Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned the United States and other nations Tuesday not to impose tougher sanctions in reaction to the Islamic country’s nuclear ambitions.

Iran already faces U.N. sanctions and the five permanent Security Council members — the United States, Britain, Russia, China and France, all of which have veto power — have been engaged along with Germany in discussions about possible further measures.

“It’s high time for some people to open their eyes and adapt themselves to real changes that are under way,” Ahmadinejad said at a news conference in Tehran.

Asked specifically about the threat of tougher sanctions, the Iranian president said, “We prefer that they move in the spirit of cooperation. It won’t put us in trouble. They themselves will get into trouble.”

Ahmadinejad also seemed to threaten unspecified retaliation, saying Iran won’t act like it has in the past.

“Definitely, we will show a reaction that will put them to shame, like always,” he said.

Source/Full Story: CNN.com

Citizens in three countries foresee a U.S.-backed military intervention in Iran in the next decade, according to a poll by Angus Reid Public Opinion. 58 per cent of respondents in Britain, 56 per cent of Canadians and 54 per cent of Americans regard this as a likely possibility.

In addition, a sizeable proportion of people in the three countries believe Vladimir Putin will be directly involved in the Russian government ten years from now, and at least three-in-ten think a U.S.-backed military intervention in North Korea will take place.

Source/Full Story:  Angus Reid Global Monitor

Federal prosecutors have taken steps to seize four U.S. mosques and a Manhattan skyscraper owned by a nonprofit Muslim organization long suspected of being secretly controlled by the Iranian government.

In what could prove to be one of the biggest counterterrorism seizures in U.S. history, prosecutors filed a civil complaint Thursday in federal court against the Alavi Foundation, seeking the forfeiture of more than $500 million in assets.

The assets include bank accounts; Islamic centers consisting of schools and mosques in New York City, Maryland, California and Houston; more than 100 acres in Virginia; and a 36-story glass office tower in New York.

Confiscating the properties would be a sharp blow against Iran, which has been accused by the U.S. government of bankrolling terrorism and trying to build a nuclear bomb.

Source/Full Story: FOXNews.com

Israel and the United States launched a major air defense drill Wednesday as part of what Israeli public radio called preparation for a faceoff with Iran.

During the two-week maneuvers, dubbed Juniper Cobra, some 1,000 American personnel will mesh ground- and ship-based missile interceptors like the Aegis, THAAD and Patriot with Israel’s Arrow II ballistic shield, defense officials said.

Spokesmen on both sides insisted the biennial drill was unrelated to world events, but Israel Radio quoted an unnamed commander as saying it served “to prepare for a nuclear Iran.”

Source/Full Story: Reuters
Technorati Tags: Juniper Cobra

Brzezinski, who was considered a hawk in the Carter administration and was often touted by Democratic politicians as the party’s response to Henry Kissinger, spoke to The Daily Beast about how Obama flubbed the delivery of his decision to the Czechs and the Poles, why dropping the program won’t convince Russia to help us on Iran, and the effect of a possible Israeli preemptive strike on Tehran.

Source/Full Story:: How Obama Flubbed His Missile Message – The Daily Beast

There are some pundits who believe that by abandoning the missile-defense program, we will gain the help of Russia when it comes to arm-twisting Iran over its nuclear weapons program. Anything to that?
I doubt it. The Russians have their own interests in Iran, which are far more complex than the simplistic notion that the Russians want to help us with Iran. The Russians have a complicated agenda with Iran. They also know in the back of their heads that if worse came to worse—and I am not saying they are deliberately promoting the worst—but if worse came to worse, which is an American-Iranian military collision, who would pay the highest price for that? First, America, whose success in ending the Cold War the Russians still bitterly resent. And we would also pay a high price in Iraq, Afghanistan, and massively so with regards to the price of oil. Second, who would suffer the most? The Chinese, who the Russians view as a long-range threat and of whom they are very envious, because the Chinese get much more of their oil from the Middle East than we do, and the skyrocketing price would hurt them even more than us. Third, who would then be totally dependent on the Russians? The West Europeans. And fourth, who would cash in like crazy? The Kremlin.

Technorati Tags: Zbigniew Brzezinski

A general close to the investigation into the mysterious voyage of the Arctic Sea has told a Russian newspaper that he suspected the ship was carrying a secret cargo of illegal weapons, as many conspiracy theorists have suggested.

The newspaper, Komsomolskaya Pravda, interviewed what it described as a senior general in the Russian Navy who had been close to the investigation. The general said that he knew far more than he could say openly at this stage, but his testimony, if genuine, represents the first concrete information to come out of the investigation, which has been shrouded in mystery.

He said the theory that the ship might have been carrying drugs was excluded from the beginning, but that the investigation had focussed on a possible weapons shipment, in particular S-300 or X-55 missiles bound for Iran, and sold by a "weapons mafia" involving top Russian officials but operating outside of the law.

The efforts which Russia put into recovering a ship that had a stated cargo worth less than £1m, has led many to suspect that there may have been a secret, embarrassing cargo.

"I think that if this journey had been successful, Russia could have ended up in a huge international scandal," he said. "I think that for this reason the order was given from the top to start this huge naval operation. We caught the boat to make sure we didn’t end up in a nasty situation."

Source/Full Story: The Independent

A U.S. counterterrorism official says Saad bin Laden, one of the sons of Osama bin Laden, was probably killed earlier this year in Pakistan.

“We believe he is dead, although in all of these instances, unless you have DNA or other hard evidence, you don’t know for sure,” said the official, adding that “other intelligence” led analysts to reach the conclusion he is likely dead.

The son, who is believed to have died in a missile strike by a U.S. predator drone, was not considered a significant player in al Qaeda.

Shortly after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in October of 2001, Saad fled the country and went to Iran, where he was held under house arrest for a number of years.

Former Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said Saad left Iran last year and was believed to have resettled in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region.

Source/Full Story:: CNN.com
Technorati Tags: Saad bin Laden, Osama bin Laden

Speaking at a news conference on Monday, foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi accused Western governments of explicitly backing violent protests aimed at undermining the stability of Iran’s Islamic Republic.

"Spreading anarchy and vandalism by Western powers and also Western media… these are not at all accepted," he said.

He said the West was acting in an "anti-democratic" manner, instead praising Iran’s commitment to democracy and stressing once again that the results of the presidential election were unimpeachable.

Iran has strongly criticised the US and UK governments in recent days, and Mr Qashqavi reserved special scorn for the BBC and for the Voice of America network, which he called "government channels".

The BBC and other foreign media have been reporting from Iran under severe restrictions for the past week. The BBC’s permanent correspondent in Iran, Jon Leyne, was asked to leave the country on Sunday.

"They [the BBC and the VOA] are the mouthpiece of their government’s public diplomacy," Mr Qashqavi said.

Source/Full Story: BBC

Israel has launched its largest-ever military exercise to test its capabilities against potential missile attacks, bombings and riots.

Over the past few months, Israel has been busy making plans for fresh confrontation in the Middle East. The drill is widely believed to be in line with the regime’s preparation for a possible attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities which they admit can ignite an all-out war in the region.

The five-day exercise which was launched on Sunday will simulate simultaneous rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip and Lebanon and missile attacks from Iran and Syria.

"We will be exercising the doomsday scenario of simultaneous strikes against Israel on all fronts and by different means," Israel’s defense ministry spokesman Shlomo Dror told AFP last week.

Exercise Turning Point 3 will also include simulating chemical and biological strikes on populated centers and a wave of attacks by Palestinians.

Source/Full Story: presstv.ir

The State Department voiced concern Thursday about the secret trial in Iran of an American journalist on espionage charges, calling it “baseless” and saying her release could aid U.S.-Iranian relations.

Acting department spokesman Robert Wood confirmed Iranian reports that Roxana Saberi went on trial in Iran earlier this week on charges of spying. According to the reports, Iranian authorities said she has confessed.

“We’ve been very concerned about the transparency of this judicial process,” Wood said. “And we call on the Iranians to provide as much information as they can to us about Roxana Saberi.”

Saberi’s trial began Monday and her lawyer has completed his defense, a spokesman for the judiciary, Ali Reza Jamshidi, told reporters. According to the semiofficial Mehr News Agency, Jamshidi said the verdict should be delivered within a few weeks.

Senior State Department officials said the trial was conducted in secret. Switzerland, which represents U.S. interests in Iran in the absence of formal ties between the two countries, was not allowed to send a representative and it was unclear whether Saberi was allowed to have a lawyer present.

Saberi’s lawyer, Abdolsamad Khorramshahi, could not be reached for comment.

Authorities said Saberi spied inside the country by posing as a journalist.

Source/Full Story::  CNN.com

Two years after a retired FBI agent disappeared in Iran, the State Department said it remains committed to finding him.
…

Levinson disappeared during a business trip to Iran’s Kish Island in 2007. Iranian authorities have said repeatedly that they do not know what might have happened to him, but the claim is widely doubted in the United States.

…

Levinson had been working as a private investigator in Dubai. He was last heard from on March 8, 2007, when he checked into a Kish Island hotel and then checked out to return to the United States the following day. After leaving the FBI, he worked as a security consultant specializing in cigarette smuggling, Levinson’s wife, Christine, said.

Wexler said Levinson never arrived at the airport for his flight home.

Source: CNN.com

Source: CNN.com

ranian authorities said Tuesday they arrested four citizens who were paid by the U.S. government to bring about a regime change.

Alireza Jamshidi, a spokesman for Iran’s judiciary, told reporters that the four were trying to recruit others in their plot, but he did not disclose any additional details of what the suspects were conspiring to do.

“The group was trying to recruit more people by setting up a network and training new agents,” the semi-official Iranian Labor News Agency quoted Jamshidi as saying.

“The network was funded and guided by the Bush administration, the State Department and the CIA, with the objective of bringing about a regime change in Iran,” Jamshidi said, according to another semi-official news agency, Mehr.

It was not clear if the arrests were connected to several detentions throughout Iran in recent weeks. All those arrested are accused of similar crimes.

Technorati Tags: Iran, CIA

Map of Iran- Click for larger image

Source: globalresearch.ca

A familiar coalition of hawks, hardliners, and neoconservatives expects Barack Obama’s proposed talks with Iran to fail — and they’re already proposing an escalating set of measures instead. Some are meant to occur alongside any future talks. These include steps to enhance coordination with Israel , tougher sanctions against Iran , and a region-wide military buildup of U.S. strike forces, including the prepositioning of military supplies within striking distance of that country.

Once the future negotiations break down, as they are convinced will happen, they propose that Washington quickly escalate to war-like measures, including a U.S. Navy-enforced embargo on Iranian fuel imports and a blockade of that country’s oil exports. Finally, of course, comes the strategic military attack against the Islamic Republic of Iran that so many of them have wanted for so long.

It’s tempting to dismiss the hawks now as twice-removed from power: first, figures like John Bolton, Paul Wolfowitz, and Douglas Feith were purged from top posts in the Bush administration after 2004; then the election of Barack Obama and the announcement Monday of his centrist, realist-minded team of establishment foreign policy gurus seemed to nail the doors to power shut for the neocons, who have bitterly criticized the president-elect’s plans to talk with Iran, withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq, and abandon the reckless Global War on Terrorism rhetoric of the Bush era.

Full Story

Technorati Tags: Iran

Source: Prison Planet

Texas Congressman Ron Paul has warned that any strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities undertaken by the Israeli air force will take place with the explicit backing of the U.S. government.

Speaking to Press TV, Iran’s state backed news agency, the Congressman warned that unilateral Israeli action would be an impossibility.

“No matter what they do, it is our money, it is our weapons, and they are not going to do it without us approving it,” Paul commented.

The Congressman’s warning comes in light of a report in the New York Times by nuclear physicist Richard Garwin that suggests Iran has produced nearly enough nuclear material to create one atomic bomb.

The report contradicts last year’s National Intelligence Estimate which stated that Iran halted work toward a nuclear weapon under international scrutiny in 2003 and is unlikely to be able to produce enough enriched uranium for a bomb until 2010 to 2015.

Full Story

Technorati Tags: Israel, Iran

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Source: Haaretz

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Friday, “We know that certain players are planning an attack against Iran. But we oppose any unilateral step and military solution to the nuclear crisis,” he added.

Speaking at the Valdai Discussion Club, an annual forum of opinion-makers in Moscow, Medvedev also said, “The world does not need to tighten its sanctions on Iran at this time.”

The discussions at Valdai dealt with Russia’s international role. In response to a question from Haaretz as to whether the Middle East conference Russia is planning to host in the fall shows involvement similar to that once displayed by the Soviet Union, Medvedev said that Russia is not the heir to the Soviet Union.
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“Russia has a completely different value system,” he said. “When it proposes a mediation service, its sole intention is to assist in bringing about a peace that both Jews and Arabs will enjoy.”

A day before the discussion with Medvedev, the forum’s members met with Russia’s former president and incumbent prime minister, Vladimir Putin.

Putin said he considers Russia’s presence in the Middle East important and that his country intended to use Syrian ports “as it did in the past, but not for defined purposes.”

The president’s adviser, Oleg Tsatsurin, told Haaretz: “Russia would not take any action that would change the balance of power in the Middle East or harm the excellent relations between Russia and Israel.”

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