RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Iran Volunteers to Test Israeli Nukes

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged President Obama for two days to toughen his language on Iran before he did so, and then was surprised when he condemned Iran's crackdown on demonstrators last week, administration officials say.

At his June 23 news conference, Mr. Obama said he was "appalled and outraged" by Iranian behavior and "strongly condemned" the violence against anti-government demonstrators. Up until then, Mr. Obama and other administration officials had taken a softer line, expressing "deep concern" about the situation and calling on Iran to "respect the dignity of its own people."

Behind the scenes, the officials, who spoke on the condition that they not be named because they were discussing internal deliberations, said Mrs. Clinton had been advocating the stronger U.S. response, but the president resisted. When he finally took her advice, the aides said, he did so without informing her first.

This was the first known example of awkwardness between the two former rivals for the Democratic nomination for president since they made up following Mr. Obama's election. The disagreement also gave some insight into the Obama administration's foreign policy decision-making process five months into its term.

The officials said they were familiar with the language Mr. Obama used in his news conference because it was sent to the State Department a day earlier, but that Mrs. Clinton did not know until he uttered the words that he would choose that moment to make them public.

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"It was a happy surprise," one administration official said. "It was echoing the line the secretary had been pushing for a couple of days."

Another official said Mr. Obama apparently did not make the final decision to go ahead with the tougher stance until shortly before his remarks.

"I don't think he himself had decided to do it until he did it, but we knew full well it was headed that way, because the White House sent over the actual language he'd use if he chose to take that line for folks to review and weigh in on, which State did," the second official said.

The White House and the State Department declined to comment publicly on Mrs. Clinton's "private advice" to Mr. Obama and their internal communications.

Key congressional Republicans - most prominently Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who was Mr. Obama's opponent in last year's election - criticized the president for being too "timid" and failing to speak out early against the Iranian regime's crackdown on protests following the disputed June 12 presidential election.

Mr. Obama initially said he did not want to appear to be interfering in Iran's internal affairs and provide ammunition to the regime, which tends to blame the United States and other Western countries for any unrest. In addition, he knew he would most likely have to deal with the current government as part of the West's efforts to prevent Iran from producing a nuclear weapon, officials said.

"On the one hand, he may have felt that the United States should naturally criticize the Iranian government's violent crackdown on the protesters," said Alireza Nader, an analyst at the Rand Corp. "On the other, he acknowledged that the U.S. was still willing to engage with Iran in the future. Strong U.S. criticism of the Iranian government could jeopardize future negotiations."

Mrs. Clinton agreed with the president, but she thought it was time to get tougher after the June 20 killing of a young woman, Neda Agha-Soltan, on a Tehran street, officials said. A video of the killing was widely viewed on the Internet.

At the same time, they added, she was content to leave the decision to Mr. Obama, because she understood that he bore ultimate responsibility for any consequences.

However, Mr. Obama's sudden decision to toughen his language on Tehran had the effect of making the State Department look out of sync with the White House.

Until about an hour before the presidential news conference, the State Department continued to follow a more cautious public line, using words like "deeply concerned" about the situation in Iran, but refusing to "condemn" the crackdown. Then came Mr. Obama's surprise.

"The United States and the international community have been appalled and outraged by the threats, the beatings and imprisonments of the last few days," he said. "I strongly condemn these unjust actions, and I join with the American people in mourning each and every innocent life that is lost."

The decision on Iran was very personal, officials said. Mr. Obama knew his senior aides' views, but it was up to him to "pull the trigger."

"We have so few tools when we deal with Iran, and we don't fully understand what's going on, so all we've got is what the president says," the first administration official said. "There isn't a huge process behind it."

In general, the officials said, Mr. Obama has relied on the government bureaucracy to formulate language on foreign affairs.

For example, before Mr. Obama's meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday, everything he said was a "result of a long process involving meetings and briefing papers," the official said. Even with North Korea, another country that has no diplomatic relations with the U.S., "we have a formalized mechanism in the six-party [nuclear] talks and more moving pieces."

Analysts said the Iran episode shows Mr. Obama's nuanced thinking and in-depth analysis of foreign policy, although some warned that he risks being too cautious and appearing indecisive.

"The demonstrators in Iran have revealed the extreme caution of Obama's approach to the world, as if he is afraid of making a mistake, and his dislike of disruptions to an agenda he has already laid out," Reginald Dale, director of the Transatlantic Media Network at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in reference to the president's offer of engagement, which so far has been spurned by Tehran.

Kim R. Holmes, vice president of the Heritage Foundation, who was assistant secretary of state for international organizations in the George W. Bush administration, said: "The caution that we should not meddle was shown to be pointless after the Iranian leadership blamed the protests on America and Britain anyway."

Michael J. Green, former senior director for East Asian affairs on the National Security Council in the Bush White House, said Mr. Obama may be trying the learn from his predecessor's mistakes.

Mr. Bush tended to make decisions during meetings with his national security team, but the problem was that his aides "interpreted his directions differently," especially during his first term, Mr. Green said.

At the time, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's aides often said that he "felt good" about the outcome of a White House meeting, because Mr. Bush had taken his advice. Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld felt the same way, except that their advice was usually very different.

"It seems that Obama is trying to avoid such confusion by laying out specifically what he wants," Mr. Green said.

As involved as Mrs. Clinton may have been in the process leading up to Mr. Obama's decision on Iran, "the secretary of state usually doesn't have the last say, because he or she is not there with the president all the time," he said. "With all the modern technology, location still means power."

I am hopeful for Iran, as I learned from Obama's recent speech in Cairo this country was founded on Muslim principles.

It's not just Western-oriented students who say the recent election was stolen:

• The most important group of religious leaders in Iran called the disputed presidential election and the new government illegitimate on Saturday, an act of defiance against the country's supreme leader and the most public sign of a major split in the country's clerical establishment.
  
  A statement by the group, the Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qum, represents a significant, if so far symbolic, setback for the government and especially the authority of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose word is supposed to be final. The government has tried to paint the opposition and its top presidential candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, as criminals and traitors, a strategy that now becomes more difficult - if not impossible.
  
  "This crack in the clerical establishment, and the fact they are siding with the people and Moussavi, in my view is the most historic crack in the 30 years of the Islamic republic," said Abbas Milani, director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford University. "Remember, they are going against an election verified and sanctified by Khamenei."

This could be the opening Obama is waiting for. Now that a group of MUSLIM leaders have spoken out, perhaps he can do something about supporting democracy over there.

Saudis Give Nod to Israeli Strike on Iran

Sunday, July 05, 2009
Reuters


The head of Mossad, Israel's overseas intelligence service, has assured Benjamin Netanyahu, its prime minister, that Saudi Arabia would turn a blind eye to Israeli jets flying over the kingdom during any future raid on Iran's nuclear sites.

Earlier this year Meir Dagan, Mossad's director since 2002, held secret talks with Saudi officials to discuss the possibility.

The Israeli press has already carried unconfirmed reports that high-ranking officials, including Ehud Olmert, the former prime minister, held meetings with Saudi colleagues. The reports were denied by Saudi officials.

"The Saudis have tacitly agreed to the Israeli air force flying through their airspace on a mission which is supposed to be in the common interests of both Israel and Saudi Arabia," a diplomatic source said last week.

Although the countries have no formal diplomatic relations, an Israeli defense source confirmed that Mossad maintained "working relations" with the Saudis.

John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who recently visited the Gulf, said it was "entirely logical" for the Israelis to use Saudi airspace.

Bolton, who has talked to several Arab leaders, added: "None of them would say anything about it publicly but they would certainly acquiesce in an overflight if the Israelis didn't trumpet it as a big success."

Two Israeli missile class warships have sailed through the Suez Canal, ten days after a submarine capable of launching a nuclear missile strike, in preparation for a possible attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The deployment into the Red Sea, confirmed by Israeli officials, was a clear signal that Israel was able to put its strike force within range of Iran at short notice. It came before long-range exercises by the Israeli air force in America later this month and the test of a missile defense shield at a U.S. missile range in the Pacific Ocean.

Israel has strengthened ties with Arab nations who also fear a nuclear-armed Iran. In particular, relations with Egypt have grown increasingly strong this year over the “shared mutual distrust of Iran”, according to one Israeli diplomat. Israeli naval vessels would likely pass through the Suez Canal for an Iranian strike.

“This is preparation that should be taken seriously. Israel is investing time in preparing itself for the complexity of an attack on Iran. These maneuvers are a message to Iran that Israel will follow up on its threats,” an Israeli defense official said.

It is believed that Israel’s missile-equipped submarines, and its fleet of advanced aircraft, could be used to strike at in excess of a dozen nuclear-related targets more than 800 miles from Israel.

Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the Egyptian Foreign Minister, said that his Government explicitly allowed passage of Israeli vessels, and an Israeli admiral said that the drills were “run regularly with the full co-operation of the Egyptians.”

Two Israeli Saar class missile boats and a Dolphin class submarine have passed through Suez. Israel has six Dolphin-class submarines, three of which are widely believed to carry nuclear missiles.

President Obama, along with the leaders of Britain and France, demanded Friday that Iran immediately allow international weapons monitors to inspect a nuclear facility the Islamic Republic acknowledges it has been secretly building for years.

Obama, joined by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the opening of the G-20 economic summit in Pittsburgh, warned Iran that it will be "held accountable" to an impatient world community if it does not fully disclose its nuclear ambitions.

"Iran has the right for peaceful power, but the size of the facility is inconsistent with a peaceful program," Obama said. "Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow, endangering the world non-nuclear proliferation regime ... and the security of the world."

Sarkozy said Iran has until December to comply or face sanctions. "This is for peace and stability," the French leader said. Brown accused Iran of "serial deception."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also called for an immediate probe of the site by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Iran revealed the existence of its covert uranium enrichment facility to the International Atomic Energy Agency this week after it discovered the project's secrecy had been breached by Western intelligence agencies.

An official told FOX News that Iran revealed the existence of the second plant in a letter sent Monday to IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei.

Iran is under three sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions for refusing to freeze enrichment at what had been its single known enrichment plant, which is being monitored by the IAEA.

A senior administration official told FOX News that the U.S. has been tracking the secret project for years.

Iran's letter to the IAEA contained no details about the location of the second facility, when -- or if -- it had started operations, or the type and number of centrifuges it was running.

"They [Iran] have cheated three times, and they have now been caught three times," an unnamed official with access to the intelligence told The New York Times.

But one of the officials, who had access to a review of Western intelligence on the issue, said it was about 100 miles southwest of Tehran and was the site of 3,000 centrifuges that could be operational by next year.

Iranian officials had previously acknowledged having only one plant, which the IAEA has been monitoring, and had denied allegations of undeclared nuclear activities.

The last IAEA report on Iran in August said Iran had set up more than 8,000 centrifuges to churn out enriched uranium at the cavernous underground Natanz facility, although the report said that only about 4,600 of those were fully active.

The Islamic Republic insists that it has the right to generate fuel for what it says will be a nationwide chain of nuclear reactors. But because uranium enrichment can make both fuel and weapons-grade uranium, the international community fears Tehran will use the technology to generate the fissile material used on the tip of nuclear warheads.

The revelation of a secret plant further hinders the chances of progress in scheduled Oct. 1 talks between Iran and six world powers.

At that meeting -- the first in more than a year -- the five permanent U.N. Security Council members and Germany plan to press Iran to scale back on its enrichment activities. Tehran has declared that it will not bargain on enrichment.

While Iran's mainstay P-1 centrifuge is a decades-old model based on Chinese technology, it has begun experimenting with state-of-the art prototypes that enrich uranium more quickly and efficiently.

U.N. officials familiar with the IAEA's attempts to monitor and probe Iran's nuclear activities have previously told the AP that they suspected Iran might be running undeclared enrichment plants.

The existence of a secret Iranian enrichment program built on black-market technology was revealed seven years ago. Since then, the country has continued to expand the program with only a few interruptions as it works toward its aspirations of a 50,000-centrifuge enrichment facility at the southern city of Natanz.

Shithead-stain.

The contempt with which the president of France regards the president of the United States was displayed in public last week.

Nicolas Sarkozy was furious with Barack Obama for his adolescent warbling about a world without nuclear weapons at a meeting Mr. Obama chaired of the United Nations Security Council last Thursday (9/24).

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"We must never stop until we see the day when nuclear arms have been banished from the face of the earth," President Obama said.

What infuriated President Sarkozy was that at the time Mr. Obama said those words, Mr. Obama knew the mullahs in Iran had a secret nuclear weapons development site, and he didn't call them on it.

‘President Obama dreams of a world without weapons...but right in front of us two countries are doing the exact opposite," Mr. Sarkozy said.

"Iran since 2005 has flouted five Security Council resolutions," Mr. Sarkozy said. "North Korea has been defying Council resolutions since 1993."

"What good has proposals for dialogue brought the international community?" he asked rhetorically. "More uranium enrichment and declarations by the leaders of Iran to wipe out a UN member state off the map."

If the Security Council had imposed serious sanctions on the regimes which are flouting UN resolutions, the resolution Mr. Obama proposed about working toward nuclear disarmament wouldn't have been so meaningless, Mr. Sarkozy implied.

"If we have courage to impose sanctions together it will lend viability to our commitment to reduce or own weapons and to making a world without nuke weapons," he said.

The extent of President Obama's naivete - or duplicity - was on display Friday at the G20 summit when the president, flanked by Mr. Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, revealed to the American public that Iran had a second nuclear weapons site on a military base near the holy city of Qom.

News reports indicated Mr. Obama had been briefed on the site before his inauguration. But he's been conducting his foreign policy as if the mullahs could be trusted.

"Iran has been put on notice," President Obama said in Pittsburgh.

Iran responded to being "put on notice" by testing Monday two ballistic missiles that could carry a nuclear warhead 1,200 miles.

It was to protect Europe from such missiles that the ABM system President Obama abruptly cancelled earlier this month was designed.

Obama administration officials said the ABM cancellation - regarded as a betrayal by Poland and the Czech Republic, where the missiles and radars were to be located - actually improved U.S. security, because it has made Russia more amenable to sanctions against Iran.

The UN Security Council has never passed strong sanctions against Iran because Russia and China have vetoed them. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said he still doesn't like economic sanctions, but will support them if diplomacy fails. China remains opposed.

President Obama shouldn't count on Russian support, said Soviet expert David Satter.

"Words are cheap for the Kremlin and the Iranians are aware of this," he said. "The Russians, having endorsed sanctions, will now find hundreds of reasons why any specific sanctions package is unfair...The reason is that support for Iran is Russia's most important trump card in foreign relations and there is little likelihood they will give it up."

Iran has been put on notice before. At the G8 meeting in Italy in July, Mr. Obama and other leaders set a "firm deadline" of Sep. 10 for the Iranians to make a serious offer to negotiate about their nuclear program. When the mullahs blew him off, Mr. Obama quietly extended the deadline until December.

December could be too late. "Tehran soon could have humankind's most frightening weapon if substantial diplomatic progress is not made in the coming days," Rep. Howard Berman (D-Cal), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said Saturday (9/26).

If severe economic sanctions are not imposed immediately, in months if not in weeks, only a military strike will b e able to prevent an Iranian bomb.

But after sternly lecturing Iran on its international obligations Friday, President Obama didn't call for sanctions. He called for more negotiations. And then, as the Iranians were spitting in his eye with the missile test, he jetted off to Copenhagen to lobby to have the 2016 Olympics held in Chicago.

No wonder Nicolas Sarkozy holds him in contempt.

Pakistani police arrested 11 Iranian Revolutionary Guard officers Monday for illegally entering the country, amid tensions over a recent suicide attack that Tehran alleges was carried out by militants backed by Pakistani intelligence officials.

The 11 officers were taken into custody in Mashkel, close to the countries' border in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, police officer Dadur Raman said. He said officers were interrogating the men and had seized two vehicles.

Another security official said the guards had no travel documents.

"We need to probe that," said Murtaza Baig, a spokesman for the paramilitary border force.

Ties between Pakistan and Iran have been strained since an Oct. 18 suicide attack killed 15 members of the powerful Revolutionary Guard, including five senior commanders, and at least 27 others in the town of Pishin on the Iranian side of the border.

Iranian officials blamed the Sunni rebel group known as Jundallah, or Soldiers of God, in the attack. Iran's president and the Guard chief have since publicly accused Pakistan's intelligence service of supporting Jundallah.

Pakistan's president met with Iran's interior minister in Islamabad on Sunday to discuss the attack.

President Asif Ali Zardari vowed to cooperate in capturing any attackers and said those behind the blasts "were the enemies of both countries."

Other Pakistani officials have denied Iranian charges that the leader of Jundallah, Abdulmalik Rigi, is in Pakistan, saying he is in Afghanistan.

Pakistan has been accused of past and ongoing support of militant activities in two of its other neighboring countries, Afghanistan and India, greatly complicating relations with both of them. Tensions with another regional power would only add to the problems facing the country as it battles al-Qaida and the Taliban within its borders.

Jundullah has waged a low-level insurgency in Iran's southeast in recent years, claiming to fight on behalf of the Baluchi ethnic minority, which it says is persecuted by Iran's government.

In an attempt to boost security in the region, Iran in April put the Revolutionary Guard directly in control of the Sistan-Baluchistan Province in Iran's southeastern corner.

The Guard is Iran's strongest military force, which is directly linked to the ruling clerics. The 120,000-strong Guard also controls Iran's missile program and guards its nuclear facilities.

Iran has also accused the United States and Britain of having links with Jundullah, charges both nations deny.

I do not customarily offer advice to a president whose election I opposed, whose goals I fear, and whose policies I work against. But here is an idea for Barack Obama to salvage his tottering administration by taking a step that protects the United States and its allies.

If Obama’s personality, identity, and celebrity captivated a majority of the American electorate in 2008, those qualities proved ruefully deficient for governing in 2009. He failed to deliver on employment and health care, he failed in foreign-policy forays small (e.g., landing the 2016 Olympics) and large (relations with China and Japan). His counterterrorism record barely passes the laugh test.

This poor performance has caused an unprecedented collapse in the polls and the loss of three major by-elections, culminating two weeks ago in an astonishing senatorial defeat in Massachusetts. Obama’s attempts to “reset” his presidency will likely fail if he focuses on economics, where he is just one of many players.

He needs a dramatic gesture to change the public perception of him as a light-weight, bumbling ideologue, preferably in an arena where the stakes are high, where he can take charge, and where he can trump expectations.

Such an opportunity does exist: Obama can give orders for the U.S. military to destroy Iran’s nuclear-weapon capacity.

Circumstances are propitious. First, U.S. intelligence agencies have reversed their preposterous 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, the one that claimed with “high confidence” that Tehran had “halted its nuclear weapons program.” No one other than the Iranian rulers and their agents denies that the regime is rushing headlong to build a large nuclear arsenal.

Second, if the apocalyptic-minded leaders in Tehran get the Bomb, they render the Middle East yet more volatile and dangerous. They might deploy these weapons in the region, leading to massive death and destruction. Eventually, they could launch an electromagnetic pulse attack on the United States, utterly devastating the country. By eliminating the Iranian nuclear threat, Obama protects the homeland and sends a message to American’s friends and enemies.

Third, polling shows longstanding American support for an attack on the Iranian nuclear infrastructure:

Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg, January 2006: 57 percent of Americans favor military intervention if Tehran pursues a program that could enable it to build nuclear arms.

Zogby International, October 2007: 52 percent of likely voters support a U.S. military strike to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon; 29 percent oppose such a step.

McLaughlin & Associates, May 2009: When asked whether they would support “using the [U.S.] military to attack and destroy the facilities in Iran which are necessary to produce a nuclear weapon,” 58 percent of 600 likely voters supported the use of force and 30 percent opposed it.

Fox News, September 2009: When asked “Do you support or oppose the United States taking military action to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons?” 61 percent of 900 registered voters supported military action and 28 opposed it.

Pew Research Center, October 2009: When asked which is more important, “to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, even if it means taking military action,” or “to avoid a military conflict with Iran, even if it means they may develop nuclear weapons,” 61 percent of 1,500 respondents favored the first reply and 24 percent the second.

Not only does a strong majority — 57, 52, 58, 61, and 61 percent in these five polls — already favor using force, but after a strike Americans will presumably rally around the flag, sending that number much higher.

Fourth, if the U.S.limited its strike to taking out Iran’s nuclear facilities and did not attempt any regime change, it would require few “boots on the ground” and entail relatively few casualties, making an attack more politically palatable.

Just as 9/11 caused voters to forget George W. Bush’s meandering early months, a strike on Iranian facilities would dispatch Obama’s feckless first year down the memory hole and transform the domestic political scene. It would sideline health care, prompt Republicans to work with Democrats, and make the netroots squeal, independents reconsider, and conservatives swoon.

But the chance to do good and do well is fleeting. As the Iranians improve their defenses and approach weaponization, the window of opportunity is closing. The time to act is now, or, on Obama’s watch, the world will soon become a much more dangerous place.

Obama offers Iran 'serious dialogue': US President Barack Obama continued to offer Iran "serious, meaningful dialogue," despite revelations it was building a second secret nuclear facility