Iran sanctions vote signals a global rift

United Nations, N.Y. – The passage this week by the United Nations Security Council of a third set of sanctions against Iran places a spotlight on two trends in the international community’s dispute with Tehran’s nuclear program.
Perhaps most striking is the relative retreat by the United States from leading status among Iran’s accusers, with European [...]

Larijani: US promotes global chaos

Iran’s former nuclear negotiator says Washington’s disregard for international laws and agreements is the main cause of global disorder.
Complying with international regulations will never be enough to make the US happy, said Ali Larijani in an interview with the Aljazeera news channel.
Asked about the possibility of a new round of sanctions on Iran Larijani [...]

Russian energy ties with Iran send US a message

With European and US companies out of the competition, Russia’s Gazprom has an edge as it bids for a bigger role in developing the world’s second-largest gas reserves
AS the United States warns the world away from business with Tehran, Moscow’s tightening ties to Iran’s energy sector underline Russia’s differences with Washington over Iranian nuclear plans [...]

War pimp alert: U.S. military contradicts State on Iran: Hundreds of weapons caches found in Iraq

BAGHDAD — Iranian-backed militias are apparently preparing for major strikes against the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, military officials said.
“In just the past week, Iraqi and coalition forces captured 212 weapons caches across Iraq, two of those inside Baghdad, [which have] growing links to Iranian-backed Special Groups,” U.S. military spokesman Rear Adm. Gregory Smith said.
Officials said [...]

Iran’s defense spending per capita among lowest in Mideast

LONDON (IRNA) — Iran’s defense expenditure per capita remains among the lowest in the Middle East region despite having the second highest population behind Egypt, according to the new publication of Military Balance.
The 2008 edition said that Iran’s total defense spending for 2006, the latest available, was nearly 55 percent less that Israel’s, despite [...]

Update: Ships did not cause Internet cable damage

CAIRO – Damage to undersea Internet cables in the Mediterranean that hit business across the Middle East and South Asia was not caused by ships, Egypt’s communications ministry said on Sunday, ruling out earlier reports.
The transport ministry added that footage recorded by onshore video cameras of the location of the cables showed no maritime traffic [...]

War pimp alert:U.S. says Iran still training Iraqi militias

By Ross Colvin
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The U.S. military said on Sunday there had been a dramatic drop in the number of Iranian weapons being smuggled into Iraq but no let-up in Tehran’s training and financing of Iraqi militias.
Washington has accused Tehran of supplying Shi’ite militias with sophisticated weapons, including deadly armor-piercing bombs known as explosively [...]

Bolton says US intel report on Iran was political

Some times I really wonder what color the sky is on their planet.
BERLIN – U.S. intelligence services were seeking to influence political policy-making with their assessment Iran had halted its nuclear arms program in 2003, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said.
Der Spiegel magazine quoted Bolton Saturday as saying the aim of [...]

‘Great discovery’ led to Iran nuke change – Bush

US President George W. Bush says a “great discovery” as recently as August prompted the US intelligence community’s stunning reversal of its long-held view that Iran had an active nuclear weapons program.
Mr Bush today provided no details on the nature of the new intelligence, which set off an in-depth intelligence review of the evidence and [...]

War pimp allert: Like Iraq, US intel on Iran faulty

WASHINGTON – First Iraq, now Iran. The United States has operated under a cloud of faulty intelligence in both countries.In a bombshell intelligence assessment, the United States has backed away from its once-ironclad assertion that Tehran is intent on building nuclear bombs.
Where there once was certainty, there now is doubt. “We do not know whether [...]

U.S. Says Iran Ended Atomic Arms Work

Abedin Taherkenareh/European Pressphoto Agency
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran delivering a speech in April at the nuclear plant in Natanz in observance of National Nuclear Day.
By MARK MAZZETTI
Published: December 3, 2007
WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 — A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains [...]

War pimp alert: Gun-shy America is losing the best chance to stop Iran

John Bolton, the hawkish former US ambassador to the UN, says Tehran’s nuclear threat is growing and it will have to be halted by force

Richard Woods
A grippingly topical nightmare unfolded in a television drama last week. Iran had secretly built a nuclear bomb, transforming the balance of power in the Middle East. All the [...]

Iran Proposes International Security Force to Take Over in Iraq

An Iranian proposal for troops from Iran, Syria and other Arab states to replace U.S. forces in Iraq was swiftly rejected and ridiculed yesterday at a high-level gathering of Iraq’s neighbors and world powers, the U.S. newspaper The Washington Times said in a report on Sunday.
“As top diplomats from two dozen countries and international organizations [...]

Attack Iran and you attack Russia

The barely reported highlight of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Tehran for the Caspian Sea summit last week was a key face-to-face meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.A high-level diplomatic source in Tehran tells Asia Times Online that essentially Putin and the Supreme Leader have agreed on a plan to nullify the George [...]

War pimp allert: Pentagon Orders “Bunker-Busters” for Urgent Delivery; Strike on Iran in the Works?

Where would the military use a stealth bomber armed with a 30,000-pound bomb, and why the rush?
Tucked inside the White House’s $196 billion emergency funding request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is an item that has some people wondering whether the administration is preparing for military action against Iran.
The item: $88 million to [...]

The Secret History of the Impending War with Iran That the White House Doesn’t Want You to Know

In the years after 9/11, Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann worked at the highest levels of the Bush administration as Middle East policy experts for the National Security Council. Mann conducted secret negotiations with Iran. Leverett traveled with Colin Powell and advised Condoleezza Rice. They each played crucial roles in formulating policy for the region [...]

War pimp allert: SAS raiders enter Iran to kill gunrunners

Michael Smith BRITISH special forces have crossed into Iran several times in recent months as part of a secret border war against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Al-Quds special forces, defence sources have disclosed.
There have been at least half a dozen intense firefights between the SAS and arms smugglers, a mixture of Iranians and Shi’ite militiamen.
The [...]

And the answer: Iran to fire ‘11,000 rockets in minute’ if attacked

Iran warned on Saturday it would fire off 11,000 rockets at enemy bases within the space of a minute if the United States launched military action against the Islamic republic.”In the first minute of an invasion by the enemy, 11,000 rockets and cannons would be fired at enemy bases,” said a brigadier general in the [...]

War pimp allert: Cheney: US Will Not Let Iran Go Nuclear

LEESBURG, Va. (AP) – The United States and other nations will not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon, Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday.
“Our country, and the entire international community, cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its grandest ambitions,” Cheney said in a speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Studies.
He [...]

War pimp allert: Bush Says Iran Nuclear Project Raises War Risk

 I quess the Dalai Lama did not get through to Bush
WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 — President Bush warned today that Iran would be raising the risk of a “World War III” if it came to possess nuclear weapons.

Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
“We have little to show for all the time that has gone by,” President [...]