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President Barack Obama spent much of his time in Asia warning Iran that his patience for nuclear diplomacy is wearing thin. "Iran has taken weeks now and has not shown its willingness to say yes to this proposal," Obama said Thursday in Seoul, referring to a deal under which Iran would export the bulk of its stock of enriched uranium to Russia for conversion into reactor fuel. "And so, as a consequence we have begun discussions with our international partners about the importance of having consequences."

Nov 14, 2009 17:25 | Updated Nov 14, 2009 17:29 Iran has completely rejected a UN-brokered nuclear deal, but US President Barack Obama has postponed the official announcement on Teheran's refusal due to internal political reasons, Israel Radio quoted a senior western official as saying Saturday. The deal would see most of the Islamic Republic's uranium shipped to Russia and France for further processing. The official reportedly told journalists in Paris that Iran has also refused to resume nuclear talks with the six world powers.

VIENNA — Iran's recently revealed uranium enrichment hall is a highly fortified underground space that is a year away from completion after fitful construction that first started seven years ago, diplomats told The Associated Press on Thursday. The diplomats also said that a recent inspection of the facility near the holy city of Qom by the International Atomic Energy Agency has reinforced suspicions that it could have been planned as part of a secret military nuclear program. Iran says it wants to enrich only to make atomic fuel but the West fears it could retool its program to churn out...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An unsettled political situation in Iran may be complicating efforts to seal a nuclear fuel deal between Tehran and major world powers, President Barack Obama said on Monday. Obama told Reuters in an interview that the United States had made more progress toward global nuclear non-proliferation in the last several months than in the past several years. "But it is going to take time, and part of the challenge that we face is that neither North Korea nor Iran seem to be settled enough politically to make quick decisions on these issues," he said at the White...

Reuters President Obama's idea of waging "aggressive personal diplomacy"? Attacking President Bush for blustering belligerence: But he asserted that Iran’s support for militant groups in Iraq reflected its anxiety over the Bush administration’s policies in the region, including talk of a possible American military strike on Iranian nuclear installations. Yup. That explains Iranian aggression for the last 30 years against the United States. Meanwhile, Israel seizes 500 tons of Iranian weapons on Wednesday: Israel displayed on Wednesday the contents of the ship it seized off Cyprus - crates filled with rockets, missiles, mortars, anti-tank weapons and munitions - the...

Keeping you updated. As mass pro-Democracy protests swept Iran today the protesters chanted "Obama, Obama you are either with the Iranian government or with us". Videos here

Obama: “wants to move beyond this past, and seeks a relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran” Obama Administration on Anniversary of Embassy and Hostage Seizure in Iran: We're trying to be Friends! By Barry Rubin thelastcrusade.com Will Rogers, the great American comedian of the 1920s and 1930s, famously said, “I never met a man I didn’t like.” The problem with the Obama Administration, at least so far, is that it has never met an enemy that it could identify as such.Of course, the story isn’t over yet. Indeed, one does see signs of change. But we are still...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/statement-president-barack-obama-iran Home • Briefing Room • Statements & Releases The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release November 03, 2009 Statement by President Barack Obama on Iran Thirty years ago today, the American Embassy in Tehran was seized. The 444 days that began on November 4, 1979 deeply affected the lives of courageous Americans who were unjustly held hostage, and we owe these Americans and their families our gratitude for their extraordinary service and sacrifice. This event helped set the United States and Iran on a path of sustained suspicion,...

In the deepening international stand-off over Iran's nuclear program, the Islamic Republic's quest for advanced air- and missile defense technologies could play a decisive role. "For years now, Tehran has been working hard to acquire sophisticated Russian antiaircraft missiles that would make it far tougher for Israeli planes to stage a successful attack on Iranian nuclear facilities," Christian Caryl wrote on October 2nd in the online edition of Foreign Policy magazine. That system is the S-300, an advanced interceptor array believed to be superior to the U.S. Patriot. Russia signed a deal to deliver units of the S-300 to Iran...

Frustrated by Iran's continued defiance of demands to come clean on its nuclear program, the Obama administration is leaning toward imposing new sanctions, even if it must act alone. Administration officials acknowledged growing concern that there may not be international consensus to expand the existing U.N. sanctions, despite Tehran's apparent rejection of a confidence-building measure proposed by the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog in hopes of making progress on the nuclear issue. To that end, the administration is quietly supporting legislation in Congress that would give President Barack Obama a broad new array of authority to target Iran's energy sector by penalizing...

Watching the Obama administration launch its "new era of engagement" over the past 10 months, most seasoned observers have pondered two questions: First, if engagement fails, will the Obama team ever acknowledge that it has failed? And what then? The first question is about to be answered. The main object of the "new era of engagement," Iran, has settled back into its old game-playing. The joint proposal agreed to by the United States, France and Russia, to have Iran ship 70 percent of its low-enriched uranium to Russia this year, was a compromise, as administration officials acknowledge. It might theoretically...

As the United States and its allies haggle with Iran over its nuclear program, Moscow has fueled Western unease about its military links to Tehran by pledging to continue selling arms to the Islamic republic. This has raised speculation that it may brush aside the strident objections of the United States and Israel and supply Iran with advanced S-300PMU surface-to-air missiles that would greatly enhance its defenses against airstrikes. The Russians, who have rejected the proposed imposition of economic sanctions on Iran as "counterproductive," are keeping the waters muddied with contradictory and ambiguous statements regarding the S-300s. On Wednesday, Russia's...

The Obama administration was elated a month ago when the Russian president said sanctions against Iran for its nuclear program could become "inevitable." Washington's reaction may have been significantly premature. Dmitry Medvedev's words were seen as a major Kremlin shift and one that would buttress U.S. attempts to combine renewed negotiations with Tehran and a united front that threatened Iran with punishing global sanctions for failure to come clean about its nuclear ambitions. The United States, Britain, France and Germany believe Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon behind the cover of what Tehran says is a program designed...

If only the world matched President Obama’s rosy image of it. Perhaps then pre-emptive concessions to other nations, in the hope of prompting reciprocation, might make sense. Alas, the world doesn’t work that way. And nothing demonstrates this more than Moscow’s increasingly problematic position on Iran, despite the White House’s “goodwill.” This sorry lesson began last month, when the president unilaterally scrapped plans to deploy an Eastern European missile-defense shield meant to take out incoming Iranian missiles. The decision broke a Bush administration pledge to US allies in Poland and the Czech Republic. But Obama officials spun it as a...

Iran has warned it will take revenge against the US and Britain, accusing them of being involved in a suicide bombing that killed several Revolutionary Guard commanders. Six senior commanders and dozens of civilians died in the attack. The headquarters of the armed forces blamed the bombing on "terrorists" backed by "the Great Satan America and its ally Britain", the semi-official Fars News Agency reported. "Not in the distant future we (Iran) will take revenge." Earlier, Iranian state television said Sunni rebels carried out the bombing. It said the militant group Jundallah (Soldiers of God) had claimed responsibility for the...

Recent defections of noted Iranians mirror those from the old U.S.S.R. Someone is stealing Iran's nuclear experts. Physicist Shahram Amiri, a researcher at Tehran's Malek Ashtar University, went missing in June on the third day of a pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. His family says the medical isotope specialist, who worked in an institution identified by the European Union as a possible secret nuclear weapons lab, phoned home when he first arrived but hasn't been heard from since. The pro-government Iranian newspaper Javan (Young) said this week Saudi immigration officials questioned Mr. Amiri extensively when he first arrived for...

Vladimir Putin, No Sanctions on Iran: Obama Sold Out Poland for Nothing By Beth Shaw It appears that Barack Obama sold out Poland for nothing. In spite of his preemptively giving in to Russia and promising to not use a missile shield to protect Poland and the Czech Republic, Vladimir Putin is saying no to sanctions on Iran. After all, how can we be absolutely 100% certain they are going to nuke us! Let’s just wait and see before we do anything. It seems the only preventative measures the United States can take against our enemies anymore is to give...

Legislators are growing increasingly frustrated with President Barack Obama's seeming unwillingness to pull the trigger on an Iran sanctions package that is already locked and loaded. The American public should be frustrated, too. The Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act (IRPSA), if enacted, would put the squeeze on foreign oil companies that currently help the Mullahs refine petroleum, as well as the insurance companies that underwrite this trade. If the sanctions work, they could stem the flow of 30 to 40 percent of Iranian oil, since the Mullahs don't actually have sufficient refining capacity to meet their domestic needs. In short,...

The Obama administration has cut funding for pro-democracy and human rights programs in Iran, reversing years of efforts during the Bush administration to help develop a civil society, congressional sources told Newsmax this week. The move is apparently intended to please Iran’s rulers after they criticized President Obama and the State Department for allegedly seeking to fund a “velvet revolution” during the June presidential elections in Iran. “It sounds like the Iranians complained in Geneva and we acceded to their demands,” a former senior government official familiar with the pro-democracy programs told Newsmax. “It’s shameful,” he added. “This sends a...

The headline on the front page made it sound like big news: UN nuclear chief sets Iran inspection. So? Another year, another inspection by the sleepiest watchdog on the planet, the United Nations' own Maxwell Smart -- the one and only Mohammed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Agency and Office of General Permissiveness. Director ElBaradei has just been to Tehran making nice with Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, where the two held hands for a ceremonial photograph and agreed that the UN's inspectors would soon visit Iran's latest no-longer-secret nuclear processing plant. This one is dug into a mountain outside the holy...

Iran will move to further enrich its uranium for a research reactor if it cannot obtain the fuel from overseas, semi-official state media reported Saturday. If talks with world powers and the United Nations nuclear watchdog fail, Iran will notify the latter that it will supply fuel for the Tehran reactor, said Ali Shirzadian, a spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. "The reactor is the major producer of radio medicines in Iran and its current fuel meets its needs for one-and-a-half year," he told the semi-official Iranian Students News Agency. It needs about 150 to 300 kilograms of...

Security: After Iran admits building a second enrichment facility inside a mountain, the Pentagon shifts money from other programs to urgently fund the mother of all bunker-buster bombs. Why the need for speed? At the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh last month, President Obama announced, "The Islamic Republic of Iran has been building a covert uranium enrichment facility near Qom for several years." U.S. officials said they knew for some time that the facility existed. The announcement was made after U.S. officials learned Iran had told the International Atomic Energy Agency of Qom's existence. Our knowledge of the facility built in...

Security: After Iran admits building a second enrichment facility inside a mountain, the Pentagon shifts money from other programs to urgently fund the mother of all bunker-buster bombs. Why the need for speed? At the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh last month, President Obama announced, "The Islamic Republic of Iran has been building a covert uranium enrichment facility near Qom for several years." U.S. officials said they knew for some time that the facility existed. The announcement was made after U.S. officials learned Iran had told the International Atomic Energy Agency of Qom's existence. Our knowledge of the facility built in...

An important Boston Globe story by Farah Stockman on the State Department's defunding of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC) has been noted at Hot Air, the Corner, and Instapundit.

WASHINGTON – A confidential analysis by staff of the U.N. nuclear watchdog has concluded that Iran has acquired "sufficient information to be able to design and produce" an atom bomb, The New York Times reported on Saturday. The Times report was posted on its website hours after Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, arrived in Tehran for talks on a timetable for inspectors to visit a newly disclosed unfinished nuclear enrichment plant. Iran, which rejects Western charges that it is seeking to build nuclear weapons, held talks with six world powers in Geneva on Thursday. Western officials...

Senior staff members of the United Nations nuclear agency have concluded in a confidential analysis that Iran has acquired “sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable” atom bomb. (snip) Two years ago, American intelligence agencies published a detailed report concluding that Tehran halted its efforts to design a nuclear weapon in 2003. But in recent months, Britain has joined France, Germany and Israel in disputing that conclusion, saying the work has been resumed. A senior American official said last week that the United States was now re-evaluating its 2007 conclusions. The atomic agency’s report also presents...

This would be the same deadline that the State Department hinted yesterday that it’s prepared to back down from if ElBaradei asks them to. Allowing access within two weeks of the announcement would in effect give Tehran almost a month after its Sept. 21 acknowledgment of the plant’s existence to obscure evidence, they said. David Albright, a former international weapons inspector and president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, said it would probably take Iran some time to conceal activities. But, “if you have a month, you have the time,” he said. A European official who declined...

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran's president hit back Saturday at President Barack Obama's accusation that his country had sought to hide its construction of a new nuclear site, arguing that Tehran reported the facility to the U.N. even earlier than required. The Iranian president defended his government's actions as the head of the U.N.'s nuclear monitoring agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, arrived Saturday to arrange an inspection of the uranium enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom. The revelation that Iran has been building a new nuclear plant has heightened the concern of the U.S. and many of its allies, which suspect...

The Obama administration's positive tone following its first diplomatic encounter with Iran covers a deep and growing gloom in Washington and European capitals. Seven hours of palaver in Geneva haven't altered an emerging conclusion: None of the steps the West is considering to stop the Iranian nuclear program is likely to work... Not talks. Not sanctions, even of the "crippling" variety the Obama administration has spoken of. Not military strikes. And probably not support for regime change through the still-vibrant opposition... The Obama administration and its allies have said repeatedly that they will pursue diplomacy until the end of the...

Today's Olympic loss wasn't the first time Europeans didn't just melt in the hands of President Obama. Last week at the United Nations, French President Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Brown had a major row with President Obama over the timing of the announcement of the additional Iranian nuclear facility. The two Europeans wanted the news announced when Obama was chairing the Security Counsel or tight after. Obama got his way, which was to wait till the leaders reconvened in Pittsburgh. The narcissistic Obama did not want to "spoil the image of success" of his disarmament session, which passed a...

A new American Jewish Committee (AJC) survey of American Jews shows that for the first time, a majority of them would support a U.S military strike against Iran, and an even larger majority would support such a move by Israel...

FOX News Poll: 61% Say Use Force To Stop Iran Most Americans say they are worried about Iran developing a nuclear weapons program, and a clear majority supports the use of force to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. By Dana Blanton FOXNews.com Thursday, October 01, 2009 Most Americans say they are worried about Iran developing a nuclear weapons program, and think President Obama should be tougher on the rogue nation. In addition, a clear majority supports the use of force to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. According to a new FOX News poll released Thursday, a sizable 69...

(IsraelNN.com) A top official in the Obama Administration has at last admitted what intelligence agents and Israeli government officials have been warning about for years: Iran intends to build a nuclear arsenal. In media interviews with American television news networks scheduled to air Sunday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said bluntly, "The Iranians have the intention of having nuclear weapons."

Obama Administration to Push for Tough New Economic Sanctions if Iran Doesn't Come Clean on Nuclear Plans The Obama administration is planning to push for new sanctions against Iran, targeting its energy, financial and telecommunications sectors if it does not comply with international demands to come clean about its nuclear program, according to U.S. officials. The officials said the U.S. would expand its own penalties against Iranian companies and press for greater international sanctions against foreign firms, largely European, that do business in the country unless Iran can prove that its nuclear activities are not aimed at developing an atomic...

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says she doesn't believe Iran can convince the U.S. and other world powers that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, putting Tehran on course for tougher economic penalties beyond the current "leaky sanctions." Defense Secretary Robert Gates played down the effectiveness of military strikes against Iran's newly disclosed secret uranium-enriching facility. Gates and Clinton said economic and diplomatic pressure would have a better chance of changing Iranian policies. "The reality is, there is no military option that does anything more than buy time," he told CNN's "State of the Union" in an interview...

The right is calling Obama weak, but his wily foreign policy is paying off The spluttering of the American right — and some European conservatives — over Barack Obama’s foreign policy reached a new level of vituperation last week. “Is Obama naive?” pondered Michael Ledeen at National Review. “I don’t think so. I think that he rather likes tyrants and dislikes America.” Nile Gardiner of the Heritage Foundation wrote in The Daily Telegraph: “[Obama’s] appeasement of Iran, his bullying of Israel, his surrender to Moscow, his call for a nuclear-free world ... have all won him plaudits in the large...

Intelligence chief Sir John Scarlett has been told that Saudi Arabia is ready to allow Israel to bomb Iran's new nuclear site. The head of MI6 discussed the issue in London with Mossad chief Meir Dagan and Saudi officials after British intelligence officers helped to uncover the plant, in the side of a mountain near the ancient city of Qom. The site is seen as a major threat by Tel Aviv and Riyadh. Details of the talks emerged after John Bolton, America's former UN ambassador, told a meeting of intelligence analysts that "Riyadh certainly approves" of Israel's use of Saudi...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran test-fired missiles on Sunday to show it was prepared to head off any military threat, four days before the Islamic Republic is due to hold rare talks with world powers worried about its nuclear ambitions. The missile maneuvers coincide with escalating tension in Iran's nuclear row with the West, after last week's disclosure by Tehran that it is building a second uranium enrichment plant. News of the nuclear facility south of Iran added a sense of urgency to a crucial meeting in Geneva on Thursday between Iranian officials and representatives of six major powers, including the...

In a little noticed interview with the Daily Beast (presumably little noticed because serious people don't read the Daily Beast), Zbigniew Brzezinski suggests that Barack Obama do more than just refuse to support an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear sites -- the American president must give the order to shoot down Israeli aircraft as they cross Iraqi airspace: DB: How aggressive can Obama be in insisting to the Israelis that a military strike might be in America’s worst interest? Brzezinski: We are not exactly impotent little babies. They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going...

WASHINGTON (Sept. 26) - President Barack Obama is offering Iran "a serious, meaningful dialogue" over its disputed nuclear program, while warning Tehran of grave consequences from a united global front. "Iran's leaders must now choose — they can live up to their responsibilities and achieve integration with the community of nations. Or they will face increased pressure and isolation, and deny opportunity to their own people," Obama said in his radio and Internet address Saturday.

Time For Talk With Iran May Be Over President Obama's long-held hope of engaging Tehran about its nuclear program appears to be fading. Disclosure of Iran site raises nuclear, diplomatic tensions U.S. officials say Iran's nuclear plant is no secret to them Obama, Sarkozy, Brown rebuke Iran over secret nuclear plant By Paul Richter and Peter Nicholas September 26, 2009 Reporting from Washington - President Obama has maintained that he would not wait forever for Iran to decide whether it will negotiate over its suspected nuclear weapons program. It appears that the wait is about over. As he met with...

Defense: As the failure of engagement with Iran grows more apparent, the administration that has talked very softly may be getting the mother of all sticks ready. Guess we need high-tech Cold War weapons after all.Western intelligence sources have told London's Times that Iran has perfected the means to develop and detonate a nuclear bomb and is merely awaiting word from its supreme leader to produce its first one. Should the order be given, it would take just six months to enrich enough uranium and another six months to assemble the warhead. Time's up. Recently, and perhaps not coincidentally, Defense...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is offering Iran "a serious, meaningful dialogue" over its disputed nuclear program, while warning Tehran of grave consequences from a united global front.

President Obama appreciates "teachable moments," so let's all discuss this week's lesson in arms control theory and practice. The President brought his soaring sermon about "a world without [nuclear] weapons" before the U.N. General Assembly. He called for a new arms control treaty and won Security Council support for a vague resolution on proliferation. On cue yesterday, Iran showed the world what determined rogues think about such treaties. On the evidence of his Presidency so far, Mr. Obama will not let that reality interfere with his disarmament dreams. The disclosure that Iran has a second facility to make bomb-grade fuel,...

"Iran's actions have raised grave doubts" about Iranian claims that they are only pursuing the peaceful use of nuclear energy," he said. "Iran is on notice when we meet with them Oct. 1. ... They're going to have to come clean and they're going to have to make a choice." It is still unclear whether Iran will bow to international pressure. Some nuclear experts noted that the discovery of a clandestine site suggests that Iran could have many more. "The Iranians are teaching us the limits of what we are overselling," said Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy...

When Barack Obama strode on stage to scold Iran for its failure to disclose the existence of a second uranium-enrichment facility in the country, his message was timid and at times almost apologetic. When the tough language came, it was because French president Nicolas Sarkozy had taken the podium. Sarkozy excoriated the Iranians for their deception, saying that the revelations have caused "a very severe confidence crisis" and issued a time-specific warning about oft-threatened (but never implemented) sanctions. "We cannot let the Iranian leaders gain time while the centrifuges are spinning," he declared. "If by December there is not an...

Few in the know doubt the fact that Iran has acquired the knowledge to produce an atomic bomb. Israeli intelligence is far more concerned with Iran's pace of advancement towards making the bomb than American or European intelligence sources are. The question in Israel is no longer if Israel should eliminate the Iranian threat, but rather when.

We now know that Barack Obama has sat for almost a year on the information regarding Iran's "secret" nuclear plant. His hand was forced yesterday by the Iranians who were the ones that went public with the information when it appeared to them that their security had been breached. This led to Barack Obama disclosing the previously withheld information regarding the plant. The Iranians kept the plant secret and Obama aided them by his silence. So much for the transparency promise.

US president Barack Obama Saturday, Sept. 26, threatened Iran with confrontation over the secrecy surrounding its nuclear capabilities. He did not rule out military options although he preferred diplomacy. The Iranian president’s own boss made him a liar. After Ahmadinejad claimed Friday the new uranium enrichment plant would start operations in 18 months and Tehran had therefore not broken the nuclear watchdog’s rules for notification, Ali Khamenei’s aide announced Saturday it would become operational “soon” and “make the enemies blind.” Tehran is clearly confident enough of America’s ability to hold Israel back from striking its nuclear sites to stay defiant...

President Obama's long-held hope of engaging Tehran about its nuclear program appears to be fading. Reporting from Washington - President Obama has maintained that he would not wait forever for Iran to decide whether it will negotiate over its suspected nuclear weapons program. It appears that the wait is about over. As he met with world leaders in New York and Pittsburgh this week, Obama gave the clearest signals yet that he's giving up on one of his trademark campaign themes, engagement with Iran, in favor of pursuing tough economic sanctions. Obama says he still harbors hopes for next week's...