Iranian missiles can reach Israeli nuclear sites and Tehran will respond firmly to any attack, a top commander said on Wednesday as Western powers urged Iran to curb its nuclear ambitions.
Israel, like the United States, has not ruled out military action if diplomacy fails to end the row over the Islamic Republic's nuclear plans.
"Today, the Islamic Republic of Iran has missiles with the range of 2,000 km (1,250 miles), and based on that all Israeli land including that regime's nuclear facilities are in the range of our missile capabilities," the commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Ali Jafari, said.
"The doctrine of our system is defensive, but in the case of any action by enemies, including the Zionist regime, we will respond firmly using missiles and deter attacks," he said in comments carried by the ISNA news agency.
#5
ISRAELI MIL FORUM > [New Report]IRAN CAN GET ENOUGH NUCLEAR MATERIALS FOR UP TO 50 NUKES; + IRAN CALLS ON ALL MUSLIMS TO ATTACK ISRAEL [ Ayatollah Khameini - Israeli-Palestinian negotiations are FRUITLESS]???
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday said "resistance" was the only way to save Palestine as he kicked off a two-day summit organized by Tehran in aid of Gaza and Palestinians. He said that said U.S. President Barack Obama was pursuing the same "wrong path" as George W. Bush in supporting Israel and described the Jewish state as a "cancerous tumor."
The comments by Khamenei, who has the final say on all policy in Iran, are likely to disappoint the new U.S. administration which has been seeking to engage Iran but has called on Tehran to "unclench its fist."
"Even the new president of America, who has come to power with slogans about changing Bush's policies, is defending state terrorism by talking about unconditional commitment to Israel's security," Khamenei told the conference.
Khamenei's latest salvo comes as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Palestinian leaders in West Bank during her first visit to the region since taking office.
Iran's IAEA ambassador, Ali-Asghar Soltaniyeh, inveighed against the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for passing a politically-motivated judgment on the country's uranium enrichment so far.
"Unfortunately, the UN nuclear watchdog's statutory obligations have clearly gone astray," said Soltaniyeh in Wednesday a meeting of the UN nuclear monitor's 35-nation board of governors. "The agency was founded with a declared goal of promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy, but we see now that safeguard efforts and world politics have unfortunately outstripped its true objectives," he added.
Soltaniyeh went on to criticize recent IAEA reports for providing what he called "a rather obscure and intransigent" glimpse into Tehran's nuclear activities. He called for a new atmosphere within the agency, one that includes negotiations on "equal footing" and "justice" as the main solution to the international standoff over Tehran's uranium enrichment.
According to Soltaniyeh, the UN nuclear monitor's constantly-shifting position on Iran shows that it is torn between an ongoing challenge between "justice and injustice."
His claims come only a day after the sextet of Britain, France, Russia, China, the US and Germany invited Tehran for direct engagements over its nuclear program.
"(We) urge Iran to take this opportunity for engagement with us and thereby maximize opportunities for a negotiated way forward," said the French IAEA governor, Olivier Caron, while voicing "serious concerns."
The UN nuclear monitor said in its latest report on Iran's nuclear program that the country has so far enriched 1,010 kg (2,226 lb) of uranium hexafluoride to a low level. A number of Western analysts -- such as David Albright at the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security -- have construed the IAEA report as a sign that Iran has reached the 'break-out capability' to use the material for a single weapon.
However, Mark Fitzpatrick of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, dismissed such a notion, saying that Iran's uranium stockpile would still have to be further enriched to bomb grade. "And the basic truth bears repeating, that having a stockpile of enriched uranium is not the same as having a bomb," he said.
But it's a lot easier to build a bomb if you have the enriched uranium in hand ...
Posted by: Fred ||
03/05/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
In the late seventies there was an engineer student who designed an A-bomb as a project at university. According to experts it was a perfectly working design provided he had had access to enough enriched uranium. Just remind that he was a student and he did it alone: if you have enough plutonium or enriched uranium building a bomb is easy.
#2
How about the Boy Scout who built a working nuclear reactor in his backyard to get a "Nuclear" merit badge, it worked, he did,
The Nuclear watchdogs panicked and removed it.
As I recall, he used Radium from old watch dials.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/05/2009 13:10 Comments ||
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Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah has traveled to Teheran, via Damascus, to participate in a Palestinian solidarity conference, Channel 10 quoted Iranian sources as saying Wednesday.
According to the report, Nasrallah was accompanied by Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and convicted child killer Samir Kuntar, who was released by Israel last July in a prisoner swap deal for IDF reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.
If the report is true, it would mark the first time Nasrallah has left Lebanon since the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006.
Nasrallah rarely leaves his bunker, although he did make a public appearance to greet Kuntar and the other freed prisoners upon their arrival in Beirut after the July deal.
Meanwhile, at the Teheran conference on supporting the Palestinians, Iran's supreme leader on Wednesday criticized what he called President Barack Obama's "unconditional" support for Israel, saying he was following the same mistaken policies as the Bush administration.
Ayatollah Khomeini said Obama spoke of change during his campaign, but supported the IDF operation in Gaza.
#3
expect a Hezb distraction on Israel's north border. In "solidarity with the beleagured Gazans" of course. His masters have given their orders. Puppet and tool. Perhaps his plane could have "difficulties" in flight?
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/05/2009 18:51 Comments ||
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DAMASCUS - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad met Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal in Damascus on Wednesday in another sign of a thaw in ties between the two Arab countries that had clashed over regional issues. The official Syrian news agency reported the meeting but gave no further details.
Tensions between Damascus and Riyadh rose further earlier this year after Syria backed Hamas during Israels three-week assault in Gaza while Saudi Arabia stuck by President Mahmoud Abbas, who accused the Islamist group of provoking the invasion. Arab efforts to mend ties have been underway since. Prince Saud met his Syrian counterpart Walid al-Moualem this week at an Arab foreign ministers meeting in Egypt that discussed Palestinian reconciliation and the regional influence of Iran.
An alliance between Syria and Iran that has strengthened in recent years has irritated Saudi Arabia.
Prince Saud told the Arab foreign ministers meeting that a common view was needed to deal with what he described as the Iranian challenge and Iranian interference in Arab affairs. He also called for a unified Arab stance in dealing with the new U.S. administration and sticking by an Arab peace initiative that offered Israel normal ties in return for the return of all Arab land occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.
He said abandoning the initiative would leave Arab countries with no reasonable alternative strategy to end the conflict.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/05/2009 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
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Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah has traveled to Teheran, via Damascus, to participate in a Palestinian solidarity conference, Channel 10 quoted Iranian sources as saying Wednesday. 
