Unexpected! Obama administration to delay sanctions against Iranian ballistic missile program
In yet another news dump at 6:00 pm on New Years Eve (see the tweet time above), the Obama administration announced that it is delaying the
imposition of new sanctions on Iran because of the Mullahcracy's ballistic missile program.
On Wednesday, the [Wall Street] Journal, citing US officials, said the Obama
administration was preparing to sanction nearly a dozen companies and
individuals in Iran, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates for their
role in developing Iran's ballistic-missile program.
The US sanctions were expected to be formally announced this week, the newspaper said.
Sources familiar with the situation confirmed to Reuters that the United States was preparing sanctions.
The
Obama administration is committed to combating Iran's missile program
and the sanctions being developed by the US Treasury Department remain
on the table, the Journal reported on Thursday, citing US officials.
But
US officials offered no definitive timeline for when the sanctions
would be imposed, the newspaper said. At one point, they were scheduled
to be announced on Wednesday morning in Washington, according to a
notification the White House sent to Congress, the Journal reported.
Imposing
such penalties would be legal under the landmark nuclear agreement
forged between global powers and Iran in July, the officials said,
according to the Journal.
Iranian officials have said the
country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would view such
penalties as violating the nuclear accord.
US officials have said the Treasury Department retains a right under the
nuclear deal to blacklist Iranian entities suspected of involvement in
missile development.
I don't know how anyone even knows what's in the nuclear deal, given that it was never signed.
What could go wrong?
Shabbat Shalom everyone.
Labels: Ayatollah Ali Khameni, Barack Hussein Obama, intermediate range ballistic missiles, Iran sanctions regime, toothless sanctions
'The hell we'll negotiate our ballistic missiles'
President Hussein Obama may not have red lines, but Iran sure does. The Iranians have made it quite clear - again - that they will not negotiate over their ballistic missile program. I received this via email from The Israel Project.
A top Iranian official reiterated on Wednesday that
Tehran will refuse to discuss its ballistic missile program in the
context of comprehensive negotiations over its nuclear program with the
international community, the latest in a long line of statements underlining that the Islamic republic views the issue as a red line.
The dispute has the potential to impact the domestic policy debate in
the United States both substantively and politically. Substantively, the
issue is tangled up in a broader debate over the degree to which Iran
will be forced to account for or roll back suspected military dimensions
of its atomic program. Iranian negotiators had this week sought already
to delay discussions wholesale of
all such dimensions, which range from warhead development to the
involvement of the Iranian military in uranium production. Politically
an outright Iranian refusal is likely to erode confidence in the Obama
administration's diplomatic nimbleness. Iranian negotiators had managed
to exclude mention of Iran's missile program from the interim Joint
Action Plan (JPA), an omission that White House figures justified to
lawmakers and journalists as justified for the sake of building
momentum. Lead U.S. diplomacy, including lead negotiator Undersecretary
of State Wendy Sherman, instead insisted that Iran's ballistic missile program would be addressed in comprehensive negotiations.
And now that the sanctions are effectively gone, Iran just has so many incentives to make that concession....
What could go wrong?
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, intercontinental ballistic missiles, intermediate range ballistic missiles, Iranian nuclear threat, John Kerry, Wendy Sherman
No kidding: Netanyahu orders Mossad to look for Iranian violations of P 5+1 agreement
As most of you undoubtedly know by now, I generally don't take reports from the Sunday Times of London very seriously. But when I saw this one, my response was "no kidding." The Sunday Times is reporting that Prime Minister Netanyahu has ordered the Mossad to
try to find a smoking gun indicating Iranian violations of the P 5+1 agreement. Gee, ya think?
“Everyone has his own view regarding the Geneva agreement,” the Times
quoted an Israeli intelligence source as saying. “But it is clear that
if a smoking gun is produced, it will tumble like a house of cards.”
The Times
quoted Israeli defense sources as saying that Israeli intelligence was
seeking to uncover clandestine activity in three areas of Iran's nuclear
program - hidden uranium enrichment sites, ballistic missiles and bomb
design.
“Iran would not have invested such a fortune [estimated at
$200 billion] if in the end it does not produce nuclear weapons and
turn Iran into a regional superpower,” the paper quoted an Israeli
official as saying.
And they're not looking for construction at the Arak plutonium plant? Of course they are. And they'd be fools not to look for it. What else can Israel do to stop the Obama juggernaut?
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, intermediate range ballistic missiles, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, P 5+1, plutonium, uranium enrichment
Saudi Arabia has missiles pointed at Iran... and Israel
 |
| Image
showing two circular launch pads, #1 pointing in direction of Israel,
and #2 pointing in direction of Iran. A vehicle-mounted ballistic
launcher drives to the launch pads and directs itself along thick dark
line pointing at ten o'clock. At the bottom of the image an underground
bunker built into the hillside with two entrances, one 12 metres wide
and the other 15 metres wide, can be seen, where missiles and their
warheads are stored. Administrative and residential buildings are shown
at the centre of the image.Jane's/DigitalGlobe |
A satellite image of a newly discovered surface-to-surface missile base in Saudi Arabia published by Jane's shows that 'our friends the Saudis' have missiles pointed at Iran...
and at Israel.
Analysts who examined the photos spotted two launch pads with markings
pointing north-west towards Tel Aviv and north-east towards Tehran. They are
designed for Saudi Arabia's arsenal of lorry-launched DF 3 missiles, which
have a range of 1,500-2,500 miles and can carry a two-ton payload.
The base, believed to have been built within the last five years, gives an
insight into Saudi strategic thinking at a time of heightened tensions in
the Gulf.
While Saudi Arabia does not have formal diplomatic relations with
Israel,
it has long maintained discreet back channel communications as part of
attempts to promote stability in the region.
The two countries also have a mutual enemy in
Iran,
though, which has long seen Saudi Arabia as a rival power in the Gulf.
Experts fear that if Iran obtains a nuclear weapon, Saudi Arabia would seek
to follow suit.
...
Robert Munks, deputy editor of
IHS Jane's Intelligence Review, said: "Our
assessment suggests that this base is either partly or fully operational,
with the launch pads pointing in the directions of Israel and Iran
respectively. We cannot be certain that the missiles are pointed
specifically at Tel Aviv and Tehran themselves, but if they were to be
launched, you would expect them to be targeting major cities.
...
David Butter, an associate fellow with the Middle East and North Africa
program at Chatham House, the London-based foreign affairs think-tank, said
there was "little surprise" that the Saudis had the missiles in
place.
"It would seem that they are looking towards some sort of deterrent
capability, which is an obvious thing for them to be doing, given that Iran
too is developing its own ballistic missiles," he said.
He added, though, that the Saudis would know that the site would come to the
attention of foreign intelligence agencies, and that the missile pad pointed
in the direction of Israel could be partly just "for show".
"It would give the Iranians the impression that they were not being
exclusively targeted, and would also allow the Saudis to suggest to the rest
of the Arab world that they still consider Israel a threat."
The missile base is located at al-Wattah, some 125 miles West of Riyadh. But while the missiles are large enough to hold nuclear weapons (which the Saudis don't have at present), they are Chinese missiles from the 1980's and I suspect that Israel - which declined comment - has the anti-missile capability to deal with them in case they aren't 'just for show.'
What could go wrong?
Labels: intermediate range ballistic missiles, Iran, Israel, our friends the Saudis
US Defense Intelligence Agency: N. Korea can mount nuclear weapon on ballistic missile
In an assessment mistakenly marked as 'unclassified,' the United States Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded with a moderate degree of confidence that North Korea is capable of
mounting a nuclear weapon aboard a ballistic missile.
The evaluation, dated last month, was made public by Republican
Representative Doug Lamborn as he questioned senior Pentagon officials
about North Korea's nuclear weapons program during a hearing of the
House of Representatives Armed Services Committee.
"DIA assesses
with moderate confidence the North currently has nuclear weapons capable
of delivery by ballistic missiles, however the reliability will be
low," said Lamborn. He was quoting from a DIA report entitled "Dynamic
Threat Assessment 8099: North Korea Nuclear Weapons Program (March
2013)."
US officials and South Korea sought to play down the DIA evaluation.
Pentagon
spokesman George Little said, "It would be inaccurate to suggest that
the North Korean regime has fully tested, developed or demonstrated the
kinds of nuclear capabilities referenced in the passage."
James
Clapper, the country's senior intelligence official, warned that the
assessment was not necessarily shared by the wider US intelligence
community.
"I would add that the statement read by the Member is
not an Intelligence Community assessment. Moreover, North Korea has not
yet demonstrated the full range of capabilities necessary for a nuclear
armed missile," Clapper, the director of national intelligence, said in a
statement.
I'd have a lot more confidence in the Defense Intelligence Agency than I would in Clapper. Clapper is the moron who told a Congressional committee two years ago that the biggest threats the United States faces are
Russian and China, and not Iran, North Korea and Islamic terrorists.
And wouldn't it be just like the Obama administration to go too far in downplaying a threat?
Lamborn did not say what range any nuclear-capable North Korean
missiles might have. Kristensen said one analyst recently claimed
nuclear warhead capability for North Korea's Nodong short- to
medium-range missile. It would be able to hit US-based facilities in the
region, including South Korea and probably Japan.
The United
States and South Korea have plans to respond proportionately to North
Korean provocations like the shelling of an island or attacking a ship.
But
not wanting to increase the tension in Korea, Washington has not been
explicit about how it would respond to an incident involving nuclear
arms, beyond saying it was capable of defending itself and its partners.
US
President Barack Obama said on Thursday the United States would work
diplomatically to reduce tensions with North Korea, but warned that
Washington would take "all necessary steps" to protect America and its
allies.
Read the whole thing.
And what's unsaid here.... If North Korea has technology to deliver a nuclear weapon using a ballistic missile, have they shared it with Iran?
Labels: intercontinental ballistic missiles, intermediate range ballistic missiles, Iranian nuclear threat, North Korea, nuclear weapons
Yadlin: This won't be the last time we strike Syria
Former Chief of IDF intelligence and director of the Institute for National Security Studies Amos Yadlin told the Washington Post on Saturday that Israel's recent strike in Syria is
unlikely to be the last one.
Israel, he said, has defined four types of weapons whose transfer to
militant groups would not be tolerated: advanced air defense systems,
ballistic missiles, sophisticated shore-to-sea missiles and chemical
weapons.
In accordance with this policy, Yadlin said, “any time
Israel will have reliable intelligence that this is going to be
transferred from Syria to Lebanon, it will act,” although specific
decisions to strike would be subject to assessments of the military
value of the attack, the risk of escalation and the positions of foreign
powers.
“As the Syrian army becomes weaker and Hezbollah grows
more isolated because of the loss of its Syrian patron, it makes sense
that this will continue,” Yadlin said, adding that Israeli responses
would be weighed each time and “not happen automatically.”
The
real dilemma facing Israeli officials, Yadlin said, is not whether to
attack, but whether inaction would mean a greater threat later. “The
correct comparison is the risk of escalation now and the risk of having a
much more formidable enemy and many casualties in future hostilities,”
he said.
Analysts in Lebanon also predicted more Israeli strikes if advanced weapons transfers were attempted.
“Israel
is trying to create a sense of deterrence,” said Elias Hanna, a retired
general and a professor at the American University of Beirut. “The
other side tries to test and erode the system.”
...
With the Syrian army preoccupied with internal fighting and Hezbollah
wary of jeopardizing its position in Lebanon as its Syrian sponsor
weakens, neither is likely to risk wider conflict by retaliating against
Israel for the Jan. 30 strike, according to the Israeli official and
analysts.
“The Syrians are interested in keeping the civil war in
Syria, where they are militarily much stronger than the rebels,” Yadlin
said. “Against external forces, they would be inferior.”
“If
Hezbollah attacked [Israel], they would basically be admitting that the
air defense system was on its way to them, infuriating the Russians” who
supplied the weapons to Syria with the understanding that they would
not be moved to Hezbollah, he said.
Still, Yadlin cautioned, every additional Israeli strike would raise the risk of escalation.
If this analysis is correct, the strikes should all be on the Syrian side of the border. Since 2006, Israel has avoided striking in Lebanon, even though that policy permitted the massive buildup of some 60,000 rockets that Hezbullah has available to it today. There will be another war. The only question is when.
Labels: anti-aircraft missiles, chemical weapons, Hezbullah, intermediate range ballistic missiles, Lebanon, Syria, weapons smuggling, Yakhont land to sea missile
Great news: Turkey has 1500-km range missiles and says it can reach 2500 km
Turkey has announced that it has missiles with a 1500-kilometer range, and that it is developing missiles with a 2500-kilometer range. A 2500-kilometer range from Turkey would include Athens, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Geneva, Algiers, Jeddah, Cairo, Copenhagen, Kiev, London, Milan, Moscow, Paris, Rome, Stockholm, Damascus, Tehran, Tel Aviv, Tripoli, Warsaw, Vienna, Zurich and Amman. Presumably, the missiles could be equipped with biological, chemical and/or nuclear weapons. But the really interesting question is why. Turkey has an Air Force that is far more efficient than these missiles. And none of the countries whose cities are listed above threaten Turkey. So why does Turkey need
long-range ballistic missiles (Hat Tip:
Will)?
And the big question here is why should Turkey, which boasts a modern air force with highly deterrent firepower, need ballistic or cruise missiles? With which countries within a diameter of 2,500 km does Turkey think it may, in the future, have to battle? Which targets within a range of 2,500 kilometers may it hope to hit which it cannot with a 1,000-km missile?
What justifies the earmarking of – possibly – hundreds of millions of dollars worth of taxpayer money for the Turkish missiles? Are biological, chemical or nuclear weapons in Turkey’s various contingency plans for future warfare? What’s the point of NATO membership, then? Does Turkey intend to leave the alliance? More importantly, what are the political deliberations behind this ambitious plan?
With a delay of a few decades, Turkey is going along the path that countries like North Korea, Libya and Iraq tried in the 1990s – and Iran in the last decade. In fact, observers have invariably suspected a strong link between Iran’s ambitions for missiles and a future nuclear weapons program.
For the moment, New York, Beijing, Seoul, Brasilia, Ottawa and Tokyo look safe and immune to future Turkish anger. But give Mr. Erdoğan another 10 years in power and Turkey might have another one with a range of 15,000 km by then.
There are a couple of minor problems, though. Since Turkey is a signatory to the Missile Technology Control Regime, it may now find more difficult access to some of the “ingredients” necessary to make a missile.
Second, I am not sure whether the punishing Turkish missile should be dubbed the Attila, or the Sultan Mehmed II. Third, and on a less significant basis, one triviality about the future Turkish ballistic missile could be that once shot and targeting, say, Tel Aviv, it may just be last seen over the skies of Edirne…
Hmmm.
UPDATE WEDNESDAY 1:28 AMI received the following comment from a reader in Turkey.
I enjoy reading your blog and I recently read "Great news: Turkey has 1500-km range missiles and says it can reach 2500 km". I just wanted to make two points. The first is, Tel Aviv is less than 900km from Ankara so Turkey doesn't need a 2500-km range missile to target Israel. 1500km is more than enough. The missiles are being developed in order for Turkey to launch its satellites into orbit without depending on second parties and also counter Iran's growing capabilities. The reason there has been no border changing war with Iran since the battle of Chaldiran 1514 is because no disruption of the status quo has occurred regarding military strengths of the two neighbors.
My second and more important point is, Israel is the least of Turkey's foreign policy concerns. Turkey and Israel are not historical foes like for example India and Pakistan are. Nor do they have interlocked security concerns. The cooling of relations will pass once the Erdogan government leaves office. Now I am not saying it will return to what it was in the 90's, but there are a lot of people who share my opinion in Turkey and even this government is coming around as they are seeing that Turkey has its hand-full of other problems ranging from Syria to Iran to Armenia and Cyprus and being antagonistic with Israel is not in Turkey's interests.
I wonder if Erdogan has any plans to leave.... On the other hand, with rumors abounding that he has cancer, I wonder who is likely to take over if he does leave.
Labels: intermediate range ballistic missiles, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey
You'd think they're preparing for war or something like that
Venezuela has purchased
1,800 anti-aircraft missiles from Russia. Are they expecting a war?
Russia delivered at least 1,800 shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles to Venezuela in 2009, U.N. arms control data show, despite vigorous U.S. efforts to stop President Hugo Chavez's stridently anti-American government from acquiring the weapons.
The United States feared that the missiles could be funneled to Marxist guerrillas fighting Colombia's pro-American government or Mexican drug cartels, concerns expressed in U.S. diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks and first reported in the Spanish newspaper El Pais.
It had been unclear how many of the Russian SA-24 missiles were delivered to Venezuela, though the transfer itself was not secret. Chavez showed off a few dozen at a military parade in April 2009, saying they could "deter whatever aerial aggression against our country." A high-level Russian delegation told American officials in Washington in July of that year that 100 of the missiles had been delivered in the first quarter of 2009.
Then earlier this year, Russia reported to the U.N. Register of Conventional Arms, which records the transnational sale of weaponry, that the deal totaled 1,800 missiles.
The U.N. registry did not reveal the model of the delivered weaponry. But the American commander for military forces in Latin America, Air Force Gen. Douglas Fraser, publicly expressed concern this year that Venezuela was purchasing as many as 2,400 of the missiles, also called the IGLA-S.
Matt Schroeder, a missile expert at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, said the missiles are among the most sophisticated in the world and can down aircraft from 19,000 feet.
"It's the largest recorded transfer in the U.N. arms registry database in five years, at least. There's no state in Latin America of greater concern regarding leakage that has purchased so many missiles," he said, referring to reports of Venezuelan arms flowing to Colombian guerrillas.
Add to that Iran's placing intermediate range ballistic missiles in Venezuela that can
reach the US, and what could go wrong?
Labels: anti-aircraft missiles, Hugo Chavez, intermediate range ballistic missiles
Iran placing ballistic missiles in Venezuela that can reach the US
If any of you in the US still think Iran is only a threat to Israel and the Gulf countries, and therefore wonder why you should be at all concerned about it, perhaps this will change your mind: Iran is placing medium-range missiles that can
reach the United States in Venezuela.
According to Die Welt, Venezuela has agreed to allow Iran to establish a military base manned by Iranian missile officers, soldiers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Venezuelan missile officers. In addition, Iran has given permission for the missiles to be used in case of an "emergency". In return, the agreement states that Venezuela can use these facilities for "national needs" – radically increasing the threat to neighbors like Colombia. The German daily claims that according to the agreement, Iranian Shahab 3 (range 1300-1500 km), Scud-B (285-330 km) and Scud-C (300, 500 and 700 km) will be deployed in the proposed base. It says that Iran also pledged to help Venezuela in rocket technology expertise, including intensive training of officers
Venezuela has also become the country through which Iran intends to bypass UN sanctions. Following a new round of UN sanctions against the Islamic Republic, for example, Russia decided not to sell five battalions of S-300PMU-1 air defence systems to Iran. These weapons, along with a number of other weapons, were part of a deal, signed in 2007, worth $800 million. Now that these weapons cannot be delivered to Iran, Russia is looking for new customers; according to the Russian press agency Novosti[2], it found one: Venezuela.
Novosti reports the words of Igor Korotchenko, head of a Moscow-based think tank on international arms trade, saying that if the S-300 deal with Venezuela goes through, Caracas should pay cash for the missiles, rather than take another loan from Russia. "The S-300 is a very good product and Venezuela should pay the full amount in cash, as the country's budget has enough funds to cover the deal ," Korotchenko said. Moscow has already provided Caracas with several loans to buy Russian-made weaponry, including a recent $2.2-mln loan on the purchase of 92 T-72M1M tanks, the Smerch multiple-launch rocket systems and other military equipment.
If Iran, therefore, cannot get the S-300 missiles directly from Russia, it can still have them through its proxy, Venezuela, and deploy them against its staunchest enemy, the U.S..
And for those of you making the obvious comparison to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis....
Back in the 1962, thanks to the stern stance adopted by the then Kennedy administration, the crisis was defused
Nowadays, however, we do not see the same firmness from the present administration. On the contrary, we see a lax attitude, both in language and in deeds, that results in extending hands when our adversaries have no intention of shaking hands with us. Iran is soon going to have a nuclear weapon, and there are no signs that UN sanctions will in any way deter the Ayatollah's regime from completing its nuclear program. We know that Iran already has missiles that can carry an atomic warhead over Israel and over the Arabian Peninsula. Now we learn that Iran is planning to build a missile base close to the US borders. How longer do we have to wait before the Obama administration begins to understand threats?
The issue isn't that they don't understand. The issue is that they don't care.
What could go wrong?
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Hugo Chavez, intermediate range ballistic missiles, Iranian nuclear program, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Venezuelan nuclear plant
Iran has missiles that can hit western Europe
A cable from February 24 of this year includes an American assessment that Iran bought 19 missiles from North Korea that are
capable of reaching western Europe. The missiles have a much greater range than any other missile in Iran's arsenal, and are nuclear capable, although Iran does not yet have the capability of creating a nuclear warhead that can be loaded on the missiles.
The cable is a detailed, highly classified account of a meeting between top Russian officials and an American delegation led by Vann H. Van Diepen, an official with the State Department’s nonproliferation division who, as a national intelligence officer several years ago, played a crucial role in the 2007 assessment of Iran’s nuclear capacity.
The missiles could for the first time give Iran the capacity to strike at capitals in Western Europe or easily reach Moscow, and American officials warned that their advanced propulsion could speed Iran’s development of intercontinental ballistic missiles.
There has been scattered but persistent speculation on the topic since 2006, when fragmentary reports surfaced that North Korea might have sold Iran missiles based on a Russian design called the R-27, once used aboard Soviet submarines to carry nuclear warheads. In the unclassified world, many arms control experts concluded that isolated components made their way to Iran, but there has been little support for the idea that complete missiles, with their huge thrusters, had been secretly shipped.
The Feb. 24 cable, which is among those obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to a number of news organizations, makes it clear that American intelligence agencies believe that the complete shipment indeed took place, and that Iran is taking pains to master the technology in an attempt to build a new generation of missiles. The missile intelligence also suggests far deeper military — and perhaps nuclear — cooperation between North Korea and Iran than was previously known. At the request of the Obama administration, The New York Times has agreed not to publish the text of the cable.
The missile we're talking about has a range of up to 2,000 miles (they had less of a range as a submarine-based missile).
Read the whole thing.
Labels: intermediate range ballistic missiles, Iran, North Korea
