Posts tagged iran
Obama Desperate To Hold Israel Back From Striking Iran’s Nuclear Plants
Feb 5th
How much longer can Obama protect Iran?
If the only the stakes weren’t so high, this might be laughable. Watching US President Barack Hussein Obama as he pulls every trick in his repertoire to keep Israel from doing what they need to do – strike Iran’s nuclear facilities – is like watching a little child trying to shovel the driveway while the snow storm still rages. He is fighting very much a losing battle, and can only forestall the inevitable for just so long. But what it does reveal, however, is just how deep his ties and loyalties run with the Muslim nation of Iran. PM Netanyahu, who I am sure is well aware of Obama’s game by this point, is getting ready to make a ‘break from the pack’. To which we say, ‘Go Bibi, and don’t look back.’ Am Yisrael Chai.
WASHINGTON – US President Barack Obama said on Sunday that Israel has not yet decided how to respond to concerns about Iran’s nuclear program and said there was no evidence that Iran has the “intentions or capabilities” to wage attacks on US soil.
It is obvious to even the casual observer how much disdain Obama has for Netanyahu and the state of Israel
Asked in an NBC interview whether Israel was set to attack Iran, Obama said: “I don’t think that Israel has made a decision on what they need to do. I think they, like us, believe that Iran has to stand down on its nuclear weapons program,” adding Israel and the United States would work “in lockstep” on Iran.
US President Obama: No evidence Islamic Republic has “intentions or capabilities” to wage attacks on American soil; Israel and US to work “in lockstep” on Iran.
Obama, who is up for re-election in November, has ended the US war in Iraq and is seeking to wind down combat in Afghanistan amid growing public discontent about American war spending at a time when the economy remains weak.
The Democrat made clear on Sunday that he would not like to see more fighting in the oil-producing Persian Gulf region.
“Any kind of additional military activity inside the Gulf is disruptive and has a big effect on us. It could have a big effect on oil prices, we’ve still got troops in Afghanistan, which borders Iran, and so our preferred solution here is diplomatic,” he said.
In the NBC interview, Obama stressed he was not taking any options off the table to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power. “We’re going to do everything we can to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and creating an arms race – a nuclear arms race – in a volatile region,” he said. source – JPost
Iran Begins Mass Producing Anti-ship Cruise Missile
Feb 4th
Iran has begun mass production of an anti-ship cruise missile, state television’s website said on Saturday. The Zafar missile, as it is dubbed in the report, “is a short-range, anti-ship cruise missile capable of destroying small- and medium-sized targets with high precision.”
An Iranian warship fires a Mehrab missile during naval wargames in the Strait of Hormuz on January 1. Iran has begun mass production of an anti-ship cruise missile, state television's website said on Saturday. (AFP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
It can be mounted on speed boats and other light vessels, can withstand electronic warfare, and is able to fly in low altitudes to avoid detection, the report said.
Iran has a fleet of speed boats that often challenge US and allied warships in the Gulf. The vessels are usually controlled by the elite Revolutionary Guards and can be equipped with missiles.
The Islamic republic says it has a wide range of missiles. It says some are capable of striking targets inside Israel as well as Middle Eastern military bases of its other main archfoe, the United States.
Tehran regularly boasts about developing missiles having substantial range and capabilities, but Western military experts cast doubt on its claims. Iran’s military said in January that it could close the strategic Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf, through which a third of global marine oil traffic passes, if it is attacked. source – Yahoo News
Iran Working On Nuclear Missile That Will Reach America
Feb 3rd
Iran aiming for America
The missile under construction at an Iranian research-and-development facility, which was damaged by a mysterious explosion in November, was a long-range missile prototype with a range of 6,000 miles – enough to hit the United States, a senior Israeli official said Thursday in a speech to a defense and security forum.
In this undated file photo, a Ghader missile is launched at the shore of sea of Oman during Iran's navy drill. A missile under construction at an Iranian research-and-development facility, which was damaged by a mysterious explosion in November, was a long-range missile prototype with a range of 6,000 miles. Hamed Jafarnejad/Fars News Agency/AP/File
At the time of the Nov. 12 explosion at a facility some 30 miles outside Tehran, Iranian officials insisted that the suspicious blast was an accident. It occurred, they said, during experimentation on a medium-range missile – one capable of reaching Israel.
But on Thursday, Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s vice prime minister and minister of strategic affairs, said in a speech outside Tel Aviv that the missile under development actually had a range closer to 6,000 miles.
“That’s the Great Satan,” Mr. Yaalon said, using the well-known pejorative term that Iranian officials have used for the US. “It was aimed at America, not at us.”
If true, Yaalon’s claim would put Iran’s missile development program into a new league. Until now, most arms analysts have estimated that the range of Iranian missiles is limited to about 1,500 miles – enough, to be sure, to reach Israel and parts of Europe. But analysts have speculated very little on research into or development of a longer-range missile.
One Washington weapons research organization, the Institute for Science and International Security, did conclude in a late November report on the Iranian facility explosion that the blast occurred just as Iran had achieved “a major milestone in the development of a new missile.”
The institute said its investigation revealed that the explosion took place during a tricky and volatile procedure involving a missile engine. Postexplosion speculation had centered on sabotage that might have been part of what many experts assume is a covert war against Iran’s nuclear and weapons programs, being carried out by Israel, the US, and perhaps other Western countries.
But the claim issued by Yaalon, who just last week was in Washington to confer with US officials on Iran’s nuclear program, may also have been aimed at convincing the US that Iran poses a dangerous and growing threat – not just to Israel and the Middle East region, but also to countries farther afield.
Yaalon said in his speech that the West does not yet realize how much of a threat is posed by Iran, which he called “a nightmare for the free world.” In reality, he said, Israel in the Iranian regime’s eyes is only the “little Satan,” while America, as leader of the West, is “the larger Satan.” source – CS Monitor
Israel Puts Their US and Worldwide Facilities On High Alert Regarding Possible Iranian Attack
Feb 3rd
Israeli facilities in North America — and around the world — are on high alert, according to an internal security document obtained by ABC News that predicted the threat from Iran against Jewish targets will increase.
Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard
“We predict that the threat on our sites around the world will increase … on both our guarded sites and ‘soft’ sites,” stated a letter circulated by the head of security for the Consul General for the Mid-Atlantic States. Guarded sites refers to government facilities like embassies and consulates, while ‘soft sites’ means Jewish synagogues, and schools, as well as community centers like the one hit by a terrorist bombing in Buenos Aires in 1994 that killed 85 people.
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, told an audience at a closed forum in Tel Aviv recently that Iran is trying to hit Israeli targets because of what it believes are Israeli attacks on it nuclear scientists. Yoram Cohen said that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, the same militant wing of the government linked to the recent alleged plot against the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., is working tirelessly to attack Israeli and Jewish targets abroad in order to deter Israel.
“In the past few weeks, there has been an escalation in threats against Israeli and Jewish targets around the world,” one regional document noted. “Open source has reported many demonstrations against Israel are expected to be concentrated on Israeli embassies and consulates. Such demonstrations have occurred internationally as well as domestically. These demonstrations could potentially turn violent at local synagogues, restaurants, the Israeli Embassy and other Israeli sites. … Law enforcement should be vigilant when making periodic checks at all Jewish facilities.
Local and regional law enforcement and intelligence officials in U.S. and Canadian cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Toronto have been monitoring the situation closely for several weeks, and have stepped up patrols at Israeli government locations and Jewish cultural and religious institutions. They have issued awareness bulletins reminding officers to stay vigilant.
Federal officials in those cities told ABC News that they have also increased their efforts to watch for any threat stream pointing to an imminent attack on either Israeli facilities, Jewish cultural or religious institutions or other “soft targets.”
“When there is posturing like this, we always pay extra attention to any threat streams,” one federal official said.
“The thwarted assassination plot of a Saudi official in Washington, D.C., a couple of months ago was an important data point,” added the official, “in that it showed at least parts of the Iranian establishment were aware of the intended event and were not concerned about inevitable collateral damage to U.S. citizens had they carried out an assassination plot on American soil.”
“That was an eye opener, showing that they did not care about any collateral damage,” the federal official said. source – ABC News
Iran Warns World Of Coming ‘Great Event’
Feb 3rd
Iran is waiting for the Mahdi
Amid crippling sanctions over its nuclear weapons program, Iran is continuing to prepare itself for war against the West, and now is warning of a coming great event. “In light of the realization of the divine promise by almighty God, the Zionists and the Great Satan (America) will soon be defeated,” Ayatollah Khamenei, the Iranian supreme leader, is warning.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei
Khamenei, speaking to hundreds of youths from more than 70 countries attending a world conference on the Arab Spring just days ago, told a cheering crowd in Tehran that “Allah’s promises will be delivered and Islam will be victorious.”
The countries represented included Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Palestine and Tunisia, all of which have been involved in the Arab Spring.
In his remarks, Khamenei advised the youths to remain vigilant, stating that the Islamic awakening in the region has delivered several blows to the enemies of Islam and that all Muslims, despite their own historical and social differences, remain united in opposing the “evil hegemony of the Zionists and the Americans.”
Khamenei then claimed the current century as the century of Islam and promised that human history is on the verge of a great event and that soon the world will realize the power of Allah.
Many clerics in Iran have stated that Khamenei is the deputy of the last Islamic messiah on earth and that obedience to him is necessary for the final glorification of Islam.
Khamenei has been heard to say that the coming of the last Islamic Messiah, the Shiites’ 12th Imam Mahdi, is near and that specific actions need to be taken to protect the Islamic regime for upcoming events.
Mahdi, according to Shiite belief, will reappear at the time of Armageddon. Selected forces within the Revolutionary Guards and Basij reportedly have been trained under a task force called “Soldiers of Imam Mahdi” and they will bear the responsibility of security and protecting the regime against uprisings. Many in the Guards and Basij have been told that the 12th Imam is on earth, facilitated the victory of Hezbollah over Israel in the 2006 war and soon will announce publicly his presence after the needed environment is created.
Sources within Vali’eh Amr, the revolutionary forces in charge of the supreme leader’s protection, also recently revealed an assassination attempt on Khamenei that was thwarted just in time.
SepahOnline reports that last year during Khamenei’s visit to the port of Asalouyeh in southern Iran, Revolutionary Guards found pistols and hand grenades hidden by one individual dressed as a janitor in a barracks that Khamenei was set to attend. The supreme leader was then returned to Tehran immediately.
Other sources within the Guards report that following Barack Obama’s letter to the Iranian leader last month requesting negotiations, Khamenei ordered Iranian officials to speak positively about holding nuclear talks and giving hope to Obama and other Western leaders that a negotiated solution is possible.
This was apparent after a trip of U.N. nuclear inspectors to Iran this week, who called the talks positive.
At the same time, his directive to the Guards ordered a speedy completion of the Iranian nuclear bomb program in which Guards’ missiles can be armed with nuclear warheads. Khamenei believes once that’s achieved, Iran can test a nuclear bomb, letting the world know that Iran has joined the nuclear-armed club and that any confrontation will result in destruction of much of the Western world.
The Revolutionary Guards not only can hit all U.S. bases in the Middle East with their ballistic missiles but also reach most capital cities in Western Europe. The Guards, with the help of China and North Korea, are working on intercontinental ballistic missiles. But more dangerous to America, as reported last July, is the Guards action in arming their vessels with long-range ballistic missiles and their expansion of their mission into the Atlantic Ocean, right into the Gulf of Mexico.
Any Iranian military or commercial vessel easily could get right outside the U.S. coastline and in less than 60 seconds fire a ballistic missile armed with a nuclear payload and detonate it over U.S. skies in an electromagnetic attack that would plunge America back into the 18th century.
Studies show within just one year after such an attack, two-thirds of Americans would cease to exist and the rest would live under dire conditions.
The radicals ruling Iran not only have prepared for mass suppression of their own people as they get close to their confrontation with the West, but also have prepared to fuel unrest through their proxies in the Middle East and elsewhere.
SepahOnline, with sources within the Guards, reports that Afghanistan will soon witness an increase in terrorist activities against U.S. forces. The Guards not only are training Taliban fighters in Iran close to the Afghan border, but are shipping armaments to forces in Afghanistan with an order to create instability by harming U.S. forces and destabilizing the Afghan government.
Guards agents have also been ordered to do the same in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf counties.
The Guards also announced the imminent formation of a defensive unit to deal with possible radioactive contamination. Although they did not say why, they could be preparing for a nuclear exchange with the West once Iran becomes nuclear-armed.
WND previously has reported that the chieftains in Iran also are preparing to execute their own internal critics and opponents at the right time.
This was similar to action taken by the founder of the Islamic regime in 1988, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
In the book, “A Time to Betray,” it is documented when Khomeini announced the campaign, he said, “If the person at any stage or at any time maintains his (or her) support for the opposing groups, the sentence is execution. Annihilate the enemies of Islam immediately.” source – WND
Israel Says That If Iranian Sanctions Fail A Strike MUST Happen
Feb 2nd
Play time is over
When you watch the video, the most striking thing about what he says is how he compares the Iranian nuclear situation in intensity to the 6 Day War, the War of Independence and others. It really sounds like, to us, that Israel has already decided and are simply now preparing to launch the attack. May the God of Israel go before you.
“Blow the trumpet in Zion, And sound an alarm in My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble; For the day of the LORD is coming, For it is at hand:” Joel 2:1
From J Post: Claiming that all of Iran’s nuclear facilities are vulnerable and that a military option is real and ready to be used if sanctions fail, Israel’s top political and military leadership issued a series of warnings to the Islamic Republic on Thursday in some of the most candid comments on the nuclear threat in years.
Speaking at the Herzliya Conference, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said there was a consensus among many nations today that if diplomacy and sanctions failed to stop Iran, a military strike should be launched.
“If sanctions don’t achieve the desired goal of stopping [Iran’s] military nuclear program, there will be a need to consider taking action,” he declared.
Barak said he saw Iran as nearing a stage “which may render any physical strike as impractical.”
“A nuclear Iran will be more complicated to deal with, more dangerous and more costly in blood than if it were stopped today,” he said. “In other words, he who says in English ‘later’ may find that ‘later is too late.’”
Barak’s threat was backed up earlier in the day by Vice Premier Moshe Ya’alon who said that Iran needed to be stopped “one way or another” and that a credible military threat needed to be on the table, a message also delivered by IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz on Wednesday evening.
Ya’alon, a former IDF chief of staff, dismissed arguments that underground Iranian nuclear sites such as the Fordow facility might be invulnerable to bunker-buster bombs.
“From my military experience, human beings will know how to penetrate any installation protected by other human beings. Ultimately all the facilities can be hit,” he said.
Earlier in the day, OC Military Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi said that Iran has created a stockpile of enriched uranium that could be used to manufacture four nuclear weapons.
Kochavi said that once Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made the decision to go to the “breakout stage” and begin enriching uranium to military-grade levels, it would take the Iranians a year to make a crude device and another year or two to manufacture a nuclear warhead that can be installed on a ballistic missile.
Iran, he said, has obtained 4 tons of uranium enriched to 3.5 percent and another 100 kilograms enriched to 20%.
“Iran’s motivations are: to create hegemony in the region; deterrence; and to become an international player,” Kochavi said. “They claim that they are developing the program for peaceful purposes but our intelligence shows without a doubt that Iran is continuing its work on developing a nuclear weapon.”
Israel’s increased threats came as The Washington Post reported that US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta believes Israel will attack Iran in April, May or June.
According to the report, written by the paper’s senior opinion writer David Ignatius, Panetta is concerned that Israel will attack before Iran enters the so-called “immunity zone” when its nuclear facilities will be heavily fortified and a military strike will no longer succeed. source – JPost
US Secretary of Defense Panetta Believes Israel Will Attack Iran By Spring 2012
Feb 2nd
There, he said it
US secretary of defense is concerned Israel will launch an attack before Iran enters so-called “immunity zone” when military strike won’t bust Iran’s nuclear facilities, ‘Washington Post’ reports.
United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta believes that Israel will attack Iran in April, May or June, the Washington Post reported Thursday.
United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta believes that Israel will attack Iran in April, May or June, the Washington Post reported Thursday.
According to the report, written by the paper’s senior opinion writer David Ignatius, Panetta is concerned that Israel will launch an attack before Iran enters the so-called “immunity zone” when its nuclear facilities will be heavily fortified and a military strike will no longer succeed.
Ignatius does not quote Panetta in the article but he is currently traveling with the secretary of defense in Brussels.
According to the article, Israel might decide to strike before Iran completes the fortification since afterward only America will be capable of stopping Iran militarily.
“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t want to leave the fate of Israel dependent on American action,” Ignatius wrote. According to the report, Israel’s strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities could last five days which would be followed by a United Nations-brokered ceasefire. source – JPost
