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US Secretary of State John Kerry reiterated on Sunday that Israel will be safer the day the recently-reached deal on Iran´s nuclear issue is implemented. Kerry, addressing the Brookings Institution´s annual Saban Forum, recognized Israel´s concern over Tehran´s disputed nuclear ambitions, saying the possibility of a weaponized nuclear Iran stood as an existential threat to Israel. "We will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon. Period. Not now, not ever," he said.

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Saudi King Abdullah and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu were not won over by President Barack Obama's pledges in personal phone calls to the two Middle East leaders last week not to allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon. Their skepticism only grew. This development in the Iranian nuclear controversy finds two of the three leaders trapped in a credibility gap between their public pronouncements and the Iranian reality which has long overtaken them both. Obama’s oft-repeated pledge is canceled out by most Western nuclear experts, who are convinced that Iran managed to advance to a capacity for producing four...

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday defended the nuclear deal signed in Geneva between the West and Iran. Speaking at the Saban Forum in Washington, Kerry said his country would “not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon. Not now, not ever.” .....

President Obama said Saturday that the chances of a permanent nuclear deal with Iran are at best no more than even odds, but that diplomacy still must be pursued. “I wouldn't say that it is more than 50-50 but we have to try,” Obama said at a Brookings Institution event. While some in Congress are trying to move tougher unilateral sanctions now, Obama urged restraint. He said that if Iran fails to meet its commitments under the temporary deal, the U.S. will be in a stronger position to seek more effective international sanctions after six months. The president explained at...

A new poll following the election of Hassan Rouhani says that a majority of Iranians oppose IranÂ’s intervention in Syria and Iraq and believe that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons despite their governmentÂ’s claims to the contrary. The poll, released Friday (December 6) and conducted August 26-September 22, of 1,205 Iranians in face-to-face interviews by a subcontractor for Zogby Research Services, also indicated that Rouhani had relatively lukewarm support at the time and that many Iranians would like to see a more democratic political system in their country. The results jibe with the June presidential elections in which Rouhani won...

In 2000, the American Jewish Committee canceled a Washington luncheon scheduled to honor Mandela after he said that 13 Jews tried for “espionage” in Iran were receiving a “fair trial”. Mandela laid a wreath on the grave of Ayatollah Khomeini, the father of the Iranian revolution, warmly greeting his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “We are indebted to the Islamic Revolution”, Mandela proclaimed. It is the same Mandela who claimed that Communist Cuba had achieved the “systematic eradication of racism”. In 1990, Mandela likened Israel to a “terrorist state” and declared that “we do not regard the PLO as a terrorist...

An overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews believe that the current negotiations with the Palestinian Authority will not lead to a peace agreement, a new poll by the Israel Hayom daily newspaper has found. The poll, conducted by New Wave Research and released Friday, found that 87.5% of Israeli Jews do not believe that the talks will result in a peace agreement. 6% of Israeli Jews said they think the peace talks will lead to a deal, while 6.5% said they were not sure. The poll was released hours before U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, on his latest visit to...

Iran publicly refused to recognize “the Israeli regime” during a full meeting on Thursday of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). The move appeared to stun not a single onlooker at the United Nations, but prompted a sharp response from Israel’s ambassador to the U.N. During the opening moments of the 68th UNGA’s 60th plenary meeting, Iran’s representative took the floor to reiterate her country’s distaste for the Jewish state. The UNGA meeting was held to mark a procedural—and typically uneventful—vote in which nations meet to approve the credentials of various U.N. member states. While Iran, like every other nation,...

"For the first time in a decade we have halted progress of Iran's nuclear program," Obama said. "Key parts of the program will be rolled back even though the toughest of our sanctions remain in place.

As US Secretary of State John Kerry was making his way to Jerusalem, Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon (Likud / Yisrael Beytenu) said Thursday that Israel will not sign an interim agreement that will put Israeli lives in danger. "Secretary Kerry is coming to Israel again. We cannot count how many times he came already. We welcome him to Israel but we should tell him very clearly – we will not sign an interim agreement that will put the lives of Israelis in danger. "We saw what happened in Geneva. A bad accord was signed in Geneva. We will not...

Below is a Senator Ted Cruz press release:Cruz on Iranian Prisoner Abedini: Unconscionable that Top American Diplomats Did Not Mention His Name WASHINGTON, DC — U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, released the following statement on the latest negative reports concerning Christian Pastor Saeed Abedini, imprisoned in Iran: “The recent press reports of the brutal treatment of Pastor Saeed Abedini in Iran’s Rajai Shahr prison are deeply disturbing. But they are hardly surprising. Such abuse was inevitable after this American citizen, whose only crime is the peaceful practice of his Christian faith, was transferred to Iran’s equivalent of death row—not coincidentally on the...

Details: The Syrian Greek-Catholic Church has three “true martyrs�. They are the “three men from Maaloula who refused to repudiate their faith,� and were killed for this reason, said Patriarch Gregory III Laham during his meeting with Pope Francis on Sunday, this according to a press release issued by the Catholic Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East, of Alexandria and Jerusalem of the Melkites.The events that led to the three men’s death occurred during fighting on 3 -7 September in the town of Maaloula.According to eyewitness accounts, men from the Syrian Free Army and the Jabhat al-Nusra Islamic Front...

California Republican and member of the House Armed Services Committee, Duncan Hunter, joined C-SPAN’s Washington Journal Wednesday to discuss U.S.-Iranian policy, saying that the U.S. should use tactical nuclear devices rather than putting boots on the ground if it were ever to attack Iran.

One of the boats can clearly be seen in the water at the Bostanu shipyard on the Strait of Hormuz in Astrium imagery taken on 27 October. It measures 40.5 m long and 4 m wide at the waterline. A second can be seen under construction at the Bandar Anzali Naval Base on the Caspian Sea on 17 September. It is partially shrouded by scaffolding, but is approximately 48 m long and 6 m wide.

Critics of the agreement with Iran concerning its nuclear program are right about most things but wrong about the most important things. They understand the agreement’s manifest and manifold defects and its probable futility. Crucial components of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure remain. U.S. concessions intended to cultivate the Iranian regime’s “moderates” are another version of the fatal conceit that U.S. policy can manipulate other societies. As is the hope that easing economic sanctions would create an Iranian constituency demanding nuclear retreat in exchange for yet more economic relief. Critics are, however, wrong in thinking that any agreement could control Iran’s nuclear...

Just the mention of Iran is enough to send chills down your spine. Remember the hostage crisis and the ensuing political dismemberment of Jimmy Carter? Then there was the Iran-Contra scandal where Reagan-era officials secretly provided embargoed arms in a failed exchange for hostages, and planned to funnel cash from the sale to support the Nicaraguan Contra rebels. Iran, of course, double-crossed us in the end. And let's not forget the oil embargo of the 1970s led by Iran through its OPEC cronies. It paralyzed the American economy for a while. Or the overthrow of the Shah by an Ayatollah...

The gunning down of Hajj Hassan Hollo al-Laqqis, a high-ranking Hizballah commander and close crony of Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, raised the stakes of the clandestine war running between Saudi Arabia and Iran, two weeks after two suicide bombers blew themselves up outside the Iranian embassy in Beirut. The Hizballah officer was killed by five shots to the head and throat in the underground parking lot of his home in the Hadath neighborhood southwest of Beirut, when he returned home from work after midnight Tuesday, Dec. 3. The Hizballah statement, which said: “Israel is automatically held responsible for the crime,” described...

Fresh from His historic success in banishing fear of Iranian nuclear weapons, President Obama today announced a similar approach to banishing our concerns about crime in the United States.The Obama-Kerry plan to banish the threat of Iran's development of nuclear weaponry by not mentioning it -- thereby shielding her devoutly sensitive leaders from any embarassment that might result from learning that even they suspect it -- is working as intended. It harmonises beautifully with His new plan to banish our concerns about crime. Although multifaceted and multicultural, the plan can be summarized as follows: Those who commit crimes are sadly undermedicated and otherwise...

It has never been this American-Israeli’s intention to denigrate U.S. or Israeli leadership. Far from it. But chips fall where they do and it is not a patriot’s (especially if one is both a committed Zionist and a Conservative American…a double whammy) obligation to cover up a leadership’s faults, or, in some cases, their treachery. Rather, it is incumbent upon all of us to reveal whatever shakes out of various trees and that is that. So, on the U.S. front, this blog has consistently, unflinchingly indicted the anti-American Islamist-in-Chief for his betrayals. It is summed up within concomitant commentaries, yet...

Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has challenged his successor, Hassan Rouhani, to a debate intended to defend his eight-year record in office, reports the British Telegraph. In his first political intervention since stepping down last August, the former president expressed outrage at a recent televised speech in which Rouhani took aim at Ahmadinejad’s stewardship of Iran’s economy. Rouhani said that his predecessor had presided over “unprecedented stagflation” in an address made to mark his own administration's first 100 days at the helm. During Ahmadinejad’s presidency, Iran’s currency plummeted to an all-time low as the country faced a growing shortage of...

WH: Iran could keep ‘domestic enrichment’ program The White House is currently examining ways to enable Iran to have its own “domestic” uranium enrichment program, according to a senior Obama administration official. As the details of a six month interim nuclear deal between Iran and Western nations are hashed out, the White House is exploring the practicality of permitting Iran to continue certain enrichment activities, an issue that Iranian officials have described as a “redline.” “Over the next six months, we will explore, in practical terms, whether and how Iran might end up with a limited, tightly constrained, and intensively...

Sorry for the corny title of this article — I was going to call it “It’s the Centrifuges, Stupid!” — but as a Hollywood movie executive famously said in a script meeting, “Obviousness is your friend.” He was right about screenplays and he’s right here. No one believes Barack Obama about anything anymore. Why should they? The new Iran deal is Obamacare II, only worse, a thousand megatons worse. So many things are wrong with the agreement coming out of Geneva, it’s hard to know where to begin (for an excellent overall go to The Israel Project’s Tower website or...

Why is Iran working on Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles? There is no possible peaceful purpose for ballistic missiles. Iran may claim that their nuclear program is peaceful, but they cannot possibly make that claim when it comes to ballistic missiles. The only reason to have ballistic missiles is to target enemies with high explosives and WMD. Iran’s Shehab-3 Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles have sufficient range to hit Israel, Saudi Arabia and US bases in Afghanistan, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait and Turkey. Why are the Iranians working with the North Koreans on multi-stage Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs)? Who might the Iranians be...

Israel faces no existential threats, save one: the possibility that Iran will develop a nuclear weapon and a delivery system and use it to destroy Israel before it or the United States can prevent it from doing so. Clearly, a nuclear strike on Tel Aviv would be catastrophic for Israel. Its ability to tolerate that threat, regardless of how improbable it may be, is a pressing concern for Israel. In this context, Iran's nuclear program supersedes all of Israel's other security priorities. Israeli officials believe their allies, particularly those in the United States, should share this view. As a strategic...

Officials close to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Monday evening criticized former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who attacked Netanyahu for airing his objection to the deal reached by world powers last week on Iran's nuclear program. "Not everyone has experience as a continuous failure like Olmert does in the disengagement and the Second Lebanon War,” said the officials. “If we do not talk about the Iranian issue with the international community, what will we discuss with it?” “Does Olmert expect us to send faxes to Washington about the Iranian issue?” they added. …

Iran’s nuclear energy chief, Ali Akbar Salehi said on Sunday that the country needs more nuclear power to cut its carbon dioxide emissions, which are blamed for global warming. This announcement comes just after the country struck a deal to curb their nuclear ambitions in order to ease international sanctions. Salehi told Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency that he sent a letter to President Hassan Rouhani asking for funds to build new nuclear power plants, adding that Iran’s parliament has already passed legislation ordering the construction of several power plants to produce 20,000 megawatts of power. Salehi also said that...

Sometime in 2013, we reached a new stage in world history. A coalition of great powers has long sought to overturn the post Cold War Eurasian settlement that the United States and its allies imposed after 1990; in the second half of 2013 that coalition began to gain ground. The revisionist coalition hasn’t achieved its objectives, and the Eurasian status is still quo, but from this point on we will have to speak of that situation as contested, and American policymakers will increasingly have to respond to a challenge that, until recently, most chose to ignore. Call the challengers the...

Report: Obama Arranging Tehran Visit for Next Year Daniel Halper December 2, 2013 10:46 AM The Kuwaiti news outlet Al-Jarida reports that President Obama is seeking to arrange a trip to Tehran, Iran next year. The headline of the article reads, "Obama would like to visit Tehran, official invitation after details resolved." "Al-Jarida has learned from a U.S. diplomat that President Barack Obama is seeking to visit Tehran in the middle of next year," the report reads, based on a translation using Google Translate. "The source said that the desire to visit is shared, and that Tehran and Washington are...

Proliferation: As we shutter our ICBM squadrons and destroy our silos, Iran and North Korea are working on technology to deliver nukes Pyongyang already has and Tehran is a few centrifuge rotations from acquiring. As Bill Gertz of the Washington Free Beacon reports, groups of technicians from the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group (SHIG), a unit in charge of building Iran's liquid-fueled missiles, have made repeated trips to North Korea during the past several months, including as recently as late October, to work on a new 80-ton rocket booster being developed by the North Koreans, That booster is believed to be...

Retired Gen. Michael Hayden said Sunday the United States has all but conceded Iran has the right to enrich uranium. "We have accepted Iranian uranium enrichment," Hayden said when asked about the agreement reached last week between Iran and the so-called P5+1 - the United States, Britain, China, Russia, France and Germany. Hayden, a former director of the CIA who served in both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, expressed a less critical view of the deal than most Republican national security hawks, saying he's willing to let this agreement "run." "It's not like we had a whole lot...

In Geneva, Switzerland, the United States and other major powers appeared close to a deal with Iran to curb its nuclear program in exchange for lifting some economic sanctions against the terrorist-sponsoring state. Negotiations, however, fell apart at the last minute when France and Iran balked at the final wording on the interim draft. Talks are expected to resume within a few weeks, but it is worth pausing to consider what was nearly agreed to and what the outcome could likely be. President Obama has pledged to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that America has Israel's "back." Who knew he...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu clarified on Sunday evening that he has no intention of stopping his warnings against a nuclear Iran. Netanyahu’s comments came shortly after he was criticized by his predecessor, Ehud Olmert, who accused Netanyahu of “declaring war” on the United States administration. "In contrast to others, when I see that interests vital to the security of Israel's citizens are in danger, I will not be silent,” declared Netanyahu during a Hanukkah candle-lighting at the Great Synagogue in Rome. “It is very easy to be silent. It is very easy to receive a pat on the shoulder from...

So America IS trading with Iran ... US sent nearly $2m worth of bull semen to Muslim state last year Strict trade sanctions have been in place between the U.S. and Iran since the Carter administration Bovine sperm side-steps the usual sanctions since it qualifies as humanitarian aid Iran has made it a goal to become self-sufficient in meat production by the year 2016 Altogether the U.S. sent $45.7million in humanitarian aid to Iran last April. While the number seems like a lot, it's nothing compared to the $26.2billion sent to our biggest trading partner - Canada. Bovine sperm side-steps...

Senior officials in the White House have said that Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu “is desperate and weak,” in reaction to Netanyahu's remonstrations against the deal struck with Iran over its nuclear weapons program. Israeli television Channel 10 quoted the officials as saying “His pronouncements show a lack of self-confidence,” in an unusually harsh personal attack on Netanyahu. “We are not perturbed by his vocal opposition.” .....

Unexpected? President Obama is accustomed to the unexpected and He will deal with it!Peace-loving IranHere is a link to an article posted at Israeli News on December 1st. It concludes with this pearl: The deal is designed to halt any further advances in Iran’s nuclear campaign and to buy time for negotiations on a final settlement aimed at ensuring Tehran’s nuclear activity is wholly peaceful in nature. Iran rejects suspicions that it has sought covertly to develop the capacity to produce nuclear weapons, saying it is enriching uranium solely for civilian energy purposes. [Emphasis added.] Any such suspicions seem to...

Former prime minister Ehud Olmert criticized Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's handling of current disagreements with the United States, regarding the deal the US negotiated with Iran over its nuclear weapons program. "We've declared war on the United States administration,” Olmert said at a special debate at the Institute for National Security Studies on Sunday. "First and foremost,” said Olmert, “we must steer clear of anything that might give the impression that we want to lock horns with our biggest ally." Disagreements with the US must never be handled in a way “that might give the impression, G-d forbid... of a...

Elect a Chicago community organizer (twice) as your president and you should not be surprised to find that all he is capable of is spewing propaganda and dividing us by personalizing attacks on those who oppose his grandiose, wildly impractical efforts at reshaping our lives to suit his sophomoric view of the good life. As the obvious failure of ObamaCare has become evident to all but his most blinkered cultists, Obama fell back this week on upping the propagandizing and deflecting attention from his failures with even more lies. His organizing arm OFA (Organizing for America) urged supporters to use...

With few good choices in dealing with Iran's push for nuclear weapons, former CIA and NSA Director Gen. Michael Hayden said he's OK with letting the six-month temporary deal with the country go forward. But we should be truthful, Hayden told "Fox News Sunday." "We have accepted Iranian uranium enrichment." The "red line" with Iran has clearly changed, Hayden told host Chris Wallace. "Right now, the Iranians are far too close to a nuclear weapon," he said. "We have hit the pause button. Now we've got to negotiate hitting the delete button with them." At the end of the day,...

Industry Minister Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh said he wanted “more cooperation with foreign companies,” including French manufacturers Peugeot and Renault, both of which have had a long history of doing business with Iran. Nematzadeh said he hoped for the lifting of sanctions on the car industry “by the end of December.”

Barack Obama, resolute enough when he’s designing health care schemes, shows only irresolution abroad. Weakness and irresolution is the face he turns to the rest of the world, in hopes that if he hires a good speechwriter and bows deeply enough to whatever kings and potentates cross his path, that’s good enough. But of course it isn’t, and Mr. Obama is challenged now at every turn by friend and foe of the United States who need to see on what meat the man feeds, and of what stuff his promises and assurances are made. The mullahs in Tehran, who can’t...

OTTAWA – The Canadian government was “deeply skeptical” on Sunday of Iran’s agreement to temporarily freeze its nuclear program, saying Ottawa’s sanctions against the regime would remain firmly in place until the new deal’s words turned into actions. Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird appeared to take a stronger stance on the newly brokered deal than the United States and other allies, saying Canada would be watching Iran closely over the coming weeks and months. “We have made-in-Canada foreign policy,” he told reporters on Sunday. “We think past actions best predict future actions. And Iran has defied the United Nations Security...

Goldilocks wrote: The statement is quoted out of context. NY Times Musters Hillary Defense Of O’Care “What Difference Does It Make?” Dear Comrade Locks, Ok, so let me put it in context for you. Ambassador Chris Stevens, Tyrone S. Woods, Glen Anthony Doherty and Sean Smith died on or shortly after September 11th, 2012 in a terrorist attack on the embassy in Benghazi, Libya by supposed allies of the Obama administration. The administration was supposedly acting on behalf of the American people. But yet, no one really knows why this terrorist attack happened. Still. At the time Obama said that...

The key to renewed US-Iran relations: an ancient chalice, according to the LA Times. An ancient Persian chalice, hewn from silver and featuring a mythical winged creature, had been seized by US Customs officials in 2003. After sitting for over a decade in a Queens, NY warehouse, diplomats decided to use the anitquity as a bargaining chip for talks - as a gesture of friendship to Iran from the US.

President Barack Obama’s last-minute decision not to carry out an intended punitive strike against Syria’s President Bashar Assad this summer, after Assad killed almost 1,500 of his own people with chemical weapons, was influenced by secret US back-channel discussions with Iran, Israel’s security and intelligence community reportedly believes. The issue of Assad’s chemical weapons use came up in the secret US-Iran contacts held in recent months in Oman, Israel’s Channel 2 news reported Friday, and it quoted unnamed Israeli intelligence and security sources asserting Obama’s change of heart was affected by those contacts.

In a direct effort to sabotage US President Barack Obama’s efforts, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed the heads of Israel’s intelligence community to look for proof that Iran has violated an interim deal signed with the international community last week over its nuclear program, a British newspaper reported on Sunday. Mossad, as well as the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate, were told to dig up evidence of Iranian intransigence ahead of Obama’s push to pass the deal in Congress this week, the Sunday Times reported, citing Israeli defense sources.

Kerry’s Baggage: Why has it gone uninspected? by Daniel Clark So, what’s the outcome of the interim agreement that’s been struck with Iran? According to the Obama administration, we’re going to dramatically ease the economic sanctions against that country, in exchange for its unverifiable promise that it will limit the enrichment of its uranium so that it cannot be weaponized. According to the Mullahs, we haven’t even got that promise, but instead have open-endedly agreed to the proposition that Iran has a right to enrich uranium. In either case, that doesn’t sound like a very good deal. Then again, why...

The secret back channel of negotiations between Iran and the United States, which led to this month’s interim deal in Geneva on Iran’s rogue nuclear program, has also seen a series of prisoner releases by both sides, which have played a central role in bridging the distance between the two nations, the Times of Israel has been told. In the most dramatic of those releases, the US in April released a top Iranian scientist, Mojtaba Atarodi, who had been arrested in 2011 for attempting to acquire equipment that could be used for Iran’s military-nuclear programs.

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...

Iran will decide the level of uranium enrichment in its nuclear programme based on its energy and other civilian needs, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in remarks reported Saturday. His remarks appeared to conflict with the landmark nuclear deal struck with world powers in Geneva last weekend, which states that the enrichment level must be mutually defined and agreed upon by both sides in further negotiations. "Iran will decide the level of enrichment according to its needs for different purposes," Zarif said late Friday night, according to the official IRNA news agency. "Only details of the enrichment activities are...