OBAMA PLAYING FOR TIME

"... U.S. officials have repeatedly warned that Tehran will not be allowed to “play for time” in the negotiations. In fact, it is the Obama administration that is playing for time... (the) administration is “buying time” for a more pernicious agenda: time for covert action to sabotage Tehran’s nuclear program; time for sanctions to set the stage for regime change in Iran; and time for the United States, its European and Sunni Arab partners, and Turkey to weaken the Islamic Republic by overthrowing the Assad government in Syria..."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/06/19-9

AMENDMENT REQUIRES STUDY OF CONSEQUENCES OF WAR WITH IRAN

"... the House of Representatives approved by voice vote an amendment to the Intelligence Authorization Act... aimed at highlighting the potential consequences of a war with Iran. The amendment requires that the Director of National Intelligence submit a report containing an assessment of the consequences of a military strike on Iran to congressional intelligence committees within 60 days of the intelligence bill's passage... the measure “will help slow down the rush towards war” with Iran by ensuring that the “broad impact[s] of a potential attack” are considered... the intention of the amendment was to ensure that the costs of a military strike on Iran, a possibility which is “openly [being] discussed as a policy option of last resort”, would first be thoroughly analyzed."
http://www.niacouncil.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8278&security=1&news_iv_ctrl=-1

U.S. "UN-DECLARES" WAR ON IRAN

"All 535 members of Congress are now on the record declaring that they have not authorized the use of military force against Iran... (a) unanimous 'un-declaration' of war by Congress... (by) a proviso in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)... (stipulating) that "nothing in this Act shall be construed as authorizing the use of force against Iran..."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/05/23

ISRAEL FEARS IRAN AGREEMENT WILL CANCEL OPTION OF ATTACK

"Israel fears nuclear deal between Iran, world powers as Baghdad talks draw near... an ‘intermediate agreement’ between Islamic Republic and world powers on May 23 could cancel option of military strike... the feeling in Jerusalem is that Iran and the world powers are striving to reach a preliminary agreement concerning the nuclear program, which could forge a base for a permanent agreement between Iran, the U.S. and the other powers... Such an agreement will buy time for more talks, and tie Israel’s hands in terms of carrying out a unilateral strike.... Israel views the talks... with some bitterness, perhaps even with hopes that they will fail completely..."
http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/diplomania/israel-fears-nuclear-deal-between-iran-world-powers-as-baghdad-talks-draw-near-1.430423

U.S. A STATE SPONSOR OF MEK TERROR IN IRAN

"... the US has trained and funded a 'terrorist' organization in a bid to weaken the Iranian regime... the US has trained and funded members of the group know as Mujahideen-e-Khalq (M.E.K), who has become a prominent insurgent force in Iran... The Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) conducted training, beginning in 2005, for M.E.K., in Nevada. The group's brutal tactics had landed it on the US State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations; however, the report shows that the US continued to actively support them..."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/04/06-0

IRAN NUCLEAR THREAT NOT IMMINENT

"The United States, European allies and even Israel generally agree on three things about Iran's nuclear program: Tehran does not have a bomb, has not decided to build one, and is probably years away from having a deliverable nuclear warhead. Those conclusions, drawn from extensive interviews with current and former U.S. and European officials with access to intelligence on Iran, contrast starkly with the heated debate surrounding a possible Israeli strike on Tehran's nuclear facilities...

"There is little argument, however, that Iran's leaders have taken steps that would give them the option of becoming a nuclear-armed power. Iran has enriched uranium, although not yet of sufficient quantity or purity to fuel a bomb, and has built secret enrichment sites, which were acknowledged only when unmasked. Iran has, in years past, worked on designing a nuclear warhead, the complicated package of electronics and explosives that would transform highly enriched uranium into a fission bomb. And it is developing missiles that could in theory launch such a weapon at a target in enemy territory..."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/23/us-iran-usa-nuclear-idUSBRE82M0G020120323

OBAMA THREATENS FORCE AGAINST IRAN OVER BOMB
U.N. charter prohibits both threats and force

"Barack Obama has delivered his starkest threat so far over Iran's nuclear ambitions, saying America is ''not bluffing'' when it warns military action could be used to stop Tehran acquiring the bomb.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/us-threatens-iran-on-bomb-20120303-1u9kn.html

But the U.N. Charter, to which the U.S. is a signatory, explicitly prohibits not just a military attack on another nation, but also the issuance of threats of such an attack.
"All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."
--United Nations Charter, Chapter I, Article 2, Paragraph 4
http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/chapter1.shtml

U.S. AGENCIES SEE NO MOVE TO BUILD BOMB

"Even as the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said in a new report Friday that Iran had accelerated its uranium enrichment program, American intelligence analysts continue to believe that there is no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb. Recent assessments by American spy agencies are broadly consistent with a 2007 intelligence finding that concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program years earlier, according to current and former American officials. The officials said that assessment was largely reaffirmed in a 2010 National Intelligence Estimate, and that it remains the consensus view of America’s 16 intelligence agencies..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/25/world/middleeast/us-agencies-see-no-move-by-iran-to-build-a-bomb.html

IRAN REFUSES ACCESS TO SUSPECTED MILITARY NUCLEAR TECH SITE

"An IAEA report in November suggested Iran had pursued military nuclear technology... that Iran had built a large containment chamber at Parchin to conduct high-explosives tests [for bomb detonators]... (and) said there were "strong indicators of possible weapon development"... The U.N. nuclear watchdog ended its latest mission to Iran after talks on Tehran's suspected secret atomic weapons research failed... the agency team requested access to the military site at Parchin. Iran did not grant permission for this visit to take place... The failure of the IAEA's mission may increase the chances of a strike by Israel on Iran."
http://news.yahoo.com/u-n-nuclear-watchdog-tehran-talks-disappointing-004927206.html

PAKISTAN AND AFGHANISTAN WILL STAND WITH IRAN AGAINST U.S. AND ISRAEL
--Ahmadinejad, Zardari and Karzai at summit meeting of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan


"... the tripartite summit of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan (says) that Pakistan will support Iran in case of any possible aggression against it... The joint declaration says: "Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan will ensure respect of territorial sovereignty of each other and would not allow any threat emanating from their respective territories against each other".
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/02/18-0
http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/national/18-Feb-2012/pakistan-won-t-help-us-attack-iran-says-zardari

IRAN ABLE TO MAKE FUEL FOR DYING REACTOR

"Iran will present a new advance in its atomic program Wednesday by loading domestically made nuclear fuel into a research reactor in the capital Tehran... President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would attend the event at a reactor which is running out of nuclear fuel originally provided by Argentina in the 1990s... laboratory-scale production of a single element for the reactor... Iran said it was forced to take this step to make fuel for the Tehran research reactor after failing to agree terms for a deal to obtain it from the West...."
http://news.yahoo.com/iran-unveil-nuclear-fuel-advance-report-192938473.html

INTEL CHIEF: IRAN HAS NOT DECIDED TO BUILD NUCLEAR WEAPONS

"... James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, in prepared testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee... reiterated the American intelligence assessment that “Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons, in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that better position it to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so.” He added, “We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/world/intelligence-chief-sees-al-qaeda-likely-to-continue-fragmenting.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2

INDIA AND CHINA TO CONTINUE TO BUY IRANIAN OIL

"... EU foreign ministers this week agreed to a ban on oil imports from Iran as of 1 July... (But) India has no intention of following suit... officials in Delhi made clear they intended to carry on importing oil from Iran, despite the imposition of Western sanctions against Tehran... India buys 12 per cent of its oil from Iran, which is its second largest supplier after Saudi Arabia... China is the Islamic Republic’s largest customer, accounting for around 20 per cent of its exports, and has already made clear it has no plan to alter this arrangement..."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/india-pledges-to-continue-buying-oil-from-iran-6294530.html

ISRAEL SAYS IRAN HAS NOT DECIDED TO MAKE NUCLEAR BOMB

"... Defense Minister Ehud Barak said... Israel believes Iran itself has not yet decided whether to make a nuclear bomb... (and) that Israel was "very far off" from a decision about an attack on Iran over its nuclear program..."
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/barak-israel-very-far-off-from-decision-on-iran-attack-1.407953

U.S. ADDS 2nd CARRIER STRIKE GROUP AGAINST IRAN

"The U.S. military is now "fully prepared" to deal with any Iranian effort to close the Strait of Hormuz... The Navy this month added a second aircraft carrier strike group in the Middle East... The carriers are the USS Carl Vinson and the USS Abraham Lincoln, under the control of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command in Bahrain..."
http://news.yahoo.com/panetta-us-fully-prepared-iran-challenge-193126193.html

NUCLEAR SCIENTISTS ASSASSINATED - 3 DEAD, 1 WOUNDED IN 2 YEARS
State-sponsored terrorism

"... In January, 2010, a remote-controlled bomb attached to a motorcycle killed Masoud Ali Mohammadi, 50, who “taught neutron physics at Tehran University.” In November, 2010, two separate car bombs exploded within minutes of each other on the same day, one that killed nuclear scientist Majid Shahriar and wounded his wife, and the other which wounded another nuclear scientist, Fereidoun Abbasi, along with his wife. Then, in July of last year, Darioush Rezaei, 35, was shot dead and his wife was wounded by two gunmen firing from motorcycles... Rezaei “did his doctorate in neutron transport – which lies at the heart of nuclear chain reactions in reactors and bombs” and “was a member of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, the country’s official atomic energy commission.”

"And now... a 32-year-old university professor, Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, died when an assailant riding on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to his car, which then detonated and killed him... the young scientist “was believed to be involved in procuring materials for Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz.”

"... Does anyone doubt that some combination of the two nations completely obsessed with Iran’s nuclear program — Israel and the U.S. — are responsible?"

http://www.salon.com/2012/01/11/more_murder_of_iranian_scientists_still_terrorism/?source=newsletter

IRANIANS SEE PURPOSE OF OIL SANCTIONS AS REGIME CHANGE
Not nuclear negotiations

"... the U.S. and its European partners move to throttle Iran’s economy by cutting off its ability to export oil... stated goal is to bring Iran to the table to negotiate a deal that would end international concerns over a nuclear program that has given Iran the means to build nuclear weapons—even though, as Defense Secretary Leon Panetta emphasized... U.S. and allied officials believe Tehran has not yet decided to build the bomb...

"Regardless of the Administration’s intent, the new measures, which are explicitly designed to throttle the Iranian economy, are being read in Tehran as further evidence that Washington’s goal is to force regime-change. That’s hardly likely to convince Iran’s leaders that they don’t need nuclear weapons; on the contrary, Iran appears to be bracing itself for war.

http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2012/01/09/why-new-sanctions-raise-danger-of-iran-building-nuclear-weapons/

SECDEF SAYS IRAN NOT BUILDING NUCLEAR WEAPON

"Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta... declared... that Iran is not currently trying to build a nuclear weapon... Iran says its nuclear program is only for energy and medical research, and refuses to halt uranium enrichment.."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/01/08

U.S. SANCTIONS ON IRANIAN OIL WILL ONLY HURT THE WEST

"... A key amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act signed by United States President Barack Obama on the last day of 2011... imposes sanctions on any countries or companies that buy Iranian oil and pay for it through Iran's central bank. Starting this summer, anybody who does it is prevented from doing business with the US. This amendment - for all practical purposes a declaration of economic war - was brought to you by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), on direct orders of the Israeli government... The price of oil may be destined to soon reach $120 a barrel and even $150 a barrel by summer...

"(But)... everyone... will be bypassing this Israeli-American declaration of economic war:
- Russia already said it will circumvent it.
- India is already paying for Iranian oil via Halkbank in Turkey.
- Iran is actively negotiating to sell more oil to China. Iran is China's second-largest supplier, only behind Saudi Arabia. China pays in euros, and soon may be paying in yuan. By March they both will have sealed an agreement about new pricing.
- Venezuela controls a bi-national bank with Iran since 2009; that's how Iran gets paid for business in Latin America.
- Even traditional US allies want out. Turkey - which imports around 30% of its oil from Iran - will seek a waiver exempting Turkish oil importer Tupras from US sanctions.
- And South Korea will also seek a waiver, to buy around 200,000 barrels a day - 10% of its oil - from Iran in 2012..."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NA07Ak01.html

ISRAEL TRYING TO INVOLVE U.S. IN ATTACK ON IRAN

"... Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu... is exploiting the extraordinary influence his right-wing Likud Party exercises over the Republican Party and the U.S. Congress on matters related to Israel in order to maximise the likelihood that the United States would participate in an attack on Iran. Obama, meanwhile, appears to be hoping that he can avoid being caught up in a regional war started by Israel if he distances the United States from any Israeli attack..."
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=106361