Christ Is Upset With Both Babylon And Babylon the Great (Eze 17)

Iran Dictator’s Christmas Message: Jesus Would Fight America and Israel

by JORDAN SCHACHTEL
27 Dec 2015
Washington, DC

On Christmas day, Iranian dictator Ali Khamenei took to social media and reiterated comments he made previously about Jesus, the founder of Christianity.

His account posted on Twitter:

If Jesus Christ (Peace Be Upon Him) were among us today, he would not spare a second to fight the heads of oppression and global arrogance and he would not tolerate the hunger and puzzlement of billions of people who are being exploited and pushed towards war, corruption and warmongering by the big powers.

In discussing the “arrogant powers” and “heads of oppression” in the past, Khamenei has used this terminology to refer to the United States and the “Zionist regime,” also known as Israel.

Recently, Khamenei blamed all of the problems in the Islamic world on the West, stating in comparable language:

Today, the evil policies of the US in this region which have resulted in war, bloodshed, destruction and displacement as well as poverty, backwardness and sectarian and religious rifts, on one hand, and the Zionist regime’s crimes… The painful events in the region, including Iraq, the Levant (Syria and its surrounding), Yemen and Bahrain, the West Bank, Gaza and certain other Asian and African states are the big problems of the Islamic Ummah that the fingertips of the world arrogance (the US and its allies) should be seen in them and their remedies should be found.

A modern Jesus would fight against the United States and Israel, Khamenei claims.

In recognition of “Jesus Christ’s birth anniversary,” Khamenei met with the mother of a “Christian martyr who lost life during the Iraq-Iran war,” reports state-controlled PressTV.

“The Christian minority – both Armenian and Assyrian – emerged honorably from the [1978] revolution and the [1980s Iraqi-imposed] war, as loyal, wise, insightful and brave Iranians,” Khamenei said in comments during their meeting, the report stated.

Jesus is considered a prophet in the Islamic faith, which is also a mandatory view inside Iran. Anyone who recognizes Jesus as anything more or less than an Islamic prophet “has quitted Islam,” according to Khamenei.

In Iran, apostasy from Islam is punishable by death, so publicly recognizing Jesus as a non-prophetic figure or as someone superior to a prophet can result in serious repercussions.

In recent years, Iranian converts to Christianity have been hanged. The regime has also engaged in a concerted campaign to either reconvert or kill people who have renounced Islam for Christianity.

The Inevitable War With Iran (Ezekiel 17)

 
Why the U.S. may still have to go to war against Iran

By Bennett Ramberg October 26, 2015

Effective enforcement of the Iranian nuclear deal remains a conundrum. Enshrined in the agreement is “snapback” – the restoration of international economic sanctions against Tehran should it violate the deal’s terms. Yet the expected rush of European, Russian and Chinese businesses into Iran would make such unified action questionable.

Aware that economic pressure might not be enough, U.S. officials have repeatedly declared “all options” are on the table. Though most have been reluctant to offer details, recent Pentagon talk has focused on a new bunker-buster bomb. Such talk feeds into the growing presumption that Washington would rely on air strikes if Iran violated the agreement.

Yet history shows that forceful alternatives either don’t work or are too dangerous and costly. In addition, past air strikes have proved to be unreliable. So policymakers should indeed consider all options. Previous tactics — including assassination, special-forces sabotage, technology disruption, armed forces mobiliztion, massive bombing and war — deserve another look.
Some tacks have worked better than others. Determining the best course, however, can be complicated. Here’s a list:

1) Assassination marks the nadir on the violence spectrum. It has reportedly been applied by Israel against Iraqi and Iranian scientists — for example, the bomb, delivered by motor cycle, that struck the car in Tehran in which Majid Shahriari, a senior nuclear engineer, was riding in 2010. But the tactic has failed to seriously hinder nuclear development.

2) Sabotage by special forces of nuclear installations has had more impact but is not enduring. One early application was during World War Two, when British commandos attempted to destroy a plant in Nazi-occupied Norway that produced heavy water, a vital substance Germany required for the nuclear weapons effort. Israel’s 1979 commando detonation of the Osirak reactor core as it sat in a French warehouse awaiting shipment to Iraq marks a second case. In both instances, engineers repaired the damaged equipment within months.

3) Sabotage of a different sort, including cyberattacks on Iran’s uranium- enrichment plants, as well as the adulteration of material imported to fabricate centrifuges, set back Tehran’s nuclear program by months. But that was it.

4) Air strikes. Without the precise delivery systems of current air forces, the United States tried a massive bombing campaign during World War Two to destroy the Norwegian heavy-water plant after Britain’s attempted sabotage failed. Even with that, the allies needed a follow-up commando operation to eliminate the surviving heavy-water stocks. But the success in Norway failed to halt Nazi Germany’s program back in Germany. Scientific barriers proved far more important in undermining the Nazi effort.

With more advanced aircraft, Israel’s bombardment of Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981, and Syria’s Al Kibar reactor in 2007, succeeded far more efficiently. The destruction of Syria’s reactor may be the most effective use of force in history. With few resources to rebuild the North Korean-engineered plant, Damascus abandoned its nuclear effort.

The attack on Iraq’s Osirak reactor told another story. Here, destruction prompted Baghdad to undertake a 10-year covert effort to enrich uranium. By some estimates, Iraq was within a year of succeeding when the 1991 Persian Gulf War broke out.

But bombing will not prevent efforts at covert reconstruction by countries with the personnel, drive, resources and effective stealth to do the job. Iran, unlike Syria, falls into this category.

5) War or the threat of war. In the end, the only forceful policy that eliminated emerging nuclear weapons programs with certainty — putting aside voluntary monitored relinquishment by former Soviet states, South Africa and Libya — was the successful wars waged against Nazi Germany in World War Two and Iraq in 1991. Occupying military forces in the first case, and international inspectors in the second, were able to eliminate all nuclear contraband.

War, however, remains the most costly option, in both blood and treasure.

It also adds a wrinkle, not in its application, but in its gestation. The Cuban missile crisis demonstrated that threat manipulation — preparations for the use of overwhelming military force to invade the island, coupled with the naval quarantine and the ramping up of the alert status of the nuclear arsenal — intimidated Moscow to abandon its Cuba gambit.

But coercive diplomacy is never a sure thing. Think about the massive buildups undertaken by U.S. and allied forces against Iraq in 1991 and 2003. Both failed to intimidate, and war ensued.
6) There is one last option of the “all options” alternative that policymakers appear loath to talk about: acceptance of Iran as a nuclear armed state. Farfetched? Even the Israelis apparently gave a nod to that possibility when Ehud Barak, former prime minister and defense minister, recently revealed that, between 2010 and 2012, Jerusalem seriously contemplated military action against Iran but then got cold feet.

For Washington to take this course would actually be consistent with historic behavior. When faced with a nuclear buildup in China during the early 1960s, North Korea in recent years and the Soviet Union at the beginning of the Cold War, the United States decided that managing an adversary with an emerging nuclear arsenal was a better course than using force to stop it. Of course, acceptance of Iran into the nuclear club banks that it will be a responsible steward of the bomb.

History’s lessons for halting Iran’s nuclear temptation are sobering. “All options are on the table” may be a nice catch phrase — but if the mullahs attempt a nuclear breakout, only a winning war would guarantee full success.

Half measures, notably air strikes, may buy time to sway Tehran to rethink its nuclear course. But the past’s inconvenient truth remains: Unless Iran complies with the recent agreement and the underlying nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Washington faces a daunting choice should snapback fail. It can go to war or bet that deterrence applied against nuclear adversaries in the past will work again against Iran’s revolutionary regime.

IRAN: Trump’s Terrible Tehran Toupee (Ezekiel 17)

Trump’s Sarah Palin moment: A big goof when it comes to Iran’s top general

By Tod Robberson / Editorial Writer
Published: September 4, 2015 10:41 am

This was not a gotcha interview set up to trap and confuse GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump. It was a legitimate question about a hot-button topic — Iran — that Trump has already pontificated upon repeatedly. As president, Trump would actually need to know about important things going on in the world. So it’s up to Donald Trump to know his stuff. He made a fool of himself, not unlike when Sarah Palin first ventured into the unfamiliar territory of foreign affairs not so long ago.

The question is absolutely relevant because Gen. Qassem Suleimani is commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force. He has been a major thorn in the side of U.S. military and foreign policy for two decades. When the American president asks who is the Iranian personality most likely to find a way for Iran to cheat on any nuclear deal, the name Qassem Suleimani goes to the top of the list. It is incumbent on anyone seeking the nation’s highest office to know exactly who Qassem Suleimani is, and why he’s important.

The seminal piece on Suleimani was written by Dexter Filkins in 2013 for The New Yorker, a magazine published in Trump’s home town. He might consider reading it sometime. Suleimani made life hell for the Americans in Iraq shortly after the 2003 U.S. invasion.

Ryan Crocker was ambassador during the roughest times there. He didn’t even slightly hesitate when I asked him in a November 2013 interview why we should care about Qassem Suleimani and his influence when it comes to negotiations with Iran.

“[Command and coordination of] Hezbollah and other irregular forces, and assistance to them, were put under the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, which, since the mid-1990s, has been commanded by Qassem Suleimani. So he’s the guy. He reports directly to Khamenei. Not to the president, not to the defense minister. He’s the guy that’s responsible for all of Iran’s overseas operations. And since 2009, the so-called Green Revolution, he was also given responsibility for internal security. That is one heck of a lot of power.

“He ran Hezbollah against us and the Israelis. He backs Hamas and the Palestine Islamic Jihad. He has harbored al-Qaeda. He, with Hezbollah, created Muqtada al-Sadr’s militia, Jaish al-Mahdi. When I got off the helicopter on a warm night in March in ’07 in Baghdad, it looked frighteningly like the Beirut I had left a quarter of a century earlier. The Syrians supporting Sunni insurgents and al-Qaeda elements infiltrating into Iraq, and Iran supporting Jaish al-Mahdi and numerous militias elsewhere in the country. It worked for them in Lebanon, and almost worked for them in Iraq. Again, the individual responsible for coordinating all of those activities, moving individuals around, planning operations, coordinating with Syria on these issues is Suleimani. And it’s been Suleimani for close to 20 years.”

Compare that lucid answer to Trump when questioned by Hugh Hewitt:
Hewitt: Are you familiar with General Suleimani?
Trump:: Yes, but go ahead, give me a little, go ahead, tell me.
Hewitt: He runs the Quds Forces.
Trump: Yes, OK, right.
Hewitt: Do you expect his behavior …
Trump: The Kurds, by the way, have been horribly mistreated by …
Hewitt: No, not the Kurds, the Quds Forces, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Forces.
Trump: Yes, yes.
Hewitt: … is the bad guys.
Trump: Right.
Hewitt: Do you expect his behavior to change as a result …
Trump: Oh, I thought you said Kurds, Kurds.
Hewitt: No, Quds.
Hewitt pressed Trump on other leaders of groups with whom the United States is grappling: Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, the Nusra Front. Trump drew a blank.
“You know, those are like history questions. Do you know this one, do you know that one … But as far as the individual players, of course I don’t know them. I’ve never met them. I haven’t been, you know, in a position to meet them. If, if they’re still there, which is unlikely in many cases, but if they’re still there, I will know them better than I know you,” Trump replied.
Recall the uproar over Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign ad during the 2008 Democratic primary, when she questioned voters over who’d they be most comfortable with when the White House phone rings at 3 a.m. with a major crisis brewing in the world.
Here’s how Donald Trump would handle that 3 a.m. phone call:
White House Aide: Mister president, the Quds Force has just launched a full-blown attack on Saudi Arabia along with their proxies in Yemen.
President Trump: Kurds, gotta love those guys. We sure treated them bad.
Aide: Quds Force, Mister President. Invading Saudi Arabia.
Trump: Saudis. Didn’t they buy one of my buildings?
Aide: Sir, this is urgent. We need to get you on the phone with the Saudi king immediately.
Trump: Wait, and who is that? Suleimani or something?
Aide: Salman, sir. King Salman.
Trump: So he’s the king of Yemen? Or the Kurds?
Aide: No sir, he’s the king of Saudi Arabia. That’s the big desert kingdom in between Egypt and the Persian Gulf. They have lots of oil. President Obama signed a $1 billion arms deal with them.
Trump: So what’s this all about? I thought Saudi Arabia and Egypt were allies. Were they bad to the Kurds?
Aide: Sir, this is about Iran and Saudi Arabia. The Quds Force.
Trump: Ohhh. I thought you said Kurds before. That’s funny.
Aide: Never mind, sir. We just got word that Saudi Arabia has been overrun and the ruling family has been overthrown. Go back to sleep.

The connection between nuclear power and nuclear weapons

 

Two connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons

Dot Sulock, OPINION
8 hours ago

Nuclear fission can produce heat to boil water, produce steam, turn a turbine and make electricity. Nuclear fission occurs when a neutron splits an atom into smaller atoms, releasing extra neutrons. These extra neutrons, under the right circumstances, can split other nearby atoms, causing a chain reaction to occur. This process is controlled in a nuclear reactor and the heat released from fission boils the water instead of boiling the water by burning coal or natural gas. The fission process is better for the atmosphere than burning fossil fuels.

Using nuclear fission to produce electricity has a few problems that won’t be discussed today: Chance of catastrophic accident, risk of terrorist attack on a reactor, risk of attack on a reactor in war, heavy need for water for cooling, high costs, and waste disposal issues connected to the long-lived, lethally radioactive waste produced during the fission process.

Today I want to point out that exporting nuclear power to other parts of the world may make money for America’s nuclear corporations, but is a bad idea if we are seeking a sustainable world. The reason exporting nuclear power is a bad idea is that nuclear power is always connected to nuclear weapons in two ways.

First is the input connection. The isotopes that fission in ordinary reactors are U-235. U-235 has three less neutrons than U-238 and it fissions, whereas U-238 does not fission. Uranium in the ground is more than 99 percent U-238 and less than 1 percent U-235. But ordinary reactors need about 5 percent U-235 in their fuel to make the fission go.

Something called “enrichment” is done producing reactor fuel. Enrichment increases the 1 percent U-235 in mined uranium to 5 percent U-235 reactor fuel. So far so good.

But here’s the bad news. If a nation keeps enriching, it can increase the percentage of U-235 to 80 percent or so and now the material will fission so quickly that it is an atomic bomb. The atomic bomb that we exploded over Hiroshima, Japan, had highly enriched uranium as its explosive material. So a nation that can enrich to reactor fuel levels can enrich to weapons grade.

The second connection between nuclear power and nuclear weapons is the output connection. The other fissile material that can be used for atomic bombs is plutonium. Plutonium doesn’t exist naturally. Plutonium is produced in nuclear reactors. When the reactor fuel no longer fissions well after several years, the spent fuel is removed and fresh fuel is put into the reactor. Each commercial nuclear reactor producing electricity has produced enough plutonium for about 45 atomic bombs every year. This plutonium is in the spent fuel of the reactor and can be removed from it. Removing the plutonium from the spent fuel is called “reprocessing.” Reprocessing must be done by robots because the spent fuel is deadly radioactive for humans. The atomic bomb that we exploded over Nagasaki, Japan, had plutonium as its explosive material.

So nuclear power doesn’t make clean, green electricity. Nuclear power is dangerous, expensive, and always connected to nuclear weapons. Why, then, do so many nations seek nuclear power? Perhaps because of the nuclear power/nuclear weapons connections. Right now the Nonproliferation Treaty prohibits the nations that belong to it from developing nuclear weapons if they don’t already have them. But if this treaty falls apart some time in the future, nations with nuclear technology already in place will be able to develop nuclear weapons quickly. And the treaty permits nations to withdraw from it, as North Korea has already done. So if a nation decides to use its “peaceful” nuclear technologies to develop nuclear weapons, it can withdraw from the Nonproliferation treaty.

In parting I would like to point out that the mission of the International Atomic Energy Agency should be changed. The IAEA promotes nuclear power around the world, which ultimately endangers human civilization. The mission of the IAEA needs to be changed.

Dorothy Sulock lives in Asheville.

When America Became Babylon The Great (Rev 17)

 
When did America forget that it’s America?

By Natan Sharansky | Posted 15 hours ago

On a number of occasions during the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, the Israeli government has appealed to the United States and its allies to demand a change in Tehran’s aggressive behavior. If Iran wishes to be treated as a normal state, Israel has said, then it should start acting like one.

Unfortunately, these appeals have been summarily dismissed. The Obama administration apparently thinks that only after a nuclear agreement is signed can the free world expect Iran to stop its attempts at regional domination, improve its human rights record and, in general, behave like the civilized state it hopes the world will recognize it to be.

“Iran feels no need to tone down its rhetoric calling for the death of America and wiping Israel off the map.

As a former Soviet dissident, I cannot help but compare this approach to that of the United States during its decadeslong negotiations with the Soviet Union, which at the time was a global superpower and a existential threat to the free world. The differences are striking and revealing.

For starters, consider that the Soviet regime felt obliged to make its first ideological concession simply to enter into negotiations with the United States about economic cooperation. At the end of the 1950s, Moscow abandoned its doctrine of fomenting a worldwide communist revolution and adopted in its place a credo of peaceful coexistence between communism and capitalism.

The Soviet leadership paid a high price for this concession, both internally — in the form of millions of citizens, like me, who had been obliged to study Marxism and Leninism as the truth and now found their partial abandonment confusing — and internationally, in their relations with the Chinese and other dogmatic communists who viewed the change as a betrayal. Nevertheless, the Soviet government understood that it had no other way to get what it needed from the United States.

Imagine what would have happened if instead, after completing a round of negotiations over disarmament, the Soviet Union had declared that its right to expand communism across the continent was not up for discussion. This would have spelled the end of the talks. Yet today, Iran feels no need to tone down its rhetoric calling for the death of America and wiping Israel off the map.

***

Of course, changes in rhetoric did not change the Soviet Union’s policy, which included sending missiles to Cuba, tanks to Prague and armies to Afghanistan. But each time, such aggression caused a serious crisis in relations between Moscow and Washington, influencing the atmosphere and results of negotiations between them. So, for example, when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan shortly after the SALT II agreement had been signed, the United States quickly abandoned the deal and accompanying discussions.

Today, by contrast, apparently no amount of belligerence on Iran’s part can convince the free world that Tehran has disqualified itself from the negotiations or the benefits being offered therein. Over the past month alone, as nuclear discussions continued apace, we watched Iran’s proxy terror group, Hezbollah, transform into a full-blown army on Israel’s northern border, and we saw Tehran continue to impose its rule on other countries, adding Yemen to the list of those under its control.

Then there is the question of human rights. When American negotiations with the Soviets reached the issue of trade, and in particular the lifting of sanctions and the conferring of most- favored-nation status on the Soviet Union, the Senate, led by Democrat Henry Jackson, insisted on linking economic normalization to Moscow’s allowing freedom of emigration. By the next year, when the Helsinki agreement was signed, the White House had joined Congress in making the Soviets’ treatment of dissidents a central issue in nearly every negotiation.

Iran’s dismal human rights record, by contrast, has gone entirely unmentioned in the recent negotiations. Sadly, America’s reticence is familiar: In 2009, in response to the democratic uprisings that mobilized so many Iranian citizens, President Obama declared that engaging the theocratic regime would take priority over changing it.

***

Reality is complicated, and the use of historical analogies is always somewhat limited. But even this superficial comparison shows that what the United States saw fit to demand back then from the most powerful and dangerous competitor it had ever known is now considered beyond the pale in its dealings with Iran.

Why the dramatic shift? One could suggest a simple answer: Today there is something the United States wants badly from Iran, leaving Washington and its allies with little bargaining power to demand additional concessions. Yet in fact Iran has at least as many reasons to hope for a deal. For Tehran, the lifting of sanctions could spell the difference between bankruptcy and becoming a regional economic superpower, and in slowing down its arms race it could avoid a military attack.

I am afraid that the real reason for the U.S. stance is not its assessment, however incorrect, of the two sides’ respective interests but rather a tragic loss of moral self-confidence. While negotiating with the Soviet Union, U.S. administrations of all stripes felt certain of the moral superiority of their political system over the Soviet one. They felt they were speaking in the name of their people and the free world as a whole, while the leaders of the Soviet regime could speak for no one but themselves and the declining number of true believers still loyal to their ideology.

But in today’s postmodern world, when asserting the superiority of liberal democracy over other regimes seems like the quaint relic of a colonialist past, even the United States appears to have lost the courage of its convictions.

We have yet to see the full consequences of this moral diffidence, but one thing is clear: The loss of America’s self-assured global leadership threatens not only the United States and Israel but also the people of Iran and a growing number of others living under Tehran’s increasingly emboldened rule. Although the hour is growing late, there is still time to change course — before the effects grow more catastrophic still.

Natan Sharansky, a human rights activist and former political prisoner in the Soviet Union, is chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel.

© The Washington Post News Service with Bloomberg News

Babylon Still Gets It Wrong (Ezekiel 17)

The US built a secret replica of Iran’s nuclear facilities deep in Tennessee’s forest to help gain an edge in negotiations
ARMIN ROSEN APR. 22, 2015, 2:48 PM

The US government built “a secret replica of Iran’s nuclear facilities” deep in the forests of Tennessee to gain an edge in its negotiations with Iran, reports The New York Times.

This “Manhattan Project in reverse” is situated on the grounds of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It uses placeholder centrifuges meant to represent Iranian equipment — an assembly that including centrifuges once belonging to Libya’s disbanded nuclear program. 

Scientists there are dedicating themselves to figuring out technical formulas that could stop Iran from developing a weapon.

It’s possible that the Times article is based on administration-authorized leaks of classified information — Ernest Moniz, the Secretary of Energy, is quoted in the article, as are a range of named and anonymous scientists from US government laboratories. 

But it’s thin on the details of how the replica facilities were used to reach the one-year breakout determination. 

Scientists apparently proposed redesigns, centrifuge cascade configurations, limits on types of centrifuges, and other fixes that they believed would keep Iranian breakout at under a year. Eventually, they reached an equation that the Iranians could accept.

The Obama administration has premised its arguments for a nuclear deal with Iran on the claim that for a period of 10 years, limits imposed on the Islamic Republic would make it nearly impossible for the country to build a single nuclear weapon in less than a year without the international community learning about it and formulating a response.

The Times doesn’t go into much detail as to what those fixes actually consist of, but reports that government scientists reached a high level of confidence that their formula could keep Iran at a one-year breakout. 

For instance: “The question was whether a proposed design of Natanz [Iran’s only uranium enrichment facility for the first 15 years of an envisioned nuclear deal] that allowed more than 6,000 centrifuges to spin would still accomplish the administration’s goal of keeping Iran at least a year away from acquiring enough enriched uranium to make a bomb,” the Times article states. “The answer was yes.”

Some outside experts aren’t so sure.

In a report issued on April 11th and authored by a group of scientists that included physicist and former International Atomic Energy Agency expert David Albright, the Institute for Science and International Security noticed a curious aspect to the administration’s breakout estimates: they didn’t seem to take into account Iran’s supply of 20% enriched uranium, fissile material has undergone around 90% of the revolutions needed to reach weapons-grade.

Iran oxidized half of its 20% stock (and down-blended the other half to a lower level of enrichment) under the November 2013 Joint Plan of Action signed between Iran and a group of 6 countries led by the US.

As the ISIS report explains, in leaving the oxidized 20% stocks out of its breakout estimate, the administration seems to believe that reconverting that 20% to a state where it can be further enriched and weaponized would be such a time-consuming, intensive, and obvious process that Iran’s 20% stocks simple don’t need to be factored into weaponization scenarios.

The ISIS report is skeptical. It says Iran could render its 20% stocks usable in just a few months and that it’s hugely relevant to any breakout scenario.

“The near 20 percent LEU stock, unless largely eliminated or rendered unusable in a breakout, could be an important reserve in reducing the time to produce the first significant quantity of weapon-grade uranium (WGU) and rapidly producing a second significant quantity of WGU,” the report states.

According the series of fact sheets released after the Lausanne, Switzerland nuclear talks concluded, Iran would be allowed to keep a stockpile of 300 kilograms of uranium enriched to 3.67% under a final deal. Even a small amount of uranium at 20% enrichment would far surpass this stockpile in weaponization potential: “a rule of thumb is that 50 kilograms of near 20 percent LEU hexafluoride (or about 33 kilograms uranium mass) is equivalent in terms of shortening breakout time to 500 kilograms of 3.5 percent LEU hexafluoride,” the report says. 

And Iran has plenty of convertible 20% on hand — around 228 kilograms of uranium mass of near-20%, which would come out to 337 kilograms of near-20% if it were “converted back to hexaflouride form.”

Much of the 20% is “in forms where the LEU could be recovered in a straightforward manner.” But the report found no proof that the 20% had been included in the administration’s breakout estimate, and concluded that “the US evaluation requires greater scrutiny.”

That isn’t the only ambiguity surrounding the administration’s breakout claims. 

As Bloomberg reported on April 21, the administration only declassified its actual breakout estimate — which states that Iran is currently between 2 and 3 months away from building a single nuclear weapon, if it chose to do so — on April 1st, the day before the series of announcements that marked the conclusion of the Lausanne, Switzerland round of nuclear negotiations. Ali Khadery, a former advisor to US Central Command and the US official who spent the longest time in Iraq during the American military campaign in that country, suggested on Twitterthat an approximate 2-3 month breakout estimate dated from as early as 2009.

The New York Times article gives an idea of the scientific infrastructure the US is using to evaluate its breakout claims. It’s now know that there are scientists using a mock-up of Iranian nuclear facilities to produce conditions for reaching a one-year breakout time. 

The methods they’re actually using for reaching those conclusions, and the relationship between the administration’s public breakout claims and Iran’s actual timetable under a final deal,  both remain as vague as ever.

The First Horn Is Nearly Complete (Daniel 8:3)

Iran Speeding to Nuclear Weapons Breakout

by Bassam Tawil
February 13, 2015 at 5:00 am

Iran, with its proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and Yemen, has surrounded all the oil fields in the region and is currently busy encircling Jordan, Israel and Palestine.

Iran not only reaches now from Afghanistan to the Mediterranean, but Iranian Shi’ites have been spreading out through Africa and South America.

By the time U.S. President Barack Obama leaves office, Iran will not only have nuclear breakout capability, but also the intercontinental ballistic missiles to deliver its nuclear warheads to Europe and North America.

If Iran can finally drive the U.S. out of the Gulf by threatening U.S. assets, it will be free to pursue still further expansion.

If the deal signed with Iran is full of loopholes, it is Obama who will be blamed. Does Obama really want his legacy to be, “The President who was even a bigger fool than Neville Chamberlain”? He will not be seen as “Nixon in China.” He will be seen as the Eid al-Adha lamb.

Recently, foreign ministers from the European Union (EU) have been holding meetings with representatives of the Arab and Muslim world, including Turkey and Qatar, with the intention of forming a “joint task force to fight Islamist terrorism.”

Turkey and Qatar, for example, directly encourage Islamist terrorism, thus there is no way they can be part of a task force to act against it.

In some Islamic thinking, such nonsense, because of its certain lack of ever seeing the light, is merely a prologue to the ultimate war between Gog and Magog (“yagug wamagu”), and heralds the End of Days.

The Arab-Muslim world engages in perpetual internal strife. Iran, for instance, with its proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and Yemen, has surrounded all the oil fields in the region, and is currently busy encircling Jordan, Israel and the Palestinians. Iran not only reaches now from Afghanistan to the Mediterranean, but Iranian Shi’ites have been spreading out through Africa and South America. Another sign of the End of Days is the United States’ collaboration with Iran against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. It means the world will eventually pay for America’s looking the other way while the Iranians are building nuclear bombs in their cellars.

These cellars may currently be distant from the shores of the United States, but they are close to all the oil fields in the Middle East. By the time U.S. President Barack Obama leaves office, Iran will not only have nuclear breakout capability, but also intercontinental ballistic missiles to deliver its nuclear warheads. Its next target will be U.S. assets in the Gulf. If Iran can finally drive the U.S. “Great Satan” out of the Gulf by threatening U.S. assets, it will be free to pursue still further expansion.

These are or will be the victims of America’s determination to drag out the problem of an exploding Middle East. That way, U.S. President Barack Obama can hand the region over to the next president, while forever pretending that the vacuum created by pulling U.S. troops out of the Middle East — now being filled by Iran, the Islamic State and other terror groups — had nothing to do with him.

This situation leaves, ironically, the lone voice of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu crying in the wilderness. As much as many of us may not like him or the people he represents, he is one of the two world leaders in the West telling the truth, warning of what is to come (Geert Wilders of the Netherlands is the other). This burden of responsibility for his people (how many of us wish our leaders had even a bit of that?) has earned him only the venom of the Obama Administration, who see him as trying to spoil their strategy of leading by procrastination.

It is also becoming increasingly clear that the Obama Administration’s policy consists of running after Iran, in order to concede everything it wants, just to be able wave a piece of paper not worth the ink on it, claiming there is “a deal.” Iran, for its part, would probably prefer not to sign anything, and most likely will not. Meanwhile, both sides continue strenuously to claim the opposite.

Western leaders just seem not to be programmed to understand the capabilities of other leaders, and how they, too, negotiate, manipulate and hide behind lies. Obama’s Russian “Reset Button” did not work; his “Al Qaeda is on the run,” did not work; “We shall never let Russia take the Ukraine” did not work; and the unwinnable Israel-Palestinian “Peace Process” did not work.

Obama, in order to wave a piece of paper not worth the ink on it, seems eager to fall victim to bogus promises, worthless treaties and other leaders’ outright lies — only to look an even bigger fool than Britain’s former Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain. After meeting with Germany’s with Adolf Hitler in 1938, Chamberlain returned to Britain boasting of “peace in our time.” But Chamberlain did not have the luxury of seeing a Chamberlain duped before him. If the deal signed with Iran is full of loopholes, it is Obama who will be blamed. Does Obama really want his legacy to be, “The president who was an even bigger fool than Neville Chamberlain”? He will not be seen as “Nixon in China.” He will be seen as the Eid al-Adha lamb.

Bassam Tawil is a scholar based in the Middle East.

Too Late To Stop The Inevitable (Revelation 15:2)

Stop the Islamic Republic bomb!

Paulo Casaca

11 February 2015

Paulo Casaca is founder of the Brussels based international co-operation associatio ARCHumankind, “Alliance to Renew Co-operation among Humankind”, and the “Euro Reform Initiative”

As the Iranian Islamic Republic marks its thirty sixth anniversary, the US administration makes ever more clear its will to reach a nuclear deal with Iran at any cost.According to the Washington Post editorial board, in spite of the fact it habitually defends the talks and shuts down objections to them, the latest proposal from US negotiators “raises major concerns” about the probable consequences of inking an agreement along those lines.The apparent change of heart comes in response to reports indicating that the US is on the verge of allowing Iran to keep all or nearly all of its currently operational uranium enrichment centrifuges. The goalposts for an agreement have already been moved at least once. The Obama administration started the negotiating process a year ago with the demand that Iran reduce its stockpile of centrifuges to about 2000, but later more than doubled that figure to 4,500.

  Tehran has shown none of that sort of flexibility. Its proposal today is the same as it was at the beginning: Iran will give up none of its centrifuges over the short term, and will reserve the right to dramatically increase its enrichment capability within a few years after the signing of a final agreement.
We have a serious problem on our hands if this is as far as we can get with Tehran. And the problem is all the more serious if the US proves willing to let it go at that, essentially betraying the entire premise behind bringing Iran to the negotiating table in the first place.
Why would we do that? Well, many of Obama’s critics on this issue, including a surprising number of democratic congressmen, worry that it is because the president has mistakenly conceptualized Iran as an island of stability in the sea of volatility that is the Middle East. Indeed, a previous upsurge in criticism of the president came late last year when it was revealed that he had written at least three personal letters to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei insisting that Iran and the US have common interests and suggesting that the two should partner together in order to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
The only way this could be justifiable is if Iran’s stability was not so interwoven with its government’s repressive strength, as wielded both at home and abroad. As it is, this is not like a partnership with another stable democracy, or even with the US’s established allies in the region. Instead, it reflects a policy that says, according to Michael Doran in an editorial in Mosaic Magazine, “To rid the world of rogues and tyrants, one must embrace and soften them.”
This is a fallacy that history proved repeatedly wrong! The embrace of tyranny, theocracy and extremism is fundamentally counter to our values. And not only is it cynically unprincipled; it is painfully impractical. Just consider what our embrace of Iran’s dictatorial leadership has gotten us:
The situation in Iraq and Syria has gotten worse, not better. Iran’s constant presence on the regional battlefields has made local forces subservient to a loose collective of Shiite militias. These may now be fighting ISIL, but they are doing so using the same terror technics as this organisation, turning the entire Middle East into a breeding ground for sectarianism, which encourages recruitment of militants on both sides of the divide.
And that promotion of sectarianism hasn’t been confined to Iraq and Syria by any stretch of the imagination. Just days ago, the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen dissolved the countries parliament, delivering what is presumably the penultimate blow to a stable, pro-Western government in the region, which US forces had been using as a base of operations in an ongoing fight against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, widely considered to be the most dangerous Al Qaeda offshoot.
In series of events that serve almost as a metaphor for what has been going on elsewhere in the region, the ascendance of the Houthi as a competitor to AQAP has actually led to an increase in local terrorist attacks and reprisals by both groups. Meanwhile, missiles and gunfire have been newly exchanged between Israel and Hezbollah, stemming from Iran/Hezbollah joint efforts to take up positions in the Golan Heights, on Israel’s border.

The Washington Post editorial board acknowledged last week that among other “major concerns” about the Obama administration’s approach to nuclear negotiations, critics have called attention to its apparent unwillingness to confront Iran about any of its aggressive expansions into surrounding territories.

It seems clear that, far from contributing to stability in the Middle East, the administration’s soft approach to Iran threatens to spread instability. Perhaps worse still, this policy has helped to reinforce Tehran’s tenuous hold on power, giving it legitimacy and financial rewards in spite of its non-compromise on the nuclear issue, despite the weakening influence of economic sanctions, despite the disaffection of the Iranian people, and despite the organized, international opposition to the regime.

In light of the rising tide of criticism, I remain hopeful that President Obama and his advisors may yet come to understand that the “island of stability” is a myth and that any attempt to ground ourselves with Iran will only result in us drowning in an increasingly turbulent Middle East.

If the president cannot be convinced of this, it will fall to the US Congress to push back against conciliatory gestures legitimizing tyranny. Senate Democrats already gave the president a wide berth when they agreed to delay voting on a new Iran sanctions bill until after the deadline for a framework nuclear agreement in March. I would urge them not to stand down for any longer than that, and to keep up alternative forms of pressure in the meantime, so as not to allow Tehran to make the world a still more dangerous place.

Brussels, 2015-02-11

Let’s Make A Deal (Daniel 8)

Iran’s Khamenei hints ready to accept fair nuclear deal as talks proceed

By Mehrdad Balali and Shadia Nasralla
DUBAI/MUNICH | Sun Feb 8, 2015 8:19am EST
By Mehrdad Balali and Shadia Nasralla

DUBAI/MUNICH (Reuters) - Iran’s paramount leader suggested on Sunday he could back a fair nuclear accord with world powers in which neither side got everything it wanted, boosting Iranian negotiators under fire from hardliners at home opposed to rapprochement with the West.

“I would go along with any agreement that could be made. Of course, I am not for a bad deal. No agreement is better than an agreement which runs contrary to our nation’s interests,” clerical Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a statement issued by his office carried by ISNA news agency.
But in a message that appeared to back up the conciliatory approach of President Hassan Rouhani, who revived diplomacy with Western powers soon after his landslide election in 2013, Khamenei said: “As the president (has) said, negotiations mean reaching a common point. Therefore, the other party … should not expect its illogical expectations to be materialized.

“This means that one side would not end up getting all it wants,” said Khamenei, in office since 1989 and long known for his rejectionist stances against detente with the West until he cleared Rouhani to try to end the long-running nuclear dispute with the West, which has cost Iran international isolation.

However, Khamenei, in a remark apparently meant to keep powerful hardline loyalists on side, reiterated: “The Iranian nation will not accept any excessive demands and illogical behavior.”
The West suspects Iran of covertly seeking a nuclear weapons capability instead of, as the major oil producer maintains, an alternative civilian energy source through its enrichment of uranium. Iran denies having any nuclear arms agenda.

A comprehensive nuclear deal is seen as crucial to reducing the risk of a wider Middle East war, at a time when Iran is deeply involved in conflicts in Syria and Iraq. After nearly a year of talks, negotiators failed for the second time in November to meet a self-imposed deadline for an agreement.

Khamenei added that he “firmly” backed a continuation of the negotiations and called for a single-stage, “detailed” agreement – suggesting Tehran still wanted sanctions lifted swiftly rather than gradually as the powers want.

His comments coincided with a series of meetings between Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and top diplomats from the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and France at the annual high-profile Munich Security Conference.

Zarif described this as a “very serious discussion”.

Negotiators have set a June 30 final deadline for a deal to end the 12-year stand-off over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions and limit its nuclear program in exchange for lifting sanctions, after giving themselves a seven-month extension last November.

Western officials said they aim to agree on the substance of a final accord by March but that more time would be needed to reach a consensus on crucial technical details.

Major sticking points continue to be the pace at which sanctions would be removed, the size of Iran’s nuclear fuel-producing capacity – a key consideration in preventing any output of bomb material – and the length of any agreement.

“Our (nuclear) negotiators are trying to take the weapon of sanctions away from the enemy. If they can, so much the better. If they fail, everyone should know there are many ways at our disposal to dull this weapon,” said Khamenei.

Khamenei, who holds the highest office in the Islamic Republic with powers to overrule laws, has taken a skeptical stand on the nuclear talks. But he has also repeatedly endorsed Rouhani’s course on ending the economically crippling nuclear stand-off against harsh criticism from hardliners in parliament, the Shi’ite clergy and the powerful Revolutionary Guards.

Tehran and Washington severed diplomatic relations after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, but later restored tentative direct contact on specific issues such as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and more recently as part of bilateral consultations to help settle the 12-year nuclear dispute.

Separately, Zarif denied on Sunday a Reuters report quoting unidentified senior Iranian officials that he had told the United States during the talks that Rouhani’s political clout would be heavily damaged if negotiations failed.

Like Khamenei, Zarif insisted on the need to scrap the sanctions, saying they were not an “asset” in negotiations.

“Sanctions are a liability. You need to get rid of them if you want a solution,” he told the Munich gathering.

Israel, which sees Iran’s nuclear aspirations as a mortal threat, promised to do everything in its power to thwart what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned would be a “bad and dangerous agreement” from Israel’s point of view.

“World powers and Iran are charging ahead to an agreement that would allow Iran to arm itself with nuclear weaponry, something that would imperil the existence of the State of Israel,” Netanyahu told his weekly cabinet meeting.

U.S. Senator John McCain, a hawkish Republican, warned in Munich that while Iran was negotiating now, its underlying goal was “to drive Western influence out of the Middle East”.

(Additional reporting by Stephen Brown and Noah Barkin in Munich, Dan Williams in Jerusalem and Parisa Hafezi in Ankara; Writing by Stephen Brown; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Christ Has Nothing To Do With Political Agendas, But Mohammed's Allah Does

Dueling Christmas Messages from Tehran and Iranian Resistance

Iran News Update
25 December 2014

Iranian regime Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and National Council of Resistance of Iran President Maryam Rajavi have each marked this year’s Christmas holiday with their own messages to Christians and others, invoking the memory of Jesus to support contrasting narratives.
Khamenei used Jesus’ name in a series of tweets on Christmas Eve, describing the Christian savior and Muslim prophet as a would-be ally in conflicts against Israel and Iran’s adversaries. Rajavi, on the other hand, quoted the Jesus of the Quran as saying, “I shall bring blessing and dignity to all people wherever I may be.”

In her Christmas letter to friends and supporters of the Iranian resistance, Rajavi went on to call renewed attention to human rights abuses and the denial of dignity to ethnic and religious minorities in Iran, including Christians. In her one-page message she cited Tehran-backed attacks on Iranian exile communities in Iraq, as well as a series of acid attacks on improperly veiled women as examples of these human rights abuses.

Khamenei’s Christmas Even tweets appeared to be broader in scope but less specific and repeatedly used “Jesus” as a hashtag to criticize Israel and the “arrogant” powers that Tehran has long identified as its lifelong enemies.

“It’s time for all caring Muslims, Christians & Jews to obey the prophets & truly honor #Jesus’ birthday by standing up agnst Israeli crimes,” said one tweet.

Others linked the Christmas holiday to ongoing protests in the United States over the deaths of several African Americans at the hands of police officers. “Unconcerned abt the teachings of #Jesus, arrogants have tightened the living sphere for nations and oppressed ppl,” said another tweet, concluding with the trending hashtag “BlackLivesMatter.”

It is not the first time that Khamenei has co-opted Western activists social media campaigns to advance an Iranian agenda. In May, his official Twitter account used the American feminist hashtag “YesAllWomen” in order to tweet criticism of the “sexual sins” of Western nations and it their effect on families.

Khamenei’s English-language tweets on these and other topics consistently avoid addressing obvious contradictions between his remarks about foreign governments and his own country’s domestic policies, which include policies banning men and women from co-mingling in public places and barring members of ethnic and religious minorities from education and other government services.

Rajavi’s Christmas message of course addressed these issues in Khamenei’s stead. “We shall not forget all those jailed, tortured and executed simply for believing in a cause greater than themselves: Freedom,” she wrote before going on to look ahead to the future of the nation from which her group has been exiled since the 1980s: “In 2015, we will renew our commitment to a free, non-nuclear and democratic Iran.”

Jesus Would Condemn Both Israel And Iran

Tehran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, used his Twitter account to lambaste Israel by invoking Jesus.

Khamenei’s Iron Fist

The Jerusalem Post

Iran’s ruler took to Twitter on Christmas Eve to remind the world that “if Jesus were alive today, he would stand up against Israeli crimes.”

Tehran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, used his Twitter account to lambaste Israel by invoking Jesus.

Khamenei also conflated Israeli “crimes” in Gaza with the racial unrest that has spread in the United States following the shooting death of an unarmed black man by police in Ferguson, Missouri.

Iranian Hegemony

Iran All Set To Dominate Middle East

By Manish Rai
Pakistan Christian Post

The Middle East is currently the arena for a cross-border sectarian war. The weakening or collapse of repressive regimes has unleashed a fierce war for succession between rival populations, with Shia and Sunni Arabs the main protagonists. This process is playing itself not only in Iraq and Syria but in almost all the countries of the region. The regional rivalry between Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia is being intensified. The Iranians are the central pillar of the united and cohesive Shia-dominated bloc which includes the Assad regime in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon and its allies, the government of Iraq and the Shia militias in that country. The Saudis are now the main force seeking to stem the Iranian advance. The anti-western Turkey-Qatar-Muslim Brotherhood alliance is also an important element on the Sunni side. But now Iran is gaining the upper hand in the Sunni-Shia rift. Iran got another victory in spreading its influence in the region. The Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen has made very significant gains in recent weeks, largely ignored by the western media. With this development Iran has reached to the gates of the Sunni powerhouse of Saudi Arabia.

After Iraq and Syria the events in Yemen ought to concern the west because they demonstrate once again the skill and determination of the Iranians in the game that matters most right now in the Middle East. The Houthi militia, which has been engaged in an insurgency against the government of Yemen since 2004, launched an offensive in September. The movement’s fighters advanced rapidly entered the Yemeni capital, Sana’a. The Shia militia then announced an ultimatum to Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, giving him 10 days to form a new government that would include representation for the Houthis or face unspecified other options. Now at this point in time Iran has considerable influence on four Arab capitals i.e. Damascus, Sana’a, Baghdad, and Beirut through the government of these states or through its proxies. This ability to develop and maintain proxy political-military forces has been an asset in Iranian hands since the birth of the Islamic Republic with the Lebanese Hezbollah the first fruit of it. Teheran appears currently to be repeating this process in Iraq, where brutal Shia militias are playing an ever more important role in the fight against the Islamic State. In Yemen, a similar dynamic is emerging and Syria since long Iranian controlled militia’s operating. Even United States has started believing that stable Middle East can only be achieved by having Iran on board. The United States is anxious to restore the Iraqi government’s authority in oil-rich Iraq, while Iran is eager to defeat a murderously anti-Shiite militia on its western flank so by seeing a common objective for both US and Iran. Recently US President Barack Obama wrote a letter to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei in this letter president Mr. Obama talked about the expansion of the Islamic State posed a threat to both the United States and Iran and said the two countries were battling a common enemy.

Obama’s most recent overture to Tehran is an indication of the administration’s urgency to get the nuclear issue off the table and move on to tackling other major differences between Tehran and Washington, with the possibility of cooperation in areas of core mutual interest. US is realizing that in its campaign against Islamic State one key regional power is missing: Iran. Obama’s request to Ayatollah Khamenei for closer cooperation on the fight against Islamic State is an effort to fill that strategic gap and indicates a realization that without Tehran’s, help the coalition will almost certainly fail. Iran has long sought to become the undisputed leader in the region, largely through aggressive and ambitious military development. Today, however, Iran is on the offensive. It is even being courted by the Obama Administration to fight IS. As soon as Iran becomes a nuclear threshold state thanks to the agreement it is negotiating with the West, it will become the most influential and powerful country of the Middle East. A nuclear, or even near-nuclear, Iran will enable this regional hegemon to control the strategic Hormuz and Bab-el Mandeb straits. Power transfer in Middle East has never been bloodless but Iran, by contrast, has managed several relatively peaceful successions of power in the last three decades. Realists in the White House must be tempted to think that the Middle Eastern oil patch would be safer with Iran inside the US alliance system.

Moreover Teheran appears to be well on the way toward nuclear weapons capability, because of the fecklessness of Western policy. This will pave the way for a yet more aggressive Iranian push to hegemony in Yemen and beyond it throughout the Gulf, Iraq and the Levant. It’s clearly visible that a new Middle East is emerging with diminished influence for the region’s Sunni powers and emergence of new order dominated by Iran. Iran has made it clear to everyone that it is impossible to bypass Iran in the search for solutions to the region’s myriad crises. Iran the Middle East’s second-largest country by population and a major influence on the Shiite Muslim world is all set to dominate the region and to change the regional geo-political landscape.

(Author is a freelance columnist for Middle-East and Af-Pak region and Editor of geo-political news agency www.viewsaround.com can be reached at manishraiva@gmail.com)

Iranian Nuclear Program Very Much Alive

Mysterious blast at Iran nuke plant proves weapons program alive, say experts

Mysterious Explosion Occurred At This Tehran Nuclear Facility Earlier This Week

By Paul Alster

Published October 09, 2014

 

FoxNews.com

The massive blast at an Iranian nuclear plant earlier this week remains shrouded in mystery, but it cleared up one thing, according to those who track the Islamic Republic: The nuclear weapons program Tehran has long denied is real.

The massive blast Sunday night rocked buildings more than 10 miles away, and before-and-after satellite images published by the Israel Defense Force showed startling destruction at a facility Iran has repeatedly barred international inspectors from entering.

“[The] images indicate that a complete section of structures was simply eliminated by an unexplained explosion,” IDF analyst Ronen Solomon said. “The explosion wiped several testing units off the face of the earth while inflicting collateral damage on adjacent buildings.”

Iran, which initially denied an explosion took place, was forced a day later to own up to a blast, via the IRNA official Iranian news agency. The report said two people had been killed as a result of a fire at the site. The true casualty figure may never be known.

“The explosion wiped several testing units off the face of the earth while inflicting collateral damage on adjacent buildings.”- Ronen Solomon, IDF analyst

Israel has long insisted that Iran’s charm offensive, successful in easing western sanctions, is a ruse to buy time while it pursues nuclear weapons.

“Don’t be fooled by Iran’s manipulative charm offensive,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the UN General Assembly in New York on Sept. 29. “It’s designed for one purpose and for one purpose only: to lift the sanctions and remove the obstacles to Iran’s path to the bomb.

“Once Iran produces atomic bombs,” Netanyahu added, “all the charms and all the smiles will suddenly disappear. They’ll just vanish. And it’s then that the ayatollahs will show their true face and unleash their aggressive fanaticism on the entire world.”

As in past cases when things explode or scientists are killed in Iran, speculation centers on Israeli intelligence agencies, who, just as predictably, do not comment. Both misplaced blame and proper credit serve the purpose of burnishing their reputation within enemy and terrorist regimes. There are other possibilities, including that it was an accident or that Iranian dissident groups or western intelligence agencies played a role.

“If someone did succeed in infiltrating the Parchin site with explosives and causing the huge explosion which took place there, we are talking about an exceptional achievement,” regional terror analyst Ronen Bergman suggested in Wednesday’s Ynet.com.

Parchin, a site to which international inspectors have repeatedly been denied access since 2007 – a fact that many opponents of the P5+1 talks have long insisted in itself makes a mockery of the so-called negotiation process – is rumored to be the location of the development of the key warhead components required for making a nuclear bomb.

“Western officials suspect that at the heart of this secret development is the weapon group developing the nuclear lens mechanism,” Bergman said. “It’s a complex system of timers and explosives assembled around the core of the bomb, which explode in a way that “pushes” the enriched uranium sphere inwards and starts the chain reaction needed for an atomic explosion. If the smoking gun for the existence of the weapon group is found, it will serve as decisive evidence that Iran has been lying and that there is no point in negotiating with it.”

The assassination of a series of Iranian nuclear scientists inside Iran in recent years as the result of bombs planted on, or next to their vehicles by mysterious motorcycle-riding hitmen, together with the vicious Stuxnet computer virus that hit Iran’s key Natanz nuclear facility in 2010, has allegedly put the brakes on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear project.

According to Amnesty International, thousands of dissidents languish in Iranian jails, (including a significant number of journalists). Iran is second only to China in the number of executions it carries out each year, often following only a token trial.

Regime support is also indicated in the September 2013 massacre of at least 52 Iranians in neighbouring Iraq at the Camp Ashraf refugee camp that had been designated a safe haven for Iranian activists, many of whom had opposed the direction of their nation’s nuclear ambitions. U.S. officials were reportedly furious at Iran’s Revolutionary Guard praising the attack, while Foreign Policy magazine reported that, “U.S. intelligence officials believe that Iranian commandos took part [in the attack].”

The Large Horn Grows Larger (Daniel 8:3)

Tehran’s influence in region helps its bargaining position

Iran Gaza Support

August 13, 2014 6:00AM ET

by Kaveh L. Afrasiabi & Nader Entessar

 

In the wake of the latest conflict in Gaza, relations between Tehran and Hamas are on the upswing, partly cobbled together through Lebanon’s Hezbollah, an Iranian ally whose leader, Hassan Nasrallah, declared support for Hamas early in the conflict.

 In fact, contrary to some misleading media reports that Iran broke with Hamas more than two years ago, Tehran never completely severed ties but only temporarily reduced its support as a result of Hamas’ backing of Syrian rebels and the relocation of its foreign office from Damascus to Doha, Qatar. Iran is now fully committed to material and moral support for the Palestinian resistance against Israel.

Outraged by Israel’s atrocities in Gaza and critical of Western governments’ vocal support of Israel, Iran’s ruling elite has prioritized giving humanitarian assistance to Gaza by seeking permission from Cairo to make deliveries through the Rafah crossing, which connects the Gaza Strip to Egypt. At the same time, Iranian leaders have gone public about the extent of the country’s support for Hamas, by openly boasting of sharing missile technology with Palestinian militants (principally Hamas and Islamic Jihad), improving Hamas’ ability to hit Israeli cities with its arsenal.

In addition, according to a recent news article in the conservative Tehran daily Kayhan, Iran has provided Hamas with laser-guided anti-tank missiles, which gave serious pause to the Israeli army’s plan for deep incursions into Gaza. There are also unconfirmed reports that the Hamas drone that was hit by the Israelis in early July was modeled after Iran’s drones. Full details of Iranian arms supplies to Hamas have yet to be reported.

What is clear, however, is the Iranian leaders’ rhetorical commitment to the cause of a free state of Palestine and the importance of networking with other Muslim and Arab governments to boost support for Hamas. To that effect, on Aug. 4, Tehran used its current presidency of the Non-Aligned Movement to hold a well-attended emergency meeting of the special Palestine Committee, with representatives from 45 member states. The meeting condemned Israel’s invasion of Gaza and endorsed Algeria’s call for an emergency session of the United Nations General Assembly to address the crisis.

Israel is vulnerable to Hamas’ arsenals and tunnels, and Tehran wants to exploit these vulnerabilities to neutralize Israel’s military threats against Iran.

From Iran’s vantage point, the weak international response to Israel’s perceived aggression in Gaza reflects a crisis of Arab and Muslim leadership. Tehran consequently saw fit to take the lead in denouncing Israel’s attacks and move beyond Shia-Sunni fault lines. (Rouhani has even compared Zionists to takfiris, Sunni extremists who have boldly proclaimed a caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria.) Iran is adamantly opposed to the U.S.-Israeli plan for the demilitarization of Gaza, and Gen. Ghasem Soleymani, commander of the Quds Force, has drawn a red line on this subject in a widely circulated message to the Palestinian resistance.

Tehran’s forceful expression of support for Hamas is likely to complicate its interests in the nuclear talks with the P5+1 — the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany — due to resume in September. Iran is determined to maintain its thousands of uranium-enriching centrifuges, which would give it a latent nuclear potential. But its support for Hamas has given hawkish U.S. lawmakers in Congress, who insist Tehran must sever its ties with the militant group, new ammunition to defeat any hope of rapprochement. Iran’s missile technology transfer to Palestinians is manna from heaven for Israel’s supporters on Capitol Hill and will likely be regarded as a prelude to nuclear sharing that could pose an existential threat to Israel.

Tehran’s renewed pro-Hamas stance, then, is a double-edged sword that could harden Washington’s position in the nuclear talks as the conflicts in Gaza and Iraq influence the parties’ agendas. When negotiations resume, Iran and the world powers need to move beyond the narrow focus on the nuclear issue and discuss regional security issues in Gaza, the West Bank, Iraq and Syria. Provided that the U.S. and its allies are ready to acknowledge Iran’s influence in the region — instead of trying to isolate the country — Tehran could use its influence with Hamas to achieve a durable, sustainable truce with Israel.

Ultimately, much depends on the outcome of the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza. Israel is vulnerable to Hamas’ arsenals and tunnels, and Tehran wants to exploit these vulnerabilities to neutralize Israel’s military threat to Iran. If Hamas maintains its fighting ability and discipline, Iran will take credit for the victory, garner political capital in the turbulent Middle East and use the Hamas card for leverage in the nuclear talks. 

Iran Will INCREASE Uranium Enrichment (Revelation 15)

Teheran should increase N-enrichment: Khamenei

Uranium Enrichment

DUBAI/VIENNA Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday Iran would need to significantly increase its uranium enrichment capacity, underlining a gap in positions between Teheran and world powers as they hold talks aimed at clinching a nuclear accord.

Iran and six major powers – the US, Russia, France, Germany, China and Britain – have less than two weeks to bridge wide differences on the future scope of Iran’s enrichment programme and other issues if they are to meet a self-imposed July 20 deadline for a deal.

They resumed talks in Vienna last week and their negotiators continued meetings in the Austrian capital on Tuesday; but there was no immediate sign of any substantive progress.

Iran insists it needs to expand its capacity to refine uranium to fuel a planned network of atomic energy plants. The powers say Teheran must sharply reduce the capacity to prevent it being able to quickly produce a nuclear bomb using uranium enriched to a far higher degree.  “Their aim is that we accept a capacity of 10,000 separative work units (SWUs), which is equivalent to 10,000 centrifuges of the older type that we already have. Our officials say we need 190,000 SWU. Perhaps this is not a need this year or in two years or five years, but this is the country’s absolute need,” Khamenei said in a statement published on his website late on Monday.

An SWU is a measurement of the effort necessary for the separation of isotopes of uranium.

Iran says its programme is for civilian purposes such as electricity generation and denies any ambitions to build an atomic bomb.

Iran expert Ali Vaez said the negotiations were now at a precarious stage.

Last week, other Western diplomats said Iran had reduced demands for the size of its future nuclear enrichment programme in the negotiations, although Western governments were urging Tehran to compromise further. They did not give details.

Separately, France’s foreign minister hinted at divergences between Russia and Western countries currently involved in a decisive final round of talks with Iran to negotiate a deal on its nuclear drive, says a Paris report. “Whereas until now the P5+1 had a very homogeneous attitude, in the past days representatives in the negotiations have put forward a certain number of different approaches between part of the 5+1 and our Russian partners,” Fabius told a parliamentary commission.