Tag Archives: Iran

Romney: ‘No option should be excluded’ in stopping a nuclear Iran

open quoteJERUSALEM—Speaking against the backdrop of the historic Old City, Mitt Romney signaled he supports Israel’s right to “defend itself” against its enemies and said “any and all measures” should be considered in the world’s efforts to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

The Republican candidate said preventing a nuclear Iran should be America’s “highest national security priority.” And while he argued that diplomatic efforts should continue, Romney insisted that all options should be on the table in dealing with Iran, including a military strike.close quote (Read more)

Romney: The President Doesn’t Need Congress’ Approval For War In Iran

open quote“I can assure you if I’m president, the Iranians will have no question but that I will be willing to take military action if necessary to prevent them from becoming a nuclear threat to the world,” Presidential candidate Mitt Romney said on Face The Nation Sunday. “I don’t believe at this stage, therefore, if I’m president that we need to have a war powers approval or special authorization for military force. The president has that capacity now.”close quote (Read more)

Confirmed: US and Israel created Stuxnet, lost control of it

open quoteIn 2011, the US government rolled out its “International Strategy for Cyberspace,” which reminded us that “interconnected networks link nations more closely, so an attack on one nation’s networks may have impact far beyond its borders.” An in-depth report today from the New York Times confirms the truth of that statement as it finally lays bare the history and development of the Stuxnet virus—and how it accidentally escaped from the Iranian nuclear facility that was its target.

The article is adapted from journalist David Sanger’s forthcoming book, Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power, and it confirms that both the US and Israeli governments developed and deployed Stuxnet. The goal of the worm was to break Iranian nuclear centrifuge equipment by issuing specific commands to the industrial control hardware responsible for their spin rate. By doing so, both governments hoped to set back the Iranian research program—and the US hoped to keep Israel from launching a pre-emptive military attack.close quote (Read more)

Obama Order Sped Up Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran

open quoteFrom his first months in office, President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons, according to participants in the program.

Mr. Obama decided to accelerate the attacks — begun in the Bush administration and code-named Olympic Games — even after an element of the program accidentally became public in the summer of 2010 because of a programming error that allowed it to escape Iran’s Natanz plant and sent it around the world on the Internet. Computer security experts who began studying the worm, which had been developed by the United States and Israel, gave it a name: Stuxnet.

At a tense meeting in the White House Situation Room within days of the worm’s “escape,” Mr. Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency at the time, Leon E. Panetta, considered whether America’s most ambitious attempt to slow the progress of Iran’s nuclear efforts had been fatally compromised. close quote (Read more)

Israel hints it may be behind ‘Flame’ super-virus targeting Iran

open quoteA top Israeli minister yesterday fed speculation that the Jewish state could be responsible for a powerful new virus said to have been used in a fresh attack on computers in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East.

The discovery of the unprecedented complex data-stealing “Flame” virus was disclosed by a Russian-based digital security firm Kaspersky Lab. Its experts reported on Monday that it had been applied most actively in Iran, but also in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s Vice Prime Minister and Strategic Affairs Minister, told the country’s Army Radio: “Anyone who sees the Iranian threat as a significant threat – it’s reasonable [to assume] that he will take various steps, including these, to harm it.”

Mr Yaalon, a former military Chief of Staff, added: “Israel was blessed as being a country rich with high-tech. These tools that we take pride in open up all kinds of opportunities for us.”close quote (Read more)

US Envoy To Israel: US Ready To Strike Iran

open quoteJERUSALEM (AP) — The U.S. has plans in place to attack Iran if necessary to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons, Washington’s envoy to Israel said, days ahead of a crucial round of nuclear talks with Tehran.

Dan Shapiro’s message resonated Thursday far beyond the closed forum in which it was made: Iran should not test Washington’s resolve to act on its promise to strike if diplomacy and sanctions fail to pressure Tehran to abandon its disputed nuclear program.

Shapiro told the Israel Bar Association the U.S. hopes it will not have to resort to military force.

“But that doesn’t mean that option is not fully available. Not just available, but it’s ready,” he said. “The necessary planning has been done to ensure that it’s ready.”close quote (Read more)

Most Israeli citizens don’t want a war with Iran

open quoteAt a public meeting on Friday Diskin, former head of Shin Bet (Israel’s MI5), described Netanyahu and Barak as “not fit to hold the steering wheel of power”. He went on: “I have observed them from up close … They are not people who I, on a personal level, trust to lead Israel to an event on that scale and carry it off … They tell the public that if Israel acts, Iran won’t have a nuclear bomb. This is misleading. Actually, many experts say that an Israeli attack would accelerate the Iranian nuclear race.”

Diskin joins a long list of eminent members of the Israeli security establishment who have publicly voiced criticism of, and opposition to, their government’s ultra-hawkish line on Iran. In fact, his astonishing attack on his former bosses came just 48 hours after the head of Israel’s military, Lieutenant General Benny Gantz, declared that the Iranian leadership had not yet made a decision to build nuclear weapons, that it was unlikely to go this “extra mile”, and was composed of “very rational people”. “Decisions must be made carefully out of historic responsibility but without hysteria,” added Gantz in a not-too-subtle dig at his political masters.close quote (Read more)

Iran War Politics: Elizabeth Warren Contradicts Defense Secretary In Hawkish Talk, Bob Kerrey Calls Attack ‘Disaster’

open quoteTwo of the nation’s most high-profile Democratic candidates for Senate seats have parted ways over U.S. policy on Iran, which is a top national security issue this election year.

Bob Kerrey, a former U.S. Navy SEAL and two-term senator from Nebraska who is running to win back his former seat, released an ad on Tuesday strongly opposing an attack on Iran, which he said would be “a disaster.”

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic Senate hopeful in Massachusetts, came under fire for a hawkish statement on Iran that contradicts intelligence assertions by senior U.S. defense officials. close quote (Read more)

Russia Is Massing Troops On Iran’s Northern Border And Waiting For A Western Attack

open quotehe Russian military anticipates that an attack will occur on Iran by the summer and has developed an action plan to move Russian troops through neighboring Georgia to stage in Armenia, which borders on the Islamic republic, according to informed Russian sources.

Russian Security Council head Viktor Ozerov said that Russian General Military Headquarters has prepared an action plan in the event of an attack on Iran.

Dmitry Rogozin, who recently was the Russian ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, warned against an attack on Iran.

“Iran is our neighbor,” Rogozin said. “If Iran is involved in any military action, it’s a direct threat to our security.” Rogozin now is the deputy Russian prime minister and is regarded as anti-Western. He oversees Russia’s defense sector.

Read more: articles.businessinsider.com/2012-04-09/news/31311454_1_russian-defense-ministry-military-action-dmitry-rogozin#ixzz1suALPT7B
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Report says Israel to use Azeri airbases

open quoteWASHINGTON, March 29 (UPI) — Israel has access to airbases in Azerbaijan near Iran’s northern border to use in a military strike against Iran’s nuclear sites, sources told a U.S. magazine.

Unnamed senior diplomats and military intelligence officials were interviewed in the Foreign Policy magazine report, “Israel’s Secret Staging Ground,” published Wednesday.

“The Israelis have bought an airfield … and the airfield is called Azerbaijan,” a senior administration official was quoted as saying.

The Azeri military has four abandoned Soviet-era airfields that would potentially be available to Israel and four air bases for their own aircraft, the report says, quoting details from Military Balance 2011 from the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

Senior U.S. intelligence officials are increasingly concerned Israeli military expansion in Azerbaijan will hamper efforts to dampen tensions with Iran, an official told Foreign Policy.close quote (Read more)

America’s Most Important Anti-War Politician Is a Senate Republican

Glad at least some one in the media is taking notice.

open quoteEarlier this week, as the Senate considered a bill to impose even tougher sanctions on Iran than the ones already in place, Senator Rand Paul blocked its bipartisan passage pending the addition of an amendment. “My amendment is one sentence long. It states that nothing in this act is to be construed as a declaration of war or as an authorization of the use of force in Iran or Syria,” he said. “I urge that we not begin a new war without a full debate, without a vote, without careful consideration of the ramifications of a third or even a fourth war in this past decade.”close quote (Read more)

parallels between IAEA approach to Iran and mistakes over Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction

open quoteThe head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the nuclear watchdog at the heart of the growing Iranian crisis, has been accused by several former senior officials of pro-western bias, over-reliance on unverified intelligence and of sidelining sceptics.

Yukiya Amano, a veteran Japanese diplomat, took command of the IAEA in July 2009. Since then, the west’s confrontation with Iran over its nuclear programme has deepened and threats of military action by Israel and the US have become more frequent.

At the same time, the IAEA’s reports on Iranian behaviour have become steadily more critical.close quote (Read more)