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U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney met with President Shimon Peres on the sidelines of the Ambrosetti forum on the edge of Italy's Lake Como on Saturday, telling the Israeli leader that Russia is selling arms to Damascus and Iran with the clear knowledge that they are being channeled to Hezbollah and terror groups in Iraq. The American vice president later reiterated these remarks in his address at the economic conference, saying that "Russian arms dealing in the Middle East has endangered the prospects for peace and freedom in the region." He added that the Russian leaders view democracy as a...

AHMADINEJAD'S NEW ENEMY: WOMEN By AMIR TAHERI September 6, 2008 -- IN one of his last sermons before his death, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini warned of "three threats" to his vision of Islam: the US, the Jews and women. Two decades later, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad thinks he has the United States and the Jews in hand - and is moving on the third "enemy." Women were the first to demonstrate against Khomeini's regime with a mass rally in Tehran on March 8, 1979 - less than a month after the mullahs had seized power. Over the next decade, the authorities...

Russia's role in the Iran crisis By Ray Takeyh and Nikolas Gvosdev September 6, 2008 IT IS ONE of the rites of passage of the fall - every September, the Bush administration returns to the United Nation for another sanctions resolution against Iran. However, this time there is much consternation in Washington that Russia's invasion of Georgia - and the subsequent chill that has descended on relations between Russia and the West - has ended any possibility of cooperation between the United States and Russia in dealing with Iran's nuclear imbroglio. Such fears are overblown. Russia's assault on Georgia may...

Iran and Bolivia will "stick by each other" said hardline Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Tuesday, in comments sure to provoke concern in Washington. Ahmadinejad's statements came at a joint press conference with leftist Bolivian President Evo Morales in Tehran. He said the two government weren't interested in U.S. concerns about their close ties. "We will stick by each other's side and will be supportive of each other. (I) had extensive talks with Mr. Morales on this," he said. "The geographical distance between the two countries is long but our hearts, thoughts and wills are very close." Ahmadinejad also praised Morales...

Washington-Amid rising tensions over Georgia, U.S. officials are increasingly concerned that Russia is moving to rebuild one of the most dangerous features of the old Soviet Union's security structure-its alliance with Cuba. Moscow has been signaling that it wants to restore a long relationship with Havana that included not only economic ties, but also military and intelligence cooperation. The relationship brought the world to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 when Russia secretly installed nuclear missiles on the island.

Iran has blamed Georgia for its confrontation with Russia and in a reference to Israel and the U.S., urged regional countries to unite against foreign interference. Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Saturday Georgia caused the crisis because it miscalculated the reaction to its use of military power in South Ossetia. Speaking earlier on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the conflict would not have taken place had Georgia “not allowed countries from outside the region to interfere in their internal affairs.” Analysts say that wary of U.S. troop presence in...

Iraq and Georgia, both of which have democratic governments, are sandwiched between Iran and Russia, two of the most authoritarian governments in the world. Russia has been collaborating with Iran to strengthen the latter's nuclear program and its military. It is also steadily arming Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez. Russia's invasion of Georgia came exactly one month after Iran test-fired its Shahab III intermediate ballistic missile in order to intimidate neighbors like Israel and Iraq, and two weeks after Mr. Chávez traveled to Moscow to formalize a "Strategic Alliance" with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev. Meanwhile, Iran's proxies...

TEHRAN (AFP) - A senior military commander warned on Saturday that any attack on Iran would start a new world war, as Tehran pressed on with its controversial nuclear drive despite the risk of further UN sanctions

It's what you think...

Fears that Russia might sell advanced weaponry to Syria kicked up a mini-storm of concern in Israel on Thursday. Syrian President Bashar Assad, in Russia for talks with President Dmitry Medvedev, has been campaigning to acquire weapons systems that include long-range surface-to-surface missiles, according to Russian media reports. The news of Assad's reported ambitions prompted immediate hand-wringing among Israeli officials and analysts. Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Israel was "analyzing the ramifications" of Assad's visit.

Syrian President Bashar Assad was scheduled to leave for Russia on Wednesday for a two-day visit that has been described by analysts as important at a time when Moscow may be considering closer ties with the Arab world. Assad told Russia's Kommersant newspaper on Wednesday that he would use his visit to expand military ties with Moscow, whose arms sales to the Middle Eastern state have angered Israel and the United States. He said that Russia's conflict with Georgia, in which Moscow says Georgia used Israeli-supplied equipment, underlined the need for Russia and Syria to tighten their defense cooperation.

CARACAS: President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday that Russian President Dimitri Medvedev wants to send a Russian naval fleet to visit Venezuela. "Russia has informed us they intend to visit Venezuela, that is, the intention that a Russian fleet should come to the Caribbean," Chavez said on his weekly radio program. "I told the president (Medvedev), 'If you're coming to the Caribbean, we'll welcome you,'" Chavez said, adding that the Russian naval fleet would pay "a friendly and working" visit to Venezuela. Under leftist President Chavez, Venezuela has been seeking closer relations with Moscow, in part to buy military hardware,...

Two Russian generals were photographed receiving awards from Saddam Hussein's government for helping Iraqi military forces less than 10 days before the U.S.-led invasion. The two retired officers were identified by the newspaper Gazeta.ru as Col. Gen. Vladimir Achalov and Col. Gen. Igor Maltsev, both former high-ranking officers involved in Soviet rapid-reaction and air defense forces.

Two Russian generals were photographed receiving awards from Saddam Hussein's government for helping Iraqi military forces less than 10 days before the U.S.-led invasion. The two retired officers were identified by the newspaper Gazeta.ru as Col. Gen. Vladimir Achalov and Col. Gen. Igor Maltsev, both former high-ranking officers involved in Soviet rapid-reaction and air defense forces. Both generals were photographed receiving awards from Iraqi Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed in early March 2003, only days before the war began on March 20, 2003. The photographs were taken in a building that was bombed by U.S. cruise missiles during the first...

US military intelligence identifies the location of Qods Force camps inside Iran. Hezbollah is involved in the training of Shia terror groups.

Security: What do Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chavez and Islamic extremists have in common? They're funded by America's thirst for foreign oil. If drilling isn't a cure by itself, it's a start.Wars aren't cheap, even when they go well. But Russia has plenty of money to burn on war. It's flush with Western cash because it's flush with oil and natural gas. If Putin wishes to recreate the domain of the tsars, he has the wherewithal for that grand ambition. The resurgent Russian empire is one of the big winners in the massive wealth transfer that has taken place in recent...

Iran received Russian weapon. Belarus under suspicion Iran has received first components of Russian S-300 ground-to-air radar systems. As The Cutting Edge News reports referring to its sources, they are still disassembled in boxes and undeployed. It’s not impossible that the weapon has been delivered via Belarus. In the meantime, the situation around S-300 radar systems is more than knotty, and experts’ forecasts on possible terms of their installation vary much, Lenta.ru notes. So, according to Pentagon’s information, the Iranians will not be receiving that Russian anti-aircraft system this year. Israel in its turn says the anti-aircraft batteries can be...

Russia will supply to Iran advanced anti-aircraft systems by the end of 2008 or early 2009, Reuters reported with reference to a source with Israel's Ministry of Defense. According to the source, Russia will supply advanced S-300 anti-aircraft systems to Iran. The delivery of first consignment has been slated for September, but deploying and making the systems operable will take from six to 12 months...

IN A LITTLE-NOTICED DECISION in a New York courtroom on September 25, 2003, a man described as Osama bin Laden's "best friend" got some good news. U.S. District Court Judge Deborah Batts ruled that Mahmdouh Mahmud Salim could not be sentenced to life in prison. Salim--who was present at the founding of al Qaeda in 1989 and who was for years one of bin Laden's most trusted confidants--had been captured in Germany in 1998 and extradited to the United States for prosecution related to his role in the grand conspiracy that resulted in the 1998 bombings at U.S. embassies in...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush in 2002 branded Iraq, Iran and North Korea part of an "axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world" -- and he believes two of them still are, the White House said on Monday. Bush, in his 2002 State of the Union address to the U.S. Congress, accused the three countries of seeking weapons of mass destruction that could be used for attacks on U.S. allies or to blackmail the United States. The United States led a coalition of forces into Iraq but never found nuclear weapons. North Korea...

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said that he is ready to establish normal relations with Israel and to exchange ambassadors and sign bilateral agreements if a peace deal is reached between the two countries. “We have raised the matter of normalizing relations since the beginning of the peace talks,” Assad told Al-Jazzeera Television, adding that good relations between states entail setting up embassies and signing agreements. He said that relations could worsen or improve, turn friendly or be suspended, “but this a normal part of nationhood.” “The indirect talks with Israel will pave the way for direct talks or else negotiations...

President George W. Bush Thursday formally abandoned the last vestiges of a once-robust policy towards a North Korean regime he had rightly said he “loathed.” Worse yet, he is doing so in the face of Pyongyang’s manifest contempt exhibited through, among other things, its serial refusal even to provide promised data about the status and disposition of its nuclear arsenal, let alone to eliminate it. Consider the following egregious shortfalls in the “declaration” supplied by Kim Jong Il’s representatives to the United States via Communist China: The North Korean declaration was delivered six months late. As time dragged on without...

Vice President Dick Cheney fought furiously to block efforts by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to strike a controversial US compromise deal with North Korea over the communist state's nuclear programme, the Telegraph has learned. "The exchanges between Cheney's office and Rice's people at State got very testy. But ultimately Condi had the President's ear and persuaded him that his legacy would be stronger if they reached a deal with Pyongyang," said a Pentagon adviser briefed on the battle. Mr Cheney's office is believed to have played a key role in the release two months ago of documents and photographs...

(CNSNews.com) - The Bush administration's decision to ease trade sanctions on North Korea and start a 45-day process of removing Pyongyang from a list of terror-sponsors has drawn fire from conservatives and praise from quarters usually critical of the president's foreign policies. The decision also fueled a long running debate in Japan, where many feel the move is premature. The announcement that North Korea will be removed from the terrorism list and that sanctions under the Trading With the Enemy Act will be lifted followed the regime's handover of a written declaration -- six months overdue -- of its plutonium-based...

(CNSNews.com) - "We will trust you only to the extent that you fulfill your promises," President Bush warned North Korea on Thursday. The president announced at the White House that in response to North Korea meeting a key deadline to declare its nuclear activities, the United States will lift some trade sanctions against the communist state and rescind North Korea's designation as a state sponsor of terror. North Korea handed over a long-awaited declaration of its nuclear programs to Chinese officials on Thursday. President Bush noted that North Korea has begun disabling its nuclear facility at Yongbyon; and on Thursday,...

TOKYO — North Korea took a step on Thursday toward reintegration into the world community and rapprochement with the United States by submitting for outside inspection a long-delayed declaration of its nuclear program. The 60-page declaration from North Korea, one of the world’s most isolated and impoverished nations, was expected to describe in previously undisclosed detail its capabilities in nuclear power and nuclear weapons — meeting a major demand of the United States and other countries that consider the North a dangerous source of instability. “This can be a moment of opportunity for North Korea,” said President Bush, announcing the...

WASHIGNTON -- The Bush administration on Thursday will lift some trade sanctions against North Korea and move to take it off the U.S. terrorism blacklist -- a remarkable turnaround in policy toward the communist regime, which President George W. Bush once branded as part of an "axis of evil." Bush will make comments on North Korea declaring details of its nuclear program Thursday morning at the White House. Watch them on TheIndyChannel. North Korea handed over a long-awaited accounting of its nuclear work to Chinese officials on Thursday, fulfilling a key step in the denuclearization process. In exchange, the U.S....

North Korean Nuclear: important announcement at 09H00 GMT, according to Beijing BEIJING - China has informed Thursday that an "important announcement" would be made during a press conference in Beijing at 09H00 GMT on the nuclear issue of North Korean. "There will be a press conference at 17H00 (09H00 GMT) with an important announcement," said the spokesman of Chinese Foreign Ministry Liu Jianchao. Asked about the nature of this announcement, he said it was an "important news about the six-party talks", adding that he was "not in a position to give details." North Korea has promised to surrender Thursday...

MOSCOW (AFP)--Russia's foreign minister Friday said there was no proof Iran is developing nuclear weapons and warned unilateral action against the country risked repeating the mistakes of the invasion of Iraq. "We have been repeatedly asking our American and Israeli colleagues, who insist that Iran...is engaged in making a nuclear bomb, to provide factual information to those assertions. So far we have seen none," Sergei Lavrov said in a speech in Moscow. "The same conclusion has been made by the International Atomic Energy Agency," he said. Responding to a warning earlier this month by Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz...

"I have been charged by the president with making sure that none of the tyrannies in the world are negotiated with," Vice President Cheney reportedly declared in a White House meeting on North Korea in December 2003. "We don't negotiate with evil; we defeat it." Cheney's call to battle resounded last week as the Bush administration slammed former president Jimmy Carter for talking to Hamas, the extremist Palestinian group that now runs the Gaza Strip, and began to have its own second thoughts about closing a new nuclear deal with North Korea. Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain also chimed...

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday that the era of use of force and that of bullying powers has ended. He made the remarks while addressing a group of foreign guests taking part in the ceremony commemorating 19th anniversary of the late Imam Khomeini's demise. Underlining the need for unity and solidarity of the Muslim World, he said all satanic powers will be eliminated through unity of Muslims and vigilance of the Islamic Ummah. As to the Israeli atrocity in the occupied lands, Ahmadinejad said the criminal regime which has been plundering the wealth of the oppressed Palestinian nation and...

Not only is Obama's middle name Hussein that of the prophet Mohammad's grandson (revered as the saint of all saints by Iran's majority Shiites) but the candidate's foreign policy seems light years away from the saber-rattling of President Bush and Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee. ...what Iranian elites say about Obama. I should say, he is a phenomenon, based on what he has said so far, Sadegh Kharazzi, a former Iranian diplomat squarely in the reformist camp now out of power, said. Unless he is drawn into traditional Democratic Party ways, his election as a president will be...

Iran has secretly paid Iraqi insurgents hundreds of thousands of American dollars to kill British soldiers, according to a leaked government document obtained by The Telegraph. The allegations are contained in a confidential "field report" written by a British officer who served in Basra during one of the most dangerous periods of the conflict. The report, which has never been made public, shows the full level of Iran's involvement in the insurgency for the first time. The document states that the Jaish al-Mahdi (JAM) – also known as the Mahdi Army – one of the most violent insurgent groups operating...

WASHINGTON - The top uniformed U.S. military officer told Congress on Tuesday that Iran is directly jeopardizing any potential for peace in Iraq, prompting fresh calls from senators that the U.S. pursue diplomatic talks with Tehran. Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that "irresponsible actions" by Iran's Revolutionary Guard "directly jeopardize" peace in Iraq.

The United States has reached a deal with North Korea to provide 500,000 tons of food aid over the coming year to the isolated communist nation. The U.S. administration says the aid has little to do with its nuclear disarmament deal with Pyongyang, although both have involved an unusual intensity of U.S. diplomacy with North Korea, a nation President George W. Bush once included as part of a rhetorical ``axis of evil.'' ``We don't see any connection,'' State Department spokesman Sean McCormack was quoted as saying. ``We're doing this because America is a compassionate nation and the United States and...

TEHRAN (AFP) - Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday declared Iran was "not afraid" of sanctions over its contested nuclear programme and would further step up its progress. ADVERTISEMENT "We are not afraid of Western sanctions," he told thousands of people in a speech in the southern city of Shiraz broadcast by state television. "The Iranian people, thanks to God, will resist in the face of sanctions and economic blockades and will further intensify their progress." Iran has been hit by three sets of UN Security Council sanctions over its nuclear programme, mainly targeting its ballistic missile and atomic...

CIA Director Michael Hayden said Wednesday that Iranian policy, at the highest government level, is to help kill Americans in Iraq, the boldest pronouncement of Iranian involvement by a U.S. official to date. Hayden made the statement in response to a student question while delivering the Landon Lecture at Kansas State University. "It is my opinion, it is the policy of the Iranian government, approved to highest level of that government, to facilitate the killing of Americans in Iraq," Hayden said. "Just make sure there's clarity on that." In recent weeks, U.S. officials have ratcheted up their complaints that Iran...

DURING HIS RECENT TRIP TO Europe, President Bush sent mixed signals about U.S. policy with regard to Iran's development of nuclear weapons. At one point he dismissed the prospect of military action as ridiculous; immediately after, he emphasized all options were on the table; then at another point he suggested there might be "convergence" between U.S. and European views on how to address the problem. If the president seemed to be all over the lot, that may be because the policy choices with respect to Iran are complex, and none is without its drawbacks. Currently we are pursuing a "good...

Why Does Ahmadinejad Want Russian Troops in Iran? 25/04/2008 By Amir Taheri Why is the leadership in Tehran anxious to give Russia the right to land troops in Iran? The question is not fanciful. The Islamic Republic is conducting a devious campaign to prepare public opinion for that eventuality. The message is relayed through deliberately vague terms that diplomats understand immediately while the general public does not. The device is to revive two treaties that most students of Iranian history thought were dead and buried long ago. The first is the 1921 Treaty that the government of Sayyed Ziauddin Tabatabai,...

Mystery solved. On Sept. 6 of last year, Israeli warplanes struck a facility in the deserts of eastern Syria. The Israelis refused to explain what they had hit or why. The Syrians immediately bulldozed the site to block all further investigation. The U.S. government acknowledged the attack but declined otherwise to comment. And the world was left to speculate. On Thursday, the Bush administration at last confirmed what had long been rumored: The Syrian facility was indeed a nuclear plant. The plant followed the same design as the Yongbyon plant in North Korea, and North Korean engineers and workers had...

Ten North Koreans were killed in an IAF air strike on a Syria installation September, Bloomberg reported Monday, quoting an NHK report that cited unidentified South Korean intelligence officials. The report quoted a Japanese broadcaster who said that they had been assisting the Syrians in the construction of a nuclear reactor. Several North Korean workers survived the air strike, the report said. Yielding to months of pressure from the US Congress, the Bush administration gave members briefings on Thursday indicating that on September 6, Israel destroyed an alleged Syrian nuclear reactor built with North Korean help.

NEW YORK (AFP) — The US military says it has found Iranian-made mortars, rockets and explosives in Iraq bearing recent date stamps, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday."You can see the manufacturing dates right on the armaments themselves," a senior commander in Baghdad was quoted as saying. "These are very clearly weapons that were made in the last month or so."Iran denies supplying ammunition to Iraqi militants, or training them.Earlier this week, a US general in Iraq said that the increasingly sophisticated attacks carried out by Shiite extremists were evidence that they were getting extra aid from Iranian groups...

At the moment America has disclosed to the world Israel's success in ending a North Korea-aided nuclear weapons project in the Syrian desert, the Syrians are saying Prime Minister Olmert will relinquish the Golan Heights. The Israelis are offering no public comment. But Syria's expatriates minister, Buthaina Shaaban, told Al-Jazeera that the Israeli premier had instructed Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to deliver the message. "Olmert is ready for peace with Syria on the grounds of the return of the Golan Heights in full to Syria," she told the Arab satellite network. The interview aired before the White House...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - If President George W. Bush wants to make progress on ending North Korea's nuclear ambitions before he leaves office next year, he first has to close the deal with Congress. The White House took a step to try to win congressional support on Thursday by laying out intelligence alleging that North Korea helped Syria to build a nuclear reactor that U.S. officials say was destroyed by Israel on September 6. The White House initially tried to keep the matter secret, fearing Damascus might be embarrassed by a public airing of the strike -- and the fact that...

WASHINGTON, April 25, 2008 – Syria’s building of a secret nuclear facility with North Korean help reinforces the need to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said today. “It should serve as a reminder to us all of the very real dangers of proliferation and need to rededicate ourselves to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction, particularly into the hands of a state or a group with terrorist connections,” Navy Adm. Mike Mullen said during a Pentagon briefing. The reactor, destroyed by Israel in September before it...

The neocons may yet get their war on Iran. Ever since President Nouri al-Maliki ordered the attacks in Basra on the Mahdi Army, Gen. David Petraeus has been laying the predicate for U.S. air strikes on Iran and a wider war in the Middle East. Iran, Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee, has "fueled the recent violence in a particularly damaging way through its lethal support of the special groups." These "special groups" are "funded, trained, armed and directed by Iran's Quds Force with help from Lebanese Hezbollah. It was these groups that launched Iranian rockets and mortar rounds...

The most senior US general in Iraq has said he has evidence that Iran was behind Sunday's bombardment of Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone. Gen David Petraeus told the BBC he thought Tehran had trained, equipped and funded insurgents who fired the barrage of mortars and rockets. He said Iran was adding what he described as "lethal accelerants" to a very combustible mix. ... In an interview with BBC world affairs editor John Simpson, Gen Petraeus said violence in Iraq was being perpetuated by Iran's Quds Force, a branch of the Revolutionary Guards. "The rockets that were launched at the...

One of the armor-piercing roadside bombs in Iraq has a nickname among the militants who place the device. They call it the Najadia, a short variation on the long name of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "My group and I believe honestly in fighting the Americans - and getting financial benefit out of it," says Hussein Ali, an Iraqi Shi'ite guerrilla who recounted a journey to Iran for training in explosives in an interview with TIME. "We became very professional in planting and using the mine called BMZ2, which is a Russian mine modified in Iran for use against the American...

The Democrats say he did. So does the Washington Post which, we all know, is basically the same thing: Sen. John McCain, in the midst of a trip to the Middle East that he hoped would help burnish his foreign policy expertise, incorrectly asserted Tuesday that Iran is training and supplying al-Qaeda in Iraq, confusing the Sunni insurgent group with the Shiite extremists who U.S. officials believe are supported by their religious brethren in the neighboring country. The mistake, which he quickly corrected after a brief whisper from a colleague, was an unwelcome stumble as McCain (Ariz.), the all-but-certain Republican...

In recent weeks, two news reports have circulated referencing Iran’s relationship with al Qaeda. On Tuesday, March 18th, Senator John McCain repeatedly stated that Iran was aiding al Qaeda in Iraq. Later, however, he retracted this statement and said that Iran was not aiding al Qaeda in Iraq. Senator McCain was right the first time and he should not have retracted his statement. In fact, al Qaeda and Iran have a rather long history of cooperation. A few days before Senator McCain’s unfortunate retraction, a senior military adviser to the Barack Obama campaign, retired Air Force General Merrill McPeak, was...