The Institute for National Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University said in its annual report, released Tuesday, that Iran will possess nuclear weapons unless military action is taken against it, and Israel would be capable of carrying out such an attack

“Time is working in Iran’s favor, and barring military action, Iran’s
possession of nuclear weapons is only a matter of time,” the institute said in a statement distributed at a news conference where it released its annual assessment of the Middle East’s strategic balance.

Israel considers Iran to be its most serious threat. It dismisses Tehran’s claims that its nuclear program is designed solely to produce energy and is worried by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s repeated calls to wipe the Jewish state off the map.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has not ruled out a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program, but has said he hoped other ways could be found to keep Tehran from becoming a nuclear power. In 1981, Israel destroyed an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor in a surprise air attack. (more…)

Israel on Tuesday will test, for the UN, an underground installation in the Negev desert designed to monitor any attempt by arch-foe Iran to test nuclear devices, the daily Yediot Aharonot reported.
The test will consist of three strong explosions Israel will deliberately set off in the northern Negev using 15 tonnes of liquid explosives, to see how they register on equipment at the underground site.

Each blast will be equivalent to a seismic tremor of 2.4 on the Richter scale, the report said.

The facility is equipped with seismographs and other equipment able to detect earth tremors and transmits the data directly to the International Atomic Nuclear Agency (IAEA) in Vienna via Israel’s nuclear research facility at Nahal Sorek, the paper said.

The new underground testing center is in the mountains near the Red Sea beach resort of Eilat.

“The station will assess earth tremors, and ways to predict them and other underground and surface activity, such as nuclear tests,” the paper quoted Rami Hofshteter of the Lod Geophysics Institute near Tel Aviv as saying. (more…)

Iran’s influential former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani warned Western powers Sunday that pressuring Iran to halt its controversial nuclear work would have consequences for the whole region.

The UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution on December 23 that imposes sanctions on Iran for its refusal to freeze nuclear enrichment — a process that can make nuclear fuel or the fissile core of an atom bomb.

“This is a dangerous resolution, they are creating problems for themselves and the region … many will suffer from the smoke of this fire,” Rafsanjani said in a prayer sermon carried live on state radio.

“Sanctions cannot make Iran surrender,” the former president said, while pledging cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency to “clear allegations that Iran wants to go towards nuclear military work”.

“We are ready to cooperate with international organizations with all their rules of inspection,” he said, calling on Iranian officials to seek to resolve the nuclear standoff with “prudence and patience”. (more…)

Tehran — Iran on Saturday termed the execution of Saddam Hussein as a “victory for the Iraqi people”, state news agency IRNA reported.

“The execution of Saddam Hussein was a victory for the Iraqi people and no other country should take credit for that,” Deputy Foreign Minister Hamid-Reza told IRNA in a first reaction by Tehran to the execution.

Assefi however criticised the swift execution and speculated that the United States preferred to avoid disclosure of more details in the court hearings. (more…)

Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar on Friday dismissed U.N. sanctions imposed on Iran as “psychological warfare” and suggested they would not affect Iran’s missile production capability.

The U.N. Security Council banned Iran from importing or exporting sensitive nuclear materials and technology as well as ballistic missile delivery systems in a move aimed at stopping it from nuclear enrichment activities that can be used in nuclear weapons.

“We see these sanctions as a psychological warfare that will have no effect on the output of Iran’s defense industries,” Najjar said in an interview with state television.

“We produce several items of defense industries in various fields. They are all indigenous and need no (assistance from) abroad,” he added. (more…)

Iran’s parliament on Wednesday approved a bill obliging the government to “revise its cooperation” with the UN nuclear watchdog in retaliation for Security Council sanctions imposed on Tehran.

The text of the bill, which also tells the government to “accelerate” Iran’s controversial nuclear programme, was approved by an overwhelming majority in the conservative-controlled parliament, with 161 in favour and 15 against.

The move is set to further inflame tensions over the Iranian nuclear programme, which the Islamic republic has vowed to expand in defiance of the sanctions agreed by the UN Security Council last week.

Iran has refused to heed the council’s demand to suspend uranium enrichment, a process that Western countries fear could be used to develop a nuclear weapon. Iran insists its atomic drive is entirely peaceful. (more…)

All secondary pupils in Scotland should be given ID cards in an effort to stamp out bullying, according to a teaching union.

The Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association (SSTA) says many schools already have card systems in place for school lunches and libraries.

It believes adding a picture would stop pupils missing meals because they have been bullied into handing over cards.

However, the Green Party described the proposal as “deeply troubling”. (more…)

The New York Times has taken the unusual step of publishing an op-ed in which parts of the contents have been “redacted” or blacked out by government censors, who believe that its contents would reveal “sensitive” information that the White House wants to withold. Below is RAW STORY’s best informed guess at what might hide behind the redactions.

In addition to the redacted op-ed, the Times published an explanatory note from its authors, Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann. Leverett served in the Bush National Security Council under Condoleezza Rice, and is now affiliated with the Washington, DC-based Brookings Institution. Hillary Mann is an ex-foreign service officer who participated in US dialogue with Iran from 2001 to 2003.

Leverett and Mann made available a set of publicly-available sources of information which they had “provided…to the board to demonstrate that all of the material the White House objected to is already in the public domain.” However, as they noted, “to make sense of much of our Op-Ed article, readers will have to read the citations for themselves.”

RAW STORY has examined these sources and has attempted to connect the previously published materials to the redacted paragraphs in the op-ed. What the information reveals is a series of events in which US-Iran dialogue broke down. In the aftermath of 9/11, the cooperative spirit around the world sparked by America’s victimhood encouraged Iran to collaborate with the United States in its effort to topple the Taliban in Afghanistan. But the goodwill that might have been sustained by those early negotiations was undermined by a series of disputes between the US and Iran. (more…)

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s opponents won local council elections in Iran, final results showed Thursday, in an embarrassing blow to the hard-line leader that could force him to change his staunch anti-Western stance and focus more on domestic issues.

Last week’s elections for local councils in towns and cities across Iran were widely seen as a referendum on Ahmadinejad’s 18 months in office.

Since taking power, Ahmadinejad has escalated Iran’s confrontation with the United States and the West, drawing the threat of U.N. sanctions for pushing ahead with uranium enrichment in Iran’s nuclear program. He has also provoked international outrage for his comments against Israel and casting doubt on the Nazi Holocaust.

His hard-line stances are believed to have divided the conservatives who voted him into power last year, with some feeling Ahmadinejad has spent too much time confronting the West and has failed to deal with Iran’s struggling economy. (more…)

Nothing short of a military strike will stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, an Israeli newspaper quoted a respected Israeli think tank as concluding on Friday.

“There is no longer a possibility for effective sanctions to stop Iran,” retired Brig.-Gen. Zvi Shtauber, of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, told The Jerusalem Post.

“Our conclusion is that without military action you won’t be able to stop Iran,” Shtauber said.

Shtauber and former Israel Air Force intelligence officer Yiftah Shapir compiled the institute’s annual report on the military balance in the Middle East. (more…)

The United States and Britain will begin moving additional warships and strike aircraft into the Persian Gulf region in a display of military resolve toward Iran that will come as the United Nations continues to debate possible sanctions against the country, Pentagon and military officials said Wednesday.

The officials said that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates was expected this week to approve a request by commanders for a second aircraft carrier and its supporting ships to be stationed within quick sailing distance of Iran by early next year.

Senior American officers said the increase in naval power should not be viewed as preparations for any offensive strike against Iran. But they acknowledged that the ability to hit Iran would be increased and that Iranian leaders might well call the growing presence provocative. One purpose of the deployment, they said, is to make clear that the focus on ground troops in Iraq has not made it impossible for the United States and its allies to maintain a military watch on Iran. That would also reassure Washington’s allies in the region who are concerned about Iran’s intentions. (more…)

WASHINGTON — Iran is suffering a staggering decline in revenue from its oil exports, and if the trend continues income could disappear by 2015, a National Academy of Sciences analysis found.

Iran’s economic woes could make the country unstable and vulnerable, with its oil industry crippled, Roger Stern, an economic geographer at Johns Hopkins University, wrote in the report published Monday.

Iran earns about $50 billion a year in oil exports. The decline is estimated at 10 to 12 percent annually.

Are we still scratching our heads as to why Iran is developing nuclear energy? (more…)

Russia is the only country in the world capable of averting the “nuclear holocaust” that a confrontation between Iran and Israel could bring about, Russian Jewish Congress head Vyacheslav Kantor said Wednesday, news agency RIA-Novosti reported.

“Everyone understands wonderfully that Israel posseses nuclear weapons, while Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons, but already has the means to deliver them, and needs about two years before it will be in full possession of them,” Kantor said.

“And today, Russia is the only country that has the unique ability to speak with all parties in the potential future conflicts that are still possible to avoid. That is Russia’s historic mission,” Kantor said. (more…)

Tony Blair called on moderate Muslim states across the Middle East to unite to tackle the “forces of extremism” in Iran and counter its influence around the world.

A month after hinting at a possible partnership with Iran, Mr Blair launched his toughest assault yet on Tehran, accusing it of openly supporting terrorism in Iraq, undermining the Lebanese government and trying to acquire nuclear arms.

He said the regime of the President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was at the heart of a “monumental struggle” between the forces of moderation and extremism around the world. (more…)

UNITED NATIONS — Iran demanded Tuesday that the U.N. Security Council condemn what it said was Israel’s clandestine development of nuclear weapons and “compel” it to place all its nuclear facilities under U.N. inspection.

If Israel refuses to comply, Iran said the council must take “resolute action” under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter which authorizes a range of measures from diplomatic and economic sanctions to military action.

Iran insists its own nuclear program is a purely peaceful effort to develop energy, but the United States and many European nations believe Tehran’s real aim in enriching uranium is to produce nuclear weapons. The Security Council is currently debating a resolution that would impose sanctions on Iran for refusing to suspend its enrichment program. (more…)