Iran War Rumor Makes another Appearance

Posted by johnhouk on Apr 16, 2008
 Below is a series of collected news stories by Middle East watch dog Prophecy Update (Excerpted). The articles each point to an impending war between Iran and America regardless of the public face of denial of the Bush Administration.

JRH 4/15/08
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Iran Threatens to Eliminate Israel

Prophecy Update
Apr 15 2008 01:02PM
News Excerpts

Iran threatens to eliminate Israel – www.jpost.com

Iran will destroy Israel if Israel attacks Teheran, Iranian Deputy Chief of Staff Mohammad Reza Ashtiani warned Tuesday in response to a threat issued last week by National Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer.

"We are not worried by the recent Israeli maneuvers, but if Israel wants to take any action against the Islamic republic, we will eliminate Israel from the universe," the Iranian Mehr agency quoted Ashtiani as saying.

Ben-Eliezer had warned that "Iran will be wiped off the face of the earth if it dares to fire any missile at us."

Later in the week, Ben-Eliezer would not retract his statement: "I do not regret the threats I directed at Iran and its leaders. I am sick of receiving threats to Israel's existence on a daily basis."
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Source: U.S. Strike on Iran Nearing - By: Jim Meyers - www.newsmax.com

Contrary to some claims that the Bush administration will allow diplomacy to handle Iran’s nuclear weapons program, a leading member of America’s Jewish community tells Newsmax that a military strike is not only on the table – but likely.

“Israel is preparing for heavy casualties,” the source said, suggesting that although Israel will not take part in the strike, it is expecting to be the target of Iranian retribution.

“Look at Dick Cheney’s recent trip through the Middle East as preparation for the U.S. attack,” the source said.

Cheney’s hastily arranged 9-day visit to the region, which began on March 16, included stops in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, Turkey, and the Palestinian territories.

Tensions in the region have been rising.

While Israel was conducting the largest home front military exercises in its history last week, Israel’s National Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer warned Tehran about expected attacks on the Jewish state.

“An Iranian attack will prompt a severe reaction from Israel, which will destroy the Iranian nation,” he said.

He predicted that in a future war, “hundreds of missiles will rain on Israel,” but added that Iran “is definitely aware of our strength.”

In addition to long-range missiles Iran has been developing to strike Israel, Israel’s military strategists see the Iranians using terror groups they back like Hamas operating from Palestine and Hezbollah from Lebanon to launch attacks.

Iran has supplied Hezbollah with an arsenal that now contains “tens of thousands of missiles,” according to the Washington Post.

Israel’s recent war exercises, including preparations for chemical and biological weapons attacks, drew a sharp response from Syria which held its own military drills. The Syrian government accused Israel of preparing for a war which Damascus predicted would be begin anytime between May 1 and the end of June.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently told foreign journalists that Israel needs to confront the threat posed by Iran. Privately he has been telling associates his number one priority is have the Israeli military strike Iran if the U.S. is unwilling.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz disclosed that Israel is concerned that North Korea has transferred technology and nuclear materials to Iran to aid Tehran’s secret nuclear weapons program.

Iran remains intransigent to international pressure that it offer full transparency relating to its nuclear program. On Sunday the head of Iran’s nuclear program “abruptly canceled a meeting with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, dealing a blow to the U.N. monitor's efforts to investigate allegations that Iran tried to make nuclear arms, an agency official said,” according to an AP report.

“But a senior diplomat had told the AP that IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] head Mohamed ElBaradei likely planned to use the meeting with Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, the head of Iran's nuclear program, to renew a request for more information on allegations Tehran had tried to make atomic arms.”

A number of signs indicate that, contrary to the belief President Bush is a lame duck who will not act before he leaves office, the U.S. is poised to strike before Iran can acquire nuclear weapons and carry out the threat of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to “wipe Israel off the map”:

According to intelligence sources, the administration now rejects the National Intelligence Estimate report issued in December that asserted Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in late 2003.

The French daily Le Monde reported in March that newly surfaced documents show that Iran has continued developing nuclear weapons. In late 2006, U.S. intelligence reportedly intercepted a phone conversation in Iran’s Defense Ministry in which the nuclear weapons program was discussed.

The commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, Admiral William Fallon, resigned in March amid media reports that he broke with President Bush’s strategy on Iran and did not want to be in the chain of command when the order comes down from the President to launch a strike on the Islamic Republic.

Democrats suggested he had been forced out because of his candor in opposing Bush’s Iran plans, and Esquire magazine contended that Fallon’s departure signaled that the U.S. is preparing to attack Iran.

According to a Tehran-based Iranian news network, Press TV, Saudi Arabia is taking emergency steps in preparing to counter any “radioactive hazards” that may result from an American attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The Saudi newspaper Okaz disclosed that the Saudi government has approved nuclear fallout preparations, and the Iranian network reported that the approval came a day after Cheney met with the kingdom’s high-ranking officials, further stating that the U.S. “is now informing its Arab allies of a potential war.”

The American commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, has stepped up criticism of Iran, telling Congress last week that Iranian support for Shiite militias posed the most serious threat to Iraq’s stability. He told senators : “Iran has fueled the violence in a particularly damaging way.” Last week, the U.S. said Iran was providing insurgents with missiles that were killing Americans and hitting targets within the U.S. occupied Green Zone in Baghdad.

MSNBC Commentator Pat Buchanan said Petraeus’ remarks to Congress lay the groundwork for a U.S. attack on Iran.

President Bush said in a speech at the White House on April 10 that Iran, along with al-Qaida, are “two of the greatest threats to America.”

H said Iran “can live in peace with its neighbors,” or “continue to arm and train and fund illegal militant groups which are terrorizing the Iraqi people … If Iran makes the wrong choice, America will act to protect our interests and our troops and our Iraqi partners.”

He later told ABC News that if Iran continues to help militants in Iraq, “then we’ll deal with them.”

Members of Congress are said to have been briefed by the administration about the rising Iran threat.

Iran did little to cool tensions when it announced that it had begun installing 6,000 new centrifuges at its uranium enrichment plant in Natanz.

Centrifuges can enrich uranium to a low level to produce nuclear fuel or a high level for use in weapons.

The announcement of the new centrifuges by President Ahmadinejad came on April 8, Iran’s National Day of Nuclear Technology, which marked the second anniversary of Iran’s first enrichment of uranium.

Iran already has about 3,000 centrifuges operating in Natanz, and the new announcement was widely seen as a show of defiance to international demands to halt a nuclear program that the U.S. and its allies insist is aimed at building nuclear weapons.
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Exclusive: Amid new Iranian threat, Israel connects to America’s Ballistic Missile Early Warning System – www.debka.com

Israel requested the hook-up to the BMEWS for early warning to defend itself against Iranian missile attack. Tuesday, April 15, Iran’s deputy C-in-C Mohammad Reza Ashtiani threatened to eliminate Israel from “the scene of the universe” if it launches a military attack on the Islamic state.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report the system operates from three global centers – the US Thule Air Base in Greenland, where the 12th Space Warning Squadron is located; the Clear Air Force Station in Alaska and the British RAF long-range radar station at Fylingdales, Yorkshire, in England.

This is the third time Israel has been connected to the BMEWS. The first was in 1991 before the first Gulf War and the second in 2003 before the US invasion of Iraq. Then, Israel feared Iraqi missile attack, which indeed materialized in 1991. Now, US military sources interpret the request as signifying Israel’s sense of the need to prepare for an Iranian missile attack in the not-too-distant future.

Such an attack could develop from a US or Israeli strike against Iran, or any war situation involving Israel, Syria or Hizballah. Tehran might also stage a pre-emptive strike if early intelligence was received of an impending US or Israeli attack on Iran, Syria or Hizballah.

These sources stressed that Iran could even decide to lash out against Israel after the event in reprisal for an American assault, not necessarily on its nuclear sites but on Revolutionary Guards bases involved in directing, arming and training militias for attacks on US troops in Iraq. In such a contingency, Tehran could decide to hit back at US bases and strategic sites in the Persian Gulf and Middle East at large, including Israel.

The hook-up to the US early warning system will give Israel a better chance to prepare its Arrow and Patriot missile defense systems – and the US to prepare its own Israel-based Patriot batteries - in good time to ward off an Iranian missile attack. The BMEWS would start beaming data on an incoming Iranian missile at the launching stage and before it is airborne.

American military sources have no doubt that if an Iranian missile barrage targets Tel Aviv, Israel will counter with a missile attack on Tehran or Damascus.
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Israel successfully test fires ballistic target – www.ynetnews.com

Blue Sparrow surrogate ballistic target successfully launched early Tuesday from IAF aircraft, meant to simulate Shahab-3 attack on Israel

The Arrow project is advancing. The defense establishment conducted Tuesday morning a successful test fire of the Blue Sparrow surrogate ballistic target simulating the threat of Iranian missiles on Israel. The missile is designed to be used as target for the Arrow system experiments in intercepting ballistic missiles.

Blue Sparrow’s first trial was rendered a success and it will be incorporated into upcoming test fires of the Arrow. The air launched target missile, made by RAFAEL, is launched from an Israeli Air Force fighter aircraft, simulating the flight of an advanced Shahab-3 ballistic missile used by the Iranians.

Various systems of the target missile have been tested to check how closely its characteristics imitate the threats Israel is being faced with.

Initial reports show that the missile has passed its first trial and will be subject to examination on other parameters. However, the real test will take place in the next few months, when the advanced Arrow 3 system will have to intercept this missile.

So far, some of the Arrow experiments have been conducted on another surrogate ballistic target, the Black Sparrow. This missile was launched from an aircraft as a simulation of an advanced Scud missile found in some countries like Syria and Iran.

The Arrow will now have to stand the test opposite the Blue Sparrow, which is similar in its characteristics to the Shahab missiles held by the Iranians.

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Waking Up to Iran - www.jinsa.org

Anyone who cares didn’t need Gen. Petraeus’s testimony to know that Iraq is a thousand percent better now than it was last September, and another thousand percent might make it almost tolerable. Iraq, indeed, wasn’t the point of his testimony – Iran was the point. And the message is clear.

Iran has been at war with the United States since the Revolution in 1979, because the Ayatollahs need an external enemy – and who better than we, always more likely to try to win them back than fight them (message to Obama). Fifty-five years after Moussadegh and 29 years after we dumped the Shah, the United States remains an essential bete noir. Earthquake relief; the rescue of Muslims in Bosnia and Kuwait; support for Kosovo independence; and the overthrow of Saddam, rescuing thousands of Shiite Marsh Arabs are irrelevant.

Persian Iran is on the march – building nuclear and long-range missile capability; spreading Shiite messianism and Persian influence; co-opting Syria; popping up in Africa and South America; arming and training Hezballah; even supporting Sunni Hamas – working with anyone who shares either or both of their goals: increased Islamic influence and the diminution of the United States.

Iraq has become an essential battlefield – NOT because we overthrew Saddam; that much even they appreciated – but because Iran assumed we would leave and allow them unfettered access to the Shiite Arab majority country and through that, direct access to Syria, Jordan and finally Israel. Iranian support was, at first, through proxies including Moktada Sadr and the Shiite parties. It was supposed to be enough.

The Americans were supposed to get bloodied and run. Iraq’s Shiites were supposed to put religion before Arabism and certainly before Iraq-ism. We didn’t and they didn’t.

We made our stand with the Sunnis fighting al Qaeda, and at some point, the al Maliki government decided Iraq shouldn’t be an arm of the Ayatollahs. The Iranians had to increase aid to their allies in Iraq and thus acquired increased visibility – something they did not want, but into which we forced them by not rolling over.

The offensive against Sadr’s forces in Basra and Baghdad required American and British assistance. But a little-reported upon meeting over the weekend brought together all of Iraq’s parliamentary parties except the Sadr parties in support of the al Maliki government. The Iraqi government and its army showed in Basra that they are forging a national identity as Iraqis, not as Shiites or Sunnis rentable by al Qaeda or Iran. Is this not the political “surge” we sought and the “reconciliation” we have demanded?

Gen. Petraeus rightly told Congress that Iraq is fragile and we have a lot of work left to do. This is no time to be sanguine. Even if Iraq continues to do well, it is only one front in the larger war against terrorists and the states that harbor and support them. And as Iraq continues improve, Iran will be looking for other fronts in its continuing war against the United States and the West.
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Olmert: Israel preparing for breaching of Rafah border – www.ynetnews.com

Prime minister tells Ynet IDF prepares for possible attempt by Palestinians to break through border with Egypt or breach Israel border. 'I'm not concerned, but I remain vigilant,' he states


Israel is preparing for the possibility that Hamas will again try to breach the border between Gaza and Egypt, or even try to break through the border with Israel, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Ynet Tuesday.

"I'm not concerned, but I remain vigilant, always vigilant," Olmert added.

During a tour of the Adulam region, the prime minister stated in reply to a Ynet question on the subject: "We are aware of what goes on there and are watching the developments closely.

"We are coordinated on this with the Egyptians, and are also prepared for the possibility that Hamas will try to breach the border with Israel."

Political sources in Jerusalem said that the IDF's Southern Command was gearing up for a possible attempt by Hamas to direct thousands of Palestinians at the fence between Gaza and the western Negev.

However, the greatest concern, according to the officials, was over another attempt to breach the Egypt border. The officials said that Cairo has already warned Hamas against any such action.

Meanwhile, security officials told Ynet that while Israel was indeed preparing for such a scenario, it did not currently seem like a plausible threat.
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Israeli FM: Israel, Arabs in `same camp' – www.news.yahoo.com

In her first visit to a Gulf nation, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni sought Arab support against Iran and militant groups, warning Monday that extremists like Hezbollah and Hamas are trying to sabotage regional peace efforts.

Livni told delegates at a democracy and trade conference in Qatar that Israel and Arab states are mired in the same struggle with extremists who "refuse to recognize our democratic rights."

"When I say `our,' I mean the rights of Israelis, moderate Palestinians, moderate Arabs and pragmatic Muslim regimes alike," Livni said Monday during a panel discussion.

"We, the moderates of the region, are all members of the same camp," she said.

It was Livni's first visit to Qatar, an energy-rich Gulf state that supports the Palestinian movement Hamas and has no diplomatic ties with Israel.

The two countries maintain low-level trade relations, however, and Qatar publicly offered to broker a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas earlier this year.

Hamas officials visit Qatar regularly. Last year, Qatar also invited Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to visit.

On Monday, Livni said Iran — whose nuclear ambitions worry Israel and Iran's Arab neighbors across the Gulf — is "an example of extremist ideology."

The three-day conference was attended by mostly European delegates, and several Arab politicians were conspicuously absent.

Livni said she'd visit "any Arab country that would invite me."
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The mullah minuet – www.jpost.com

It was a small news item, easily unnoticed, part of a protracted series of deceptions: "Monday's scheduled meeting in Vienna between Iranian nuclear negotiator Gholamreza Aghazadeh and the UN's nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei has been postponed."

One step back in the minuet.

Meanwhile, the Iranian Foreign Ministry announced that it would "propose a package of solutions" aimed at "convergence" with international proposals offering Iran nuclear technology in return for ending its pursuit of nuclear weapons. One step forward - ostensibly.

This ongoing dance is accelerated by the scheduled meeting of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany, set for April 16 in Shanghai. They will talk about Iran's brazen, artful stonewalling of three fairly innocuous UN Security Council resolutions (the latest on March 3) aimed at cajoling the mullahs to abandon their efforts to build nuclear bombs.

No one in Shanghai will suggest an international ban on weapons sales to Iran. There will be no talk of any air or sea embargo. Still, the great powers will probably express "disquiet" over the installation of hundreds, if not thousands, more centrifuges at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility. Verifiable data on the centrifuges - how many and how prolific - is unavailable. What is known is that Iran is moving rapidly to create as much nuclear bomb-making fuel as possible.

Also overshadowing the Shanghai meeting is last week's Jane's Defense dispatch, which shed light on what Iran wants to do once it has nuclear weapons: place warheads on ballistic missiles. Iran will soon possess solid fuel projectiles capable of reaching Europe. Yet the mullahs keep refining their Shahab missile, and it will eventually traverse 10,000 km., putting the US within range.

If previous international discussion about Iran is any guide, Russia will be thinking about all the nuclear technology it sells the mullahs, the profits reaped and the influence leveraged. Vladimir Putin continues to be Teheran's main enabler.

But China will do its part in Shanghai. One of Iran's two biggest oil customers, it is heavily invested in Iran's petroleum industry. Beijing is also Teheran's second-biggest trading partner. China wants Mideast "stability" and is convinced sanctions are bad for business.

Germany, France and Britain will be mindful of the price of oil ($109 a barrel) and the business they do with Iran. Berlin is Iran's number one import partner; Paris not too far behind. London's record is slightly better: Iran is ranked as the UK's seventh-largest export market in the Middle East and North Africa. But that's still a lot of sterling.

A complete quarantine of the world's number-four oil exporter - the kind of action that would make the mullahs sit up and take notice - is simply not on the Shanghai agenda. And why should it be? There is no constituency for the sacrifices entailed. If anything, many EU citizens believe, incredibly, that Israel is a bigger danger to peace than Iran.

THERE ARE too many sticks and not enough carrots, some of the diplomats in Shanghai will claim. But Iran has time and again rejected generous international offers of nuclear fuel and technology in return for abandoning its bomb. Others will say that Iran feels threatened, and that Washington should negotiate directly with it. Yet Washington and Teheran have been speaking directly in Iraq, to no avail. As the UK's Independent reported only yesterday, back-channel talks between well-connected retired US diplomats and Iranian officials have been dragging on fruitlessly for five years.

The pro-accommodation camp also relies on the December 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate, which invoked the narrowest definitions to assert, high in its text, that Iran stopped working on a bomb in 2003, and left lower down the fact that enrichment and all other elements necessary for a weapons program proceed apace.

Some friends of Israel are in despair. Columnist Charles Krauthammer urges Washington to place the Jewish state under its nuclear umbrella, while pundit Zev Chafets, writing in The New York Times, gloomily concludes that the Jews are on their own.

Granted, Iran is Israel's foremost strategic dilemma. But those gathering this week in Shanghai should not delude themselves into believing that the rapacious Islamist regime in Teheran does not also threaten everything they hold dear. Iran already has all of Israel well within its missile range, and still it extends its delivery capabilities.
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A spectre haunts the Middle East - Petra Marquardt-Bigman – www.commentisfree.guardian.co.uk

News reports about secret "back channel" talks between the US and Iran conducted for the past five years could mean that the world and the Middle East in particular, will eventually be able to breathe a sigh of enormous relief. It is perhaps a good illustration of how desperately needed just any ray of hope is that Ha'aretz decided that a report on the grim threat assessment presented by Israel's intelligence agencies a month ago should also include the comparatively optimistic outlook offered by the eminent Middle East scholar Bernard Lewis in his meetings with Israeli politicians.

While the intelligence agencies painted a bleak picture for 2008, with Israel threatened by Iranian-sponsored attacks on all fronts, Lewis discovered a silver lining in the regional destabilization: he argued that it was not only Israel that felt threatened by Iran, but also several Arab states, particularly Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Gulf states.

Evidence that would seem to support the view proposed by Lewis is not hard to come by. According to a recent report, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak told a senior European diplomat that developments in the Gaza Strip have "led to Egypt in practice having a border with Iran"; Mubarak also noted that the situation in Lebanon was comparable to that in Gaza, because "in both places, the problems and the crises stem from the growing influence of Iran." The Egyptian president is clearly not the only Arab leader who objects to Syria's meddling in Lebanon and its increasingly close ties with Iran: earlier reports about an initiative to pressure Syria to mend its ways were confirmed when it became clear that many of the Arab League leaders decided not to attend the summit in Damascus at the end of March.

Caustic commentary about Iran's hegemonic ambitions in the region is a further indication that it is not only Israel that is worried. Tariq Alhomayed, the editor-in-chief of the London-based pan-Arabic daily Asharq Al-Awsat, didn't mince his words in several pieces on this subject, even going so far as to state: "Today I say that Tehran is exporting Khomeini's Islamic revolution to the Arab world with force - and the gateway for export is Arab Syria."

The growing sense of threat caused by Iran's hegemonic ambitions was also greatly intensified by recent events: in mid February, the assassination of Hezbollah's terror mastermind Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus aroused fears of yet another war between Lebanon's Hezbollah and Israel, which, despite its protestations of innocence, was held responsible for Mughniyeh's death by the group's leader Hassan Nasrallah. His calls for the "elimination" of Israel were eagerly echoed by several Iranian officials, and it is no secret that, with the help of Iran, Hezbollah has prepared itself very well for another round of fighting.

Another alarming development occurred in early March, when the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon, home to some 120,000 residents, came under attack by Iranian-made Grad missiles fired from Hamas-ruled Gaza. Ever since Hezbollah's perceived "victory" in the war with Israel in summer 2006, Hamas has regarded the Lebanese militia as a role model, and, according to a recently released Israeli study, Hamas has indeed managed to build up an impressive military force of some 20,000 armed fighters with weapons, technical know-how and training supplied by Iran and Syria.

These developments obviously only add to the already grave concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions, and it is a reflection of the seriousness of the situation that the Israeli intelligence assessment mentioned earlier describes 2008 as the "Year of Iran". Commenting on this assessment, one Israeli analyst even argued that it was time to realize that Iran and Israel were already engaged in a war fought by Iran's Lebanese and Palestinian allies and that, consequently, a "real solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict can only be reached by dealing with its primary instigator: Iran."

The notion that Iran is resolved to prevent a peaceful resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict is arguably reinforced by Tehran's apparent willingness to devote considerable resources to convince its allies in the region that their loyalty pays off: in addition to generously supporting groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, reports indicate that "Iran has provided Syria with more than $1bn for arms purchases [...] to buy surface-to-surface missiles, rockets, anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft systems." The quid pro quo was, supposedly, that Syria "undertook not to proceed with the peace process with Israel".

The idea of anything resembling a "peace process" between Syria and Israel may seem far-fetched, but rumors about secret negotiations are actually a rather regular feature of Israeli news. Thus, it was reported only recently that "Prime Minister Ehud Olmert hinted ... at the prospect of secret talks with Syria", and according to a former official of Israel's Foreign Ministry, it was "an open secret that Turkey was conveying messages between Damascus and Jerusalem." The same retired official, Alon Liel, has long been advocating talks with Syria and was credited in a report published by Ha'aretz in January 2007 with a central role in a series of secret meetings held in Europe between September 2004 and July 2006 which led to the formulation of "understandings for a peace agreement between Israel and Syria".

While both Israeli and Arab politicians and analysts seem to be very skeptical about the chances for any such agreement any time soon, not even trying could hardly be regarded as a reasonable choice in a region as volatile as the Middle East. Indeed, the question as to whether Bernard Lewis was right to see a silver lining in the fact that Iran's ambitions do not only threaten Israel's security is almost irrelevant - given the enormous risks involved in developments that have been aptly described as the region's "race to match Iran's capabilities".

Even if the Arab states are now only shopping for peaceful nuclear technology meant to be used for energy production, the concern that this may well turn out to be a recipe for nuclear war cannot be dismissed as alarmist given the many territorial, ethnic, and political disputes that continue to destabilize the Middle East. If secret talks between the US and Iran have indeed taken place over the past five years, one can only hope that they will soon yield results that are substantive enough to banish the specter of a nuclear cloud over the Middle East.
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 This is a politically emphasized website therefore I did not include a few of the quite good articles that slanted toward Christian Ministry essays.

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