How much more damage can he do in his remaining five months in office? Obama green lights two new Iranian nuke plants
His term has five months left and its end cannot come soon enough. In the meantime, Barack HUSSEIN Obama continues to damage international security and to lay the groundwork for Islam to menace the free world for years to come. The Obama administration has given the green light for Iran to build two new nuclear plants, which it needs because....
Ali Salehi, Iran’s top nuclear official, announced on Thursday that
Iran has invested $10 billion into the construction of two new nuclear
plants after receiving orders from Rouhani, according to reports in Iran’s state-controlled media.
A State Department official said to the Free Beacon
following the announcement that Iran is allowed to move forward with
this venture under the nuclear agreement, which does not prohibit this
type of nuclear construction.
“The [nuclear deal] does not prevent Iran from pursuing new
light-water reactors,” a State Department official not authorized to
speak on record said to the Free Beacon in response to
questions about Iran’s latest announcement. “Any new nuclear reactors in
Iran will be subject to its safeguards obligations.”
Critics in Congress of the Obama administration’s diplomacy with Iran condemned the new nuclear reactors, telling the Free Beacon
that the administration is turning a blind eye to the Islamic
Republic’s continued pursuit of illicit nuclear technology, including
the know-how to build a nuclear weapon.
“Nothing in the behavior of the Iranian regime in the year since the
JCPOA went into effect should give us any confidence that they will be
confining their nuclear program to peaceful activities,” Sen. Ted Cruz
(R., Texas) said to the Free Beacon, using the official acronym
for the nuclear deal. “Secretary Kerry seems to think that the mullahs
are interested in curing cancer and civilian energy production, but
their rapid progress in ballistic missile technology suggests they are
far more determined to develop the nuclear weapons these projectiles are
designed to deliver.”
“This is just the most recent confirmation of how misguided,
shortsighted, and downright dangerous the Obama administration’s nuclear
deal with the Islamic Republic truly is,” Cruz added.
Yes, that's true. But will a Clinton administration - God Forbid - be any better? So why aren't the Republicans doing something to stop it?
But Obama's long-term goal, which is likely to be promoted by a Clinton administration, goes far beyond another nuclear plant or two.
One senior congressional adviser who works with a range of key offices on the issue said to the Free Beacon that all of this is part of an Obama administration effort to help Iran become a legitimate player in the global nuclear trade.
“The Obama administration seems committed to making Iran into a
nuclear power,” the source said. “They’ve purchased heavy water from the
Iranians, as if the Iranians were legitimate nuclear suppliers, which
they’re not. They’ve made excuses for Iran seeking to procure nuclear
parts from Germany and elsewhere. And now they’re celebrating Iran
building full-blown reactors.”
“All of this is the exact opposite of what they promised Congress,
and for good reason, since Congress is committed to ensuring Iran never
gets the infrastructure to be a screw turn away from a nuke,” the source
said.
The other shoe drops: Egypt sponsoring IAEA resolution to monitor Israel's nuclear capability
The other shoe may be about to drop on Israel. Egypt is introducing a resolution at an IAEA meeting in September, which will call on the international regulator to monitor Israel's nuclear program. Iran is likely to join the resolution. And while the resolution would not be binding like a Security Council resolution, it would certainly cause diplomatic embarrassment to Israel.
A senior Foreign Ministry official said he feared the recent nuclear deal between Iran and the six powers will make it hard for Israel to defeat the resolution.
The resolution, titled “Israeli nuclear capabilities,” has been repeatedly proposed by Egypt in recent years. It condemns Israel, demands that it open its reported nuclear facilities to IAEA inspection, and calls for an international conference on making the Middle East a nuclear-weapons-free zone.
...
Though Egypt is the IAEA resolution’s chief sponsor, Iran seems likely to join the move. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif indicated as much by publishing an article in The Guardian titled, “Iran has signed a historic nuclear deal – now it’s Israel’s turn.”
Zarif wrote that Israel must be pressured to join the NPT and advance an international conference on a nuclear-weapons-free Middle East. Israel, he wrote, has “an undeclared nuclear arsenal and a declared disdain towards non-proliferation, notwithstanding its absurd and alarmist campaign against the Iranian nuclear deal.”
For the last three years, Israel has succeeding in mustering a majority against Egypt’s IAEA resolution, thanks partly to proposals for a direct regional security dialogue with Arab states under UN auspices. Egypt and various other countries rejected these proposals, but they earned Israel considerable international credit.
The campaign to thwart the latest resolution began two weeks ago, when the Foreign Ministry sent a cable to all Israeli embassies and consulates instructing them to urge their host governments to oppose it.
“The resolution is fundamentally biased and mistaken, aimed at diverting global attention from the real dangers of nuclear proliferation in this region,” the cable’s talking points said. “This move will further politicize the IAEA and undermine the trust necessary for any regional dialogue on this issue.”
Israel has also sent personal envoys to several countries it considers key to winning the vote. For instance, former Foreign Ministry director general Nissim Ben Shitrit went to Argentina about 10 days ago, on the assumption that if Argentina doesn’t back the Arab proposal, other Latin American countries would likely follow suit.
Senior Israeli officials are divided over how the Iranian deal will impact the IAEA debate. Some argue that following the Iran agreement, America and other leading countries won’t want to raise the pressure on Israel even further. But others fear that with the Iran deal done, the international focus will shift to Israel’s nuclear program. They also fear Israel will enjoy less American support than in the past, due to the severe tensions with Washington over the Iran deal.
I hope that the 78% of American Jews who voted for this administration are pleased. Surely they will still have those smirks on their ugly faces when - God Forbid - as Mike Huckabee said last week, Israelis are led to the ovens.
At least four people have been arrested in Iran for trying to sabotage a nuclear site, an Iranian official was quoted by Iranian media as saying on Sunday.
The head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, Ali Akbar
Salehi, said officials had monitored and then arrested a "number
of saboteurs" before they could carry out their plan.
"Four of these individuals were caught red-handed and their
interrogations are ongoing," he said, according to the Mehr news
agency on Sunday. He did not identify which nuclear site they
were planning to damage or when those detained were arrested.
Asked whether or not Iran should continue to develop its nuclear
power capabilities, 63 percent of Iranian adults responded in the
affirmative, while only 17% said the country should stop. 19% either
refused to answer or responded that they did not know.
The data
is particularly striking considering that most Iranians believe that
sanctions are indeed greatly affecting the livelihoods of ordinary
citizens.
According to the survey, conducted from December 2012
to January 2013, 56% of respondents said sanctions had hurt Iranians "a
great deal," 29% answered "somewhat," while only 10% answered "not at
all" (5% did not know or refused to answer.)
Furthermore, 31% of
Iranians rated their lives poorly enough to be considered "suffering" - a
rate on par with war-torn countries such as Afghanistan (33%) and
higher than Iraq (29%) and Yemen (23%.).
...
With a margin of error of 3.8 percentage points, the poll also
indicated that a plurality of Iranians blame the United States for the
sanctions. 47% of respondents said Washington is "most responsible" for
the sanctions, while only 10% blamed the Iranian regime. 9% blamed
Israel.
The results of the poll, which was based on telephone
interviews with 1,000 adults, aged 15 and older, indicate that sanctions
are not having the intended effect of pressuring Iranians to demand a
change in policy vis-à-vis the country's nuclear program.
It has always been said that pursuit of a nuclear capability is a matter of pride for Iranians. But most Iranians don't believe that their country is pursuing nuclear weapons, and would not support the pursuit of nuclear weapons. And the West is refusing to disclose the evidence it has that the Iranian regime really is after nuclear weapons.
Moreover, again, it is difficult to believe that any poll taken in a repressive regime like Iran's is accurate.
"Based on contracts
signed with female Russian employees at the Bushehr [nuclear] power
plant, they receive a hijab payment," [Iranian MP Mehdi] Mousavinejad reportedly told the
Iranian Students' News Agency.
Mousavinejad accused the female
employees of not "properly observ[ing]" their contractual obligations
and called on them to uphold their "commitments."
He did not how much money was being paid to the female technicians.
I wonder if the Iranians check what they're wearing underneath the hijab too.
Speaking with presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney at his side, Netanyahu said a "strong and credible military threat" was needed on top of the sanctions to get Iran to make a change.
“I think it’s important to do everything in our power to prevent the Ayatollahs from possessing that capability," Netanyahu said. "We have to be honest and say that all the sanctions and diplomacy so far have not set back the Iranian program by one iota. And that's why I believe that we need a strong and credible military threat coupled with the sanctions to have a chance to change that situation."
For those who think that Netanyahu has overstated the case, I challenge you. Show me one way in which Iran's nuclear program has been slowed down by the sanctions. Yes, the sanctions are making the Iranian people suffer. Yes, the sanctions are destroying (or at least hindering the growth of) Iran's economy. But show me one way in which they have slowed down Iran's nuclear program.
You will recall that I reported on Tuesday that another computer worm has infiltrated into Iran's nuclear agency, causing all the computers to play AC/DC's Thunderstruck.
Here's a video they should have played with the music. Yes, there's a music warning for those of you who don't listen to music today (including me), but it's worth watching the video anyway.
There may be yet another worm that's hit Iran's nuclear agency. This one takes over computers and causes them to play the song Thunderstruck (Hat Tip: Drew G).
I am writing you to inform you that our nuclear program has once again been compromised and attacked by a new worm with exploits which have shut down our automation network at Natanz and another facility Fordo near Qom.
According to the email our cyber experts sent to our teams, they believe a hacker tool Metasploit was used. The hackers had access to our VPN. The automation network and Siemens hardware were attacked and shut down. I only know very little about these cyber issues as I am scientist not a computer expert.
There was also some music playing randomly on several of the workstations during the middle of the night with the volume maxed out. I believe it was playing 'Thunderstruck' by AC/DC.
I'm not sure what to think about this. We can't confirm any of the details. However, we can confirm that the researcher was sending and receiving emails from within the AEOI.
Mikko
Well if it weren't the Nine Days, I'd turn on my sound and see if I could figure out why Thunderstruck is such an appropriate song for this. Heh.
Germans selling tunneling equipment and other 'dual use' equipment to Iran
On Sunday, I published the results of a poll that indicated that most Iranians would gladly trade their country's nuclear program for relief from sanctions. And yet, the sanctions continue, Iranians are more squeezed and the nuclear program continues. Why? Aside from the fact that Iranians cannot overthrow their government without outside help (which was denied to them by President Hussein Obama in 2009), the fact remains that the most important sanctions - the ones that would hit the nuclear program itself and not just Iran's purchasing power - continue to be violated by countries around the world. Take, for instance, Germany, which is selling tunneling equipment(!) to Iran.
The Jerusalem Post has obtained an uncensored list from late 2011, showing hundreds of German and Iranian enterprises in a flourishing trade relationship.
This is despite Iran’s construction of Fordow, a medium-level uranium enrichment facility buried into the side of a mountain near Qom, and the fact that the German equipment could be used to build more underground nuclear facilities.
Some businesses have asked that their names be removed from the list to avoid damage to their reputations.
One company named is Baden-Württemberg-based engineering giant Herrenknecht AG, which appears to be delivering heavy tunneling equipment to Iran – some of which is promoted as having the capability of “drilling down to depths of 6,000 meters.”
In response to Post inquiries, an unidentified representative of the company wrote via email on Friday that it has “comprehensively ensured that Herrenknecht excavation engineering and services solely reach projects which clearly pursue civil applications [metro tunnel construction, sewage pipes and water supply lines].”
After such projects are completed, it cannot be determined if Iran intends to or already has used the equipment for its nuclear facilities.
"At first glance this may appear trivial or aimed at feeding the media, but this step is much more significant," a website associated with Iranian government official Mohsen Rezaee.
"It should be noted that according to international protocol, Ashton is not required to adhere to Iran's Islamist rules, especially when the talks were held in a third country with a different dress code. She showed she respects Iran's traditions and that it has paramount importance to her," the website said.
Next time, she could make everyone happy by just showing up in a niqab. Heh.
Report: US trained MEK members to assassinate Iranian nuke scientists
Meanwhile, the New Yorker's often sensationalist Seymour Hersh claims that the United States has been training members of Iran's MEK, which has been classified as a terror organization in the United States, to assassinate key nuclear scientists.
It was here that the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) conducted training, beginning in 2005, for members of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, a dissident Iranian opposition group known in the West as the M.E.K. The M.E.K. had its beginnings as a Marxist-Islamist student-led group and, in the nineteen-seventies, it was linked to the assassination of six American citizens. It was initially part of the broad-based revolution that led to the 1979 overthrow of the Shah of Iran. But, within a few years, the group was waging a bloody internal war with the ruling clerics, and, in 1997, it was listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department. In 2002, the M.E.K. earned some international credibility by publicly revealing—accurately—that Iran had begun enriching uranium at a secret underground location. Mohamed ElBaradei, who at the time was the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear monitoring agency, told me later that he had been informed that the information was supplied by the Mossad. The M.E.K.’s ties with Western intelligence deepened after the fall of the Iraqi regime in 2003, and JSOC began operating inside Iran in an effort to substantiate the Bush Administration’s fears that Iran was building the bomb at one or more secret underground locations. Funds were covertly passed to a number of dissident organizations, for intelligence collection and, ultimately, for anti-regime terrorist activities. Directly, or indirectly, the M.E.K. ended up with resources like arms and intelligence. Some American-supported covert operations continue in Iran today, according to past and present intelligence officials and military consultants.
Despite the growing ties, and a much-intensified lobbying effort organized by its advocates, M.E.K. has remained on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations—which meant that secrecy was essential in the Nevada training. “We did train them here, and washed them through the Energy Department because the D.O.E. owns all this land in southern Nevada,” a former senior American intelligence official told me. “We were deploying them over long distances in the desert and mountains, and building their capacity in communications—coördinating commo is a big deal.” (A spokesman for J.S.O.C. said that “U.S. Special Operations Forces were neither aware of nor involved in the training of M.E.K. members.”)
The training ended sometime before President Obama took office, the former official said. In a separate interview, a retired four-star general, who has advised the Bush and Obama Administrations on national-security issues, said that he had been privately briefed in 2005 about the training of Iranians associated with the M.E.K. in Nevada by an American involved in the program. They got “the standard training,” he said, “in commo, crypto [cryptography], small-unit tactics, and weaponry—that went on for six months,” the retired general said. “They were kept in little pods.” He also was told, he said, that the men doing the training were from JSOC, which, by 2005, had become a major instrument in the Bush Administration’s global war on terror. “The JSOC trainers were not front-line guys who had been in the field, but second- and third-tier guys—trainers and the like—and they started going off the reservation. ‘If we’re going to teach you tactics, let me show you some really sexy stuff…’ ”
...
Five Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated since 2007. M.E.K. spokesmen have denied any involvement in the killings, but early last month NBC News quoted two senior Obama Administration officials as confirming that the attacks were carried out by M.E.K. units that were financed and trained by Mossad, the Israeli secret service. NBC further quoted the Administration officials as denying any American involvement in the M.E.K. activities. The former senior intelligence official I spoke with seconded the NBC report that the Israelis were working with the M.E.K., adding that the operations benefitted from American intelligence. He said that the targets were not “Einsteins”; “The goal is to affect Iranian psychology and morale,” he said, and to “demoralize the whole system—nuclear delivery vehicles, nuclear enrichment facilities, power plants.” Attacks have also been carried out on pipelines. He added that the operations are “primarily being done by M.E.K. through liaison with the Israelis, but the United States is now providing the intelligence.” An adviser to the special-operations community told me that the links between the United States and M.E.K. activities inside Iran had been long-standing. “Everything being done inside Iran now is being done with surrogates,” he said.
The sources I spoke to were unable to say whether the people trained in Nevada were now involved in operations in Iran or elsewhere. But they pointed to the general benefit of American support. “The M.E.K. was a total joke,” the senior Pentagon consultant said, “and now it’s a real network inside Iran. How did the M.E.K. get so much more efficient?” he asked rhetorically. “Part of it is the training in Nevada. Part of it is logistical support in Kurdistan, and part of it is inside Iran. M.E.K. now has a capacity for efficient operations that it never had before.”
In mid-January, a few days after an assassination by car bomb of an Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, at a town-hall meeting of soldiers at Fort Bliss, Texas, acknowledged that the U.S. government has “some ideas as to who might be involved, but we don’t know exactly who was involved.” He added, “But I can tell you one thing: the United States was not involved in that kind of effort. That’s not what the United States does.”
Hmmm. I'd say it's much more likely that the Israelis are doing that training.
What negotiations over Iran's nuclear program look like
I know that many of you are wondering what the negotiations over Iran's nuclear program look like. My friend Will managed to sneak in and take this picture.
Iran whines to the UN over its nuclear scientists' unfortunate demise
Iran is whining to the UN about its nuclear scientists being killed, and, it goes without saying that they're blaming the Mossad.
Iran referred to as "unfounded allegations and distortions," Israel's accusations that the Islamic Republic was behind a recent spate of terror plots against Israeli interests abroad, while charging the Jewish State with assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists as part of a "war game," AFP reported on Thursday.
The complaints came in a letter sent by Iran's Ambassador to the UN, Mohammad Khazaee, to the UN Security Council.
Tehran "categorically rejects the allegations concerning any involvement of its officials or organs whatsoever in alleged recent terrorist operations against Israeli targets in a number of countries, namely Thailand, India, Georgia or Azerbaijan," Khazaee's letter said.
He added that Iran has "suffered from terrorist acts including assassinations of her nuclear scientists due to the tacit and explicit support extended by the Israeli regime to terrorist groups."
There are three Iranians under arrest in Thailand for trying to murder Israeli diplomats there. The bombs they used were remarkably similar to those used by terrorists a few days earlier in New Delhi and Tbilisi. Open and shut case? Maybe not, but certainly a lot of very strong circumstantial evidence.
On the other hand, what evidence is there of Israeli involvement in the liquidation of university professors in Iran who just happen to be involved in nuclear physics? A 'confession' from some poor guy who was beaten to the edge of death that he was trained by the Mossad? Heh.
The instructions above - which were very popular during the Cold War - are for those of you who might feel you need them to cope with a nuclear attack, God forbid. Nuclear war - or at least a war over Iranian nuclear weapons - is looking more likely this Wednesday morning. The IAEA - the international nuclear watchdog - has declared its talks in Tehran a failure after only two days, and has packed up and gone home. The reason: The Iranians refused to give them access to a military site which is suspected of being used to enrich uranium.
"During both the first and second round of discussions, the agency team requested access to the military site at Parchin. Iran did not grant permission for this visit to take place," the Vienna-based IAEA said in a statement after the Feb 20-21 talks.
The IAEA named Parchin in a detailed report in November that lent independent weight to Western fears that Iran was working to develop an atomic bomb, an allegation Iranian officials reject.
"It is disappointing that Iran did not accept our request to visit Parchin. We engaged in a constructive spirit, but no agreement was reached," said IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano.
Earlier, Iran's envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, told the country's ISNA news agency that Tehran expected to hold more talks with the UN agency, whose task it is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons in the world.
But Amano's spokeswoman, Gill Tudor, made clear no further meetings were planned: "At this point in time there is no agreement on further discussions," she said.
The refusal to allow the inspectors to visit Parchin wasn't the only problem.
Meanwhile, Israel Radio reports that news reports in Iran claim that Iran and the IAEA are cooperating perfectly and that more talks are scheduled. It's amazing what a load of garbage you can try to sell your people when you censor their news.
My brother had that poster at the top of this post hanging in his room when we were kids. Perhaps it's time to ask him what happened to it when our parents sold their house 12 years ago.
Aren't you glad Obama wasted two years trying to 'engage' with Iran? What could go wrong?
Why were the attacks on Monday carried out in India and Georgia? Here's an attempt at an explanation.
Hezbollah's and Iran's focus therefore has been centered on Israeli representations abroad. Attempts to attack targets in Azerbaijan, Bulgaria and most recently Thailand were nipped in the bud through close cooperation between Israeli intelligence and the local security services. A Hezbollah cell operating in Western Europe was also apprehended last year before it could launch an operation. Two years ago, a shooting at cars carrying Israeli diplomats in Jordan resulted in no casualties.
There were multiple intelligence warnings of a pending attack - and the recent assassinations of nuclear scientists in Tehran and mysterious explosions at various Iranian installations only added impetus. The twin locations, India and Georgia, are countries where Israel has close relationships with the local political leaderships and especially with the defense establishments. They are also countries where the security forces are not in total control of wide regions and borders.
There are actually four countries surrounding Iran where Israel has attempted to improve ties recently: India, Georgia, Azerbaijan (where, as noted above, an attack failed, and which was accused by Iran last week of helping Israeli intelligence efforts) and Kazakhstan. So why hasn't Iran tried attacking Kazakhstan? Here's a clue:
Kazakhstan is close to opening a nuclear fuel bank that would allow countries a safe, reliable means of getting fuel for their nuclear power plants, and would theoretically make it more difficult for would-be rogue nuclear states to secretly build weapons.
...
What makes Kazakhstan a logical place to host such a bank, in addition to its status of the world's leading uranium producer, is its multi-vectored foreign policy. This is obviously a politicized issue, and countries would be reluctant to buy in if they thought that they could be cut off for political reasons. But Kazakhstan can make a credible case that it is a pretty neutral broker in the world.
...
Good relations with Iran would seem exactly the reason Kazakhstan is a good place for this, although that situation increasingly looks too far gone for this bank to make any difference.
Iran may be warning the other three countries against cooperating with an Israeli strike on it. It may not want to, or may not feel it has to, give such a warning to Kazakhstan. In any event, the choice of Georgia and India does not seem accidental.
Samsung has condemned an Israeli television ad for its Tablets after an Iranian legislator threatened to introduce legislation to ban Samsung's products from Iran. The video may be seen at the second and third links above; this is from the first link.
Samsung Electronics on Saturday condemned an Israeli commercial featuring a Samsung tablet, expressing dismay at Iran's threat to ban its products over the apparently anti-Tehran teaser.
The South Korean electronics giant said it had not been involved in production of the TV spot, produced by Israeli cable TV channel HOT.
HOT offered Galaxy tabs as gifts to attract new viewers and the advert was part of the station's subscription campaign, Samsung said.
"We have absolutely nothing to do with this television spot," a Samsung Electronics spokesman told AFP.
The commercial was produced by HOT "without Samsung's knowledge or participation," the company said in a statement.
"It should be noted that HOT cable network utilised a GALAXY Tab in its advertisement solely as a promotional gift," Samsung said.
"As a member of the global community, Samsung is committed to demonstrating respect for all people and cultures around the globe," it added.
The dhimmis shouldn't be trading with Iran in the first place.
Mossad head visited Washington to discuss Iranian nuke program
On Tuesday, Senator Diane Feinstein told a televised Congressional hearing that Mossad director Tamir Pardo was in Washington last week to meet with her and CIA director David Petraeus on Iran's nuclear program.
Sensitive trips by intelligence chiefs are usually kept secret but Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, mentioned Pardo’s visit at a televised hearing as she discussed how Israel views Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
“Well, the vice chairman and I have just met this past week with the director of Mossad, so that is a classified meeting,” Feinstein said at the hearing.
The Central Intelligence Agency director confirmed the meeting and said he was frequently talking to Israel’s leaders, who he said viewed Iran’s nuclear program as an “existential threat.”
“Like you, obviously, I met with the head of Mossad when he was here,” Petraeus said.
“That is part of an ongoing dialogue that has also included conversations that I’ve had with Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu and with (Defense) Minister (Ehud) Barak—the latter almost on a monthly basis in the nearly five months that I’ve been in the job,” he said.
Feinstein cited her meeting with the Mossad director after asking US intelligence chiefs about the likelihood of possible pre-emptive military action by Israel against Iran’s nuclear sites.
US National Intelligence Director James Clapper replied that sanctions would hopefully convince Tehran to abandon its nuclear work but said he would prefer to answer the question in a closed-door session.
Israeli officials have sent conflicting messages about potential military strikes on Iran.
ECI Telecom Ltd. chairman and controlling shareholder Shaul Shani continues to talk to the Russian government about selling the Israeli telecommunications equipment company. Just after a year after it was reported that Shani had written to Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev about buying ECI for $2.5 billion, Medvedev has another possibility for buying the company, according to Russian newspaper Izvestia. This time, the potential buyer is Russian atomic energy giant Rosatom Nuclear Energy State Corporation, which is state owned.
According to the Russian newspaper, the talks on merging ECI into Rosatom are at a valuation of $5 billion, but it would appear that this refers to the total value of a project or activity in which ECI would be involved in Russia. ECI's value will probably be closer to $500 million.
...
At present, it looks as though the current report, just like at the end of 2010, will not lead to an acquisition even though Russia is among ECI's biggest customers. The report cites government sources as saying that they believe that now is the best time for carrying out the acquisition, but last time around too sources were quoted in the Russian press that said they believed that the Russian government would accept Shani's offer and pay $2.5 billion for the company, which did not happen in the end.
A spokesperson for ECI declined to comment on the report.
Israel Television reported another issue on its 9:00 pm news magazine (which is simulcast on radio): Rosatom is a supplier for Iran's nuclear program and the Israeli government would have to approve the sale.
An Iranian F-14 fighter jet mysteriously crashed shortly after takeoff on Thursday morning. Near Bushehr.
An Iranian military plane crashed in the early hours of Thursday near the Gulf coast, the semi-official Fars news agency reported, saying no reason had yet been given for the incident.
"An F-14 crashed three minutes after take-off at 4:30 a.m. (8 p.m. ET) near the city of Bushehr," Fars reported, citing a local government official.
Hmmm.
Admittedly, Iran has problems maintaining its planes and therefore this may not have even been sabotage. But hmmm....
Israel Radio reports that both pilots were killed.
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Thursday, January 19.
1) Filling in details and making stuff up
When people don't know all the details of what happened, speculation becomes rampant to fill in the missing details.
For example we know that certain facilities in Iran have been targeted as well as nuclear scientists. The assumption is that Israel's behind these attacks because it is the country that most fears a nuclear Iran. Michael Ledeen writes that he doesn't believe that these attacks are the work of foreign governments:
Before getting into the details, let me caveat this whole thing: I don’t know who did it, and neither does anybody else writing about it. The Iranian regime, which usually claims to know everything about everything, has so far accused the Brits, the Americans, the MEK, and the Israelis. However, I think that I do know this: If the Israelis (or the Americans, or the Brits) are actually capable of operating at will in the midst of the virtual military occupation in Tehran, we do not have to worry about the Iranian nukes, because if the Israelis, the Brits or the Americans can do that, they can do anything they want to.
While many people have no idea what Jundallah is, writer Mark Perry recent wrote in Foreign Policy that its members had been recruited by the Mossad posing as CIA officers. This wasn't a case of filling in details to explain something in the news. It was propaganda. Jonathan Neumann debunks the claim at Jewish Ideas Daily (h/t Hadassah Levy)
A reader might benefit from knowing who Mark Perry is. Perry has run an organization called the Conflicts Forum, which specializes in what it calls "dialogue with a wide range of leading Islamists," prominently including Hamas and Hezbollah. In 1989 he became "unofficial advisor" to Yasir Arafat, head of the terrorist Palestine Liberation Organization. Perry maintained his role until Arafat's death in 2004. None of this background is disclosed by Foreign Policy. Not accidentally, Perry's claims appear to be nonsense. The Israeli government, whose policy is not to confirm or deny involvement in intelligence operations, has broken its general silence to call his story "absolute nonsense." There is external corroboration of Israel's position. In recent years, three high-ranking Israeli intelligence and defense officials have been forced to resign their posts because of Israeli actions that U.S. officials deemed against American interests—actions far less damaging than the "false flag" operation Perry describes. Yet Meir Dagan, who was chief of Mossad at the time of the alleged operation, not only kept his job but remained a Washington favorite.
2) I'll trust the king, when he stands for re-election
King Abdullah bin Hussein has written an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, The Palestinians and the Arab Spring. He rehashes the Arab Peace Initiative, which will soon be ten years old.
The two-state solution is supported by the U.S. and the rest of the Quartet (the European Union, the United Nations and Russia), and it is at the core of the Arab Peace Initiative, adopted unanimously by the 2002 Arab Summit in Beirut. Ours was an unequivocal statement of the Arab world's commitment to a neighborhood of peace and acceptance, opening the way to a comprehensive settlement that would end the conflict, meet the Palestinians' right to freedom and statehood, and give Israel acceptance and security. This Initiative was endorsed by the entire Muslim world—57 countries—and remains a cornerstone for peacemaking in the Middle East.
The initiative was not unequivocal. It was an ultimatum, giving Israel no room for negotiation. When it was being formulated (then) Crown Prince Abdullah allowed Syria to prevail upon him to add language insisting that Israel withdraw from Lebanese territory. Since two years earlier the UN had certified Israel's complete withdrawal from Lebanon, this showed that the Arab League members saw no problem with changing their demands of Israel. It was actually quite equivocal.
As mentioned, in 2000 Israel completely withdrew from southern Lebanon and in 2005 from Gaza. Hezbollah and Hamas, respectively, used those withdrawals to build their arsenals and attack Israel leading to wars in 2006 and 2008. Did the Arab League praise the Israeli withdrawals and condemn the terrorist groups that continued to attack? Or did it condemn Israel for defending itself? If the Arab League had demonstrated good faith when Israel ceded territory, they could claim that its peace initiative is sincere. But the Arab League didn't. Clearly Israeli security is not a term the Arab League takes very seriously.
The whole idea that Palestinian statehood is somehow part of the Arab spring of freedom is ridiculous. Right now the Palestinians are ruled by a terror organization and a corrupt civil authority. Even if Abbas negotiates with Netanyahu to make peace, the Palestinians will still not be free. The only way a state of Palestine might have something in common with the Arab spring, would be if Hamas took over and the Palestinians became the next Arab polity to be ruled by Islamists.
King Abdullah ends with:
Across the entire Arab world, people are demanding freedom, dignity and hope. In Jordan we have charted our course through an irreversible, inclusive and evolutionary process of political, social and economic reform. Regional peace must be part of this future—for Palestinians, for Israelis, for all. There have been too many failed attempts. Can we all do it this time?
When King Abdullah stands for election I'll believe his claim to be supporting freedom.
3) The risk of withdrawal
To the peace processor, the Israeli refusal to give into every territorial demand of the Palestinians is the primary reason for the lack of a peace process.
As noted above, the withdrawals from southern Lebanon and Gaza have left Israel less, not more secure. Ehud Yaari (via Daily Alert) writes about how the Sinai has become A New Front (.pdf):
Yet the true surge in such activity came after Israel’s 2005 disengagement from Gaza and subsequent removal of troops from the Sinai-Gaza border—as Bedouin political activist Ashraf al-Anani put it, “a fireball started rolling into the peninsula.” Illegal trade and arms smuggling volumes rose to new records, and ever-larger sectors of the northern Sinai population became linked to Gaza and fell under the political and ideological influence of Hamas and its ilk. Sympathy and support for the Palestinian battle against Israel grew; according to al-Anani, the closer one got to the Gaza border, “the more people are inclined toward Hamas.” In short, despite then prime minister Ariel Sharon’s quiet hope that Cairo would assume unofficial responsibility for Gaza affairs, the Israeli withdrawal instead allowed Hamas to export its influence into Egyptian territory. Facilitated by the dramatic increase in the number of tunnels—which numbered no less than 1,200 at their peak—the expansion of Hamas and other Palestinian activities in the Sinai was unprecedented. In fact, the arms flow was often reversed, with weapons going from Gaza to the Sinai. During the revolution, for example, observers noted a huge demand for firearms in the peninsula.14 And even in late 2010, well before Mubarak’s ouster, Hamas was already in the process of transferring heavy long-range missiles to secret storage places in the Sinai, including Grad rockets and extended-range Qassams. On October 6 of that year, the Israeli port of Eilat and its Jordanian sister town of Aqaba were hit by a salvo of missiles fired from the Sinai. The attacks took place despite stern Egyptian warnings to Hamas not to use the peninsula as a launchpad for strikes on Israel. In a response that has since become the norm, Hamas military commanders simply ignored the Egyptian request and later denied responsibility, although both Egyptian and Israeli intelligence had more than sufficient information to prove it.
Peace has its risks. The job of the peace processors ought to be assessing those risks instead of simply dismissing them. Elder of Ziyon notes one of the effects of this new front.
In 2006, following the Israeli disengagement and pullout from the Gaza Strip, there was an increase of 436 per cent in the number of Palestinian rockets launched towards Israel from that very territory. For some time, Israel resisted a large-scale military response to such acts deliberately aimed at civilians. As a result, the attacks got worse, and every country, including Israel, has the moral responsibility to defend its people from such actions. Increased Palestinian terror attacks from Gaza were the cause of Operation Cast Lead. Yet Israel's is a conscript army. Indeed Israel goes to extraordinary lengths to protect its young soldiers (witness the efforts make to secure the release of the kidnap victim Gilad Shalit), and does not send them to war easily. In the three years since the operation, there has been an unprecedented 72 per cent decline in the number of rockets launched from Hamas-controlled Gaza. No surprise, then, that Israel's Defence Forces Chief of Staff should call the operation "an excellent operation that achieved deterrence for Israel vis-a-vis Hamas". (However, that deterrence is still not enough to have prevented Palestinians from launching 1,571 rockets since the operation, including one attack with an anti-tank missile on a clearly identifiable Israeli school bus.)
My travels around Israel surprised me completely. The people were full of get up and go, eager to live peacefully in the region; the towns and cities were energetic and cosmopolitan; and the deliverance of democracy never failed to impress upon me. So why is there such a discrepancy between what I experienced and public perception back in the UK? When was the last time you heard a good news story emanating from Israel on your TV screens or in the newspapers? And why has Israel become defined simply by its inability to solve the conflict when it is so much more than that? I raised these questions when I returned to Israel again last week with colleagues from the UK and Australia for a dialogue with Israeli and Palestinian politicians, journalists, academics and commentators. This serious problem is not being effectively addressed and Israel’s future is being undermined by its inability to promote itself both accurately and attractively. As an MP, I witness this difference between perception and reality, on a regular basis in the House of Commons. From Backbenchers through to Government Ministers and Shadow Ministers, colleagues suffer from a serial case of apathy where Israel is concerned. Seemingly no positive impression of the place has been determined in people’s minds.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
