are and who our enemies are.”

And good old Imri, should know. Yeah, Cain made his hajj to Israel in August and for his own personal “Feast of the Sacrifice” he offered up Palestinians to the racist bigoted God of the Hebrew Bible.

Cain is pretty much an ignoramus on most subjects. His ignorance of exactly how much he needed to suck up to Israel caused him some problems early in his campaign to become the Israeli Vice President for American Affairs (IVPFAA).  Thus when asked by Islamofacist Chris Wallace about the right of Palestinians to return to Israel – from whence they had been expelled by completely innocent peace loving Jews – Cain mumbled something about how they should have that right if Israel wanted to grant it to them.  Even a statement as obsequious as that cannot be tolerated by the Z people, so Cain had to get an education about Israel. One thing he did was read a bunch of books by Alan Derwoshitz. I’m not making this up.

And he also read “Israel at Sixty: An Oral History of a Nation Reborn” written by two Jews named Israel Gerald and Deborah Strober. Who are the Strobers?

Well, have you heard of Herman Cain’s new book? It’s called “I’m totally controlled by Zionist Jews and I want to help them destroy America.” Okay, that isn’t really the title. The real title is “This is Herman Cain! My Journey to the White House.” Except he didn’t really write it. Gerald and Deborah Strober wrote it for him.

And it was the Strobers who told him to go to Israel, so he did.

“The Strobers, who are Jewish and live in Manhattan, suggested a trip to Israel, and in August they accompanied Cain on a four-day tour of the country, starting with an appearance at Glenn Beck’s Jerusalem rally. Cain met with Israeli political figures — most of them on the right, including Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon, Deputy Knesset Speaker Danny Danon and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat.”

Cain’s token meeting with Palestinian puppet Salaam Fayyad never took place. It was all Jews all the time for Cain.  Oh, plus attending that  Glenn Beck hate fest too. He learned his lessons well. “Deborah Strober added, “He’s been briefed on the right of return and has an understanding of that.”’

While in Israel, Cain also said “”This may get me in trouble, but I do not care,” he said. “I think the Israeli people is (sic) more interested in peace than the Palestinians. Look at history and the fact that you’re getting bombed on the southern border. It is clear to me that Israel is more interested in peace than those seeking to deny the peace process.”

The more I think about it, the more I like the title I proposed for his book, rather than the one the Strobers used.

Oh, by the way, J.D. Gordon, one of Cain’s main advisors, is the son of a Jewish father and has a rather interesting connection to a really juicy scandal involving pro-Israelis in the UK.  As Max Blumenthal opens his article on Gordon he writes:

“Top foreign policy advisor to US Republican presidential candidate has a murky history fraught with accusations of fraud, links to alleged clandestine operations with Mossad, sexual harassment and racism.“

Man, I really want Cain to become president. Maybe J.D. Gordon will become the head of the National Security Council.

“Not only has Gordon worked as a well-paid “fellow” for the Center for Security Policy, a far-right think tank at the heart of the campaign to demonize Muslim citizens of the United States, but he has also been the key Washington representative of Atlantic Bridge, a shadowy front group at the center of a major influence peddling scandal that in October brought down British Defense Minister Liam Fox.”

Note to Shas Party Members, the Center for Security Policy is wild-eyed Islamophobe Frank Gaffney’s outfit.  See why we need Cain to win in 2012? I’m gonna go get me some bumper stickers. You have got to read the Blumenthal article and share it with your friends.

Oh, wait, I forgot to talk more about the Strobers.

Gerald Strober is a really cool catch for Deborah Hart, aka Deborah Strober. When they got married back in 1981 Gerald was “national director of The American Friends of Tel Aviv University in New York.”  But Gerald was even luckier. Debbie’s daddy is Phillip Hochstein, former editor and publisher of New York Jewish Week and a big shot in the Newhouse gang.  Her deceased brother is Joseph Hochstein who has quite a few relatives living in Israel. Philip and Joseph founded Michael Collins Piper’s favorite publication, The Washington Jewish Week. (Just kidding Mike. I think he prefers The Forward.) Joseph passed away in Israel, where he spent the last decades of his life.

Deborah and Gerald have a child who apparently lives in Israel. Read all about this wonderful couple here.

” In fact, when Herman Cain visited Israel earlier this year, the Strobers — who have an apartment, a child who made Aliyah and grandchildren in Israel — say they arranged his itinerary and traveled with him. Indeed, like the idea for the memoir, the idea for Cain to go to Israel was theirs as well, they said.”

Even the book was their idea. And apparently so was everything else in Israel.

”According to the Strobers, Block immediately picked a date, which was later modified so that Cain could attend Glenn Beck’s rally in the Jewish State. While in Israel with Cain, the Strobers arranged for the White House contender to meet Israeli government officials and opposition leaders, to stop by the land the Israeli government has set aside for a U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, to go to the West Bank settlement of Ariel and to visit Christian holy sites, among other activities.”

Hold on  a sec. I have to digress. “Ariel” was the feature of this Mantiqiyyan post earlier this year. Read it to see what an illegal piece of shit it is and how it was founded by religious fanatics. It’s also supported in part through US tax-deductible donations. End of digression.

By the way, the “Block” referred to here is Cain’s chief aid, Mark Block, a Koch brothers crony as I noted above, but I digress.

And here’s the bottom line for the Strobers:

“The Strobers are confident that even though Cain may not be an expert on foreign policy, he has the fundamentals right and would certainly be better than the current administration on Israel. “

Cain has learned his lessons well.

And now he needs your vote. Vote for Cain, Americans deserve him.

2. It’s video time goys and girls. But it’s a little different this time. I don’t expect you to watch them all, though you should. But I also give you a little commentary, some of it I hope will be informative and it will also explain the picture at the top of today’s post.

First, here is Herman ZioCaine in Israel on Israeli National TV in August.  He is no longer the fiesty right wing gadfly who delights in outraging others. Here he is zio-pussy-whipped into utter submission.  He actually makes Obama look good. That’s no mean accomplishment.

Now here is ZioCain back in the US. It’s real short. He’s trying to talk tough, but I can still detect that pussy-whipped tone.

Okay, now below we are back in Israel and on Fox News. The questioner talks like a typical Fox News Mossad agent. He asks ZioCain at one point [start at around 1:17 in the video] a question about Obama and Israel asking “Do you sense that they [the Israelis] don’t feel like they have a loyal leader in the White House?”

That’s right, the assumption in the question is that the President of the United States has to be loyal to Israel. Cain agrees with that assumption. He replies “I not only sense it, I had a lot of people here tell me that in no uncertain terms. And it goes back to when to President Obama threw Israel under the bus or he threw Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu under the bus when he was coming to the United States. The people have not forgotten that. Not only a lot of Jewish people who live here in Israel, but I have also ran (sic) into a lot of Jewish people who came over the Glenn Beck event, and they also feel as if this president has let the Jewish people down.  That will not happen in a Cain presidency.  Absolutely not, because as you know my doctrine is real simple, if you mess with Israel you are messing with the United States of America. That’s how strongly I feel about the relationship  between the United States and Israel.”

Yup, Cain places Israel ahead of the United States. Americans really deserve this guy.

Enjoy the video.

Here is perhaps the most disgusting ZioCain video of all. It says so much, oh so much. He is speaking at the Israel Day concert. That concert was on June 5th. The picture at the start of this essay is taken from the concert’s brochure. That’s right, Herman Cain spoke at an event honoring Jonathan Pollard. Man, Americans deserve this son of a bitch. Here, watch him grovel. The web site for the Israel Concert Day is here. Their brochure in full is here.  You should look at those documents and see who they bring in for this thing. It’s like having Mossad move into Central Park. The web pages don’t even look American. They look foreign, alien, weird. And that’s because they are.

November 8, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Rattling Sabers & Beating Drums: Fear-Mongering over Nuclear Iran Reaches a Fever-Pitch

Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep In America | November 7, 2011

“Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq’s nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.”

– Joseph C. Wilson IV, The New York Times, July 6, 2003

“Its failings notwithstanding, there is much to be said in favor of journalism in that by giving us the opinion of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.”

– Oscar Wilde

[NOTE: It has been over ten months since I wrote, “The Phantom Menace: Fantasies, Falsehoods, and Fear-Mongering about Iran’s Nuclear Program“, a timeline of false U.S., Israeli, and European assertions regarding the supposed inevitability and immediacy of a nuclear-armed Iran, hysterical allegations that have been made repeatedly for the past thirty years.

Whenever new predictions and claims about Iran’s nuclear program are released, I have added updates to my original piece. To read all past updates, click here. Culled from the past few months, here are some the latest.]

On June 17, 2011, U.S.News & World Report published a lengthy article by Purdue professor Louis René Beres and retired Air Force Gen. John T. Chain with the title “Israel’s Options for Dealing With a Nuclear Iran.” The writers claim that “Iran is closing in rapidly on full membership in the ‘nuclear club'” and that “probably in the next two years, such membership can be conclusively confirmed.” They then outline the various ways Israel could protect itself from an Iranian assault, completely ignoring the fact that Iran has never threatened Israel with attack, rather it’s the other way around.

On August 22, 2011, speaking at a luncheon at the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum, Republican Senator and second-ranking member on the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee James Inhofe declared, “We know – and it is not even classified for me to tell you today – that Iran will have the capability of delivering a weapon of mass destruction to western Europe and the eastern United States by 2015. I see that as the most imminent threat to this country right now. So that is a problem we are going to have deal with.”

On August 28, 2011, Reuters, in an article quoting a senior Israeli defense official as saying that “Israel would not be able to halt Iran’s reported quest for atomic weapons with a single strike,” also reported, “Recent Israeli estimates do not show Iran developing nuclear weapons before 2015.”

On September 6, 2011, the editors of The Washington Post hysterically claimed, “Iran has taken two more steps toward producing a nuclear weapon,” before completely misrepresenting a new IAEA report on the Iranian nuclear program. The editorial says Iran has “begun to use a new, more advanced centrifuge to enrich uranium, which could allow it to produce bomb-grade material in a much shorter time period, should it choose to do so” and is “creating a stockpile for which Tehran has no plausible legitimate use.” It warns that, despite ongoing illegal actions (though not using those terms, of course) like industrial sabotage and assassinations, “the danger that Iran will become a nuclear power is growing, not diminishing,” before declaring that “the grim reality is that Iran’s leaders have not been deterred from their goal of producing a weapon, and the project is making steady progress.”

The Post also noted a study [PDF] by the Bipartisan Policy Center (a think tank established by U.S. senators) warned of Iran acquiring the ability to produce enough highly-enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in a mere 62 days, “a timeline that could fall to 12 days by the end of 2012.”

Writing in The New Republic, Iran hysteric Greg Jones estimated “Iran can produce enough HEU for a nuclear weapon in about eight weeks from the time it decided to do so,” a timeframe that would “shrink to only about four weeks by the end of next year, as Iran’s enriched uranium stockpiles and enrichment capacity continue to increase.” Jones concluded, “The international community has no choice but to already treat the Islamic Republic as a de facto nuclear state.”

On September 14, 2011, Reuters reported that British Ambassador Simon Smith had told the IAEA’s 35-nation governing board in Vienna, “The absence of a plausible economic or commercial rationale for so many of the nuclear activities now being carried out in Iran, and the growing body of evidence of a military dimension to these activities, give grounds for grave concern about Iran’s intentions.”

The same day, Jim Garamone of American Forces Press Service wrote that Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen told a gathering at the University of Miami, “Iran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons and wants regional hegemony in the Middle East.”

On September 16, 2011, The New York Times published an editorial which warned that “Iran is still enriching uranium and refusing to come clean about its nuclear program.” The editorial claimed, Iran has “greatly increased production of uranium to 20 percent purity instead of the 3.5 percent purity normally used to fuel nuclear power plants” which represents “a significant step closer to the 90 percent threshold required to make nuclear weapons fuel.” The authors suggest the Obama administration should seek “even tougher punishments” than “sanctions and inducements” in order to get “Tehran’s attention.”

Barbara Slavin, writing for The Atlantic Council the same day in an article ominously entitled “As Iran Edges Closer to Nukes,” states that although “Iran has not exactly been sprinting toward a bomb…the Iranian program – which Washington helped start in 1957 – is finally getting close to providing the wherewithal to make nuclear weapons.” Slavin writes that Iran has amassed “enough material, if further enriched, for four or five nuclear weapons.”

The following day, on September 17, 2011, Reuters reporter Frederik Dahl wrote of U.S. fear that “Iran and North Korea might covertly trade know-how, material or technology that could be put to developing atomic bombs.” The report quotes Mark Hibbs of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as saying, “Were this traffic to be confirmed, that would deepen the suspicion that Iran is involved in nuclear activities which are clandestine and military in nature.”

Speaking on panel on September 19, 2011, Mark Fitzpatrick, Director of Nonproliferation and Disarmament at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, opined that Iran “won’t have [a nuclear weapon] tomorrow or next week or next month or a year from now,” but noted that once Iran produces enough highly enriched uranium for a weapon, his assessment holds that it would take Iran “six months to weaponize.”

Also on September 19, 2011, Reuters reported that, during an IAEA meeting in Vienna, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu claimed, “Iran has continued to engage in a long-standing pattern of denial, deceit and evasion, in violation of its (nuclear) non-proliferation obligations,” continuing, “Expanding, and moving underground, its enrichment to this level marks a significant provocation and brings Iran still closer to having the capability to produce weapons grade uranium.” French Industry Minister Eric Besson was also quoted as telling the meeting that Iran’s nuclear program “poses an unacceptable threat to the regime of non-proliferation and to regional stability,” while the head of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission, Shaul Chorev told member states, “Israel has no doubt that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons.”

On September 21, 2011, in advance of Barack Obama’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly, war-mongering walrus John Bolton lamented in The National Interest that Iran has “marched inexorably forward with its nuclear weapons program.”

David Albright of D.C. think tank Institute for Science and International Security and longtime Iran alarmist, was quoted in The Australian on September 26, 2011 as saying, “We believe if Iran broke out now they could have a bomb in six months,” continuing, “They’ve done this right in front of our faces.”

Reuters published an extensive analysis entitled “How close is Iran to the bomb?” on September 28, 2011 which noted, “Either Iran could build a nuclear bomb in a matter of months or it is unlikely to get such a weapon any time soon — depending on which Western expert you talk to.” In the article, Frederik Dahl writes that “Western-based analysts generally agree with their governments that Tehran is developing technology that could be used to make a bomb, but they disagree about just how close it is to success,” citing various estimates from Greg Jones’ two month timeline to Shannon Kile, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, who said, “I just don’t see how you can credibly say they are going to be eight weeks away or even 18 months away.” The report states Mark Fitzpatrick, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), estimates “Iran could make a nuclear weapon in less than two years’ time.”

On October 3, 2011, writing in the Jerusalem Post, Yaakov Katz insisted, “As Iran continues its development of a nuclear weapon, Israel is growing more concerned that the Islamic Republic will embrace a policy of ambiguity, similar to the policy upheld in Israel regarding its own alleged nuclear capabilities.” He added, “General assessments are that if it so decides, it would take Iran just a number of months for it to enrich a sufficient quantity of uranium to over the 90% that would be required for one nuclear device.”

On October 4, 2011, Israeli daily Ha’aretz reported former Mossad chief Meir Dagan had told the Council for Peace and Security that “Iran’s nuclear program was still far from the point of no return.”

The same day, new U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who was visiting Israel at the time, said during a press conference alongside his Israeli counterpart Ehud Barak, “We are very concerned [about Iran] and the best approach for dealing with this threat is for all of us to make it clear to them that they cannot proceed on the path that they are on. We will work together to do whatever is necessary to make sure that they do not represent a threat to this region and it depends on countries working together.”

On October 16, 2011, a New York Times report by David Sanger and Lander stated, “President Obama is pressing United Nations nuclear inspectors to release classified intelligence information showing that Iran is designing and experimenting with nuclear weapons technology.”

Reza Kahlili, a former CIA spy claiming to have intimate knowledge of the Iranian nuclear program, wrote in The Washington Times on October 27, 2011, “The pressure the United States and the West is bringing to bear on Iran to keep it from acquiring nuclear weapons is all for naught. Not only does the Islamic Republic already have nuclear weapons from the old Soviet Union, but it has enough enriched uranium for more. What’s worse, it has a delivery system.”

Kahlili claimed that Mathew Nasuti, a former U.S. Air Force captain and State Department adviser, attended a March 2008 briefing in which a “Middle East expert” said “it was ‘common knowledge’ that Iran had acquired tactical nuclear weapons from one or more of the former Soviet republics” and also that “Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, an experienced intelligence officer and recipient of a Bronze Star, told me that his sources say Iran has two workable nuclear warheads.” He also writes that Iran has “enough enriched uranium for six nuclear bombs,” before calling for a military strike on Iran “before it’s too late.”

In a bizarre article, published in Ha’aretz on October 28, 2011, Louis René Beres, Leon Edney, and Thomas G. McInerney advocate for a coordinated, unprovoked military attack on Iran as an act of preemptive self-defense from “the genuinely existential risks posed in the 21st century by a nuclear Iran.” The authors write that although “Israel is the country at greatest risk from Iranian nuclear weapons,” the U.S. “is presently the only country that has the operational capability to undertake a successful preemptive mission to remove Iran’s covert and illegal nuclear weapons program.” The spooky conclusion is simple: “[I]f there is not an American defensive strike on Iran…[there will] be a fully nuclear Iran, led by irrational Shiite clerics.” (Purdue professor Beres chaired Project Daniel in Israel, Edney was vice chief of U.S. naval operations, a NATO supreme allied commander and commander-in-chief of the U.S. Atlantic Command, and McInerney served U.S. Air Force vice chief of staff, deputy chief of staff for operations and intelligence and vice commander-in-chief at the U.S. Air Force headquarters in Europe.)

The same day, the English-language website of Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported that Defense Ministry Director of Policy and Political-Military Affairs Amos Gilad told students at Ashkelon College, “At the moment, there is no immediate nuclear threat, but there is definitely a great deal of motivation and determination for it,” before noting, “Today the status is that they are at the starting point – they have uranium, they have the knowledge but they don’t create (missiles) because of media publicity which is not initiated by them.” Gilad declared, “The whole world is against the Iranians, the sanctions are effective, but it doesn’t change Iran’s strategic direction or their motivation. Iran is determined to obtain nuclear weapons and that is a major threat to Israel. If they achieve their goal it would be major game changer,” as it would upset the current “balance of power” in the region.

During an October 30, 2011 interview with Christiane Amanpour on ABC’s This Week, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann claimed, “Iran has also stated they would be willing to use a nuclear weapon against the United States of America,” despite the fact that fewer things could be further from the truth.

On October 31, 2011, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again warned of an ongoing Iranian nuclear weapons program and told the Knesset, “A nuclear Iran poses a heavy threat to the entire world – and to Israel in particular.”

A report by Ha’aretz on Netanyahu’s push for an Israeli assault on Iran published on November 2, 2011, stated, “Western intelligence officials agree that Iran is forging ahead with its nuclear program. Intelligence services now say it will take Iran two or three years to get the bomb once it decides to (it hasn’t made the decision yet ).”

The same day, Damien McElroy and Alex Spillius of The Daily Telegraph claimed, “Iran is on course to build nuclear weapons, according to evidence compiled by United Nations inspectors.” A new IAEA report, due out this week, “is likely to take the Middle East a step closer to a nuclear arms race,” the report stated. The article, entitled “Iran making nuclear arms,” included a quote from an unnamed Western diplomat declaring that the IAEA’s upcoming assessment “makes an inescapable case that Iran has ambitions to militarise the uranium it has been enriching at its production facilities.”

On November 3, 2011, Richard Norton-Taylor wrote in The Guardian, “The suggestion is that there is a ‘window’ now that would enable Israel on its own to strike Iran’s nuclear sites. Next year, the ‘window’ would be left open to the US (and the UK) before Iran’s nuclear weapons reached the point of no return.”

On November 5, 2011, a BBC report revealed that the IAEA “is planning to reveal evidence that Iran has been working secretly to develop a nuclear weapons capability, diplomats say,” and that “the evidence is said to include intelligence that Iran made computer models of a nuclear warhead” along with “satellite images of what the IAEA believes is a large steel container used for high-explosives tests related to nuclear arms.”

The Washington Post‘s Joby Warrick and Thomas Erdbrink wrote on November 6, 2011, “Intelligence provided to U.N. nuclear officials shows that Iran’s government has mastered the critical steps needed to build a nuclear weapon, receiving assistance from foreign scientists to overcome key technical hurdles, according to Western diplomats and nuclear experts briefed on the findings.” Warrick writes that according to ISIS‘s David Albright, “in 2003, Iranian scientists worked concurrently across multiple disciplines to obtain key skills needed to make and test a nuclear weapon that could fit inside the country’s long-range missiles.” Furthermore, during a PowerPoint presentation, “Albright said IAEA officials, based on the totality of the evidence given to them, have concluded that Iran ‘has sufficient information to design and produce a workable implosion nuclear device.'”

Also on November 6, 2011, Israeli President Shimon Peres told AFP that “an attack on Iran” by Israel and other countries was “more and more likely,” and that “The intelligence services of the different countries that are keeping an eye on (Iran) are worried and putting pressure on their leaders to warn that Iran is ready to obtain the nuclear weapon.”

A report from Ha’aretz‘s Yossi Melman stated, “Iran is pursuing its nuclear weapons program at the Parchin military base about 30 kilometers from Tehran, diplomatic sources in Vienna say.” The article continued, “According to recent leaks, Iran has carried out experiments in the final, critical stage for developing nuclear weapons – weaponization. This includes explosions and computer simulations of explosions. The Associated Press and other media outlets have reported that satellite photos of the site reveal a bus-sized container for conducting experiments.”

The same day, November 6, 2011, The New York Times‘s resident fear-monger David Sanger published a lengthy article entitled “America’s Deadly Dynamics With Iran” in which he claimed that, despite the recent covert war against the Islamic Republic conducted via computer viruses and murder of Iranian scientists, “The Iranians are digging their plants deeper underground, and enriching uranium at purities that will make it easier to race for a bomb. When Barack Obama was sworn into office, they had enough fuel on hand to produce a single weapon; today, by the I.A.E.A.’s own inventory, they have enough for at least four.” Additionally, he quotes an unnamed “American official” as saying, “And there are reasons to wonder whether, in the end, this shadow war is simply going to delay the inevitable: an Iranian bomb or, more likely, an Iranian capability to assemble a fairly crude weapon in a matter of weeks or months.” In what one can only hope is a ridiculously sloppy typo, Sanger also claims that the director of Iran’s atomic energy program Fereydoon Abbasi, who survived an Israeli assassination attempt late last year, “travels the world offering assurances that Iran’s interest in nuclear weapons is peaceful.”

The following day, November 7, 2011, Sanger was back, this time with fellow alarmist William Broad, to report, “Details leaking out about an imminent report by United Nations weapons inspectors suggest they have the strongest evidence yet that Iran has worked in recent years on a kind of sophisticated explosives technology that is primarily used to trigger a nuclear weapon, according to Western officials who have been briefed on the intelligence,” before adding, “But the case is hardly conclusive.”

With so much hysteria and hype, the IAEA report to be released this week will surely be anti-climactic. Iran has long stated that these allegations of nuclear weapons work are fabricated, a claim bolstered by the fact that the United States – which supplied the IAEA with the supposedly damning documents – has long refused to show original copies to either the IAEA or Iran.

Fever-pitched reports of an imminent Israeli attack have been surfacing in the press for decades. And, while both NATO and Russia have declared its opposition to ahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif military strike on Iran, recent reports still raise the specter of a coordinated assault by Israel, the US, Britain, and France, supported by Saudi Arabia.

As the U.S. Congress follows AIPAC’s lead to scuttle any chance for diplomacy in an ongoing effort to urge the Obama administration to attack Iran and a reported 41% of Israelis supportive of an assault by its own military, and the endless rhetoric declaring Iran an irrational, psychotic martyr state, bellicose aggressor and “existential threat,” it is instructive to recall – amidst the din of Western saber-rattling and beating Israel war drums – what Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Al Jazeeracorrespondent during an interview in Tehran less than a month ago:

“We will never enter any war against the U.S. or against any other country. This is our policy…We have never attacked anybody. Why should we do that? Why should we start a war?”

Why indeed?

November 7, 2011 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

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